Chief Armaments Master of the Ming Dynasty

Shanxi.

In Lin Fan's mind, these two words were originally just a place name, a symbol, in a history book.

Today, it is the muddy road beneath my feet, the endless loess hills in front of me, as barren as those in northern Shaanxi, and the dry wind that blows in my face, carrying coal dust and dirt.

In the spring of the second year of the Chongzhen reign, Shanxi was once again experiencing a famine.

Last year there was a severe drought, and the harvest failed completely.

This spring, not a drop of rain fell again, and the land was so dry and cracked that it resembled a tortoise shell, with not a single blade of grass growing.

What I saw along the way was shocking.

Along both sides of the official road lay corpses of the starving.

There were men, women, young and old, all skin and bones, with sunken eye sockets, like dried-up skeletons.

Some of the corpses had been mutilated by wild dogs, revealing white ribs and dark red bits of flesh.

Even the stray dogs' eyes turned red.

They were no longer afraid of people, squatting by the roadside, staring at passersby with their bright green eyes, drool hanging from their mouths, as if waiting for their next meal.

When Tian Ergou saw this scene for the first time, he was so frightened that his face turned pale and his legs were trembling.

"Master Lin...they...all starved to death?"

Lin Fan remained silent.

What could he say?

These are all living, breathing people who once had parents, children, homes, and fields.

Now only corpses remain, devoured by wild dogs, lying exposed in the wilderness, unburied.

Han Jinhu walked silently, the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitching slightly.

Old Geng and Shuanzhu walked at the front of the group, cautiously observing their surroundings.

Having come from a frontier military background, they were used to death, but their faces were grim at this moment.

"Cheer up, everyone!" Liu Zongmin shouted from the front. "Stop looking! If you look too much, you'll end up lying there yourself!"

The procession moved forward in silence.

The sounds of mule hooves, the dull thud of wheels rolling over frozen earth, the occasional suppressed cough, mixed with the distant sounds of wild dogs tearing at each other for food, constituted the entirety of this apocalyptic journey.

No one speaks.

What are you saying?

---

As evening fell, the group arrived at a small village.

It's called a village, but it actually consists of only a dozen or so cave dwellings that have mostly collapsed. They were carved out against a loess cliff face and look like a row of dark eye sockets from a distance.

There was no smoke from cooking fires, no crowing of roosters or barking of dogs, and no human voices.

Only the wind blowing through the empty cave dwellings seemed to whistle.

"Go into the village and take a look," Li Zicheng ordered. "Be careful."

The scouts went in to search first.

A moment later, Old Geng returned, his face even more grim than before.

"General... there's no one in the village."

"They all escaped?"

"They didn't escape." Old Geng's voice was a little hoarse. "They're all... dead. In the ravine behind the mountain, a whole bunch of them. Men, women, young and old, they all look like they were... killed."

The group entered the village.

The scene in the back ravine was horrific.

Dozens of corpses were piled together, lying haphazardly, like a pile of junk carelessly discarded.

There were elderly people with white hair, infants still in swaddling clothes, young women, and strong men.

The wounds were all in vital areas—the head was smashed, the neck was severed, and the chest was pierced.

The blood had long since dried, congealing into dark brown lumps that seeped into the loess soil, turning the land into a nauseating color.

"It was bandits." Liu Zongmin squatted down and examined the wound. "The cuts were clean; they used a good knife. The killing method was skillful; they weren't ordinary starving people."

"If you're going to steal grain, then steal grain. Why kill people?" Han Jinhu gritted his teeth.

"To make an example of someone," Gu Jun'en sighed, "so that other villages dare not resist. This is a common tactic used by bandits."

Lin Fan stood by the ditch, looking at the corpses.

The body of a young woman, still clutching an infant in her arms.

The baby's head was smashed, and the woman's face bore the marks of extreme fear and despair.

She must have been pleading before she died.

She begged those people to spare her child.

