Since November 13, more and more refugees have been flocking to Xianyang, putting pressure on Xianyang.
As of the 18th, Xianyang had hosted more than 100,000 refugees. These people were placed by Xianyang officials under temporary cloth sheds in the city and survived on rice porridge donated by Xianyang every day.
At noon on the 18th, Xianyang's Zhongqing "Xiang Rong" once again led people to inspect the refugee shacks in the city. When he saw that the refugees generally had dull eyes and haggard faces, he sighed secretly.
Later, Xiang Rong inspected the porridge shop where he was giving out porridge. When he saw that the rice porridge was as thin as rice water, he was furious and immediately summoned the food alms officer to question him.
Because Xiang Rong feels that the rice porridge given out in recent days has become thinner and thinner.
The almsgiver did not dare to hide it, so he revealed the truth.
It turns out that because of these 100,000 refugees, the grain warehouses in Xianyang City are depleting food at a rapid rate. If they continue to be distributed as they were in the past few days, it is likely that they will not survive for a month. By then, not only these refugees, but also the princes and nobles of Xianyang will be hungry.
die.
Therefore, Zhi Su Neishi secretly ordered to reduce the amount of relief for refugees. It was cut by half twice in a row in the past few days, so that the rice porridge cooked today could not even stand up with chopsticks.
After hearing this, Xiang Rong remained silent.
In fact, he also understood the embarrassment of the city's food shortage, so it was hard to blame anyone. In the end, he just asked that the rice porridge given to the refugees must be held upright with chopsticks, and he must drink only one bowl of slightly sticky rice every day in the winter approaching the twelfth lunar month.
Thick porridge will starve to death - in fact, refugees have died of starvation and freezing in Xianyang City.
After inspecting the situation of the refugees, Xiang Rong came to the Qin Palace and prepared to report the matter to the King of Qin.
At this time, in the palace of the King of Qin, Zhisu Neishi was leading several guests to calculate the daily food consumption of Xianyang in front of the King of Qin and Zuo Shu Chang Wei Mu.
Xiang Chong listened for a while and then realized that the food situation in Xianyang City was more urgent than expected.
After quietly listening to the report of his ministers, King Qin was silent for a moment and ordered that the daily food consumption in the palace be halved. In addition, he also issued a "prohibition on alcohol".
This prohibition on alcohol contains two points. First, it temporarily closes the brewing workshops in Xianyang City and no longer allows food to be used for brewing. Second, it prohibits the nobles in the city from drinking.
As the saying goes, there is no feast without alcohol. Drinking alcohol is prohibited, and unnecessary food consumption will definitely be reduced.
But everyone understands that this is just a temporary solution rather than a permanent solution.
Because no matter how much we save, Xianyang's daily food consumption is still huge. No matter how much we save, there will eventually be a time when we run out of food.
The most fundamental thing is to repel the Wei army and defeat Wei Gongzi Run.
Seeing that Zhisu's officials were leading the guests to leave, Xiang Rong then came forward and bowed to the King of Qin.
"Xiang Qing, how is the situation of the refugees in the city?" King Qin asked back.
"It's not optimistic." Xiang Rong shook his head, and with a solemn expression told the King of Qin exactly what he had seen. He also pointed out implicitly in his words that the refugees who had been admitted to the city were gradually suffering from hunger.
Death, people who freeze to death.
There is nothing that can be done about it. Although the refugees that Xianyang accommodates allow those refugees to hide in the city, the problem is that the houses in the city are not enough to accommodate such a number of refugees, so that the vast majority of refugees just sleep in the open.
In a cloth shed on the street.
The severe cold of winter is approaching in December, and it is so cold at night. Even if the refugees have some cold things, they cannot stop the invasion of the severe cold.
Just when the King of Qin returned his silence, he reported to Rong something that seemed very serious to him: "Your Majesty, there have been several conflicts between common people in the city in the past two days. As far as I know, several refugees attempted to The firewood shed of a house was demolished to light a fire, which led to a conflict with the male head of the household. The male head of the household was beaten to injury that day... In addition, there were cases of bullying among the refugees because there was not much porridge given out every day. , causing the gangsters in the center to rob other people's food. Among them was a woman and her four children..."
Hearing the "woman with four sons" mentioned by Xiang Rong, King Qin's expression turned very bad, because the incident was so big that even he had heard about it.
This happened the day before yesterday. Because the relief food provided by Xianyang was not enough to fill their stomachs, some of the refugees had evil intentions and robbed the woman of a bag of rice she had brought with her when she left Fenghao.
When the woman was fighting with the thugs, her eldest son helped his mother, but was injured by the thugs.
After that, when the bag of rice was taken away, the woman held her injured son and cried loudly, saying, "Not even the Wei people took away the food rations from my mother and son." This made a group of refugee boys nearby feel very angry and thought. Helping the woman regain the bag of rice, the first conflict between refugees broke out in Xianyang City. The three thugs who robbed the woman of rice were beaten to death on the spot by the righteous refugees.
Although this kind of thing has always happened among refugees, the impact this time was extremely bad, because when the woman cried in public, she said, "Not even the Wei people took away my mother and child's food rations."
