It was a sunny day on New Year's Eve, and the city of Kang, the king of Wu, was bustling with people. The small fellow of a wine shop was a bit confused when he saw this scene.
"Dongjia! Didn't you say that this is a year of depression and that the New Year would be a dismal one? How come the closer we get to the New Year's Eve, the more and more people are shopping in the city." The fellow felt that the common people were much more active this year than in previous years.
Wine is a relatively high-class consumer product, and most of the original customers of the wine shop had to be in good condition. This year, because of the turmoil in the royal court, the nobles in the city were killed in the turmoil, or were convicted after the turmoil subsided, the number of nobles in the royal capital was reduced by at least half. Many of these nobles were the regular customers of the wine shop, and with the loss of customers, the business of the wine shop would of course be poor.
However, at the end of the year, the business of the brewery was the opposite of what the owner had predicted. Not only did the business of the brewery not deteriorate, but it also became prosperous. There were fewer old customers, but more new ones. For example, the merchants who flocked to the brewery were the most generous in their consumption of wine. There were also the Huben who received generous retirement allowances, and if they were originally good at wine, they would often patronize it when they had a large amount of coins in their hands. The most rare customers, is to speak the southern accent of the drudgery, those drudgery is to help merchants to transport goods of the footman, it is said that the merchants pay the footman's reward is good, these footman sometimes one person, sometimes gangs come, spend a lot of, but also do not see them have a lot of meat pain. However, the wine shop now can not see these footmen, I heard that they are back to their hometowns in the south for the New Year.
The owner of the wine shop himself could not guess why, after the king's capital had gone through two upheavals, the merchants in the city were more active than before, and the things sold by the merchants appeared to be selling better than before. However, when he saw a farmer dressed in rags with a bag of goods on his shoulder passing by the entrance, he felt that he had figured out the reason for the crowded and lively King's City.
"They should all be here to exchange grain." The owner of the brewery pointed towards the farmer, the reserve soldiers recruited into the army and the laborers who built water conservancies around the country were paid five pounds of corn per day for their work, which was distributed once every ten days. A few days before the end of the year, it was the day when the fifty kilograms of food stamps were distributed. The families of the laborers would immediately go to the grain store in the royal capital to exchange the food stamps, and those who had money left over would buy some new year's goods, so there were especially many people coming into the city in the past two days.
Boss Mao stood on a boulder near the north city gate, craning his neck to keep a close eye on everyone entering the gate. Boss Mao was waiting for his wife, who was more than four months pregnant.
"Here! Here!" When Boss Mao saw his wife, dressed in a thick linen coat rolled up around the hems of her pants and the edges of her hands and sleeves, walk in from outside the city gates, he jumped off the rock and shouted at her.
"Niu his father, we're going to cash in the grain?" Boss Mao's wife wiped the sweat from her forehead; she was covered in sweat from the twenty miles or so of traveling.
"I'll wipe you!" Boss Mao, seeing his wife touching her sweat with her rough sleeve and turning her forehead red, hastened to stop it and helped her dry off with his own reserve soldier's cotton shirt.
"This is the new issue of clothes? It's so soft!" Boss Mao's wife touched her husband's new cotton clothes.
The reserve soldiers were on vacation last night, starting on New Year's Eve and continuing until the third day of the first month. The reservists close to their homes could have gone home yesterday, but Boss Mao, coveting the fact that the barracks still serves breakfast once on New Year's Eve, didn't go back with Mao Zhuzi, and only asked Mao Zhuzi to give a little message to his own mother-in-law, so that his wife could bring an empty sack to Wangdu tomorrow to load up with exchanged grain.
"I'll give you something to wear when I get back." Boss Mao smiled at his wife, more than half a month's worth of full meals, the blood on Boss Mao's face was better than at home, despite the daily workload, Boss Mao felt his body was more powerful than before.
"It's better not to, when you turn into a full-fledged soldier, you can buy me a new one." Boss Mao's wife shook her head.
"Well, good, by next year I'll buy you one, and one for our daughters too!" Boss Mao patted his chest to assure.
"You haven't even become a full-fledged soldier yet, so you're making blind promises!" Boss Mao's wife pushed her husband angrily.
"The supervisory officer praised me twice." Boss Mao was very proper when he worked, putting forth as much effort as he could, never being lazy as long as he could move. When the supervisory officer praised Boss Mao, he implicitly revealed that reserve soldiers with advanced ideologies and active work would be transferred to the regularization program ahead of schedule. Boss Mao didn't understand what ideology was, but he did understand active work.
"Does the supervisory officer have a lot of power?" Boss Mao's wife didn't know what kind of official the supervisory officer was, so she could turn her husband in advance.
"It must be big, he has a plum mark on his forehead!" Boss Mao lowered his voice and told his wife.
