In the second year of Zhide, 130,000 rebels besieged Suiyang. Once the city was defeated, Jiangnan was lost, and the Tang Dynasty had no chance of coming back. Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan led less than 10,000 people and defended the isolated city for 427 days.
Wei Qi was originally a blacksmith from Luoyang. He joined the army to protect his neighbors and became Zhang Xun's personal soldier. He doesn't want much, he just wants to live.
But in desperate situations, human nature is severely torn apart. The bark of the trees has been eaten away, rats and birds have eaten it all, plague is rampant, and starvation is everywhere. Zhang Xun killed his concubine and the chef, and that bowl of broth became Wei Qi's lifelong nightmare.
The woman Ah Yue would rather die than exchange for her young son. She risked her life in search of food and died of an epidemic. On her deathbed, she asked her orphan: "Don't let him become that kind of person."
With a promise, Wei Qi will carry him to death in purgatory, guarding his conscience and bottom line.
On the day the city fell, Zhang Xun died generously. Wei Qi took the orphan and escaped desperately, and then hid in Jiangnan and became a mute blacksmith.
Every year during the Cold Food Festival, he kowtows to the northwest, where A Yue, Zhang Xun and 40,000 dead souls are buried.
Before his death, he only left one sentence to his adopted son:
"Your mother has never eaten anyone. Remember this."
The official history is about loyalty, but this book is about a soldier who defends the last trace of humanity in the hell on earth.
