From then on, the soldiers in the army began to die. Because there was too little food to eat every day, many soldiers suffered from various diseases and could not be cured by medicine. In the cold winter, even if there was enough wood to keep warm, the soldiers became even weaker. At this time, the quota was lowered again, and some people could not bear it and died in the multiple tortures of hunger, cold and disease.

Seeing this, Li Bai ordered the soldiers not to leave the house unless they were necessary, and provide enough wood and coal to each room so that the soldiers' daily physical energy consumption would be minimized and not frozen; the soldiers stationed at the city were also reduced to the minimum, and the number of people was small, even if they were strong and healthy, it would be impossible to stop the cannibals.

However, Li Bai made sense to do this: anyway, the soldiers were already thin and could defend the city, and it was completely a big food soldier who was going crazy by himself. As long as there were people who could scare the big food soldier on the top of the city, it didn't matter how much. The situation later was as he expected, as the generals of the big food soldier could see the number of guards on the top of the city at the Arrow Tower, there was no intention of ordering the siege to attack the city at all.

Moreover, in such extremely difficult situations, no one wanted to escape from the city and surrender to the cannibals. The soldiers often complained that they were not eating, and joked that they would leave the city to surrender on the day, but those who said this the next day would still sleep in the house or die in their sleep.

Soon, winter passed and spring came. After the ice and snow melted, wild grasses and wild vegetables that could not even be burned out in wildfires grew again. Li Bai ordered to start digging wild vegetables and grass roots again, and sent 500 soldiers to search for wild vegetables in five directions, east, west, south, north, and middle every day.

Among them, when the soldiers from the south of the city entered a house yesterday, they found some cotton slag in the corner of the wall, so they quickly found it and gave it to the Huotou Army. The Huotou Army ground them into powder and made them into a "flour cake" with flour for everyone to eat.

...

After Li Bai finished the noodles, he left the cafeteria with Niu Mou. Niu Mou went back to sleep, and he came to the public housing and started on duty.

However, it was said that it was on duty, but there was nothing wrong. Li Bai first asked whether the troops stationed on the city were handed over last night, whether all the soldiers had eaten dinner, whether the five hundred wild vegetables had set off, and then went to the official warehouse to count the remaining food, and then returned to the public housing. If nothing unexpected happened, he would have been sleeping until his companionship handover.

"Hurry, help Wanxi up." But an accident happened. Not long after Li Bai walked out of the official warehouse, a guard suddenly fell to the ground. While Li Bai asked others to help him up, he asked again: "Why are your face so bad? You were the strongest ones, and you will not be worse than others in any case."

"Wanxi took half of his meal home for his son to eat." Another guard whispered.

"You only eat four taels at a time? What's enough to do? If you continue like this, you will starve to death sooner or later." Li Bai said hurriedly.

"If I don't do this, my son will starve to death." The guard named Gu Wanxi said weakly: "My wife is already starved to death. If my son starves to death again, what else should I live?"

Hearing this, Li Bai was silent. How could he not know that although the soldiers in the army were very miserable, the people in the city were even more miserable? The daily food quota for the people who were not counted as soldiers was only half of the soldiers, and the occasionally supplied wild vegetables, grass roots, etc. were not paid at all, and they ate less than the soldiers.

Although many people tried every means to get into the army and Li Bai turned a blind eye, women and children could not be considered soldiers, nor could they enjoy quotas for soldiers.

As early as October last year, people died, and as the weather became colder and colder, more and more people died; after the beginning of spring, most people had starved to death, and only a few were still alive. Gu Wanxi's wife also starved to death at that time.

Li Bai was powerless to do anything about this. He wanted to defend Jieshan City, and defend Jieshan City must ensure that the soldiers were alive. He could not give more food to the people when the cannibals were still in a long time to rescue the siege.

In fact, in the continued rebellion in the Central Plains, people had already eaten people in cities. After eating the food, they took the lead in chopping off their concubines and distributed them to the soldiers. After the woman finished eating, they ate the old man. Li Bai had not eaten human flesh yet.

"Gu Wanxi, you should surrender to the Great Cannibal with your son. It is not your rebellion. If you defeat the Great Cannibal in the future, you will join the Tang Dynasty again. I will prove that you are not a traitor." After a while, Li Bai said.

"My subordinates will not surrender to the cannibals! Death in the city is my fate. I would rather die than surrender to the barbarians!" Gu Wanxi said.

"Good man." Li Bai praised, thought for a while and said, "From tomorrow, you can go and search for wild vegetables." The soldiers responsible for collecting wild vegetables would secretly hide some of them. He also knew that if Gu Wanxi went to find wild vegetables, he could eat more for his son and give him less food.

"Thank you, Instructor Li! Your great kindness will be unforgettable forever!" Gu Wanxi said immediately, and was about to kneel down and kowtow again.