"Plum print? Isn't that a bad mark?" Boss Mao's wife's eyes widened, although she had seen little, she knew that only slaves branded their faces, and those who branded plum blossom prints were mostly handsome-looking men and women, and the usefulness of these men and women was naturally self-evident.
"What's not good? Depends on who branded them, the overseer of that team of ours is a slave of the Duke and the Great General!"
After Zheng Yuming and Chu Chaohui took control of the power of Wu, they transferred all the slaves and civilians that could be called upon in the valley and Nambu to the royal capital and placed them in various departments. The officer overseeing Boss Mao was a teenager from the valley who had studied under Fan Jin for two years, and when the Ulsan army departed, there was a lack of defense personnel in the valley, so Yu Kuei recruited teenagers over fifteen years of age from the valley and Nambu to fill out the patrols and security bureau as well. After the king's capital was pacified, these young men with only three or four months of management experience were sent to the king's capital to supervise the military discipline of the reserve soldiers and to guide their ideological education.
"Ah! It's the same as the two generals who were ordained as soldiers!" Boss Mao's wife exclaimed. The news of the slave-born Zhou Cheng and Zeng You being knighted shook the people near the capital of the King of Wu, and it turned out that as lowly as slaves could rise to the top for their merits.
"Yeah, that's why I think it's too rewarding to be a soldier." Boss Mao was originally a peaceful crop farmer, but when he heard the news, his heart still couldn't help but boil with fervor, this was a path that would change the fate of the entire family.
Husband and wife talked and laughed as they walked toward the grain store exchange office, and when they walked to the grain store exchange office, Boss Mao and his wife were a bit dumbfounded. Because there are too many people coming to exchange grain, there is already a long line in front of the grain store. Next to the line were six Ulsan soldiers in full armor in charge of order, and the winter sunlight shone on the weapons they were holding, reflecting a blinding light. In this blinding light deterrent, each to the grain store exchange of food people are consciously row to the end of the queue, that can not distinguish the situation, want to squeeze to the front of the queue, will always be the first time the soldiers dragged out of the queue, dragged to the end of the queue, once a warning, two is confiscated food coupons, three times, seems to be no more than three times, once a warning to confiscate the coupons will be enough, the food is a guarantee of their lives, no one will be with their own lives! No one is going to be able to live with their own lives.
Although the line in front of the grain store was long, the speed of exchanging grain in the store was not slow, because the food stamps were a fixed number, the store first divided the grain into fifty pounds a basket, and collected a note, then poured to the exchanger a basket of corn. Boss Mao and his wife waited in line for less than an hour before they were able to redeem the corn. But when it was Boss Mao's turn to redeem the corn, a long line had formed behind him.
Mao Boss with his wife brought the sacks loaded, carried to the shoulder, the couple side by side to the home. Although the sharp winter winds blowing on their bodies are biting, Boss Mao and his wife do not feel the cold, and they are full of hope for the new year.
When Boss Mao's husband and wife drove their family away, a middle-aged man with a teenager of about seventeen years old was kneeling in front of an earthen grave in a mountain village somewhere near the metropolis of the King's Tang Dynasty.
"Great nephew, before your father died, he asked my uncle to pass on a message to you that you should never go as a Huben in the future."
"Uncle, please tell me more about my father's breakout and being hit by an arrow." The young man's face was ghastly white, and his eyes flashed with hatred.
"Say it again?" The middle-aged man looked at his nephew in confusion, he had already narrated twice, could it be that his nephew hadn't heard clearly?
This middle-aged man was the stout man who had once tried to follow King Tang to get merit in his expedition at the end of July last year. Half a year of campaigning had severely damaged his health.
"That is my Tang Kingdom 40,000 army Wu army is besieged in a mountain pass ...." As the middle-aged man said this, he couldn't help but close his eyes as the colors white and red took over his mind again.
The earth was white, and the blood spilled in the breakout was bright red. The middle-aged man and his elder brother took part in every breakout, but facing the enemy whose weapons and equipment were superior to theirs, the Tang army failed in every breakout, and in the last breakout, a sharp arrow hit the back of the middle-aged man's elder brother.
"Sharp arrows were shot from the banner of the Chu Character?" The teenager's fists clenched.
"Yes, the shape of that arrow branch's arrowhead is too sinister, it's hard to pull it out when it's shot into the human body, but if you don't pull it out, it's constantly bleeding." The middle-aged man wanted to help his elder brother to pull out the arrow branch, but when he moved, it in turn made his elder brother suffer even more, the arrowhead had barbs, it was impossible to remove it without a scalpel.
"Is that how my father was tortured to death?" The young man had tears in his eyes.
"Ai, now that I think about it, it would have been better to be shot directly in the vitals by that arrow, or better... It would also be better for your father to have less... Pain." The middle-aged man covered his face and cried bitterly.
The elder brother of the middle-aged man was wounded and suffered pain for two days before he died. At that time, the Tang army barracks had a shortage of supplies, and for the dead Huben, they were always thrown outside the barracks.
