In early November, the first snow in Hebei came. The snow was not heavy, it was just a moderate snow, which put the mountains and woods on a light white layer, but this snow meant that the winter in Hebei was coming.

As winter comes, most rivers in Hebei begin to freeze, especially in Youzhou, the rivers in the area are even thicker, and people and livestock can walk directly on the ice.

Huairong County, a small town located in the northwest of Zhuo County, has welcomed its unprecedented liveliness for decades. In the past month, fleets have transported a large amount of food and combat preparations here. Grain, hay, weapons, armor, bows and crossbows, arrows, important iron parts of the catapults, and other materials have filled the county town. The sled carriages recruited from all over Youzhou and their owners have also arrived in Huairong County one after another. In just a few days after the snow, tens of thousands of sled carriages arrived at the small town, making the county town particularly lively.

A large camp covering an area of ​​1,000 acres has been built on the open space near the Sanggan River outside the county town. For this long-distance sled transportation, the Sui army invested 5,000 soldiers and set up more than 100 guidance points along the way to help each sled carriage reach the finish line smoothly.

When Zhang Xuan arrived in Huairong County, the sled transportation had already begun for five days. He saw thousands of sled carriages lined up in the open space by the river, with two people in each carriage, one whipped the whip and the other was responsible for controlling the direction, mostly father and son or brothers.

"How is the transportation going smoothly?" Zhang Xuan asked with a smile.

The head of the transport was Xiao Jinyong, a general under Pei Xingyan. He was a general weighing 70 kilograms and was inappropriate. He hurriedly said: "Report to the Grand Marshal, there is no problem with the sled itself. These people are old men and have rich experience. The only difficulty is that they are not familiar with the road. Many people took the Sanggan River for the first time. They were not prepared for the first day. Dozens of horses were frozen, and more than a dozen sleds were overturned on the road. There were no other problems."

Zhang Xuan nodded and walked to a sled that was loading. The sled was made of wooden and had a very simple structure. Two curved sled rods about one meter long were very smooth, looking like a pair of large ivory. In the middle is a grid made of ropes to place goods and pulled by a strong horse. Zhang Xuan had seen this sled more than once, and the cargo capacity was very large. This time, a sled could transport at least twenty bags of grain at a time, each bag of grain weighing one stone, and several large bales of hay could be loaded. This was also the regulations of the Sui Army that the transportation of grain, soldiers and armor must be distributed at the same time, mainly to keep the sled warm.

The owner of the sled is a father and son. The son is responsible for controlling the direction and the father is responsible for controlling the horses. At this time, his son, who is in his early twenties, is bundling hay on the sled, while his father carefully wraps the horse's belly.

"Where is my father-in-law?" Zhang Xuan walked to the horse and asked with a smile.

"We are from Lulong County, Beiping County."

"Beiping County is not close to you!"

"Anyway, there is nothing to do at home. You can earn tens of thousands of dollars by traveling. There are not such opportunities to make money every day."

When Zhang Xuan saw that he was carefully wrapping the horse's belly, he asked curiously, "Do you actually want to wrap three layers of sheepskin?"

The old man didn't know Zhang Xuan and thought he was an ordinary general. He smiled while tied up the sheepskin and said, "This is walking on the river surface. The cold air is too strong. How can you not keep warm? It's more than 300 miles apart, and at least two days of walking. Not to mention horses, people can't stand it. They must go ashore to rest on the road, otherwise even if they arrive in Shanyang County, the horses will not do it."

"I heard that the first batch lost a lot of horses. Is it because of lack of experience?"

The old man sneered, "That's because they are greedy and want to run a few more trips to hit money. Everyone is a snowsled car. Who doesn't know that you have to be careful of the cold when driving on the river. They are determined to make money, and finally they pay their horses."

"Dad! I'm already done." The young son said from behind.

"I'll wrap my horse's legs and it'll be fine right away."

The old man pulled out another sheepskin and bandaged the horse's legs. Zhang Xuan left the sled and walked towards the group of soldiers. Hundreds of soldiers were helping the sled to set off. Seeing Zhang Xuan coming, they bowed and bowed. The old man was confused just now, so he asked a soldier next to him, "Brother, who was that just now!"

"Who is it?"

The soldier shook his head and smiled, "That is our commander, His Majesty the Emperor of Northern Sui Dynasty, who do you think it is?"

The old man was so scared that he was panicked. He didn't bother to tie the last horse's leg, so he urged his son, "Go away! Go away! I was rude just now, and I'm afraid I'm going to get into trouble."

