There are hundreds of water coefficients in Panyu, but the two largest ones are Lutou River and Huangsha River. Strictly speaking, these two rivers are the same river, but one is in the upper reaches and the other is in the lower reaches. The Huangsha River in the upper reaches flows through the entire Xiangshan Mountain, and merges through the Chicken and Xiaolan Waterway in Panyu and fuses into the Lion Ocean to the east.

In the early years, Xiangshan and Panyu were originally not bordered. During the Yuan Dynasty, there were more than ten miles of sea between the two counties. During the Hongwu period, the northern part of Xiangshan began to accumulate into land, and it was only then that it was truly connected to the mainland. Because of this, after the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, a large number of descendants of the royal family and officials of the Southern Song Dynasty lived and settled in Xiangshan (island) across the sea across Panyu. Therefore, there are now many Zhaojia Villages in Xiangshan.

After obtaining the information that the Qing army was about to launch a large-scale attack on Xiangshan, Zhou Shixiang immediately carried out a large-scale mobilization. This mobilization not only mobilized military forces, but also mobilized the people of Xiangshan.

Given the consistent virtue of the Qing army, Zhou Shixiang did not dare to place the safety of the 100,000 people in Xiangshan on their kindness, so he had to mobilize the people to move to a safe area, especially the people who were bound to the Qing army on the northern front, who had to evacuate them no matter what, otherwise what awaited them would be a catastrophe.

Longyan Township in the northwest of Xiangshan is the only way for the Qing army on the right. The Taiping Army also has the most people in the Houchang camp. Zhou Shixiang asked Duke Xiang of Song to personally go to Longyan Township to command the retreat. It is necessary to transport all tens of thousands of people in this area safely across the river through the Xinhui Navy.

The Liangzi Township area is a must-pass place for the Qing army on the middle and Qing army on the left. Zhou Shixiang, the common people in this area, instructed them to evacuate to Xiangshan County. If the rest of the scattered villages cannot participate in the evacuation in time, they will be evacuated to the nearby mountains.

In addition to the people evacuated to Xinhui, for others, Xiangshan is actually not a real safe zone. The primary goal of the Qing army is Xiangshan County. Once the county is captured by the Qing army, the people in the city will be 100% bloodbathed by the Qing army. Therefore, transferring a large number of people to Xiangshan County is not to make them safe, but to put them in a jungle, just like asking you to fall into a trap. Even the front mountain village far behind is not safe, because Xiangshan does not have enough depth to defend the Qing army. Once the county town is lost, the loss of the front mountain village is inevitable, and it is still a bad luck to wait for the people of Xiangshan at that time.

Therefore, many people opposed moving the people to the county town. What they mentioned most was to move the people to the county town, so no one could escape once the Qing army came. If they did not move, the people would scatter in various townships and villages, even if they were massacred by the Qing army, they would eventually survive a small part of them and would not be killed. After all, the people were familiar with the terrain around their homes than the Qing army. When the Qing army really came, they could find a place to hide. They all came to Xiangshan County, but they had no place to hide.

Zhou Shixiang has considered this point, but he still resisted the opposition and insisted on carrying out the evacuation operation.

There were 30,000 to 40,000 people in the northern part of Xiangshan, and the Taiping Army's rear camp was almost all placed in the north, so Zhou Shixiang had to transfer them, even if they were transferred to an unsafe place. At least he, the general, could explain to the Taiping Army.

Just imagine, no one cares about the safety of his wife and children. Can the husband (father and son) in the army work hard for him?

Regardless of the matter, letting the people in the north be massacred by the Qing army will definitely be a serious blow to the morale of the Taiping Army. Zhou Shixiang could not accept this kind of thing.

The attack on the Qing army from three routes was the biggest crisis since the Taiping Army was formed, and it also determined whether the Taiping Army could truly leap the dragon gate, affect the overall situation in Guangdong, and then affect the overall situation of the Qing Dynasty, becoming an emerging force rising in Lingnan.

Therefore, this battle must be won. Before the battle begins, Zhou Shixiang needs his subordinates to maintain high fighting will and determination, rather than worry about his wife and children at home. For this reason, even if the migrants involved a large amount of manpower and materials in the Taiping Army, he had to take action, not for anything else, just for the soldiers who were about to fight for life and death with him and the Qing army, they would not worry about them.

If the Taiping Army cannot win this war, whether it is transferred or not, the people of Xiangshan will be destined to be tragic.

Moving everyone to one place and gather together may be Zhou Shixiang's intentional actions. He regarded these people as hostages to force his subordinates to fight to the end. Just like Xinhui, for the sake of the relatives in the city, men must fight to the death, and have no choice to retreat!

Zhou Shixiang was also very conflicted in his heart when he looked at his behavior, but he knew that he had only one choice, that is, to fight to death.

He died, the Taiping Army was finished, the Taiping Army was finished, the people of Xiangshan would also be finished, and the Ming Dynasty would even be finished!

Everything is over.

If you want to stop this from happening, you can only kill Hu'er and survive in death.

.........

The evacuation organized by all township officials was intermittent under the influence of the typhoon. By the 19th, more than 20,000 people had been resettled one after another. Although there were still people who were taking their families to the local village offices from time to time, the number of people was getting smaller and smaller. Many people could no longer escape, and were caught by the Qing army and killed thousands of corpses on the road.

