Chapter 20: Finally Meet
It’s Xia Pi Wharf again. The rain has stopped and the sky is gradually getting brighter.

Several corpses floating down from upstream were also discovered by the early-rising people and boats of Xia Pi, so the four gates of Xia Pi were closed.

This city, once the prefecture city of Xuzhou, is said to have nearly half of its land converted into farmland.

The once magnificent city walls have become a burden today. There is not enough manpower to maintain them, and when war breaks out, there is not enough manpower to fill in the small space of the city walls.

"The county town is so tolerant of thieves...Xuzhou is really corrupt now."

"This strange phenomenon is not limited to Xuzhou?"

On the deck, Black Bear sipped his strong tea, completely speechless about the current situation in Xuzhou.

The counties and kingdoms of Langya, Donghai, Dongguan and other counties in the north of Xuzhou have become the territories of military governors who were born as Taishan bandits. These military governors rule over large counties and kingdoms, and small counties. Local wealthy families also occupy the fortresses, and the groups of people are like city-states and alliances.

The Xuzhou governor Zang Ba was only the co-leader of an alliance of several city-states. It was only by relying on these big and small taffy generals that Zang Ba was able to obtain such a unique status in the Xudu court. It was also because he had obtained the recognition and authorization of the Xudu court that Zang Ba sat firmly on the chair of leader.

Therefore, anyone who wants to change this framework will naturally become Zang Ba's enemy.

He only obeys orders and only acts as a tyrant behind closed doors. It is really enviable.

The southern part of Xuzhou was even more pitiful, with only two garrisons, one was the troops of Wang Zhong, the Lieutenant General of Guanzhong, stationed in Pengcheng, and the other was the troops of Liu Dai, the General of Miscellaneous Titles of Pei State.

This Liu Dai came from the Liu family of Xiao County in Pei State. He was sent out as the Chief Clerk of Sikong Mansion of Cao Cao to lead troops. He was truly a role model for his fellow villagers and confidants.

As for the soldiers of the counties and states... I'm sorry, Lord Cao is worried that if the county and state officials continue to run the local areas for a long time, it will become difficult to get rid of them.

Therefore, under Cao Gong's rule, the system of staggered service was implemented. Soldiers from Pengcheng were assigned to garrison Yanzhou. If they were lucky, they would be concentrated in key cities, and if they were unlucky, they would be separated and garrisoned in several counties.

Under this system, there is no hope that the county soldiers, who are outsiders, can gain the trust and support of the local officials and people; since they are already outsiders, they will not mind sitting idly by and watching bandits harm the villagers.

Under the staggered labor service system, soldiers were stationed in distant counties and could only return home for two months each year.

What can we do with the remaining time after deducting the time spent on the road? Have children?

Soldiers were organized into Shihu, and their children were also Shihu. Their widows and surviving wives were also Shihu. Shihu could only marry within the Shihu households.

The most unbearable thing is that soldiers are on guard duty outside and their families cannot follow them. If a soldier escapes, the wife will be killed and the parents, brothers and colleagues will be punished.

The scholars, garrison troops, and civilian settlements were almost all slaves under the rule of the Xudu court.

There were many males but few females in the scholar households. In order to appease the scholar households, they would look for suitable women from the military garrisons and civilian settlements. If there were no suitable women, they would forcibly marry living women. If that still did not include enough women, they would marry the wives of ordinary people!

If the population of the scholar households is not replenished in time, the military households will naturally be transferred to the scholar households. If that is not enough, they will be transferred from civilian settlements and common people.

Under this kind of system...where does love come from among the people?

Chasing love is an instinct, and the handsome original body was harmed by a precocious young lady who was destined to marry a samurai.

Even when conscripting civilians to serve in engineering projects, they were cruelly sent to other counties!

For fear that certain organizations would be formed in the counties, the counties in Yan and Yu states were like eggs embedded in the middle of a centrifuge, with the insides in a complete mess!
The public is not allowed to form organizations spontaneously, and county officials are not allowed to take the lead in forming them!

Huainan was like an uninhabited area, and the governor of Yangzhou, Liu Fu, rode alone into the empty city of Hefei. In order to develop this area, he received almost the strongest policy support.

Huainan does not have a system of alternate military service. At least people with Huainan nationality do not need to serve in other places!

Rivers are channels for transportation and also channels for information transmission.

It is almost a consensus in the Huaisi River Basin that you can live a good life by going to Huainan.

He distilled and summarized the scattered information in his memory, and felt more and more that he should go to Xudu.

I must give Cao’s ass a stab!

Kick Xun Lingjun’s butt with the cold and hard leather shoes!
Get rid of your original depression and then think about your future.

