When the enemy is approaching, the inner city of Bianliang is relatively peaceful. Even the civilians in the inner city are rich and have a lot of food stored in their homes. Most families can still rely on the food stores for support at this time. Even a few families are already short of food.
, the government also gave priority to ensuring the supply of materials to the inner city.
There were two walls outside the inner city to block the soldiers, so it didn't seem to have been much impacted.
However, the outer city (Guocheng) separated by a thick wall is like two worlds.
At that time, household registration management was far from sophisticated. There was no official official figure for how many people there were in Bianliang, but it was believed to be no less than one million, and probably between 1.2 million and 1.3 million.
.
With such a huge population, only a handful of people can live in the inner city. Including the 4 to 50,000 families of the Gyeonggi Forbidden Army, about one million people live in the outer (Guo) city.
Most of these families are in poverty.
Take the family members of the Forbidden Army as an example. In addition to the food, clothing, housing and transportation provided by the military camp, the soldiers of the Forbidden Army do not have fixed military salaries. They mainly rely on various irregular reward money and captured war profits to support their families - the families of the Forbidden Army officers and soldiers.
The lives of most of the young people are extremely poor, and they need to farm land as tenants and work as laborers for wealthy families to supplement their family income.
It is impossible for the Forbidden Army's small family to have enough food in stock, but fortunately in order to stabilize the morale of the army and encourage the Imperial Guard generals to guard the city, rewards have been awarded to the Red Guards every once in a while since they crossed the river; among the rewards, in addition to being demoted,
In addition to the powerful copper and iron coins, there are also real objects such as rice and grain, so the family of the Forbidden Army can barely survive.
However, in addition to the poor people in Guocheng and the refugees who have flowed into Guocheng in Bianliang since the invasion of the Red Husbands from the south, there are nearly one million people in total to avoid the disasters of the war. Life is difficult for them. The vast majority of them are basically at this time.
Most of them can barely survive by handing out a bowl of porridge at more than 40 porridge places located in various parts of Guocheng every day. Most of the people are in ragged clothes and have sallow complexion and thin skin.
As the grain reserves in the official warehouses have bottomed out, the gruel served in the porridge every day has become thinner and thinner, with more and more astringent grass leaves mixed in.
Even so, the hungry people have no choice.
On this day, Caopu Bridge was still shrouded in the early morning mist, and there was still a long time before the porridge soup. However, the porridge in Qiaodong was already crowded with hungry people who were exhausted and resting. They were afraid of missing today's soup soup if they were delayed a little.
, the hunger that is like maggots clinging to the bones is gnawing at the intestines and stomach more and more, for fear that tomorrow I will not have the strength to squeeze into the porridge to get a bowl of water.
Liu Laohei walked out of the barracks and saw from a distance that many hungry people had gathered at the porridge, making a lot of noise. He thought that several large vats of porridge should have started to cook at this time, and he tightened them with straw ropes several times.
inch belly, all the soldiers under his command, who were all sallow and thin, shouted:
"Get up, get up, it's too late, those starving ghosts are going to make trouble in the porridge again - Cowboy, can you fucking sew your crotch, you are like a donkey, who are you trying to scare by exposing it?
?”
"It's just a few tanks of dilute water. Even when I pee, it's thicker than that. What the hell is there to grab?" Someone was still lying in the haystack of the barracks and muttered.
"Get up, mother, don't be so shameless." Liu Laohei kicked him over and urged all the lazy guys to get up.
"The officials are benevolent. In my opinion, they just give out some gruel and care about the life and death of those starving ghosts! It's so good now that we have to tighten our belts to live. If the soldiers really want to invade, how can we expect those hungry ghosts to live?
The dead ghost resisted with swords and guns?"
Liu Laohei led a dozen of his men with various complaints and set out from the barracks with swords and bows. Before they reached the Caopu Bridge, he saw hundreds of hungry people surrounding the porridge on three levels outside.
He was extremely dense and shouted in surprise: "Why are these hungry ghosts so active today?"
"Master Liu Jun, why did you come here? Something big happened!" A small official in charge of the porridge shop squeezed out from the crowd with sweat on his face. When he saw Liu Laohei, he shouted in panic.
"What could happen? These hungry ghosts smashed the porridge jar again? I said you are serious, why can't you grab two more handfuls of rice in the porridge jar?" Liu Laohei said calmly, "You guys
Can the food given be called porridge? Drinking one bowl a day will make people hold in their shit and not dare to spit it out!"
He has seen hungry people making trouble, and there has been more than one trouble in the past two months. He has also tried to lead his men to suppress it, but he will not be in a hurry to lead people forward now.
If these starving people really want to cause trouble, the superiors will give orders to suppress them, but the main purpose is to disperse them.
During this process, if anyone was injured or killed, it was all for nothing, and no one took the risk of provoking a civil uprising to investigate further.
These hungry people are making trouble, and even if they burn down the porridge place, Liu Laohei will wait until the porridge place is completely burned, and wait until the resentment in the hearts of the hungry people is almost gone, and then he will lead people to drive them away.
"No, it's not," the clerk stammered, "I just came here, but for some reason, several ministers of the court were hung and tied up in the porridge for public display!"
"Ah?" Liu Laohei widened his eyes and asked, "What minister? How could he be hanged in the porridge? Who the hell wants to rebel after eating the heart of a bear and the courage of a leopard?"
"There is Zuo Si admonishing Qi Zhi, Xu Jun, the imperial envoy, and Wai Lang, the official of the Ministry of Etiquette... Hey, there are quite a few of them. Mr. Liu Jun, take your people and put them down quickly. Don't kill anyone!"
shouted the clerk.