"You must not kneel down. If you kneel down, others will have to bend down to help you." Li Bai said hurriedly.

"Yes." Gu Wanxi couldn't help but smile and stopped kneeling, but said to Li Bai: "In the future, Instructor Li will give instructions, no matter whether he is going up the Daoshan Mountain, Huohai's subordinates will never frown!"

"No need to do this." Li Bai said to him, thinking to himself: 'After a while, he will order that from tomorrow all those who collect wild vegetables will be replaced by soldiers with relatives in the city.'

"In the city... the Tang army soldiers... Oh Luzhou... were captured,... Kucha Town... surrender quickly... have food to eat,... spare, cherish talents..." He was thinking, and suddenly there was a sound from nowhere. It was probably the place where the sound came from was very far away from here, and they heard it intermittently.

"The general of the Dashi sent someone to persuade him to surrender again?" Li Bai murmured.

"Go and ask." A guard said, running towards the city wall. After a while, he came back and reported to Li Bai: "Report to Instructor Li, two people in the east of the city were shouting loudly, persuading our army to surrender."

"I have persuaded them twice yesterday, but I didn't respond at that time. Why did I come to persuade them to surrender again today?"

"Reported to Instructor Li, the people who persuaded surrender today are different from yesterday. According to the soldiers on the city wall, one of them is Han, the other may be Han or Turkic; both of them are fluent in Chinese and have a momentum on them, like a general."

"General? What did they say?"

"They said that Luzhou City had long fallen, and now the Dashi Army is about to go south to attack Kucha Town; the rebellion in the Central Plains has not yet been quelled, and Anxi will definitely not be able to defend it sooner or later and be occupied by the Dashi Kingdom. The two of them were the guardians of Luzhou City, and after Luzhou City fell, surrendered to Dashi.

Then he said that Bingbo Silin wanted to drag all the soldiers in the city to starve to death, but General Aziz was compassionate and cherished talents, so he sent them to persuade them to surrender..." The guard told Li Bai briefly what he heard.

"It must be talking nonsense and disrupting our morale!" Li Bai immediately said: "When the Great Cannibal attacked the city in July last year, we captured a Dashi soldier alive. That person confessed that the battle of Luzhou was in a stalemate, and the Dashi Army was very unfavorable. I know the plan of the Protector to use weak soldiers to hold the Dashi Army's elite in Luzhou, and at the critical moment, we mobilized our elite troops to defeat the Dashi Army in one fell swoop.

Since the Battle of Luzhou is in a stalemate, it means that the elite troops of the Dashi Army were dragged down by the weak soldiers of the Tang Dynasty. As long as the elite troops appeared, they would definitely win, so how could they fail?"

"The soldiers thought so too." The guard smiled and said, "Everyone thought that the two who persuaded surrender were talking nonsense. They were completely treated as a joke."

In fact, the soldiers' reaction was not as he said. They had not received any news from the Protectorate for more than a year, and some things they had finally learned were learned by interrogating the prisoners of Dashi; many soldiers believed that Luzhou had fallen.

But the soldiers did not mean to surrender at all. No one could explain why they kept holding on to the city, and they had to hold on even if they might starve to death, but they just didn't want to surrender. So although the guards lied, it did not affect the result.

"Okay, at this time, the city is powerless to let the soldiers have fun, so let everyone listen to the jokes for a while." Li Bai also said with a smile.

"Instructor Li, it's time to go back. Today's wind is not small, and you may not be able to stand it if you stand it for a while." Gu Wanxi advised at this time.

"Go back now." Li Bai agreed casually. He is old and has eaten less during this period of time. His body really can't stand the blowing wind, so he should go back.

After agreeing, Li Bai also realized that the person who spoke to him was Gu Wanxi. He suddenly thought of something in his mind and said to the guard who had just gone to the city, "You go to the city and do this afterward..."

"Instructor Li, are you?" The guard immediately looked at Li Bai in confusion, with anger in his eyes.

"Are you suspicious that I want to surrender?" Li Bai asked back and continued: "How could I surrender!"

"What does the instructor want to do?" the guard asked.

"Then you don't have to worry about it. Anyway, you are not surrendering to the cannibals. Don't worry, go and have a full meal!"

"Yes." The guard was still a little confused, but out of trust in Li Bai, he agreed and turned around and walked towards the city again.

"You go and call a few generals. I have something to discuss with them." Li Bai ordered another guard.

"Yes." The man agreed immediately.

"Instructor Li, what do you want to do?" Gu Wanxi asked after he ordered all the orders. All the guards felt puzzled and didn't know what Li Bai was going to do.

"You don't need to ask more. Just know that everyone can eat more tonight." Li Bai said with a smile.
Chapter completed!