Han’s Son is Not a Slave

Xinhui City, which has been under siege for several months, looks lifeless from above. Because of the lack of wood for fire, most of the houses in the city have been demolished by the Taiping Army for firewood. At present, only a few areas in Xicheng and Nancheng remain intact buildings. At a glance, the place is full of ruins, and it is delusional to find one or two shades of greenery on these ruins.

In addition to the shortage of firewood, the city is also facing a water shortage crisis. At the beginning of the siege of the city, the drinking water of the Taiping army and the people in the city was taken from several large wells in the city. At first these deep wells were enough to meet the drinking water needs of nearly 10,000 people in the city, but since June, the water from the three deep wells near the city wall has been Can no longer drink.

The first person who discovered that the water from the well was undrinkable was Li Fuguo, a test household in the guard camp. At that time, he was going to put a bucket of well water to take a shower, but after the bucket was brought up, he found that the originally clear well water had turned black, and the water still had an unpleasant smell. Disgusting smell.

The news that the well water was not drinkable naturally alarmed Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong. They both wondered if a Qing army spy had sneaked into the city and poisoned the well water. .

Zhou Shixiang personally took people to check the reason why the three wells could not be drunk, but he did not know the reason when he looked around the well for a long time. A team of soldiers from the Guard Battalion spent most of the day scooping up the water from the wells, but there was no abnormality at the bottom of the well. .

The reason for the deterioration of the well water could not be found, and the water that re-seeded after scooping was still deteriorated, which made Zhou Shixiang anxious.

There are only seven wells available in the city. Together with the remaining Xinhui people, there are nearly ten thousand people living in the city, and the daily water demand is astonishing. Therefore, these seven wells can barely guarantee the minimum water supply for each person every day. Demand, really a drop of water can not be wasted.

In order to prevent the camp residents and the Xinhui people from fighting over water, Duke Xiang of Song specially asked Zhou Shixiang for an order to separate four wells for the old and weak women and children of Houying and those Xinhui people to drink. Two of the three wells that are in trouble now belong to the rear camp. Originally it was reluctantly used in a hurry, but now there are two less mouths, which means that the daily drinking water of the campers and common people is reduced by half. How does this make people live? The Taiping Army's side was not much better, and three wells became two. How does a soldier live?

"Check, check for me, check to the end!"

Zhou Shixiang, who could not find the reason, attributed the deterioration of the well water to someone who had been poisoned. However, after each battalion was ordered to review the sergeant on duty last night, they all reported to their subordinates that there was no problem. Jiang He and Ge Zheng even had to take their own heads. to ensure that their subordinates have no problems.

It's not that people are poisoning, how can this well water become poisonous water?

Just as Zhou Shixiang and the other officers were racking their brains for this and couldn't come up with a reason, a battalion old man in Houying who used to help people dig wells when he was young heard about this and asked Duke Xiang of Song for an order. He looked at the three wells one by one, and then had someone help him up the city wall. After walking around the city wall, he explained to Zhou Shixiang why the well water had deteriorated.

These three wells all have one thing in common. They are all very close to the city wall. The nearest one is even less than three feet away from the root of the city wall. Moreover, they are all newly dug wells. well. After the city was built, the three wells were not buried, but continued to provide drinking water for the Qing army defending the city. There is also the need for fire protection. (Note, one zhang is three meters three)

What is the direct relationship between the proximity of the well to the city wall and the deterioration of the water source?

Zhou Shixiang still didn't understand what the old camper wanted to say. The root is here!

After Shang Kexi personally commanded the Qing army to attack the city and failed, more than 3,000 Qing army corpses were left behind. After the war, Zhou Shixiang once ordered people to shoot arrows at the Qing army and asked them to collect the corpse back, but I do not know whether the Qing army did not receive the letter or the Qing army deliberately refused to accept the body.

It was the scorching hot weather, how could the corpse survive! On this day alone, the city could smell the rotten stench, the green-headed flies were circling in black pressure, and maggots could be seen on the corpses that had been cut open.

no way. The Qing army did not collect the corpse, so Zhou Shixiang could only order the Taiping army to collect the corpse. Otherwise, let these corpses be placed for another day or two without the Qing army hitting them. The Taiping army and the old and weak women and children in the city all died of the plague. Last year, Li Dingguo's army was forced to withdraw its troops from the siege of the city. On the one hand, it was because of the arrival of reinforcements from the Eight Banners of Manchu and Han from Beijing. On the other hand, it was also because of the epidemic in the army.

A lesson from the past, Li Dingguo still has tens of thousands of troops in hand, even if the army is infected with the epidemic, he can't hurt his bones, but the Taiping Army has such a small family.

Just like that, the Taiping Army and some Qingzhuang climbed the ropes along the city wall and went down to the city to bury the Qing army corpses. Now that the Taiping army came to the city, the Qing army seemed to know what they were going to do, and they did not take advantage of the momentum to attack, but watched the Taiping army bury their bodies.

