Chapter 123 Purgatory on Earth

Chapter 123 Purgatory on Earth

Chapter 123 Purgatory on Earth
Time is fleeting,
In less than half an hour, the grain road was once again filled with civilian carts and donkey carts carrying military supplies.

The silent atmosphere became noisy again.

Whenever they reached the eastern battlefield, the civilians would involuntarily speed up their pace.

It's just because the smell of blood here is too strong.

On the side of the grain road, Lu Yunyi looked at the grassland man kneeling in front of him with a strange expression.

The brows are sometimes furrowed and sometimes relaxed.

Finally, he asked tentatively:

"Are you saying that there are people in the Halazhang camp who are planning a rebellion?"

The grassland man nodded repeatedly:

"Today, Master Toyin Timur had a big quarrel with Master Harajang.
The Grand Master wants to hold out and wait for an opportunity, while Lord Toyin Timur wants to take advantage of the chaos to break out."

Toyin Timur was Kuyuk Timur, the younger brother of Wang Baobao.
Most of the soldiers led by Toghon Temur were from the former Yuan Dynasty, and they were also orthodox soldiers of the former Yuan Dynasty.

Lu Yunyi looked thoughtful. In the 28th year of Zhizheng, Toyin Timur

That is, in the first year of Hongwu, he was defeated by Xu Da and Chang Yuchun.
He retreated to Luoshui, then to Shaanxi, but was defeated by Feng Sheng again.
Only then did he flee far away to the grassland, and in the seventh year of Hongwu, he was defeated by the Ming army and lost Xinghe. Then he defected to the Northern Yuan Dynasty court.

Now that he has been defeated again in the Northern Yuan Dynasty court, it can be said that he has suffered a complete defeat. It is no wonder that he wants to break out quickly.

"What was the final result? Who of the two compromised?" Lu Yunyi asked.

The man shook his head, his face dead silent:
"No one compromised. There was fighting everywhere in the camp, and there was not much water left.
There are so many people here, I think I will die sooner or later if I stay here.
So he volunteered to go out and harass the grain route, hoping to take the opportunity to escape."

Lu Yunyi's expression remained unchanged and he asked:

"Are there many people in the camp who think the same as you? I mean those who want to escape."

"There are so many, so many, there's nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and everyone wants to run away."

Lu Yunyi's face darkened a little, and he continued to ask:

"Are the people guarding the camp outside the city the trusted followers of Harazhang? What are they thinking? Do they want to escape?"

The man nodded, then shook his head:

"The one guarding the camp is Grand Tutor Harazhang's son. Even if he wants to escape, he won't be able to."

"I'm asking about the soldiers, not the generals!"

Lu Yunyi winked, and Xu Zengshou, who was standing on the side, kicked him over with a fierce voice:
"Tell the truth, don't play dumb. If you tell another lie, I'll throw you to the wolves!"

The man's face turned red and he looked in pain.
After a long while, he finally caught his breath and said quickly:
"Of course the people below want to run away, but the adults are watching too closely."

Lu Yunyi nodded, looking thoughtful, and waved his hand gently, looking at Wu Fuliu:

"Send him to the front army camp."

"Yes!"

Wu Fuliu's face became serious, and he took a step forward.
He lifted the man up with a light grab, threw him onto the warhorse, and rode away.

After they left, Xu Zengshou's violent expression faded, replaced by excitement:
"Lord Lu, is there a chance to persuade them to surrender?

If we can get the people guarding the camp to surrender, we can go in."

Lu Yunyi raised a smile, looked at the camp above meaningfully, and ordered:

"Order the entire army to bring water and food to the Ha La Zhang camp from the day after tomorrow to persuade the soldiers inside to surrender."

"Yes!" Xu Zengshou was excited. He didn't expect that there was a ray of hope.
But he was a little confused and asked:

"Sir, why is it the day after tomorrow?"

"The food and clothing of a hundred thousand men in one day is enough to crush you and me to death.
The longer they delay, the less stuff they will have.

The army will launch a fierce attack tomorrow, and all military supplies must be given priority to the soldiers fighting on the front line.
This will also help those guarding the camp to see the situation clearly.
You will starve to death in the camp, but if you surrender to us, at least you can survive.

When people are desperate, they will grab every straw.
When we try to contact them again, we will definitely be caught by them."

Lu Yunyi's eyes were deep and his face was meaningful.

Xu Zengshou on the side suddenly felt a chill.

At least, in the military books and family teachings he had read, there was no mention of such a method of controlling one's emotions.

Xu Zengshou quickly wrote down what he had just said and said respectfully:

"Thank you, sir. I understand."

"Well, go and pass the message.
Tell the soldiers in the earthen fort to pay attention to their surroundings. Once the army starts to attack,
There may be people who defect like the one just now, so we need to catch them all.”

"Yes!"

After doing all this, Lu Yunyi put his hands on his hips, let out a long sigh, looked up at the camp above his head with emotion.

