Just when Fei Qian was facing some inexplicable problems in Pingyang, the people in Guanzhong were faced with an extremely rapid plague.
When the plague first started, not many people paid much attention.
People simply don't understand.
Before we knew it, the plague came.
At the beginning, people thought it was the weather. It was not until the disease spread and more and more people were infected with the plague that people suddenly realized that the claws of the plague had reached right in front of them!
During this period of time, the battle in Guanzhong was too concentrated.
Sucheng was in relatively good condition, and Feiqian ordered his soldiers to tidy up after the attack. But now the government functions of the central court have been shut down, resulting in corpses strewn all over the ground in many places, with no one taking care of them at all.
Plagues mostly originate from the decay of corpses. Among all the corpses of animals and plants, humans eat all kinds of things, so they accumulate the most toxins. Once they accumulate and decay, the bacteria and toxins produced are quite terrifying.
In fact, plague was not unfamiliar to people in the Han Dynasty.
One of the events that had a far-reaching impact, even affecting the order of the entire government and causing some deviations in history, was a plague during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was so obsessed with the Huns that they finally lost power. During the Zhenghe period, the Huns had their horses tied up in front of the pass, and then expressed their willingness to give these horses and livestock to the Han people as a sign of goodwill...
These war horses and livestock were actually said to have been "cursed by witches", that is, they were cursed by the Huns of the Huns. In fact, they were infected with some diseases that were found on the grasslands but not in the Han Dynasty. Subsequently,
These war horses and livestock were sent to Guanzhong, and then a plague broke out.
This plague was rapid and lasting, and continued to occur until the late Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
Due to his limited understanding, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty believed that the epidemic came from the witches and their curses of the Xiongnu. Therefore, he became wary of witches, including so-called witchcraft.
The special imperial envoy, the "Emissary of Embroidered Clothes", was sent to hunt down Hu Wu across the country.
In the second year of Zhenghe, Prime Minister Gongsun He's son Gongsun Jingsheng was accused of being a witch who had cursed the Emperor Wu and had committed adultery with Princess Yangshi. Gongsun He and his son were imprisoned and died. Princess Zhuyi and Princess Yangshi, as well as Wei Qing's son Changping Houwei and his wife, all sat down.
punish.
Later, because there was a gap between Jiang Chong and the prince Liu Zhi, he took the opportunity to frame the prince and told Hou Han, the eunuch Su Wen and other four people, to frame the prince. The prince was frightened and launched an army to kill Jiang Chong. Later, Emperor Wu suppressed and defeated the queen.
Wei Zifu and Prince Liu Ju committed suicide one after another, implicating more than 100,000 people.
Later, under the consolation of the three elders of Huguan, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty suddenly realized, but it was too late after the crash, so he vented his anger on the people who participated in the murder of Liu Zhi. The relevant people were killed or committed suicide for various reasons, and were executed.
The killings involved a wide range of people, including the emperor's relatives and important officials, which shocked the upper echelons of the Han Dynasty's political power at that time, and the country's foundation was shaken.
The original prince Liu Zhi had a kind, generous, gentle and prudent personality. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty thought that he was not like him, but perhaps Liu Zhi was a more suitable candidate to clean up the mess that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made, and if his mother, Mrs. Wei, had not been affected by witchcraft,
Perhaps under the suppression of the Wei family, the Huo family may not have become so arrogant that they couldn't control it.
But all these assumptions were wiped out by the plague.
The Han people used to call the plague typhoid because these patients would feel unwell at first, accompanied by fever, and then develop symptoms such as hot foreheads, red, swollen and inflamed eyes, ulcers and bleeding in the throat and tongue, difficulty breathing, and a foul odor.
When the disease continues to spread, the virus will infect the entire lungs. The patient will begin to cough violently for a long time and is difficult to control. In addition, he will sneeze and his voice will become hoarse. Along with the beginning of repeated vomiting, it means that the virus has spread.
It spreads violently and has a strong ability to infect...
Once inflammation caused by bacteria and fungi occurs inside the body, high fever will occur, and this high fever will be accompanied by functional failure of the internal organs of the body, which will manifest externally. In the advanced stage, it will explode on the surface of the body.
Some small blisters, pustules, bleeding, and even ulcers.
Faced with such a disease, neither ordinary people nor doctors at this time have any ability. They can only wait for the patient's own resistance to work. However, in the face of such ferocious germs, most people have no ability to do so.
Resistance has become the prey of death.
