In the late May of the thirty-fourth year of the First Emperor of Qin, in the Xiou area where Tu Sui reported that "it will be pacified within the year", downstream from the water, there was the Qin army garrison named "Cangwu". On the camp watchtower, soldiers
But he was looking down at the rainy weather with a downcast look.
"Why doesn't the rain stop?"
A 500-year-old master from Guanzhong felt that his body was almost moldy, so he asked his subordinates: "Chen Ying, is this true in the south?"
When asked by Lord Five Hundred, Centurion Chen Ying quickly responded: "Sir, the climate in Lingnan is very different from that in Huainan. In my hometown of Donghai County, although it rains in May and June, it only lasts for seven or eight days at most.
.But Lingnan is more humid and hot than Jianghuai, and it has been raining intermittently for a month with no intention of letting up."
The Lord of Five Hundred shook his head and sighed: "In the past, there were seven countries, six in the north, and Chu in the south. I always thought that the south was small, but only after I arrived did I realize that it is as big as the north!"
“Seeing is worse than hearing.”
Chen Ying responded with a smile, yes. Only when he was forcibly recruited into the army and came to Lingnan to guard did he know that the legend about his hometown's disapproval of the South was actually true...
He lives in Dongyang County, Haijun County, and is a typical Dongchu person. Ten years ago, Wang Jian destroyed Chu and his army surrounded Shouchun. Chen Ying and the children in the county were transferred to rescue. Unexpectedly, they were picked up by a man named "Black" on the way.
Qin officials intercepted them and captured them all, and then forced Chen Ying, the oldest and most loyal of the group, to lead the way for the Qin army.
Soon after, Shouchun was conquered, Chu State was destroyed, and Dongyang became a county under the rule of Donghai County of Qin State. After Chen Ying returned to Dongyang in confusion, he was often criticized by the villagers because of his shameful experience of assisting the Qin army. However,
It was a blessing in disguise that I became a minor official in the county and got an errand.
Ten years later, Chen Ying is already in his forties. Although the labor and taxes are heavy and the world is not peaceful, it has nothing to do with Chen Ying. He works honestly and earns a salary. He only occasionally heard about the man who once controlled him.
"Heifu" had a prosperous official career, performed meritorious service one after another, defeated the Xiongnu, put down the rebellion, and was only one step away from becoming a marquis...
Chen Ying regarded this incident as an anecdote and told his mother when he went home. The wise old woman who once told him to cherish his life and not to sacrifice his life for the inevitable destruction of Chu State stopped his sewing and asked Chen Ying to take leave and go to Jiaodong.
Take a trip and visit this old friend.
But Chen Ying was not willing to be a licking dog. He said: "Mother, is there any reason to flatter people when they hear they are rich? How is that different from a fly chasing a smelly person? Besides, he may not remember me and run all the way away.
, wouldn’t it be embarrassing if you said you don’t know who Chen Ying is?”
"This is not to cater to wealth, but to plan for the future."
Although Chen's mother was illiterate, she also had unusual insights. She analyzed to Chen Ying that although she did not leave home, she heard that there were rebellions in the distance. At present, in Dongyang County, the conflict between the government and the light knights is intensifying.
A large number of people began to sneak into the mountains and forests, just to escape the harsh government. The government also arrested and killed each of these people without mercy.
She always felt that if things continued like this, the world would be in chaos sooner or later. After hearing that there was peace in Jiaodong, if Chen Ying could go to Jiaodong to meet the black husband, he might find a way to stay as a retainer and take his family over. Even if he couldn't, if something happened in the future,
He can also use his reputation to scare people.
Chen Ying still didn't listen to his mother in the end, but two months later, he regretted it!
…
In the thirty-third year of Qin Shihuang's reign, he decided to march south. The main targets of the conscription were people from the Three Chu states. Chen Ying of Dongyang County was also promoted as an official to escort soldiers to the front line.
Chen Ying regrets it. If he had listened to his mother and gone to Jiaodong, wouldn't he have been able to avoid this disaster?
