Qin Official

In late May of the thirty-fourth year of the First Emperor of Qin, in the Xiou area where Tu Sui reported that "it will be pacified within the year", downstream from the water, there was the Qin army's garrison named "Cangwu". On the watchtower of the camp, soldiers But he was looking at the rainy weather with a downcast look.

"Why doesn't the rain stop?"

A 500-year-old master from Guanzhong felt that his body was almost moldy, so he asked his subordinates: "Chen Ying, is this true in the south?"

When asked by Lord Five Hundred, Centurion Chen Ying quickly responded: "Sir, the climate in Lingnan is very different from that in Huainan. In my hometown of Donghai County, although there is rain in May and June, it only rains for seven or eight days at most." . But Lingnan is more humid and hot than Jianghuai, and it has been raining intermittently for a month with no intention of letting up."

The Lord of Five Hundred shook his head and sighed: "In the past, there were seven countries, six in the north, and Chu in the south. I always thought that the south was small, but only after I arrived did I realize that it is as big as the north!"

“Seeing is worse than hearing.”

Chen Ying responded with a smile, yes. Only when he was forcibly recruited into the army and came to guard Lingnan did he know that the legend about his hometown's disapproval of the South was actually true...

He lives in Dongyang County, Haijun County, and is a typical Dongchu person. Ten years ago, Wang Jian destroyed Chu and his army surrounded Shouchun. Chen Ying and the children from the county were transferred to the rescue. Unexpectedly, they were intercepted by a Qin official named "Hei Fu" on the way and captured them all. Then he forced the oldest of the group to Chen Ying, who was also the most loyal, led the way for the Qin army.

Soon after, Shouchun was conquered, Chu State was destroyed, and Dongyang became a county under the rule of Donghai County of Qin State. After Chen Ying returned to Dongyang in confusion, he was often criticized by the villagers because of his shameful experience of assisting the Qin army. However, It was also a blessing in disguise that he became a minor official in the county and got an errand.

Over the past ten years, Chen Ying has been in his forties. Although labor and taxes are heavy and the world is not peaceful, it has nothing to do with Chen Ying. He works honestly and earns a salary. He only occasionally heard about the man who once controlled him. "Heifu" has a prosperous official career, has performed meritorious service one after another, defeated the Xiongnu, and put down the rebellion, and is only one step away from becoming a marquis...

Chen Ying regarded this incident as an anecdote and told his mother when he went home. The wise old woman who once told him to cherish his life and not to sacrifice his life for the inevitable destruction of Chu State stopped her sewing and asked Chen Ying to take leave and go to Jiaodong. Take a trip and visit this old friend.

But Chen Ying was not willing to be a licking dog. He said: "Mother, is there any reason to flatter people when they hear they are rich? How is that different from a fly chasing a smelly person? Besides, he may not remember me, so he ran all the way. , wouldn’t it be embarrassing if you said you don’t know who Chen Ying is?”

"This is not to cater to wealth, but to plan for the future."

Although Chen's mother was illiterate, she also had unusual insights. She analyzed it for Chen Ying and said that although she did not leave home, she heard that there were rebellions in the distance. At present, in Dongyang County, the conflict between the government and the light knights is intensifying, and a large number of people have begun to sneak into the mountains and forests, just to escape the harsh government. The government also arrested and killed each of these people without mercy.

She always felt that if things continued like this, the world would be in chaos sooner or later. After hearing that Jiaodong was peaceful, if Chen Ying could go to Jiaodong to meet the black husband, he might find a way to stay as a retainer and take his family over. Even if he couldn't, if something happened in the future, He can also use his reputation to scare people.

Chen Ying still didn't listen to his mother in the end, but two months later, he regretted it!

…

In the thirty-third year of Qin Shihuang's reign, he decided to march south. The main targets of the conscription were people from the Three Chu states. Chen Ying of Dongyang County was also promoted as an official to escort soldiers to the front line.

