At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Guo Peng only found it funny, and also diluted a little parting melancholy.

Having lived here for nearly ten years, Guo Peng has long regarded Qiao County as his hometown and has a strong sense of belonging.

In this era, the distance between people can be very close or very far, as close as "sleeping on the feet", as far as "this parting, we will never see each other again in this life".

The extreme backwardness of transportation and communication means that every meeting of friends in different places may be the last time, and every time they leave their hometown may be the last time. It is very common to die in a foreign land.

Liu Bei fought all his life and became emperor in the end, but he never returned to his hometown and never saw the big tree in front of his house that he wanted to make Rogai.

Zhuge Liang became the prime minister, one person was under ten thousand people, but he could never return to the Longzhong thatched cottage that he dreamed of. The wish of "I will come back" 27 years ago can only leave a ray sigh.

There is no reason for the Chinese people who have relocated to their hometown to be attached to their hometown.

However, it is a pity for Guo Peng that he has to introduce himself according to his ancestry. Before he has the ability to establish another sect, he must call himself "Yingchuan Guo Peng", not "Qiaoren Guo Peng".

He didn't have the slightest attachment to Yingchuan, because he had never been to Yingchuan, but his father was born in Yingchuan, but to his father, Yingchuan was just a sad one, and he gnashed his teeth when he mentioned it.

But helpless, the father and son were surnamed Guo, and this surname and background gave them convenience and made them a part of the gentry.

Otherwise, Guo Peng must consider joining the Taiping Sect and Zhang Jiao to fight wit and courage, and choose to be a magic stick, otherwise there is no way out as a civilian, and the greatest possibility is to wait for death.

Stepping on the pedals on one side, he got on his horse, and to Cao Lan, who was standing on the ground staring at him, Guo Peng left a message of "Take care of yourself", and then drove away without looking back.

Soon, he caught up with the convoy, joined the guards, and continued to move towards Luoyang.

There were guides sent by Cao to lead the way, and they chose a more suitable and safe route.

Go to Liangguo, go to Chenliu County, enter Henan after leaving Chenliu County, arrive at Zhongmu County, then arrive at Xingyang, pass Hulao Pass, and finally arrive at Luoyang.

Cao Song will send someone to meet Guo Peng in Zhongmu County. After arriving in Zhongmu County, everything will be arranged by Cao Song, and the road will be much safer and more reliable.

Before that, the guards need to pay more attention, try to take the official road, not the trail and night.

After leaving Qiao County and heading north all the way, Guo Peng also found it rather novel. He hadn't left Qiao County much since he came to Qiao County. Occasionally, he followed Cao's family to Runan to play, but he had never been to other places. .

This time I will go to the Imperial Capital, and I will see many things that are not usually seen along the way. This is a good experience.

Therefore, the ancients said that reading ten thousand volumes of books is not enough, and one has to travel ten thousand miles. This should be an extremely simple concept of practical application.

If you can't travel all over the world to see the world's scenery, but just listen to what other people say, you will be biased and biased.

Guo Peng walked all the way to Liangguo, and went northwest of Liangguozhe Road to Chenliu County. What he saw and heard along the way did give him a lot of feelings.

Chapter 14. The wine and meat of the fourteen rich families stink, and there are frozen bones on the road

During this period, the population of the Eastern Han Empire was more than 5000 million. In today's world, it is already a very large number, absolutely number one in the world.

But compared to the later generations he knew well, this number was still very small.

Especially scattered on such a vast land, except for a few densely populated areas, most of the Shenzhou at this time is in a state of no crowing for thousands of miles.

Moreover, during this period, the agricultural development of the vast territory was quite insufficient, and undeveloped wasteland and barren mountains and forests abounded.

Looking up, Guo Peng couldn't see much farmland, only weeds and trees everywhere, a primitive landscape.

So Guo Peng understood what he had heard from the Cao family about how many celebrities "picked for a living" when they left the capital and fled to the Quartet when they encountered rape.

It is purely because the land development is not in place, there are wastelands and forests everywhere, and wild fruits are everywhere.

And those places are often sparsely populated, and no one eats the wild game.

Celebrities dragged their families along the way to pick up, eat wild fruits and game, catch some fish in rivers and lakes, settle in places with few people, rely on mountains to eat mountains and water, and survive without farming, just like primitive people .

Guanzhong and the Central Plains are reasonably well-developed areas. They are relatively densely populated, but you can still see the scene of a thousand miles of wilderness.

This is still the case in the Yellow River area, not to mention the undeveloped Jiangnan and even the farther Lingnan. It is estimated that there is still a real primitive era.

Along the way, in addition to the original landscape, Guo Peng also saw a lot of people fleeing the desert in groups.

