Beiyang new warlord

"As for meeting water, this man has a dark face but a white body. He looks like a good swimmer and rower. If he loses the battle and asks him to jump into the water for his life, he is of course willing to listen!"

Unexpectedly, there are a lot of good words here, grinning, Wen Meng just wanted to say a few compliments, but suddenly, his expression changed, and he ran to the side of the road pulling Song Xiance and Yuan Xianger, who was fascinated by listening.

In less than two or three minutes, the sound of heavy horseshoes sounded suddenly, and there was really no cover. More than a dozen officers and soldiers surrounded them directly in armor, and circled around the three lonely horses thrown on the road. In a circle, these officers and soldiers searched the vicinity again unwillingly, but there was no trace of the three people, so they led the horse cursingly, turned around and turned back towards the pass.

After a long time, a pile of broken wooden sticks beside the road was pushed away, revealing three pale-faced people underneath.

"If this bastard was in Dongjiang, the general would have killed him seven or eight times!"

Still angry, Wen Meng cursed and plucked off the leaves from the tree on his forehead.

It was not surprising at all, Song Xiance just sighed, and shook his head helplessly: "Thieves are like combing, soldiers are like washing! These soldiers are no different from robbers. Why are you suppressing thieves?"

But looking back at the long road, he sighed sadly again.

"No more horses! Let's go!"

"Walking to Kaizhou?"

This Yuan Xiang'er must have been a young lady before. When she heard that she was going to walk, she immediately turned pale and screamed in disbelief. But before she could finish protesting, Song Xiance kicked on the ground casually, and then Just follow the big man Wen Meng in front and walk towards the official road.

The place where the three of them hid was a collapsed shed. It looked like it was built by the refugees passing by before. Since it collapsed, it was as expected by Song Xiance. With his feet like this, the skull was just planed out, the empty eye holes, and the jagged teeth seemed to show a weird smile. For a moment, Yuan Xianger's small face was covered with Song Xiance's Ant Dali Wan. It became extremely pale, her teeth chattered, and then her little feet moved like windmills, screaming and trotting after her.

"Wait for me!"

The voice gradually disappeared on the official road, and the sky became darker and darker. Over the dusty Henan official road, pieces of smoke and dust were shaking hazyly, like huge ghosts, constantly baring their teeth and claws.

Chapter 4. Soldiers Like Thieves

Fortunately, Mao Jue is still in Mudanjiang. If he follows him to Henan, he will be horrified. The apocalyptic atmosphere in the movie has really come to the world.

At first, I thought Shandong was desolate enough, but when I came to Henan, Wenmeng realized what it means to be uninhabited for thousands of miles, with bones exposed in the wild. The Eastern Henan Plain is more than half of the North China Plain, and the most fertile land in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River is here. But these days, there are not as many living people as dead people, and there are no crops in the fields, only bones.

"His grandma's!"

It was already the fifth day of walking among a group of refugees fleeing from famine, and once again arrived in an abandoned village. Wen Meng, who was sweating profusely from the dry heat, rushed to the edge of the well impatiently, took A broken basin was tied up with a rope, and Gululu fell down.

have water!

To be honest, even in the Little Ice Age, there have been continuous small droughts since the end of the apocalypse, and this year is still an exceptionally severe drought. The groundwater reserves in this era are far greater than those in later generations. It has a population of more than 500 million, which is almost equivalent to the total household registration of the Ming Dynasty in this era. Many urban areas have collapsed due to excessive groundwater exploitation.

In this era, during the peak Longqing period, the registered population of Henan Province was only 500 million. After several droughts and population loss, there are still 200 million people who have already reached the sky. Although the nearby Qinhe River, a tributary of the Yellow River, has indeed dried up a lot , but it is not completely cut off, and there is still about half of the water in the peak period, which can be guided to both sides of the bank, so that there will be no harvest.

But the current situation is that the entire vicinity of Qinshui has been abandoned, and there are seven or eight villages connected to each other. Every village is fleeing from famine, and there is no one there. Except for a little farming, there is not a single farm in Weihui Mansion.

After drinking several sips of water, Wen Meng felt as if he had come alive. He breathed out comfortably, and sat under the eaves next to him, shaking his buttocks with a broken ladle, letting the gang be thirsty. The smoking victims flocked to grab the water, and handed the remaining water to the sweaty Yuan Xianger in front of Song Xiance.

Next to the eaves lay two starving corpses. Before dying, the female corpse was still struggling to crawl towards the rice vat. It looked as scary as it could be, but it was trembling from the very beginning. , Now that I have seen too much, Yuan Xianger took the water ladle numbly, and poured it down with her head held high.

Song Xiance, who was also thirsty and smoking, looked at Wen Meng full of resentment, but Wen Meng simply ignored him, fanning his old straw hat and humming cursingly.

"If you want to say that the Heluo people are from Zhongzhou in the world, you can be too lazy! Master, look at this fertile field, the most fertile Baimachuan in the north of us is like this! Let's open mountains and dig ditches. The trickle is like a thread. The water from the mountain springs is brought down for irrigation, and so many mountain fields have been cultivated, such good fields, if they are said to be barren, they will be barren, what a fucking waste!"

"Stop talking about the younger generation!"

Before Wen Meng finished speaking, the thin old man who was lazily leaning against the eaves and panting after grabbing the water was already humming with disdain.

"If it's so good, why do you come out to escape?"

"I ran away from your coffin board! If it wasn't for this, if it wasn't for my master who had to come to visit relatives, I wouldn't come to this place that doesn't shit!"

"Your government doesn't rob food?"