But nobody listened.

Her child still died.

She herself died.

Lin Fan's stomach churned, and acid rose to his throat.

He turned around, breathing in the cold air, forcing himself not to think about those images.

But those images, like branding marks, are etched into my mind and cannot be erased.

"Bury them," Li Zicheng's voice came from behind, low and hoarse. "Bury as many as you can."

The soldiers silently set to work, digging a large pit on the hillside and placing the corpses inside one by one.

There was no coffin, no burial clothes, no offerings, and not even a tombstone.

Only a mound of yellow earth remains, covering those once vibrant lives.

it's dark.

The campfire was lit, illuminating the silent faces of the people.

No one speaks.

A heavy, oppressive atmosphere permeated the air.

Lin Fan sat by the fire, holding a bowl of thin porridge in his hands, but he couldn't bring himself to drink it.

Tian Ergou leaned closer and whispered, "Master Lin, I heard... those bandits sometimes do more than just rob grain..."

Lin Fan glanced at him.

Tian Ergou swallowed hard, lowering his voice even further: "I've also heard... in some places, when there's no food, they... they resort to cannibalism."

Han Jinhu almost dropped the bowl in his hand.

"Ergou! Don't talk nonsense!"

"I'm not making this up." Tian Ergou's face appeared exceptionally pale in the firelight. "I saw it with my own eyes when I was fleeing famine. Some people cooked and ate dead children... And even more cruelly, they...

"Enough!" Old Geng roared, interrupting him.

Tian Ergou shrank back, not daring to say anything more.

Lin Fan put down his bowl, stood up, and walked to the edge of the camp.

The night wind was biting.

In the distance, the mountains are as dark as ink, and a few cold stars hang in the sky, coldly watching this suffering land.

He recalled a historical record he had read in his previous life—

During the great famine at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan were devastated, with people resorting to cannibalism.

Historical records simply state: "People ate each other."

Behind those three words lies so much blood and tears, so much despair, so much extinguished humanity?

he does not know.

But he knew that from now on, those images would follow him forever, becoming a nightmare he could never escape.

---

In the middle of the night, Lin Fan was awakened by a commotion.

He sat up and saw that the camp was brightly lit by torches and filled with people.

"What's going on?" He grabbed a soldier who was running past.

"We caught a spy!" the soldier said urgently. "He was acting suspiciously outside the camp and was caught by Leader Liu's men!"

Lin Fan felt a chill run down his spine and followed the crowd toward the center of the camp.

Beside the campfire, a thin man was bound hand and foot, kneeling on the ground, his face bruised and battered, clearly having been beaten.

Liu Zongmin stood in front of him, holding a knife in his hand, the tip of which was pressed against the man's chin.

"Speak! Who sent you?"

The man trembled violently, his teeth chattering: "Hero, spare my life! Hero, spare my life! I was just passing by..."

"Just passing by?" Liu Zongmin sneered. "In the dead of night, in this desolate wilderness, you think you're just passing by? Do you think I'm a three-year-old?"

The knife tip pierced the man's chin, and blood flowed down his neck.

"I'll talk! I'll talk!" the man screamed like a pig being slaughtered. "I...I'm a man of 'Eight Great Kings'! Zhang Xianzhong sent me!"

Zhang Xianzhong.

The moment those three words were uttered, an uproar erupted around them.

Li Zicheng stepped forward, his gaze cold and stern: "Zhang Xianzhong? What did he send you here for?"

"King Zhang...King Zhang sent me...to investigate your strengths and weaknesses," the man stammered. "I heard that Li Zicheng is about to cross the Yellow River, and King Zhang wants...wants to see you."

"See me?" Li Zicheng frowned. "Where is he?"

"In...in Xizhou. It's two hundred li from here."

Li Zicheng was silent for a moment, then waved his hand and said, "Lock him up first, we'll talk about it at dawn."

The soldiers dragged the man away.