"Today is the first day of October, the New Year of the Qin calendar, and Lingnan has entered the dry season, but why does this rain keep falling?"

Guilin, the base camp of the Western Road of the Southern Expeditionary Army, with the continuous rain, has become a country outside the city, and the beautiful mountains are like islands standing on the sea.

In Zhao Tuo's eyes, the Qin army was the same, separated by the sea composed of the Yue people and the jungle, and could only fight on their own.

"It's too urgent."

Zhao Tuo recalled what had happened in the past few months, and sighed.

The Western Route Army located in Xi'ou was roughly stationed in two places, one was Guilin and the other was Cangwu. In April and May, General Tu used General Jia's strategy to burn a fire all over Xiou, because the Qin army carefully dug fire ditches, and the Pingba area around Guilin and Cangwu was almost burned to the ground, until the rainy season came, the fire gradually subsided, and the deeper rainforest was more difficult.

After all, manpower is difficult to defeat the sky, the place burned by the Qin army is less than one-ten-thousandth of the entire Lingnan dense forest, and once the rainy season passes, the place that is burned out will be full of greenery, and the natural healing speed is far beyond ordinary people's imagination......

But the effect was already very good, without the cover of the woods, the attack of the Ou people was exposed to the vision of the Qin army, and the Qin people were no longer passively beaten, killing thousands of Ou people, forcing them to return to the jungle, and the army was able to live in peace for a few months.

But then, Tu Sui ordered that the garrisons of the two places set off again and continued to march south!

This order caused an uproar, and the soldiers were generally reluctant to go south, complaining that the officers were too harsh and did not care about their lives or deaths.

The military officials complained that the general's strategy was too urgent, and before the army could gain a firm foothold in Xiou, they wanted to attack Luo Yue, but they could not see the low morale in the middle of summer.

But as a captain, Zhao Tuo knew that Tu Sui couldn't help it. Before the war against Baiyue, he boasted to Qin Shi Huang about the "two years of Pingyue" Haikou, the emperor hated dishonesty and procrastination the most, seeing that the deadline was getting closer and closer, Tu Sui's military deployment, became more and more impatient, he burned a few forests, and after killing thousands of Xiou people, he announced that Xiou had been decided, and personally led the army into the danger.

"Divide the troops into two ways and fight to the north for the New Year!"

This was Tu Sui's plan, but unfortunately, the fire failed to burn all the people of Xiou to death, let alone their determination to resist.

Just as Qin Guilin's army passed through the mountains at the junction of Xiou and Luo Yue, and the troops formed a long snake, they were attacked by this group of natives in the dense forest. Luo Yue people also covered up in front of the enemy, and the Qin army suffered from the enemy on its back, and the military array chariots that were good at it were useless, and they were temporarily frustrated.

That's it, the worst thing is that when Tu Sui was observing the mountain, he was shot by a bamboo arrow from a Yue hunter hiding in a tree, and his skin was bruised.

The tip of the arrow was soaked in poison, and Tu Sui foamed at the mouth on the spot, and when he returned to the camp, he began to have a high fever, and then his skin festered, and he could not hold back.

After the loss of the main general, the army was also in chaos, thanks to Zhao Tuo by his side, he discussed with the lieutenants to withdraw the troops first, and returned to Guilin under the attack of the Yue, and Tu Sui also died of poison when crossing the Liujiang River, and died extremely unwillingly.

Fortunately, the 20,000 people of the Guilin army only lost three or four thousand due to the timely withdrawal. But the 10,000 people of the Cangwu army are more miserable.

The two armies were hundreds of miles apart, and it was difficult to communicate with the old forests in the mountains, and when the Cangwu army arrived at the agreed meeting place "Xiangdi" (Chongzuo, Guangxi), they learned the news of the defeat of the main force. They had to be harassed by Luo Yue and the Xiou people, and began to turn back thousands of miles......

Next, the fate of the Cangwu army, Zhao Tuo is unknown, a whole 10,000 people, just disappeared into the 100,000 mountains, for two months, there was no news.

At this moment, a team of people braved the rain and came to the gate of Guilin Village, which was the Changhu Club under Zhao Tuo, he was sent by Zhao Tuo to Cangwu to deliver the news a month ago, and when he came back at this time, there must be news of a partial division!