The middle-aged man did not want his elder brother's body to burst into the wild, so he hid the body in the tent. The skinny slaves that the two brothers had brought with them had already starved to death. The Huben who were in the same tent had already died almost to death, and the ones who survived were also exhausted long ago, and no one paid attention to the fact that there was a dead body lying beside them.
After signing the compensation agreement, King Tang left with Huben who could still walk. The middle-aged man could have returned to his country with the King of Tang, but stayed in the barracks because he couldn't let go of his brother's remains.
What he did not expect is that the Wu army on the defeated prisoners exceptionally well treated, good food and drink, but also issued some rations to let them go home on their own, has been assigned to the Wu Tang people, but also can follow the garrison to walk together, to help the garrison to transport supplies will also be sent to pay.
The village where the middle-aged man is not in the Tang Wang compensation agreement, the middle-aged man received rations, the older brother's body on his back, leaning on a branch walking stick, to the direction of his hometown walking, walking and stopping, straight away nearly a month before walking back. Fortunately, the winter season, the temperature is very low, the middle-aged man's older brother's body did not rot, the family members were able to see the remains.
Before the middle-aged man went home, the village people already knew the news of the defeat of the Tang army, and the families of those who did not come back from the battle, the family members were worried all day long. The middle-aged man's wife and his sister-in-law have hugged and cried countless times, the middle-aged man's homecoming, so that the family, there is a happy and sad.
The middle-aged man's sister-in-law is sad, and the middle-aged man's wife is joyful. However, after the middle-aged man's wife rejoiced, she fell into an existential crisis. Last year's drought in Tang, the fall harvest was reduced, the middle-aged man's wife had hoped that her husband would be rewarded for following the King of Tang to get through the difficult times at home, but now it seems that not only is this hope dashed, but also let their husbands at the expense of their health.
"My father died at the hands of that sinister villain surnamed Chu!" The teenager's teeth bit blood out of his lips.
"Alas! There is no mercy above the battlefield." The middle-aged man sighed, he was going to say that his elder brother's life and his own health were ruined at the hands of the Tang King, but seeing his bookish nephew, he shut his mouth. His nephew was studying under a famous scholar in the capital city of Tang, that famous scholar respected the king as supreme, if he were to discuss the wrongdoings of the king of Tang in front of his nephew, his young and impetuous nephew would have to divulge it in front of the famous scholar, that would be bad, discussing the king's misdemeanor behind his back was a big crime, if the king didn't know about it, no one would probably hold him accountable, but if he was angered, extermination of the nine clans would be a possibility.
"Nephew, you'd better learn your lessons well from sir, so that in the future you can be like him and become a famous scholar known for hundreds of miles." The middle-aged man had already extinguished his desire to honor his family through military service.
"Uncle! Nephew understands!" The young man bowed his head, but in his heart, he swore secretly to his father's grave.
The middle-aged man took a look at his thinly built nephew, and then looked at the surrounding desolation, his heart was gray, and he only felt that there was not a trace of brightness in front of him.
On the evening of New Year's Eve, Zhou Cheng led his men on a tour outside the camp, and under his feet was the original land of Tang, which had now been returned to Wu. When the people on the border of Tang realized that they would later be the people of Wu, instead of being sad, they were surprised to be cheered in unison.
Zhou Cheng had brought his men to inspect a borderline today, and he wanted to see if there were any more changes to the borderline's boundary markers. The border line between Tang and Wu was very vague, and it was only roughly oriented. A boundary marker was erected at the main road junction, or at a conspicuous place, to show the distinction.
Zhou Cheng rode his horse to the place where he was going to patrol and found that yesterday's boundary marker had moved northward again by more than thirty meters. This phenomenon of the boundary marker moving northward by itself has been around for ten days, at first Zhou Cheng thought he was blind and misread it, but when he searched for a somewhat eye-catching plant next to the boundary marker as a reference, he realized that he wasn't blind and that the boundary marker did indeed move northward by itself every night.
When Zhou Cheng saw that the location of the boundary marker had changed, he did not dismount to check it out, but took out his binoculars and looked to the north; more than two miles to the north, there was a small village inhabited by four or five families.
Zhou Cheng couldn't help but purse his lips when he saw the terrain of the hamlet, there were a few footprints at the boundary monument going straight towards the direction of the hamlet, it seems that the boundary monument was moved for the villagers of the hamlet, who hoped to change the location of the boundary monument to make themselves the people of the Wu Kingdom.
Zhou Cheng's sight crossed the small village and looked further north, north of the Tang Kingdom was the Lu Kingdom, which had once been Zhou Cheng's hometown. The sneaky behavior of the village people in the small village made Zhou Cheng's heart rise with emotion, if he could be allowed to move the boundary marker, Zhou Cheng would like to move it behind his hometown.