The towering Tianshan Mountains are covered with snow.

After a sudden blizzard, under a blue sky, the towering Carrick Glacier was like a giant silver dragon, lying across the vast Gobi sea, staring at his feet coldly.

Zhenxifu in early winter is very desolate and cold. The walls of Huining City, which have been eroded by wind and sand for many years, look particularly dilapidated. On both sides of the post road outside the city, twisted branches are spread with poplar trees, willows and elms, and the bare branches are densely intertwined. If you want to know what scenery there is here, besides the snowflakes flying all over the city, there is probably only the Barkur Lake, which produces Glauber's salt.

At noon, the sun on the plateau was particularly dazzling, and the howling north wind was much smaller. On a small road more than 80 miles west of Huining City, Uyghur Shadick was staggering.

He carried a beautifully carved five-stringed ancient ervapqin, and the wooden sticks used to explore the way in his hand kept dotting the snow. He wore a leather hat that was so worn that it was nowhere to be seen, with long gray-white hair exposed under the hat; he wore a trouser full of holes, and a patched trousers on his lower body, but he didn't even have a pair of shoes on his feet, only wrapped in hay and cloth. I don't know if it was the stones in the ice and snow, or because he had traveled hundreds of miles of Gobi wasteland, every step he took, the footprints on the snow behind him were dyed with mottled red.

"The water in Balkulaur is bitter and salty, and the tears of sadness flow. Leliguli went to heaven, and I took Rewap away from home with my heart. All the bitterness turned into blood. Oh, heaven, I sighed sadly..."

As he sang, tears flowed out of Shadick's dry eyes. He stopped, raised his hand and wiped it. He was about to move forward when he suddenly heard a sound of horse hooves coming from behind him. He raised his ears and listened for a moment. It was estimated that there should be more than a dozen horses, and there were still people talking, but they were too far away to hear clearly.

Shadick was a little panicked, but he thought, even if he met a soldier, what if he could still press himself, a blind man, to the ground and beat him up?

When the sound of horse hooves came near, more than a dozen people riding on the horse all tied the reins and looked up and down at Shadick.

These people were dressed in Mongolians, wearing thick sheepskin robes and dust, with fluffy snow hats on their heads and pairs of half-new leather boots on their feet; in order to block the wind, they also wore a mask on their faces.

After a while, a man riding on a yellow horse pulled his mask down and asked curiously: "Membersman, why are you here alone? Are you singing just now?"

The hometown of fellow villager Shadick is in Hami, where he is located at the throat of the post road that communicates with the Western Regions and the inner gates. There are many merchants and soldiers coming and going. After hearing and seeing each other for a long time, he can listen and speak some Chinese language, but he has never heard anyone call him that.

"Blessed by Allah! This master, I am a wandering singer who cannot see day and night, and I go to villages and towns to ask for food."

"Master? Hahaha, we are not masters."

The other party's voice was very loud and it sounded like he was not old. The man laughed a few times, then asked, "My fellow villager, where are you going?"

"I, I want to go to Wujiazhuang."

"Oh, then follow us..."

Before the man could finish his words, Shadick heard another person shouting: "Temur, get a felt on his back! You know, don't you see him trembling with cold!"

"Yes!" Tiemur responded, jumped off the horse's back, took off the rolled wool felt from behind the saddle, shook it open and draped it on Shadick's body.

Well, Timur is the Mongolian man mentioned before. These dozens of people were a small team, deliberately disguised as Mongolian caravans selling private goods, and took Wujiazhuang as the temporary site.

After the 1st Cavalry Brigade of the Northern Navy went south in Mid-Autumn Festival in August, after more than fifty days, the long distance was nearly 3,000 miles. In early October, it conquered Kai'an City, Ancient City, Qitai County and Mulei City, and caught the Qing army off guard. At this point, the two routes from Hami to Wulumuqi were completely cut off, and it was impossible for the Qing army to flee north.

Immediately afterwards, Samusu sent a battalion's vanguard. Under the leadership of several guides, he lightly crossed the Carrik Mountain in the eastern line of Tianshan Mountain and headed south along the west side of Barkur Lake. Their main task was to cut off the station line from Balikun to Turpan, and the "Xiaonan Road" station line from Hami to Ulumuqi, relying on the station, he stood firm until the arrival of the large army.

