Chapter 110 2 Garden

Chapter 110 2 Garden

Chapter 110 Two Gardens
Shao Xun first returned to his own manor.

"Lang Jun."

"General Chen."

Tang Jian was managing the refugees outside the gate with his guests. When he saw a large group of cavalry coming, he immediately stepped forward and saluted after taking a closer look.

General Chen? Shao Xun glanced at Chen Yougen.

Chen Yougen felt a little embarrassed and muttered, "My dear, they were just yelling for fun..."

"Lang Jun."

"General."

"Mr. Shao."

When Shao Xun heard the last name, he felt it was a bit shocking.

He was only eighteen years old, and people called him "Mr. Shao"? Upon closer inspection, he actually looked somewhat similar to Chen Yougen.

"What is this?" Shao Xun asked.

"My lord, this is my eldest brother Chen Jingen. He had been farming in Yuzhou before, and recently came to Luoyang with dozens of villagers to ask for food. Shao Dianji has already agreed." Chen Yougen said.

"Shao Dianji" is Shao Xun's third brother Shao Fan, who followed Pei Jin to learn how to manage the manor. Shao Xun once said that all matters of Shao Garden should be handled by the two of them. Unexpectedly, many new people came here after not arriving for many days.

In fact, this is normal.

As the saying goes, when one person succeeds, everyone around him will benefit. When Shao Xun became an official, not only did his relatives come to him for support, but also his trusted and confidant relatives. Even the servants would recommend people they knew to be their servants...

"Since you are here, let's arrange for you to stay in the manor." Shao Xun nodded, then looked at the piles of tents set up not far away and said, "Let's go and take a look."

Chen Yougen was about to say that his two brothers were also coming, but he had to shut up and quickly catch up.

Wang Que'er was faster than him, leading the way with dozens of people.

There are rice steamers piled up outside the tent, in which corn porridge is being cooked.

Shao Xun took a closer look and thought it was okay. It wasn’t full, but he wouldn’t starve to death either.

"Add some fish soup to the brigade." Shao Xun pointed his whip at a group of tents on the westernmost side and said.

There were more than a hundred women sitting there, some of them carrying babies with them. They had fled all the way here and were reluctant to abandon them.

The baby was crying loudly because of hunger. The woman tried to feed him, but she had no milk and could only shed tears in silence.

In the end, someone was kind enough to take the child in his arms, undress him, and feed him.

"Yes." Pei Jin, who came hurriedly, immediately sent someone to handle it.

Most of the fish in the pond were caught last year.

When Zhang Fang attacked Luoyang, he spent most of his time in the north of the city and rarely came to the west, which allowed this manor to be preserved - this may also be related to the fact that this place is a little far from Luoyang.

If we continue to fish at this time, the fish in the pond may become extinct.

"Add some more porridge and rice." Shao Xun said again.

"Yes." Pei Jin went back and gave the order personally.

Shao Xun was about to say something else, but when he saw Pei Jin had already run far away, he gave up.

Is he afraid that I will go bankrupt and cause him to lose his job?

Shao Xun sighed. He was indeed a little short of money, and his appetite was too big.

He was walking leisurely.

When the people in the tent saw him, they came out to thank him.

"Where are you from?" Shao Xun asked, looking at the frightened faces.

Everyone looked at each other, and finally nominated a man about forty years old to come forward.

"Greetings, sir." The man said, "We are all from Taiyuan, working as farmers in our hometown. Suddenly we heard that the invaders were coming, burning, killing and looting. In panic, we all moved south, begging along the way, and finally arrived in Luoyang."

"Have all the refugees come to Luoyang, or have some gone somewhere else?"

"It was a difficult journey. Some people stayed, some continued, and others joined along the way. As far as I know, not many people came to Luoyang."

"I see." Shao Xun said, "Now that you are here, are you willing to make peace?"

The man was silent for a while, and finally sighed: "To be honest, I was originally a guest of a wealthy family in Taiyuan. The owner of the family felt that he could not stay any longer, so he led his people south. After all, Luoyang is under the feet of the emperor, and maybe it will be a little more stable."

Shao Xun thought to himself, you are wrong.

Before this year, Luoyang was a place where fighting was very frequent. After the deaths of Sima Lun, Sima Jiong, Sima Yi, and the defeat of Sima Ying, the place finally settled down.

"Since you already have a master, why are you willing to come here? You know, once you surrender to me, you will become my guest and it will not be easy to change." Shao Xun asked.

"I won't lie to you, sir. If my master were still alive, I would never come here." The man said, "Unfortunately, he has died of illness in Hanoi. I am now a homeless person, so I would like to come to you."

"Do they all have the same idea?" Shao Xun pointed at the hundred or so people behind him and asked.

"Exactly."

"I want you to go to Yiyang, not Luoyang. Do you agree?"

"For those who have lost their homes, what else can they choose? It is their wish."

"Okay, once a word is spoken, it cannot be taken back. It's settled. We will set off in two days." Shao Xun said, "Tang Jian."

"I'm here." Tang Jian responded loudly.

"How many guests are there today?"

"Twenty-three people."

"Two days later, I will let Sun He lead a team, and you will lead the guests from Shao Garden to escort the guests from Taiyuan to Yunzhongwu together."

"promise."

"By the way, how many refugees are there here?"

"Two hundred and thirty-two households and nine hundred and twelve people." "Okay, send them all over." Shao Xun said without hesitation.

