Three Kingdoms

Chapter 3545 Life and Death Together

Early February of the tenth year of Taixing.

After a period of emergency construction, the military camp in Danjiangkou has begun to take shape.

Whether it is a water fort or a land fort, the rammed earth walls have been piled up layer by layer to a height of more than two people.

The rammed earth layer is densely packed with round rammed holes. As long as it doesn't rain, plus blue bricks and clay, it will be the structure of a small city...

Unfortunately, the wind started to blow.

As the warm wind gradually rose, the clouds in the sky gradually gathered together.

The sun disappeared, and even the air seemed to feel a little moist.

The military school in charge of supervising the construction at Danjiangkou Military Camp urgently reported that it might be too late to lay the blue bricks...

Whether it was the weather changes or the death of Niu Jin of Shunyang, it was not good news for Cao Ren.

Cao Ren had no time to deal with Cai Mao's affairs, so he could only rush to the Danjiangkou military camp at full speed.

Before Cai Mao's men arrived, the news had already spread all over the city, just like the day before today, which was also covered with dark clouds.

Under such circumstances, Cao Ren couldn't do anything and could only take care of the present!

A large number of captured civilians were still working hard. Some were using logs and thick ropes to drag stones up the mountain, some were repairing battlements on the village wall, and some were using large pots to boil a mixture of glutinous rice juice and mortar to grout and glue the stones...

Others loaded the dead onto trucks and dumped them in the valleys...

The people of Nanxiang built this military camp with their blood, flesh and blood, but Cao Ren turned a blind eye to it. The only thing on his mind was the battle in front of him.

The defense of Danjiangkou will determine the safety of the entire northern part of Jingzhou!

Although Xiangyang and Fancheng can serve as the last stronghold in the north of Jingzhou, they are also the last line of defense. If Danjiangkou cannot use the advantages of Jingzhou's navy to defeat the enemy, can Xiangyang and Fancheng alone withstand the enemy's attack?

Cao Ren was not very confident.

The problem now is how to complete the construction of the military camp as soon as possible before the rain comes. In the final analysis, it is all about racing against time!

As Cao Ren rode his horse up the hillside, he saw a group of laborers dragging rocks like ants. The logs creaked under the heavy load on the slippery mountain road, and the moment the hemp rope suddenly broke, the five or six hundred kilograms of rocks rolled down, crushing the three laborers who were unable to dodge into a bloody mess.

"Asshole!" Cao Ren couldn't help cursing when he saw the miserable scene in front of him. "The stones are heavy, don't you know to use more hemp ropes?! How can we repair the fort if the stones are broken?!"

It was not easy for Cao's army, which had not yet mastered the technology of using gunpowder to chisel stone, to obtain stone slabs.

In the earliest times, the characteristics of rock expansion and contraction were used. The stones were first burned with fire, and then water was poured on them to cool them suddenly, thereby intensifying the cracking of the rocks. This process was then repeated to obtain collapsed stones. However, this type of rock cracking was highly random. After burning for half a day, only a small piece might collapse, making it impossible to produce on a large scale.

Later, a method was developed to utilize the natural cracks in the rocks, first wedging thin-bladed stone flakes or wooden sticks along the cracks, and then prying the rocks open through the principle of leverage. However, this technology is also too restrictive. If no cracks can be found, or if the cracks found are not enough to pry open much stone, it will be very difficult to use.

Later, someone invented the throwing method, which is to use the original corners of the bedrock as a table, and use large stones to hit them vigorously, knocking off stone flakes and stones from the corners of the bedrock. However, this method can only obtain small and fragmentary stones. If you want to obtain large and regular stone strips, you can only do so after the emergence of iron technology...

So if a civilization wants to work with stone, it must first have the technology and tools to do so. If it can just cut stone slabs without anything, then what’s the point?

The stone blocks used by Cao's army today are made by using an iron drill and an axe hammer to carve a shallow crack in the stone, and then driving an iron wedge at a certain interval to split the stone into long strips through two rows of iron wedges. Finally, the stone blocks are chiseled with an iron drill to make them into a more regular rectangular block. This thing is very troublesome. Whether it is knocking it down or transporting it, it requires a lot of manpower. So after finally transporting it to Danjiangkou Water Fort, it broke, which immediately made Cao Ren feel unhappy.

