"General, there is no one in the house next door."
The ten-man team sent to surround Shen Chen's house searched the house but found no trace of anyone.
Cao Ren was at Shen Min's house at this time. He had just discovered a mother and her son in the cellar. The soldiers brutally killed them and dragged their bodies to the main room, where they were being identified by torches.
He saw a middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman, and then a child who looked maybe ten years old, but seemed to be different from eight years old.
However, there are huge differences among individuals of the same age. Cao Ren has seen many fifteen- and sixteen-year-old children who are as thin as ten years old due to poverty and hunger. He has also seen the children of aristocratic families eating big fish and meat, seven or eight years old. He is as strong as fifteen or sixteen years old.
Therefore, he did not doubt that this was not Shen Chen's authenticity, and he did not bother to stay alive for questioning, because Xiangben was very close to Shan County, and if the battle could not be resolved as soon as possible, it would be difficult to escape if Tao Qian discovered it.
After confirming the facts, Cao Ren threw the torch in his hand to the ground and said indifferently: "Burn the entire village and let the people of Xuzhou know the consequences of disobeying us!"
"only!"
Shi Chang took the order and left. After a while, both Shen Min's house and Shen Zhen's house started to catch fire.
Then there were all the houses in the north of Zhuoyangju Village. After killing more than ten families in the east of the village, Cao Ren swung the butcher knife to the south of the village.
Shen Chen was still crawling in the grass and did not dare to move. He knew that he could not outrun Cao Jun, so he could not act rashly when he was not sure whether the opponent was far away.
But after waiting for a while and seeing that there was indeed no movement, he wanted to get up from the ground with difficulty, but suddenly found that his legs could not use any strength. It was only then that he realized that his legs were cramping because he was too nervous just now!
Faced with such a predicament, Shen Chen was horrified to the extreme, and had to start crawling towards the back mountain, twisting his body like a maggot. Suddenly, there was a sudden light behind him, and when he looked back, his eyes were filled with fear.
Cao Jun actually set fire to the house. The most terrifying thing was that because the house was made of wood and the climate was dry in summer, the burning speed was very fast. It had quickly spread to the backyard and surged towards him.
The weeds and basil bushes that had just saved his life now turned into poison that killed him. The fire spread quickly, especially as Xuzhou was close to the seaside. The southeast wind in midsummer roared fiercely. With the help of the wind, in just a few minutes, the fire spread quickly. The east side of the village has become a sea of fire.
Shen Chen knew that running into the mountains now would be a dead end, because there were many trees in the back hills, and the fire would soon burn the entire mountain. Moreover, his legs were cramped and he couldn't run even if he wanted to, so the current situation was not suitable for him. Very bad and embarrassing.
Fortunately, there is no end to the road. At the critical moment, Shen Chen suddenly thought out of his wits and quickly crawled towards the ditch. When he reached the edge of the ditch, he dived into the water. The cold and biting mountain spring water soaked his whole body and almost made him choke to death. In the water.
A rolling heat wave swept over, and less than half a minute after Shen Chen climbed into the ditch, the wasteland in the Shen family's backyard was ignited by flames. Then it quickly spread towards the back mountain, as if the mountain was going to be burned clean.
Shen Chen lay down completely in the ditch. The ditch was actually not big, but he was smaller, and it was more than enough to accommodate two more of him. Moreover, the water depth could probably reach an adult's ankle and a little above. Just enough for an eight-year-old toddler to lie down and fully cover it.
However, what made Shen Chen even more frightened was that he had obviously underestimated the power of the high temperature of 200 to 300 degrees. The flames were flying around his head, and from time to time, unburned ashes fell into the ditch from the wasteland nearby. The fire and The squeaking sound of water meeting is endless.
Frightened, Shen Chen had to consider slowly climbing down along the ditch. Because he was too close to the back mountain, once the entire mountain was ignited, the temperature would rise. Once the spring water in the upper reaches of the ditch started to flow, The ground was blocked by ashes, wood fragments, and rocks from wildfires, and without water, he would surely die.
Step by step, he moved along the direction of the water flow with great difficulty. The ditch was excavated and repaired from yellow mud. The bottom of the ditch was also mud. As he moved and the ashes of burning vegetation fell all over the sky, the water in the ditch became extremely turbid. The water is full of mud and sand, and when you stick your head out, you breathe in ashes, which is miserable.
However, Shen Chen was lucky. He didn't know how long he had been crawling, and finally he slowly slid downstream from near his house, and finally flowed from the ditch into the stream to the north of the post road. Then he followed the stream and approached We arrived in a patch of weeds below the creek bank on the left.
Some parts of the stream are very deep, while others are very shallow. Shen Chen spent many summers swimming in this stream and knew the depths very well. There was a puddle about two meters deep in the area where he stayed, and there was a puddle on the bank next to it. The weeds cover it, hiding the bottom.
Emerging from under the weeds, it was only then that Shen Chen noticed the burning pain in his back, and his whole body was extremely sore. His clothes were in tatters, exposing his dark skin, and his body was scratched by sharp stones. .
He was facing the direction of Shan County, that is, the east. At this moment, Shen Chen's left hand side was the north of Zhuangyang Ju Village, his right hand side was the post road climbing up the creek, and the opposite side was the south of the village. Now, the screams were also heard continuously. Come.
