Seeing that it was almost noon, Forestry beckoned his subordinates and Sun Qilang to find a place with a mountain spring, picked and washed the grouse, and then set up the pot and boiled it. One was born in the local area and found some wild mushrooms around and put them in the pot together.

There are a total of ten people in the forestry belt, he is the team leader, Peng Sanlang, another from the Xiang Army, is the escort team, and Tao Qinglian is from Luting Prefecture, Fujian, who was born in Orion. The three of them plus Sun Qilang are the backbone of the team, and the other six are local natives.

This composition is also the general composition of this command personnel, three to forty percent are retired personnel of the Xiang Army and immigrants from Fujian Road, and the other six or seven percent are local natives.

Fujian Road is mountainous, and there are many people who come here who are mountain men, who are used to walking through the mountains and forests.

Although the local natives are more familiar with the terrain, most of them are from the families of the original local officials, and they have been used to being managed since childhood, and it is difficult to change their concepts.

Human beings are social animals, and the impact of the environment is far greater than imagined, and it may be necessary for these liberated families to truly integrate into the environment of sugar cane business.

Due to the special status of the escort team, almost all the escort teams are from the Xiang Army. What this position wants is to be ruthless, and sometimes it is a bit cold-blooded, and ordinary people really can't do it.

Sun Qilang is an idle person, and he is in the team to make up the numbers, because of his identity, everyone consciously does not let him do anything difficult. However, Sun Qilang has a smart brain, often has some whimsical ideas, and is kind. It was okay to get along with everyone.

Let's be honest. The structure is composed of the personnel of the sucrose business. Not to mention finding 500, it is not difficult to find 5,000 people who can walk on the ground in the mountains and forests. The real difficulty is not to find these people, but to make these people form a whole, even in the deep mountains and old forests, they can still maintain an intact organization, and complete the task according to the order in a planned and step-by-step manner. According to the need, it is the most difficult to quickly disperse in the mountains and forests, and to have effective means to quickly assemble them. That's all there are 500 people. From selecting people to basically meeting the requirements, Xu Ping also spent more than a year, not to mention the manpower and material resources spent to meet the requirements.

After eating, Forestry took his team and continued along the established route. He has a map of this area in his hand, but not everyone can read the map, and even fewer can understand it and combine it with the actual terrain, which is also the reason why personnel are rare.

There was a barbarian village about twenty miles away from their current location, and it was planned that they would need to arrive there by noon tomorrow, and join up with the rest of the squad to form a group of men and horses to sweep away the subordinates of Guangyuan Prefecture in the surrounding area. Once you've completed your mission, rush to the next location. Repeat this action.

Forestry was at the head of the line, over a small hill. Got out of the woods and stood on a big rock and looked ahead, and said strangely, "Hey, it turns out that there is a small village here." ”

There are people in the village, there are people to eat, drink, and a place to sleep, and when they heard the words of forestry, they all rushed over, only Peng Sanlang pulled Tao Lianqing to stand not far away.

Tao Qinglian is also helpless, in fact, he is from Tingzhou, Peng Sanlang is from Nanjianzhou, and the two families are still separated by more than 100 miles, but they are relied on by Tao Qinglian, and the two are fellow villagers, and they pull themselves for everything.

What does the escort do? Although he is the second person in this team, everyone is hiding, as if he is close to him, and his life is in danger at any time. Tao Qinglian is also bitter, and he can't say it.

At the foot of the mountain is a small village, with only five or six families in the east and west, and some rice fields have been opened along the stream at the bottom of the mountain, only twenty or thirty acres. At this time, the rice is blooming and spitting ears, but the fields below are too thin, and the fragrance of rice flowers in the paddy field of cane sugar is particularly shabby.

Sun Qilang squeezed to the front, looked at the village, shook his head and said: "Now that the sun is setting in the west, it is not as hot as at noon, but there is no one in this village, and these barbarians are too lazy." ”

Forestry sighed: "I'm afraid it's not that they're lazy, but that no one can come out and go to the field, let's go down and have a look." Everyone be careful, listen to my orders, and be careful that there are people from Guangyuan Prefecture in the village. ”

Descend the dense forest on the hill and walk to the edge of the rice paddies, where water is still flowing in the ditches. There has been no rain in the last few days, and there is no shortage of water for rice this season, so those who cultivate the land are trying to water the land.

Carefully bypassing the rice fields, everyone involuntarily took a few more looks, and saw that a very rough little dam had been built with stones on the slowly flowing stream.

In the past, when barbarians farmed the land, they all cultivated by slash and burn, did not plough, did not irrigate, and completely depended on the sky for food. With the expansion of sugar cane and the construction of various water conservancy facilities, the concept of mountain people is also slowly changing, learning to irrigate the fields and transplanting seedlings, learning to cultivate, learning to irrigate, and the whole place is changing little by little.

It is not easy for such a small village with a few families to build dams and open irrigation ditches in the depths of this mountain, and the team members have a little more good impression of this small village in their hearts.

With a black face, Forestry took the lead and cautiously walked to the entrance of the village in the shade of the bamboo forest.

Peng Saburo had no expression on his face, holding the steel knife and walking last. Just walking past the rice paddies, he couldn't help but look at the rice paddies that stretched along the stream, and even looked up at the halfway up the hill behind the village, where a large area of forest had been cleared and planted with corn from the sugar cane service.

