The death of a person in the slave team is as common as eating and defecating. Even if the dead person was once a famous man, the body of Nuba 5914 was carried out and thrown away early the next morning. The guards did not talk nonsense. The slaves fought with each other and they had no idea
No matter, anyway, many stronger prisoners of war and slaves are shipped from everywhere every day, and the prices are unimaginably low.
"Just die. There are plenty of people anyway. Let's fight. It will use up some energy and avoid thinking about escaping all the time."
The guards thought so.
When waiting in line for food in the morning, Liu Ziguang stared with bloodshot eyes, looking for a few followers of 5914 in the queue. Those guys were just flatterers, pretending to be powerful, and had no real ability. In the past, he followed 5914 and bullied Liu Ziguang.
Many times, thinking of them, Liu Ziguang gritted his teeth with hatred.
A few guys were squatting in the corner holding pancakes, and suddenly found that the bloodthirsty devil from last night was standing in front of them at some point. One of them had the courage to ask: "9527, what do you want to do?"
Liu Ziguang stretched out his hand: "Bring it here!" He was referring to the breakfast in the slave's hand - a piece of sorghum pancake.
In the slave team, the most valuable and worth fighting for is food. If you are not full, you will not be able to work well, and you will be beaten by the overseers and guards. If you are injured, you will have even less strength, and you will not be able to get food.
, if this vicious cycle continues, lives will soon be lost. Therefore, slaves would rather be beaten to keep food.
The bolder one among the group of people shrank back and shouted at Liu Ziguang: "9527, don't think that we are afraid of you just because you kill 5914. If you want a cake or a life, you can kill a few of us if you have the guts."
Kill them all."
Liu Ziguang was still immersed in the mania after the murder. When he heard such a shouting reply, he couldn't help but became furious. He grabbed the man's collar, lifted him up from the ground, grabbed his neck and slammed him against the brick wall next to him.
go.
"Bang, bang", there was a dull crashing sound, accompanied by screams, and a few more mottled blood stains were splashed on the brick wall. The remaining two people looked at each other and touched the pottery bowl for drinking porridge from the table.
Hitting Liu Ziguang from behind, the pottery bowl was not as suitable as a weapon as the beer bottles of later generations. It only broke into pieces on Liu Ziguang's head. It did not cause much damage, but it angered Liu Ziguang even more.
He left the man who had been knocked unconscious and turned around to look coldly at the two guys who attacked him. The two of them saw that Liu Ziguang's eyes had almost turned red, showing the coldness and violence of a demon. They were even more frightened. They just thought
As he slipped away, he was knocked off his back by two fierce side kicks from Liu Ziguang. Liu Ziguang used his fists, which were rough and hard from long-term mining, to have close contact with the two people's faces in turn. For a moment, blood, snot, and tears flowed across the face.
Liu Ziguang didn't pick up three half-eaten sorghum pancakes from the ground until he was tired from beating them, and wandered away.
The spectators in the dining hall let out a burst of wild cheers and whistles, applauding the newly promoted slave.
From then on, Liu Ziguang seemed to have entered the ranks of slave tyrants, and there were several followers around him. However, he never deliberately bullied others, and sometimes helped weak slaves. This may be due to his own spirit of fairness and justice.
His actions attracted the support of many slaves. After all, prisoners of war were not vicious criminals. The spirit of chivalry can be enjoyed by any group in any era.
The other slave tyrants were at peace with Liu Ziguang for the time being and did not provoke each other. They only occasionally looked at each other coldly, like two roosters getting ready to fight.
I just had a few bad moments with the Roman mercenary Antony, but the two sides were relatively restrained and there were no major conflicts.
Even a slave bully was still as lowly as a dog in the eyes of the guards, and could not enjoy the preferential treatment of not working. Gradually, the slaves discovered that the whips hitting them were still vicious, but random killings were basically eliminated.
According to a well-informed slave, he heard the guards comment that the surrounding melee had ended, and there would be no new prisoners of war slaves in the future. The superiors had ordered not to execute slaves at will, because sufficient labor was needed to mine ore.
Liu Ziguang's team was assigned to excavate the ore under the surface. They entered the mine and walked down the stepped mine. The mine is thirty meters deep. There are different operating areas for mining and mineral processing (hand selection).
There are also air holes in the lamp cave. The slaves use iron axes and iron awls to carve out the hard stone walls at the bottom of the cave. They then chisel out the ore and then carry it up manually. The mine is filled with stone powder, and there is also mud seeping from the groundwater, making it dirty.
