Entering the cold winter wax moon four years ago in Chongzhen, it was a cruel season for many regions of the Ming Dynasty, especially for many regions in the north.

From the Hezhong area, where immigrants gathered, to the Guihua and Jining areas in the northern part of the border, and even the Xuanda area and Rehe, where the conditions were relatively good, there were tens of thousands of old, weak, sick and disabled people who could not survive this harsh winter.

Some are due to hunger, some are due to severe cold, and more are due to diseases brought about by hunger and cold.

In these areas, despite the grain continuously transported by the Ming court from Beijing and the south, and despite the unremitting relief of the local government, there are still thousands of new immigrants who have not been able to withstand hunger and cold, and have died of hunger and cold.

Since the promulgation of the reclamation decree in the autumn of last year, Emperor Chongzhen has been paying more attention to the immigrants who went north to the Saiwai Tun, and repeatedly ordered the governors, townsmen and three divisions of the border areas to settle and relieve the victims of the disaster in the north to survive the first winter smoothly.

When the winter in the north came, Emperor Chongzhen paid more attention to the situation in several places outside the Saiwai, and asked the Yamen of the Governor of Hezhong, the Yamen of the Governor of Xuanda, and the Yamen of the Governor of Rehe to report the number of immigrants who died due to various reasons every month.

At the end of November, the total number of deaths reported in Hezhong, Xuanda and Rehe exceeded 3,000 for the first time.

Emperor Chongzhen also issued an edict to Sun Chuanting, Yang He, and Ma Shiying, reprimanding them for their ineffective resettlement and relief of immigrants.

But by the end of December, the total number of deaths reported in the three places had once again exceeded 10,000.

This time, in addition to working harder to urge the cabinet and the household department to step up the transportation of grain to Rehe, Xuanda and Hehe, Emperor Chongzhen only sighed again and again.

At the end of January of the fourth year of Chongzhen, when the people of the Ming Dynasty were still nostalgic for the Spring Festival that had just passed, Emperor Chongzhen once again received the death toll in Hezhong, Xuanda and Rehe.

In the harshest month of the year in northern Cyprus, the total number of migrants dying from various causes in the three regions once again exceeded 10,000.

However, by this time, Emperor Chongzhen was so numb to the numbers that Sun Chuanting, Yang He, and Ma Shiying kept reporting that he was unconscious.

It's as if those who died are no longer living immigrants, but just numbers written on the fold.

Even with the best efforts of the Ming court and officials at all levels, many of the immigrants in these places were still unable to withstand hunger, cold and disease.

From this, one can imagine how cruel it would be if there was no full support from the government, or even if there was money, there would be no way to buy food.

After the arrival of the winter of the third year of Chongzhen, especially in December of the third year of Chongzhen and January of the fourth year of Chongzhen, the land of Longxi, where the thieves under Gao Yingxiang were entrenched, and the land of Hexi, where the major leaders of Mu Suman were entrenched, faced such an extremely cruel situation.

If the shortage of grain in the inland provinces of the Ming Dynasty was a relative shortage of grain, which was subject to the poor road conditions and long-distance transportation difficulties of this era, then the shortage of grain on the territory of the northwest thieves and the territory of Musuman was completely different.

There is an absolute shortage of food, which has little to do with the road conditions in the northwest and the difficulties of long-distance transportation.

The famine in the area of the thieves in the Longxi region of Gannan and the Musubarian area in Hexi, the rebellion that occurred after the winter of the second year of Chongzhen, and the drought and war that lasted for one year in the entire third year of Chongzhen.

Of course, it is also directly related to the strict blockade of the Ming Dynasty officials and troops from the north, east and south.

The continuous war since the second year of Chongzhen has caused a large number of original Han people in these areas to flee and lose, and at the same time, the farmland in these areas has been uncultivated and turned into wasteland.

If there are no people farming, it is naturally impossible to have many harvests.

In addition, in the severe drought weather that has lasted for more than a year, the northwest region has borne the brunt.

Only in the reclamation areas along the banks of the Yellow River in Ningxia can it be regarded as preserving most of the farmland because the trilateral governor's office adopted the method of cash-for-work and spent a lot of manpower to dig several canals to divert the Yellow River.

As for other areas, whether it is the land of Gannan and Longxi with conditions, or the already arid and barren Hexi Corridor, whether it is the bandit leaders under Gao Yingxiang, or the leaders of the Musu barbarian families such as Ma Jinzhong, Mi Layin, and Ha Tianxi, they are all busy fighting for territory, and they have not put even the slightest effort into building water conservancy and cultivating wasteland.

As a result, by the time of the winter of Chongzhen's third year, the evil results brewed at the beginning were soon completely revealed.

