The world was like a great furnace.
And history never stopped repeating itself.
In the eleventh year of the founding of the Wu dynasty, the three colossi of this world finally collided. Tens of millions of people fought and bled. The insignificant creatures hurriedly and fiercely lived their lives. The beginning of this bitter war began on a certain day over ten years ago. If one wanted to delve deeper into the cause and effect, the lines of this world would probably entangle even deeper into the distance.
Even the gods with intelligence would probably be unable to understand everything in this world. As for the slow-witted humans, they could only take small fragments of this world in the hope that they could discern the truths or metaphors of this world contained within. Even though it was just a small fragment, it was already an unimaginably huge thing for us …
In the spring of the eleventh year of the founding of the founding of the Wu dynasty, Mount Liangshan was cold and barren in January. The stored food had already been consumed the previous winter. The men, women, and children on the mountain did their best to catch fish in order to fill their stomachs. Outside the mountain, the two hundred thousand-strong Han army would occasionally attack or clean up. When the weather gradually turned cold, the exhausted fishermen would abandon their boats and jump into the water, many of them dying. And when the outside world attacked, there was no more fish to catch, so the people on the mountain had to starve even more.
The old died in the winter, the young were all skin and bones, and even the children spent most of their time suffering from hunger. The less than ten thousand Huaxia soldiers and the Guangwu army relied on the terrain and the mixed quality of the troops outside the mountain to fight the enemy to a stalemate. In reality, the situation outside the lake was even worse.
The people of Shandong were swift and fierce, and banditry was a frequent occurrence. It wasn't a rich and fertile land to begin with. The Jurchen Eastern Army had used up a large amount of supplies to begin with, and the people outside the mountain had long since run out of food. In autumn, the grain had been "requisitioned" by the Jurchen army before it could be harvested. Even before autumn arrived, large numbers of commoners had already begun to starve to death. In order not to starve to death, the young people joined the army. As soldiers, they would only be able to take advantage of the villagers, and when there was nothing left in the villages, the lives of these Han soldiers became especially difficult.
The 200,000 strong army that Wanyan Chang had sent to attack Liangshan had been struggling in this difficult situation since late autumn. Too many people outside the mountains died. In late autumn, a plague broke out in Shandong. More often than not, the people in a village were all dead. It was rare to see a living person walking in the cities and towns. Some troops were also infected by the plague. The infected soldiers were isolated and died in the plague camp. After they died, they were burned to ashes. During the attack on Liangshan, some of the infected corpses were even sent to Liangshan by big ships. For a time, Liangshan was also affected.
When winter came, the plague temporarily stopped spreading. The Han army also didn't have any supplies, so they had to fish in the lake. Occasionally, two different armies would come across each other and fight each other. Every once in a while, the generals would order the soldiers to row crude wooden rafts and attack Liangshan. This way, they could reduce the number of soldiers to the maximum. It didn't matter if the soldiers died in battle or if they surrendered to the Black Flag Army or the Guangwu Army.
The resources had been exhausted, and cannibalism was a common occurrence. No one could afford to feed more mouths. Zhu Biao, Wang Shanyue, and the others would occasionally lead soldiers out of the mountains to launch surprise attacks. These defenseless Han soldiers would kneel down and beg for mercy. Some even wanted to join the Liangshan army, only begging for food. Zhu Biao and the others, who were starving, could only let them go their separate ways.
Not long after, the surprise attacks turned into smaller scale beheading battles. All the surprise attacks targeted the middle and high ranking officers of the Han army. The lower ranked soldiers were about to starve to death. Only the middle and high ranking officers still had some rations. As long as they kept an eye on them and captured them, they would often be able to find some rations. But not long after, these officers grew wary and set up ambushes twice, almost trapping Zhu Biao and the others.