The task of Tiemur and his team is to monitor the movements of the Qing army around Huining City and inform the battalion headquarters in time.

Although the wool felt smelled a bit strong, for Shadick, his body, which was originally blown by the cold wind, suddenly became much warmer. He trembled with his left hand, groped and knelt in the snow, and said, "Thank you, kind-hearted person! Allah will bless you!"

"My fellow villager, what are you doing? We are saying that we are not masters, get up quickly." Tiemur said as he helped the other party up and turned to the squad leader and said, "Squad leader, why don't we bring him with us? Our horse still has Fuyu."

The man nodded and said to a young man beside him: "Wangdan, go and make a horse."

Although Shadick kept refusing, he was still supported by Timur without saying anything. Although he was a little confused, he did not think that these people would be malicious. You should know that he had drifted around for so many years, and often he had to rely on the help of kind-hearted people to bear it.

After the group walked south for more than twenty miles, a small village appeared in front of them, and Wujiazhuang arrived.

This is located in front of the mountain on the southern foot of the Carrick Mountains. At the entrance of the village, several rugged rocky hills stand on the snowy field, shining blue and purple under the gray winter sunshine. The fields are covered with smoke-like shadows of trees, and the houses and courtyards are mixed. The air is filled with cold air, and the dry grass shook in the cold wind, sighing.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Tiemur and his party came to a large adobe compound at the east end of the village. The wall of the built-up was disrepaired and tilted. Several mud houses faced north and south. There was also a large animal surrounded by some messy wood, with dead grass clippings and frozen livestock feces on the ground, and seven or eight camels tied in the corner.

Just as they were walking into the yard with their horses, a nearby yard door creaked open, and a head wearing a dirty sheepskin hat stuck its head out from behind the worn door panel. Seeing that it was Tiemur and the others were back, a smile appeared on their faces, then they leaned out and bent over at them.

"Brother Wu!"

Tiemur waved his hand in a big way, saying hello. The yard they lived in was rented from the other party, and the rent was two sheepskins and a pack of black tea. Although Wu Dacai thought that Tiemur and others were not good people, he could earn some extra money with his own broken yard, and he was happy.

It is said that decades ago, in the Majiling area of ​​Wuchang Prefecture, Hubei, there was a large family of Wu surname, who had been entrenched for generations, and it was both people and bandits, which became a major disaster in the local area. In order to eradicate the disaster, the Wuchang government at that time moved more than 30 families of the Wu family, nearly 100 men and women, to Tianshan North Road in three times, and placed them in Wulumuqi, Balikun and Anxi Prefecture in Gansu.

The Wujiazhuang in Balikun was composed of the second batch of seven households that moved here. After that, they grew branches and leaves, and gradually added to other families, and finally formed the scale of more than 20 households today.

Wu Dacai closed the yard door, inserted the door bolt, ran back to the warm room with a small step, and muttered: "This group of Mongolian barbarians go out early and come back late every day, and the noise is so big. It would be troublesome if someone sued the government."

Timur and others tied up the horses, and then took Shadick into the house. The rooms were built with earthen kangs, stoves and fire walls. Because there were people on duty in the yard, a wave of heat rushed as soon as they entered the house, and it was mixed with dry grass, sheep smell, broken fur, tobacco leaves, livestock feces and human sweat and feet. However, for Timur and Shadick and others, warmth was the king, and nothing else was a problem.

It was dark in winter, and when it was dark outside, a simple supper was ready, with wheat cakes and milk tea. Everyone, including Shadick, were hungry, and swallowed them voraciously, and the wind blew. Shadick had never drunk the Mongolian milk tea, and it tasted salty and fragrant, and he felt hot all over when he drank it into his stomach.

After dinner, Timur's squad leader Yunyan went to the house next to store the goods. When he came back, he was carrying a pair of 80% new wool felt boots and a pair of cotton socks in his hand and placed them beside Shadick.

"Brother Shadick, after you finish taking it, I'll have someone help you apply some medicine on your feet and put this on."

Shadick hurriedly stuffed half of the cake into his mouth and swallowed it whole. He reached out to his boots, held it in his arms and touched it for a while, and said in surprise: "Is this for me?"