His son heard that the person who was the King of Qi was a little uneasy and quickly stood on the sled. The old man waved his long whip, the horse pulled the sled, and walked slowly on the snow. Several soldiers pushed him. Starting is extremely important. If you start well, the sled will walk steadily. Therefore, soldiers must be helped by the side. The sled speed is not fast at the beginning, but with inertia, the sled speed will become faster and the horse will gradually become easier. However, the person who controls the horse must have high skills, otherwise the sled will hit the horse and cause serious consequences.

Seeing that the father and son had already set off, Zhang Xuan waved to them, scaring the young son to tilt his body, and the sled almost lost its center of gravity and turned over. The old man yelled, "Beware!"

He immediately pulled the horse and slowed down, making the sled gradually stabilize, and finally disappeared at the end of the snow-covered Sanggan River.

Leaving Huairong County, Zhang Xuan and his party came to Zhending County in Hengshan County. This is one of the four temporary sheltered residences set up by the Northern Sui Dynasty. It mainly accepts refugees from Loufan County and Taiyuan County. The residences occupy a large area. The Sui army built a plate-style camp, which is as big as two Zhending County towns. The camp is like a large county, with roads crisscrossing and tens of thousands of tents distributed, basically achieving one tent for each household.

Some businessmen who were good at seizing opportunities even opened grocery stores and taverns. This kind of shop that was conducive to stabilizing the people's hearts was supported by the officials, and they specially provided them with special tents, which led to more than a dozen small shops and taverns appearing in the camp.

A team of soldiers patrolled back and forth in the camp to maintain order in the camp.

For the wealthy families and wealthy families who came to flee, although the camp conditions were good and they provided free food and accommodation, they still looked down on them. So they rented a house in Zhending County to enjoy a normal life, and were unwilling to live with other escaped people.

Before the negotiations, the Sui army implemented a large-scale evacuation plan, and almost all the people of Loufan County retreated to Zhending County. As the negotiations ended, the Tang Dynasty no longer restricted the shelter of the people of Taiyuan County, and a large number of people of Taiyuan County began to cross Jingxing and flee to Hebei. In their opinion, the Taihang Mountains could better block the Iron Cavalry of the Turkic Army.

The refuge camp in Zhending County was under the charge of Fang Youzhen, the governor of Hengshan County, and assisted him in the management. There were also more than 20 lower-level officials, more than 100 taiwan students and 3,000 soldiers.

The arrival of King Zhang Xuan of Qi made Fang Youzhen extremely nervous. He turned down all matters and accompanied Zhang Xuan to inspect the camp.

It can be seen that Zhang Xuan is very satisfied with the tidyness and width of the camp, especially the camp with a wide central axis avenue, which makes the camp feel like a city.

"How many people are in the camp now?" Zhang Xuan asked.

"Your Highness, there are about 128,000 people, less than 130,000 people, and nearly 30,000 families."

Zhang Xuan frowned slightly. The number of people was much smaller than he expected. He thought there should be at least 200,000 to 300,000 people. Zhang Xuan asked again: "Have all the people in Loufan County withdrawn?"

"Your Highness, all the people from Loufan County have been withdrawn, with a total of 110,000 people, and the remaining 20,000 people have been withdrawn from Taiyuan County. I heard that there are still a large number of people taking refuge on the road, all of whom have come from Taiyuan County, and there is no one in Loufan County."

Fang Xuanling, who was following Zhang Xuan's inspection, understood Zhang Xuan's doubts and sighed, "Your Highness, Liu Wuzhou's rampage has brought serious disasters to the three counties of Bingbei. The population of the three counties of Bingbei is far less than we expected. The Yi County Shelter Camp is responsible for the two counties of Mayi and Yanmen, with a population of only more than 200,000. In the past, there were more than 300,000 people in Mayi County, and the three counties of Bingbei should have a population of one million, otherwise the Great Wall would not be built. But now the three counties have only more than 300,000, which is extremely sad."

Zhang Xuan couldn't speak for a long time. He had walked across Mayi Road to the grassland and knew that the prosperity of the three northern counties was in the first place. There were more than a hundred families in a small town, but it was so declining, which really made him unacceptable.

After a long time, Zhang Xuan swallowed his anger and asked Fang Youzhen again, "I think the camp is basically full, but there are still a large number of Taiyuan escaped people on the way. How do you place them?"
Chapter completed!