Chinese New Year

Chapter 496 Selling an official position
"If the queue is not in line, each person will lead a whip." On the seventh day of March, Wang Xuan had just left the Nanyang Palace and stopped.

In the open space in the distance, the soil was trampled firmly, and a large group of people were conducting exercises in teams and buildings.

The newly appointed Nanyang Lieutenant Yuan Xi stood on the high platform, standing upright like a gun.

From time to time, he would point with a horsewhip, and soon someone would come down to the training ground and drag out a certain team or group. After being whipped, they would continue to practice.

It was clear that the new lieutenant was a ruthless man.

He hardly talks, but he has a sharp eye. Anyone who is lazy or practices poorly can basically not escape his observation and he will catch them on the spot.

Wang Xuan even had a feeling that he had been trained like this before, so he followed suit and now applied it to these newcomers.

The new recruits were all farmers, and it seemed that they did not volunteer to join the Kingdom Army. While training, some would occasionally look at the farmland outside the training ground.

There were people working in the fields, mostly young and strong women, with the occasional old people and children, bending over with their heads down, repeatedly weeding.

No one has it easy in this world, including him.

Wang Xuan stopped looking, called his followers, got on a carriage, and headed northeast for Wancheng.

This is actually a relatively important post road, but there are almost no pedestrians on the road.

When the spring breeze blows, the only sound is the rustling of the reeds.

Occasionally you can see a dock.

The smaller ones were built with newly felled trees, and the residents didn't even clean the bark off the wood, which looked very crude. Some of the more sophisticated ones even covered the outside with a layer of soil, probably to prevent fire, but when spring came, weeds actually grew on the soil and blew in the wind, which looked very funny.

If nothing unexpected happens, this was built by refugees from Guanxi.

They were very cautious and uneasy, cultivating only the fields close to the fort. The fields a little further away were basically abandoned, and at most they cut grass to feed the livestock.

From this small detail, we can see that the impact of the Hakka-Punti conflict is still there and has never subsided.

The big dock can also be seen.

They are more wealthy, and most of them have been running their businesses for more than one generation. Their outer walls are even built with bricks fired in kilns.

There are many houses inside, and the walls are mottled, but there are signs of repairs everywhere, so there is no doubt about their solidity.

Of course, there are also some relatively new forts, most of which were built by local tyrants who became wealthy in the past twenty years or so. After embezzling land and population, they used rammed earth to build outer walls, gatehouses, and corner towers.

Some of the forts even have obvious signs of expansion, which shows that these local tyrants are much more enterprising than the old nobles. They are also brave and dare to fight. The refugees from Guanxi are most afraid of them because they are ruthless.

When passing a small river, we saw groups of people sitting under the willow trees on the opposite bank.

The old man's face was full of wrinkles and he looked ahead at the road with sorrow.

Men and women were busy preparing meals.

Children chase butterflies in a field full of yellow flowers and green grass, releasing their energy everywhere.

Every few steps on the road, there stood a soldier in brown cloth.

Judging from their appearance, they were not serious warriors. Most of them were the farming troops under Shao Xun. At the moment, they were standing guard boredly, watching over the men, women, old and young who were sitting on the ground.

There is a large estate further away.

Dozens of donkey carts drove out of the manor, and the drivers were unloading grain. The keepers stood vigilantly by the side to prevent these men and women who were eating and resting from damaging the crops in the fields and the mulberry trees on the road.

A clever attendant went forward to inquire about the situation and came back to report: "Shangshu, these are refugees from Guanxi who were sent to Runan. They said they were going to Xiping County."

"Xiping..." Wang Xuan pondered for a while, thinking that Shao Taibai was really implementing his plan step by step.

Everyone knows that self-employed farmers are good, but in this world, do self-employed farmers have a way to survive? The village should not be too easy to rob!
Taibai vigorously distributed land in several counties and kingdoms in western Henan, creating a large number of self-cultivating farmers. If they were raided, the losses would be enormous.

But his ambition is really big! Because only in this way can he reduce his dependence on the nobles.

There are few real fools in this world. How could someone like Wang Xuan not see the trick?
He had mixed feelings about this.

I don’t know whether it is right or wrong to follow Mr. Chen wholeheartedly.

******
On the eighth day of March, we passed Wancheng but did not enter, and continued on our journey.

When we arrived at Guarizin, it was getting dark, so we had our meal and stayed overnight in a small country inn.

“Only in the vicinity of Wancheng can you find wine shops and restaurants.” After dinner, Wang Xuan sat in the vegetable garden behind the wine shop and chatted with the owner.

"You are right, sir." The old man was holding a pottery jar and watering the vegetables in the garden. He said, "Yang Du's army just passed through yesterday. If it weren't for the senior officials who went out of the city to inspect, my shop would have been in trouble."

"Oh? Yang Pengzu is so lax in managing his subordinates?" Wang Xuan asked with a smile.

"So Yang Du's name is 'Peng Zu'?" The old man shook his head and said, "Not only is he lax, he is also terrible. In late autumn last year, when Yang Du was returning from Luoyang, he passed through the countryside and stole several cattail mats that my family had just woven. My poor son got up before dawn, braved the severe frost, waded through cold water, and went to the river bank to cut cattail leaves for several days. My daughter-in-law worked for more than a month and just wove a few sheets. When she was about to sell them in the market, they were robbed."

Wang Xuan sighed and asked, "Is Yang Pengzu leading his army northward?"

