On the official road, Liu Biao Tou and Liu Lao Si, who had been fighting back to back, finally received reinforcements.
Both men were covered in blood, some of it their own, but mostly it belonged to barbarians.
"Kill the barbarians! Avenge them! Avenge them!"
"You beasts, I'm going to chop off your heads!"
With red eyes, the villagers charged forward at great risk, brandishing their machetes, and quickly turned the tide of the battle, but only by a few points.
The barbarians were caught off guard, but now that they've recovered, they're not so easy to kill.
Fortunately, the villagers had been killing wolves and bandits in the mountains and forests, and had trained for two or three months, so they were no longer weak farmers.
It won't be so easy for the barbarians to defeat them in a short time!
At this moment, the women and children in the village finally ran to the dock.
"Help! Help! There are barbarians! Please save us! Waaah, help!"
The children were crying their hearts out, "Waaah, save my dad!"
The soldiers guarding the dock saw clearly this time that they were all Tianwu civilians, and one of them immediately stepped forward and asked.
"Are there really barbarians? How many have come?"
Li Lao Er shouted back, "Twenty or thirty of them, all on horseback, with bows and arrows! The able-bodied men of our village have already started fighting the barbarians. Please, sir, hurry and rescue them!"
"Waaah, help! Please, sir, save my man!"
"Help! We finally made it this far, and now we've run into barbarians! Waaah, help!"
The elderly and women wept bitterly, and the children were disoriented, searching everywhere for their parents.
Grandma Li held her granddaughter, feeling as if her blood had turned cold.
"Dr. Zhang, please save Fu Niu! Waaah, Fu Niu has injured her head!"
Doctor Zhang had almost lost half his life. Just as he was about to step forward, he heard the captain make another request to the general.
"General, shall I take a hundred men to take a look? Thirty barbarians are not many. If we win, it will be thanks to you, General!"
Unexpectedly, the general sneered, "You make it sound so easy. The barbarians are so fierce, how do you plan to win? Besides, even if you win, it's fine, but what if you lose? You'll have to take responsibility!"
Dr. Zhang, with his fiery temper, exploded on the spot!
"What did you say, you brat! You're a general, protecting the people is your duty, and you're afraid of losing the battle and refusing to help those in need! What's your name? I'm going to report this to the emperor and have you skinned alive!"
The general already looked down on these refugees, and hearing this made him even angrier.
"You old codger, who are you calling a bastard! I'm not saving you, what can you do about it! You claim to be citizens of Tianwu, refugees from the famine in the north? It's been half a year, who knows where you came from! I could say you're barbarian spies, planning to infiltrate Jiangnan!"
He just said it casually, and then immediately thought it was a really good reason.
So he waved his hand and ordered, "Arrest them and interrogate them first. I suspect they are spies sent from the north!"
The soldiers hesitated. After all, they weren't fools. These people were clearly their own civilians, and the elderly, women, and children had escaped, while the men were still fighting the barbarians behind them.
It's one thing for them not to send troops to rescue people, but instead they arrested the elderly and children. It's really hard to justify that they did so out of conscience.
The captain gritted his teeth and advised, "General, let's wait and find out more first..."
The general turned around and kicked the captain, yelling, "You fucking want to disobey orders, don't you? You've disobeyed orders time and time again, you don't want to live anymore!"
The captain could no longer contain himself and shouted, “General, these are the people of Tianwu. They’ve finally escaped here. We can’t just stand by and watch them die! If they were far away, that would be one thing, but they’re right in front of us. How can we just watch them get killed by barbarians!”
The general felt his dignity had been insulted, so he drew his sword and was about to slash the captain.
Doctor Zhang quickly treated Jiayin's head wound, but Old Lady Li's arrow wound was too severe to be treated immediately.
Listening to the general's rambling on, the old man reached into his robes, only to realize halfway through that he had given poison to the bandits on the way. He was so angry he was about to explode.
"You bastard, you're lucky to be alive today, otherwise I would have made you bleed from all seven orifices and go to see the King of Hell right now!"
That general was infuriating; he retorted, "I simply won't send troops, and you will all be going to meet the King of Hell!"
Wen Hai also went to fight the barbarians, leaving Mr. Wen to support Madam Cui. He stepped forward now, his face dark with anger.
"I am Wen Qinglin, an editor of the Hanlin Academy and a close advisor to the Emperor! You must send troops immediately, or I will report every single detail of what happened today to the Emperor!"
The general hesitated for a moment, but after glancing at the disheveled old, weak, women and children, as well as the soldiers on the side, he raised his chin.
"You claim to be a compiler in the Hanlin Academy, but who can prove that? Besides, we guard the dock to protect the safety of the Emperor and Empress Dowager; we cannot abandon our posts. You, a mere compiler, disregard the safety of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, only concerned with a bunch of lowly commoners. What is your crime?"
"You!" Mr. Wen was so angry that his vision blurred, and Madam Cui gritted her teeth, pushed Mr. Wen aside and stepped forward to shout, "You are the Dingbei Army, aren't you? I am the wife of the Marquis of Dingbei. I order you to send one hundred soldiers to rescue the people immediately!"
The general turned his head to look at her, then suddenly burst into laughter, extremely pleased with himself.
"I told you you were spies, but you wouldn't admit it. Of all people to impersonate, why did you have to impersonate the Lady of Dingbei? The Lady of Dingbei died before the capital was moved. My sister just married into the Dingbei Marquis's household a few days ago. My sister is the real Lady of Dingbei! Haha, you're all dead!"
He waved his hand, "Men, arrest them!"
This time, the soldiers did not hesitate. They were indeed the Dingbei Army, and the Marquis of Dingbei had indeed just married a new wife…
Madam Cui's face turned ashen, and her legs gave way as she was about to collapse, but Mr. Wen helped her up.
After listening for a long time, Li Lao Er, Li Lao Tai, and the others felt utterly disheartened.
So what if they ran to the dock? These soldiers had no intention of sending troops!
Dr. Zhang is no good, Mr. Wen is no good, and Mrs. Cui is even worse!
Did they endure all that hardship only to die at the very door of life?
"You beasts, you damned dogs, I'll fight you to the death!"
"You're the one who's a lowly commoner, your whole family are lowly commoners!"
"If you won't let us live, then we'll die together, we'll die together!"
"I'll fight them! Waaah, if my husband can't live, I can't live either!"
"God, open your eyes! Strike these beasts dead! Our lives are so miserable!"
Old Lady Li had truly gone mad. She shoved Jiayin into Madam Cui's arms, still with a long arrow slung over her shoulder, and then rammed her head hard into the general!
The general didn't expect these refugees to dare to make a move. Before he knew it, Old Lady Li bumped into him in the stomach, causing him to fall backward and cry out in pain.
Before he could get up, the crazed old woman Li had already mounted him.
"My son is fighting desperately! My granddaughter has a head injury! Our family is about to die! Then you shouldn't live either! We killed wolves and bandits, we finally made it out of the mountains, and you just stood by and watched us die! Then we'll die together, we'll die together!"
She cursed and grabbed a handful of flesh, turning the general into a bloody mess in the blink of an eye.
The other women rushed forward, crying as they helped.
Some people held down the general's arms and legs, some kicked his head hard, and some even grabbed his hands and bit them!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com