Chapter 241: Not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster
In Guying City, Yun Chen was busy being moved by Yan Shijiu's great "friendship";
Outside Guying City, the night was moonless and the moonlight made the road ahead as clear as a river.
Twenty miles outside the city, the exits of the tunnels hidden in the dense forest were opened one after another.
The people who had been traveling underground for a whole night climbed out one after another, got on the carriages provided by the Lion Army, and drove to the nearest Jiangning City for resettlement.
What surprised the responding non-commissioned officers and soldiers was that the number of people in the two tunnels in charge of Rong Jiang and Rong Yi had been counted; although Yun Chen, the general in charge of the southwest tunnel, had not shown up, his soldiers had already brought the civilians out one after another.
Only at the tunnel entrance on the western front, there was no movement at all.
Zhiluo and Luo Dongdong did not come out, and there was no sign of the soldiers and the rescued people.
No one came out.
I leaned over to listen at the tunnel entrance, but there wasn't even the slightest sound of anyone heading this way.
The non-commissioned officers and soldiers who responded felt something was wrong and hurriedly reported the matter to Huo Gannian, who had just withdrawn his troops from the gate of Guying City and returned to the camp.
As the lives of thousands of civilians were at stake, Huo Gannian did not dare to be careless and immediately rode a horse in person.
At the entrance of the western tunnel, Huo Gannian and everyone else waited and waited.
While waiting, Huo Gannian kept asking the non-commissioned officer beside him: "How is the southwest front? Has General Yun come out?"
The sergeant replied, "Over nine thousand civilians have emerged, and the soldiers sent to lead the way have all returned safely. However, General Yun has not yet appeared. The soldiers who were sent to meet him are still waiting at the tunnel entrance."
Huo Gannian suddenly felt a little confused.
No, to be precise, ever since Yun Chen set off the fireworks signal, his heart has been inexplicably in turmoil and he has never been able to settle down.
He always felt that something was wrong.
The highest firework signal was on Yun Chen. Once it was released, it meant that the mission was completed and she could retreat safely.
According to Yun Chen’s habit, he would definitely be the last one to finish.
But now all the people on the southwest front have come out, so even if she is slow, she should come out.
Is he injured? Is he walking slowly?
Or...
Huo Gannian didn't dare to guess the second scenario:
Will Yun Chen still be trapped in Guying City?
He considered whether to delegate the current affairs to his subordinates and rush to the southwest tunnel entrance to meet Yun Chen.
"General, you just came back from the battlefield and your wounds haven't been treated yet. Why don't you change into casual clothes first and ask a military doctor to treat your wounds?" suggested the sergeant on the side.
"No need." Huo Gannian just wiped his face with a handkerchief and said, "Go and ask if General Yun has come out yet."
After a pause, even though he was unwilling, Huo Gannian still ordered:
"Pick twenty experts from the scouts and go to Guying City to investigate."
Just as the sergeant was about to leave after receiving the order, the several soldiers guarding the tunnel entrance suddenly shouted happily:
"They're coming out! Someone's coming out! Finally!"
Huo Gannian's spirits lifted. Without any other matters to hold him back, he immediately prepared to rush to the southwest line. However, the trembling voices of several supporting soldiers stopped him in his tracks:
"You...you...why are you covered in blood?"
Huo Gannian looked in the direction of the sound and saw the leading soldiers coming out of the tunnel. They had no wounds on their bodies, but were covered in blood, as if they had crawled out of a sea of blood.
Unlike other tunnel entrances, the people came out happily.
Everyone who came out of this tunnel was trembling with fear, as if they had suffered a great shock, and they couldn't even speak complete sentences.
Huo Gannian felt that something was wrong. He looked around, one, two, three... seven, eight... ten...
According to the plan, this tunnel was to rescue at least 6,000 people, but only a few people came out, less than a hundred.
Many people even collapsed to the ground as soon as they walked out of the tunnel, and some even rolled their eyes and fainted.
Huo Gannian and others were confused by this situation.
It was not until they saw Zhi Luo staggering out covered in blood, with no one behind her, that everyone realized the seriousness of the situation.
Huo Gannian frowned and stared at Zhiluo who was approaching slowly:
"Where's Captain Luo? Where are the others? Where are the common people?"
Zhiluo knelt down slowly, not daring to look at anyone. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she was barely breathing.
"They're all...dead..."
Everyone present was shocked and could hardly believe their ears.
When the guide soldier who had just walked out of the tunnel heard Zhi Luo say the word "dead", he knelt on the ground and began to cry and scream like crazy.
Several soldiers rushed forward to stop him and finally stopped after knocking the man unconscious.
Seeing that Zhi Luo seemed to have lost his soul, and the people coming out of the tunnel seemed to have lost their three souls and seven spirits, unable to utter a complete sentence, Huo Gannian immediately ordered a fast scout to go down the tunnel to check.
