Chapter 161 Episode

Chapter 161 Episode

Chapter 161 Episode
On the ninth day of March, the first batch of one hundred long sword army warriors arrived in Liang County.

They were lucky because they already had ready-made troops - those released by local tyrants in Liang County.

Standing on the ridge of the field, Chang Can met his followers for the first time: three local people from Liang County who were forced to take refuge with the local tyrant Li Li because of a disaster.

Soldiers are soldiers, and slaves are slaves; they are different in nature.

The Buqu were between free people and slaves. They could marry good women and retain their own property. Apart from their personal dependence, they were no different from free people.

Chang Can silently looked at the three households, totaling sixteen men and women: four males, five females, and seven children.

Among the four men, only one was in his prime, and the other three were already quite old, at least over 40 years old.

Why did this happen? It's nothing more than war.

If there is another war in Luoyang, these four Ding men may have to go to the battlefield, and it is hard to say whether they can come back.

There was nothing much to say about the woman. After being exposed to the sun and rain, she was far inferior to the young ladies Chang Can had seen in Chang'an - Chang Can had just gotten married, and his wife's family was a businessman in Chang'an City. The whole family was killed, leaving only her.

The children were generally young, with the oldest boy probably less than ten years old. They all looked at him timidly, subconsciously wanting to hide behind the adults.

Chang Can thought that since it was the first time he met his subordinates, he should say something and give them some gift.

After holding it in for a long time, he just said, "My last name is Chang, and you are my family from now on. It's the one at the east end of the village, easy to recognize."

After he finished speaking, he thought for a moment, then imitated Shao Xun's tone and said seriously, "Do your job properly, don't be sneaky or play tricks."

"Yes..." The troops responded sparsely.

Chang Can was slightly annoyed, and then said, "I'm not a harsh master, what am I afraid of?"

After saying this, he walked to the side of the horse, took out a dry and hard Hu cake from the saddle bag, broke it into several pieces, stuffed them into the hands of several children one by one, and said in a rough voice: "Here, it's a reward for you."

The child swallowed his saliva dryly. Someone took it quickly, and someone looked at the adults and took it after seeing that there was no objection.

Chang Can laughed, took two steps closer, and wanted to touch a child's head.

However, he was an old thief and a desperate criminal, and the clanking weapons on his body made him look quite scary. When the child saw him, he burst into tears and ran away, wiping his tears.

Chang Can's forced smile froze.

After a moment, he waved his hand in disappointment and said, "Go away."

"Yes." The troops immediately dispersed.

A breeze blew, and Chang Can squatted down with a bit of disappointment.

In his expectation - or imagination - the soldiers should be the kind of brave people who farm in their spare time and go to the battlefield in times of war, shouting and fighting fiercely.

Now it seems that there is a little gap.

Dumb and dumb, not good at speaking, timid and afraid of things. With such troops, how could he expect them to accompany him to the battle? Most of them could only do odd jobs like washing horses, making fire and cooking. Or they could be gathered together by their superiors to repair the camp.

Well, it’s good enough that I can do the job of an auxiliary soldier. Why think so much?
When I got home, my wife was tending to the vegetable patch.

Chang Can looked at her clumsy appearance and sighed secretly.

The girls in the city are pretty, but when it comes to work - well, it's hard to describe.

But he doesn't regret it, as long as it looks good.

Soldiers have always been looked down upon, and it was impossible for them to marry women in Chang'an city.

The last time I heard a teacher from Panyuan mention the "recruiting of scholars and women" incident during the Cao Wei period (the third year of Qinglong 235), he felt very sad.

The girls from soldiers' families were unwilling to marry into the family, which resulted in the soldiers being unable to find wives and affected their morale. So the imperial court conducted an investigation, arrested the married girls from soldiers' families, and forced them to remarry.

This kind of thing also happened during the time of our previous emperor (Sima Yan), and on a scale far exceeding that of the Cao Wei period.

Both incidents were "positive events" that boosted the morale of the soldiers, but Chang Can was very angry when he heard about them.

Why can’t such brave and hard-working soldiers get married?
Why can they only marry women from military households?

I want to marry a woman from Chang'an City, even if she can't do farm work, I'm happy!
There were some vegetables such as cabbage and leek planted in the vegetable patch. Seeing his wife's clumsy appearance, Chang Can grabbed the wooden spoon and scooped water to water the vegetables while saying, "Go cook."

The wife responded, her face slightly red.

Chang Can was watering the vegetables happily, imagining his future life.

He breathed a sigh of relief since his wife had given birth to a child before, so she could have one with him, and there would most likely be no difficult labor.

This small courtyard was given to a farm manager from the family of Li Li, a local tyrant. It was not bad. Bah! What manager? He was just a slave.

