On the way back, the group still rode horses under the tall city walls of Yecheng. Perhaps because it was almost dusk, the scholars, farmers, industry and commerce in the city had to return to rest, so there were many pedestrians on the road. There were magnificent gentry with gorgeous frames, knights in a hurry, and more were still refugees.
In recent years, Jizhou has been the main battlefield for the royal family to fight, and the people's livelihood in various places has reached an extremely fragile state. After the Shile bandits launched their troops, the Yanzhou army fought with Jizhou and Jizhou for three months in the counties in the southwest of Jizhou, which completely disrupted the farming season and turned countless farmland into battlefields. Half a month ago, the battle reached the most intense peak. The Shile bandits swept across the county and county towns with lightning speed, slaughtered everywhere, and wrapped many people into his army. The people who escaped by luck had no clothes and had no food in their mouths. Looking around, they were all battlefields to the west and north, and the river to the south, so they could only run to Wei County. Even if Wei County had been through war for a long time, it might not be sure to ensure safety. But for the people who were wailing in a daze, even a small boat in the tumultuous sea of ​​rage is worthy of the greatest hope.
Some of the refugees staggered in groups, some lying on the roadside or resting, while others were scattered in the fields and woods, carefully fiddling with the scattered soil and rubbing, trying to find out everything that can be used to fill the belly, such as fruits, seeds and even grass seeds. If you carefully distinguish them, you can find that although they are all pale and thin, most of them are middle-aged men and women. Unless there are obviously large teams of more than dozens of people gather, there is no sign of the old man.
Lu Yao saw escape scenes in film and television in his previous life, but after experiencing the troubled times, he realized that compared with the real tragic scene, the travel scene of later generations imagined by the elderly and the young was probably more like a warm outing.
In this forced large-scale migration, the elderly were almost completely burdened. Their energy and physical strength were not enough to support the difficult journey, and their existence would drag down their relatives. Lu Yao could imagine that on countless roads from Jizhou to Weijun, the tired and hungry elderly people took the initiative to leave the team and bid farewell to the clan relatives. They fell dejectedly on the roadside, waiting for other refugee teams to pass by, or they would luckily get some food, or turn into hunger on the roadside.
In the Great Jin Dynasty, which advocated the rule of filial piety, such human tragedy was enough to arouse the high anger of scholars, but their high-ranking and pure talk was like being untouchable on the clouds, and the lowly people as humble as ants would only bury the heart-wrenching pain in their hearts and continue to struggle.
So what about the child? Not far from Lu Yao's eyes, a child of about two or three years old was crying intermittently, and the young mother was by the child. If it weren't for being too thin, her face would be pretty. She hugged the child tightly, and there was no one else to accompany her, as if she was just running here alone. She murmured and comforted, stuffing the shriveled "rutou" into the child's mouth, but how could the mother, who was skinny and skinny because of insufficient food, have enough milk? The child cried unyieldingly, and the sharp and shrill crying drifted intermittently in the wind, and the mother could only look at the child with a sad expression, and there was no other way.
Ma Rui looked unbearable, and he suddenly took the reins and took two steps forward, then looked back at Lu Yao.
Lu Yao knew that although Ma Rui was a Fufeng person, he had been in the army in Bingzhou for many years and his family was in Jinyang. His wife was young and she was happy to have Lin's son last year. However, when Ma Teng in the Japanese company was defeated, Ma Rui and his family were separated and never met again since then. For Ma Rui, perhaps this kind of tragic situation of an orphan and widowed mother could best touch the soft part hidden under his sarcastic heart.
So Lu Yao nodded slightly. Ma Rui took a few steps forward, lifted the cloth bag hanging on the side of the saddle, and threw it in front of the woman. After the cloth bag fell to the ground, it spread out, revealing some scones, mixed fruits and other food wrapped inside.
This little gift immediately made the woman's eyes wide. She rushed towards the dry food thrown by Ma Rui with an unimaginable agility, and then kowtowed in ecstasy. Although the amount of these dry food was not large, it was enough to save lives for the mother and son!
However, her actions attracted the attention of other refugees. Among the general group of refugees who had no food and clothing, food was the most attractive. In a large-scale refugee team in the distance, several young and strong people noticed Ma Rui who gave food. Those people were dressed neatly, and some even carried weapons. They were obviously teams with the strong clan as the core, unlike scattered refugees. They stared at Ma Rui intently, with a faint fierce light in their eyes. One of the middle-aged men who looked like the leader was slightly straightened their backs, as if they were about to get up.
Ma Rui felt it immediately. He frowned, strangled his mount, looked at the mother and son with some hesitation, then held the hilt of the knife on his waist and glared back fiercely at the group of young and strong men.
Lu Yao suddenly discovered that although the lord of Jingling County had been away for a long time, his emotions were still excited and even affected his judgment. Giving food rashly among the dense refugees cannot actually help the weak. The hungry refugees no longer care about the constraints of moral laws, and the distance between them and bandits was almost a line. These foods would almost certainly be stolen by strong people, and Lu Yao and others themselves might even become targets coveted by the robbers.
Of course, Lu Yao and others would not be afraid of these mobs, and they would just leave even if they were not good. But if the group left, what situation would the mother and son be placed in front of them?
"Old Ma, take them with you." Lu Yao whispered: "Let's go, don't delay any more."
Ma Rui bowed to Lu Yao with joy, then leaned down, wrapped his arm around the woman's waist, exerted a little force, and lifted both mother and son up.
Everyone continued to move along the official road, and soon left those people far away, without any obstacles on the way.
In fact, the bold and reckless people are always a small number of refugees. Most of the refugees are just farmers who face the loess that day and are facing the sky.
These farmers have been buried in the fields throughout their lives, and have been experiencing many generations of family, tirelessly servicing the small land passed down by their ancestors. The soil is deep, the seeds are sparse, the thickness of fermentation, the amount of watering... All they are familiar with is this. They love soil and heavy soil. The land is their only connection with the world and their only support in this world. If it weren't for the current situation that they could not live, they would never leave their hometowns and would never become refugees.
For them, Wei County, which is hundreds or dozens of miles away, is already an absolutely unfamiliar environment. Different accents, different geographical conditions, and different officials and servants all put heavy pressure on them, making them feel timid and humble. After they finished eating the food they carried with them, the court had no relief, and abandoned these ordinary civilians who had been forced to the bottom to the lower level without mercy.
When they consumed a small amount of wealth and items they could exchange, they had no normal means to make a living, and could only beg or steal, like locusts, collecting all the villages and fields in the area they passed by. This is actually not the original wish of refugees, but it is just for survival.
Lu Yao felt nervous and thought of the question he had almost completely ignored: What would happen to Yang Heng’s manor? The manor was close to the intersection of two official roads, and the earliest group of refugees gathered, and the number of people will only increase. After he left, can the people in the manor handle it?
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Chapter completed!