At that time, the guards in Xianyang were preparing to arrest the woman for disturbing the people's sentiments, but many refugees around the woman stood up to speak for her. They all said that the Wei army under Fenghao had personally seen the woman hiding the rice bag. However, after the woman cried out and begged, the Wei people let her go and did not rob her.
However, when they arrived in Xianyang, the bag of rice, which even the Wei people did not snatch, was almost snatched away by compatriots. This made the atmosphere among the refugees in Xianyang suddenly become very bad.
When this incident reached King Qin's ears, King Qin didn't know what to do: the murderer had been killed on the spot, and the woman who "disturbed the people's hearts" couldn't really be punished, right?
In the end, King Qin Hui defined this incident as "Wei Gongzi Run's treacherous plan", and his hatred for Wei Gongzi Run increased even more.
In fact, he knew very well what was going on - a country or a nation would inevitably have some bad apples.
At this time, with the sound of hurried footsteps, a Xianyang official hurried into the hall. After saluting, King Qin reported back: "Your Majesty, I just learned the news that three days ago, Wei general Sima An attacked Meiyang..."
After hearing this, King Qin's expression changed slightly and he interrupted eagerly: "Meiyang has been captured?"
"Uh, no." The official shook his head and said, "Because Meiyang has learned about the Wei army's entry in advance, Wei General Sima An's attack failed..."
After hearing this, King Qin breathed a sigh of relief.
After all, Meiyang is also a large city with thousands of households. If it is captured by Wei general Sima An in a sneak attack, and Sima An copies Wei Gongzi Run's strategy and drives the Qin people in the city to Xianyang, then Xianyang's situation in a few days will be worse than it is today. More severe.
But as soon as he breathed a sigh of relief, King Qin saw the official looking at him secretly, hesitating to speak, and he suddenly had a bad feeling in his heart, so he asked in a deep voice: "What else is there?"
The official hesitated for a moment and then said cautiously: "Your Majesty, although Wei general Sima An failed to attack Meiyang, he... but he attacked a village outside the city. According to reports from Meiyang, According to the news, Sima An expelled the residents of those villages and set fire to the villages..."
King Qin's eyes widened when he heard this, and after a while he hammered the table in front of him bitterly.
Yes, a county town like Meiyang could rely on its city walls to keep the Wei army out of the city. However, the scattered villages had little resistance to the Wei army's attack.
Fortunately, since they are refugees from Meiyang, they may not come to Xianyang. But the problem is that as long as Meiyang takes in refugees, food consumption will inevitably become a headache for Meiyang County.
It has to be said that on the one hand, the Wei army obtained food from the Qin people, and on the other hand, it passed the burden of the Qin people who lost food to Xianyang. Meiyang and other Qin cities were indeed a good deal.
"Asshole!"
King Qin slapped the table and cursed angrily. He didn't know whether he was scolding Wei General Sima An or Wei Gongzi Run.
At this time, when the official saw that King Qin Hui was furious, he shrank his neck, and his voice was inevitably a little lower when he reported the next thing: "In addition, Wei General Sima An also asked people to block the entrance with debris. The irrigation canals in Meiyang area have been destroyed, and several forests have been lost..."
King Qin was so angry that he didn't know if he heard this sentence, but after hearing this sentence, Wei Yang showed a look of shock on his face.
He frowned and asked urgently: "The Wei army is destroying our farmland facilities in Da Qin?"
"Yes." The official nodded and said.
"It's broken, it's broken... I'll tell you why Wei Gongzi Run put up a defensive posture in Fenghao. That's it... that's it..."
At this moment, Wei Yang suddenly realized.
Since Fenghao, where Wei Gongzi Run is currently garrisoned, is only more than forty miles away from Xianyang, Xianyang will naturally send people to monitor Fenghao's every move day and night.
But what surprised Xianyang was that among the Wei army, only "Wei General Sima An" took the initiative to attack, while Wei Gongzi Run lived in Fenghao without any movement.
At first, Wei Yang was a little puzzled, but now he understood that Wei Gongzi Run clearly wanted to "wait for work" and force Xianyang to send troops to attack Fenghao - after all, in this freezing weather, attacking a city is obviously better than defending it. The city suffered a lot.
As for how to force him to send troops to Xianyang to attack Fenghao, Wei Yang had some clues from the actions of Wei general Sima An, because the Wei army was destroying Qin's farmland facilities. If the Wei army was allowed to continue, then once the domestic farmland facilities were destroyed by the Wei army If most of them are destroyed, Qin may not be able to catch up with spring planting next year.
If spring planting is delayed, Qin, which is currently rapidly depleting its national grain reserves, is likely to starve to death for a large number of people.
Thinking of this, Wei Yang decided to persuade King Qin to return.
After all, for now, Wei Gongzi Run has not yet gained an absolute advantage. At this time, he and his opponent will make peace and the two sides will reach a draw. The "military meritocracy" may not necessarily collapse, but if it is delayed any longer, the situation will get worse and worse.
As for the way out for Qin after the peace between Qin and Wei, Wei Yang didn't care, because the existence of Wei only blocked Qin's goal of setting foot in the Central Plains, but in fact, Qin could still attack Hetao , expanded to Bashu.
However, the question is, will King Qin agree to bow to Wei Gongzi Run?
From the day when Wei Gongzi Run led his troops to Xianyang City, it can be seen that King Qin will never compromise on this.
"...That means we can only attack Fenghao by force?"