Crossing the Mudan River and heading west along the winding valley, Ansai City, built on the mountain, is nearby.
Being close to the county seat did not add any vitality to Liu Chengzong's short journey. The broken walls and ruins along the way reminded the three of them that they were getting closer to danger.
In the morning, he wanted to continue the fine tradition of hardship and simplicity from Yuhe Fort, and continued to explore the ruins of two cave dwellings, trying to find something useful inside.
Liu Chengzong thought that this habit of wanting to go in and touch a dilapidated house when he saw it might be a disease, making him look like a gangster and without dignity.
Different from the context a few hundred years later, the gangsters of this era are literally floating subjugated people.
Only they can do things like touching the house, but Liu Chengzong likes it very much, like a garbage guy.
When he sees a strange house that appears to have no owner and something inside - he never knows what he's going to find.
But this experience in the suburbs of Ansai may make him lose his curiosity about abandoned houses forever.
Not every place in northern Shaanxi is like that near Yuhebao. The only enemies of the people are the reduction in production caused by drought and the urging of the court tax collectors.
Most of the houses near Fish River Fort are empty. The owners left to avoid taxes. Although they will never come back, most people still have the small thought of returning to their hometowns before leaving in the hope that the situation will improve. Those houses are all empty.
It was kept very clean.
Things are different around Ansai.
He found half of the bones and swarms of insects in the cave, and the other half of the bones were burned to ashes under the stove mixed with the door panels.
There are deep marks on the door frame left by hanging, but I don’t know where the rope went.
It is impossible to imagine what the owner went through here before and after his death.
In order to maintain his physical and mental health, Liu Chengzong came out of the cave with a pout and decided not to touch the house again.
Who knows that a bigger impact is yet to come.
The sun was rising when they walked out of the valley. Liu Chengzong, who was riding in front, looked west from the mountain pass. The winding and thick Yanhe River flows southward, and a huge city wall stands in the middle, like a giant beast with its back against the mountains.
He finally saw a living person again.
Two government officials were pushing a cart along the official road. When Liu Chengzong discovered them, they were parking the cart on the side of the road, covering a corpse beside the road with a straw mat, and carrying it to the car with difficulty.
Suddenly, they saw a heavily armed cavalry emerging from the official road, which frightened the two government officials. Their faces were pale and pale from cold and hunger, and they were stunned.
One of them reacted faster, grabbed his companion who turned around and wanted to run, and tightly grasped the short whistle stick on the cart: "You, who are you?"
On horseback, Liu Chengzong had no expression on his face. He took out his badge from his waist and hung it in his hand, saying: "The prefect's Yamen came from Fucheng to pick up Mr. Yang's family."
The waist badge he got from Yang Dingrui flashed his hand and put it away. Liu Chengzong reined in the reins and walked around in circles, then frowned and asked: "Are you two county government officials?"
Not far away, the gate of Ansai City is closed, the flags are waving, and the suspension bridge on the moat is raised. It doesn't look like a county town at all, but it really looks like its name, a fortress.
There was a huge crowd under the city wall. Hundreds of simple shacks spread to both sides along the moat. The half-clothed people sat quietly, and the atmosphere was as heavy as a pool of stagnant water.
Even Liu Chengzong didn't expect that the name of the prefect's yamen would be so useful. When the two yamen heard the words, they didn't even bother to distinguish the truth from the false. They dropped their sticks with a clang: "General, sir, is the prefect going to send reinforcements?"
"Reinforcements?"
Liu Chengzong had one head and two heads. Where did the reinforcements come from? Combined with the jittery appearance of the suspension bridge being raised in Ansai County, he asked: "Is there a thief in the county?"
It was the yamen servant who first raised the whistle stick and spoke with astonishing force: "Six days ago, Gao Shi, a giant thief from the small county, led hundreds of cavalry to plunder the outside of the city and asked the county to open warehouses to release grain.
He said he was opening a warehouse to release grain, but who didn't know that the people he was trying to rescue were thieves, and they had nothing to do with the elders of our county?"
The officer raised his head and said: "Fortunately, my county magistrate is skilled in military affairs and led the people to defend the city to resist the thieves. The high-ranking thieves did not dare to attack by force and led the people to leave."
"The county sent two teams of horses to the capital city to call for troops and allocate food for disaster relief, but there was no news. Now people within a radius of 30 miles in the county have taken refuge under the city, and the granary used to provide porridge has already reached its bottom."
Liu Chengzong thought that the high-ranking thief mentioned by the government officials should be Gao Yingxiang. The scale of hundreds of cavalry sounded very powerful. He also heard the government officials say that the county's grain and grass had bottomed out, and he nodded and said: "Well, I can see it."<
/p>
The social status of yamen servants is lower than that of officials.
In fact, how many officials can a small county with 20,000 to 30,000 people have? Compared with ordinary people, yamen servants still have a higher social status, and their income is generally guaranteed.
To put it bluntly, giving out porridge requires government servants to do it, and at least it takes two more mouthfuls than ordinary people.
Now even the two government officials are so hungry that their faces are pale, so you can imagine how bad the food warehouse in the county is.
"Where are you going to take these corpses?"
As he spoke, Liu Chengzong quietly made a movement with his hand on the horse, signaling Gao Xian, who was still on the other side of the mountain pass, not to drive the carriage out, regardless of whether Gao Xian could see it or not.
There were rations for eight people in their carriage and water in the skins, which were for Yang Dingrui's family to use on their way back. The people here looked crazy with hunger. If they asked people to take away the water and food, they would all be hungry on the way back.
Belly.
Liu Chengzong rolled his eyes and made up his mind - Yang Dingrui and the carriage must not approach Ansai City.
When the hungry people in the city see the food, even this small amount of food will cause big troubles. Hundreds of hungry people have gathered together, which is definitely not a situation that he and Gao Xian can control.
"Several big pits were dug outside the city, and people who died of starvation, freezing, and strangulation were buried. The county government official said that leaving the corpses alive would cause plague."
The officer was speaking in a normal way, and pointed to the large pits outside the city not far away. Several large pits were piled up like hills with corpses. I don’t know how many corpses were buried there. Even now, there were people coming from the shacks of hungry people outside the city.
Carry out the corpse and throw it into a pit.
At this time, Liu Chengzong even decided not to go near the city gate. He was worried that the plague would break out in places where hungry people gathered.
What's more, he had to call the suspension bridge to enter the city, and he didn't want others to check his identity.
He simply took out the bag of dry food from the horse bag, took out a piece of cake, tore it in half, and said, "I haven't eaten well in a few days. I can't help others. You two go and eat this cake."
When the two officials saw the cake, their eyes almost glowed green. They rubbed their hands and looked at me, then at you, and then tentatively looked at Liu Chengzong, wondering if the 'general' on the horse in front of him really wanted to be killed.
What they eat.
After confirming again and again, the yamen servant who was the leader stepped forward and quickly took the cake, pulled the other person and immediately knelt down in front of the horse, knocked his head twice on the yellow earth, and started to eat hungrily.
I stuffed the pancake into my mouth several times. I couldn't bear to swallow the last two bites, so I chewed a few more times. I instinctively looked at Liu Chengzong again, but I looked away in fear and swallowed with difficulty.
Liu Chengzong was not in a hurry. He had also been hungry, and he knew that half a piece of cake would not be full. People are not afraid of enduring hunger, but they are afraid of not being full when they are extremely hungry.
He opened his mouth, pointed to the bag in his hand, and said: "I still have a few loaves here. One of you can go into the city and help me bring the three of them out. These loaves will be yours. How about that?"