Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 24 They Have Lived Before
At three poles in the sun, in Dongcheng County of Xiapi, a convoy is slowly heading south to Huainan.

Zhuge's relocation team was much faster than the villagers of Huangmenting.

Zhuge Xuan left Langya with his family in April, and was delayed for a while in Xuzhou in early May because Cao Cao surrounded Shan County.

After Cao Cao's retreat, Tao Qian heard that a small army was passing by in the territory. After inquiring, he learned that it was the Zhuge clan of Langya, so he invited him to Shan County for a talk.

This situation was quite normal. Later, Zhuge Xuan was stopped by Yuan Shu on his way back to Liu Biao. Yuan Shu recommended him as the prefect of Yuzhang because the bureaucratic family like them would be valued by the princes because of their reputation.

So Zhuge Xuan stayed with Tao Qian for a few days. It was not until the middle of May that he resigned from Tao Qian, left the East China Sea, and entered the territory of Xiapi.

People at that time had little knowledge of the plague, and they didn't know that the plague was caused by bacteria decomposing corpses, so Zhuge Xuan didn't want to avoid Xiapi country.

From Xiapi to Huainan is the shortest and fastest distance, so putting aside the problem of plague, it is indeed the best route to take.

More important is safety.

Tens of thousands of square kilometers are desolate and uninhabited, with bones exposed in the wild, and no rooster crows for thousands of miles.

Unless hundreds of thousands of people in Xiapi turn into ghosts and Xiapi becomes a ghost town, there is really no security problem.

However..

However, Zhuge Xuan would never have imagined that just because he chose the closest and safest road to Huainan, it would affect the later life of Prime Minister Zhuge.

At the same time, it also left a legendary deed for Ji Han, the last orthodox descendant of Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty.

It was May [-]th, and the convoy officially entered Xiapi. It was okay when they passed through Liangcheng and Siwu counties. At that time, Cao Cao asked Cao Hong to attack these two counties, but they did not forcefully attack them, so there were not many casualties.

It's just that Cao Cao slaughtered Xiapi, and after learning about the situation, the people in these two counties moved to the north of Donghai Kingdom and other places, which made the popularity here much less.

But after all, there are still some people.

It was not until May [-]th, entering Xiaxiang County, that Zhuge Xuan realized that something was wrong.

He had also heard that there were many killings where Cao Cao's army passed, but after all, he only heard about it and never saw the real situation.

After passing Siwu County, Xiaxiang County is close to Surabaya, tens of miles away, and you can smell the stench.

There are many villages on the surrounding plains, but at this time the villages have long been depopulated, the houses are dilapidated, the fields are barren and overgrown with weeds, and the original pavilions have also become ruins.

Situations like this were common when Zhuge Xuan first entered Xiapi, or not only in Xiapi, but now there are such phenomena in all parts of the Han Dynasty.

For example, in Qingzhou, due to natural disasters and man-made disasters, millions of Qingzhou yellow scarves left Shandong. Some went to Jizhou and were captured by Gongsun Zan. Some went to Yanzhou and became captives of Cao Cao. .

But after passing through these villages, the closer we got to Surabaya, the worse the situation became.Soon they saw the first corpse, lying on the side of the road. After nearly a month, the corpse had already decomposed.

Maggots and flies are lingering, and it may have been more than 20 days when it looks dead. Due to the sweltering heat in summer, it presents a gigantic and liquefied appearance, and the yellow corpse water is flowing, which is disgusting.

The convoy passed by the side of the road slowly, Zhuge Liang frowned slightly, gently covered his younger brother Zhuge Jun's eyes, and whispered: "Don't look."

"But I can smell it, it stinks."

Zhuge Jun is only ten years old this year, and he glanced at it from a distance before, although he was blindfolded, the scene was unforgettable for him.

Zhuge Liang said softly: "Then don't think about it, don't try to smell it, just wait for the wind to blow."

"Well, I see, brother."

Zhuge Jun replied.

They thought it was nothing to have a corpse on the side of the road. After all, Xiapi had just fought a war not long ago. Cao Cao attacked Xiapi in early May, and now it has only been 20 days.

But they didn't know what hell on earth was until the carriage traveled less than a hundred meters.

The entire village was dead. In the fields, vegetable fields, doorways, streams, mulberry forests, and ponds, there were corpses and dark reddish brown bloodstains everywhere.

Some of them had their heads chopped off, some had their hearts pierced, and some were shot to death with arrows. The whole village was like a slaughterhouse.

Even the old and the weak, women and children could not escape the catastrophe, and they were the ones who died the most.

Zhuge Liang saw with his own eyes a dead body lying at the door of a house near the road at the east end of the village.

It was a man with a hoe in his hand, who had been pierced through the heart by Cao Jun. He was lying erect outside the fence made of bamboo at the gate, and there was another wreckage inside the gate.

It is a woman, her posture is lying on the ground, one arm is still stretched out to the door, it seems that she is praying to Cao Jun not to kill her husband.

On the right side of the house, there is an old man holding a young child, and an old woman and three children are lying beside him.

Zhuge Liang quickly sketched a picture in his mind.