The Harazhang camp is now facing internal and external troubles and can no longer hold out for much longer.
This northern expedition that has lasted for several months is finally coming to an end.

On another day, the Ming army's achievements increased by more than double compared to the previous two days, and the soldiers were like crazy.

With the arrival of Geng Bingwen, Marquis of Changxing, the artillery and muskets used in the rear army's defense were transferred to the front army.
All the artillery was lined up at the bottom of the gentle slope.

They began to bombard the defensive fortifications outside the Halazhan camp.

During this period, the grassland people, holding stone mines, thunder bombs, and caltrops, never stopped.
Rushing forward along both sides of the slope under the hail of bullets and arrows,

The grassland people fell one by one, and the people behind them picked up the grenades and continued to rush forward.

Finally, they rushed to the outer camp of Harazhan!
In this way, one after another, in just one day,

Of the 20,000 grassland captives, 4,000 had been killed or wounded, and the ramp was littered with corpses.

After a brief truce and cleaning up of the battlefield,
The real Ming army began its attack at night!

The offensive is like rain, without stopping for a moment,
After repeatedly breaking through the outer fortifications, they reached the main gate of the camp.

But the grassland people fought desperately, and the Ming army had no choice but to retreat.

It was not until dawn that we had a short rest and recuperation.

Civilians from both sides rushed out and quickly cleaned up the battlefield.

An hour later, the grassland captives under the Ming army will launch another attack!

In the northeast of the front battlefield, the grassland people's destruction of the food supply route became more and more serious.
During the day, they also began to release grassland people to die, with the number ranging from one hundred to five hundred.

There were battles everywhere, and the battlefield at the front was the most brutal, with corpses piled up into a small mountain.

The other three sides are equally impressive.

The thousand soldiers led by Lü Baochuan have been stationed at the grain road.

In cooperation with the front scouts, they killed more than 3,000 soldiers in one day.
They are called soldiers, but they look more like criminals from the grassland.

The armor was far from being as sophisticated and the soldiers were far from being as brave as they were on the first night.

Thanks to the bravery of the front army scouts and the convenience brought by the earthen fort strategy,

The camp being built behind Harazhan has begun to take shape, and the central army has already dispatched 10,000 soldiers to defend it.

At this moment, both the smart people in the Harazhan camp and the Ming army have seen the situation clearly.

After the arrival of 10,000 soldiers, there is no doubt that Harazhan will be defeated, but how long they can hold out remains to be seen.

The Harazhan camp was now being attacked from both sides by the Ming army, like an isolated island, helpless.

The village walls are high, but they cannot block the oppression and despair from the outside world.

It was still dark outside, and it seemed as if even the sun was unwilling to shine into this land of suffering.

The shouting and screaming continued, and a sense of desolation filled the air.

In the village, food and drinking water are extremely scarce.

Every grain of rice and every drop of water has become more precious than gold.

The warehouse was already empty, and the soldiers searched everywhere.
All they found were a few bags of dried and smelly grain and a few barrels of turbid sewage with some green in it.

These meager supplies should be given priority to the soldiers at the front positions.

To ensure that they have enough physical strength to continue to resist the attack of the Ming army. The people of the grassland looked at the food and water that were taken away.

His eyes were full of despair, helplessness and some numbness.

They were ragged, pale and thin, and their eyes revealed deep fatigue and helplessness.

The children cried for food, and the old people sat silently by, waiting for their fate.

The children probably cried enough, and looked around with blank eyes, looking for their father.
The old men helplessly turned their gazes towards the front army.
In the military camp, all the tribesmen aged between thirteen and fifty have been incorporated into the army and no one knows where they are going.

Since the day when the Ming army raided the central army camp, many grassland people
I have been without food for three days.

The camp was filled with a foul stench, as countless people fell to the ground due to hunger, with no one paying any attention to them or taking care of them.

Some places have even started snatching these bodies.
Everyone knows what it is used for.

If you don't want to die, this is the only way.

The atmosphere in the village was extremely heavy, with a sense of depression and uneasiness in the air.

Although the soldiers were still holding on, their morale had dropped to its lowest point.

They knew better than anyone that the village would be breached by the Ming army sooner or later.

They will also become victims of the Ming army.

Looking at the grassland captives lying on the slope,

No matter how scared they are, they cannot surrender and must fight to the end!

They could not die in vain at the hands of the Ming army like those grassland criminals.

As for the people, their mood is pessimistic and no one cares.

Even they themselves don’t know whether they can see the sun tomorrow.

The first ray of sunshine in the morning does not bring warmth and gentleness.
Instead, it exposed the hellish scene in the camp.

The darkness hidden in the corner was completely torn open, and corpses were scattered all over the ground.
There were bite marks all over it, and broken limbs were everywhere.

I don’t know whether it was a jackal or the Ming army attacking.

The weeping and sighing have become quieter,
There were nearly 100,000 people in the camp, but it was completely silent, with only the sounds of the Ming army's attack and artillery fire echoing.

