"You look down on me?"
Liu Wenjing puffed up her chest and looked at Wang Cheng stubbornly with her big tearful eyes.
"It's not that I look down on girls. The military is no better than other places. How can we accept girls at will?"
Wang Cheng looked Liu Wenjing up and down and said, "Miss Liu, it's better to go home."
"You just look down on me!" Liu Wenjing pouted and said with an unconvinced look on her face.
Wang Cheng wanted to laugh when he saw it. A little girl of fourteen or fifteen years old also wanted to go into battle to kill the enemy. What did she think of the battlefield?
Playing house?
Seeing that Wang Cheng seemed to be showing disdain for her, she pulled out the sword in her hand.
"Miss!"
Xiaocui on the side was very frightened. What is her young lady doing?
"brush!"
Liu Wenjing casually played a sword flower and said coldly: "Although I am a woman, it does not mean that I am weak. My cultivation level has reached that of a warrior. Ninety percent of your soldiers are no match for me. Why?" Don’t you want me to go into battle and kill the enemy?”
Wang Cheng's face gradually turned cold and he said, "Are the Qi and Blood Realm warriors very strong?"
"you?!"
Liu Wenjing's face turned red as she choked on her words. In anger, she stabbed Wang Cheng with her sword.
"don't want!"
Xiaocui fell to the ground without a sound. How dare her young lady point the sword at General Wang?
However, the sword suddenly stopped ten centimeters away from Wang Cheng's chest and could not penetrate.
Liu Wenjing was startled at first, and then frightened for a while. She was really too impulsive.
She immediately took back her sword, but to her surprise, she couldn't withdraw her sword.
"you……"
Liu Wenjing looked at Wang Cheng as if she had seen a ghost, wondering whether this person was a human or a ghost?
Without even moving his hands, he actually blocked her sword thrust!
Wang Cheng looked at Liu Wenjing and said, "Do you know who your enemy is? Today, the six sons of King Xia are martial arts masters in the Dacheng realm. In the warrior realm, they are full of vitality and blood. They are rare and peerless warriors in the world. How about your strength? Is he his opponent?"
"Dacheng Martial Master!"
"Qi and blood are perfect!"
"Peerless warrior!"
Each of these words hit Liu Wenjing's heart like a heavy hammer, and the four words "Xia Wang's Six Sons" wiped away her last bit of impulse.
"The Sixth Son of Prince Xia? He is actually the Sixth Son of Prince Xia?"
Liu Wenjing fell to the ground with a "pop" and kept repeating it.
She originally thought that the man was just an ordinary general of Xia Kingdom, but she never expected that he was actually the son of the current King of Xia.
Suddenly, she felt how far away her thoughts of revenge were, like an unreachable dream.
This is not only a gap in spatial distance, but also a gap in identity and status!
She was just the daughter of a general who died in battle. How could she kill a prince of Xia? And he is such a powerful prince of Xia Dynasty?
She held her head with both hands and cried bitterly: "Dad, my daughter is useless, I can't avenge you!"
The heart-wrenching cry made Wang Cheng panic. He winked at Xiao Cui and asked her to help him up quickly.
Unexpectedly, Xiaocui cried together with Liu Wenjing. The cries of master and servant spread throughout the hall and outside the hall.
The soldier who didn't know why stood on tiptoe and looked here, thinking that his general had done something outrageous and made the two girls cry so sadly.
"Why!!"
Wang Cheng was distressed, as if something like this happened to him, his soul would be scattered.
He shouted: "Okay! Stop crying!"
After hearing this, the master and servant finally stopped crying, but they all raised their heads and looked at him eagerly.
Wang Cheng said: "I can keep you in the army, but you are not allowed to act without my order!"
When Liu Wenjing heard this, she immediately wiped away her tears, got up from the ground, and performed a standard military salute: "Thank you, General! I will obey the order!"
Wang Cheng threw the sword in his hand back to her and said: "Now I will give you the first military order. Get me a hundred women before the sun sets, otherwise you will go back and forth wherever you go!"
"Why does the general want so many women?" Liu Wenjing asked subconsciously.
Wang Cheng glanced at her, and she immediately put away her curiosity, said "yes", and pulled Xiaocui and ran out of the lobby.
After leaving the general's mansion, Xiao Cui couldn't wait to ask: "Miss, how was my performance just now?"
"Very good!" Liu Wenjing nodded.