As for the forced labor of the civilians who were crushed to death by stones, what does that count as?

"Speed ​​up the construction! Light the torches! Work day and night!" Cao Ren had just dismounted and was issuing orders non-stop, "If the military camp is not completed, no one will be in trouble! Speed ​​up! Send more people to boil rice milk and use all the blue bricks and stones!"

If it were autumn or winter, the wooden stakes covered with mud and plaster could still hold up to some extent, but the rain was about to come, and no matter how densely the wooden stakes and wooden fences were nailed, they could not stop the invasion of rain!

If the soil layer that has been compacted with great difficulty is soaked by water, wouldn’t all the previous efforts be in vain?

We must race against time!

Cao Ren stood on a high point in the military camp and looked around. His guards stretched out like tentacles and lashed everywhere like whips, instantly speeding up the construction of the Danjiangkou military camp by three points!

…

…

Wang San knelt on the cold rammed earth, his knees sunk into it, and the gravel hurt his bones.

He dug his hand into the tamping hole and suddenly felt a finger.

A finger that fell here at some unknown time...

Wang San picked up the finger and suddenly felt that it looked familiar.

There is an obvious scar on this curled knuckle.

This is Li Erlang’s finger!

When they were hunting in the mountains, it was Li Erlang who pulled him out when he was in danger, and left this scar!

"Li Jilang, your fingers..."

Wang San searched in his chaotic and disordered memory, and then he suddenly remembered that Li Erlang was dead...

The scarred fingers fell down.

When the stone rolled down yesterday, Li Er gave him a push, but he himself was like an ear of millet crushed by a stone roller during the autumn harvest, his bones and the rammed earth forever frozen together.

Li Erlang saved him twice...

However, Wang San couldn't even help collect Li Erlang's body.

The large pieces of the body were dragged away, and no one cared about the smaller pieces, or had the time to do so, so they were just smashed into the rammed earth.

The moment of death after the stone rolled down, the image of Li Er's neck veins bulging was still imprinted in his eyes. At this moment, the finger that had once saved him from death was stuck in the loess in a twisted posture, as if telling Wang San something, indicating something...

"Tamp the seventh layer! Then it's time to grout! Move faster, faster!"

The military supervisor's voice exploded ten feet away.

Wang San looked at the newly fallen loess pouring down like a waterfall, and hurriedly reached out to grab the finger, but he couldn't catch it at all.

The loess took the lead and swallowed up the severed finger.

Amid the rolling yellow earth, Li Erlang's severed fingers rose and fell like the hands of a drowning man stretched out from the water.

Wang San tried several times but failed to catch it. He only grabbed a handful of loose soil.

"What a sneaky and cunning bastard!"

The military supervisor saw that Wang San was not working, so he rushed over and hit Wang San's spine with the short stick, making a hollow muffled sound. The old wounds overlapped with the new ones and formed blood scabs.

Wang San fell to the ground and was kicked again.

"What are you doing?! Are you pretending to be dead?! Fill the dirt quickly!" the supervisor yelled, "If you don't work hard, I'll beat you to death!"

The pain made Wang San shiver, then he mechanically got up and waved the wooden pestle woodenly, watching the newly poured yellow soil gradually cover the blue-gray finger, as if covering Wang San's own body and soul.

The sky became increasingly gloomy.

The roar of Cao's soldiers came to my ears.

For some reason, perhaps in order to ignore the physical pain, Wang San suddenly remembered what an ascetic monk said when he came to his hometown village. Wang San forgot the specific words, but he only remembered that the general meaning was that people have three lives, and the suffering in this life is the result of the sins committed in the previous life.

What song was that ascetic singing?

Oh, I remember now.

"In this life, I carry the sins of my previous life, and in the next life, I will carry the sins of this life..."

Oxen and horses!

In the cycle of reincarnation, people are like oxen and horses carrying corpses.

All the people are cattle and horses...

Ox-head and horse-face.

Wang San looked at the flocks of carrion crows rising in the direction of the valley, and suddenly understood what the ascetic monk said...

