Chapter 857: Coming to Defect

"Xiuniang, take good care of the children. Third brother, fourth brother, take good care of our parents. Father, Mother, your son is leaving."

Just as the sky was turning bright, after eating breakfast, Li He, fully equipped, looked at his three sleeping children, went out to the courtyard, knelt down and kowtowed to his parents, looked at his parents who were reluctant to part, and his wife who was crying with tears streaming down her face and biting her teeth, and his two younger brothers who were holding back tears and nodding heavily. He didn't say another word, jumped onto his warhorse, and headed south.

His relatives left the courtyard, stood at the door, and watched the figure in the distance for a long time without speaking. His wife, Xiuniang, finally burst into tears. Because they all knew that this departure might be a permanent farewell...

Liu Bo rode his warhorse along the small path of the village and onto the wide and solid road. This road was built by them together back then.

There were four brothers and two sisters in his family. They were involved in the chaos of Zhang Chun back then and were swept to the grasslands, but were later saved by the General's men and moved to Changchun to settle down. His eldest brother had some strength and, after a year of militia training, was gloriously supplemented into the army, serving in the Xingwu Guard stationed in Changchun, which was very close.

He was two years younger, and because his body was good, he was selected into the navy and had been training until now for more than four years. This time, for the long-distance voyage, two thousand five hundred out of five thousand were drawn, and he was drawn.

The warships were built, and it was time to set sail and head for the unknown overseas. The General didn't hide it from them, saying that this trip was nine deaths and one life, many people might not be able to come back, and even everyone might not be able to come back. So before leaving, the General gave them half a month of leave to return home to spend the last possible time with their families.

He didn't know what others felt; in the past time, he didn't have any special feelings. However, until today, until he had to head south for the long sea journey, his heart felt a tug for no reason.

He reined in his horse and stopped on the slope of the hill, looking back at the small village in the distance, vaguely seeing his relatives at the door, the boundless fields, and the wisps of cooking smoke rising. At this moment, he finally understood that perhaps this was the last picture of his hometown and his family in his life. He didn't realize his eyes were already wet.

He stopped his horse for half a moment, greedily looking at every part of his hometown, until a breeze blew from nowhere, making him uncomfortable with the tears on his face, but also waking him up. He wiped the tears on his face fiercely, endured his thumping heart, and rode south.

He must return alive. Even if he didn't return, if he could bring back the good seeds of the General's dream-bestowed dream and make the good seeds spread all over the land of China, then it would be as if he had returned...

Along the way, he joined the brothers in the army heading south. Everyone laughed and acted dashing, heading straight to the navy barracks in Tuhe. After the inspection, confirming that the whole army had returned, they trained for another week.

High-intensity training restored their physical state. Two thousand five hundred soldiers, heading for the long sea journey, driving toward the unknown fearless blood, dispelled the laziness of being at home on leave, and even more so dispelled the homesickness of being reluctant to part.

The food for this week was quite good. Except for breakfast which was relatively plain, lunch and dinner were all meat, and they could eat their fill every meal. Eating like this for a week, it had a bit of the meaning of a "last meal."

Finally, the materials were loaded onto the ships. There were massive amounts of grain, beans for sprouting, soil for growing vegetables in modules, various vegetable and grain seeds, equipment for distilling seawater to collect fresh water, coal for heating, spare armor, stored crossbow arrows, various tools, spare clothes, cloth, medicinal herbs, and messy things. Everything was considered, which could be considered as everything being ready.

This morning, the commoners of Tuhe, the famous scholars of the Wenchang Pavilion, the physicians and students of medicine, and the merchants coming and going all gathered near the wharf, three layers inside and three layers outside, truly a sea of people.

At the wharf, five huge warships were anchored.

At the wharf, by the Bohai Sea, a huge altar was set up. Around it were flags—the Five Elements Flag, the Navy Flag, the General Tianwu Flag, and the territory flag of the Golden Dragon going out to sea to support the rising sun. One by one, the large flags were erected high, fluttering in the wind.

Under the altar, two thousand five hundred armed navy soldiers stood majestically. On the altar, there was a large long table with the heads of three animals and five grains, and eighteen Daoist priests were setting up altars to pray.

A set of rituals was completed, and General Wang stood on the altar, saying loudly: "From ancient times to the present, the people have had no warmth and fullness, products have not been rich, and land has not been abundant. Today, our two thousand five hundred warriors are opening the way for our China for three thousand years, heading for the long sea journey, abandoning life and forgetting death, plotting for the future of our China. How brave and heroic! You are leaving your parents and abandoning your wives and children, with life and death unknown—this is all my, Wang Yan's, fault."

