Chapter 79: Whenever the Han Family encounters calamity, heroes who turn the tide always appear

Bingzhou, Shangdang Commandery.

Changzi County, by the Zhang River bank.

"General~~~"

Feng Dun, travel-worn, rode up on horseback. "The Hu people of Tunliu County, this End Commandant has brought them all here."

On the riverbank, Ran Min sat astride his horse, lips pressed tight, gaze like a knife.

Slowly sweeping across the distance, over the Hu people held under guard, acre by acre.

Feng Dun rode forward a few steps. "General, just slaughter them directly. Why bother bringing them all the way here? It was terribly hard work the whole journey."

Ran Min glanced at him. "Don't want to do it? The Duke said, military units willing to transfer to local posts receive privileges."

"You can transfer to a civil post, becoming a County Magistrate is no problem."

Feng Dun smiled awkwardly, waving his hands repeatedly. "To serve under the General's command is this one's fortune."

In this chaotic world of war and famine, transfer to become a County Magistrate?

Even giving a Grand Administrator post wouldn't do!

Feng Dun lowered his head sheepishly, not daring to say more.

People like them had an awkward status; they could only make a living under Ran Min's command.

Ran Min rode to the Zhang River bank, gazing at the shimmering river surface, his gaze deep and still as if recalling something.

Back at the Yi River bank, what were those desperate women thinking before they threw themselves into the river?

After a long while, Ran Min turned his horse's head toward the waiting generals and nodded heavily.

The generals received the order and each rode back to their own units.

The various Qihuo armies all moved into action.

Large batches of armored soldiers advanced in formation, weapons of every kind waving ceaselessly in their hands.

The Hu people begged, screamed, pleaded for mercy, cursed, wept — all manner of sounds mixed together, accompanying the Zhang River's flow.

On horseback, Ran Min narrowed his eyes and watched coldly.

He had already established his persona: irreconcilable enmity with the Hu!

Since it was so, the reputation of exterminating the Hu, he naturally had to shoulder it alone.

"One only hopes the Grand Marshal does not cook the hound after the hunt."

The screams on the Zhang River bank continued for a long time.

As the sun sank, ant-colony-like civilian laborers kept dragging Hu corpses to the bank and throwing them into the Zhang River.

The quantity was so great the Zhang River was blocked, nearly cut off from flow!

"General."

Gazing at the massive landscape being repaired on the riverbank, Feng Dun and the others stepped forward to complain. "Heads for merit records, ah."

Ran Min's words were calm. "The Jun Simma accompanying the army has already verified them; your units' rewards will not be shorted."

"What we fear is the Grand Marshal and the Duke won't acknowledge them."

"Better send them to Ye City first~"

"Exactly, why go to such trouble."

Ran Min glanced at them, turned his horse's head to watch the ceaselessly turbulent Zhang River, and ignored them completely.

The generals harbored resentment but could do nothing about it.

Ran Min was the General Who Smashes the Barbarians personally appointed by the Grand Marshal; they dared not disobey.

Disobey military orders?

That is a rebel army!

Think of the Grand Marshal's God Carriage — no one wants to be pressed into the earth.

Everyone fell silent, quietly watching those tens of thousands of heads gradually pile up into a landscape.

Lepin Commandery, Shang'ai County.

Fu Hong held young Fu Jian in his arms, telling his grandson the story of the Di people.

"In the time of Han Chang, we were all barbarians."

"The cattle, sheep, and horses we raised with such hard work — couldn't even be traded for a single iron pot."

"The Han Family was prosperous; everyone had food to eat, clothes to wear, houses to live in."

"Yet we could only endure in cold, barren lands, burning cow dung, suffering hunger and cold; every winter, many would freeze to death."

Fu Hong gently patted his grandson. "The Han Family of that time was terrifyingly strong."

"They had sharp weapons, fine armor, excellent combat skills — one of them could fight five of us."