But now, with the knife on the necks of the whole family, he could only bite the bullet and accept the order.
Hearing that they were going to Lingnan, the people in Dongyang County were all afraid of being drafted, so they fled with their families that night. After being captured by the government, the whole family became prisoners, and the men directly wore shackles and continued on the road!
When bidding them farewell, the soldiers' families all wore sackcloth and mourning, and walked to the gate of the city, mourning endlessly...
What they sang was a popular funeral song in the Chu region, "Calling the Souls"
"The soul is back! The south cannot stop.
Carved with black teeth, human flesh was obtained as a sacrifice, and the bones were used as mounds..."
From the perspective of the Central Plains, the Chu people have already settled in the southern part of the country, but in the hearts of these typical southerners, Lingnan is also an extremely scary region.
They heard that the Yue people there had carved patterns on their foreheads and had black teeth. They liked to behead people, use human flesh as sacrifices to evil gods, and grind human bones and marrow into pulp to feed their children...
In addition to the barbarians, there are countless monsters in the south, where poisonous snakes are as dense as grass, big scavenging foxes are everywhere, and male adders have nine heads, but they come and go very quickly, and they like to eat the hearts and livers of people the most.
In such a terrible place, even if you die, your soul cannot go there, let alone a living person. Based on these impressions, Dongyang people believe that those who go to Lingnan will have a narrow escape from death!
With this kind of fear of death, they continued to flee along the way. The Chu people would rather run into the rivers and become bandits than go to the south to die. Chen Ying and his county recruited a thousand people, and when they arrived at Zhucheng, Hengshan County, only
Next seven or eight hundred...
The commander, the five hundred masters, were beheaded by the implicated people, but it was difficult to kill them any further, so a Qin official was sent to take charge of them. During the march, he was caught between two Guanzhong soldiers, and the flight stopped.
At this time, Chen Ying had another idea. He very much hoped that his army would be sent to Yuzhang. It was defeated by Heifu, and his old troops were spread all over the country. Chen Ying remembered that there was a man named Ji Ying back then.
, I like to chat with myself when I have nothing to do. You are also an official now, right? If you can meet him, you may be able to ask him for help.
But what made Chen Ying despair was that the army marched directly to Changsha County and served as auxiliary troops to follow Tu Sui south to Xiou...
It took more than three months of walking to reach Southern Chu from Dong Chu, which showed the vastness of the Chu land. During this period, the food and accent became quite familiar, which could slightly calm the frightened hearts of the Chu soldiers.
When I first arrived in Changsha County, it was already autumn and winter, and there was no fighting. I was only assigned to dig a river channel. Frontline Supervisor Shi Lu decided to build a canal here to solve the problem of logistical supply.
The canal is not long, only dozens of miles long, but the heavy construction period still exhausted many people. When the waterway was completed and Qin officials happily reported to Qin Shihuang the good news of the successful navigation of the first grain ship in Lingqu Canal, no one
Mention, there are thousands of graves on both sides of the canal, and the dead are all Chu people...
After spending half a year opening up the Ling Canal, the soldiers and civilians did not have much rest. What followed was an unprecedented expedition!
A hundred years ago, Wu Qi developed Yangyue but stopped at the Five Ridges. The mysterious and unknown land of Lingnan was rarely set foot in by Central Plains people...
However, following Qin Shihuang's order, the 80,000-strong army crossed over the mountains with overlapping mountains and forests as vast as the sea, and officially entered the land of Baiyue.
At the beginning, the war went smoothly beyond imagination. Everywhere the Qin army went, there were frequent reports of success. The people of Xiou seemed to be afraid and abandoned their settlements, but they also burned everything they could not take away: houses, livestock,
What was left to the Qin army in the rice fields was ashes and polluted water sources.
According to the thinking of the Central Plains, gaining land is victory. The Qin army happily took over all the Pingba areas abandoned by the Yue people and re-established camps.