"How?" Zhao Tuo hurriedly got off the sentry tower, and as soon as the city gate opened, he went up to ask.

"It's miserable."

Hu Hui wiped the rain from his face and sighed: "The last group of people have returned to Cangwu, counted the number of people, and 10,000 people died!" ”

……

"Where's the hand? What about those hands? ”

In Cangwu, five hundred miles away from Guilin, the first thing centurion Chen Ying did when he woke up was to see if the dozens of hands with bones left in his basket were still there......

None of them, all of them are gone!

He immediately grabbed his subordinate Zhang Jia and questioned him loudly!

"The doctor said that bringing it in would spread the epidemic and make us burn."

Zhang Jia, the head of his subordinates, said so, his eyes didn't dare to look at Chen Ying, but just picked up a dusty pottery urn and handed it to him.

"They're all in there......"

"It's good to be able to go back to the countryside and be buried."

Chen Ying was helpless, and then asked: "How many of us are still alive?" ”

Shi Chang gritted his teeth: "Nineteen! ”

"Nineteen!?"

Chen Ying was stunned for a while, and he burst into tears, and couldn't help but scold:

"I have a full hundred people, died of injuries and diseases in Cangwu and died of thirty, followed the captain to fight Luo Yue, was blocked and returned, and died more than fifty, these more than eighty people, are the children of the township party in Dongyang, I Chen Ying was trusted by the county people, so I was elected to be an official, but now I am eight out of ten dead, let me go back, how to explain to my father and brothers!"

In the past few months, it has been Chen Ying's nightmare, which he will never forget in his life:

There is no end to the war, and there are new areas in the south waiting for the Qin army to occupy and conquer.

It was not easy to go, the fire did not spread to the mountains and forests further south, the march was extremely slow, the soldiers stumbled and crawled with difficulty, sometimes walking less than a dozen miles a day, and the forest became denser and denser, and they had to use machetes to open the way while walking.

finally arrived at the place where the division was agreed, but there was no trace of friendly troops, only a broken tent and military flag, and the roar of a giant beast in the distance......

The Guilin army lost its main general, and suffered a lot of losses under the attack of the Yue, so it could only retreat in a hurry. They saved themselves, but they pitted the Cangwu army. When the Cangwu army arrived at the mountains known as the "Elephant Land", they were greeted by an ambush by the Luo Yue people, spearmen riding elephants......

Although elephants are often seen in Chu, they are all wild beasts, and occasionally go to the villages on the edge of the forest to trample on the crops. But Lingnan is different, Luo Yue people were the head of the "Twelve Kingdoms", the main reason is that they have mastered a stunt: elephant taming!

This is also the first time that the Qin army has met with the elephant soldiers, although Luo Yue has no strong crossbows, but just the running giant beast, it shocked the Qin people and horses to scatter and flee, the world is shaking, and the mind is gradually unbalanced, and the soldiers are stunned, and they have no heart to fight.

In the first battle of Xiangdi, the Qin army was defeated, and the lieutenants of Cangwu County did not see the Guilin army to join them for a long time, and they expected that they had been defeated, and they also had the idea of retreating and began to withdraw their troops.

But this withdrawal brought the Qin army to hell......

The Luo Yue people chased closely, and in the dense forest on the left and right, it was the nuisance attack of the Xiou people, but they always did not show their faces, only the Qin people kept falling down with arrows, and they chased into the forest angrily, and they never came back......

In the continuous fighting, the Qin army was killed in a night attack, and the rest began to scatter, running around, and when it was dawn, Chen Ying found that they were lost and in a strange jungle.

After groping for a long time, they finally returned to the original trail, and this group of stragglers of the Qin army was re-gathered by a commander, with 2,000 people, and seeing that they could not find their superior commanders, they could only hug each other and walk north.

On the way north, thousands of wandering spirits walked in a procession, and in the vast primeval forest, bits and pieces of sunlight spilled from the gaps in the leaves, and the stench of fallen leaves and rotting tree trunks emanated from people's feet.

In Lingnan in July and August, it is sunny and rainy. Sometimes, the scorching sun baked the earth like a steamer, suffocating in the forest, and the clothes that had not been washed for a month were clinging to the body, and the soldiers were dry and bitter because of excessive sweating, and the tongue was against the palate, and the throat could breathe fire, and when they encountered the stagnant water in the forest, they rushed to drink.

