Qin Official

"Today is the first day of October, the Qin New Year, and Lingnan has entered the dry season, but why does it keep raining?"

In Guilin, the base camp of the South Expeditionary Army on the West Road, with the continuous rain, the outside of the city has become a land of marshes, with beautiful picturesque mountains, like small islands standing on the sea.

In Zhao Tuo's eyes, the Qin army was the same, separated by a sea of ​​Vietnamese people and jungles, and could only fight on their own.

"Too urgent."

Zhao Tuo sighed sadly when he recalled what had happened in the past few months.

The Western Route Army located in Xiou is roughly divided into two places, one is Guilin and the other is Cangwu. In April and May, General Tu used General Jia's plan and burned all over Xi'ou. Because the Qin army carefully dug fire prevention ditches, the Pingba area around Guilin and Cangwu was almost burned to a white ground until the rainy season came. The fire gradually subsided, and the deeper rainforest was more difficult to ignite.

After all, manpower is no match for the sky. The area burned by the Qin army is less than one ten thousandth of the entire Lingnan dense forest. Once the rainy season is over, the area that was burned will be covered with green again. The natural healing speed is far beyond what ordinary people can imagine. think……

But the effect was very good. Without the cover of the woods, the Ou people's attack was exposed to the Qin army's view. The Qin people were no longer passively beaten. They killed thousands of Ou people and forced them to return to the jungle. The army was able to live in peace for a few years. months.

But immediately, Tu Sui ordered the troops stationed in the two places to set off again and continue to move south!

This order caused an uproar. The soldiers were generally unwilling to go south, and they complained that the military officials were too harsh and did not care about their lives.

The military officials complained that the general's strategy was too hasty. Before the army could gain a foothold in Xiou, they wanted to attack Luo Yue, but they could not see the low morale in midsummer.

But as a captain, Zhao Tuo knew that there was nothing Tu Sui could do. Before starting the war against Baiyue, he praised Qin Shihuang for "pacifying Yue in two years" in Haikou. The emperor hated breach of trust and procrastination. Seeing that the deadline was getting closer, Tu Sui became more and more impatient with his military deployment. After setting fire to several forests and killing thousands of Xiou people, he announced that Xiou was secured and led his army deep into the dangers.

"Split your troops into two groups and fight to the north to celebrate the New Year!"

This was Tu Sui's plan. Unfortunately, the fire failed to burn all the Xiou people to death, let alone their determination to resist.

Just as Qin Guilin's army passed through the mountains at the junction of Xiou and Luoyue, and the troops were stretched into a long snake, they were attacked by this group of natives in the dense forest. The Luo Yue people also attacked in front of them. The Qin army was attacked from the front and back, and its good military formations, chariots and cavalry were useless, and it was temporarily frustrated.

That's all. What's terrible is that when Tu Sui was observing the mountain, a bamboo arrow shot by a Yue hunter hiding in a tree scratched Tu Sui's skin.

The tip of the arrow was soaked in poison, and Tu Sui foamed at the mouth on the spot. After returning to the camp, he began to have a high fever, and then his skin ulcerated and he was unable to act.

Without the general, the army was also in disarray. Thanks to Zhao Tuo's presence, he discussed with the captains to withdraw the troops first and returned to Guilin despite the Yue attack. Tu Sui also died of poison while crossing the Liujiang River. Extremely unwilling.

Fortunately, the 20,000-strong Guilin Army retreated in time and only lost 3,000 or 4,000. But the 10,000 people in the Cangwu Army were in a more miserable state.

The two armies were hundreds of miles apart, and it was difficult to communicate with each other in the deep mountains and old forests. It was only when Cangwu's army arrived at the agreed rendezvous point "Xiangdi" (Chongzuo, Guangxi) that they learned of the defeat of the main force. They had to start back thousands of miles under the harassment of Luo Yue and the Xiou people...

Next, Zhao Tuo didn't know the fate of Cangwu's army. A total of 10,000 people disappeared into the mountains. For two whole months, there was no news.

At this moment, a group of people braved the rain and rode to the gate of Guilin Village. It was Zhao Tuo's leader Hu Hui. He was sent by Zhao Tuo to Cangwu to deliver the news a month ago. He came back at this time. There must be news about a biased teacher!

