Chapter Thirty-One: Internal Chaos

  "Bring up the wine and meat, arrange for the newcomers below..."

  "No, boil some thick porridge and meat soup. They can't eat too much, they're all injured. Hurry up and treat them, prepare tents for them to rest well..." Zhao Shi suddenly said. These people looked like they hadn't eaten in a long time, drinking wine and eating meat was undoubtedly a stupid idea at this moment. This young general still lacked a lot of field experience.

  "Alright, let's do it as Zhao Shi said...". Li Jinhua immediately changed his tone, causing the nearby Li Shu to frown. The eldest sister was not right, there was still a Du Shantiger standing opposite, where did this look like a military commander, but rather like a messenger, what kind of body is this?

  That big fellow was also not polite, seeing the thick porridge being served, his eyes lit up, and he didn't care that it was still emitting hot air, he slurped down a bowl in a few mouthfuls. Although his tongue and lips were scalded, he immediately grabbed the meat sauce placed beside him and ate it all in an instant, then gulped down a large bowl of wine beside him, leaving everyone around him staring with wide eyes.

  Du Shantiger finally wiped his mouth with a satisfied expression, "Damn it, I haven't eaten anything so delicious in months..."

  Taking advantage of the meat soup coming up, Li Jinhua asked about the situation in Qingyang with great eagerness. At this time, all the generals of the Hu Nong Army had gathered in the account, and even Yu Hou Chen Qian, who was seriously injured, was carried over by someone. The general was quiet and solemn, and the atmosphere was extremely heavy.

  Du Shantiger's words were rough, but his speech was still somewhat logical, however, the first sentence that came out of his mouth made everyone take a cold breath, "Qingyang is finished..."

  As he sipped the meat soup, he began to recount from the beginning, "Starting from last winter, our grain supplies for the garrison in Qingyang had already begun to run out..."

  "How is it possible that the grain and fodder in Qingyang are enough for an army of over a million men to use for half a year, this is something everyone knows, how can they say there isn't any?" Someone immediately asked.

  "Damn it, how would I know? This matter should be asked to Commander Chen Heng, but now even if I want to ask, that son of a bitch is already dead..."

  "What?!" A cry of surprise immediately came from inside the tent. Had a great general who had been holding his ground actually died?!

  Before everyone could catch their breath, Du Shantiger continued: "Our Qingyang Town Army has not had a full meal since the big snow. At first, it was two meals a day, and later it became one meal a day. The cotton clothes sent to the camp were also incomplete, and many soldiers got frostbite. The soldiers of Fan Xiu's border town were even more pitiful, they froze outside for over ten days before squeezing into the temporary barracks... As for food, let's not mention it. If the generals of various armies hadn't steeled themselves to slaughter a batch of war horses, these good men would have all starved to death.

  At first, there were still some grain teams coming over sporadically, but later they all disappeared. They said the roads were impassable and the grain couldn't be transported. That scoundrel Chen Heng stayed in Qingyang City the whole winter without showing his face. The deputy commander was a useless thing, looking for him wouldn't solve anything. He tortured us old men to death for an entire winter...

  The snow that was hard to melt has almost melted, we've eaten all the food we should have eaten, thinking that this time the grain and grass should have arrived, General Zhang sent someone to Qingyang to urge several times, but still didn't see that bastard Chen Heng, the yamen of the prefecture did give us a message, telling us to be patient and wait, the grain and grass will arrive soon.

  Let's just wait, but what they waited for was the Qinyang refugees rioting and surrounding the prefectural government office. Now everyone is worried, if it's not people from Qinyang city, they can't even eat a full meal? Then our grain supplies will be gone too. Another message came over that the refugees opened up the Qinyang granary, but inside was empty! Everyone immediately blew their top, with nearly 100,000 people here, even if we ration and save, there's only enough for a few more days. The Qinyang granary is actually out of grain, how are people supposed to live?

  Hey, at this time, that whatever dog fart commander sent someone over, calling his lackey Chen Sheng to come and cause trouble among the civilians. General Zhang and the others conferred with each other, the soldiers below were so hungry their eyes turned green, they couldn't hold back any longer. These were all men who had shed blood on the battlefield, once they went crazy no one could control them, especially those from the border towns, they were so hungry they almost ate human flesh. If it weren't for General Zhang and the others having prestige in the army, the troops might have dispersed. The several generals conferred with each other, gritted their teeth, and immediately took Chen Sheng into custody just as he was about to set out.

  Send a few of us with troops into Qingyang, when we arrived in Qingyang, it had already become chaotic.