Originally I just wanted to go to Xudu to dig out Lu Bu, but the nuclear-powered horse appeared.

Riding on this kind of horse, he is faster than the messenger from the Xudu court. Why would it surround and capture him?
The three ships can be discarded, the property and supplies can also be discarded, but the original body must vent his anger.

This is not just the original body's resentment, even as a bystander I can't stand it.

If I don't make a big deal about it, I'm afraid I'll suffer more from insomnia when I think about it in the future.

As for Xuan Liang and his group... it seems that there is no use for them to follow me for the time being. Wouldn't it be better to send them to Sun Quan as undercover agents?

It would be difficult to snatch a complete main battleship from Sun Quan without an insider.

Whether it is Xuan Liang or Zhang Ding, they are almost all third-generation elders of the Sun family.

As long as you are willing to spend money to smooth over relationships, you can always get some low-level but key positions.

Just as the fleet was resting, they arrived at the canal mouth more than 30 miles upstream.

Heiyun, who had volunteered to be the reconnaissance officer, climbed up to the north bank and looked around. He saw corpses scattered around, and it seemed that there were no less than a hundred of them.

Maybe it was due to the blood loss from the injury, or maybe it was due to being soaked in the night rain, the corpses in his sight were all white.

Even the hardworking man with a tan now looks pale.

Liang Tian, ​​a childhood friend and good friend of Heiyun who came with him, also rowed to the shore. He looked around in silence. The young men from the two families also went ashore one after another, all feeling uncomfortable.

Heiyun observed the distance and saw a headless corpse that he was familiar with. He waded through the mud and recognized it as Zhang Feng, except that his head was missing.

Looking at the broken flesh at the neck, he felt even more uncomfortable. He raised his hand to press his chest and turned around to ask, "What do you think?"

When Liang Tian was young, he worked as a village head. He was not suited to the taxation and conscription tasks at that time, so he simply resigned from his official position and gained some good reputation in the countryside.

Liang Tian used the oar to pry open the collar of Zhang Feng's coat and saw that there was a cut where the two pieces of trousers met.

He used the oars to paddle the clothes to cover them, and said to Heiyun: "The people of Pei are finished. The White Goose Bandits attacked in the rain at night, and Zhang Feng failed to stop them. Look around here, there is no place to shelter from the rain at night, and no fire to keep warm. The people of Pei have suffered a lot. Nearly half of the people of Pei were forced by Xiao County, and they are not willing to follow us to Huainan."

"Yes, they were initially frightened by the White Goose Thief's reputation, and then relying on their large numbers to covet the White Goose Thief's wealth, they followed Zhang Feng here. Now that Zhang Feng is dead, these people from Xiao County will flee back." Heiyun stepped forward and bent over to touch Zhang Feng's body, but he didn't find anything because other people had already searched it clean.

Only Zhang Feng's clothes were of better quality and recognizable, otherwise he would have been stripped naked by the fleeing Pei people just like the other corpses around him.

Seeing that the White Goose Bandits had successfully escaped the pursuit and almost wiped out Zhang Feng's team, Hei Yun breathed a sigh of relief: "I will go to Xia Pi, you go back to inform Song Wu. Previously, the county officials mistook us for the White Goose Bandits and did not dare to intercept us; these people from Pei and Xiao will report to the authorities after escaping. We are still in Lu County, so naturally it is difficult for us to escape the pursuit."

Liang Tian looked at the corpses near and far and could only sigh: "Why bother coming here?"

Looking back at Heiyun's profile, he said, "Then you should be more careful and don't show off."

"I am just a fugitive fisherman, not from Pei. I have my own explanation for encountering the White Goose Bandits." Heiyun said, turning around and walking towards his boat. He also comforted Liang Tian: "If I see the patrol boats of the county soldiers, I will hide."

If you encounter a white goose thief, you still have a chance to explain, but if you fall into the hands of the county soldiers, they won’t care whether you are a fugitive fisherman, a military settler, or a scholar.

Liang Tian followed Heiyun back to the riverside, suddenly stepped forward quickly and grabbed Heiyun's arm, and said to Heiyun: "The Pei people are finished, but their wives and children are still there. What I mean is that you should not take too many risks. You and I have made contributions here. Zhang Jun and Song Wu will give you a family. If you accidentally fall into the hands of the county soldiers, your family will be wiped out."

"One is not enough."

Hei Yun forced a smile: "What a great opportunity! I want two women and raise seven or eight children!"

Liang Tian just smiled, got on his boat, and called on his two sons to push the boat away from the shore. Then the two half-grown sons waded a few steps and climbed onto the boat.

Heiyun pushed the boat himself, and Shilang pulled him onto the deck with his hand. The two father and sons rowed together.