As a result, in the evening, they all had stomach troubles, diarrhea did not stop, and by dawn, more than a dozen people had died, and the rest were covered in filth, paralyzed and unable to walk.

As the roar of the elephant behind them got closer and closer, the crowd had to leave the seriously ill behind, and after learning their lesson, they dared to drink only living water.

And the rain.

The weather is unpredictable, the rainy season is back in the rain, and the dense forests that cover the sky can't stop the rain from pouring down, and the sky seems to be pierced, and the jungle becomes a swamped country. The soldiers lacked rain gear and had nowhere to hide, so they had to wash away.

The soft soil is soaked in rainwater, which makes it even more difficult to walk, and when you step on it, the soft mud reaches the instep, like you are stuck in a swamp. More and more people are falling behind, the marching sequence and the formation of troops are also disrupted, and the various units are mixed and rushing forward.

But desperation continued to strike, and the flash flood washed away the way they came, and the Qin army had to change their route, and they began to get lost and wander around the forest all day.

The people of Xiou, painted in mud, still appear from time to time, like ghosts, killing several people and leaving. Their attacks caused a large number of casualties, but many more were killed by the "mountain forest".

Leeches, which are rarely seen before the rain, are everywhere after the rain, constantly attacking people. When they are not sucking human blood, the dry leeches in Lingnan are like a small embroidery needle, they suck on the grass or leaves at one end, and hang in the air to search, and the Qin soldiers walk and rub the grass or leaves, and it is immediately attached to the clothes or hands and feet. At first, people didn't feel it, but when others saw the reminder, the grasshopper had already sucked blood, and it was more than an inch long with a finger, and it was terrifying!

The day is already so difficult, and at night, the primeval forest is even more terrifying. The mosquitoes that hide in the grass during the day come to their faces, and the giant mosquitoes are the size of dragonflies, and they make a low buzzing sound when they fly, and no matter how they are driven away, they will wait for an opportunity to return. The long sharp and hard mouth pierces into the human body, and in a moment, it can fill the shriveled belly into a bright red blood cell, and the place where it is pierced immediately becomes a big bag, painful and itchy.

Mosquitoes are the vectors of disease transmission, and at this time, truly unexpected and terrible disasters in the rainforest are also in place: beriberi, scrub typhus, spottings, typhoid, malaria, dysentery, which mercilessly torture this army every day, and let life fall halfway.

When Chen Ying and the others found the way to the north again, they found that there were traces of the withdrawal of friendly troops: dozens of corpses could be seen every day, usually individually, while in the camp attacked by the Ouyue people, there were piles of corpses gathered together.

At the time of death, the complexion of the person was pale, and after two days, especially the sun and rain, the body swelled, and the skin turned black, festering and pus, and then flies gathered, and the body was covered with maggots or ants, and soon only a white skeleton remained.

At this time, the army had been out of food for a month, and at the beginning there were 100 pack horses, and after entering the mountain, they slaughtered and ate all day by day, occasionally hitting the wild beasts and stuffing their teeth, and more often, they only relied on wild vegetables, bamboo shoots, plantains, etc. to satisfy their hunger. I really didn't have to eat, but I could put moss in my mouth, and then fill my stomach with cold water, and I was so hungry that I was dizzy, my eyes were full of stars, and my legs trembled.

In order to survive, some people secretly cut the dead robes and human flesh on the side of the road to satisfy their hunger......

Chen Ying and his subordinates also ate, perhaps in retribution, and Tun Chang, who ate the most, was sick. He was originally strong, and he often suddenly fell to the ground moaning, trembling, and crying, but as long as he lay on the ground for half an hour, he would automatically disappear and could continue to walk, but he could no longer eat, and he would vomit if he ate a little.

As the condition worsened, the seizures became more and more serious, the interval became shorter and shorter, and finally he fell to the ground with a bang.

Before dying, Tun Chang burst into tears, saying that even if he starved to death, he should not eat human flesh, he trembled and pointed to the place of Dongyang, and said intermittently:

"Baichang, I—I want to go home!"