When you die, the Ox-Headed and Horse-Faced Devil will come to greet you.

Every layer of rammed earth is embedded with the souls of the dead, turning the water of Danjiang River into the color of the underworld.

The red and black flag of the big man fluttering above the military camp appeared in the twilight the color of dried lung, dirty and ochre-red.

The wooden pestle became heavier and heavier, and blood oozed from between Wang San's fingernails.

Wang San didn't know what sins he had committed in his previous life that caused him to be treated like a beast of burden in this life.

What about Li Erlang? What sin did he commit?

The wind blew the stench of a corpse from the other side of the valley and hit Wang San's face, making him unable to open his eyes.

Oh, and there's also the one in the valley...

Have you committed a sin?

Everyone...

Oh, so except for those high-ranking nobles, everyone else has committed sins in their previous lives?

…

…

Mrs. Chen, who was over 60 years old, was shivering as she tied the swaddling clothes on her back. Her three-year-old granddaughter was so hungry that she didn't even have the strength to cry.

She hunched over and added firewood to the earthen stove; the mortar in the pot gurgled.

Although she is old, she still has to work, otherwise she won't even have rice milk to feed her children.

She has been working for so many years that she can't even remember how old she was.

What remains in Mrs. Chen's memory is endless work.

When I was young, some people said that if you don’t suffer when you are young, you will suffer when you are old.

She believed it, so she worked very hard and endured a lot of hardships when she was young.

I have been working hard until now and am still suffering.

You have to endure hardships...

Yesterday, an old woman was tired and hungry, and she accidentally fell into the pot while boiling mortar, and her face was scalded by the mortar.

The military supervisor was furious, saying that half a pot of rice soup was wasted, and he threw the old woman directly into the rice soup to feed the fish.

What is the purpose of life?

Just to endure hardship?

She suffered this pain all her life.

The old man passed away early, and he had raised his child with great difficulty. He originally thought that he would be able to relax now that his child was grown up, but he had to get married. People from all over the village had to give gifts, and he struggled again, working day and night with his child. Finally, he barely collected enough gifts for his child to get married. He originally thought that he could relax, but his grandchildren came.

My son and daughter-in-law both have to work and have no time to take care of the children, so I have to support them with my old bones, right?

She also thought that it would be better to wait until her grandson was older.

The result was war.

My son is gone.

My daughter-in-law was taken away and we don’t know whether she is dead or alive.

She just wanted to raise her grandchildren, and she would endure it no matter how hard or tiring it was.

As a result, Cao's army came again and conscripted her grandson, who was less than ten years old.

She couldn't bear to watch her grandson being captured, but she couldn't defeat those soldiers, so she gritted her teeth and followed them, just to be together.

Live together, die together.

The boiled mortar has a very bad smell.

It is said that gold juice was added to the mortar because people were worried that the people who cooked the mortar would drink it secretly.

After all, for the sake of adhesion, there is some glutinous rice in it.

"Grandma, come, come, have some rice soup..."

A kitchen soldier came over with a forced smile and handed Mrs. Chen a chipped earthenware bowl.

There was half a bowl of rice soup in the bowl.

Mrs. Chen was about to thank him, but she saw him naturally lift up the tattered cloth on her back, "Hey, you can't bear to see this girl, why don't you..."

Mrs. Chen shuddered and shrank back, "Don't touch my granddaughter!"

The Cao army soldier immediately frowned and slapped the broken pottery bowl to the ground, "You are shameless! Let's see when you and your son will die together!"

Mrs. Chen said in a hoarse voice, "Even if we die, we'll die together!"

…

…

Cao Ren walked across the still-dry wall of the military camp holding his sword, avoiding a pool of blood with his suede boots.

In the newly dug trench in front of the village wall, there were still some corpses that had not been dealt with.

The rotting corpse was soaked in water, and the toes fell off like boiled water chestnuts.

Cao Ren frowned and called the military school over: "The corpse must be disposed of in time! Don't pollute the soldiers' food."

Suddenly, a shrill wail pierced the dusk. A woman with disheveled hair threw herself on a corpse cart, hugging a corpse and howling.

Cao Ren frowned and said, "What a noise."