"How is it?" Zhao Tuo hurriedly got down from the sentry tower and went up to ask as soon as the city gate opened.

"It's too awful."

Hu Hui wiped the rain off his face and sighed: "The last group of people have returned to Cangwu. We counted the number of people. We found that there were 10,000 people, but seventy-eight out of ten died!"

…

"Where are the hands? Where are those hands?"

In Cangwu, five hundred miles away from Guilin, the first thing centurion Chen Ying did when he woke up was to see if the dozens of hands with only bones left in his basket were still there...

There is not a single one, they are all gone!

He immediately grabbed his subordinate Zhang Jia and questioned him loudly!

"The medical officer said that bringing them in would spread the disease, so they let us get burned."

Zhang Jia, the commander under him, said this. He did not dare to look at Chen Ying, but just picked up a dusty pottery urn and handed it to him.

"They are all inside..."

"It's good to be able to return home and be buried."

Chen Ying was helpless and asked: "How many of us are still alive?"

Shi Chang gritted his teeth: "Nineteen!"

"nineteen!?"

Chen Ying was stunned for a while, then burst into tears and couldn't help cursing:

"A hundred of my men, thirty of them died from injuries and illnesses in Cangwu. They followed the captain to attack Luo Yue. They were blocked and returned, and more than fifty of them died. These eighty-odd people are all fellow villagers from Dongyang. , I, Chen Ying, were trusted by the county people, so they elected me to be an official, but now eight out of ten have died, how will I explain to my father and brothers when I go back!"

The past few months have been Chen Ying’s nightmare, something he will never forget:

The war has no end. After Cangwu is captured, there are still new areas in the south waiting for the Qin army to occupy and conquer.

It was not easy when we went there. The fire did not spread to the mountains and forests farther south. The march was extremely slow. The soldiers struggled to crawl while stumbling. Sometimes they walked less than ten miles a day. The forest became denser and denser, and they had to use machetes while walking. open circuit.

After finally arriving at the agreed-upon meeting point, there was no trace of friendly troops. There were only broken tents and military flags, and the roar of giant beasts in the distance...

The Guilin army lost its leader and suffered a lot due to the Vietnamese attack, so it had to retreat in a hurry. They managed to save themselves, but they defrauded the Cangwu Army. When Cangwu's army arrived at the mountains known as "Elephant Land", what greeted them was an ambush by the Luoyue people and spearmen riding elephants...

Although elephants often appear in Chu, they are wild beasts and occasionally trample crops in villages near the forest. But Lingnan is different. The Luoyue people were once the leaders of the "Twelve Kingdoms". The main reason was that they mastered a unique skill: elephant taming!

This was also the first time that the Qin army encountered elephant soldiers. Although Luo Yue did not have strong armor and powerful crossbows, the sight of the giant beasts running around scared the Qin people and their horses fled in all directions. The world was shaking, and their minds were gradually losing balance. The purpose of the soldiers was The mouth is dumb and there is no fighting spirit.

In the battle of Xiangdi, the forwards of the Qin army were defeated. The captain of Cangwu County did not see the Guilin army coming to join him for a long time. He expected that they were defeated and began to withdraw his troops.

But this withdrawal forced the Qin army into hell...

The Luo Yue people were chasing after them, and in the dense forest on the left and right, the Xiou people were harassing and attacking, but they never showed their faces. Only the Qin people fell down after being hit by arrows, and those who chased into the forest angrily never came back. …

During the continuous battle, the captain of the Qin army died in a night attack, and the remaining troops began to break up and run away, running around in the southeast and northwest. When daybreak, Chen Ying found that they had lost their way and were in an unfamiliar jungle.

After groping for a long time, they finally returned to the original trail. This group of straggler Qin troops was gathered up again by a leader. There were 2,000 people. Seeing that they could not find their superior commanders, they could only hug each other and walk north. .

On the way north, thousands of wandering soul-like teams were meandering. In the vast primeval forest, fragments of sunlight fell on the ground from the gaps in the leaves. Under people's feet, there was a smell of fallen leaves and rotten tree trunks. Stink.

