Chapter 001
In the sixth year of Guanghe, there was drought in summer, poor harvest in autumn, and severe cold in winter. Solid ice more than a foot thick formed in the wells in the Beihai and Donglai areas.
In February of the seventh year of Guanghe, the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out.
Qiao Yan vaguely heard some human voices, which were waking her up from her unconscious state.
At first, there were just people saying something like "What if the epidemic comes again? It's better to get rid of it early", and then the slogans were heard amid the footsteps of the crowd.
The slogans were a bit confusing and only the two sentences "The blue sky is dead, the yellow sky should be established" and "The year is Jiazi, the world is auspicious" could be vaguely heard.
But these two sentences are scary enough!
Qiao Yan suddenly shuddered and woke up completely.
The stench of rot and blood, mixed with the scent of dust, hit her in the face, causing her to cough twice.
But when her vision regained clarity and she saw the environment she was in, she realized that the smell was by no means the number one difficulty she was facing at the moment.
This is a mound beside a dried-up swamp.
There should have been some plants and grass on this mound, but now all their roots are gone. All that's left is sand and... corpses.
It was not yet summer, and these people had only been dead for a day or two, so their faces were not yet rotten enough to be unrecognizable.
The body closest to her had emaciated limbs, was dehydrated and shriveled, and had a slight edema on the face, which was a sign of death from starvation.
And it's not just one person!
Qiao Yan propped herself up half way and looked around. The sight of corpses almost made her vomit.
But her body at this moment had not eaten for many days, and her stomach was empty. There was nothing to vomit at all, only some sour water rising up.
She subconsciously held a handful of sand with her fingertips, and relying on the sharpness of the sand, she tried her best to divert her eyes away from the scene in front of her, especially to temporarily clear this tragic scene from her mind in order to stay calm enough.
It was this sharp pain that made her sure that she was not dreaming.
The scenes before my eyes are real.
indeed……
If this was a dream, these details, which were by no means imaginary, were too real.
But probably no matter who sees the person lying "safely" here, except for the old man with no flesh on his body, and the body she possessed that was infected with the epidemic, it would be difficult for them not to feel waves in their hearts at this moment.
Those two slogans are even more heartbreaking.
These are two very iconic slogans.
"The Blue Sky is dead, and the Yellow Sky should be established" - when the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out.
"In the year of Jiazi, the world will be blessed with good fortune" - the year of Jiazi when the uprising broke out.
This was undoubtedly the year 184 AD, the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty!
When he realized where he was, Qiao Yan knew that no matter how familiar he was with the history of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, it was not the same as actually being in that era.
Who made this an era where people’s lives are extremely difficult?
Locust plagues, droughts, severe cold weather, and epidemics occurred alternately in the hundred years from the end of the Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty, to the point that "bones were not covered, epidemics were rampant, and people exchanged their own children for food" almost became the norm.
However, Qiao Yan does not have the extra energy to think about these things right now.
She had to figure out the current situation first...
After confirming that this place had been used as a mass grave for corpses and that no one would notice her resurrection for the time being, she carefully retreated to the shelter of the mound, withdrew her gaze from the surroundings, and fixed her eyes on her own hands.
Qiao Yan frowned.
From what she could see, it was clearly not a pair of civilian hands.
Although the hands now lack some color, it seems more like they are covered with a layer of mud in order to appear less noticeable in the crowd.
Where a layer of mud had peeled off, the pampered skin texture and complexion were revealed underneath.
On these children's hands, there are several scars that were left recently.
Even though the cloth clothes and straw sandals she wore were no different from those worn by the civilians around her who had died, they could not conceal the fact that this body was far more than just a peasant girl.
[Of course I’m not a peasant girl, this is an identity carefully selected by the system. 】
"who!"
This sudden voice made Qiao Yan's expression serious.
But she soon realized the two words in the other person's words -
system.
Qiao Yan was stunned for a moment.
Who hasn’t read two online novels?
In particular, if it weren't for the influence of natural factors, she should have been buried underground for a long time due to the archaeological landslide, instead of waking up from the body of a ten-year-old girl.
The voice didn't care about her absent-mindedness and continued speaking, "Don't be nervous, don't be nervous. I am Strategist System 068. 】
Counselor system?
Before Qiao Yan had time to delve into the meaning of this, his thoughts were interrupted by a surge of memories.
These are the memories of the past ten years of the girl whose body she is using.
I don’t know if it was fate, but this girl is also called Qiao Yan.
Just as she had guessed from the appearance of her hands, she was indeed not born in an ordinary family.
She is Qiao Xuan's granddaughter.
Qiao Xuan, who commented that Cao Cao was a "gift destined for the ages", was not just a man with a keen eye for heroes. He was definitely a famous official in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. He served as the Grand Herald, Minister of Works, and Minister of Civil Affairs until he was dismissed from his post as the Grand Marshal due to illness.
He was not just a civil official.
In the last years of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty, he also served as the General Du Liao to fight against the Hu Lu, and achieved many victories during his three years in office.
He has made great achievements in both civil and military fields.
Although he also has the surname Qiao, Qiao Xuan has no relationship with the two Qiao brothers. He only has two sons.
When his youngest son was ten years old, he was kidnapped by kidnappers in the capital. In order to eliminate the situation in the capital where bandits were rampant and kidnapped the children of the powerful and wealthy and escaped, Qiao Xuan insisted that the officials in charge of the matter do not have to worry about the safety of his young son.
The kidnappers were then executed and the youngest son also died in the incident.
The eldest son, Qiao Yu, is the father of this "Qiao Yan".