The people huddled in simple huts, with the faint flickering firelight unable to dispel the winter chill and the fear in their hearts.
But it can illuminate the few broken limbs hidden in the shed.
There is also a hint of desire hidden deep in their eyes, the desire to survive.

On the east side of the camp, the soldiers sat weakly on the wooden fence of the camp.

In their hands they held something black and not even as big as their palms. This was their daily ration.

Made of wild grass and rice, the soldiers chewed it and it made a crunching sound.

It goes without saying that some mud was added to make up the number.

But even so, the soldiers cherished the black steamed buns which were no bigger than half a palm.

But despair began to spread.

What made them even more desperate was that the snow had already melted.
There is only one source of water on this hillside, which is far from enough for 100,000 people to drink.

They were a team of 100 people, looking straight at a wooden barrel in the center.
There was half a bucket of turbid and muddy water there, which was what they used for the day.

Just half a barrel.

Holding the food in his hand and looking at the water source ahead, a young soldier couldn't help crying.

The rage in his heart was beyond words. He stood up quickly and shouted outside the camp:
“Stop arguing!!!”

But his voice could not drown out Mingren's voice.
It couldn't even cover up the fragrance that was beginning to spread.

"Of the thousands of options, surrender is the first option. War is unrighteous and will bring grief to your family!"

"Let go of your personal obsessions and submit to the right path."

"Leave the village and surrender, and eat fresh roasted lamb."

"The road is long and complicated, so it is wise to surrender. War brings strife, and peace brings ruin."

"Abandon your stubbornness, and you will find peace and tranquility."

"Leave the camp and surrender, and enjoy the fine wine of Ming Dynasty."

The sound that had been permeating the past two days seemed to be getting louder and louder in their ears.

The same is true for the fragrance in the air
Some people turned their heads to look down and saw still ten bonfires and twenty soldiers shouting.

What becomes is not the Ming people, but what they desire in their hearts.

As the aroma became stronger, hunger and exhaustion intertwined on their faces.

Their lips have become dry and cracked due to lack of water, and they keep pursing them.

They wanted to swallow their saliva, but the pain in their throats like a knife cutting them was a constant reminder.

They had no water, no food, and were dying.

At this moment, a soldier who was trying to smell the fragrance with his head tilted to one side suddenly clenched his sword tightly.

He suddenly turned over and looked at the figure walking up the hillside.

"Someone is coming." The soldier shouted.
But soon he staggered, his eyes turned white, and he fell heavily to the ground after shaking twice.
His whole body was convulsing, and he stopped breathing in a few breaths.

At this time, the slightly older centurion smiled and said:

"If you've been hungry for a long time, you need to move slowly. If you move too fast, you'll die easily. Drag his body to the side."

With the previous experience as a lesson, the two soldiers slowly stood up and dragged the young man away bit by bit.
It added a touch of sadness and despair to their hearts.

The centurion slowly stood up and walked to the wooden fence of the camp.
Together with my colleagues, I looked at the staggering figure.

He is not a Ming person. He looks sloppy and obviously a grassland person.

He was holding a leg of lamb in his hand and a wine jug in his right hand, eating as he walked.
As he approached, the soldiers could even see the grease on the lamb legs...and couldn't help but purse their lips again.

They thought the Ming army was here to persuade them to surrender and use these things to lure them.

It made them excited and they couldn't wait.

But the grassland man stopped not far from the camp, sat down, and ate hard, with no intention of moving forward.

The centurion looked surprised, stretched out his hand to grab the fence, and shouted:
"Come up, give us the things, we can discuss it."

But the grassland man didn't care and just sat there eating.

Ming people let him come to eat, the price is the possibility of death,
So he came and went up the mountain with a leg of lamb and fine wine that he had never eaten before.

He knew he might die in the next moment.

So he bit hard, filling his mouth to the brim, just wanting to eat more, more!!

Those people were shouting, but he still ignored them, with some fear in his eyes.

He was not afraid of death at first, but after eating mutton and drinking fine wine, he became a little afraid.

I'm not afraid of death, I'm just afraid of not finishing these things
When the centurion saw that the grassland man ignored them, he became angry and cursed:

"Shoot him! Shoot him!!"

The soldiers on the side could no longer wait. They used up their last bit of strength to pull the longbow and shot out with force!

Whoosh—bang!

The man staggered, and fell to one side as if he had been kicked hard in the head.
There was a feather arrow stuck in his head, and the severe pain made his facial features look hideous.
I uttered it incoherently, "It hurts. It hurts. It hurts so much."

Even though he was dying, he still had no fear in his heart.
Don't chew the food in your mouth, just swallow it.
Eat it! Eat it!
His vision was blurry and his consciousness was not clear.

With a "gulp" sound, the meat in his mouth was swallowed.
He showed satisfaction on his face, and even a little gratitude to those wise men.

This was the first full meal he had in twenty years.

It feels good to be full.

(End of this chapter)