Even high-ranking officials and noble people are no exception.
Huangfusong has started to cough. Today is the third day of his cough. He feels that his whole chest and abdomen are hot, but when he reaches out and touches it, there is not much heat. His throat is swollen and there is so much mucus that it is difficult to swallow.
It is very difficult. Every cough is like coughing up all the internal organs in the body...
"My fate... will not be long..." Huangfu Song was half lying on the bed and said weakly, "I did not die on the battlefield, but died at the hands of the epidemic... This is God's will..."
"Uncle!" Huangfu Li kowtowed to the ground and burst into tears.
In a daze, Huangfusong felt as if he had returned to Quyang.
There is blood everywhere.
Corpses littered the fields.
Several red-eyed crows were rising and falling unscrupulously, pecking at carrion, glaring with blood-red eyes, and laughing coldly.
Standing on the city wall of Quyang County, Zhang Bao with his hair disheveled, wielding a long sword and pointing like a halberd, pointed at Huangfu Song: "Huang Tian is above! You will not die well!"
"..." Huangfu Song rolled his eyelids, then waved his hand and gave the order to attack.
Soldiers are like ants.
Flesh and blood flew everywhere.
Zhang Bao finally died in battle, and his head was sent to Huangfu Song.
Huangfu Song looked at Zhang Bao's head with squinted eyes, expressionless.
"General! There are more than 100,000 people surrendering in the city. How should we deal with them?"
Huangfu Song said calmly: "Why did you come to surrender? They are all thugs. Kill them all to build a temple in the capital."
"...General, this...only! I will obey the general's order."
Huangfusong withdrew his gaze, and then looked at Zhang Bao's head, which was placed in a wooden box. Just as a smile appeared on his lips, he saw Zhang Bao's head suddenly opened his eyes, and black blood flowed from the seven orifices.
It filled the entire wooden box and flowed down the sides of the wooden box...
Before Huangfu Song stood up in surprise, the whole world was already black and red, and there were countless hands in the depths of the sea of blood, some old, some young, some plump, some muscular, all of them. They all caught Huangfu Song himself and dragged him bit by bit deeper into the red and black sea of blood.
Huangfusong struggled fiercely, but he couldn't get away no matter what.
"Uncle! Uncle!" Huangfu Li saw Huangfu Song suddenly twitching on the bed. He couldn't help but stand up and shouted outside the room, "Doctor, where is the doctor?!"
As soon as Huangfu Li finished speaking, Huangfu Song on the bed let out a long breath, then relaxed and stopped moving...
…………………………
Zhu Jun frowned tightly and watched as the peasants carried carload after carload of corpses out of the city.
The farmer dragged his feet and pulled the cart with difficulty, like a zombie that could still move, dragging evil ghosts of various shapes and leaving a few marks in the mortal world.
On top of the vehicle, perhaps due to bumps or hallucinations, Zhu Jun could even see a few hands pointing into the air like withered branches, which seemed to be trembling slightly.
The danger of the plague seems to be different even for animals. The wild dogs that used to swarm in the wilderness seem to have disappeared.
There were so many people who died one after another that there was no time to bury them one by one. They could only dig a big hole and dump the corpses one after another into it, until it was finally filled. Dig a new hole.
Throughout Xinfeng, many corpses that were too late to be collected had to be piled on the streets. The entire city seemed to be completely decayed, and even the houses in the city seemed to be exuding an unspeakable stench.
They had just taken advantage of the internal strife among Xiliang soldiers to take down Xinfeng, but they suddenly suffered such a heavy blow.
Originally, Xinfeng was not easy to fight, because although Zhu Jun had a large number of people, his cavalry did not have an advantage. Unexpectedly, for some reason, Li Jue and Ma Teng attacked each other, and the two led each other's soldiers to fight in Xinfeng City. Ma Teng was unprepared and was blocked by Li Jue in the government office in the city. Li Jue besieged the government office and attacked forcefully, while Ma Teng's soldiers outside the city attacked the outside in an attempt to rescue the besieged Ma Teng. There was chaos inside and outside the city...
As a result, Zhu Jun and others just got a bargain.
When Zhu Jun led his troops to press forward, Li Jue had just killed Ma Teng, and before he had time to clean up the mess, he evacuated Xinfeng when he saw something was wrong.
However, before Yang Biao, Zhu Jun and others could celebrate, the plague struck with lightning speed and broke out suddenly, catching Zhu Jun and others by surprise.