The fishing boat approached the center of the Si Shui River, and Hei Yun rowed alone.

Along the way, they could see several drowned bodies being pulled by reeds and tree roots on the river bank. Heiyun and his son were used to seeing this and didn't find it strange.

Even the young heir and two little girls on the boat just tilted their heads to look at him, without any signs of fear or disgust.

The wife was a little worried, but she couldn't persuade him.

She was not old, about thirty-three or thirty-four years old, but she was arranged by the Tuntian Li to be assigned to Heiyun to start a new family two years ago. During this period, she had become pregnant three times and had miscarriages twice.

This time when she fled to distant Huainan, she had a premonition that there was a great possibility that she would lose the baby in her belly.

If she couldn't give birth to a child with Heiyun, how could she let Heiyun raise her three children?
Sanlang died in corvée labor, and now Heiyun only has Silang left, which almost foreshadows the extinction of the family line.

There were four Heiyun brothers back then, but only Heiyun is alive now!
"Captain Qu, there's another boat coming upstream!"

A sailor entered the cabin and said to Black Bear, who was counting with charcoal, "This ship is heading straight for us. Let me go to the bow and tell the captain."

"Got it, I'll go check it out later."

Black Bear put down the charcoal and wiped the numbers on the wooden board with a wet cloth. He was calculating the cost of expanding the goose flock.

Such a migration journey is not conducive to the two geese laying eggs, and now is the egg-laying season for the geese.

The two geese are at their prime age. If their living environment was stable and they had enough food, they could lay an egg every two days. But now they lay one every three or four days.

After the goose eggs are refined with magic power, one thing is certain, a stable, water-rich place is needed to raise the goslings.

But when the goose eggs are refined and hatched, you can tell whether the goslings are male or female. If you use magic power to catalyze their growth, and if you have three or five strong female geese, you can get a lot of goose eggs this year.

There are more than a hundred big white geese, which must be a spectacular sight in these days.

Goose feathers are good materials for arrow feathers.

Leather and feathers are also essential military supplies and can be used to offset taxes at a discount.

As we all know, geese love to eat grass, and they like to eat rice and vegetable seedlings even more!
A hundred or so geese will be enough. In the future, we should focus on developing ducks to suppress locust plagues.

There is also the cow. A cow that does not need to eat grass and can plow the fields day and night is simply the mythical animal that farmers have dreamed of for thousands of years.

Suppressing his thoughts of a comfortable pastoral life, Black Bear walked out of the cabin and climbed onto the wooden platform of the bird room. He gazed upstream and tilted his head and frowned when he saw the person coming.

Surprisingly, he really chased him to Xia Pi.

It seems that the original person is handsome. Not only is he liked by the girls nearby, but his father also cherishes this son very much.

After thinking for a while, he turned to look at Xuan Liang and said, "This man is old with me. You can take seven or eight catties of five-zhu coins, three dou of white rice, two catties of brown sugar, and two pieces of coarse silk."

"Yes, Commander Qu."

Xuan Liang left quickly. Up to now, so many people on the three ships didn't know their captain's name, they only knew him.

The new sailors from Xia Pi also adapted quickly, especially after experiencing the breakout last night, they were willing to follow this commander to take risks and start a business.

Those who dare to serve as sailors for the Jiangdong fleet have already thought about many things.

Heiyun rowed the boat to the shore and shouted to the two sailors with embroidered red scarves on their heads who were looking out from the deck: "I am from Mengze, and I want to see your commander Qu!"

"Wait here!"

A sailor responded, then turned back and ran to the bird room at the stern to report, but Black Bear just raised his hand and waved: "I already know."

Soon Xuan Liang came out with a bamboo basket. There were many things in it that he didn't have time to weigh them carefully. Except for two pieces of coarse silk, the others were more than what Black Bear said.

After working with the Sun family for twenty years, Xuan Liang has his own vision. Even if he hasn't developed a good eye, he has a nose for this.

The black bear looked at the bamboo basket, then raised his right hand and rolled up his right sleeve with his left hand to expose his arm.

When Xuan Liang and several other sailors looked sideways, they saw a fist-sized, deep red peach in the hand of their commander. The peach had a perfect shape, as if carefully selected, and if you looked closely, you could see a faint glittering glow.

He put the longevity blood peach into the rice bag in the bamboo basket and said to Xuan Liang: "Give this to the person who came. Be sure to eat it in front of me. Take the peach pit. And don't say anything more to him. I am willing to escort them away from this evil place and find a pure land to settle down."

"Yes!"

After hesitating for a moment, Xuan Liang responded excitedly, and the four sailors surrounding the bird room hurriedly followed to lower the ladder.

(End of this chapter)