"You are brave and heroic, shining through the ages. I have sent historians to compile history, listing them in a separate volume. Your names and life stories will all be clearly recorded. If you don't return in fifteen years, the Martyrs' Cemetery will set up cenotaphs for you, with tomb guards to protect you. Today, I, for myself, for Liaodong and You, and for the people of China, kowtow to you."

As the words fell, General Wang lifted his skirt armor and kowtowed on both knees with a clang, kowtowing three times with a thud.

The wharf at this moment was extremely quiet, with only the sea breeze blowing the flags with a hunting sound. The commoners, scholars, merchants, and students watching, as well as the two thousand five hundred navy soldiers under the altar, were all stunned.

Although kneeling wasn't a special ritual, for a person of General Wang's status to kneel and kowtow to soldiers in front of so many people was absolutely unprecedented.

The next moment, the sound of armor plates flapping sounded, and two thousand five hundred navy soldiers knelt down together, kowtowing with a thud. Then, the onlookers also knelt down in a row, and not a single person stood.

The voices of two thousand five hundred navy soldiers rang out: "We have no complaints or regrets! Swear to bring back good seeds to China!"

This scene was ignorant, because everyone knelt and kowtowed. Among the onlookers, there must have been many who didn't want to kneel, but seeing others kneeling and kowtowing, they had no choice but to kneel and kowtow. This scene was of course sincere, hot-blooded, and worth remembering, also because of kneeling and kowtowing.

He stood up with his sword in hand and signaled for everyone to get up. Without any more nonsense, he drew his sword with a clang and pointed it to the east: "Board the ships! Set sail!"

As his words fell, two soldiers gathered their strength and blew the desolate horn.

Immediately afterward, the sound of drums rang out, the musicians played clanging music, and Zhen Dao led a group of male and female dancers to dance the dance of triumph.

What was played was the music of victory. What was danced was the dance of triumph.

Setting sail is victory!

Amidst the singing and dancing, Wang Yan watched two thousand five hundred soldiers board the four large ships. As the larger horn sounded, they slowly sailed away from the port toward the unknown sea.

The first test warship didn't set sail together. That ship was used to train the navy and would go out to sea to fish from time to time. The catch belonged to the navy, so their conditions could be better. At the same time, this ship also had to undertake the modification tests of the new ships.

The research on sea ships had been going on, and various materials had been prepared. Including these four ships, in fact, each one was more or less different. Because inspiration could erupt at any time, if there was an opportunity, it would be implemented directly.

In the shipyard, there were still sea ships being built. The next batch of long-distance voyages would set sail in a year and a half to two years, still two thousand five hundred people. New navy soldiers had also been recruited. This time, they were all commoners from You Province, all children of sixteen or seventeen. They would train for many years, and after getting married and having children, they would set sail for long-distance voyages.

Each batch was four ships, each batch was two thousand five hundred navy soldiers, and the interval between each time was one and a half to two years. This process would continue until ships returned and obtained what they wanted.

They had to draw sea charts, figure out the laws of ocean currents and monsoons, and find new crops. Once these were done, the route would be stabilized, and then they would study how to obtain resources.

If China was unified, then for a long time, overseas territories would not be needed; only resources could be used. After all, the commoners in the Han land were only fifty million, and war had begun in these two years, with droughts, locust plagues, floods, and plagues constantly being staged. By the time he unified, the population shouldn't be too large; this was unavoidable.

Although in peaceful times, he vigorously promoted the construction of hygiene and medical systems, and seeds like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn might have been brought back, and perhaps they had been cultivated and improved for several crops, so people didn't have to worry about food and drink. The population would grow very fast, exponential growth every twenty years, but it would always take time.

On the other hand, it was "if you don't sweep a house, how can you sweep the world." This little bit of land under his feet must be developed, and then he could think about taking down other territories to settle his own people.

These were not problems that could be solved in a short time. Anyway, he was in trouble in this life; he estimated that he could only control the northwest to Central Asia, the northeast to Siberia, and the south to the Indochina Peninsula. This level was the limit of what he could control in his one hundred and twenty or thirty years of life. Time was the greatest opponent...

The soldiers on the deck were all waving. They were extremely silent, and some were already choking with sobs. No one looked at the road ahead; everyone was looking at the direction of the wharf.