Pei Jin and Shao Fan were jointly responsible for recruiting refugees, and Tang Jian was only assisting in management. Shao Yuan would continue to send people out to recruit refugees, bring them back to feed them roughly, and then send them to Yiyang to register them.

Fortunately, the student soldiers were all literate and some of them knew arithmetic, so they might not be very good at management, but at least there was management.

In troubled times, talent is precious.

The first batch of East China Sea student soldiers studied for more than two years and finally came in handy.

The second batch of Luoyang student soldiers have been studying for less than a year and have to continue.

In addition, we can recruit the third batch this year.

From the current situation, we can roughly analyze that Luoyang will usher in a rare period of peace.

It is hard to say how long this peace period will last, but at least there will be no war this year. We will have to wait and see what happens next year, as no one can guarantee it.

Peacetime is precious. If we don’t make good use of it, we will pay the price in the future.

After leaving Shao Garden, Shao Xun rushed from the west to the east of the city like lightning and stopped his horse outside Pan Garden.

Another accountant came out of the manor, his name was Pei Gong, and his nephew Shao Shen followed behind him.

"Lang Jun."

"Second uncle."

The two of them saluted one after another.

After Shao Xun returned the gift, he felt a little uncomfortable.

There are Pei family members everywhere. Can't I survive if I leave your Pei family?
Forget it, stop complaining, I still have to go to Concubine Pei to borrow money later...

"How many people have you recruited?" Shao Xun looked at Pan Yuan, whom he was once very familiar with, and felt very emotional.

There was no longer any trace of war here, only the two watchtowers that had been built at the time still clearly told him that he had fought here before.

"One hundred and ten households, four hundred and fifty-one people, most of them are from Taiyuan, and there are also a few from Xihe and Pingyang." Pei Gong replied.

Fourteen-year-old Shao Shen wanted to answer, but couldn't, so he scratched his head anxiously.

"How many days have you had it?"

"Today is the fourth day."

"Two days later, gather the farmhands and send them all to Shao Garden and hand them over to Tang Jian and Sun He."

"promise."

Shao Xun pulled his nephew over and asked, "Have you been studying hard recently?"

"I worked hard...really hard." Shao Shen said immediately.

"Why do some people say that you ride a horse all day long and stab straw men with a broken gun?" Shao Xun asked.

"Ah?" Shao Shen was stunned.

There was a spy around him? And he was reporting me?
"You've eaten well, but you have no place to use your strength, right?" Shao Xun slapped him on the ear and neck and said, "It's not that I don't allow you to practice martial arts, but you can't neglect either. You are just a student. If you go out without knowing how to read, not only will you be embarrassed, but I will be embarrassed too. From now on, study literature in the morning, practice martial arts in the afternoon, and review your lessons in the evening."

"Okay." Shao Shen didn't dare to refute and could only lower his head in agreement.

Shao Xun had lunch in Pan Garden, and then met with the guests from the village - they were all old acquaintances.

"After saying goodbye to Biyong, I see you again." Someone cried, "There is so much fighting and killing in Luoyang that there is almost no way to survive. If you hadn't taken me in, I don't know where I would have died violently."

"Three years ago, you fought the enemy here, and now you are famous in Luoyang. We are right to follow you."

"My dear, please don't abandon me."

Everyone was talking at once, shouting.

In fact, most of the farmers in Panyuan went to Donghai. That was when Sima Ying's army threatened Luoyang. Two and a half years have passed in a flash.

Shao Xun looked at these familiar faces and said gently, "In troubled times, it is fate that we are together. You have followed me, and I will never abandon you. Just farm here well. No one will ask you for taxes, and no one will levy you. Just be at ease. If you have relatives or acquaintances, you can introduce them here. There is plenty of land, but what is lacking is people."

He plans to recruit the third batch of student soldiers this year and place them in Panyuan.

There are now fifty or sixty farmhands here. They grow and harvest their own crops. Apart from the rent they pay to the manor, they have no other burdens, so they live a comfortable life.

But the number of farmers is still a bit small. It would be better to expand it to more than 100 households. After all, there are plenty of abandoned farmlands around.

The student soldiers will be supported by them in the future.

Shao Xun recalled it carefully.

In the second year of Tai'an (302), he began to lead the first group of young people.

There were 150 people at the beginning, but now there are only about 110 people left.

Some returned home, some died in battle, and some died of illness.

Among these one hundred or so people, the young men over the age of fifteen formed the first building of the Silver Spear Army with nearly six hundred soldiers, and were his trump card.

Wu Qian told him yesterday that there are currently 62 student soldiers and officers in the first building, and more than 20 of them will turn 15 this year. Excluding those who continue their "further studies", there are 19 people available.

The most outstanding one among the 19 was named Xu Yu. He had a basic knowledge of literature and writing, was good at archery, and was mediocre at riding.

Shao Xun thought about it and decided to take advantage of the fact that Sima Yue had not come to Luoyang and he had the final say here to continue to take advantage of the Jin Dynasty. He established a second Silver Spear Army and temporarily organized it into three teams of 168 officers and soldiers.

He no longer served as the master of the first building, and was replaced by Jin San. The training team leader Wang Que'er was transferred back to serve as the master of the second building.

Wu Qian was still in charge of recruiting soldiers and completing the recruitment and starting training as soon as possible.

Every minute before Sima Yue returned to Luoyang was precious.

His return meant uncertainty, and Shao Xun hated uncertainty.

He left Pan Garden early the next morning. After entering the city through Jianchun Gate, he first went to a tailor shop to pick up something, and then went straight to Sikong Mansion.

(End of this chapter)