Qin Official

The soldiers brought over hundreds of people who were fighting for Xiang Yan's body, and knelt down in front of Wang Jian's military chariot one by one!

"Military magistrate."

Wang Jian wore a jacket on his head, and the bronze gave off dim light under the torch, casting shadows and blocking his eyes that were staring at these people.

But seeing his face sinking like water, he said coldly: "Drawing swords to fight against each other in war, what's the crime?"

The military magistrate immediately responded: "I am reporting this to the chief concubine. It is the same crime as fighting for leadership and private fighting!"

"Behead the leading officer, and the rest will be beaten for thirty years and seize the title!"

"General Wang, our contribution to the charge is ours!"

The hundreds of generals and village chiefs stood up straight, shouting that they were wronged, and some even tore off their armor. Under the light of the fire, Heifu also stood on tiptoe in the crowd and found that the man's back was covered with blade wounds.

"I have followed General Wang for many years!" he shouted, "I shed blood in Lanyu!"

"I remember you." Wang Jian said calmly: "However, merit is merit, and mistakes are faults. Those who have merit must be rewarded, and those who have made mistakes must be punished!"

At this time, it was useless to shout anything. Qin's military law imposed heavy punishments, which could not be offset by merit. As the military law officer gave an order, more than ten military officials, including this person, were pushed to the ground. Wang Jian's short The soldiers and guards raised their swords that had never had a chance to be stained with blood, and chopped off his heads one by one!

Wang Jian asked the messengers to hold a first rank each and ride on horseback to various ministries within a radius of ten miles to preach. He ordered the soldiers not to fight privately, otherwise this would be the end.

After finishing this matter, he ordered someone to transport Xiang Yan's body.

In the fight just now, Xiang Yan was almost dismembered. With great difficulty, everyone put his hands, feet and body back together and presented them to Wang Jian.

Wang Jian got off the military chariot and walked over to look at it in person, with a solemn expression.

He and Xiang Yan only met briefly. Thirty years ago, Xiang Yan escorted Lord Chun Shen to Xianyang to attend the funeral of King Qin Zhao. Wang Jian happened to be the palace guard Wei Langguan.

In the Xianyang Palace, which was decorated with black and white decorations and was filled with solemn mourning, two young military officers stood outside the palace, one on the left and one on the right, discussing military matters in a low voice. They talked from night to dawn, and they felt as if they had met each other late. , when he said goodbye, he had a vague feeling that the other party would become his enemy in the future.

After that, they never met again, but they kept hearing about each other's glorious achievements. Who would have expected that when they met again, it would be like this.

Not only was the corpse dismembered bloody and miserable after death, Wang Jian also smelled death and destruction from these messy corpses.

"No matter how heroic and powerful he was in life, commanding hundreds of thousands of troops like an armour, he was just a pile of rotten flesh in the end."

Wang Jian suddenly felt sad that the rabbit had died, but when he heard that the head had still not been found, he asked cautiously: "Is this really Xiang Yan? Did you really see him commit suicide with your own eyes?"

The military officials all said that they saw the Chu army crying for a while. When they came closer, the Chu people resisted desperately, trying to prevent them from approaching the headless body...

Wang Jian was silent, the current situation was a bit troublesome, almost all of Xiang Yan's personal guards died in the battle, and no one of the captured prisoners saw Xiang Yan commit suicide, or thought he was dead, or thought he was dead.

Although the military judge who had served as a military judge swore that the age of the corpse was almost exactly the same as that of Xiang Yan, the identity could not be completely confirmed without seeing the head.

"It's not Xiang Yan's style to disguise himself and run away."

Wang Jian finally made a judgment and asked someone to inform the entire army that Xiang Yan had committed suicide. But secretly, he decided to let the troops dispatched to pursue the enemy continue to track down Xiang Yan's whereabouts. He was not afraid of ten thousand, but ten thousand. One...

Fortunately, he also captured Xiang Yan's handsome flag, which can prove this.

"Where are Li You, the captain of Nanjun, and Heifu, the commander?"

Hei Fu was excited and immediately followed Li You step by step, stepping forward to present the flag...

Xiang Yan's handsome flag does not use silk but is embellished with bright feathers. The flagpole is as thick as a calf and three feet long. The flag can cover a chariot.

I heard from Dongmen Bao that when they came to fight, everyone just swarmed to seize Xiang Yan's body and even started fighting. The scene was very chaotic. Seeing that he couldn't squeeze in, he was in a hurry when he saw the big flag stuck on the car, so he had someone cut it down and carry it out. Unexpectedly, it hit the flag crookedly.