As the wind stopped, the Yellow Sand River was quiet under the night, without any turbulence.

In a jungle on the shore, there were vaguely seen many people lying there with clothes. In addition to people, there were more than a dozen trolleys, and the cars were filled with clothes, bedding, pots and pans. This was a team that fled from Panyu to Xiangshan. They were all from Zhaojia Village. There were more than 200 people when they first ran out, but now there are less than half left.

The leader of the team was a middle-aged man. His name was Zhao Dabiao. He made a living for generations. It was the 12th generation after he passed down to his generation. According to the old people, Zhao Dabiao's ancestors were officials who escaped from Fujian with Emperor Duanzong of the Southern Song Dynasty. After the Battle of Yashan, his ancestors and more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians joined the sea to die for the country. When he entered the sea, he was reluctant to die for his grandson, who was only a few years old, so he asked someone to take him away. Later, the grandson wandered to Xiangshan with the descendants of the Southern Song royal family and changed his surname to Zhao. From then on, Zhao Dabiao's branch was found. Specifically, which minister of the Southern Song Dynasty minister was the one who died for the Southern Song Dynasty.

The team has been tortured since the day they escaped from the village. They were discovered by the Qing army twice, but they lost half of them. The rest of the people were exhausted by the Qing soldiers and the invasion of wind and rain, but Xiangshan County was still very far away. Both adults and children were exhausted. They chose to rest in the forest by the Huangsha River for a night so that they could recover some strength to continue their journey tomorrow.

Everyone was already asleep, but Zhao Dabiao still had to patrol inside and outside the forest with his energy. He had a killing knife on his waist. This was taken from the butcher's house next door to defend himself when he fled. On the way, he used this knife to stab a Qing soldier who wanted to steal his wife.

It was early autumn, and it had just rained heavily, the temperature in the forest was very low and the ground was very wet. The farmers were reluctant to take out the clean quilt, for fear of getting the quilt wet, so in order to keep the cold, everyone leaned against each other to keep warm. Even so, their bodies were soaked in water. When they woke up tomorrow, they were afraid that many people would suffer from the wind and cold.

Zhao Dabiao resisted the idea of ​​raising a fire to drive away the cold for everyone. After patrolling around, he found that there was no suspicious movement. Then he yawned and touched the cart and lay down on the spot. He was so sleepy that his legs were swollen because of his days of escape. The bottom of his feet was even more worn out, and it hurts when he walked.

In a daze, Zhao Dabiao felt something covering his body. When he fell asleep, he found that his wife Qiaoer covered him with a sack.

A warm feeling surged in Zhao Dabiao's heart. He looked at his wife with some emotion and asked her: "Where is the mother?"

"Mom and the third sister-in-law are together."

Qiao'er stretched out her fingers not far away. Zhao Dabiao supported her body with her arms and looked at her. As expected, his mother was sleeping with her third sister-in-law and others. Listening to her third sister-in-law's snoring, it seemed that the old people were sleeping soundly.

Zhao Dabiao smiled and said to Qiaoer: "You should go to bed too. You have to get up early tomorrow. The rain has stopped. If we don't go faster, the Tartars will catch up with us."

"I know, I'll go to bed now."

Qiaoer nodded and agreed. Zhao Dabiao glanced around and then closed her eyes and continued to fall asleep. However, he soon fell asleep. In his dream, he dreamed that Qiaoer was finally pregnant and that his Zhao family finally had incense.

The forest was quiet, and only snoring sounds were heard from time to time. I don’t know how long it took, but suddenly a few figures moved on the ground and then stood up quietly.

With the faint moonlight, Zhao looked at the place where his son and daughter-in-law were. He smiled lovingly. Then he sighed in his heart, squatted down and touched a small stool in his hand, and then pulled the third sister-in-law beside him and raised her legs to walk deep into the forest.

There were also several women who went with Zhao, all of whom were older. They walked very slowly and moved lightly, fearing that they would be discovered. It was not until they walked into the darkness of the forest that Zhao stopped under a big tree that few people could not even hug.

"Just that's it, this tree is very strong, enough for a few old bones." Zhao said as he put the small stool on the ground.

The third sister-in-law asked another person: "Do you think you can?"

"Okay, that's pretty good."

As the old women said, they took out cloth strips and threw them on the big tree, tied up the knot and pulled them up.

An old woman looked back at Linzi and hesitated, "We're going like that?"

The third sister-in-law's eyes turned red: "We have old arms and legs, but we really can't walk. We can't implicate the children anymore."

"My third sister-in-law said, we have agreed not to drag the children down. Only a few old sisters are companionship on the underworld road. Okay, there is nothing to think about. If the children find out that we are gone, they will die. I will leave first."

An old woman said that, stepping on the small stool brought by Zhao and putting her head into the rope cover. Then she gently kicked the stool over. Suddenly, her throat was tightly tied by the rope cover and could not breathe. She instinctively struggled a few times, and after a while, she stopped moving again.

The remaining few old women looked at the old sister who took the lead. After silence, Zhao suddenly said to the old woman beside her: "Her third sister-in-law, she looks really scary when she hangs her."

The third sister-in-law didn't say anything.

Zhao sighed, put his head on with trembling, and kicked the bench she had been sitting on for decades.
Chapter completed!