Passing through the green bamboo forest, I saw the first family.

It is a row of three thatched houses, with a small yard fenced in front of it, and a little vegetable is planted in the yard, and a few peach and apricot trees are planted on the side of the wall.

A clean mountain house, from the inside to the outside, there is a faint warmth.

Forestry Lin's face was as black as the bottom of a pot, he gently pulled out the knife at his waist, bent down and slowly walked to the person in front of him, and hid along the bamboo forest towards the door.

Sun Qilang shook his head secretly, Forestry is a good person, but he is too careful in doing things. It's just a small village with a few families, even the barbarians don't welcome them, and they can't help but ten big men with knives, so why be so cautious. Just go over and ask for something to eat.

Seeing that everyone else had taken out their weapons. Peng Saburo, who walked last, also glared at himself fiercely. Sun Qilang shook his head as he drew his steel knife.

The door was open, and there was a half-sized yellow dog lying on the side of the door, looking up at the approaching forestry line, shaking his head, putting his head back on his front legs, and looking at the bamboo forest in front of him stupidly.

Forestry made a gesture and led the two behind him to the door, glancing at the listless Yellow Dog at his feet. He whispered, "Come in with me, and remember to be careful not to make a noise." ”

The two agreed, and walked lightly into the small courtyard with the forestry.

There was no one in the yard, not even a single live poultry or livestock, and there was no movement at all.

Forestry sighed and led the two people behind him straight into the grass hut.

Entering the main entrance is the living room and kitchen, and half a pot of gruel mixed with wild vegetables is boiling in the pot. The firewood under the stove burns all the way outside the stove. Only a few residues remained.

At this time, the sun was setting in the west, and it was blocked by the mountains in another world. Although the scorching heat has not dissipated, in this thatched hut, there is no trace of heat, only a cold breath.

There was no one in the hut to the west, and the contents of the house were turned into a mess, even the thin homespun quilt was torn open, and the grass wool filled in it flew everywhere. There was a broken jar on the ground, which I thought had originally been for grain, and a few grains of brown rice were pressed under the shards.

Forestry closed his eyes for a while, and then led the two to another room.

The room was a little quieter, with no jars and jars, only a bamboo bed and a table made of bamboo and branches.

On a bamboo bed, a gray-haired old woman was holding a little boy of two or three years old in her arms.

Both of them were bloodstained and had been dead for a long time, only the mosquitoes and flies that smelled the smell of the corpse flew around the corpse, making a buzzing sound.

The whole world was dead silent, and the sound of flies sounded even harsher.

The forestry chief sighed and said in a deep voice, "Let's go out, there are no living people in the house." ”

After saying that, he turned around and walked out of the house.

The two behind them glanced at each other, did not speak, and quietly followed out the door.

In the courtyard, Sun Qilang also felt that it was abnormally quiet here, and he was a little nervous with a steel knife, standing against the wall with his body tense. Seeing the forestry three come out, Sun Qilang said in a low voice: "Brother Lin, what's the situation inside?" ”

Forestry shook his head: "People have been dead for a long time, and there is no living left. Let's go, let's go to a few other ones, and it's pretty much the same. ”

After saying that, Lin Lin walked out of the door and discussed a few words with Peng Sanlang, and the two of them took five people to check on other people's houses in the village, and agreed to return here to meet before dark.

The sun in the west faded from the bitter poison of the day, and traced a circle of blood-red color on the distant mountaintops, and a cool breeze rose up in the valley and blew into this small village deep in the mountains.

Sun Qilang hung his head and followed the forestry back to the house at the edge of the bamboo forest at the entrance of the village, and saw that Peng Sanlang had already waited at the door with people, and beside them, the yellow dog was still lying at the door.

The dog turned out to be the only one left in the village, and even the only cow in the village was left with a skeleton, and even the hides were stripped and the horns were removed.

When the two parties met, Sun Qilang couldn't hold back any longer, and asked in a deep voice, "This is what someone from Guangyuan Prefecture did?" ”

"Who else but them?" Forestry sighed deeply.

Sun Qilang shook his head: "I still have a good idea of grabbing food and things, but what are they killing people for?" And the dead are all old people and children, where have the adults gone? ”

A soldier from a local official family said: "Seventh brother, what's wrong with this, our people in the mountains have been here for generations. The old man is useless, the child is not easy to take on the road, of course they have to kill here. Adults can sell for money, so those people in the village are the most valuable things, and if you don't take them away, won't you come for nothing? These people are still in a hurry, otherwise even the house will be burned to the ground! ”

Sun Qilang turned his head and asked, "Arrest people and sell them for money, who do they sell them to?" ”

"In the past, I just found a master and sold it, and the people who bought it stayed as a housekeeper, otherwise where did the thousands of hundreds of masters come from? Now that we have implemented the law of bracketing in the territory of Yongzhou, we are not allowed to plunder people as slaves, so they will be sold to other places. Brother Qi didn't hear that in Jiaozhi, a man in the prime of life can sell it for dozens of dollars, and the woman is halved. If there is a craft, or if the young woman is a little beautiful, it can be doubled. ”

Sun Qilang shook his head when he heard this, he had heard of these rumors before, but he only heard about them as something unusual, but he didn't expect that in the depths of the mountains, such a thing really existed.

Forestry didn't speak, looking up at the mountains in the distance, his face gloomy. (To be continued.) )