Wang Jian smiled and said: "Li Duwei, you ordered your troops to rush to the rescue with light armor and captured Xiang Yan's commander's flag. This is also due to your command and deployment!"

"Hei Fu, you were the first batch of reinforcements to arrive. You first set up a large banner to demoralize the Chu army, and then defeated the Chu army in several formations and captured Xiang Yan's army banner. This achievement is not small."

"Those who win the flag in victory will each regard the title they have received as a reward and encourage them. The merits of the two of you will be recorded by the military magistrate!"

In addition, Wang Jian also commended the performance of each army today, including luring the enemy, holding on, attacking, and feigning defeat. They all had merits. Even Meng Wu, who had just defeated Jing's troops and was still more than ten miles away, Wang Jian also His merits will not be forgotten.

In this battle, the Qin army was victorious and the Chu army was defeated. It was a battle that everyone was happy about, but Wang Jian changed his tone and said seriously: "Tens of thousands of Chu troops were wiped out or captured, but many of them fled in all directions. To prevent them from regrouping, you should pursue them all night! Defeat them all!"

Wang Jian is already preparing to attack Shouchun and seize all the cities of Chu State. As long as these resistance forces are cleared away, it will be easy to destroy Chu!

The Nanjun regiment led by Li You was ordered to pursue north. Seeing that his men were not seriously injured, Heifu asked Li Xian to stay with some of the more tired people to clean up the battlefield, while he himself followed with 500 people. Li You.

"Captain."

After leaving Wang Jian's command post, Heifu asked in a low voice: "I wonder what reward you can get for your contribution today?"

Because Heifu performed extremely well, which was equivalent to a "collective merit" for the Nanjun soldiers, Li You was very happy, and regarded Heifu as his lucky general. Last time, he helped him stand out among the defeated army, and this time he made him stand out. He got a lot of credit without doing anything.

So Li You smiled and said:

"The achievement of capturing the flag is second only to that of beheading a general. The 1,500 men you brought are all officers and soldiers of the first level. The Dongmen Leopard who captured the flag will be awarded two levels of nobility. As for you, you will be the nobility of public transport. It's already in the bag! If it shows a little bit of performance before Chu is destroyed, the five great officials can also look forward to it!"

…

From that night to the next day, more than 100,000 Qin soldiers were divided into twenty or thirty groups and began to disperse from the battlefield to pursue the defeated Chu troops.

According to Heifu's knowledge, there were two larger defeated armies: Zuo Sima Zhaohua gathered 20,000 people and fled into Qicheng, resisting stubbornly. Wang Jian had personally commanded the main force of the Qin army to besiege the city.

In addition, on that day, Jing clan soldiers were sent by Xiang Yan to stop Meng Wu. Jing Rui was killed by Meng Wu's formation, while Jing Ju fled eastward with thousands of people, probably going to Xiapi.

Except for these two groups, the rest of the Chu army was scattered in a hurry. Most of them lost their organizational structure, with more than a thousand people and dozens of people. Without Xiang Yan, they lost the backbone of their unity and were also defeated by the Qin army. After losing their souls, they all threw away their helmets and armor, and scattered and fled.

Some fled to nearby Chu State cities, such as Shi Ri Zhou Wen, who took some people and fled into the mountains and forests, and the Qin army was too lazy to pursue them.

But Heifu's good luck seemed to have been exhausted in his ability to capture the flag. After he dispersed and pursued northward, he didn't catch any big fish. He only chopped off the heads of more than a hundred Chu soldiers who were defeated, and he was still there. In the evening of the next day, we encountered a sudden heavy rain...

Strong winds blew, lightning pierced the hazy sky, torrential rain poured down, and the ground suddenly turned into a marsh. Hei Fu and the others could only stop chasing a group of more than a hundred Chu troops. When they were looking for a place to take shelter from the rain, they found that there was a tower in front of them. Xiaoyi is not even marked on the map...

"This map is too sloppy. It only goes down to the county level. Some roads are wrong. This small town is not marked. Fortunately, the war is over."

Mu no longer carried the flag, but held up the umbrella for Hei Fu these days. Hei Fu also asked Ji Ying to put away the map, and asked everyone to hurry up and occupy this small town to avoid the rain.

"If there are Chu troops defeated inside, there will be more heads."

However, after entering this small city with only a hundred households and a wall no more than one foot high, they found that there were not even a single person here, let alone the Chu army...

When Heifu and the others drove straight into the largest house here to take shelter from the rain, they found that the people here were leaving in a hurry, and they didn't even have time to collect the clothes that were hanging outside.

