Chapter 371

Grabbing the tail of May, the Shimen caravan stepped into the territory of the Beijia Nation. The sky was clear and refreshing, and the fields beside them were boundless. The crops were green, and the farmers were bending over, busy weeding.

He Lingchuan was examining these crops.

Not rice, not wheat, and not even tea. "What is planted in this field?"

It couldn't be said that he couldn't distinguish the five grains; when he helped his father scout the counties around Dunyu, he had been running back and forth in the fields, and he had learned by watching.

But he had truly never seen this kind of plant; the scale was at least several hundred hectares, which was very spectacular. They had walked for more than an hour and still hadn't seen a second type of crop.

The second-in-command Shi was beside him: "Tobacco."

"Hm? This is tobacco?" This answer was beyond He Lingchuan's expectations. "The land is so flat, I thought they would plant crops."

"This kind of red land doesn't grow crops well. However, this large piece of land on the border, regardless of whether it's good or bad, is all planted with tobacco," Shi Congshan smiled. "Almost every demon king's fiefdom will plant tobacco; this stuff is much more expensive than food."

"Then do they still plant food?"

"They do, of course they do. The demon nation's territory is so vast, with countless fertile fields; are you still afraid that the food they grow won't be enough to eat?" Shi Congshan smiled. "Don't worry for them."

He Lingchuan looked at the tobacco fields beside him and suddenly remembered the chewing tobacco He Chunhua distributed to his subordinates before he entered Xiazhou.

Exquisite, good taste, mandatory import.

"This stuff, the Fu Nation also has to buy it, right?" He remembered the faint helplessness on He Chunhua's face; the Yuan Nation and the Beijia Nation had signed an agreement, and they couldn't not buy it.

"Of course," Shi Congshan said. "However, the people of the Fu Nation originally liked chewing tobacco. Without being apportioned, every chamber of commerce scrambled to do this business." He pointed to the caravan behind him, "We do it too."

The Shimen Chamber of Commerce had an important business, which was to provide "cage beads" for the green bamboo in the southern territory of the Treasure Tree, which was the round ball stuffed into the mouth of the bamboo tube.

Under his explanation, He Lingchuan learned that although it was all chewing tobacco, the quality and packaging produced in each demon king's fiefdom were different. The chewing tobacco in the southern territory of the Treasure Tree King had to be sealed with Cloud Fragrant Wood, which not only could keep the tobacco fragrance from leaking out, but the Cloud Fragrant Wood itself also had a special fragrance besides being moisture-proof; after brewing in the bamboo tube for a long time, it would add new flavor to the chewing tobacco.

Over time, this also became a very important feature.

However, Cloud Fragrant Wood was rarely distributed in the Beijia Nation, but it was common in the Fu Nation, so the latter opened up Cloud Fragrant Wood forest farms to specifically provide processed Cloud Fragrant Wood beads, which were "cage beads," as accessories for the southern territory of the Treasure Tree.

They really wanted to name them "Dragon Beads," but they had to avoid the taboo.

The Shi brothers had struggled for many years before spending a huge sum of money to contract two forest farms, carefully maintaining, harvesting, and processing, and they had to supply the southern territory of the Treasure Tree three times a year.

Don't underestimate these inconspicuous wooden beads; they didn't know how many chambers of commerce in the Fu Nation they supported.

This was just one industry under one demon king of the Beijia Nation, and it wasn't even a pillar industry.

Along this journey, the Shimen Chamber of Commerce crossed the border along the periphery of the Demon Nest Swamp and walked into the territory of one of the thirteen demon kings—the Treasure Tree King, which was the Treasure Tree Nation. With the care of the Chamber of Commerce, He Lingchuan passed through the customs smoothly without encountering any obstacles.

In fact, the checkpoints were very loose; the customs officers sitting there were several ape demons, not as tall as humans, with some whiteness around their mouths, and they kept yawning when they had nothing to do, obviously advanced in age. After collecting the road tax, they didn't look closely at the people and goods, just stamped them and let them pass.

After passing the customs, He Lingchuan asked Shi Congshan: "Even the border is so perfunctory?"

The Yuan Nation's border inspections were extremely strict, especially if you didn't offer the 'Kong Fang brother' (money), you didn't know how much trouble you would suffer.

"Passing customs, you have to pay attention to efficiency," Shi Congshan pointed back, "Look at how many teams are here; can they afford to be slow? Besides, the Beijia Nation collects less road tax, so what's the need to block people?"

Before, on the Red Cliff Road, He Chunhua was the one who collected the road money, but he had an official status. So He Lingchuan knew too well that the road taxes of Red Cliff Road and Heishui City were very high, always making the merchants and travelers entering and leaving squeal; for example, Liu Baobao's family always tried to steal and evade. Now that he asked, the Treasure Tree Nation actually only collected one-fifth of the road money! The second-in-command Shi smiled again: "Although the road tax is low, some checkpoints will invent names to collect taxes, collecting even more ruthlessly than the original road tax. After the current Imperial Preceptor took office, he cracked down and caught tens of thousands of people to go to jail; now it is much clearer."

No wonder this business route was bustling, even more lively than the main road outside Shi Huan City.

He Lingchuan noticed even more that the road after the customs was the flattest and widest official road he had ever seen, enough to accommodate seven carriages side by side.

Although this wilderness was flat, the road could be built at will, but ordinary countries wouldn't spend so much effort.

After walking for another two hours, the outline of a town appeared, and the roadside was no longer tobacco fields; finally, there were some normal crops.

"Eh, demons?"