Liu Laohei led his men to squeeze into the crowd, but there were only a few people in the porridge as mentioned by the clerk?
Apparently more than twenty people were tied up in the porridge, but most of them had their hands and feet tied behind their backs, and were either kneeling or sitting in the porridge. Only six people were tied up and hung from the beams in the porridge, and their clothes were stripped off.
Kai came, his mouth full of rags, and he wanted to call out but could only moan lowly. When the six people saw Liu Laohei leading his soldiers, they growled lowly, and their bodies began to struggle violently again.
Liu Laohei was a low-level military official in the Xiang Army. He never had the opportunity to enter the inner city. He could not recognize any of the ministers of the court. However, there were several large wooden signs with densely written words erected next to the six people who were hung up.
Liu Laohei could barely recognize a few words, but fortunately the notice written on the wooden sign was very plain, so there was no obstacle for him to read it through. He opened his eyes and saw that in addition to the name and official position of the person who was bound, the wooden sign also wrote "collaboration with the enemy".
, being cowardly and begging for peace, and being greedy for money and anointment, etc.
Collaboration!?
"On the 9th, Chen Yuan, the commander of the Xuanwu Army, followed the king's order and led his troops out of the city at night to attack the prisoner camp. Unexpectedly, the news was leaked, and all three thousand Xuanwu soldiers were ambushed by the prisoner soldiers. The whole army was tragically destroyed.
At the end, do you know which thieves secretly communicated with Hu Lu and leaked the information?" There were also many literate people in the crowd, who were angrily telling those around them what was written on the wooden sign.
"The dog thief who secretly communicated with the Hulu and leaked the secret turned out to be the deputy peace envoy, Xu Jun, the imperial envoy in the palace, and Qin Zhihui, the chief minister of the Concierge Hall of Honglu Temple! We lived in Guocheng every day on a bowl of soup mixed with a few grass leaves.
Shui hangs his life. Yesterday, these two dog thieves and a group of bastard sons went to Yanxuan Tower to play bitch! They were caught!"
"Who did it?"
"It's written above that the innocent souls of Xuanwu came to the city to avenge themselves! They died so unjustly that they became ghosts and can't spare these thieves!"
"Master Liu Jun, please untie these gentlemen quickly!" The petty officials crowded over and urged Liu Laohei to go up and save people.
"Who's going?" Liu Laohei asked. Seeing these grandsons secretly communicating with the thieves, he subconsciously wanted to step forward and kick them in the face. Looking at it, no one among his men wanted to go up and rescue these thieves.
"You and I can't bear the loss of life!" The clerk almost burst into tears, pleading with Mr. Liu.
Liu Laohei was also afraid of taking responsibility, but looking at the indignant expressions of the hungry people on the left and right, he was not afraid that he would step forward to untie Xu Jun, Qin Zhihui and others, completely igniting the anger in the hearts of these hungry people, and eventually causing
Setting yourself on fire?
"This matter is not a trivial matter. We don't even know whether these people are real or fake. How can we act rashly? Just watch this side. I will report to Chen Jun to make up his mind..." Liu Laohei ordered the little official, but he wiped the soles of his feet.
Oil, take the people and rush to Nanhui Gate, where a large number of troops are currently stationed, and report to the general in charge there.
Accompanied by Liu Laohei, a group of guards from Nanhui Gate rushed to Caopuqiao porridge. Hundreds of hungry people had already ignited the anger in their hearts. I don't know how many people picked up bricks and stones. Xu Jun, Qin Zhihui and others smashed them.
.
"Spread out, spread out!" Liu Laohei stepped forward to drive away the hungry people, and someone inside even lit a fire in the porridge hut.
The hungry people who were making trouble were finally dispersed from the porridge, and more than a hundred soldiers stepped forward to put out the fire in the thatched hut. However, at this time, except for Xu Jun, Qin Zhihui and other six people, they were smashed beyond recognition by bricks and stones. Yanxuan died long ago.
The steward of the building, Xu Jun and others, and a dozen or so people in his entourage were basically beaten to death by the angry hungry people.
The anger of thousands of hungry people was ignited, but it could not be extinguished without being driven away. Many people stood in the distance and roared at the soldiers, throwing bricks and stones. Seeing this scene, the nearby barracks sent more Imperial Guard soldiers to suppress them.
In order to avoid being chased by soldiers, some hungry people went into the narrow streets of slums and set fire to their houses, creating even greater chaos.
"If chaos breaks out here in Guocheng, I'm afraid the soldiers will take advantage of it!" Hiding in a secret stronghold in Guocheng, looking at the chaotic scene near Caopuqiao porridge, Zhu Hang was worried that Bianliang City would be destroyed without a fight.
It starts with chaos and eventually gets out of control.
"There is nothing worse than a dead heart! On the contrary, I hate that the fire can't burn bigger!" Xu Huai held the saber at his waist and said in a terrifyingly calm tone.
The worst result is that there will be chaos in Bianliang City, and the Red Husbands will take the opportunity to invade. However, this is not a result that Xu Huai cannot accept. What should he worry about?
Chen Zixiao, Zhang Xiongshan, Xiao Yanhan and others stood behind them. Seeing Xu Huai's expression was so calm and unmoved by the chaos in Guo City, they were secretly frightened.
"I will arrange for you and Princess Yingyun to leave the city first. After you leave the city, please wait for me for a while. I also want to meet Mr. Wang Xun!" Xu Huai, Chen Zixiao, Zhang Xiongshan, and Xiao Yanhan said, "We will meet up later.
After that, go directly to see His Highness King Jing!"
