Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 175 Homecoming

In addition to recruiting craftsmen, Yang Menglong also recruited a group of young and strong.Now it is different from when he came here. He has hundreds of horses, nearly a thousand cows, and tens of thousands of sheep. It is impossible for him to drive such a huge herd on the road with only his manpower. , We must recruit a group of professionals, otherwise we will not be able to hurry.Furthermore, horses and oxen are very valuable. Driving so many horses and oxen on the road will inevitably cause people to be tempted. A group of people must be recruited to help escort them. Otherwise, if someone comes out and robs the herd, he will To whom to cry?Cheng Ji deeply agreed. He got a lot of valuable furs this trip, and he relied on Wuyangwei's little manpower to escort them all the way.

Recruitment went smoothly. I heard that a large number of manpower is needed to escort the herd back to Henan. Immediately, a large number of wandering swordsmen came to defect with weapons, and dozens of Mongolian herdsmen ran over to say that they were the best at taking care of them. The herd is gone, use them, sure!Yang Menglong did not refuse anyone who came, and soon, he recruited more than [-] people, including his own manpower, the number was nearly [-]. With so many people, they should be able to scare those little thieves, right?

In order to transport this huge herd across the Yellow River, Yang Menglong and Cheng Ji spent a lot of time... Alas, it is really difficult to cross the Yellow River without a bridge!On the contrary, the boatmen were earning a lot of money, smiling happily, until they had walked a long way, they were still reluctantly shouting: "Come again next time!" Yang Menglong's face became elongated when he heard it, and he clutched his pocket with an expression Quite painful.

His hard days are yet to come.

It was the huge herd that tormented him day and night.These livestock kept making noises all day long, which made his head explode, so he could bear it. The peculiar stench of sheep dung, cow dung and horse urine was always around, making him almost unable to eat. I gritted my teeth and endured it, but these beasts are too tasty!Walking and eating all the way, no grass is left in the direction of the teeth, and the place swept by them, the grass degenerates into a desert in a blink of an eye!The sheep are even more powerful, but they can sweep away anything with a little green color, and they are so hungry that Yang Menglong has to spend money all the way to buy a lot of straw and wheat straw to feed them, otherwise he will never think about peace!What's even worse is the hundreds of war horses, cattle and sheep can eat turf and eat buffet, but this group of uncles can't do it. After ten days of war horses chewing on turf, basically only half of their lives are left, and they must be fed every night. To eat oatmeal, if possible, you have to mix it with a little spirits and a few eggs, which is another big expense.As for the hundreds of subordinates... don't mention it, one is more edible than the other, and Yang Menglong wants to cry from the bottom of his heart... The thousands of taels of silver he earned from selling grain are almost spent again!Looking at the group of happy foodies, and at the group of horses walking leisurely, he couldn't help shivering, wondering if he had done something wrong.Having a cavalry is certainly a cool thing, but the cost of raising horses is too scary. Can he really afford to raise so many horses?
Spending money lavishly, not knowing what saving is, is probably one of Yang Menglong's biggest problems.What's terrible is that this problem can't be corrected no matter what, so that for a long time in the future, this problem will continue to torture him, repeatedly making him feel ashamed and embarrassed.Fortunately, Cheng Ji had a good friendship with him, and when he learned that his money was running out, he offered to buy horse fodder and grain for him, otherwise he didn't know how to get through it!

It is already mid-August, and Shaanxi is getting colder every day. For Shaanxi people, a difficult winter is coming.After a year of severe drought, countless Shaanxi people were hungry, huddled in drafty huts and shivered, or left their hometowns with their families and fled to Shanxi, Henan and other places, trying to find a way to survive. People can be seen everywhere. From time to time, you can see someone lying dead on the roadside. More and more people are kings of the mountains. When they see the opportunity, they will go down the mountain to rob homes and houses. They kill a few county officials and loot a few warehouses. They live as long as they can.At this time, Shaanxi had turned into a sizzling powder keg. In the end, it was this powder keg that blew up the Ming Empire, which had lasted for nearly 300 years.When Yang Menglong's herd appeared in the sight of the refugees, the dim eyes of countless people suddenly glowed with a bright green light, just like a group of wolves that had been hungry all winter and suddenly discovered a group of fat pigs!As a result, there was a long tail behind the herd. Every night when the camp was reduced, there would always be people wandering around the camp, looking to see if they could find a loophole to sneak in and steal a sheep.Similar theft incidents occurred one after another, and one person succeeded after another. The Wuyang Guard soldiers and swordsmen who were responsible for protecting the herds were exhausted and killed more than a dozen in a row, but they still could not scare away the hungry people who wanted to eat meat and went crazy, even if they were about to be killed. The heads of the dead thieves were hanged out, and the theft continued to intensify. Those refugees used their actual actions to tell Yang Menglong what it means to be hungry without fear of death!
One morning, Yang Menglong was woken up by a commotion. When he came out, he saw Xue Siming and a few soldiers tying up a dozen refugees and somersaulting them all the way.He frowned and asked, "What's wrong?"

