After settling down in Pan Yuan, everyone launched a vigorous clean-up operation.
The house has been roughly repaired.
The weeds were cleared.
Farmland was cleared.
The water trap was repaired.
The owner of the building, Mi Huang, even had a large number of livestock brought in.
Everything is going in the right direction...
In October of the second year of Yongning (302), it was sunny.
In the wilderness, hundreds of people bent over and wielded scythes, working hard to harvest fodder.
Shao Xun straightened up and wiped his sweat.
In this day and age, sergeants have to work. In fact, Shi Bing spent most of his life doing farm work.
Delay training? That would be a delay.
The more you train, the more you eat, and the more you spend.
As for the lack of combat effectiveness, that doesn't matter. Everyone is like this, just be worse than worse.
Last year, when the traitor Sima Lun was killed, all the men above thirteen years old in Luoyang were recruited. Are these soldiers capable of fighting? Obviously there isn't much, why don't you just go into battle the same way?
Those who really don't have to work are actually part of the Luoyang Imperial Guard. They are recruited soldiers and spend most of their time practicing their killing skills without having to work in the fields.
Especially the armored cavalry under the command of several cavalry governors, tsk tsk, they are so powerful. One person and three horses, both wearing heavy armor, charge into battle and are invincible. Are ordinary soldiers worth a hair on their legs?
"I need support from someone noble." Shao Xun sighed silently.
Without the appreciation of noble people, life would be really difficult.
After sighing, he was about to continue working when he saw a trace of blood from the corner of his eye.
"Hold on." Shao Xun held down the shoulder of a young man. After looking at it carefully, he took off the cowhide water bag from his waist and asked him to sit down.
The young man was a little overwhelmed and sat tremblingly on the ground.
Shao Xun washed it with water.
The boy's ankle was accidentally cut by a sickle, and it was dripping with blood, which looked very scary.
After cleaning the wound, Shao Xun pulled off a piece of cloth from his body. After carefully bandaging it, he said, "Go and rest under the tree over there."
"Team leader..." the young man muttered.
He is only ten years old this year, thousands of miles away from his hometown, and he is full of uncertainty. When I get hurt, I can only lick my wounds silently. When I feel homesick, I will cry secretly alone.
After all, they are still children.
"It doesn't matter." Shao Xun said warmly: "In my team, everyone should help each other."
After saying that, he called the other two teenagers and said, "Hel Mao Er over. You will take care of him today."
"Team leader, we still need to mow the grass..." a young man said.
Shao Xun patted him on the shoulder and said: "There are still forty-seven people in our team. If we spread it out evenly, it will be easy to complete. Go ahead and obey the order."
"No." The two of them accepted the order and helped Mao Er to leave.
The three of them gradually walked away, and Mao Er looked back from time to time.
Shao Xun smiled and said loudly: "On the battlefield, swords and guns have no eyesight. No one wants to be abandoned. Let's cut grass together, kill enemies together, and eat meat together. No one can be left behind."
After saying that, he bent down and waved the sickle vigorously.
Everyone was a little confused after hearing this.
They were still young and generally did not understand the meaning of the words, but after the team leader's demonstration, they all subconsciously speeded up their movements.
Shao Xun laughed loudly, and the sickle flew up and down as fast as the wind.
This one thing alone cannot change the minds of a group of people. Fortunately, he still has time. In the long-term relationship, he can deepen his impression through one thing after another, and finally form an unbreakable group.
The hard work lasted until late afternoon.
Shao Xun asked people to pile bunches of fodder to the roadside, while he leaned on the scabbard and looked at the red clouds in the west.
The person bundling the fodder was a dealer from Panyuan. Shao Xun knew a few of them and greeted them with a smile.
However, these people were all dull, and only an old man was willing to exchange a few words with him.
"The elder's body is quite strong." Shao Xun said with a smile.
"You can't be tough if you don't have strength." The old man sighed and said while stacking fodder skillfully: "If you don't have the strength to farm and pick vegetables, why don't you starve to death?"
Shao Xun was silent, then asked again: "We are fighting every year, and we can't make a living from farming. What's the point of farming?"
"There will always be people who cultivate the land." The old man said: "Corn, wheat, courgettes, and sweet apples are busy every year. My home is here, and everyone who comes here must cultivate the land. Even if the crops are getting better year by year. Even if they are young, they still have to farm..."
The words "You have to farm" repeatedly circulated in Shao Xun's mind.
There was an indescribable feeling in his heart.
This short sentence is both sad and despairing, but also seems to be full of indomitable vitality.
This world and this nation may be able to overcome many hardships and rise from the ashes again and again under the tenacious words of "you must always cultivate the land".
