It's raining heavily.

The first rain in Henan Prefecture in the second year of Yongchang was already a few months old.

This rain is a good thing for the drought in Henan Prefecture, including the neighboring Nanyang Prefecture, and Ruzhou, but a bad thing for the Shunhuai coalition commanded by Lu Si.

These villagers at the foot of Futouling Mountain are not "indigenous people", but people who have fled here one after another to avoid military disasters over the years. The so-called village is just a temporary residence spontaneously formed by these refugees.

Since it is a temporary residence, the villagers naturally cannot build any tiled houses, and they do not have this condition. Therefore, the houses in the village are all made of greenhouses and thatched houses built from wood on the mountain, and many of them are the kind that leaks everywhere when it is windy and rainy.

Although the villagers vacated most of the houses, they could not allow thousands of officers and soldiers of the coalition to have the ground to cover the rain.

Lu Si did not have "fake benevolence and false righteousness" to exchange for support from the Shun Army Imperial Camp at the cost of aggrieving his subordinates. Shun lived in the village, with 500 officers and soldiers from Shun each, while the others each found their own solutions.

The soldiers of the Shun Army who were used to mobile warfare for many years were obviously stronger in the wild than those of the Huai Army. When Lu Si was inspecting, he found that these Shun Army soldiers had a lot of linens. When camping, they lined up the linens at about three feet apart, and then covered the linens on the war horses and tied knots at four corners, thus forming an amazing "horse tent".

Under the "horse tent", more than 3,000 soldiers and their clothes leaned against the horse's back. After eating some dry food, they started to rest. In almost the blink of an eye, there was a snoring sound and the sound of war horses sneezing from time to time in the wilderness.

Lu Si looked quietly. All of these Shun Army soldiers were from peasants. Before following Li Zicheng to resist the Ming Dynasty, they were just farmers in the fields and ordinary people who were invisibly awe when they saw the officials. But now, these peasants have become the last guardians of northern China.

"Huaihou!"

Liu Tichun's voice was very loud. This peasant army general who followed Li Zicheng for five years in Chongzhen was the first to give him a hoe and a cigarette gun on his waist. He was a typical old farmer in northern Shaanxi.

"General Liu!"

Lu Si arched his hand.

Liu Tichun asked curiously: "It's so late, why don't Huai Hou stop?"

Lu Si said: "I'm used to it. If the soldiers are outside, I can't sleep if they don't make arrangements." After that, he asked Liu Tichun to rest on his own. He also wanted to go to the Huai Army to take a look.

Liu Tichun nodded. He was not very familiar with Lu Si, so he was inconvenient to say something. Just as he was about to go, Lu Si called him and asked with a smile: "Does General Liu still have tobacco leaves?"

"Tobacco leaves? There are!"

Liu Tichun signaled his personal soldiers to take out a bag of tobacco leaves and handed it to Lu Si directly, "I didn't expect that the Marquis of Huai would take this sip. I just said that you people in the south don't like this thing."

Lu Si smiled and said nothing, and led his own people to his team.

The Shun Army's good experience was learned by the Huai Army. After copying it, I found some caves on the mountain. More than 2,000 people slept together at the foot of Futouling Mountain, just like the Shun Army.

Zhao Zhongyi and Li Yuanyin and others lived in a small cave. When Lu Si arrived, a group of generals were roasting around a bonfire. There was a pot on the fire, and there was a cooking soup inside.

"Sanmaozi found some wild vegetables. Everyone ate a lot of dry food and didn't taste salty in their mouths, so they made the soup of the pot." Zhao Zhongyi said as he took out a few pieces of salt in the bag and threw them into the pot. Li Yuanyin used a knife to stir in the pot, licking the tip of the knife, and tsk: "Salty, delicious."

"If this wild vegetable can be eaten, it is not poisonous." Lu Si expressed doubts about the ability of these subordinates to distinguish wild vegetables.

"If you can eat, Sanmaozi and the others will eat a pot first." Zhao Zhongyi said as he took out his bowl, smeared it in the bowl with his sleeve, and scooped a bowl with a spoon to serve it to Lu Si.

Lu Si took it, blew a few sips into the bowl, and took a sip. The long-lost salty feeling immediately made his tongue feel a little salivating.

Zhao Zhongyi asked his personal soldiers to scoop a bowl of them all, and let the personal soldiers divide the rest.

He didn't use chopsticks, so Lu Si directly "drinks" wild vegetables into his stomach. After that, he also wiped his sleeves and put them on the ground casually.

"How long can the grain last?" Lu Si asked Zhao Zhongyi.

Zhao Zhongyi said: "It can last three or four days if you save a little."

Lu Si nodded. Funiu Mountain District is more than 300 miles away from Shangluo Mountain District. The speed of moving westward in Funiu Mountain District will increase tomorrow. In less than three days, you can reach Shangluo Mountain District. Then you can get supplies from the Qing army grain transport team.

"Tell me brothers, this time we went west to Shangluo not to save Li Zicheng, but to save ourselves."

"Don't worry, Governor, everyone understands this principle."

"Stay early and leave at dawn. You can't stay here for a long time." Lu Si said and got up.

Li Yuanyin suddenly asked, "Governor, what should those villagers do?"

Lu Si pondered for a moment and said, "We can only save them for a while, not for a lifetime."

Li Yuanyin nodded, knowing the governor's meaning.

"If you want to save people, you have to end this troubled world."