Hunger, humanity's most primitive and tragic torture, turned the war in Liangshan into a miserable and ironic hell. When the starving old men were carried out of Liangshan every day, Zhu Biao, who was watching from afar, felt an inexplicable sense of powerlessness and resentment. It was the feeling of wanting to roar with all his might, but all his breath was stuck in his throat. The hundreds of thousands of 'Han soldiers' outside the mountain were being driven by Wanyan Chang to fight them to the death. The lives of these 'Han soldiers', in the eyes of the bystanders and the soldiers themselves, became worthless. They knelt in front of everyone, but they did not dare to resist.
In reality, even if they wanted to resist, neither the Huaxia army nor the Guangwu army could produce any rations. The once great Wu dynasty and the vast Central Plains had now been trampled and reduced to such a state. The lives of the Han were as laughable as ants in front of the Female Zhenrens. This kind of resentment was suffocating.
The other battlefield was Jindi. The situation here was slightly better. Tian Hu's ten-odd years of operation had left some surplus for Lou Shuwan and the others who had usurped the throne. After Wei Sheng was destroyed, Lou Shuwan and the others turned to the western part of Jindi and maintained a base in the mountains. Led by Liao Yiren, the surrendered forces continued to attack. The long war and chaos in the occupied areas killed many people, but the tragedy of starvation to the point of exchanging children for food did not occur. Most people were killed instead of starving to death. In a sense, this could be considered an ironic mercy.
Since the beginning of winter, the people at the bottom of the social hierarchy often ate porridge with moldy grains. Lou Shuwan was in charge of the people's livelihood when she was under Tian Hu's command. She prepared the warehouses of the entire Jindi. This place was not rich or fertile. After Tian Hu's death, Lou Shuwan vigorously developed the people's livelihood, but it only lasted for more than a year. In the spring of the eleventh year, it would be difficult for the spring ploughing to resume in the midst of the war.
They would probably start eating people before the autumn of the eleventh year … With such an estimate, Lou Shuwan used an iron fist to reduce the food expenses of the military and government departments since last autumn. She was frugal. In order to set an example, she often ate moldy or powdery food. In winter, she fell ill twice in her busy life. The first time, she recovered after only three days. When the people around her advised her, she shook her head and refused to listen. The second time, it was extended to ten days. During these ten days, she vomited and had difficulty eating. After she recovered, her already weak stomach was severely damaged. When spring came, Lou Shuwan was skinny. Her facial bones protruded like a skull and her eyes were frighteningly sharp. She seemed to have lost her beautiful face and figure.
She wrote in her notebook, "… I'm more afraid of the cold in winter. My hair is turning white. I'm tired. I'm afraid I don't have long to live … Recently, I don't dare to look at myself in the mirror. I often think back to the time in Hangzhou. Although I was thin, I was plump and beautiful. There were men around me who often praised me. I'm no worse than Su Tan 'er. Now, it's not necessarily a bad thing … But I don't know when this suffering will end … "
While feeling sad, she wrote, "… When I die, I want the Liao Clan to walk in front of me …" Such words of wanting to kill her entire family suddenly made her feel iron-blooded.
These years, she often read the official documents and letters written by Ning Yi. Over time, her grammar became random. Sometimes, she threw them away after she finished writing. Sometimes, someone kept them. When spring came, Liao Yiren and the other surrendered forces gradually lost their drive. The key officials and generals in the forces paid more attention to the stability and enjoyment behind them. Yu Yulin and Wang Juyun took the opportunity to attack. They won a few battles and even seized some of the enemy's resources. The pressure in Lou Shuwan's heart decreased slightly. Her body gradually recovered.
In the middle of January, the second battle of Xuzhou became one of the focuses of attention. Liu Chengzong, Luo Ye, and the others led more than 40,000 people to attack Xuzhou. They defeated more than 60,000 fake Qi and Han troops along the way.
At this time, most of the Eastern Army led by Zong Fu had crossed the Yangtze River. On one hand, they attacked the Wu dynasty defenses in Jiangning and Zhenjiang. On the other hand, they were eager to test the situation in Linan. The resolute response of Liu Chengzong's troops taut everyone's nerves. The commanders of the Jurchen Eastern Army, Nie 'er and Bei Jin, urgently mobilized nearly one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers from all over Jiangnan to confront this Black Flag Division in Xuzhou.