He Lingchuan saw at a glance that the plowing cattle in the fields were different; not only did they have two tails, but their bodies were extremely sturdy, two sizes larger than ordinary water buffaloes, and their weight was at least five or six thousand jin, looking like moving low houses.

When humans stood beside them, they looked very petite.

He Lingchuan had hunted this stuff on the Chipa Plateau; as long as it went crazy, it could dismantle the whole village for you. In the two months since the Emperor's Flowing Pulp passed, the guards often encountered these wild bull demons.

But the bull demons in front of him were actually wearing plows and were honestly plowing the fields.

Of course, the plows they were specifically equipped with were very large, each with four plowshares. The cattle walked in front, two or three people followed behind to hold them, and they could even turn around automatically; the plowing efficiency was extremely high.

Seeing their skilled movements and tacit cooperation, these bull demons should have been doing farm work for quite a long time.

Seeing him staring intently, Shi Congshan smiled: "People who come to the demon nation for the first time have this expression."

He Lingchuan withdrew his gaze: "I am ignorant."

His medicine ape could refine pills, the octopus of the Panlong City Revitalization Bureau could probe human meridians, and the ape demon sitting in the checkpoint could report customs; so demons doing human work was not strange at all.

With at most one hour left until sunset, the caravan decided to enter the town to stay and continue forward tomorrow morning.

He Lingchuan felt very fresh and looked around. However, from the scale, this town was no different from those in the Yuan Nation; it was also dominated by human residents, with over 1,300 registered local residents, including more than 70 demon residents.

In addition, there were more than 400 out-of-town merchants.

This place was not far from the border, and it was obvious that the small town was used to guests coming and going; food shops, blacksmith shops, post stations, and inns were well-supplied.

It seemed there was a market today too.

They were already very familiar with this road, and after the second-in-command Shi arranged various chores, he wanted to invite He Lingchuan to drink.

As soon as the words fell, the sound of gongs came from the center of the town, and someone shouted loudly: "Execution at the street corner begins!"

The second-in-command Shi gave an 'eh': "What a coincidence, actually catching up with the execution of death row prisoners today? I've walked this road more than thirty times, and including today, I've only encountered it twice."

He Lingchuan shook his head: "Is this a good thing?"

Just after saying this, a six or seven-year-old girl ran past him, her little face flushed, beautiful and cute.

She giggled while pulling her mother to run forward: "Quick, quick, this time we have to grab the front row!"

"Slow down..." her mother stumbled.

Her daughter complained to her: "Last time A-Dong grabbed the front row to watch, and when he came back, he told us that blood splashed on his face."

He Lingchuan looked at the townspeople gathering around again, all laughing and talking, some chatting about family affairs on the spot.

It was as lively as a festival.

He looked at the execution platform in front, which was different from other places.

In other places, when executing criminals, they all used wood to build a high platform, and then brought the criminals up to hang or behead them.

This town's street corner had a huge dirt pit, which was about half a zhang lower than the ground, and he didn't know if it was originally a fish pond; the bottom was stained with dirt.

He knew at a glance that these were all dried bloodstains.

Now quite a few people had gathered around the dirt pit; no wonder the little girl said that if they didn't grab the front row, they wouldn't be able to see clearly; it turned out that this execution had to be watched from above.

At this time, the bailiffs also brought out two criminals with shackles on their hands and feet; the execution supervisor announced their serious crimes, and the divine grace judgment was "receiving the biting punishment."

He Lingchuan heard it as "stone punishment," thinking it was being smashed to death with stones; after all, the execution platform was sunken, which was convenient for throwing heavy objects. Stone punishment was also a very ancient punishment.

When the two criminals heard this, they trembled like chaff, their faces pale.

One of them wet himself, and the audience pointed at him and shouted: "He peed, he peed!"

At this time, someone outside shouted: "The executioner is here, everyone make way!"

The crowd of onlookers made way for a passage in unison, not daring to delay at all.

Only hearing two roars that shocked people's hearts, two huge shadows walked through the crowd, walking in as if no one else was there.

These were surprisingly two huge tiger-like creatures; their bodies were very similar to fierce tigers, but their forearms were longer and sturdier, and their hind limbs were slightly shorter; their shoulder height was over four feet, and their body shape was even sturdier than ordinary tigers, with striped patterns only distributed on their backs.

The paws pressed on the ground alone were three times the size of an adult man's palm.

He Lingchuan hadn't seen this kind of demon beast in the Yuan Nation, but he seemed to have seen drawings in some travelogues, knowing that this beast was called "Pseudo-Tiger," which liked to hunt giant beasts like rhinos and elephants.

However, they didn't seem to refuse human flesh either; just looking at the way they stared at the criminals, it was truly called tiger-like covetousness.

He Lingchuan finally understood that this "biting punishment" was the "biting" of biting.

The Pseudo-Tiger licked its lips, and a criminal immediately collapsed to the ground.

The bailiff pulled, only to find he had already fainted.

The other criminal, although also trembling all over, took advantage of the bailiff bowing his head, hardened his heart, gritted his teeth, and hit the pillar with a 'bang' sound.

The sound was very loud.

He Lingchuan heard a 'crack' sound and could judge from experience that this person's skull had cracked. Looking at him again, he fell as soon as he hit, and blood quickly stained the ground red.

The bailiff hurriedly bent down to check his neck pulse, and it took a long time before he said to the execution supervisor: "He's dead."

The surrounding townspeople all let out a hiss.

With one less living person, the excitement of this show would be greatly reduced.

(End of chapter)