Lingnan in July and August is sometimes sunny and sometimes rainy. Sometimes, the scorching sun scorched the earth like a steamer, and it was so suffocating in the forest that the clothes that had not been washed for a month clung to the body. Due to excessive sweating, the soldiers' mouths were dry and bitter, and the roots of their tongues were stuck to the roof of their mouths. , can spit fire from its throat, and rush to drink when encountering water in the forest.

As a result, at night, they all had stomach upsets and continued diarrhea. By daybreak, more than a dozen people had died, and the rest were covered in filth and were limp and unable to walk.

As the roar of the elephant behind them got closer and closer, everyone had to leave the seriously ill person behind. After learning their lesson, they only dared to drink living water.

And rain.

The weather is unpredictable, and the rainy season is coming again. The dense forest that blocks the sun cannot stop the rain from pouring down. The sky seems to have been pierced, and the jungle has turned into a swamp. The soldiers lacked rain gear and had nowhere to hide, so they had no choice but to let it wash away.

The soft soil has been soaked by rain, making it even more difficult to walk on. When you step on it, the soft mud reaches the top of your feet, as if you are stuck in a swamp. More and more people are falling behind, and the marching order and troop organization have also been disrupted. The troops are mixed together and rushing forward.

But despair continued, and the mountain floods destroyed the road they came from. The Qin army had to change its route. They began to get lost and wandered in the forest all day long.

People from Xiou, covered in mud paint, still appear from time to time, like ghosts, killing several people and then leaving. Their harassment caused a large number of casualties, but more people were killed by the "mountain forest".

Leeches are rare before it rains. After the rain, they are everywhere and attack people constantly. The drought leeches in Lingnan are as small as embroidery needles when they are not sucking human blood. They suck one end on grass or leaves, and hang one end in the air to search. On hands and feet. At first, people can't feel it. When others notice it, the locust has sucked blood and is as long as an inch as thick as a finger. It is ferocious and terrifying!

It was already so difficult during the day, and at night it was even more terrifying in the primeval forest. Mosquitoes hiding in the grass during the day rush towards us. Giant mosquitoes are the size of dragonflies and make a low buzzing sound when flying. No matter how hard we drive them away, they will wait for an opportunity to return. The long, sharp and hard mouth pierces the human body. In a moment, the withered belly can be filled into a bright red blood cell, and a big bump will immediately form in the place where it was stabbed, which is painful and itchy.

Mosquitoes are the carriers of disease transmission. At this time, truly unexpected and terrible disasters in the tropical rain forest also followed: athlete's foot, scrub typhus, rash, typhoid, malaria, dysentery, ruthlessly tormenting this army every day, Let lives fall by the wayside.

When Chen Ying and others found the road heading north again, they found that there were signs of the evacuation of friendly forces: dozens of corpses could be seen every day, usually single ones, while in the campsite attacked by the Ouyue people, they were in a continuous mass. Heaps of corpses gathered together.

When a person first dies, his skin color is pale. Two days later, when the body is exposed to the sun and watered by rain, the body swells, the skin turns black, and becomes ulcerated with pus. Then flies swarm and the body is covered with maggots or ants. Soon only one remains. Frame of bones.

The army had been without food for a month at this time. There were hundreds of pack horses for the first battle. After entering the mountains, they were slaughtered and eaten every day. Occasionally, they shot wild animals to the teeth. Most of the time, they only relied on wild vegetables, bamboo shoots, plantains, etc. to satisfy their hunger. If there was really nothing to eat, I would put moss in my mouth and fill my stomach with cold water until I was so hungry that I felt dizzy, my eyes were filled with stars, and my legs were trembling.

In order to survive, some people secretly cut off the flesh of dead people on the roadside to satisfy their hunger...

Chen Ying and his men also ate. Perhaps as retribution, the chief of the village who ate the most fell ill. Originally strong, he often fell to the ground moaning, trembling, and crying. But as long as he lay on the ground for half an hour, the symptoms would disappear automatically and he could continue walking. However, he could no longer eat and would vomit after eating even a little bit of food.

As the condition worsened, Tuen Chang's attacks became more and more serious, and the intervals became shorter and shorter. Finally, he collapsed to the ground. Chen Ying and the others kept pulling and pulling, but he couldn't walk anymore.

Before he died, the village chief burst into tears and said that even if he starved to death, he should not eat human flesh. He pointed to Dongyang tremblingly and said intermittently:

"Baichang, I really want to go back home!"