In the face of a virus that is invisible, unpredictable and with no way to resist it, the morale of the soldiers has dropped to freezing point. If Zhu Jun's reputation was not so good, there would probably be defections.
While Zhu Jun was inspecting the city wall and setting up defenses, suddenly there was some movement in the city. Yang Biao, accompanied by more than a dozen guards, also came to the top of the city.
After the two sides saw the ceremony, Yang Biao was silent for a while, and suddenly said: "Gongwei, I have just been rewarded, General Yizhen has lost his salary..."
Zhu Jun opened his eyes wide: "What, Yi Zhen him..."
Yang Biao shook his head slightly and sighed: "I am really jealous of talented people..."
For a moment both of them were silent.
Although Yang Biao felt that Huangfu Song had made mistakes in his previous leadership and that the commander's incompetence affected the three armies, after all, some rabbits died and foxes were sad.
However, Yang Biao's sadness was mostly due to his own considerations. After all, Huangfu Song was more or less a veteran in the army, so his death would more or less affect the morale of the Chinese army.
Zhu Jun's feeling was even stronger, and somewhat different from Yang Biao's. After all, he and Huangfu Song were comrades-in-arms in a sense.
In the seventh year of Guanghe's reign, the Yellow Turbans spread out of control. The ministers recommended Zhu Jun, saying that he had talents. Therefore, the imperial court appointed him as the Youzhonglang General, who would uphold integrity and go on an expedition together with Huangfu Song.
However, the battle was not smooth sailing. At first, when fighting against the Yellow Turban thief Bocai, the Yellow Turban thief's spirit was not yet clean. Correspondingly, the morale of the imperial army was not high, so failure became an inevitable result.
However, the Yellow Turbans were still a mob after all. With the upper hand, Huangfu Song's fire in Changshe burned away the Yellow Turbans' dream of changing the world. More importantly, it shattered the myth of the Yellow Turbans' undefeated thieves and strengthened the After that, the situation suddenly reversed. Even though the Yellow Turbans resisted tenaciously, they could not save the defeat.
But now, the person who set the fire can no longer maintain the candle of his own life...
The past is like a dream, and the world has changed in a blink of an eye.
Yang Biao covered his mouth and nose with a piece of scented silk. He was silent for a while and then suddenly said: "Gongwei, we cannot stay here for a long time. We must lead our troops to Beijing quickly!"
"March into Chang'an?" Zhu Jun hesitated.
At present, not only the people in the city, but also many soldiers in the army are infected with the disease. Under such circumstances, how can they march?
It is not that Zhu Jun had never encountered plague before in his military career, but this time it was more ferocious, so ferocious that it felt like he was caught off guard...
On the periphery of the military camp outside the city, there was an additional circle surrounded by wooden fences. At a glance, it looked like a pustule bulging on the head of the original military camp.
Within this "pustule" of the military camp, there are all soldiers who have been infected with the disease.
No one manages it, and no one dares to manage it.
The original dozen or so tents were completely insufficient, but no one added any more. The soldiers from the rear camp carried the rice buckets and soup buckets to the door of the wooden fence from a distance, and then left them from a distance. Throw it aside, drag the half-dead patients inside the fence in, and then drag them out after eating.
This wooden fence is like the wall of life and death that separates the living from the dead. Being inside the fence means that death is not far away.
Originally there was only one such wooden fence, but as the number of sick soldiers increased, a second one had to be built, and then a third...
"If it doesn't work," Yang Biao didn't bother to cover his mouth and nose, got closer and gritted his teeth and said, "We will all die here!"
In addition to the illness of soldiers, there is also a more critical point. The plague broke out, and Tongguan was the hardest hit area, which meant that all Hongnong's supplies could not be transported...
Even if they go through all the trouble to transport the food and grass, will anyone dare to eat it?
In the past few days, most of the remaining rural forts nearby have moved with their families, heading to Jingxiang via Wuguan, or to Hanzhong via Chencang Road. In the face of the plague, no one has any chance. A sense of luck, because even if you are huddled in the Wubao, the surrounding farmland still needs tenants to take care of it, and among these tenants outside, who can guarantee that they will not be infected with the plague?
So now, Yang Biao and Zhu Jun have no choice but to advance. There may be some hope in advancing, but not advancing would mean waiting to die...
After a long time, Zhu Jun finally nodded in agreement, and then called the ordering soldier: "Send the order! Set off tomorrow, and the army will send troops to Chang'an!"