"Yes. It's not okay to have a pair of boots in such a cold day, it's going to be freezing."

Shadick was stunned for a while, his eyes gradually turned red, and he suddenly knelt on the kang and kowtowed in the direction of Yunyan.

"What are you doing? Let's talk about it!" Yunyan hurriedly helped the other party up when he saw this.

At night, everyone ran around for a day and was tired at first, but everyone was sleepless and listened attentively to Sadick telling his past in stuttering Chinese.

He was once a hereditary worker of Wuqiboke, a subordinate of King Hui of Hami. When he was young, he was a stubborn and scheming young man. More than ten years ago, he secretly fell in love with a maid who worked with him. The girl was handsome and slim. Unfortunately, her beautiful body was wrapped in ragged clothes. Shadick sang many songs praising the girl, and the melodious songs spread across the banks of the Hami River.

One summer evening, Burke, who had just returned home, heard Shadick's singing, and the next day he called him and the girl, preparing to teach two slaves who had no family rules a lesson and let them repent. But when he saw the girl's charming appearance, his eyes were filled with lust. So he changed his mind and ordered his servants to beat Shadick forty boards, and then he rushed out of the house, and asked the girl to change clothes and dress up.

Shadick couldn't bear to see his sweetheart being ruined. Before Taiji dragged the girl into the bedroom, he took the girl with his friends to escape. But unfortunately, the two were quickly caught and returned to the king's subordinate Kazi tied a big stone around their necks for the crime of breaking the canon and threw it into the Hami River.

Shadick was very lucky to be rescued by a shepherd downstream, but the girl died. In order to find the body of his lover, he ran along the river bank like a homeless man in a trance for more than ten days. After that, he ran to the Xifu Office of Balikun Town to file a complaint, but unexpectedly, he was beaten fifty boards first and then imprisoned for ten years for ten years. His bright eyes were blinded in the black prison where he could not see his fingers.

Since then, Shadick has no longer been able to work hard to make money. He can only play Rewafu given by his friend, traveling around the village and becoming a singer who sells arts.

"...... Year by year, I can feel the winter and summer, and the day and night are no longer clear."

Shadick took a sip of the hot water handed over by Timur and continued, "I have traveled all over the vast Gobi Desert and pastoral villages, but I am not dead. There are many kind-hearted people in this world. They extend their hand of friendship to me and give me pieces of hunger. In order to complain, I went back to the city, and even went to Dihua City, whether it is the king or the general or the minister, let alone seeing me, even their subordinates bombed me like a dog, scolding me with a stern voice and voice, calling me a bastard, and deserved it! After a few years, I have understood that the words of rich people are unreasonable and reasonable, and the words of rich people are unreasonable. But I am unwilling to accept it! If I don't dig out the eyes of my enemies, I will never die!"

After Shadick finished speaking, he reached out to take his Revap and started singing softly.

"I have experienced the sufferings that people ask throughout my life, and wandered around to survive. The pot of this world is as dark as the pot, and everyone's heart is filled with sadness. Who has ever seen a carefree person? The broken heart answered, that can only be a dream! How absurd in this world, why doesn't Allah open his eyes to see? The heart of the poor is broken and blood flowing, why is the way to survive so difficult?"

The room was quiet, and the firewood and wood in the stove were crackling, and everyone's hearts were like a big stone. Although they couldn't understand what the blind singer was singing, the grief and anger in the other party's tone could feel it. They thought that their life was hard enough to be an arrow for the Qing court, but who would have thought that the people here were even more bitter than them.

In fact, the Uyghurs on the East Road of Xinjiang are the most miserable people under the Qing Dynasty, especially the Hami area, which is even worse than Tibet's serfs in some aspects. Since Hami adopted the system of the Uyzazak Autonomous and Military Administration, although some Qing officials disliked the cruel rule of the Hui King, they could only be seen and even covered up.

Nowadays, a folk song is circulating among the people: "A drop of wine from Huiwang is a drop of blood, the clothes on Huiwang are the skin on our bodies, our blood and sweat are fed to the king's body, and our bones are built into the paradise of Huiwang."
Chapter completed!