Jiao Zhen was originally a death row prisoner waiting to be beheaded in autumn. In his opinion, it was better to live than to die, so it was a happy thing to be here.
However, what he didn't know was that starting from the dock of Linhe City heading west, he had to walk through a long desert and wasteland, and he would reach Blackwater City more than a thousand miles away. This would undoubtedly be a painful march.
After they were fed, they were assigned tents and the soldiers sent them to sleep.
Along the way, they were tortured quite miserably. In the end, every one of them slept like a dead pig.
Three days passed in a flash, and all they could do was eat and sleep. They had never been so comfortable.
There is actually boiled milk tea to drink in the morning. There is also boiled beef to eat at noon. The staple food is cornmeal pancakes. You can eat as much as you like, as long as you can eat it and don't waste it.
Such good treatment made these people so shocked that they opened their mouths.
Three days of training greatly replenished their energy and spirit.
On the third day, after dark, they slept until midnight. Finally, the order came and they immediately set off for Blackwater City.
The soldiers were like wolves and tigers. They beat them up with horse clubs, lined up, and set off with their backpacks. The backpacks were issued yesterday and contained sleeping bags and dry food. This backpack was a Russian-style pocket backpack. It was made of canvas.
, very strong.
This time we have to walk more than a thousand miles to get there. Not only is the journey long, but the environment is also very harsh.
It's summer now, and it's very hot in this wasteland. The temperature can reach about 40 degrees at noon. The temperature in the desert and on the surface next door is between 70 and 80 degrees.
If they march during the hottest time of the day, they will die of dehydration. After all, they have to walk to Blackwater City on two feet.
Therefore, we can only avoid marching during the hottest time and hide in tents to sleep. If they are exposed to the desert and Gobi without shelter, they will be sunburned to death.
Fifty thousand camels, with a large wooden barrel on one side of the carriage, carrying food and water. Under the supervision of regimental training cavalry, 80,000 people set foot on the long sandy road.
They took the northern route, because the northern part of Alxa is the Gobi, which is relatively easy to walk, and the west, south, and east are deserts. They took the northern route and only had to pass through the north-south Ulan Buh Desert.
Ulan Buh Desert is narrow from east to west and relatively long from north to south.
The first three days were fine, but they just felt hot and their bodies were very tired. Their feet felt very weak on the soft sand, which made marching very tiring. They got up in the middle of the night every day and set up camp to rest at noon.
Jiao Zhen's skin soon turned dark due to sunburn. Their skin began to burst in the sun. After the skin was sunburned, it became hard and fell off, revealing red flesh.
He looked up at the sun, which was like a ball of flame. He felt that the world was an oven, and he was a piece of cake. The front and back were almost cooked.
Starting on the fifth day, some people fell to the ground while walking and never got up again.
They are all extremely vicious people, and no one would waste their limited water to save them. If a few of them were not shot dead by the soldiers, they would even go back to plunder other people's water.
Water, which is usually the least valuable thing in the mainland, is actually more valuable than gold here.
Those who died were soon overrun by vultures.
These violent thugs felt chills running down their backs as they watched the vultures quickly eat up their companions until they were reduced to a skeleton.
While sleeping at night, Jiao Zhen was woken up by a scream. Du Xiaoer, who was in the same tent, was jumping and screaming. It turned out that it was because the desert was extremely cold at night and a scorpion got into his pants.
The scorpions in the desert were so poisonous that Du Xiaoer fainted quickly. The soldier who led the team only left a bag of dry food and a water bag. He urged the prisoners to set off before he woke up.
Jiao Zhen knew that Du Xiaoer was also a death row prisoner. He killed many people during robbery and robbery. Unexpectedly, he escaped the execution of a knife in the execution ground, but his case was dismissed here.
As soon as the large group of people left, the vultures would eat him.
After ten days, most of the water was consumed. The soldiers only gave them a small glass of water every day to ensure that they would not die of thirst. Their mouths were so dry that they could not even swallow dry food. Everyone's lips were chapped and their skin became dull.
Same as skin.
They felt like they were being dried out quickly.
These people are all criminals and unstable elements. Yang Fan needs to screen them.
Therefore, neither the front housing nor the back housing is suitable for resettling these people. In the Hetao area, Yang Fan will recruit refugees to colonize the area. He will not use these unstable elements who can feed one person and keep the whole family hungry.
Yang Fanren believes that people without family members are not worthy of trust. This is because in the troubled times of the late Ming Dynasty, the cost of betrayal is very low. Maybe it is just a bowl of rice.
The emperor brought these people here just to draw away the capital camp and to silence Yang Fan.
Therefore, Yang Fan thought it would be better to put them in a closed environment first, carefully screen them first, and then detain them in separate areas. They cannot be used casually until the situation is clear.
Jiao Zhen was tortured by thirst and fatigue, like a walking zombie, and followed numbly. He was already desperate. He felt that he would die here and be eaten by vultures at some time. Or he would be crawled in in the middle of the night.
The tent was poisoned by scorpions and snakes.
A month later, of the more than 80,000 people, more than 3,000 died, and finally walked out of the desert and Gobi in disheveled condition.
Jiao Zhen was walking with his eyes blank, when he suddenly heard a huge shout, which was like a mountain falling apart. Then all the people in front ran forward like crazy. No matter how hard the escorting soldiers and officers beat them, it was useless.
There was a Populus euphratica forest ahead, and behind the Populus euphratica forest, a vast lake could be vaguely seen.
When they saw the huge Juyanhai, they collectively went crazy.
Along the way, food and water were very precious, and each person only had a very small amount. They all had split lips from thirst. They were used to it, and some people fell to the ground while walking along the way.
They had no one to care about these people, and watched them being eaten by the crows and vultures that fell under the black pressure. They even felt that they and they would soon follow in their footsteps.
They cursed the emperor in their hearts. It was impossible to give them a knife to have a good time and come up with this method to kill them. This feeling of struggling to survive in despair every day was too painful.
At this time, they all ran madly to the lake, buried their heads like donkeys and horses, drank heavily, and jumped into the lake water.
They cheered excitedly. They would not die of thirst, die of heat, or be eaten by vultures. They finally came out. Damn it, this journey was simply hell.
These fanatics burst into tears. The joy of surviving the disaster made them lose control.