Chapter 429: The Current Situation of Shaoyin

After the war ended, Huaxia began a great cleanup. Fortunately, the weather had turned cool, otherwise the stench at their city gates would likely have been unbearable. Traffic between the new and old cities was opened once again. If not for carrier pigeons delivering news, the people in New City would likely have been restless, but fortunately, the news that kept coming was all good.

Their army had also officially passed the test of war, proving that they were a very qualified force. Baifeng was very satisfied with this, and with almost no casualties, the whole country was immersed in the joy of victory.

The Harvest Festival, a festival evolved from what was once Cattle Catching Day, had not ended too long ago, and now they had begun a nationwide carnival once again. Baifeng had also given everyone two days off, though they still could not do without rotating shifts; otherwise, if everyone rested, wouldn't the whole country stop functioning? Fortunately, there was no such thing as compensatory leave.

Upon learning of the victory in the war, Shaoyin was happy, yet also unhappy, and remained silent and withdrawn all day long.

Baifeng naturally would not just throw Shaoyin into the Pasture and ignore him. He had watched him grow up, and since his father was Xiong, Baifeng certainly would not allow him to be bullied.

Everything that happened at the Pasture every day was delivered to Baifeng's desk. Fortunately, Shaoyin was strong enough. From being ostracized and treated with hostility at the very beginning, his colleagues gradually discovered that Shaoyin's nature was not bad. Perhaps, in the beginning, it really was just a tragic accident caused by the ignorance of a youth.

For a long time, the herdsmen did not see any officials come to care about Shaoyin or give him special treatment; he had truly just been thrown into the Pasture. Only then did they begin to treat Shaoyin as a real herdsman.

The turning point in the herdsmen's attitude toward Shaoyin was when some horses accidentally broke loose. Three stallions squeezed out of the wooden gate and went on a rampage. A herdsman who was cleaning the Horse Pen at the time, in order to prevent more horses from escaping, risked his life to block the gate from inside the Horse Pen, then faced the crazed herd of horses head-on.

The herd was aggressive and looked as if they were about to attack collectively. At this moment, no one dared to act rashly, fearing that if they made a big move, they would provoke an attack from the herd.

After Shaoyin discovered this, he did not hesitate at all. After pulling the gate open, he entered the Horse Pen himself, then roared loudly and struck the faces of the leading horses with his fists. Those horses were startled and, feeling pain, hurriedly trampled underfoot, wanting to turn around and retreat.

However, the horse manure and urine that had just been cleaned up made one horse's hoof slip, and it fell flat on the ground. The horses behind it instantly retreated in confusion. Taking this opportunity, Shaoyin grabbed the herdsman, and the two of them quickly left the Horse Pen, thus successfully escaping.

The others breathed a sigh of relief. The farm manager came over and patted Shaoyin on the shoulder, but did not say much, then immediately arranged for people to pursue the horses that had run out.

The design of the Horse Pen had flaws because they had to clean the manure and urine inside the Horse Pen every day. Even though the ground was sloped and a manure outlet led to a manure pit, it still required people to use long push-rakes to clean it, because horse manure is round and dry, unlike cow manure, and lacks fluidity.

Added to urine, it would also turn into mud, and every cleaning was the most dangerous time. Fortunately, due to long-term interaction, and because they only cleaned when feeding, it was a bit safer. However, the initial construction of the Horse Pen was based on a form suitable for grazing. When the horses went out to graze, they could clean, and the horses would discharge most of their manure onto the Grass. But now, this had become the biggest trouble because the horses could not graze.

Now there was another difficult problem: the first batch of foals from this herd had basically been weaned and could eat Grass on their own. They could be raised and trained separately, but how to separate the foals was another big trouble.

The neighboring Horse Farm, although having fewer horses, had already successfully managed to get people to ride them, and thus had received commendations. Their Horse Farm had no advantages other than being large, and in the rankings of all the different livestock pastures, it had always been dead last. It was very shameful. Whether they could surpass other pastures in the future depended on what this foal could be trained into.

Having experienced this incident where Shaoyin disregarded danger to handle an emergency, everyone no longer ostracized him and sincerely accepted him. Every day, they could find things to talk about. Shaoyin, who had been lively and active at the start, had gradually become silent and withdrawn, but now he had become cheerful again, yet more steady and mature.

Upon learning of this situation, Baifeng was also very gratified. Previously, he had received news from Xiong saying that he had found a small tribe where some people had been to the Golden Autumn Gathering. Now they had incorporated that small tribe and were also leading people to point the way to the gathering. Finding the gathering was only a matter of time, and they had not encountered any danger along the way.

Baifeng's worry for Xiong also lessened a little. As long as nothing went wrong at the gathering, they should be able to return smoothly. When the returning Xiong saw the changes in Shaoyin, he should be quite gratified.

Of course, it was impossible for Shaoyin to leave the Pasture so soon. He had to work until next autumn, a full year, before he could be sent into the Battalion; otherwise, his sentence would lack credibility.

Speaking of the sentence, Baifeng also learned through an intelligence network he had secretly established—which he had never told anyone about, not even Bai Yulong—that Sangtang, the son of the herdsman who died because of Shaoyin, was performing extremely well in school and was becoming more and more diligent. He was now constantly studying the laws of Huaxia.

Baifeng did not know what his purpose for studying the law was. He was just a child; could it be that he wanted to find loopholes and then avenge his father? Or did he feel that the laws of Huaxia were unfair and wanted to become someone who participated in making or enforcing the law in the future?

Baifeng could not guess, but he did not interfere. If someone was willing to learn and study, that was a good thing. No matter what the purpose was, as long as there was a clear sign, he could just correct him later. In the end, the power to interpret the law still rested in his own hands, but for the sake of the law's credibility, he was just unwilling to use it lightly.

After the celebrations, Baifeng had the Ministry of War reflect on themselves to see if any problems had arisen during the war and if there were any areas that needed improvement. They had to summarize their experience from actual combat.

He also learned the truth about the explosion from the survivors of that blast. It was not that they had failed to throw it in time and it exploded on them, but because it was thrown too early and happened to land on the enemy's Shield below. Perhaps that enemy thought it was a Huaxia spear hitting his Shield, so he pushed hard to resist the attack.

It was precisely that push that sent the unexploded Bomb back onto the city wall, where it exploded just as the Huaxia Soldiers were caught off guard.