The crowd didn't even have time to bury the body, so they could only push him into a deep stream.

At this time, Chen Ying's subordinates died, scattered, and there were only more than 20 left, and the Chu people had rules, the fox died and the head hill died, and the people died and returned to their hometowns.

Before dying, his subordinates told Chen Ying that since the body could not be brought back, they would cut off their hands and belts, hoping to bring them back to their hometown for burial.

So, for every person who died, Chen Ying cut off his hand, burned it with fire, and inserted it in the basket on his back......

The unusually low morale also spread like a plague in the ranks, and they didn't know how long and how far they went, but they just staggered forward subconsciously.

Chen Ying counted silently, and when the basket on his back was filled with ten dead hands, the group finally returned to the outpost controlled by the Qin army!

The commander of the outpost looked at the group of Qin soldiers who came out of the mountains and forests in surprise, unkempt, skinny, and not human-looking, so they could only support each other and stumble forward.

Chen Ying only remembered what the captain said to them.

"It's been almost three months, and you can still come out alive!"

They are the last soldiers out of the 10,000 people in the Cangwu Army to get out of this green ghost!

In his dreams, he was still trekking through the forest, desperately trying to climb out of a quagmire full of bones and human heads, but his withered hands were pulling at his clothes, and the souls of those dead were howling at him:

"Hundred long! I want to go home too! ”

After waking up, they were sent back to Cangwu, only to see that the camp was once full, and there were only nineteen people left!

When the Cangwu army marched in, it was mighty and meandering, but when it came out, there were very few, 10,000 people, and only more than 2,000 survived!

The eyes of the living were hollow, and they still did not recover from the nightmare experience, and some people muttered to themselves:

"Emperor Qin, did you deliberately let us people from Chu come to the south to die?"

……

After listening to the report of the commander, Zhao Tuo was silent, the commander died in front, and the Cangwu army also suffered heavy losses, which means that the plan of slaughtering someone to pacify Xiou and attacking Luo Yue ended in failure, and even he himself entered it.

He said at length: "Captain, what should I do now?" If Xiou and Luo Yue come together to attack, will we withdraw or defend? ”

"It is a great sin to forsake the land."

Zhao Tuo sighed: "With our strength, it should be easy to hold Guilin and Cangwu, if the two armies on the South Vietnamese side can come to reinforce ......"

The Tiger Club said: "I heard in Cangwu that there was also an accident on the South Vietnamese side, and now I can only protect myself." ”

It was really a house leak that happened to rain overnight, Zhao Tuo was silent for a while, and had to say: "In this case, then we can only fight separately." Right now, the news of General Tu's death should also reach the emperor's ears, wait, wait for the imperial court to send a new general, with reinforcements, to clean up this mess! ”

It is indeed a mess, a piece of erosion, this is the situation that the Qin army is facing. After a big defeat, there were not a few Yue people who had already been attached to them in various places who rebelled and killed officials.

At Zhao Tuo's suggestion, the Qin army on the western route shrank its front, except for the two cities of Guilin and Cangwu, and the small strongholds on the periphery were all abandoned, and the province was broken by the Yue people.

But there are also many Qin soldiers who have not had time to withdraw, and they have become isolated islands in the ocean, and I don't know how long they can hold out......

Hu Hui said: "If it weren't for Captain Zhao, I'm afraid the army would have suffered heavy losses, and right now, the officers of the Western Route Army hope that Captain Zhao will be our commander!" ”

Zhao Tuo's decision saved their lives, and everyone was naturally grateful.

"What am I?"

Zhao Tuo smiled, he was self-aware, he was too young, and he had to be at the bottom of several captains in the Western Route Army. It was only because he had beheaded the king of Xiou, made great contributions, and guarded southern Xinjiang for a long time and was familiar with the local situation, that the rest of the lieutenants were willing to listen to him.

"Don't even think about the main general, but the deputy general who commands the western road, if he can get a recommendation, it's not impossible......"

The captain was stunned for a moment, and remembered someone: "What the captain said is ......"

"That's right."

Now, Zhao Tuo is extremely looking forward to that person coming to the south to save this mess and push him to a higher position by the way!

He sighed:

"If Your Majesty had already used my brother Pingnan's strategy, why would it be like this?"

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