Considering that the Black Flag Army led by Ning Yi had captured a city through a secret tunnel and killed Ci Buli in the Northwest War, the Jurchen army carried out several repeated searches in Xuzhou. Some of the places that had been destroyed in the war before were hurriedly cleaned up. Only then did they relax. The Huaxia army set up camp outside the city. In the second half of January, they even launched two fierce attacks, closely intimidating Xuzhou like a cobra.
At this time, Linan encountered the same situation as Xuzhou for a period of time. On the eighth of January, Wu Shu attacked outside the city and only retreated on the tenth. Afterwards, he kept circling outside Linan. Although Wu Shu was lacking in strategy, he still had his own way of using troops on the battlefield. Outside Lin 'an, several troops sent to rescue the King were unable to gain any advantage under his flexible and determined attacks. Within a month, there were two small defeats and one crushing defeat.
The pressure in Linan was gathering. In the city of millions of people, officials, gentry, soldiers, and common people were fighting for their lives. More than a dozen officials in the court were dismissed and imprisoned. There were also various assassinations and fights in the city. Compared to the first battle of Bianliang over a decade ago, when the Wu dynasty was at least united, this time, more complicated thoughts and connections were secretly intertwining and surging.
But no matter what, in this month, more than a hundred thousand imperial troops surrounded the entire city of Linan. The people guarding the city suppressed the restless thoughts in the city. In the direction of Jiangning, Zong Fu ordered the army to attack Jiangning fiercely. At the same time, he divided his troops and tried several times to go south to coordinate with Wu Shu in Linan. The troops led by Han Shizhong firmly guarded the route to the south and even won several victories.
In the middle of January, Yue Fei led the Beiwei Army eastward along the Yangtze River and entered the battlefield of Jiangning at high speed. In late January, Xi Yin and Yin Shuke, whose movements were slightly slower, moved along the Huai River and the Grand Canal and entered the battlefield of Jiangning and Zhenjiang.
More chaos broke out everywhere in the Wu dynasty. In Fujian Province, the uprising led by Guan Tianxia and Wu Heilong captured several provinces and counties. In Xuanzhou, the Central Plains refugees led by Cao Jinlu rebelled and broke the provincial city. In Dingzhou, Hu Yun 'er rose up in the name of Manichaeism. While the Central Plains gradually revolted against the Jin, the various contradictions within the Wu dynasty that had been suppressed for more than a decade and the oppression of the northerners by the southerners also began to erupt when the Nu Zhenren arrived.
Against this background, in the second half of January, the Huaxia military squads from all over the country began their missions. Wuan, Changsha, Qimen, Xiazhou, Guangnan … organized assassinations with criminal evidence and letters of extermination appeared in various places. Planned confrontations against such incidents, as well as all sorts of impersonation killings, also broke out one after another. Some of the Huaxia army squads roamed in the dark and privately contacted and warned the wavering forces and large clans.
During this period, a group of 120 Huaxia soldiers headed by Zhuo Yongqing went out of Shu. Along a relatively safe route, they lobbied and visited the forces that had previously done business with the Huaxia army. During this period, two loosely organized fights broke out. Some of the gentry forces that hated the Huaxia army gathered "volunteers" and "civilian groups" to stop them. The scale of the first fight was about 500 people, and the second fight was as many as 1,000 people. Both times, they were defeated by another team that secretly followed Zhuo Yongqing after they had assembled.
In order to coordinate the actions of these special squads that left their hometown, in the middle of January, the 30,000 Huaxia army in the Chengdu plain set out from Zhang Village and entered the eastern and northern boundaries of power to prepare for war.
The expansion of all kinds of things and the spread of the news still needed time to ferment. In the middle of January, when everything was in an uproar, a piece of news, through the mouths of the peddlers and storytellers, gradually spread to the forests and markets of the Wu dynasty.
An old man named Fu Lu, with the last clothes of his former master, reappeared in the forests and was heading east along the Yangtze River to the direction of Jiangning and Zhenjiang, which were involved in the war.