Chen Ying regretted it. If he had listened to his mother and gone to Jiaodong, wouldn't he have been able to avoid this disaster?

But now, with the knife on the necks of the whole family, he could only bite the bullet and accept the order.

Hearing that they were going to Lingnan, the people in Dongyang County were all afraid of being drafted, so they fled with their families that night. After being captured by the government, the whole family became prisoners, and the men directly put on the shackles and continued on the road!

When bidding them farewell, the soldiers' families all wore sackcloth and mourning, and walked to the gate of the city, mourning endlessly...

What they sang was a popular funeral song in the Chu region, "The Soul Caller"

"The soul is back! The south cannot stop.

Carved with black teeth, human flesh was obtained as a sacrifice, and the bones were used as mounds..."

From the perspective of the Central Plains, the Chu people have already settled in the southern part of the country, but in the hearts of these typical southerners, Lingnan is also an extremely scary area.

They heard that the Yue people there had carved patterns on their foreheads and had black teeth. They liked to behead people, use human flesh as sacrifices to evil gods, and grind human bones and marrow into pulp to feed their children...

In addition to the barbarians, there are countless monsters in the south, where venomous snakes are as dense as grass, and giant scavenging foxes are everywhere. The male adder has nine heads, but comes and goes quickly, and most likes to eat people's hearts and livers.

In such a terrible place, even if you die, your soul cannot go there, let alone a living person? Based on these impressions, Dongyang people believe that those who go to Lingnan will have a narrow escape from death!

With this kind of fear of death, they continued to flee along the way. The Chu people would rather run into the rivers and become bandits than go to the south to die. Chen Ying and his county recruited a thousand people, and when they arrived at Zhucheng, Hengshan County, only Next seven or eight hundred...

The leader and the five hundred masters were beheaded by the implicated people, but it was difficult to kill them any further, so a Qin official was sent to take charge. During the march, they were caught between two Guanzhong soldiers, and the flight stopped.

At this time, Chen Ying had another idea. He very much hoped that his troops would be sent to Yuzhang. Heifu defeated them and his old troops were spread all over the country. Chen Ying remembered that there was a man named Ji Ying back then. , I like to chat with myself when I have nothing to do. You are also an official now, right? If you can meet him, you might be able to ask him for help.

But what made Chen Ying despair was that the army marched directly to Changsha County, and as auxiliary troops, they followed Tu Sui south to Xiou...

It took more than three months of walking to reach Southern Chu from Dong Chu, which showed the vastness of the Chu land. During this period, the food and accent were quite familiar, which could calm the frightened hearts of the Chu soldiers.

When I first arrived in Changsha County, it was already autumn and winter, and there was no fighting. I was only assigned to dig a river channel. Frontline Supervisor Shi Lu decided to build a canal here to solve the problem of logistical supply.

The canal is not long, only dozens of miles long, but the heavy construction period still exhausted many people. When the waterway was completed and Qin officials happily reported the good news to Qin Shihuang that the first grain ship in Lingqu Canal was successfully opened to navigation, no one Mention, there are thousands of graves on both sides of the canal, and the dead are all Chu people...

After spending half a year opening the Lingcan, the soldiers and civilians did not have much rest. What followed was an unprecedented expedition!

A hundred years ago, Wu Qi developed Yangyue but stopped at the Five Ridges. The mysterious and unknown land of Lingnan was rarely set foot in by Central Plains people...

However, following Qin Shihuang's order, the 80,000-strong army crossed over the mountains with overlapping mountains and forests as vast as the sea, and officially entered the land of Baiyue.

At the beginning, the war went smoothly beyond imagination. Everywhere the Qin army went, there were frequent reports of success. The people of Xiou seemed to be afraid and abandoned their settlements, but they also burned everything they could not take away: houses, livestock, What was left to the Qin army in the rice fields was ashes and polluted water sources.

According to the thinking of the Central Plains, gaining land is victory. The Qin army happily took over all the Pingba areas abandoned by the Yue people and re-established camps.