"What kind of grain to grab? When it's autumn harvest, the big guy just pays according to the amount. We collect according to the total harvest. We pay [-]% of the grain. If there are soldiers in the family, we can pay [-]% of it. The local chief who produces a lot of grain has to come to commend it in person, and hang a red banner at the door saying that the grain is a big producer, and all the villages from ten miles and eight villages have to say hello when they see it, and they still need to grab grain?"

When he said this, Wen Meng was really proud, his chest was straight, and with a pop, the muscles trained in the army broke a piece of the tight Taoist robe.

Seeing his muscular mass and self-satisfied appearance, the old man was really dumbfounded. After a while, he sighed enviously.

"Your place is better! We are not so lucky, you don't know the younger generation, this government is really grabbing food!"

People above their age are willing to recall the past. This old man raised his head and looked at the sky, obviously immersed in the memories. Unfortunately, even in the memories, there were no beautiful scenes. Wrinkles were piled up on his face. He sighed. Shaking his head.

"It was okay at the beginning. We still have about [-] households in our family. Although the annual government rent and tax is more, it can deal with half starvation and starvation. But since our Lord Chongzhen came to power, the situation has not been as good every year. One year, but this tax is increasing every year. A few poor households in our village couldn’t afford it and fled. Their tax money fell on us again. This year’s harvest is not enough to pay the tax. Another few families escaped! Another tax payment was deducted from the heads of the remaining people."

"The old man's family is fairly well-off. There was a county magistrate in his ancestors, and he knew the master of the county. At least he could carry some money. But last year, there was a severe drought in Shandong, and the few acres of land were almost useless! This government also It’s just unreasonable, and the yamen servants went directly to the house to grab food, and the old man, the squire, immediately broke the house! No, with the children of the clan, we can only escape from famine!"

Wrinkles on Chou's forehead were twisted into walnuts, looking at Tian'er, the old guy knocked on the soles of his shoes and sighed with melancholy.

"Do you think we are too lazy to drink water, dig canals, grow some food, and don't want to move? It really can't be done! Don't talk about where the seeds come out. If you plant this seedling, the king of the mountain will ask you to borrow food , even if you can survive until the food is brought down, there are even more powerful officials waiting to grab it! And if you rob your food, you will be considered a long way off. Rogue names, too many!"

Wen Mengting was dumbfounded. Although Mao Wenlong’s era had a bit of a hard time in the early days, those who farmed the fields could not starve to death. In Mao Jue’s era, the entire Dongjiang was engaged in infrastructure construction, opened up mountain fields, and planted new crops. Many people even went to a well-off life and lived the life of small landlords with flesh and blood. It was even hard for him to imagine that life could be so bad.

This is also a true portrayal of the collapse of the Ming Empire. There are too many people, the government has become extremely vicious, and they have nothing to do except plunder. The foundation of the empire's rule in the north gradually collapsed. Daming, who was already terminally ill, met Emperor Chongzhen who insisted on going to war.

Even Song Xiance, who used to go to the rivers and lakes, couldn't adapt to the great changes in Henan. The words of the old man resonated with the victims who fled. After hitting it, he sat on the edge of the wall and drank silently.

As the time turned and the sun was setting again, it was impossible to find any suitable place to stay. More than 100 refugees who escaped from the Huaiqing generation in Xingyang simply settled in this dilapidated village.

The night was getting darker and darker, and there was a faint groan from the house in front of the village. It was some unlucky ghost who was hungry and fainted. He ate too much Avalokitesvara soil to attack him. Difficult to excrete, this is already on the brink of death, probably won't survive tonight.

But I am used to seeing death, no one even went to see it except this family, everyone was exhausted, maybe only in dreams can I find some happiness.

Taking advantage of the darkness, Wen Meng and the three quietly slipped out.

I had expected that there would be no place to eat this trip. Dongjiang’s military rations were sewn into three big belts and hidden directly in the clothes. There were air-dried meat and wheat flour fried, mixed with sugar to make them similar to Tibetan rice dumplings. Ba’s sugar fried noodles are all high-calorie foods and protein, which supported the three people walking for so many days without going to the village or back to the store.

Wealth is not in vain, so is the food, everyone is starving, you eat and drink, you are looking for death, along the way, the three cannibals have met more than once, and some of them are drawn by village refugees, whoever is drawn Just resigned to their fate to be eaten by big guys, some of them were not human at all, they attacked other refugees in groups, caught people in the pot, and slipped out of the village. The dried meat was stuffed into his mouth, and he chewed hard with the water.

While looking around vigilantly, Wen Meng spoke hastily.

"There's not much food left, so we can't wander around aimlessly anymore. We must find Xiao Yuan Ying these days! Sister! Don't you remember where home is at all?"

"I, I am usually locked at home by my brother and not allowed to go out. This time, this time, he sent me to that bearded soldier who also hid under the boat and sneaked across the Yellow River. I, I I really don't know!"

After thousands of calculations, Song Xiance missed this one, and the little girl was about to cry. Wen Meng looked at him with a pair of bull eyes, and Song Datou couldn't help scratching the back of his head.

"Let's set up a team tonight. Let's go to the small hill to the east. If I'm not mistaken, there should be a gangster there! Let's pretend to be a gang, and then maybe we can find out the news, and then"

Before the plan was finished, the fire in the village suddenly burst into flames, and the refugee group, which had been calm just now, suddenly exploded, and someone yelled mournfully.

"The official dog is here!"

"Man-eating soldiers from Shaanxi, run away!!!"

Chapter 4. The Army of Huaiyou

In the history of the early Yuan Dynasty, there was a frightening army, the soldiers of Huaiyou! They were almost beasts, and turned to eat people. , It is even said that after eating up the huge Yangzhou, the fate of this animal army was not destroyed, but integrated into the Ming army, defeated and incorporated by Zhu Yuanzhang.