It's a pity that some people don't cherish it, and troubled times are about to happen again. What will happen to the barbarians, refugees, and rebels under the slaughtering knife?
But - indeed, you have to farm.
****
It was getting late, and in the garden, Mi Huang led people to count the fodder.
The farm originally had many villagers. After the Pan family lost power, some of them fled, and some died in the war in the past two years. There are only a few thirty or forty families left, and now they are all farming in the fields belonging to the manor.
Mi Huang couldn't control these villagers, because the princess had sent her cronies to manage them, and all he could control was this one group of soldiers - there were still more than 470 of them left.
The old ones are old, the young ones are small, it’s hard to deal with them.
Mi Huang knew that he did not have the talent in this area, but Sikong had no choice but to have more talents, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet. After more than a month, I was exhausted mentally and physically, so I simply stopped taking care of it and let the captains of each team take care of their own affairs.
He only appears during assessments.
Pan Yuan raised a group of livestock, which was about to spend the winter, and needed to prepare fodder. This was ordered by the princess and was a task that had to be completed, so he left the meeting place and came over in an ox cart to supervise and count the livestock.
But after only half of the count, he lost interest. He looked at it casually and chatted with the guests.
"If you don't obey the stone, you will not do well." Mi Huang yawned, squeezed away two tears, and said, "It only takes a while to get tired."
"Who asked you to leave so early?" The guest Pei Dun said with a smile: "It is rare for Cao Shangshu to take out the treasure and distribute it to everyone. After taking the medicine powder, there were singing and dancing by the maids to add to the fun. Tsk, tsk, but you ran away."
"I have military duties..." Mi Huang sighed: "Besides, I'm worried that after taking the medicine, I'm afraid that it won't be good if I let myself go wild."
Pei Dun laughed loudly and said, "Jun Zhen is an honest man."
Mi Huang smiled.
Just take the medicine, it would be a bit embarrassing if you continue to have sex in other people's houses. Although many people do this, Cao Shangshu won't mind.
Sometimes he is confused.
The scholar-bureaucrats were dissolute, talking about metaphysics, and often ignored military and political affairs for the sake of gatherings, leaving it to the people below to do the work. As for the people's livelihood, life and death, that is not within their scope of consideration...
If this continues, will the country really be in good health?
He didn't dare to think about these things and was subconsciously avoiding them. Moreover, what can he do if everyone around him is like this? The Mi family is not a prestigious family. If you don't fit in with others, you won't be able to integrate into other people's circles. In the end, you will be the one who suffers.
This world, alas.
"Have you ever met the princess?" Mi Huang suddenly asked.
Pei Dun nodded and said, "I met him in Beijing. I sent him a letter from home and was scolded a lot."
Mi Huang was speechless.
He knew that although Pei Dun was the elder brother, he was a little afraid of this sister, maybe not only because the sister was the Princess of Donghai, but also because of other factors - the princess was actually a very powerful person.
Pei Dun also had a younger sister, who married Jiyin Bian Yi (kǔn).
The Bian family is a standard wealthy family. His father, Bian Cui, is now Zhongshu Ling and has been given the title of Duke of Chengyang County. The six brothers "joined the prime minister's office" and are known as the "Six Dragons of the Bian family".
Bian Yi's mother was the daughter of Zhang Hua, the former Prime Minister of Zhongshu Ling. Her family background was simple, so it was no wonder that she married the Pei family of Wenxi.
Yi Shao has a virtuous reputation and was once recruited by Qi King Sima Jiong, but he refused. Now he is still hanging out in the capital, attending various gatherings, waiting for the opportunity.
Mi Huang is really a little envious.
The children of the gentry are not in any hurry to become officials because they have too many opportunities and can refuse one after another until they are willing.
Sometimes being an official does not go well, or you feel that your official duties are too busy and it affects your ability to attend gatherings, so you simply give up your job. After going back to rest for a while, they became officials in another place with ease, as if those official positions were originally reserved for them.
The Mi family of Donghai can only be regarded as a humble family, but they cannot be as willful as the nobles, and their opportunities are much less.
His colleague Liu Qia has no family background and dare not leave Sikong Mansion because others may not accept him. If you were a nobleman, you could work as an official in the Prince of Qi's palace today, and then work as an aide to the Prince of Changsha later, without much resistance, and you could switch easily.
Not only could the King of Qi, the King of Changsha and other nobles not be angry, they also had to try to win over them, because they needed to rely on the power of the gentry to stabilize their power.
This is reality, the bleak reality.
Fortunately, Mi Huang has a good mentality. He is not as good as his predecessors but more than his inferiors. There is no one available to the King of East China Sea, so if he is given this opportunity, he will naturally work hard and die.
It’s work!
He cheered up and continued to supervise.