"Fortunately they fell into civil strife." Speaking here, Fu Hong couldn't help laughing aloud. "They killed their own people, killed each other fiercely."

"They even recruited us barbarians to help them fight wars."

"Their bravest warriors all died in battle."

"Those left were nothing but incompetent cowards and poltroons."

"These cowards occupy the best lands under heaven."

"Such a thing, even the Heavenly God cannot tolerate, so we seized their lands, seized their wealth, seized their women~~~"

"A Ye."

Fu Jian's low call came from outside the door.

Pulled from his memories, Fu Hong looked down at his already sleeping grandson in his arms, grinned, his face creasing with wrinkles.

He rose and placed the sleeping Fu Jian on the couch, then slipped out the door lightly.

"A Ye."

Fu Jian, waiting outside the door, stepped forward with a grave tone: "That heaven-slaying butcher Ran Min has slaughtered tens of thousands on the banks of the Zhang River!"

"The various Hu tribes of Shangdang Commandery have almost all been wiped out!"

Fu Hong, who had weathered countless great storms, was not overly shocked by this.

Such cruel deeds were commonplace; which of the various Hu tribes had not slaughtered a Han city?

They had slaughtered far more.

What truly made Fu Hong's heart turn cold was the determination displayed by the Begging-for-Food Army this time.

They came with the purpose of killing everyone.

"Grandfather." Fu Jian's expression was clearly flustered: "Ran Min is coming for us; what should our clansmen do?"

"How about we go to the Grassland?"

Fu Hong waved his hand: "We come from the mountains; what would we do on the Grassland?"

"Those wild people on the Grassland will eat us."

Fu Jian said urgently: "What can we do? If we stay here and wait for the Begging-for-Food Army to arrive, we're as good as dead."

The overwhelming fighting power of the Begging-for-Food Army, crushing everything like dry stalks and rotten wood, left them with an extremely deep impression.

They had already reached the point where they dared not fight it.

Fu Hong pondered for a moment here: "Go to Youzhou and seek refuge with the Xianbei Murong Clan!"

The Murong Clan had strong soldiers and sturdy horses; perhaps they could resist for a while.

He turned around with a complex expression and looked toward his grandson's room.

"Grandfather's words are not finished yet."

"Whenever the Han Family encounters disaster and can barely survive."

"Their heroes will always appear to turn the tide!"

Modern Spacetime.

"Vehicle tires, steel nails, iron hammers, glass lamp covers, candles, safety helmets, pulley ropes, safety ropes, iron hoes, shovels~~~"

Inside the Warehouse Zhi Ban Shi, Su Tongtong, wearing a professional suit skirt, was looking through various orders recently sent out.

She raised her head to look at Lin Dao, her beautiful eyes full of confusion: "These things, can they really be sold?"

"The business over in Africa."

Lin Dao, sitting in a chair, reached out both hands toward Su Tongtong: "They are preparing to build a water channel over there; these are all tools for work."

Su Tongtong sat down in his arms accordingly, still holding the orders in her hand to look through.

"There are so many of these tools; this isn't building a water channel, this is digging the Grand Canal of the Capital and Hangzhou, right?"

"No trucks, no excavators, no bulldozers, no electric drills, no pneumatic drills, no engineering blasting, no modern equipment at all."

"What kind of water channel can this build?"

"Africa." Lin Dao embraced her and said with a smile: "They don't have money to buy high-end goods, and even if they bought them, no one would know how to use them."

"They have abundant human resources; relying purely on human resources works too, at most the work will be slower."

Su Tongtong reached out to put the orders on the table and calmed her breath: "You must not get cheated."

"If these things smash into someone's hand, they really won't be sellable."

What she said was indeed not wrong.

These things are very hard to sell now.

"Don't worry." Lin Dao gently pinched: "The payment for the goods has already been collected; we won't lose money."

Unable to bring high-yield seeds to the Yonghe Spacetime, to increase grain yield, they could only think of other ways.