Immediately, a soldier rushed forward, slapped the woman to the ground, knocked her unconscious, and then dragged her away.

The laborers around and in the distance stared blankly, then lowered their heads woodenly and continued with their work.

After all, if I don't continue working, I will not only be beaten with a stick, but also have no food to eat today.

Even a bowl of porridge.

"How did Shunyang get lost?"

The death of Niu Jin certainly made Cao Ren feel a little uncomfortable, but that was all. Cao Ren had no time to think about anything else. He just wanted to understand what methods the Hussars used to capture Shunyang, or how much damage they suffered.

If Niu Jin's death can deal a heavy blow to Liao Hua, then it is worth it...

While inspecting the village wall, Cao Ren listened to the military school's report, and his brows furrowed as he listened.

Based on the situation of the remaining soldiers gathered by the military academy in the past few days, a conclusion was reached that did not satisfy Cao Ren.

Niu Jin was unable to cause much damage to the Cavalry Army.

"What did he do..." Cao Ren slapped the wall of the fort, "I gave him five or six thousand soldiers! Five or six thousand! Just gone! Gone!"

The military school remained silent.

Cao Ren did not mention a single word about Niu Jin's posthumous affairs.

But this is also normal. If we win this battle, we can still arrange these matters in the future. If we lose, then any consolation will be meaningless.

Cao Ren returned to the central military tent of the military camp and pressed the bronze and gold-inlaid tiger talisman on the sheepskin map. He carefully looked at the mountain and river divisions and troop arrangements on the map until the sun set and the guards lit candles.

The firelight flickered on the surface of Cao Ren's armor, emitting a cold light.

It would be difficult to fight against the Hussars in a head-on battle, so we must come up with some solutions...

Cao Ren suddenly stretched out his hand and drew an arc on the west bank of the Dan River on the map. "Order, tomorrow we will dispatch three battleships to sink in Yingzui Bay, and fill the belly of the ship with oil-soaked reed mats..."

Eagle's Beak Bay itself is relatively narrow, and shipwrecks will make the waterway even more congested.

When the Hussars arrived here, they had to either find a way to move the sunken ships or endure the impact of the congestion in the waterway.

The oil-soaked reed mats in the sunken ship can be used as a fuel for fire attacks when necessary.

"Send another twenty Mengchong warships and connect them bow and stern with iron chains to block the middle of the river."

Cao Ren's hand continued to slide.

Although the naval forces of both Liao Hua and Li Dian were only supplementary and not the main combat force, Cao Ren still responded with 120% caution.

"After the iron chains are connected, a tower ship is set up with sulfur gunpowder inside... If the Cavalry Army tries to break the iron chains blocking the river, the tower ship will collide with them..." Cao Ren's eyes were grim, "The Cavalry Army loves to use fire... Then why not send a living coffin to the Cavalry Army to burn!"

If it was a Mengchong warship loaded with flammable objects, it would most likely arouse the vigilance of the Hussars. However, the Hussars might not expect that a tower ship was loaded with flammable objects.

Moreover, the loading capacity of the tower ship will be even greater. Once it is ignited, it may cover one-third of the river surface. At that time, all the cavalry and navy ships and soldiers around the tower ship may be spread by the flames!

The military school student standing next to Cao Ren quickly agreed.

Cao Ren thought for a moment, and suddenly asked, "How are the daily supplies for the three hundred warriors?"

The military school said: "Don't worry, General, the supply of death soldiers is sufficient and sufficient!"

Cao Ren nodded, "Before the battle, provide more cattle and sheep! If we win this battle, everyone in the Death Squad will receive 10,000 gold! They will be pardoned! You must know this!"

Military academies should be.

These three hundred warriors will go upstream and launch a surprise attack on the rear of the Hussar Army during the great battle.

In order to avoid the detection of the Hussars, these death warriors would carry inflated sheepskin bags and reeds, and swim underwater holding stones. This kind of thing that is almost life-threatening, except for the death warriors, no one else can do it.

After arranging the defense and attack on the water, Cao Ren turned his attention to the land.

In the twilight, the eyes of this pillar of the Cao family, reflecting the light of the candle, seemed to be three times colder than the will-o'-the-wisp in the middle of the river...