There are too many corpses. The best way is to choose to bury them on the spot under the city wall. Otherwise, there are so many manpower to drive them. His soldiers would not be willing, and since the Qing army was staring at him in the distance, how could Zhou Shixiang take the risk to let his soldiers run under the eyes of the enemy.

More than 3,000 corpses were dug more than ten long pits before they were buried. Because of the hot weather, plus the corpses buried in Xiongwei and Hujieying, as well as those young and strong, the prisoners were afraid of contracting the plague, so the pits for burying the corpses were all buried. They didn't dig deep, but they buried people anyway. Most of the pits where the bodies were buried were located in the East City, and there were also three or four places in the South Gate.

Not long after the corpses were buried, the Qing army under the command of the deputy capital Wang Guohui launched another siege, and returned without success after dropping hundreds of corpses. In the same way, the bodies of the Qing soldiers who died in the battle were also buried by the Taiping Army.

At first, these corpse pits had no effect on the city, and the plague that Zhou Shixiang was worried about did not occur, but who would have thought that after half a month, the rotting corpses in these corpse pits would pollute the wells near the city wall.

According to the old man of the camp, after the corpses in the pit rot, a large amount of poisonous corpse water will flow out. The corpse water will gradually corrode the soil underground. It’s okay if it doesn’t rain. Extend around. No, the three wells that were too close to the city wall were the pollutants of corpse water. This process is invisible to the human eye, and ordinary people will not pay attention. When something goes wrong, it can no longer be saved.

Hearing what the old man said, Song Xianggong also had an epiphany. He remembered that when he was at home in his early years, the neighbor's house built a well. Originally, the well was not far from the thatched hut. After a few years, the well water began to dissipate because of the infiltration of the thatched hut. Now that I think about it, I really regret it. I blame myself for not thinking about this section earlier, so that a good well is so unusable.

Ge Zheng and the others listened to Old Ying's explanation, but they scolded the Qing Yao bastard. It seems that 80% of the Qing Yao also wanted to pollute the wells in the city, so they didn't come to collect the corpses.

Zhou Shixiang also thought about it. Xinhui City was so big, and all the Qing troops in the city must have a clear understanding. In addition to cutting off the food for the defenders, the other is to cut off the water source for the defenders.

Although Xinhui City is located on a riverside plain, in most parts of the city, there are no wells that can be directly drunk. Most of the water is saline-alkali water, and only the water from these seven wells can be drunk. Usually there is no siege of the city, the people in the city can naturally go outside the city to fetch water, or have a special person in charge of delivering water trucks, and buy them with copper plates. Nearly 10,000 people drink it, and it is a coincidence that the wife is also embarrassed by the lack of rice. If the corpse water contaminates a few more wells, the city is afraid that chickens will fly.

You can last a few days without food, and without water to drink, in places like Guangdong, you are afraid that you won’t be able to last for a day.

Up to now, there is no way to regret it, but to find a way to save it. Fortunately, the old Ying pointed out that the infiltration rate of the underground corpse water is not fast. Except for the continuous rainstorm for several days, the groundwater has increased, or else the corpse water will not seep into the other wells for a while. And now there is no need to think of any way to prevent the infiltration of the underground corpse water, because as early as when the Qing army's deputy commander Wang Guohui commanded the Qing army to dig into the ground, the Taiping army dug isolation trenches in the city, and the existence of these deep trenches just blocked the corpse water. permeation of. However, for the sake of safety, the camp elder still suggested that Zhou Shixiang have people dig deeper into the ditch. It's not wrong to be careful. After all, there are only four wells available in the whole city.

Zhou Shijing decided to do it according to the old method of the camp. UU reading www.uukanshu.com asked Jiang He to lead people to dig the deep ditch deeper, and to completely block the three wells that had deteriorated. After all this, he and Song Xianggong discussed the distribution method of the remaining four wells. There is no good way to discuss and discuss. There are only four wells. The front camp has more points, and the rear camp naturally does not have to drink. Many former battalion officers and soldiers' families are in the rear battalion. If they really want their wives and children to have no water to drink, I'm afraid the catastrophe is not far away.

In the end, Zhou and Song divided the four wells equally, two in the front and two in the back. The young soldiers and prisoners of the county government were provided with water by the front camp, while the back camp provided water to the more than 2,000 Xinhui people. Of course, how to supply water was the matter of Duke Xiang of Song, and Zhou Shixiang would not ask.

The well was divided, but the amount of water was definitely not as good as before, because there were a lot of things going on in the water competition, so Zhou Shixiang was in charge of the front camp, and Song Xianggong was in charge of the back camp. In order to save water as much as possible, Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong thought of everything, and tried to re-drill a few wells in the city, but unfortunately they were all useless, and in the end they had to let it go. Since then, on rainy days, large and small jars can be seen everywhere in the city, and all active people go to collect the rainwater.

Not enough firewood to burn, demolish the house. Not enough water to drink, make do. Although these two things are indispensable, as long as they are there, they can always be boiled. However, if there is no salt to eat, people will have no strength, no strength, not to say that defending the city, even doing some work on weekdays is not enough. (To be continued)