When the scout came out, he was also covered in blood. He looked sane, but his face was as pale as paper.
The scout stepped forward and knelt, tears streaming down his face as he spoke:
"General, I have entered the tunnel and have seen... the tunnel is so narrow that the people are so crowded and blocked that they cannot get out. Men, women, young and old are trampling on each other... and they have all died..."
After hearing the scout's words, everyone was stunned and speechless with fear.
Even Huo Gannian, who was used to seeing bloody killings, was stunned. Holding on to the last glimmer of hope, he asked:
"Where are Captain Luo and the others? Is there a single one left alive?"
The scout glanced at Zhiluo and said with reluctance:
"General, I saw soldiers digging a passage through the crowds in the tunnel, probably to rescue those behind them. I crawled a distance into the passage and saw a crowded and blocked road. The people behind me... all suffocated to death."
It took everyone a lot of effort to realize what "a passage dug out from a crowd of people" meant. Then they looked at Zhiluo and other people coming out of the tunnel, and finally understood why they were all covered in blood.
The crowd trampled and squeezed, blocking the tunnel without a single gap.
In order to prevent the people in the rear team from suffocating to death, Zhi Luo ordered his men to dig a path out of the pile of people who had been crushed to death.
Every blow the soldiers swung was for the common people they saved with their lives.
There were weak girls and tender children, all with their eyes open unwillingly, and their corpses shed blood and tears, which was unbearable to watch.
The soldiers could only close their eyes and keep digging in the "human wall".
Unfortunately, when the "human wall" was finally dug through, almost all the people in the back suffocated to death.
Only a few dozen survivors struggled to crawl through the "human wall" and survived.
There has never been such a tragedy in history. It is unheard of and horrifying.
No one dared to think about how miserable it was in the tunnel and how many elderly, weak, women and children were in it.
It was clearly an action to rescue the people, but now, the rescuers have become the ones who are taking their lives.
Of the thousands of civilians, only less than a hundred survived.
This was a major incident that was enough to reach the ears of the emperor, enough to anger the Eastern Palace, and would forever be recorded as a painful event in the history of the Lion Army.
Huo Gannian was unable to recover from the shock for a long time. He tried hard to maintain the appearance of a general who was calm in the face of danger, but he almost cried in his heart.
They were all the people of Nan Country, the people of Guying City who had endured years of war but still defended the important border city...
Almost all the soldiers who went to rescue people also died in this human tragedy.
Staring at Zhiluo who was kneeling silently in front of him, Huo Gannian asked her in a hoarse voice:
"Before the rescue operation began, at a confidential meeting in the main tent, we had anticipated the possibility of congestion. If someone fell or got stuck, the soldiers leading the way would immediately help them up. Other soldiers would immediately stop the queue behind them, ensuring everyone in the team maintained a certain distance. How could this happen?"
After Huo Gannian finished speaking, Zhi Luo did not answer immediately, as if it took him a while to understand his question.
Zhi Luo said: "The soldiers leading the way were ten feet apart. The distance was too far and they had no time to react. Moreover, when the troops got into chaos, they couldn't hear each other's conversations, so..."
"Say that again?!" Huo Gannian interrupted Zhi Luo fiercely, unable to maintain his composure any longer, and asked harshly:
"What do you mean by 'ten feet apart'?"
As if anticipating some fatal outcome, Zhi Luo stared blankly at Huo Gannian:
"That's what I planned. We'll have soldiers every ten feet to lead the way and disperse the crowd, right?"
After hearing this, Huo Gannian almost gnashed his teeth, not knowing whether it was out of sadness or anger. His eyes were filled with bloodshot, and he said hatefully:
"The time for this secret meeting has been set! Ten feet apart can easily lead to accidents! So we'll have one person every three feet!"
Zhi Luo's eyes widened. "General! You didn't say in the confidential meeting that we should change it to one person every three meters! I really didn't hear that!"
Huo Gannian was helpless and angry. He closed his eyes and refused to say another word.
Zhiluo fell to the ground and took a long time to come back to his senses. He finally understood:
It turns out it wasn't an accident, but a man-made disaster...
At such an important and confidential meeting, Huo Gannian had clearly anticipated the danger and ordered that the number of people to be posted should be changed to one every three meters.
Everyone heard and carried out the order, and the people were rescued safely without any trouble.
But she knew Luo didn't hear it...
Because at that time, she was distracted, her mind full of her young general...
Zhi Luo stared blankly at the tunnel entrance, feeling unprecedented fear and despair in his heart.
At this moment, the scout who went to Guying City to gather information returned quickly and presented an even more worrying news:
Yun Chen... is probably trapped in Guying City—
Trapped in the center of 200,000 Black Scale Cavalry.
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