When the news of the old man's appearance spread, people everywhere heard it. At first, there was silence, and then there was whispering. The sun rose and the moon set. Gradually, some people packed their bags, some arranged their families, and began to head north. Among them, there were old people who had long become famous but took the opportunity to come down, middle-aged people who performed on the streets, homeless and miserable, and there were also muddle-headed beggars among the fleeing crowd …
In Yizhang County, Jin Chenghu, a notorious underworld villain, held a strange banquet.
Jin Chenghu was in his forties, with a fierce look on his face and a body like an iron tower. After the Wu dynasty moved south, he relied on his ruthlessness to make a name for himself. After ten years of hard work, it was not easy for him to accumulate all his savings. In the eyes of others, he was really in the prime of his life. In the next ten years, the area around Yizhang would probably be his territory.
On the sixteenth of the first month, there were no weddings or funerals, nor was there a move to a new house, but Jin Chenghu insisted on holding this banquet. The reason was really puzzling to many people. His former enemies were even afraid that this guy would make a fuss about something, such as "it's already past the Lantern Festival, he can start killing people".
The banquet was held on the drill ground of Yizhang County for three days. At noon on this day, it suddenly snowed. Jin Chenghu drank some wine, stood on the high platform, and looked up at the snow. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Everyone … fellow villagers, brothers, I, Jin Chenghu, was not originally called Jin Chenghu, my name is Jin Cheng. When I was in the north, I was a … bandit!"
He raised his bowl of wine. "I was in the stronghold, the Dahu Stronghold on Hedong Road! My boss was called Peng Dahu! He was not a good person, but he was a man! I will remember two things he did for the rest of my life! In the eleventh year of Jing Han, there was a food shortage in Hedong. Grandmaster Zhou Dong went to the Dahu Stronghold to ask for food. He left the stronghold's rations, asking for 216 dans of grain. The Stronghold Master gave it to him without a second word! We told the Stronghold Master that Zhou Dong was only a master and two servants. We had more than a hundred men, so what was there to be afraid of? The Stronghold Master said that Zhou Dong robbed us for the world, not for himself! The Stronghold Master led us and handed over 216 dans of grain. He didn't play any tricks! "
"The second thing!" He paused. Snowflakes fell on his head, face, and bowl of wine. "Jing Han! Autumn of the thirteenth year! The golden dog went south! Without a second word, Grandmaster Zhou Dong stabbed Nihan! Many people followed him, and my Stronghold Master Peng Dahu was one of them! I remember that day, he happily told us that Grandmaster Zhou's martial arts were matchless. The last time he came to our stronghold, he begged Grandmaster Zhou to teach him martial arts. Grandmaster Zhou said that he would teach him one day when he was no longer a bandit. The Stronghold Master said that Grandmaster Zhou would definitely teach me this time! "
"My Stronghold Master was one of the righteous people who followed Zhou Dong to assassinate Nihan!" He almost shouted these words, and there were tears in his eyes. "That year, he disbanded the stronghold and said that he wanted to follow Grandmaster Zhou. You guys should disperse. I was afraid, the Female Zhenren came, I was afraid! After the stronghold was disbanded, I came south. My name is Jin Cheng! I changed my name to Jin Chenghu, not because the word 'tiger' makes me look fierce! I've been thinking about the meaning of this name for more than ten years … Almost all the righteous people who followed Grandmaster Zhou to assassinate Nihan are dead. This time, Senior Fulu came out, and I understood. "
In the falling snowflakes, Jin Chenghu swept his gaze over the gang members who followed him below the stage, and the several concubines he had married over the years. Then, he raised the wine bowl in his hand high with both hands. "Fellow villagers and elders, brothers! The time has come — "
"— Disperse!"
His whole body was muscular like an iron tower, and he usually had a ferocious look on his face, which was quite frightening. At this time, he stood straight, but he didn't look handsome at all. Heavy snow fell from the sky.
Time passed through the distance of more than ten years, and the influence of a figure in the long time did not disappear for a long time. His life and death had left a huge mark in people's hearts. His spirit, years after his death, was still running through and changing the lives of many people …
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