Qiao Xuan was a man of integrity and uprightness. In the past, he had recommended people who had a personal grudge against him to high positions, but he was absolutely unwilling to use his own connections in officialdom to seek benefits for his son. As a result, Qiao Yu's strength was limited, and he could only achieve the position of Rencheng Xiang even when he was nearly fifty years old.
I don’t know if it’s just a rule that the Qiao family has few connections, but Qiao Yu was around 40 years old when he had this daughter, and she has been weak since she was a child.
If that were all, it would be fine.
The Qiao family's ancestral home is in Sui Yang, Liang State, and they are also a wealthy family in Yanzhou. Qiao Mao, who will serve as the governor of Yanzhou a few years later, is a relative of Qiao Xuan and a cousin of Qiao Yu.
With such a family background, it is not difficult to support a sickly and frail girl.
But in February of the seventh year of Guanghe, Qiao Xuan fell seriously ill.
According to the news from Luoyang, this serious illness is very different from the one that caused him to be dismissed from his post seven years ago. Qiao Xuan is over seventy years old, and there is almost no room for recovery from this illness. He is just hanging on for a breath.
During the Han Dynasty, filial piety was extremely important. As his old father was seriously ill and would soon die, Qiao Yu naturally had to take up his official position and resign his post to go to Luoyang, taking his wife and only daughter with him.
However, it was also in this February that the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out.
The main force of the Yellow Turban Army was divided into three routes.
One route is the Jizhou area where General Zhang Jue is active, one is the Nanyang area where Zhang Mancheng is located, and the third route is in the south of Yanzhou, in the Ru'nan, Yingchuan and Chenjun areas of Yuzhou.
Qiao Yu traveled west with his wife and daughter. When they arrived in Dingtao, they met the Yellow Turbans of Yanzhou who responded to the call of their leader Bo Cai to march south.
At this time, the capital was shaken by the Yellow Turban Rebellion. The government had to grant amnesty to the rebels, select a commander, and recruit soldiers from all over the country. The rebellion in Yanzhou would not be resolved in a short time.
Qiao Yu traveled with a small entourage, hoping to reach the capital as soon as possible. He had few people accompanying him, but they became victims of the turmoil.
Qiao Yu died, and thanks to the protection of his followers, Qiao Yan and his mother escaped the encirclement.
They intended to return to Rencheng to seek refuge, but when they arrived in Shanyang, they encountered another Yellow Turban Army, which was under the command of Bu Ji who was gathering in Dongjun of Yanzhou from Pei County.
You can't escape by walking.
The Yellow Turban Army plundered all the food rations of the refugees and gathered them in their own hands, forcing these homeless refugees to be driven by the moth thieves, forming a torrent heading north.
Qiao Yan and his mother are no exception.
Being forced to march forward under the threat of war, with only two loaves of bread distributed every day as food, and the scene of order being destroyed overnight, it was really too terrifying for a woman from a noble family who had just lost her husband.
Although they had no carriages at this time and had changed into civilian clothes, which made them less conspicuous, and they were protected by three or two servants, their lives were temporarily safe, but they were forced to change their route and go to Dongjun instead of returning to a familiar place.
Qiao Yan's mother fell ill when passing through Juye City outside Daye Lake.
While seriously ill, she was terrified to see Juye City being quickly breached from the inside and becoming a base for the Yellow Turban Army.
"Qiao Yan" listened to his mother's sigh and said that if Juye was like this, Rencheng might not be able to be saved.
The slogans shouted by the Yellow Turban Army made people feel that the Han Dynasty was about to fall.
It is also because of this that in "Qiao Yan's" memory, not long after his mother fell ill, it was as if there was a hole in her body that was constantly draining away her vitality, and she declined very quickly.
Even though she forced herself to hold on to her mother's strength, she only lived until early March.
Later, "Qiao Yan" himself fell ill.
...Then there is the current appearance that Qiao Yan saw when he woke up.
She slowly gathered up her strength and climbed up to the top of the mound where the bodies were dumped.
When looking further away, I saw that the dried-up lake extended to the north, with some water color faintly reflecting the sunlight, which was a corner of Ono Lake.
This is March, the spring month.
But at this time, as the sun was gradually sinking, there was no trace of spring scenery anywhere, only desolation and death.
It was because the counselor system was still speaking at this moment that Qiao Yan felt that the surroundings were not completely silent.
[Now that you know what the situation is, you should know why I said that this identity was carefully selected by me, right? 】
Qiao Yan looked into the distance and replied, "It is recorded in the Book of Wei that Qiao Xuan once said to Cao Cao, 'I am old now, and I would like to entrust my wife to you.'"
Qiao Xuan will die of illness this year, and Qiao Yu died in the Yellow Turban Rebellion. The only person who can be trusted is this granddaughter.
Qiao Yan was one of the people who were included in the agreement to entrust their wives and children to each other at the end of the Han Dynasty.
At this time, Cao Cao and Huangfu Song were sending troops from the capital to Yingchuan to quell the Yellow Turban rebels. Once the rebellion in Yingchuan was successfully suppressed, they would head towards Yanzhou to wipe out the Yellow Turbans in Dongjun.
Counselor system, counselor...
If you really want to be a counselor under Cao Cao, now is the best time to contact him.
but……
"Have you ever considered this? Huangfu Song's march into Dongjun is in June, which is still three months away."
【……】
Qiao Yan knew that the system must be able to see what was happening in front of her, but she still turned around from this high place, hoping that the system could see the tragic chaos around her.
"First, I have to survive these three months."
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