The Little Ice Age climate was strange; when it rained, floods spread, and when it was dry, the land was barren for a thousand miles.

Under these circumstances, water conservancy facilities became very important.

Lin Dao provided sufficient tools, and the Yonghe Spacetime side provided manpower.

The civilian laborers used the tools he provided to repair and rebuild abandoned water conservancy facilities.

Once completed, it would certainly be effective for increasing grain production.

Su Tongtong, leaning in his arms, blushed slightly, looked up at him: "You haven't gone to my place to drink tea for a long time."

Lin Dao naturally understood the meaning of these words.

Tea prepared~~~

His expression stiffened slightly, and he did not respond immediately.

It was not that he was tired of it; it was just that he had clocked in at the Yonghe Spacetime last night.

Coincidentally, Princess An Ding had boiled medicinal soup to look for him.

The two had sparred in martial arts for half the night, and now he was slightly lacking in strength.

There was no way; Princess An Ding, who was in her late twenties approaching thirty, was a bit too vigorous.

Su Tongtong originally just wanted to gently remind him to spend some time with her when he had time.

But Lin Dao's reaction made her become alert.

She sat up straight and stared closely at Lin Dao.

"Work has been too busy lately." Lin Dao steadied his mindset, met her gaze: "Always staying up late, not much spirit~"

Su Tongtong said nothing, slowly squatted down.

Half an hour later, the tidied-up Su Tongtong left the Warehouse Zhi Ban Shi.

Lin Dao leaned back in the chair, rubbing his head.

"I really can't figure out how those male protagonists in novels with beautiful women like clouds around them manage to hold on."

With so many beauties around, even an iron pestle can't hold up~~~

After resting a while, Lin Dao rallied his spirits and continued working.

Given the practical difficulties, he needed more gold to purchase supplies and support a population numbering in the millions.

Everything else was negotiable, but grain absolutely could not be lacking.

This was a daily necessity.

Things like clay-pot rice or husband-and-wife lung slices — at the very least they could not appear among his subordinates.

Grain prices were not high, but when demand was calculated in units of millions, it became an enormous expense.

In Yonghe Spacetime, those who possessed large amounts of gold were the high-ranking families of Jiangzuo.

During the Yongjia Southward Migration back then, houses and land could not be taken along, but gold, silver, and valuables were absolutely never forgotten.

Since direct robbery was temporarily inadvisable, Lin Dao prepared many goods for them.

Exquisitely packaged yet hard-to-swallow alcohols of various kinds.

Red wine, baijiu, yellow wine — all were available, to satisfy the preferences of different noble scions.

These alcohols could be had for nine yuan nine with free shipping by the truckload.

Full sets of glass products.

Worthless in the Modern World, but in Yonghe Spacetime they were high-value-added goods.

Massive quantities of spices — pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and many more.

Since ancient times these have been luxury goods, priced equal in weight to gold.

Various novel seasonings — coffee, tea leaves, sugar, and the like.

Rare delicacies — raisins, caviar, various canned fruits, and so on.

Also fragrant leaves; Lin Dao planned to make them a flagship product and sell them in large quantities to Jiangzuo.

Let those scholars who have eaten their fill of Five Stone Powder change their taste.

He did not buy cloth, silk, or clothing — the high-ranking families lacked no fine silks and brocades.

He did not buy canned meat or canned fish — they lacked no meat either.

He did not buy salt — the nobility used Qing Salt and Well Salt, whose quality was not inferior in the slightest.

Doing business was temporary; once the great army marched south and crossed the river, he would confiscate property and arrest people according to the clan registers.

He arrived again in Yonghe Spacetime to check in.

The moment Lin Dao left the bedchamber, he saw Wang Meng and the others waiting anxiously outside.

One look at their expressions told him something had happened.

"Lord, the Po-Lu General has been defeated by the Xianbei Murong Clan!"

End of Chapter