As for Ma Jinzhong, Mi Layin, and Ha Tianxi, who live in the northwest, it is good to say that after all, they are all from the great families of the northwest Musuman, and their ancestors have been running Hexi for many years, and they still have some reserves.

Moreover, most of the Musu barbarians under the command of these people make a living by herding sheep, even if there is not much grain reserves in Ganzhou, Suzhou and other places, they can still live on the accumulated sheep.

However, the leaders of the thieves under Gao Yingxiang did not have such "luck".

When Ma Jinzhong and other Mu Suman generals gathered to make trouble, they had already searched this place many times.

When Ma Jinzhong, Ma Guangyu, Ma Shouying and others evacuated from Longxi, they took away all the things they could take away.

Not to mention cattle, sheep and livestock, there is not much left for them to even breathe alive.

Under such a grim situation, it is better for Gao Yingxiang, who is entrenched in Lanzhou City, and his henchmen and generals from all walks of life.

However, the generals who were sent out by Gao Yingxiang, such as Liu Xiyao, the deputy marshal of the left and Zhang Xianzhong, the deputy marshal of the right, who went to Hezhou and Lintao to garrison and eat, were miserable.

Not to mention that there are no winter clothes, even there are basically few grains for the winter.

Therefore, in the cold winter of Chongzhen's three years, the area where thieves from all walks of life were entrenched, from Lintao to Hezhou, and then from Hezhou to Lanzhou, soon became a hell on earth.

In November, all the food that could be found was long gone, and the livestock that could be found was already eaten.

In December, the hungry battalion leaders under Zhang Xianzhong, the deputy marshal of the thief Right Route Army in Lintao City, began to eat the two-legged sheep that they had collected and captured before.

As for Luo Rucai, who lost Anding City at the end of October of the third year of Chongzhen, he also took the four or five thousand surviving people under his command and fled to Lintao City in early November, and once again relied on Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi Camp for a living.

At the beginning, a big man like Luo Rucai was able to get some food supplies.

Although it is brown rice or sorghum rice that has been stored for two or three years, it is still a grain that can be swallowed.

But in December, there was no food in Lintao City, and even Zhang Xianzhong, the deputy marshal of the thieves' Right Route Army, did not have a grain of brown rice to boil porridge in his Chinese army tent.

As for Cao Cao and Luo Rucai, the "culprits" who lost Anding City and made Lintao and Lanzhou face the threat of the official army at the same time, there will be no food to eat.

All the departments under Zhang Xianzhong's command, led by Zhang Xianzhong himself, began to eat two-legged sheep.

However, Luo Rucai couldn't do this.

Although among the leaders of Cao Cao's battalion, some people have long secretly eaten people, but Luo Rucai, who prides himself on being both civil and military, has never been unhappy about cannibalism.

Luo Rucai's cunning and ruthlessness are also counted among the many bandit leaders who were born in the northwest.

However, his ruthless and ruthless personality is different from Zhang Xianzhong's perverted brutality.

Zhang Xianzhong can feast in front of many generals and godsons under his command without changing his face, holding the arms and calf meat that are roasted, steamed or boiled, and admiring its deliciousness, but Luo Rucai can't do this at all.

Just by letting him see the forearm that had been stripped off and chopped off the palm of his hand, which was actually about the same as a leg of mutton, he couldn't bear the disgust in his heart.

Luo Rucai was born poor, but after the rebellion, he was happy and extravagant, with big fish and meat at every meal, and he never got tired of eating fine food, and he was a little nouveau riche.

At the same time, Luo Rucai is extremely lustful, and he must search for beautiful women everywhere he goes, and he does not marry wives but only takes concubines, and there are often as many as 100 beautiful concubines around him.

Such a thief leader who has become accustomed to fine clothes and fine food, beautiful women and beautiful women, is now quite a little unable to endure this kind of hellish suffering, and he can't bear the ghostly life in front of him.

In particular, when he was invited to attend the banquet in Zhang Xianzhong's mansion, looking at the cooked "leg of mutton" piled up on the banquet, he couldn't help but vomit out all the gastric juice and bile when he thought that it was a man's or woman's arm.

And whenever this time comes, he, who is a bit of a picky eater, will become a big laughing stock for the eight kings Zhang Xianzhong and the leaders of the generals under his command.

At the end of December, seeing that the New Year was approaching, Luo Rucai, who was already skinny and hungry, had to order the slaughter of his last beloved war horse, and barely allowed himself to spend a Chinese New Year's Eve with something to eat.

And it was on this Chinese New Year's Eve night that Luo Ru rewarded all the dozens of beautiful concubines he had been reluctant to abandon to his subordinates, so that the henchmen who had followed him for a long time could have something to eat on the cold Chinese New Year's Eve night in Lintao City.

It was also in Lintao City, a hellish Chinese New Year's Eve, that Luo Ru made up his mind that he could no longer go on like this.