After leaving this sentence, Lu Si walked out of the cave and went to his residence.

It was also affected by the glory of Princess Li Cuiwei. The prince-in-law Lu Si had a separate shed, which Gu Junen insisted on.

It is related to etiquette and law.

After all, Li Cuiwei is Princess Dashun.

As for the princess staying together before she held a wedding with her husband, Gu Junen did not insist on any etiquette, and Yuan Zongdi and the others didn't realize there was anything wrong with it.

First, the emperor gave up his orders to marry, and second, they still helped the peasants in their bones. After so many years of marching and fighting, they did not pay attention to the customs of the mother-in-law and mother at all.

"It's so raining outside, be careful of catching a cold."

As soon as Lu Si entered the room, Li Cuiwei came over to take off his straw raincoat and hang it on the wall. Seeing that he was soaked all over, he hurriedly picked up a towel to wipe it on his husband.

"It's not the time to rain."

Lu Si stood there calmly and asked Li Cuiwei to wipe him.

"I think it's time to rain."

Li Cuiwei put down the towel and walked to the corner to pick up a copper pot and pour water into the wooden barrel on the table. The water was hot.

Only then did Lu Si notice that there was a ground stove in the corner of the wall, and the firewood inside was still burning.

"Why?"

Lu Si put the towel in hot water and soaked it, washed his face.

"As you said, the food and grass of Manchus are sent by Xi'an. If it rains, it will definitely be difficult for his food truck to travel. My father can hold on for a long time. Maybe the Tartars can no longer surround him."

While speaking, Li Cuiwei took another small bucket, poured the water from the wooden barrel on the table, and signaled Lu Si to sit down and take off his boots.

The moment the boots were taken off, a stinking smell came to his nose. Li Cuiwei did not frown. Instead, she took off Lu Si's socks as if nothing had happened, then put his feet into the bucket and washed his feet.

"Hey, then we have to hope that the rain will get heavier. Your father and the others are in the city, and the Tartars are outside the city. The rain will be heavy. The Tartars suffer more than your father."

Lu Si paused, looked at Li Cuiwei who was squatting in front of the bucket to wash his feet, and a hint of warmth appeared on his face, and said in a harmonious voice: "You don't have to treat me like this. I have brought people here. Are you still afraid that I will turn around and go back?"

"Do you think I am trying to please you, please? I am just doing my duty as a wife. Your wife will not serve men?"

Li Cuiwei looked up at Lu Si with confusion.

Lu Si was silent, and then said in a daze: "I'm really strange."

"What's strange?"

Li Cuiwei was a little puzzled.

"You sometimes act like a princess with golden branches and jade leaves, sometimes you act like a farmer's daughter-in-law, and sometimes, well, you also look like the wife of the mountain king's village."

Lu Si actually wanted to say that the Princess Dashun who washed his feet seemed to have a double or even a triple personality, but she was afraid that she would not understand and could only describe it this way.

"What kind of princess am I?"

Li Cuiwei stopped rubbing Lu Sijia's hands, looking a little sad, "My mother died early, I was only two years old when my father ran out, and it was the third uncle who pulled me up with one hand. In order to escape the pursuit of the government, the third uncle took me to hide from the other side, and there was no more time.

Before I met my father, I only knew that I was the daughter of a thief and lived a life of beggars and begging for food. Sometimes I was hungry for two or three days. Several times, my third uncle risked being caught and stole things for me to eat and fled. I also fought with other children for a bite, and even killed a hungry madman with my third uncle."

Li Cuiwei said, while silently drying Lu Si's feet and putting them beside the bucket.

"After seeing my father, I finally had a support. My father asked Mr. Gu to teach me how to read and read, and asked Brother Shuangxi to ask me to ride a horse and shoot archery. I was very afraid that I would lose my father again as before. When I walked on the road, I was always looked at me. They didn't want my little girl's body, but my flesh."

Li Cuiwei's voice was a little choked.

"After entering Xi'an City, my father appointed me as a princess. I felt sorry for me in the past, and let me coax me and care for me. Except for the moon in the sky, I can't pick it for me, as long as I speak, he will give me those days. I am really happy and I think I will be the happiest woman in the world from now on, but"

Li Cui sighed slightly, then smiled again on her face and asked Lu Si: "It's only been two years since I'm a princess. Do you think I'm a princess or a thief, or a beggar?"

Before Lu Si could speak, he laughed at himself: "If Dad dies, would you still say I am a princess?"

Lu Si was a little sour and was about to speak when there was a cross-examination outside. Then he heard Gu Junen's voice coming: "Have the Marquis of Huai and His Highness rested?"

Lu Si hurriedly asked his personal soldiers to invite Gu Junen in, but he didn't expect that Yuan Zongdi would come in together.

"It's so late, the gentleman and Mianhou are coming over. What's wrong?" Lu Si directly moved the two small stools in the house to Gu and Yuan and the other two barefoot.

Seeing that the Marquis of Huai was barefoot, Gu Junen and Yuan Zongdi were really stunned for a moment, and then they would talk about the purpose of their visit.

It turned out that Yuan Zongdi believed that before Li Zicheng was surrounded, a large number of Shun troops were assembled in Nanyang, with more than 100,000 people. It was impossible for these Shun troops to participate in the rebellion, nor could they be surrounded by the Qing army. There must be many people scattered all over Nanyang.
Chapter completed!