Chapter 150: All Old, Weak, Sick, and Disabled (62 pages)
Zhang Er suddenly stood up, almost falling to the ground. He recognized the person lying on his fence; even though the blood and filth covered him, he knew it was the only young man left from next door.
This young man was an orphan from a young age and grew up relying on the kindness of many families. Therefore, he voluntarily stayed to take care of these elderly people.
He clutched his chest, his eyes wide with terror, and nearly fainted.
When a long sword was held to his neck, Zhang Er was still a little dazed. He tentatively pleaded with the man to dig a hole and bury the child, so that the body wouldn't be left exposed in the yard.
"Stop talking nonsense and get going!"
Zhang Er stared blankly at the bronze sword, his voice mumbled. He was too ignorant to tell what official rank the person in front of him held, so he tried to be kind and said, "General, this area is full of elderly people who are about to die, so they can't do anything for you."
The leader wasn't really a general, but he still felt relieved after hearing this. However, he couldn't reveal anything more just because of this. He only said, "Why ask so many questions? There's a reason why we want you to come with us. Don't ask too many questions."
"take away!"
The accent was so bad that it was clear the person wasn't from the vicinity of Xianyang. Zhang Er thought of the wars of the past two years and felt a wave of dizziness. He barely managed to stay upright and not faint.
Zhang Er was filled with trepidation, but under the pressure of the swords and knives around him, he was still tied up with a hemp rope and taken away. This group of people, including men and women, were all tied together with a hemp rope.
Apart from the soldiers who came to arrest people, there was not a single able-bodied man in the group; the only young man had just died at the hands of those soldiers.
Zhang Er glanced back at the fence of his yard; the child's body hung on the fence, its blood staining the nearby soil red.
He felt a deep sadness; he feared that the body wouldn't live to see him collect it, and would instead be fed to wild dogs...
====
When Zhang Er realized something was wrong, his group had already joined the others, and he discovered that almost everyone there was an elderly person.
Others recruited young men, but all he saw in the camp, besides the Chu people, were elderly prisoners.
He was astonished to discover that none of them were young or strong.
Zhang Er then remembered San Gouzi, who had warned him to escape that day; he too had been killed on the spot.
They didn't seem to have any intention of taking the able-bodied men with them...
Why?
Zhang Er huddled in a corner observing. In the past few days, the daily rations they were given were even scavenged from their homes, and even so, they could barely eat anything each day.
Those who could stand and patrol in the camp were all Chu people; the rest were people like him.
A more direct observation is that in the evening, Zhang Er saw someone who was so hungry that he couldn't bear it anymore, and he was beaten to death for the slightest resistance.
Zhang Er realized that they were fearless and finally understood why the Chu people did not disperse them and incorporate them into their ranks, but instead kept them all together under guard.
They didn't care about the troublemakers at all, after all, they were just a group of old, weak, sick and disabled people, with no weapons and no strength.
Zhang Er even had a premonition that perhaps dying at this moment would be the best thing...
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Zhang Er did not stay in this makeshift camp for more than a few days. When the last group of people returned with their men, they were gathered together and tied up again.
The next day, Zhang Er and his men were herded to Xianyang City.
This time they weren't bound by ropes, but there were burly soldiers on tall horses watching them from behind, and they had been hungry for several meals, so there was no way they could escape.
When the silhouette of a city appeared in the distance, and even the city gate became clearer, Zhang Er's bad guess came true.
He couldn't help but stop walking, and the people around him couldn't help but stop walking too.
They may be ignorant, but they're not truly stupid. They're almost at the city gate; how could they not know what their captors are up to?
The Chu army behind them was naturally prepared. As soon as one of them stopped, a sharp whip came whistling through the air.
The person who was whipped on the back immediately screamed and fell to the ground, rolling around and getting dust and dirt on the wound.
If it's just a matter of beheading someone, then dying is considered a quick and painless death; living like that is actually more painful.
Zhang Er quickly ran forward a few steps, panting as he dodged the whip's lash.
He didn't believe these people would be kind enough to find them doctors and give them medicine; the inevitable result would be that their wounds would fester and they would die in agony.
If that's the case, it would be better to die quickly.
Zhang Er secretly glanced at the soldiers mixed in with the others. None of them had any decent iron weapons, let alone good bronze swords.