After a while, Dongmen Leopard, who was ordered to search for people in the city, caught a limping fifty-year-old man. The old man was wearing brown clothes, which showed that he was very poor. He also held a young girl in his arms. When she was about four years old, she was very afraid of the ferocious Qin Jun, so she hid in the old man's arms and kept sobbing.

"Father, let me ask you."

Hei Fu asked everyone not to scare them, and asked kindly: "Where have all the people in this city gone?"

The old man from Chu never thought that the authentic Jingchu dialect came out of the mouth of the black-faced Qin official in front of him. He was stunned for a moment, and then he said calmly after a while: "I heard that there is a big battle in Qinan, and the lord of the city is afraid of being affected. , so he took the people in the city and fled to Zeli..."

The swamp he mentioned should be the swamp in the north of Qi. The mountain forest swamp is usually a natural refuge for the people to avoid war. After all, the place where the division is located is full of thorns. When the army passes by, in order to feed on the enemy, every time Every grain of food will be searched away, no different from locusts crossing the border.

"Why don't you hide?" Heifu continued to ask.

"The old man has weak legs and feet, so he can't walk far. Besides, he has a daughter and grandson to take care of." His leg was indeed limping, and he must have been injured.

"Did any Chu soldiers escape here yesterday and today?"

The old man hugged his little granddaughter, as if he wanted to hide her as well as possible, lowered his head and said: "Wuyou..."

"Captain, look what I found!"

While talking, Ji Ying ran over excitedly. They also found several pieces of bloody armor hidden in the grass at the old man's house. There was no doubt that these were Chu armors! Obviously, the old man lied. Not only did broken soldiers enter Xiaoyi, but he also took them in and rescued them!

"How to explain this?"

The old man's face was ashen and he murmured: "Those are the sons of this town. They fled back here after being defeated. I couldn't just watch and ignore them, so I asked them to throw down their armor and go into the swamp..."

At this time, Heifu discovered that the old man's eyes had been glancing at the terrifying head hanging on Qin Zu's waist from beginning to end.

"This is your granddaughter, where are you?"

The old man hugged his granddaughter tightly, and said in a low, trembling, but suppressed voice with a hint of anger: "I'm traveling far away!"

"Oh, didn't you also join Xiang Yan's army to fight against the Qin army!?"

As soon as Hei Fu finished speaking, the Qin soldiers looked fierce and drew out their swords. The little girl was so frightened that she cried!

"My son is indeed in the Chu army, but his companions came back and said that he was trapped in the army and was probably dead."

The old man knelt down in despair, and said repeatedly: "I heard what you said, you are also from Jing! I hope you are pitiful. If you want to kill me, then kill me, bypass my granddaughter, and let her stay here. When his mother returned, she followed the others to Zezhong because she was afraid of being kidnapped and humiliated by the Qin army..."

It's just an ordinary Chu people's household. Their son was drafted into the army and died in the war. Only the lame old man was left alone at home. Looking at his leg injury, he might have been injured by the Qin army in the war many years ago. hurt.

In this war, Chu State used one-tenth of its population. Although most of the civilians stayed in various places when Xiang Yan evacuated, or fled in advance, the number of casualties among them was no less than 100,000. Therefore, in Chu State, this There are many more families.

Those who survive live in vain, but the dead have long since passed away! There is no one in the room, except for the grandson...

And they, unfortunately, play the role of invaders.

"From now on, you are also people of Qin."

After being silent for a long time, Hei Fu said this, gestured with his hands, and asked his men to put away their weapons: "That's it, lock the grandfather and grandson in the house, and then release them when we leave."

It was night, and the rain had been falling steadily. As the night progressed, the voices of the Qin soldiers gradually disappeared, and only faintly could be heard. From the room where the grandfather and grandson were locked up, a low and intermittent cry came from , I don’t know if it’s the crying son, father, or something else?

The next day, when the weather cleared up, Heifu and his people left this small city, preparing to take more than a hundred heads to return to the large army for business.

Before leaving, he re-opened the very inaccurate map on his carriage, marked the path he passed yesterday and this inconspicuous town, and wrote in small characters next to it The name I got from the old man from Chu came out:

"Oze Township!"

Only thirty or forty miles away from Qinan, where the Chu army was destroyed and Xiang Yan died in battle, is Daze Township!

This is where it all ends and where it all begins.

In history, the fire of Chu State was extinguished here, but the spark in the ashes is still rekindled here?

Heifu turned around and looked at Daze Township, which was getting farther and farther away, and the grandfather and grandson who watched them leave from a distance after they came out. The look in their eyes was either fear or hatred.

He seemed to see a ghost, a ghost named the hatred of the country and the family, lingering in the land of Jingchu for a long time!