Liu Bo was the same. Never for a moment had his heart been so empty. He didn't have much culture; he was just forced to learn characters in the army, could do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, could read books by himself, and understood the meaning of them with half-knowledge. He couldn't use any sentences to express his mood at this moment; he only knew that he was reluctant to part.

Leaving the village in Changchun, he knew that perhaps he could never go back. Leaving the Tuhe wharf, he knew that this was truly leaving.

He just watched like that until Tuhe became a dot, until he couldn't see it anymore. Only then did he sit dejectedly on the deck. Turning his head to look, his brothers were all in the same state.

They looked at each other, but suddenly laughed, laughing at everyone's uselessness. On weekdays, everyone was shouting fiercely, but now that they were really gone, the ones who shouted the most fiercely were all shedding tears...

The people on the long-distance voyage were gone. At first, people discussed and looked forward to it, but as time stretched, except for those who had people on the long-distance voyage at home, they wouldn't talk about it anymore, just treating them as dead, but hoping they were alive.

The departure of the long-distance navy, apart from adding some talk for the commoners in Liaodong and You, and adding some jokes for others who had heard of it, had no impact.

Liaodong and You continued to operate. After spring plowing, there were other tasks in the fields, and there was road repair hired by the government, water conservancy facility construction in progress, and things produced by brick kilns and glass kilns to build houses for the commoners of You Province. There were all kinds of goods constantly transferred within their own territory, and there had to be militia military training. There was no time to be idle.

Similarly, other places were not idle either. The latest news was that after fighting two battles, Yuan Shu led his troops to withdraw. Dong Zhuo could do whatever he wanted, and the Han Emperor and officials could do whatever they wanted; he wouldn't care anymore. Expecting Yuan Shao, Han Fu, and Gongsun Zan not to fight a big battle with Wang Yan, they all had their own thoughts and developed silently, so they naturally couldn't fall behind.

Liu Bei took his two good brothers to Xuzhou for a temporary stay. Tao Qian was very welcoming, and the Mi clan also promised a marriage alliance. Whether it was the original Lady Mi didn't matter, because whoever married over was Lady Mi. Wang Yan's fourth wife was sent by the Mi clan, and she gave birth to a son early this year. Calculated this way, he and Liu Bei became brothers-in-law.

Regarding the death of Gongsun Zan, no one among Liu, Guan, and Zhang was surprised. No one knew Wang Yan's despairing strength better than them, because they knew the accurate situation of Liaodong in every aspect, and that was not a level of opponent at all. It was just that it was inevitable to have some sighs. The days of studying together and sleeping on the same mat in the past were vivid in their minds, and the care in Zhuo County in the past, as well as the later promotion, were also right before their eyes.

A perfectly good person was made into a bone frame like this. They had all been to the medical school, where there were many bone frames, and even treated corpses with exposed muscle tissue. Every person had a name and surname, with a detailed past explanation. Those were powerful people, most of whom were treated after freezing and starving to death in winter.

In Wang Yan's words, that was making contributions to the commoners, and they couldn't waste it after death. Liu Bei believed that no one liked to make contributions like this...

Cao Cao returned to Chen Liu again. The team he had raised earlier was wiped out. This time, he scattered a lot of family wealth again and found powerful clans to support him. The next step was to clear out the Yellow Turbans around him and strengthen himself. If there were no accidents, his initial trajectory wouldn't have much change; he would still be welcomed into Yanzhou, and he would still have to fight Tao Qian.

Overall, it was quite peaceful, and no major war broke out.

Only in Ji Province was it not so peaceful. Because Wang Yan sent the letter Yuan Shao wrote to him to Han Fu. Anyone who saw such a letter would have a reaction, not to mention that Han Fu was already very wary of Yuan Shao.

But he still didn't know what to do, because Yuan Shao wasn't a pushover, and he didn't dare to kill Yuan Shao...

"You must not bully, abuse, or bully the people."

"This is my foundation, but it is not the rule I am asking you about." Wang Yan shook his head and smiled, saying, "The rule I speak of is that no matter who it is, no matter what great talent it is, when entering officialdom, one must start from a Pavilion Chief, and when joining the army, one must start from a small soldier. Are you willing to enter the army as a small soldier?"

"I will follow the General's decision. The General is clear about rewards and punishments, and I will surely stand out in the future." Dian Wei bowed, his big round face full of seriousness, very serious.

"Human power has its limits. Once you enter the army, you must not rely on your own courage, run rampant in the army, or bully your comrades. At that time, you will be judged by military law, and it will be too late to regret."

Dian Wei responded, repeatedly promising...