Tu Sui did not even listen to dissuasion and separated his 80,000 troops to guard the key roads. However, Guilin, where he was stationed, fell into emptiness...

It is said that Tu Sui also committed various evil deeds in Guilin, such as destroying the Ou people's sacred sacrificial sites and throwing cliff coffins from the mountains that only the tribal leaders could enjoy when they were old, leaving their bones scattered all over the ground.

Tu Sui has undoubtedly become the most hated person by the people of Ou.

After spring, food was scarce, and the Xiou people who wanted to return to Pingba to farm finally couldn't hold back. They rushed out of the mountains and forests like a tide and launched an attack on Guilin. But he fell into Tu Sui's plan. This was an ambush to lure the enemy into a trap, and the tempting bait was Tu Sui himself!

During the bloody battle in Guilin, the Qin army passed through the Ling Canal, and the reinforcements that quickly arrived at the front line surrounded the Ou people and dispersed them. However, the Ou people still found a way out due to their familiarity with the terrain. Jun Changyi asked Song to cut off the rear in person, but was defeated by the Qin army's crossbow machine. Shoot.

After shooting Yixu Song, most of the Ou people retreated into the mountains and forests again, and many Ou people surrendered to the Qin army under the leadership of the weak "Du Lao".

The area controlled by the Qin people further expanded and their troops were completely dispersed. Chen Ying and others were sent to station at Cangwu downstream of Li Shui, which was the main route to South Vietnam. I heard that there were two armies of tens of thousands of people. The South Vietnamese who had the bad habit of cannibalism were also driven into the deep mountains and forests and reached the shores of the South China Sea.

Seeing that the situation was very good, General Tu Sui announced with satisfaction: "Xiou has been decided!"

He decided to end this war within the thirty-fourth year of Qin Shihuang!

…

Chen Ying heard these things from Lord Five Hundred.

In person, Chen Ying didn't express anything, he just said that he really hoped to finish the fight and go home early.

"go home?"

But Lord Five Hundred just smiled, his meaning unclear, which gave Chen Ying a bad feeling.

After returning to the camp, I squatted in the damp wooden hut, eating the uncooked rice I had chewed for several days because I couldn't find dry firewood. I thought about the smile of Lord Five Hundred and felt depressed.

"Even if the war is over, I'm afraid we won't be able to return home easily."

Chen Ying was not yet sure about this matter and did not dare to talk nonsense. When meal time came, the soldiers gathered around to eat one after another. No one spoke during the period and the atmosphere was low. In this humid and hot weather, they did not even have the energy to chat. .

After going south, the Qin army had been reorganized several times. Chen Ying had only 70 of his 100 men.

Ten of the thirty people who died were attacked by Ouyue while standing guard or patrolling, and were wounded by their bamboo arrows. The arrows either extract poison or stick to feces. The victims are basically dead, and they die in a miserable state, with ulcerated skin and protruding eyes.

Another twenty people fell on the road or in the camp because they could not adapt to the hot weather in Lingnan after summer, or they were killed by poisonous insects, snakes and ants that could be seen everywhere...

Among the seventy people who survived, a dozen were very sick. If they couldn't eat hot food or drink boiled water, they would collapse at some point.

As far as Chen Ying knew, there were three thousand troops stationed in Cangwu, and each camp was in a similar situation. The attrition continued, and Qin only had half of it with combat effectiveness!

And the harassment from the forest became more and more frequent. It seems that the death of the leader did not reduce the Ouyue people's determination to resist to the end. Faced with this kind of attack, the Qin army had no good way except to close the camp and defend. , they are not like victors, but like remnants of soldiers trapped in an isolated city.

"Xi'ou has been decided? We are not fighting the same battle as General Tu!"

Listening to the sighs of the villagers, Chen Ying chewed the rice with difficulty, raised his head, and looked at the continuous rain outside, with some despair in his eyes.

In his opinion, this war will never end within this year. It will be like this hot and humid rain, which will last forever!