Xue Siming bowed his hands to Yang Menglong and said, "My lord, someone stole our cattle!"

Yang Menglong became angry as soon as he heard it: "Stealing cows? Damn it!" He jumped in front of the dozen or so hapless bastards in three steps at the same time, and shouted: "Aren't you finished? How many sheep have you stolen from me during this time?" More than 50 of them! I can’t bear to steal a few sheep, but you fucking steal cows, push your nose to your face, and drag your dick to your belly button, right? Believe it or not, I’ll kill you all! "

Those refugees didn't care about his anger, they kept hiccupping and smirking: "It's delicious...beep...the beef is delicious...beep..." It seemed that the cow was in bad luck.

Xue Siming said with some shame: "These birdmen moved too fast. By the time my subordinates found them, they had already killed the cattle and were cutting off the beef and roasting it until it was half-cooked. They didn't run away when they saw us surrounding us. He stuffed the hot beef into his mouth and devoured it like he was crazy with hunger... This subordinate is incompetent and failed to protect the herd, please punish me."

Yang Menglong became more and more furious, glaring at these fearless cattle thieves, he raised his fist and wanted to beat them.But after thinking about it, he put down his fist and said dejectedly, "Hand them over to the government, and let the government punish them according to the law."

The cattle thieves kept burping and didn't take it seriously at all. However, a child of fifteen or sixteen years old was frightened. He knelt down with a bang and cried out: "This young man, you Show mercy, let us go, don't hand us over to the government!"

Yang Menglong said with a stinking face: "If I don't hand you over to the government, how can I let you go? If you dare to steal my things, you should be fined or even imprisoned!"

The child kowtowed again and again: "Please, don't hand us over to the government, otherwise we will die... Killing a cow means beheading..."

Yang Menglong was surprised: "To beheaded?"

Xue Siming nodded affirmatively: "Yes. According to the laws and regulations of this dynasty, there is no forgiveness for slaughtering healthy cattle farmers without permission."

Yang Menglong was a little hesitant, human life is at stake, he really couldn't bear to kill more than a dozen people for a cow, but the increasingly arrogant attitude of these thieves has made him unbearable, and now it has evolved into stealing cattle If you don't give them a little color, they may even steal the horse, so it's okay!How to teach them a profound lesson without ruining their lives?Yang Menglong also made a mistake.The child probably thought it was funny, kowtowed his head again and again, only a few times, and suddenly clutched his stomach, his complexion became pale, and he let out a suppressed moan.Not only him, but several cattle thieves were like this, cold sweat broke out on their foreheads, and they groaned in pain.Yang Menglong noticed it right away, and asked the child, "What's wrong with you?"

The child's voice was trembling: "The stomach hurts...the stomach hurts..."

Yang Menglong scolded: "I let you steal my cows, how about it, you will be punished?" Cursing, he squatted down and touched the child's belly with his hands, and found that his belly was swollen, he couldn't help being surprised: " How much beef did you eat?"

The child said with difficulty: "I ate a few big pieces...it was...delicious...ouch, it hurts me to death!" Unable to hold on any longer, the pain fell to the ground and rolled over, clutching its stomach.Yang Menglong yelled: "You are looking for death! You have been hungry for so long and still eat half-cooked beef, and you are not afraid of being bloated to death? Spit it out!"

The child kept his mouth shut and shook his head desperately.

Yang Menglong cursed, grabbed his collar and lifted him up, and twisted his thin arm like a stick, the child yelled in pain, and Yang Menglong took the opportunity to insert his finger into his mouth , Straight to scratch the throat, the child couldn't take it anymore, bent down and vomited, a piece of beef that had just been eaten not long ago was vomited out like this.That child obviously didn't want to spit out what he ate, and struggled desperately, but was caught by Yang Menglong, a bully who could kill even white armored soldiers, how could he struggle?He could only desperately spit out the beef that was swelling in his stomach piece by piece.Yang Menglong looked at the pieces of meat he spat out. As Xue Siming said, they were half-roasted, maybe because he was afraid of being snatched by others. Just swallow it in your stomach.If the beef is not chewed, it is difficult to digest. This kid has been hungry for a long time, and the digestive ability of the stomach has been greatly degraded. Now he eats so much undercooked beef. Miracle!Fortunately, under his coercion, the child vomited out all the beef, and also spit out a lot of messy things like tree bark, grass roots, Guanyin soil, etc. The stench was so bad that he wanted to vomit up.The child's fate was saved, but after spitting out these things that were enough to sustain him alive, he was not half happy. Instead, he lay on the ground, crying loudly, as if some beloved toy had been snatched away by Yang Menglong of.

He vomited out all the food in his stomach, which meant that he was going to starve.For this child, the taste of starvation is more terrible than death...

(End of this chapter)