Darkness and fatigue quickly engulfed the physical strength of the slaves. Every once in a while, a group of people would be changed and they would take turns going down to mine.
Liu Ziguang's group had just come on shift. He climbed up along the wooden scaffolding, took off his wicker protective hat, and greedily breathed in the fresh air outside. Just after taking two deep breaths, the earth suddenly shook.
As if a giant train passed by, the ground shook for a moment. Looking around, the slaves and guards were knocked to the ground, looking panicked. Looking at the entrance to the mine shaft that they had just climbed out of, it was already flat ground. The slaves'
His expression changed from panic to fear, the fear of almost being buried alive.
There was an earthquake.
There are still a hundred slaves in the mine!
The guards were at a loss. These rough men who could only beat people with whips were dumbfounded when faced with a situation they had never experienced before.
"Hurry up and save people!" Liu Ziguang was the first to wake up from the shock.
Earthquakes, landslides, mining disasters.
Although the prisoners of war have become slaves, they still have their families and hope of survival. Everyone is looking forward to the day when they can go home and be reunited. They come from different camps. They used to be life-and-death enemies on the battlefield, but now they are on the battlefield.
Eating in a big pot, fighting over food, and fighting, there is no sense of friendship between people in need.
"It's better to die a hundred times. Maybe we can have more for dinner." Some people think.
"The Wang Laowu who often bullied me was buried alive. It's really an eye-opener for God." Someone else thought.
"It's all flattened, why save a bird?" one person said coldly.
Seeing that everyone was hesitant, Liu Ziguang became anxious. The value of life was obviously more important in his mind. Although he had no feelings for the more than a hundred people underground, and even his opponent Anthony, he just couldn't tolerate hundreds of people.
He was buried alive in front of him, but he didn't help him at all.
"It's not buried properly, there's still hope! Dig quickly!" Liu Ziguang shouted, picked up a shovel and rushed forward. Several slaves who usually followed him saw their boss going up, so they had to pick up tools and baskets.
, rushed over to save the people. When other slaves saw someone taking the lead, they also followed. The Mongolian centurion Zhamu and several Mongolians gathered around looked at the boss's eyes and stood still. Zhamu's little eyes were fixed on Liu Ziguang.
Liu Ziguang, who was digging the mine, looked at his back for a while and then motioned for his men to follow him and help.
Using shovels, digging by hand, and carrying people, they brought up the soil and stones buried in the mine. Everyone hurriedly dug for a while, and the ground began to shake again. The slaves dropped their tools, scattered again, and ran to
Lying down or squatting in the open space, aftershocks came.
"It's an aftershock, don't be afraid, there won't be such a big noise again." Liu Ziguang anxiously comforted everyone, but everyone still didn't dare to come forward, saying they were afraid of being buried alive.
"Fucking cowards, do you have any conscience? If you were buried inside, what would you think? Who doesn't want to go home alive to meet his parents, marry a wife, raise cattle and farm the land! You won't rescue today
They, and no one else will save you tomorrow!" Liu Ziguang became anxious and cursed fiercely.
Many people were moved. Hometown, parents, wife and children were on the hot kang. Everything that was so far away suddenly became so close. If you want to go back, you must survive first! Who doesn’t have parents and who doesn’t have a home? Everyone picked up their tools and stepped forward silently.
Keep digging.
"If you drop five people at a time, too many people will trample the soil!" Liu Ziguang commanded the slaves. The guards were happy that the slaves spontaneously rescued them and did not care about watching from a distance.
Now that everyone had a backbone, Liu Ziguang's command gradually made the slaves' actions gradually become more orderly. They were digging, transporting soil, and strengthening the cave walls. Hundreds of slaves outside the caves quickly excavated the mines buried by the earthquake.
The entrance to the cave slowly returned to its original state.
Liu Ziguang took the lead in digging soil in the hole, and when he shoveled it down, the shovelful of soil was poured into the basket. Then the people above used ropes to pull the soil up, and while he was working, he saw a shovel waving next to him from the corner of his eye.
He was faster and shoveled more soil. When he turned around, he saw that it was Zhamu He who was stocky. Sweat flowed down his two Mongolian pigtails, and his well-developed, almost deformed muscles were covered with dust.
The two looked at each other and said nothing, but secretly they both accelerated their shoveling speed.
