"Open the door!" Outside the Xie family's Wubao in Yangxia, several people wearing turbans and leading horses covered with linen came.
They shouted loudly and claimed that they were under the orders of Lu Shijun of Xiang County and traveled to various counties to issue orders.
After checking the handwriting and seal on the letter, the generals invited them in.
Xie Xi, who was teaching students at home, went to the main hall to greet him.
"I am Chen Tonggen, a member of the Hou Mansion. I have met Mr. Xie." Chen Tonggen bowed and said.
"Who are you, Governor Chen of the Long Sword Army?" Xie Fei glanced at him and asked.
"Brother-in-law."
Xie Xi nodded and asked, "Why did you send you here?"
"My envoy has something to say. People depend on grain as their livelihood. Now that the locusts are attacking the grain, they are harming people's lives." Chen Tonggen said, "Food is precious and precious. All the kings should take it as their top priority to protect grain and the people. They must not support the enemy. If there are any offenders,
, on the day when Chen Hou returns, he will be held accountable. The He family is destroyed, Yin Jian is not far away, you should think carefully about it."
After Xie Fei listened, he was silent for a long time.
Chen Tonggen did not rush him, and left after conveying the order. He was in a hurry to go to the next house, and had no time to chat with them.
Xie Pei stood quietly at the door of the hall. After a long time, he smiled bitterly and said to himself: "Lu Zidao said it bluntly, but he has the ability. The locust plague is everywhere, and people are dying. To get food is to risk your life. Who can do it?"
How about handing it over quickly and happily?"
After saying that, he shook his head, feeling very sad in his heart.
Since this year, his mood has been very heavy.
On the one hand, we felt the gradual disintegration of the order in the north, and the energy of the gentry began to fade. At this time of great changes, food and military strength became more important, and the importance of reputation, official position, and family status began to decrease. A large group of people began to
rise.
Shao Xun is just one of the representatives.
Haven't those people under him risen? Twenty or thirty years ago, they would never have been able to get an official position in their lifetime. You don't even have to go this far. Just look at how difficult it was for Shao Xun to get an official position six or seven years ago.
If he didn't make a great contribution to capture Sima Yi in the palace, Xiaolian of Donghai County would never get his turn.
But now? Farmers, military households, pig butchers and even thieves have all obtained official positions, and they are as good as a monkey.
On the other hand, Xie Pe's confidence was severely damaged by the successive wars and disasters in the north, and there were many scholars who held the same view as him. During the exchange of letters, Xie Pe saw too many discouragements and disappointments, and the number of people who wanted to cross to the south increased sharply.
Everyone doesn't like to live in a stable environment.
Luoyang was besieged twice, wars lasted for three days, and drought locusts came alternately. Whoever wants to stay in the north can stay there, but I won’t stay any longer. That’s what many people think.
Xie Xi was also a little moved.
My elder brother Xie Kun had already arrived in Jianye, found a position in the shogunate of King Langya, and initially settled down.
He brought over more than 3,000 children, relatives, servants, tribesmen, and villagers, and settled them in the Jingkou area. He heard that they would be moved to other counties in the future, and in any case, they would be given a piece of land to build a manor.
As for the common people, I heard that King Langya tried to establish Qiaojun and Qiaoxian to resettle the people and not interfere with the local people in the south of the Yangtze River.
Anyway, the south is desolate and there are a lot of open spaces. It is not difficult at all to resettle them, as long as you are willing to open up wasteland.
"One leaf falls to know autumn..." After Xie Fe finished saying this, he shook his head and left with a sigh.
He also wanted to study and teach students--of course, they were the children of the noble family.
If we go to the south in the future, these gentry children who have a teacher-student relationship will be a huge help to the Xie family.
****
Just when Lu Zhi, the governor of Yuzhou, sent a large number of messengers to various counties to convey the order to strengthen the walls and clear the country, fierce fighting had already begun in the southern part of Chenliu County, the western part of Liang State, the northern part of Chen County and even the northwest of Yingchuan County.
After suffering a loss, Taobao regrouped and defeated the Beggar Army in Suiyang.
The beggar army retreated, and Taobao attacked Liang Guo's county town directly. In three days, they burned, killed and looted wantonly.
Liang Wang Sima Xi was born in Luoyang, but his fiefdom was completely destroyed - the former Liang Wang Sima Xu (róng) died in the first year of Tai'an (302), childless, and the grandson of Langya Wang Sima Min, Wuling
Sima Xi, the son of King Sima Dan, succeeded to the throne and inherited this fiefdom of more than 5,300 households.
Kui'an is in Yangxia, and the area around Fugou can't be patrolled.
First, he sent cavalry to the walls of each fortress to summon them to bring in food and fodder, but no one responded.