The old man stopped what he was doing and stared at Wang Xuan.

Wang Xuan was puzzled.

The old man pointed to a river beyond the fence and said, "There are people from the west on the other side of the river. They have also gone there, leaving a day earlier."

Wang Xuan stood up and looked at the other side.

There was a woman digging a hole by the river, wiping her tears as she dug.

Two children, probably only five or six years old, followed behind him, clumsily scattering beans into the hole.

"Her husband was conscripted." The old man sighed, "Although he is from Guanxi, he looks very pitiful. I heard that a total of 10,000 people were conscripted to Hebei, and I don't know how many of them can come back."

"So many..." Wang Xuan was a little surprised. Ten thousand Guanxi soldiers must be the best and strongest, almost the essence of the Wancheng hereditary soldiers established by Liang Fen.

Ten thousand men marching north to fight the Xiongnu was described by literati as a very heroic and inspiring event, worthy of being written about in great detail. But when Wang Xuan saw the woman wiping her tears and the child who had to help his mother plant beans at such a young age, he felt something blocked in his chest.

After a long time, there was only a sigh.

Should we fight the Huns? Yes!
But war is dangerous and not everyone can come back.

Wang Xuan felt that he might have seen this kind of thing too rarely, and that he was not strong enough, too pretentious, and too sentimental.

But he just couldn't help thinking about it, and even thought of an old event a few years ago: Cong Bo Wang Kuang led more than 30,000 Huainan soldiers to the north to attack the Huns, and the entire army was wiped out in Changping.

None of these people were able to return.

No one knew whether Wang Kuang was alive or dead. There were even rumors that he had surrendered to the Huns and was serving as a fake official in Liu Han under an assumed name. This made Wang Xuan very angry.

The war was indeed very dangerous, and no one knew how strong Shao Taibai's will was, as he led his troops into battle again and again. At the critical moment of the Battle of Zhamadi, he even crossed the Yellow River at night under thunder and heavy rain, risking his life to survive.

He deserves his current status and fame.

He deserves to enjoy the beauty to his heart's content.

Wang Xuan suddenly felt that it was right to follow Mr. Chen. His original idea was correct and should not be shaken.

All the Nanyang nobles and Guanxi soldiers headed north, probably numbering no less than 20,000...

This time the scale of the event was truly huge and the momentum was astonishing enough.

Wang Xuan thought of the emperor again.

Comparing the two, he felt that the emperor was somewhat hideous.

Yes, the idea is a bit disrespectful, but it is indeed disgusting.

He can't help in fighting the Huns, but he is a hindrance. Can you do something useful?

How many imperial guards died in vain in the Battle of Xin'an?

Earlier in Fupingjin, the general's entire army was wiped out.

The Sima clan prince seems to be pretty bad too!
In the Battle of Dayang, Cao Wu's entire army was wiped out.

In the Battle of Hanoi, Wang Kan suffered severe damage.

……

There are reasons for this. How can infantry defeat cavalry? It is normal for them to fail, right?

But some people can fight even in this extremely disadvantageous situation.

In the past there were Ma Long and Ma Xiping, now there are Shao Xun and Shao Taibai, and there will definitely be others in the future.

If you are incompetent, you are incompetent. There is no need to make excuses!

******
On March 14, after a long journey, Wang Xuan finally saw the tall city walls of Luoyang, which made him feel relieved.

I spend all day running errands.

Unfortunately, he is the only one in the family who is suitable for running errands, and he can’t let his father or two sisters do the running errands, right?

If you send a servant over, at best he can deliver a letter, but he probably won't even be able to meet Mr. Chen, let alone talk about anything.

He even wanted to call some more people over from Langya.

But most of the reliable people in the Wang family of Langya went to Jianye, and the abilities of those who stayed in their hometown were uneven - this was my father's opinion.

Wang Xuan felt that since he and his son had made up their minds to follow Mr. Chen, they would inevitably have to confront the people in Jianye. At this time, they should not talk about the feelings of being from the same clan. They should take action and snatch people away without feeling embarrassed.

Wang Xuan was a little discouraged because his father didn't listen.

After entering from Pingchang Gate, Wang Xuan discovered that Tongtuo Street was crowded with carriages and horses, making it almost impossible to move forward.

The little smart guy who asked the question came back panting and reported: "The commanders of the forts in Yanshi and other counties are driving grain carts into the capital, saying that they want to offer grain to the emperor."

"What?" Wang Xuan was extremely surprised.

"It's true." The servant replied, "The emperor gave them official positions, and the commander of the fortress donated grain."

"Isn't this selling an official position?" Wang Xuan murmured.

He got off the carriage and saw two burly men laughing.

"I was in trouble and was chased by the government. I had to hide in Songshan Mountain and almost fell to death. I didn't expect that I would be an official now, haha!"

"After the disastrous defeat at Dangyin, I lost hope in the world and fled back home to gather the villagers to work on the land. Now that I have been promoted to an official, I feel that there is still room for improvement in the world."

"The emperor is wise, and there are talented people everywhere. The Jin Dynasty has great potential for rejuvenation."

"Well said, haha!"

Wang Xuan was stunned.

What does the emperor mean? Is he crazy? Isn't this just trampling on the face of the court?
The area around Luoyang is extremely desolate, how many grains of food can the fort commander contribute? It's not worth it, it's really not worth it.

"Go home." He waved weakly.

(End of this chapter)