In terms of status, he was not even as good as a military household, but he was a poor man and married a maid from the Li family. But their children were destined to be slaves.

The situation was different for the government soldiers. They were exempted from corvée labor and only had to perform military service. They were completely from good families - no, even the good families in the Han Dynasty were not as good as them.

I heard from Commander Chen that General Shao has other benefits for the government soldiers, such as getting an official position for meritorious service or something - to get an official position, you don't have to look at your family background, as long as you kill the enemy and get meritorious service, is there such a good thing in the world?

Unfortunately, the general cannot make the decision now and ask the court to reform its system. As he has little influence, he can't do anything.

Damn it! Chang Can threw the wooden spoon into the bucket and thought silently, if one day General Shao came to Luoyang to govern, would their good days come?
Even further?
All the officials and palaces are ready-made! I heard that the queen has given birth to children, so General Shao doesn't need to marry a wife, because even the queen is ready-made and can give birth to children.

If there really were such a good day, I would be willing to risk my life for it.

The fire was lit in the kitchen, and his wife was already cooking corn porridge. After watering the vegetables, Chang Can took his horse to the river outside the door and washed it himself.

The horse rubbed against him affectionately.

Chang Can, who had killed many people, laughed heartily. He had just returned from Guangchengze, where there were still three hundred brothers and a group of men who were herding horses all day long.

It was also at that time that Chang Can saw the grand scene of thousands of horses galloping for the first time.

Guangchengze is a good place, with beautiful mountains, water and scenery. If it can be used for farming, it will definitely yield a lot of food.

There was the sound of horse hooves on the other side of the river.

A dozen knights greeted Chang Can from afar and looked towards the Chang family courtyard to see if his new bride had appeared in the courtyard.

Chang Can laughed and scolded a few words, then puffed out his chest proudly.

The women in Chang'an are indeed beautiful, but alas, you just need to work hard. Besides honing your martial arts skills, you can help with farm work. Isn't that how life should be spent?
Once we bring A Niang over from Yushanwu and have a few children with the new wife, life will be more stable.

We must give birth to more boys!

I will choose the most outstanding one and teach him all my skills of killing. When he grows up, he can follow the general to go to war. Maybe he will make great achievements and have his own family business.

The Chang family also wants to expand and maybe become a big family in a hundred years?
******
The wind started at the end of Qingping.

Some things may seem ordinary at first, and not everyone may be able to see the mystery behind them.

As for the Liang County tyrant Li Li, he only saw a corrupt and brutal military leader who brought a group of desperate criminals to rob his land - although these lands were also robbed from others by him.

Then, the military leader distributed the seized land to the soldiers to win their hearts!
On the surface, it seems to be correct, as if it is true, and even the first hundred or so people who came were given a special role.

One soldier and three households cultivated more than a hundred acres of land for those desperate criminals.

In addition to this, if there were livestock, they would seem to help with grazing - these days, perhaps because of insufficient development, lack of water conservancy projects, or insufficient manpower, there were a lot of wastelands covered with grass, which were good places for grazing. So strictly speaking, the income of the soldiers was not just from the hundred acres of land.

"Oh!" Li Li kicked away a piece of dead branch, feeling very depressed.

He is only 30 years old. He started to take over the family business three years ago, and his main theme is "bravery and diligence".

He is comfortable taking the land that others are embarrassed to take.

He dares to take the land that others dare not take.

There were several officials in the county who were on friendly terms with him. When they recruited soldiers and collected taxes, they would make sure to beat those who quietly cultivated their land half to death. Then he would pretend to be a good person and gladly accept the land and soldiers.

In fact, many people do this. The world is like this, and he doesn't think there is anything wrong. You are allowed to occupy the land, but you don't allow local tyrants like me to grow stronger? The troubled times are coming, and having more land, more soldiers, more food, and higher walls is the most reassuring thing.

This corrupt official and general will end up in a coffin sooner or later!

Well, he only dared to say this in his heart, because Li Li soon saw dozens of knights carrying heavy swords, crossbows and wearing iron armor.

But these people are not just show-offs, but real desperadoes who dare to kill.

Don’t ask Li Li why he knew this. There are too many people like him in this world.

As the knights rode past, the armor plates on their bodies rustled and their weapons flashed coldly in the sunlight.

If a sword that long and heavy was chopped down, even a man in iron armor would be dizzy, not to mention that their family could not even gather ten sets of iron armor.

These people! Li Li was upset. He quickly returned home and thought about it again and again. He felt that this was not something he could change.

The best way is to contact more people, create momentum, and then send people to Luoyang to see if we can find a way to get rid of Shao Xun.

Or, it seems like going to Yingchuan would be okay too?
In short, we can’t let Shao Xun continue to do this.

(End of this chapter)