  We would naturally have no qualms about killing Western Xia dogs, but who are these people in front of us? They're all honest and simple commoners; how can we bring ourselves to do it?

  It wasn't until later that we realized our mistake. Those common people had gone mad, and the governor Li Shanfu was skinned alive and hung from a tree. The transport official Cao Kun escaped without a trace. Liu Dabian'er, who had followed me for many years, was a man who wouldn't bat an eye even if his head were to be chopped off, but he was bitten to death by someone, crying and begging me to save him... As he spoke, this iron-like man's voice became hoarse, and he slightly licked his dry, cracked lips.

  Regardless of the ugly faces of the people around him, he continued to speak: "You didn't see the situation back then. Everyone was killing each other crazily. Some had their swords broken at the hilt. We were the first to enter the city and we killed for a whole day. I don't know how many people died, but it must have been around 8,000 or so. It wasn't until the main army entered the city that they finally controlled the situation."

  Haha, we found Commander Zhang in the secret chamber of the Commander's Mansion. He still wanted us to listen to his orders, but he was beaten by my brothers first. If General Zhang hadn't said that he wanted him alive, we would have torn him apart...

  Later, General Zhang and that son of a bitch said something, when they came out, Chen Heng's head had already been cut off. Well, it's always necessary to have a head to calm the military spirit, we naturally didn't say anything...

  But later, several generals made a fuss again. General Zhang didn't know what he said, and the other generals actually tied up General Zhang. Our Xianfeng army had fewer people and was surrounded by the other generals, who told us to put down our weapons and listen to their disposal. We couldn't do that, but they didn't dare to force us too much either. So it ended in a stalemate. However, we were out of food, and the grain and fodder they got from those wealthy households were all divided among themselves, leaving none for our Xianfeng army. Our men were so angry that they wanted to fight them... But later, the Western Xia people came, and I guess they were afraid we would make trouble, so they gave us some grain and fodder.

  Later, several of General Zhang's confidants and I discussed it together. General Zhang treated us kindly and was the mainstay of our group. We decided that we still had to find him for future actions, so we rescued General Zhang overnight. As soon as General Zhang returned, he didn't say anything to us but decided to leave the city immediately. Everyone looked up to General Zhang's horse head, and his orders were naturally obeyed.

  General Li of the Fierce Blade Army and our General Zhang had some connections, so he gave us some grain and fodder. We left Qingyang City from the east gate where he was stationed. At that time, Qingyang City was already like hell, I won't go into details, afraid you'll have nightmares...

  After we left the city, we still encountered some Western Xia people. Naturally, there were no soldiers coming out of the city to support us. Our 8,000 brothers weren't afraid even if they didn't have enough food and weapons. These Western Xia people wouldn't be enough for us to kill if our supplies were sufficient and our equipment was complete. But my brothers had been starving all winter, how could they have any strength? We fought a fierce battle with the Western Xia people, over 2,000 of my brothers died, but we didn't let them get away easily. In the end, we managed to drive them back.

  We headed southeast, preparing to return to Pingliang, but the Western Xia people were determined to wear us down. We fought small battles every few miles and large ones every ten miles. Some brothers fell to the ground as they walked, and when we looked again, they had stopped breathing. It was a tragedy. From Qingyang onwards, almost every step of the way was marked by the bodies of our fallen Xianfeng Army brothers. In the end, we were scattered by the Western Xia dogs. I led several hundred brothers who managed to escape quickly, and we didn't dare stop along the way. Those who were wounded and couldn't walk, we... took care of them with a knife, so they wouldn't become prisoners of the Western Xia dogs. You saw it too - this is all that's left of us. I'm lucky to be alive, but so many Xianfeng Army brothers...

  Never mind all that, as long as our vanguard army still has one person left, this vendetta will be avenged sooner or later. I don't know how General Zhang is doing now, but earlier I heard from General Zhang that Chen Heng, that son of a bitch, colluded with the Qingyang Prefectural Governor and that dog's mother's grain transport officer to embezzle all our military rations. They even managed to smuggle out a small portion of the military equipment stored in Qingyang. Who did they sell it to? Where did the money go? How dare they have such big guts? General Zhang didn't say, and we naturally can't guess... That's how things are...

  "Right, some time ago we encountered some Western Xia dogs, and they were all beheaded by the brothers. At first, I thought the retreat route was blocked by the Western Xia dogs, but after killing a few, I felt that something was off. These guys probably had their guts scared out of them, seeing us wasn't turning back to run, or kneeling down to surrender... could it be you guys..."