Shen Chen suppressed his grief, kept himself breathing, and listened to the movements around him all the time. The sound of running water covered up his voice hiding in the stream, and the night became his cover.
The screams continued. After his physical strength recovered a little, Shen Chen crawled out of the stream. He couldn't stay any longer because the stream was biting and cold. Staying in it would hurt his body. He was still young and it would take a long time. Being immersed in low temperature and cold air will leave the root of the disease and lead to premature death.
After struggling to climb to the beach bank, I wonder if the pebbles really have the function of massaging the soles of the feet. His legs gradually recovered from numbness. After being able to move, Shen Chen climbed up from the beach bank. When he reached the post road, he stuck his head out. Look at the situation on the other side of the village.
The fire burned behind him, almost dyeing half of the sky red. Through the light of the fire, he saw figures flashing across the village. Cao Jun was massacring the entire village, and near the post road, there were about a dozen horses tied up.
Cao Cao is now very short of horses. Even at the Battle of Guandu, his cavalry number was only more than 600 and his war horses were less than a thousand. Therefore, these more than ten horses were all Cao Ren's army.
Shen Chen glanced around and saw only one soldier guarding the horse. Perhaps for Cao Ren, the meaning of leaving a soldier behind was to prevent the horse from breaking away from the reins and escaping. After all, the entire village would be massacred and there would be no survivors. Come and steal his war horse.
But at this moment, Shen Chen's eyes turned red, and the anger brought by hatred made his whole body start to tremble. He lowered his head and searched on the ground, and found a pebble about the size of two adult fists. When he picked it up, he felt at least It weighs three to four kilograms, which is about the same as a turning head, and is easier to hold than a brick.
The soldier was standing by the post road at this time, looking towards the south of the village, where a massacre was taking place. He had no idea that a figure had quietly approached behind him. The war horse beside him seemed to be quite intelligent, and snorted lightly. But it did not alarm the soldier who was fascinated by the show.
Shen Chen raised the stone high. Now only a few of Cao Cao's trusted generals had helmets and armors. Of course, ordinary soldiers could not have them. They only wore black military uniforms and had no helmets on their heads. But he found that he was too short to hit him. The other person's head.
While he was in a panic, the soldier had no intention of blaming anyone. Perhaps he was too tired from standing, so he simply sat on the edge of the field. Eight-year-old Shen Chen saw the right opportunity, and with almost all his strength, he jumped up and jumped up fiercely. The ground fell.
"boom!"
The hard stone collided with the back of the soldier's head. The soldier didn't even have time to hum before he was knocked unconscious by the sudden impact, and his head fell to the ground.
Shen Chen took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his body, then straddled the soldier and continued to hit him with rocks.
Once, twice, three times.
The targets were all the back of the head and temples, the most vulnerable parts of the human brain. After hitting him more than ten times, his body was already stained red by the splattering blood. The brains of the soldiers on the ground had flowed out, and they had obviously turned into a corpse.
At this time, the young man felt that his whole body had no strength. After throwing the stone away, he turned over and lay on the ground, panting continuously.
This was his first time to kill someone, but he knew it would never be the last, because Shen Chen had seen too many corpses in such troubled times, and there were even refugees who came to Xuzhou from Qingzhou who wanted to rob the village, but were used by the villagers in crude Farm tools and kitchen knives were chopped into pieces, and it was not unusual to see dead bodies on the side of the road occasionally.
In today's world, if you want to avoid being killed by others, you can only kill others. Get rid of all the people who want to harm your life, and then unite a group of people who can help you. Only then can your life be protected. Just like people like Cao Cao and others.
After an unknown amount of time, the screams in the south of the village gradually subsided. Shen Chen also regained his senses. He climbed up from the ground with difficulty and looked around. In the distance, after Cao Jun finished killing people, he started to set fire to the south of the village. Burn.
Regardless of his sore hands, he came to the pavilion where the horses were tied. This was a pavilion on the side of the road in every rural settlement. It was used by people from Guizhou Province or local farmers to rest after farming.
The horses were tied to the pavilion pillars with reins. Shen Chen didn't bring a knife, so he had to untie the ropes one by one, which was very troublesome.
Moreover, the war horses had been tamed and would not leave immediately even if they were untied. Shen Chen had to use the torches placed by the dead soldiers in the pavilion next to them to burn the horses' tails, forcing them to flee.
It wasn't until the sixth one was placed that Cao Jun, who was killing people and setting fires in the distance, finally noticed the clues and rushed towards them with a loud shout.
Shen Chen didn't know how to ride a horse, so it would be difficult to get on. However, most of the horses in the Eastern Han Dynasty were Mongolian ponies, with an average height of about 1.3 meters, so it was not difficult to get on the horse.
At this time, I was also chasing ducks. I stood on the chair in the pavilion and easily jumped on the back of a horse. I pulled the reins to adjust the direction of the horse's head. I kept kicking the horse's belly with my legs and slapped the horse's buttocks with my left hand.
If you have never eaten pork, you have at least seen pigs running. You have never ridden a horse before, but you have ridden cows and donkeys in the countryside. Although horses are not as stable as cows and donkeys, they have something in common.
After receiving the order, the war horse ran quickly, far away from the pursuers, and galloped away in the direction of Dongfang Zhuanting.