Tu Sui did not even listen to dissuasion and separated his 80,000 troops to guard the key roads. However, his base in Guilin fell into emptiness...
It is said that Tu Sui also committed various evil deeds in Guilin, such as destroying the Ou people's sacred sacrificial sites and throwing cliff coffins from the mountains that only tribal leaders could enjoy when they were old, leaving their bones scattered all over the ground.
Tu Sui has undoubtedly become the most hated person in Ou people.
After spring, food was in short supply, and the Xiou people who wanted to return to Pingba to farm finally couldn't hold back. They rushed out of the mountains and forests like a tide and launched an attack on Guilin. However, they fell into Tu Sui's plan. This was a plan to lure the enemy.
An ambush in a urn, and the tempting bait is Tu Sui himself!
During the bloody battle in Guilin, the Qin army passed through the Ling Canal and the reinforcements that quickly arrived at the front line surrounded the Ou people and dispersed them. However, the Ou people still found a way out by relying on their familiarity with the terrain. Jun Changyi asked Song to cut off the rear in person, but was defeated by the Qin army's crossbow machine.
Shoot.
After Yixu Song was shot and killed, most of the Ou people retreated into the mountains and forests again, and many Ou people, led by the weak "Du Lao", surrendered to the Qin army.
The area controlled by the Qin people further expanded and their troops were completely dispersed. Chen Ying and others were sent to station at Cangwu downstream of Li Shui, which was the main route to South Vietnam. I heard that there were two armies of tens of thousands of people.
They also drove the South Vietnamese who had the bad habit of cannibalism into the deep mountains and forests, and reached the shores of the South China Sea.
Seeing that the situation was excellent, General Tu Sui announced with satisfaction: "Xiou has been decided!"
He decided to end this war within the thirty-fourth year of Qin Shihuang!
…
Chen Ying heard these things from Lord Five Hundred.
In person, Chen Ying didn't express anything, he just said that he really hoped to finish the fight and go home soon.
"go home?"
But Lord Five Hundred just smiled, his meaning unclear, which gave Chen Ying a bad feeling.
After returning to the camp, I squatted in the damp wooden hut, eating the uncooked rice I had chewed for several days because I couldn't find dry firewood. I thought about the smile of Lord Five Hundred and felt depressed.
"Even if the war is over, I'm afraid we won't be able to return home easily."
Chen Ying was not yet sure about this matter and did not dare to talk nonsense. When meal time came, the soldiers gathered around to eat one after another. No one spoke during the period and the atmosphere was low. In this humid and hot weather, they did not even have the energy to chat.
Already.
After moving south, the Qin army had been reorganized several times. Chen Ying had only 70 of his 100 men left.
Of the thirty people who died, ten of them were on guard duty. They were attacked by Ouyue during patrol and were shot by their bamboo arrows. The arrows were either poisonous or sticky with feces. Most of the victims died, and their deaths were miserable.
, skin ulceration, eyes protruding.
Another twenty people fell on the road or in the camp because they could not adapt to the hot weather in Lingnan after summer, or they were killed by poisonous insects, snakes and ants that could be seen everywhere...
Among the seventy people who survived, a dozen were very sick. If they couldn't eat hot food or drink boiled water, they would collapse at some point.
As far as Chen Ying knew, there were three thousand troops stationed in Cangwu, and each camp was in a similar situation. The attrition continued, and Qin only had half of it with combat effectiveness!
The harassment from the forest has become more and more frequent. It seems that the death of the leader has not weakened the determination of the Ouyue people to resist to the end. Faced with this kind of attack, the Qin army has no good way except to close the camp and defend.
, they are not like victors, but like remnants of soldiers trapped in an isolated city.
"Xi'ou has been decided? We are not fighting the same battle as General Tu!"
Listening to the sighs of the villagers, Chen Ying chewed the rice with difficulty, raised his head, and looked at the continuous rain outside, with some despair in his eyes.
In his opinion, this war will never end within this year. It will be like this hot and humid rain, which will last forever!