Cao Jun broke into the village, burned, killed and looted everywhere. The man heard the movement outside and went out with a hoe, just in time to meet Cao Jun oncoming.

After the man was stabbed to death by Cao Jun's soldiers, his wife witnessed all this at the door. She staggered towards the man's body while calling for the elderly at home to take their children to escape through the side door.

As a result, the woman was killed by the cruel Cao Jun while she was still on the road. The posture of the corpse was lying down facing the gate of the outer courtyard, with her arms stretched out, which can probably prove this point.

As soon as the old man came out of the side door with the child, he encountered soldiers who rushed in. The two old men, the three children ranging from six to seven years old to their teens, and the two or three-year-old child in the arms of the old man were all attacked. slaughter.

Their corpses were already liquefied, and a stench was coming out of their nostrils. The dense flies were as dense and frightening as the locusts flying all over the sky during the locust plague.

Zhuge Liang himself closed his eyes and couldn't bear to look again.

But he thought that slaughtering villages was just the scariest thing in the world, but when he got closer to Surabaya, he realized that the slaughtered villages he passed along the way were just appetizers.

Xiaxiang County is located at the junction of Suishui and Sishui. Zhuge Xuan walked this way because there is a ferry to cross the river.Then go south to Tongguo, Xuxian, Huailing, and Dongcheng. There are the most counties on this road, the road is the smoothest, and it is also the fastest direction to Huainan.

But Zhuge Xuan did not expect that it was precisely because there were the most county towns, townships, and villages along this route, and the roads were the best, that the massacres suffered the most serious.

In the morning they passed by Xiaxiang County.

Looking at the past at a glance, what I saw was devastated, the city was dilapidated, a ruined wall and a sea of ​​corpses and blood.

The entire city was devoid of human habitation, the roads were strewn with corpses, and the city walls were black. Because a fire broke out in the city, the entire city was burned down. Only the rammed earth walls remained, witnessing this period of history.

Zhuge Liang raised his head, and the carriage slowly passed by outside the city. Hundreds of corpses were still hanging on the city wall. The summer wind blew and swayed, bringing countless stench, like a jungle of corpses.

In the afternoon, they finally came to the Sishui River.

Wherever they passed along the way, they had seen all kinds of corpse pits, bloody mulberry forests, and corpse ponds, but it was not until they came to the Sishui River that they finally understood what real terror was.

Sishui is not a small river. It was called one of the four dunes and eight streams in the Han Dynasty. Although it is not as good as the Yellow River, Yangtze River, Huaihe River, and Jishui, it is also a large river second only to the four major rivers, especially in the downstream area that is about to flow into the Huaihe River. , the river width is very large.

On the surface of the river, which is more than 100 feet wide, there are countless corpses floating densely, and you can't see the end at a glance.It was summer, and corpses were piled up on the riverbank, and the stench could be smelled miles away.

Their corpses were floating down the river, but looking at the upper reaches of the river, endless corpses were slowly floating down.Looking at the lower reaches of the river, there are still countless corpses in sight.

At first glance, the river does not appear to be flowing.The corpses blocked the entire river, the flies covered the sky and the sun, and the whole world was blood red.

Even hell is more like the world than here.

"vomit!"

The accompanying guards couldn't bear it any longer and vomited out the overnight meal one by one.

In fact, they vomited more than once along the way.

The soldiers Liu Biao sent to protect Zhuge Xuan were also elite soldiers, protecting Zhuge Xuan from Jingzhou to Chang'an, not without fighting bandits and bandits along the way, killing enemies on the battlefield without blinking an eye.

But in the face of such a great terror, everyone is as vulnerable as a child, or even worse than a child.

Because at least Zhuge Liang didn't spit it out.

only.

It's just that what makes people uncomfortable is not physical, but seeing the countless corpses floating densely on the surface of the river...

Zhuge Liang looked blankly at all this.

A trace of fear first flashed in his eyes, then sadness, then pity, and finally everything turned into an indescribable mourning.

They used to be real people.

They are not animals in the mountains and forests.

Not livestock or wild animals.

They, like you and me, can laugh, be sad, be happy, and be sad.

How could this happen?

Why are they like this, like lambs being slaughtered...

The body was thrown into the river.

Let their bodies rot, stink, dissolve, and finally disappear into this world without a sound.

Not even a name was left.

Zhuge Liang's eyes were already full of sadness, he closed his eyes and didn't want to look any more, a tear was left in the corner of his eyes.

He didn't understand.

Why did Cao Cao want to avenge his father, instead of going to Tao Qian, but to vent his anger on these common people?

He couldn't figure it out, did Cao Cao have a father, and these innocent people didn't?

Use your grief alone in exchange for the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Is this the so-called filial piety?
at this moment.

Zhuge Liang's mood can no longer be described in words.

perhaps.

In this world, there are certain things that must be done, and certain hatreds that must be undone.

But who can tell him what crimes these innocent people have committed?

Why are these people who are struggling for food and clothing all day long have to be treated like this?
Is it the world's fault?

Or is it Cao Cao's fault?

Maybe there are.

Looking at this terrifying scene in his heart, the young Zhuge Liang couldn't return to his senses for a long time.

(End of this chapter)