Dominate the Country

Yunyang's march is inseparable from rivers. Douhe River is the largest tributary in the Yunyang section of the Han River. This river originates from the Daba Mountains at the junction of Hubei and Sichuan, connecting the south end and north end of Yunyang Prefecture, covering the whole country. 70% of the land of Yunyang Mansion. Chen Ming led his troops from Yunyang Fucheng to Zhushan and Zhuxi in the south, walking along the Dou River.

Chen Ming did not send any troops to attack Yunxi County. His first goal after conquering Yunyang Fucheng was Zhushan. The army set off from Yunyang Fucheng and went directly to Zhushan. Only one division was sent to the west of Yunxi. The large army was vast, with five to six thousand men and horses, among which there were only a few thousand real veterans of the Chen Army. The rest were all recruited by him in Yun County.

The nature of these people is no different from the team of Chen Baoguang and others. As long as they are given food, let alone cut off their pigtails and become rebels, they just curse Qianlong by name in broad daylight and curse the Manchu royal family for generations. , there is no problem at all.

Chen Ming just selected some of them who were in good health, holding weapons left by the Qing soldiers, or a very simple spear, but without armor. This was the Chen family army. Five to six thousand people rushed toward Zhushan along the Douhe River.

But this road is really difficult to walk, very difficult to walk.

Douhe River has two sources in the southwest. The west source is the main source, which comes from Daba Mountain at the junction of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hubei. The south source is Guandu River, which originates from Shennongjia, Hubei. Both are two to three thousand meters above sea level. The entire basin is covered with mountains. Daba Mountain in the west source meanders to the east, Shennongjia in the south source towers into the sky, Putuo and Wudang surround the northeast, and the terrain is high. The upper reaches are high mountains, and the lower reaches are middle and low mountains. Chen Ming truly understands what it means to be a dead horse in Wangshan Mountain.

When the large army emerges from Yunyang Fucheng, if the morale can reach one hundred, by the time the team reaches outside Zhushan City, there will be at most sixty left. Many of the recruits were exhausted. If it weren't for a mouthful of food hanging on them, Chen Ming felt that the 4,000 to 5,000 recruits on the way could have escaped.

At the same time, a massive 'propaganda work' was also launched throughout Yunyang Mansion. The propaganda team is the pawn planted by those secret camps.

Yunyang Mansion can no longer bring in food, and winter is coming. If everyone continues to stay in the mountains, what will happen?

Let's all go to Henan to have enough to eat. No matter if they rebel or not, they are going to die anyway. A well-fed person is better than a starved person.

What's more, it's still unclear who will win and who will lose. From the time Chen Jiajun started his army to this day, the weak have defeated the strong time and time again, but they are not weak at all...

We are all oppressed by the government, and life is worse than death. Why should we be afraid of death? He dared to take down the emperor even if he was killed...

There is no national or family justice in the propaganda, but only the most basic issue - eating.

The hundreds of thousands of homeless people living in shanty towns in Yunyang Prefecture all lacked food and water, and the Manchu Qing court was unable to deal with it. This place is like a garbage dump for recycling garbage. Those refugees are garbage that cannot be easily disposed of. They themselves were abandoned by the Manchu court. And these people came to Yunyang Mansion to beg for food and work. To a certain extent, they also gave up on the Manchus.

Now winter has arrived and the food is gone. Not to mention these refugees who were not looked down upon by the Manchu and Qing government, even the common people in the county were worried about food. This issue was really related to their survival.

Judging from the situation of the refugees, are they more likely to survive by following Chen Jiajun? Or is it better to stay where you are and wait for relief from the Qing court? That seems to be a very simple and simple question.

In Zhushan County, Chen Ming effortlessly killed off the last remaining Qing force in the Yunyang Mansion, and the last big boss in the Yunyang Mansion committed suicide by drinking medicine. If the two Wuchang Green Camps who escaped were not counted.

Then there is Zhuxi to the west, Fangshan and Baokang to the east. At the same time, Chen Ming can also develop towards Daba Mountain in the southwest, which is next to Nanshan. He still has about half a month to make trouble in Yunyang. In half a month, the troops from Hunan will not be able to reach Hubei, and the soldiers from Yichang Town can already enter northern Hubei. If he didn't want the main road to the east to be blocked, Chen Ming had to pull his team to at least Junzhou when the troops from Yichang Town fought their way to Xiangyang.

…

A mountain col with no name at all, a flat land of thirty or forty acres, and three large shanties surrounding a small pool.

This is a treasure land among the mountains. The most fortunate thing is that there is a spring here. The water flow is quite sufficient, enough to feed one or two hundred people in three shantytowns. As for what they opened in the mountains , a series of small fields on the mountainside, then it depends on the weather.

I don't know which part of the shack the first sound of crying came from, but soon the sad cries spread to the entire gathering place.

Xiong Wenbing, who proposed to 'move' yesterday morning, was also in tears. At the age of 43, he was definitely the oldest person in the shanty town. Twenty-five years ago, he followed his parents to this mountain col. In the past twenty-five years, he saw off his parents and welcomed his wife and children. This mountain col changed from just talking about a few houses to Now there are forty or fifty households, one or two hundred people. This is not the Poyang Lake hometown in his memory, but what is the difference between it and his hometown?

If there was any room for maneuver, Xiong Wenbing would never want to leave here.

He has lived in this valley for 25 years. He has never had a rest in the wood mill, paper mill, and iron mill. He has never rested except in winter. He was injured several times in the middle. With the help of the neighbors, Xiong Wenbing overcame all the difficulties. He was worldly-wise and didn't believe what those people said. Would the Chen family army be so good and give everyone food, drink, and houses? It's a lie. Xiong Wenbing absolutely didn't believe it.

But Xiong Wenbing, who didn't believe those people in western Henan at all, had to loudly advocate that everyone go to Henan and western Henan. Because he knew that Yunyang really had no food. All the food in their valley was added together. There were only a hundred catties of fine grains, less than 500 catties of coarse grains, and a thousand catties of miscellaneous grains. The per capita food was less than 10 catties.

These foods could keep them going for half a month, 20 days, or even longer. But can they get food after that? Without food, no one in their place would survive this winter.

The Chen family army's action in Yunyang was unexpectedly smooth. This success was not due to the hidden chess that the Chen family army had set up in advance, but because the continuous wars in the Central Plains caused the grain market in Xiangyang to collapse, and countless Yunyang people and refugees felt the shortage of food and the difficulty of supply before Chen Ming led his troops to attack.

People cannot live without food. Without food, it means losing life, especially in the winter when everything is withered and cold.

Therefore, Chen Ming's propaganda used food to touch the most sensitive nerve in the hearts of countless people. They successfully let thousands of refugees and shanty dwellers walk out of the mountains and dense forests, and even let some Yunyang people merge into that flow of people.

Food, life. Everything is for food, for survival...