So he sent infantry to break through several earthen fences and small barriers, but the gains were extremely limited. Then he turned to attack the Wubao built by the powerful. They held on for several days, but lost more than a thousand soldiers and horses.
When he saw the soldiers secretly hiding the bodies of the dead from both sides, his mentality collapsed...
Zhixiong besieged Chenliu Weishi County on May 20th and captured the city in one day. However, when he besieged the gentry headed by the Ruan family in the Weishi countryside and powerfully built Wubao, they lost their troops and generals.
After a few days, they only broke down two barriers and obtained 25,000 hu of food, which was enough for them to feed them for several days.
With no other choice, they could only slaughter all the men, women, and children who had breached the fortress wall to make preserved meat.
And their behavior naturally made the people in other fortress walls more united and defended with all their might, refusing to compromise no matter what.
Things seem to be slowly changing.
On the 25th, the army arrived at Yanling County. At this time, the number of locusts had decreased, but they were still overwhelming and could be seen everywhere.
The reason for the decrease in locusts is that they have eaten up everything they can eat. They either starve to death or migrate to other places. This is not a problem for them who fly 150 kilometers a day. They must eat everything they can.
Don’t stop until you eat it all.
Yu Liang stood on the wall of his Wubao, staring into the distance.
He was wearing a set of shiny bright armor, holding a bow in his hand, a knife hanging on his waist, and a spear stuck on his back. He looked majestic.
Behind him stood a hundred warriors, each armed with an iron armor, equipped with all equipment, and with high morale.
If Shao Xun sees it, he will definitely feel that the nobles are still rich and have a lot of good things hidden at home.
Compared with the warriors behind Yu Liang, the hundreds of warriors his family sent to Guangchengze were definitely not elite.
The Yu family has a great business and many branches.
Some distant branches may only have a small house at home, and they will either stay behind closed doors, gather in the Dawubao with relatively complete defense facilities, or simply escape.
Yu Liang and his family hid in the Wubao of their uncle Yu Zhi.
Thousands of families were crammed into the whole fort, and it was so full that it was almost impossible to live in it. As a last resort, they dug a second trench outside the fort, built an earthen wall, and sent adult men outside, each with a handful of
Simple weapons serve as peripheral barriers.
"After this year, no matter how comfortable the manor is, no one will live there anymore, right?" The enemy had already begun to circle around, looking for weak points in the defense, but Yu Liang said this.
Cousin Yu Mi (son of Yu Gun) had just come up from downstairs when he heard Yu Liang's words and immediately laughed: "Wubao is dark, damp, narrow and cramped. Who would like to live in it? It is not convenient to entertain guests. Over time, the reputation will be lost."
It can’t be spread.”
"You can only choose one between fate and elegance," Yu Liang said.
Yu Mi glanced at his cousin and didn't expect that he had changed so much.
This kind of words should be spoken by someone like him, who has traveled around with his father to study, built forts, and farmed and fought endlessly since he was a boy.
It seems that after following Chen Hou for so long, Yuan Gui has learned a lot and is no longer the young man who only talks about classics and mysteries.
"The thieves are coming." Yu Miao warned.
Yu Liang looked forward and saw more than a thousand thieves arrayed behind him, driving thousands of men, women, and children forward.
Scattered arrows flew out.
After all, the gentry tribe is not an official army. It is not as formal as them, and there are not so many crossbows and arrows, so the arrows fired are not dense.
Even so, a large number of the thieves who rushed over still fell down, and quite a few of them fell down while walking - they may have fainted from starvation.
After the men, women, and children consumed a wave of arrows, they rushed to the earth wall.
There were shouts from behind the earthen wall, spears, swords and even wooden sticks were swung down, another bloody killing began.
The thieves took advantage of the situation to cover up.
They had some organization and good equipment. After paying a certain price of casualties, they broke through the earth wall in one go and beat the Yu family bankers into scattering.
A large number of arrows fell from the wall, and a large number of the bandit soldiers who had just shown their might fell down.
Taking advantage of the situation, the chieftains of Yujiazhuang rushed out with their reserve team and fought together with the bandit soldiers.
Their skills were raw and their equipment was poor, but after the locust plague, they had a strong fighting spirit, so they killed the bandits who had fallen into chaos and retreated steadily.
Everyone knows that they are fighting for themselves and for their families to have food to survive.
So many people died in the troubled times, and even those who survived were not human, and the difference between them and death was not very big.
I'm not afraid of living, I'm even afraid of death! If you chop off one person's head today, you can get three measures of food. If you don't chop off a few more, how will you face your parents, wives and children who are waiting for food when you go back?
The battle soon entered a fierce stage.