His clothes were ragged, he was dragging his family with him, his face was gray, his eyes were dull, and he staggered step by step. Often when he was walking, someone would jump forward and never get up again.

The elderly, children, men, women, abound.

They also seemed to be used to death, and when they saw someone fell, others stepped forward to carry the body away, then threw it into the jungle by the roadside, and then returned to the team to leave.

If there are relatives, they will cry a few times. If there are no relatives, only the corpse will be exposed in the wilderness, which will become the nourishment of the land and the source of deadly bacterial infection.

When some of them saw Guo Peng's team, their eyes showed ruthless killing intent and impulsiveness.

But when he saw the ferocious knight on horse and leather armor holding swords, swords, halberds, and bows and arrows, he showed timidity, lowered his head, and dared not lift it up again.

Guo Peng was soft-hearted and wanted to give out some food to the emaciated children with only a handful of bones, but was stopped by the accompanying Cao's guide.

"It's useless, even if you give it, you will die in the back. Those who are going to die will always die. If you are lucky, you will eat a lot of this, and if Dalang gives it, our team will not want to leave, alone. After receiving it, others will also reach out for food.

There will be more and more people, blocking our convoy, and when the food is distributed, those who did not receive it will still have grievances, thinking that we have food but not giving it, and a little incitement will lead to a group attack. Dozens of people are not the opponents of so many people, and this is the best way to treat them. "

The guide gestured the steel knife in his hand and held it tightly with a cautious look on his face.

Guo Peng was silent.

It seems that the guide is already familiar with this.

On the one hand, there is abundant life and carefree family children, and on the other hand, there is astonishing poverty and tragic death. The gap between the rich and the poor is so wide that it is the scene of the end times.

In this way, it is not difficult to imagine why Zhang Jiao's Taiping Road has so many believers.

Living and dying at the same time, life is easy, death is simple, the lives of the grass people seem to be so worthless.

Their lives are indeed worthless, illiterate, without land, unable to engage in management and production.

Senior officials and dignitaries are busy fighting with each other and fighting for power and profits. How can they care about the life and death of the grassroots?

Anyway, as long as the people in their manor didn't die too much.

As for the bankrupt yeoman farmers, they love it to death, they just plunder the land.

However, people facing death and elimination are always full of rebellion and rebellious spirit, and the opportunity to change the dynasty is brewing in it.

Today, the orders of the central government of the Han Empire are no longer effective, and they cannot exert their macro-control capabilities. sparked a tragic riot.

There are no winners, the losers are the entire nation.

From the Yellow Turban Rebellion to the return of the Three Kingdoms to Jin, more than half of the population of more than 5000 million at the end of the Han Dynasty was lost.

Modern people seem to be just a series of numbers, but in that era, what Guo Peng saw were rotting corpses and white bones.

Famines lead to flight, flight leads to death, and death leads to larger-scale and more terrifying bacterial infections and plagues. Coupled with war and starvation, tens of millions of people died tragically.

After arriving in Chenliu County, Guo Peng's convoy set off in the northwest direction, and it was better to walk on the official road, but Guo Peng could always hear the guards who went to the barren grassland on the side of the road for convenience and whispered how much he saw. How many bones are there in a corpse.

Between the words, he didn't seem to think it was strange, but he was used to it, and Guo Peng could only order that when he saw the bones that were not recovered, he would set a fire to burn those corpses, and they could not be buried.

What kind of world is this?

When people fell asleep in the dead of night, Guo Peng would ask himself this. At first, he was a little panicked, but soon he figured it out.

From ancient times to the present, China or a foreign country, the world has never changed. No matter which corner, things like "the wine and meat stink in Zhumen, and the road is frozen to death" are happening all the time.

It really never changes.

Now he can't do anything.

So Guo Peng quickly learned to watch from the sidelines.

Occasionally, when he saw groups of famine refugees walking past him, he would only have a cold face, clenched the weapon in his hand, and put on a vigilant posture with the guards, telling these refugees to fear, fear, and speed up. speed through.

And he never imagined that he would also be robbed by bandits on the road.

People who can't survive don't want to starve to death, so they become pirates and rob the merchants on the road. It can be said to be the norm.

But in the face of so many knight guards from the Cao family, Guo Peng did not expect that there would still be people who would dare to rob.

The robbers were quite courageous and had a little bit of calculus. When they robbed, they probably saw the weapons in the hands of Cao's guards. I felt that these people were not easy to mess with, but they also felt that there must be a lot of treasure, so I couldn't stand it anymore. Greed in the heart.

They attacked suddenly.

Without regular weapons, they attacked with stones that were available everywhere. Stones the size of fists smashed towards the convoy from all directions. It was quite dense, and the convoy was in great confusion for a while.