Everyone didn't even have time to bury the body, so they could only push him into the deep stream.

At this time, Chen Ying's men were dead and scattered, and there were only more than twenty left. The Chu people had rules: a fox dies at its head, and a man returns home after death.

Before they died, Chen Ying's men told Chen Ying that since they couldn't bring the body back, they would cut off their hands and tie them up, hoping to take them back to their hometown for burial.

So, every time a person died, Chen Ying cut off his hand, burned it with fire, and put it in the basket on his back. Every few dozen miles he walked, an extra hand would come out...

The extremely low morale also spread among the team like a plague. They had walked for an unknown amount of time and just staggered forward subconsciously.

Chen Ying counted silently, and when there were ten dead hands in the basket on his back, the group finally returned to the sentry point controlled by the Qin Army!

The leader of the outpost looked at this group of Qin soldiers walking out of the mountains and forests in surprise. They were unkempt, skinny, and not human-like. They could only support each other and stumble forward.

Chen Ying only remembered what the leader said to them.

"It's been almost three months, and you are still able to come out alive!"

They are the last batch of soldiers out of this green ghostly land out of ten thousand people in the Cangwu Army!

After Chen Ying devoured a meal, he fell asleep. In his dream, he was still trudging in the forest, desperately trying to climb out of a deep quagmire filled with bones and human heads, but withered hands were pulling at him. Clutching his clothes, those souls who had surrendered to death were howling loudly at him:

"Baichang! I want to go home too!"

After waking up, they were sent back to Cangwu, only to see that there were only nineteen people left in the camp that was once full of people!

When Cangwu's army marched in, it was vast and winding, but when it came out, there were only a handful of them. Of the ten thousand, only two thousand survived!

The eyes of the living people were empty, and they still had not recovered from the nightmare experience, and some even murmured to themselves:

"Did Emperor Qin deliberately let us people from Chu come to the south to die?"

…

After listening to the leader's report, Zhao Tuo was silent. The commander was killed in front, and Cangwu's army also suffered heavy losses in the back. This meant that Tu's plan to pacify Xiou and attack Luo Yue ended in failure. Even he I also called in.

The leader said: "Captain, what should we do now? If Xiou and Luo Yue jointly attack, should we withdraw or defend?"

“Abandoning land is a great sin.”

Zhao Tuo sighed: "With our strength, it should be easy to defend Guilin and Cangwu. If the two armies from South Vietnam can come to reinforce..."

Hu Hui said: "I heard in Cangwu that something happened in South Vietnam, and now we can only protect ourselves."

It was really a leaky house and it rained all night. Zhao Tuo was silent for a while and said: "In that case, we can only fight on our own. Now, the news of General Tu's death should reach the emperor's ears. Wait, Wait until the imperial court sends a new general with reinforcements to clean up this mess!"

It is indeed a mess and a mess. This is the situation faced by the Qin army. After suffering a major defeat, many Yue people from various places who had already surrendered rebelled again and killed officials.

At Zhao Tuo's suggestion, the Qin army on the west route shrank its front, and except for the two cities of Guilin and Cangwu, all the small outlying strongholds were abandoned to avoid being defeated by the Yue people one by one.

But there are also many Qin soldiers who did not have time to withdraw and became isolated islands in the ocean. I don’t know how long they can hold on...

Hu Hui said: "If it weren't for Captain Zhao, the army would have suffered heavy losses. Now, the officers of the West Route Army hope that Captain Zhao can be our commander-in-chief!"

Zhao Tuo's decision saved their lives, and everyone was naturally grateful.

"Who am I?"

Zhao Tuo smiled. He knew that he was too young and ranked last among the captains of the West Route Army. Only because he had made great achievements by beheading Lord Xiou, and had guarded southern Xinjiang for a long time, and was familiar with the local situation, the other captains were willing to listen to him.

"General, don't even think about it, but if the deputy general commanding the West Road can be recommended by someone, it is not impossible..."

The commander was stunned for a moment and thought of someone: "Could it be that the captain was talking about..."

"That's right."

Now, Zhao Tuo is extremely looking forward to that person coming to the south to save this mess and push him to a higher position!

He sighed:

"If Your Majesty had used my brother's strategy to pacify the South, why would this have happened?"

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