Seeing the two bosses using their shovels like hot wheels, the others also speeded up, as if they were having a hole-digging competition.
"These cheap guys, have you had your chicken blood pumped? They usually don't want to put in any effort no matter how hard they pump, but today they did it surprisingly fast." The guard who was ordered to rush to supervise the rescue was surprised by the scene in front of him.
Several aftershocks occurred one after another, and the violent vibrations compacted the soil in the cave. Fortunately, the cave walls were reinforced, otherwise a group of people would have been buried inside. Gradually, some people began to give up hope.
"It's been so long, several hours. Not to mention suffocated to death, I'm scared to death." A slave carrying a basket was so exhausted that he sat down on the ground and didn't want to move anymore.
"Boss Liu, the ventilation hole here is blocked." Another bad news came.
"It's over, all of these people must be dead." Another exhausted guy collapsed to the ground, like a pile of mud. He couldn't move despite Liu Ziguang's kicks.
Frustration spread like a plague, and the exhausted slaves lay on the ground in a mess.
"Brother, it may be hopeless. It has been several hours. We who are alive have tried our best, so we are worthy of the guys inside." Zhamuhe held Liu Ziguang's shoulders and said. This was the first time he talked to Liu Ziguang.
.
"Fart! They are still alive! I must rescue them!" Disappointment mixed with rage impacted Liu Ziguang's emotions. Reason told him that everyone inside was dead, but when he thought of a hundred lives, he still could not accept this reality.
Seeing that everyone no longer obeyed, Liu Ziguang went down to the bottom of the pit alone and dug desperately. He couldn't move the soil by himself, so he dug a narrow passage down first.
Deep in the mine, a lonely figure was dancing with a shovel. People outside slowly formed a circle at the entrance of the mine, silently watching Liu Ziguang's stubborn work alone. Everyone's eyes were very complicated.
Suddenly, Liu Ziguang dropped the shovel, lay down on the ground and listened with one ear, "There is a sound! They are still alive." He shouted in surprise.
Sure enough, there was a rhythmic knocking sound coming from underneath the mine.
The people in the mine hurriedly climbed down to help Liu Ziguang dig. With more people and greater strength, they soon dug out the space where the buried slave was. A hole as big as a bowl appeared in front of everyone, and a dirty hand full of scars appeared.
Reach out from inside and hold Liu Ziguang's hand tightly!
The first person to be rescued was the Roman Anthony. He was still in good physical strength. As soon as he appeared, he gave Liu Ziguang a fierce hug, "Thank God Almighty, I thought we would not survive!"
There was cheering in the mine, and hundreds of slaves threw up their bamboo baskets in excitement, and their deafening screams echoed through the sky.
In order to prevent the sun from blinding their eyes, the slaves were blindfolded with black cloth and were carried out one after another. Some people died, and many were highly dehydrated and comatose, but more people survived, and everyone was carried out while they were awake.
Everyone who came out was so grateful that they burst into tears.
Although the mine was deep, it was a horizontal shaft at the bottom. The hard stone wall protected everyone and did not bury them alive. The ventilation pipe made of iron pipes was still open. Anthony and the black man Duncan were both at the bottom of the pit. They organized workers to dig with their hands.
The tools were digging desperately, hoping to escape, but the oxygen gradually became thinner, and people kept dying and falling into coma. The dark and narrow space could drive people crazy, and they didn't dare to expect how hard the people outside would work.
He came to save himself, so he had to rely on his strong desire to survive and keep digging out.
As time went by, even the most optimistic Anthony lost faith. If Liu Ziguang hadn't happened to be digging in the same direction as them and got through twice, they might not have been able to persist anymore.
Every rescued person who passed by Liu Ziguang cast grateful eyes on him.
After the earthquake, the mine was temporarily suspended. Early the next morning, in the slave dining hall, when Liu Ziguang walked in with a pottery bowl, he was surprised to find a dark crowd of people standing in several rows facing the gate, as if waiting for someone to arrive.
.
Seeing him coming in, all the people automatically lined up in two lines to form a passage leading to the meal window. Everyone tapped the pottery bowls in their hands rhythmically with chopsticks and paid attention to Liu Ziguang.
Liu Ziguang walked along the human wall passage, as if he were reviewing a general with thousands of troops. The crowd uttered a low harmony: "9527 9527
9527", the atmosphere was extremely solemn for a while.