Some were smashed to the head, some were smashed to the body, and some horses were smashed and frightened, they threw the guards off their bodies and ran away.

Guo Peng was caught off guard. Seeing a stone flying towards him, he didn't react.

Fortunately, Guo Jin, who was beside him, responded quickly and shouted "Young Master". He jumped over and dismounted Guo Peng, dodged a blow, and then used his body to protect Guo Peng.

Chapter 15. Fifteen Years Twelve, Murder

Faced with a sudden attack, no one was prepared.

This gang of thieves is very cunning. Judging from this posture, it is not the first time that they have attacked merchants.

Although Cao's guards were prepared to encounter thieves, they still missed the opportunity.

Guo Huo and Guo Shui were accidentally hit on their bodies and fell off their horses, and several Cao's guards were also smashed off their horses, only a little quick to dismount immediately to find shelter to protect themselves.

The convoy was in chaos, and several horses ran away. Taking this opportunity, the bandits rushed out of the hideouts on both sides of the road, shouting that they were about to rob.

These guys were in rags and tattered clothes, with wooden sticks, bamboo guns and some tattered weapons in their hands. Only the three people in the lead held steel knives.

These bandits rushed forward and slashed, beat, kicked, and smashed Cao's guards lying on the ground. All of a sudden, they beat those Cao's guards who were too late to resist, their heads covered with blood, and they lay on the ground howling in pain. Call.

"Kill all these people! The treasure is ours!!"

A gangster leader with a ferocious face shouted like this, arousing the whole group to be even more vicious and tyrannical.

Guo Peng was protected from being smashed by Guo Jin, but Guo Jin was hit by a guy on the forehead, and he didn't get up in a daze.

Guo Peng looked at Guo Jin, who had passed out, and at the bandits who were killing Cao's guards. A burst of anger suddenly surged in his heart.

To be honest, this was the first time he went out alone without his elders.

Guo Dan said that this was an opportunity for the man to exercise, so he insisted on not letting the elders follow him and let him go by himself, thinking that thirty guards were enough to protect him, which is indeed true.

But he has never encountered such a thing. He was robbed by bandits and faced the danger of his life, and he has not yet helped.

Before that, the biggest danger was only when there were more people on the other side than one on the other side, and the other side wounded Xiahou Yuan because of the large number of people.

At that time, Guo Peng's eyes were red, and he waved his stick desperately, rushed up to him desperately, opened and closed for a while, suffered several blows himself, and the other party was scattered, crying and running away.

Then the people on his side were led by Guo Peng, and rushed up to beat all the other group of people.

That group fight was considered to have established Guo Peng's status in the group of children.

Since then, Guo Peng has felt that there is a hidden gene of violence in his body. Once provoked, it is difficult to control his anger.

The same is true at this time, and killing people at this time is not illegal.

Guo Peng took down the bow hanging from his body, opened the quiver that rolled on the ground, took out a bow and arrow, and bent the bow to hold the arrow.

He aimed at a bandit not far in front of him who was wielding a wooden stick and beating a Cao escort on the ground, gritted his teeth, and shot an arrow at him at close range, hitting him in the chest at close range. .

The man trembled, looked up at Guo Peng, his eyes were full of incredulity, and then fell silent.

This is Guo Peng's first murder, the first time in two lifetimes.

There is no fear after the murder, but unexpected excitement.

He immediately picked up the second arrow, bent the bow, aimed at the second bandit who wanted to rush towards him, luckily, the arrow pierced the throat.

Killing two people in a row made him even more excited.

At this time, the third bandit saw that the two companions were killed, and the murderer was a young guy who looked young. He was furious, screaming and rushing up with a wooden stick.

Guo Peng is not afraid, he has been practicing martial arts since he was a child.

So instead, he rushed towards him, dropped the bow and arrow and pulled out the first knife attached to his waist. After the bandit watched in horror at the next stick that avoided him, he slashed his back with a knife.

The sharp blade made a deep incision on the back of the thief, and blood splattered his face, but the bandit lay on the ground and couldn't get up, screamed miserably, and his whole body was shaking.

Guo Peng wiped the blood from his face, and a very unpleasant fishy smell kept stimulating his olfactory nerves.

Taking a deep breath, Guo Peng walked to the bandit's side, raised the ring knife in his hand, and stabbed him in the back of his heart, killing him directly.

More blood spurted out, but Guo Peng didn't feel it at all, only that the blood all over his body was boiling.

At this moment, the Cao's guards who reacted also started to counterattack. They have advantages in equipment and training. The guards with steel knives and crossbows are far more powerful than these rabble with sticks and bamboo guns. Except for the bandits The three leaders did not have iron weapons.