Inside and outside the earthen wall, flesh and blood were flying everywhere, and corpses were scattered everywhere.
Yu Liang subconsciously rubbed his eyes.
After the locust plague, not a blade of grass grew, and the ground was bare for thousands of miles. Now, more than two thousand people from both sides were crowded together, fighting risklessly, making it almost impossible for him to tell whether the land was originally this color or whether it was the color after being watered with blood.
"Dang Dang..." The sound of gold ringing sounded from the rear of the bandit army.
The morale of the guests at Yujiazhuang was greatly boosted.
Hundreds more relatively capable private soldiers rushed out of the Wubao, leading the bankers to pursue them bravely, and then they slowly withdrew after they were within a stone's throw of the enemy.
The battlefield soon returned to calm.
An enemy army wanted to come over and collect the corpses. Arrows fell from the top of the city, killing seven or eight people, and the rest dispersed in a rush.
Yu Liang withdrew his gaze and looked into the distance.
There were dozens of large and small flags standing there, and it looked like there were thousands of thieves.
They are hesitating whether to continue to invest their strength and launch a new round of attack.
This is not an easy decision to make.
Yingchuan was home to powerful nobles, and it was probably the place with the fewest farmers in the entire Yuzhou. There were not many earthen fences or small fortresses at all, and they were all large manors and big forts.
The manor is easier to fight, but it also has walls and trenches, so the resistance is even fiercer.
This locust plague seemed to have greatly boosted the determination of the soldiers and people of Yuzhou to resist desperately, causing their southward troops to encounter obstacles at every turn. Every time they conquered a place, a large number of skilled soldiers were killed and injured. Even if Latin could join the army to replenish the battle losses, but the new additions How much fighting power do people have?
As for morale, it is extremely low.
Perhaps it's time to retreat, this battle shouldn't have been fought in the first place.
The general should be thankful that his entire army did not go south.
Otherwise, the 80,000 cavalrymen would struggle hard in the locust plague without enough food to eat. They would continue to bleed when they captured the fortress wall, and their morale would be low. At this time, if they encounter a surprise attack by elite soldiers who are recharging their strength, the whole army may be annihilated. worry.
"Dong dong dong..." A burst of passionate war drums sounded on the western horizon.
I don’t know how many people came from the other party.
I don't know how effective they are in fighting.
I don't know what their morale is like.
However, the bandits who had set up troops outside Yujiawu Fort immediately withdrew without even thinking of fighting.
"Yuan Gui, you are the commander-in-chief and you should send troops to pursue him." Yu Mi reminded from the side.
Yu Liang turned to look at Yu Mian, suddenly enlightened.
Yu Mian lowered his voice again and said: "I heard that there are many concubines from aristocratic families in Chenhou's house and they have contributed a lot. Although Wenjun's sister is the official wife, she has a soft temper and may not be able to suppress them. At this time, it is her natal family's turn. The people have contributed.”
Yu Liang nodded and immediately gave the order.
After a while, hundreds of people led two thousand bankers and chased them out, shouting and killing them.
"Yuan Gui, it's best to send people to the Xun family, the Zhong family, the Chen family, and the Yin family." Yu Mi said again: "After the war has reached this point, the thieves should have little morale. Let all the families come together and come out.
A total of thirty or forty thousand soldiers is not a problem. The thieves are short of food and morale, and they have come from a long distance. They are panic-stricken. I think few of their horses can run. There is not much risk in pursuing them at this time. Let's discuss the merits after the war.
, Yuan Gui, if you initiate this matter, you will definitely win the favor of Marquis Chen."
"Brother, what you said makes sense." Yu Liang bowed his head and said sincerely.
Yu Mi waved his hand and said, "We are all members of our own family, why should we do this?"
There are many branches of the Yu family in Yingchuan. As for his father Yu Gun's branch, he has been away from home all year round. In recent years, he has built a fort in the Linlu Mountain of Jijun to cultivate and harvest his own crops. As a result, he has become a lot estranged from his hometown.
, many younger generations don’t even know them.
But the world is so strange. Because of Shao Xun's relationship, their branch and the main family moved more and more, and the relationship became closer and closer.
This is not a bad thing, Yu Mi also wants to return to his family, although his father would rather live in the mountains until his death.
After a while, the people from the west had arrived outside Wubao.
Yu Miao and Yu Liang looked around and saw an army of about five thousand people.
Walking at the front were more than two thousand iron-armored warriors.
Carrying heavy swords, carrying crossbows, and leading horses covered with linen, they pursued the thieves in the direction in which they had fled.
Long Sword Army! The soldiers who died in the battle under Chen Hou's tent are powerful in battle.
Yu Liang breathed a sigh of relief, the battle was safe.
Chapter completed!