Those with weapons were all from Chu; to put it more bluntly, they were there to supervise them as they went to their deaths.
Of course, there is another type of person among them...
Zhang Er secretly glanced at a ragged figure not far to his right. The person was short and covered in dirt and dust, barely able to blend in with them. But Zhang Er noticed that although the person was trying to imitate them, their walking posture was nothing like theirs.
Most importantly, Zhang Er secretly followed from a distance, quietly inquiring about the man's accent and the fact that the people behind him were all from Chu, so it was normal that they couldn't understand his slurred speech.
Perhaps those guys simply don't care, after all, they're just a bunch of old, weak, sick, and disabled people.
Finally, we found out that this guy's stomach hadn't growled at all the way.
Can those who can get enough to eat be considered on the same level as them?!
The soldiers behind him didn't crack their whips in that direction, and Zhang Er noticed this and subtly followed them.
He observed the area along the way and guessed that the other party was probably carrying weapons, but it was probably not obvious from the outside because the weapons were relatively small.
Snatch it?
Zhang Er rejected the idea. He glanced at his withered, wrinkled arms, which were like tree bark. He neither had the qualifications nor the ability to do so.
His mind, which had spent his entire life only thinking about farming, was unusually working at high speed at this moment. He frowned and racked his brains until his head ached, but he still couldn't figure out how he could survive this time.
After failing to figure it out, Zhang Er spent more time thinking about why the Chu army would include such people in their ranks. Logically, they were supposed to be sent to their deaths, so were these people also sent to their deaths?
Someone like him had never seen assassins before, so he was even more puzzled by the existence of these people in the team.
After much thought, he could only think in other directions. Suddenly, he thought of the King of Hanzhong, who was known for his benevolence and kindness.
The news of their investiture as kings had already spread far and wide in the past few days. Even if they didn't know it when they were in their villages and towns, they would have found out during their time in captivity.
The prefect, who was known for his benevolence and kindness, has become the King of Hanzhong. So, are those people going to sneak into Xianyang with them?
Although the King of Han had previously served under the King of Chu, he held simple views. Now that he was a king, he was no longer under the King of Chu's jurisdiction.
Compared to the Chu army that was capturing them to their deaths, he was definitely more inclined to side with the King of Han, who had previously been willing to let them into the city.
He also sighed slightly, regretting that he hadn't gone with them that day.
Perhaps there are some, but people like them would never abandon their fields and simply leave, so they leave behind the most 'unimportant' person in each family, and now it's like this...
"well……"
Zhang Er's thoughts became increasingly complicated. The King of Han might not necessarily find a way to bring them into the city, but as long as there was even the slightest possibility, those people would be a huge hidden danger.
He easily thought of his children in the city, and he realized that he did not want to see Xianyang fall.
But at this point, resisting would only earn him two lashes, so he continued to move forward with the main group.
Because this group consisted mostly of the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, and they walked very slowly, it took them almost a whole morning to finally reach the outer city gate of Xianyang.
They weren't even in the vicinity of the city gate. They realized this because the people behind them who were driving them away stopped, as if there was some great terror ahead.
Some in the group, whose minds were wavering, tried to stop moving forward, but only received two lashes in return.
They moved forward again, but at a slower pace than before.
Just as they were slowly moving out of the Chu army's attack range, someone tried to stop, but this time it wasn't a whip that slashed through the air from behind, but arrows.
The arrow wasn't even aimed at the heart, but at the man's shoulder. Zhang Er had been listening to the screams and wails all the way, and anger surged within him.
If I am destined to die today...
He looked at the short man mingling in the crowd with bloodlust in his eyes. This man probably hadn't even been born when he fought with people from the neighboring village when he was young.
If one person wasn't enough, they would call a few more. Fortunately, the Chu army didn't scatter them, and Zhang Er easily called a few people of the same age from the same village.
These people were old acquaintances of his, and all of them had relatives in the city. So they were not afraid of anyone rebelling in the face of battle. It didn't matter if they died, as long as Xianyang City could not fall and their children could not die!
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News of Xiang Yu's army approaching the city quickly reached the Xianyang Palace, which was roughly what Liu Bang had expected.
What he didn't expect was that the army attacking Xianyang was not the 400,000-strong force that Xiang Yu claimed to have, but rather a group of old, weak, sick, and disabled people...
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