Xiao Cui looked happy, but soon turned bitter, and said, "Miss, do we really want to stay in the army? Live with those stinking men?"
Liu Wenjing said expressionlessly: "How can I avenge my father if I don't do this?"
"That's the prince of the Xia Kingdom..." Xiao Cui's petite face showed an expression of embarrassment.
Liu Wenjing looked at her and said, "Xiao Cui, if you are afraid, just leave."
"No no no!"
Xiaocui waved her hands repeatedly and said: "Miss, Xiaocui didn't mean that! Xiaocui just thinks that what General Wang said makes sense. How can we avenge you with our little strength?"
"Of course we can't, but someone can." Liu Wenjing said meaningfully.
"Can anyone?"
Xiaocui didn't understand at first, but soon thought of something, covered her mouth and said, "You mean the king..."
When she said this, she quickly covered her mouth and glanced around for fear of being heard.
Liu Wenjing nodded. Even Xiaocui understood the truth, so how could she not understand it?
With the little power in her hands, of course she couldn't take revenge. The reason why she wanted to stay whether life or death was to rely on Wang Cheng's power.
Earlier at the entrance of the lobby, she heard the conversation between Wang Cheng and Zhang Han. She roughly guessed that the group of Xia cavalry who raided Nanli County yesterday were driven away by Wang Cheng. The casualties of that group of Xia people should not be high. Small.
This shows that Wang Cheng has the ability and strength to defeat those Xia people, and he is not afraid of the six sons of the Xia King.
The unpredictable ability that Wang Cheng showed later illustrates this point very well.
"Xiao Cui, let's go quickly. No matter what method we use, we must bring back a hundred women before the sun sets!"
Liu Wenjing pulled Xiaocui over, and the master and servant walked along the streets of the city.
Because there were two battles yesterday, the county town was severely damaged.
Large areas of houses were either burned down or damaged, and ruins can be seen everywhere.
There were many crossbow arrows stuck on the wall, many corpses lying on the ground, and the blood stains had dried.
Except for the Zhou troops who were cleaning up the battlefield, there was not even an ordinary person on the street.
Wang Cheng walked out of the general's mansion, followed by a young soldier with a wound on his face.
This young soldier is none other than the man who risked his life to go to Wuping County yesterday.
This person is called Li Hong, who was originally a centurion under the command of Yangwei Zhonglang General Liu Xingze. Now he has been promoted to the team leader by Wang Cheng and is responsible for commanding a team of Wang Cheng's soldiers.
The two of them walked down the main east-west street. Wang Cheng asked questions as he walked, and Li Hong, who was following him, responded fluently.
"How many of General Liu's old subordinates have returned?"
"Including those who came back this morning, there are less than 600 people in total."
"How come there are so few?"
"The general does not know that the Nanli County garrison has never been full. Colonel Zhang led 3,000 troops, but none of them came back. There were less than 6,000 people left in the city, and there were more casualties in yesterday's battle. There are quite a few, and it is estimated that less than half are actually alive.”
"Nanli County is an important border town, how come it can't even gather 10,000 troops?"
"It has always been like this. Nanli County is too remote. With Nanli Mountain blocking it, there is no good weather all year round. It's either one wind or another wind. It's hard for farmers to get any harvest here. Others When I heard that I was going to serve as a soldier in Nanli County, I didn’t want to come at all. Isn’t being a soldier just for food? If you can’t even eat enough, who would want to come?”
"Isn't the imperial court always funding this place? How come the soldiers don't have enough to eat?"
"The general is right. The imperial court is subsidizing Nanli County. It is subsidizing it every year, but how many percent of it will actually fall into our hands?"
Wang Cheng paused, looked back at Li Hong, and said expressionlessly: "You mean someone is devouring the royal court's salary?"
Li Hong was so frightened by Wang Cheng's sudden change of expression that he broke out in cold sweat, and said quickly: "I'm not saying that General Liu devours the imperial army's salary. General Liu has always been very good to us. He really treats us as his brothers, even in battles." Those who rush ahead will not fall into the enemy's hands otherwise."
"Then what do you mean..." Wang Cheng said and moved his gaze to the south in the direction of Wuping County.
"No no no!"
Li Hong waved his hands repeatedly and said: "You are not talking about General Zhenxi, but the big men in the court."
"oh?"
Wang Cheng's eyes flashed. He was really curious about how those people in the court swallowed up their food and wages.
You know, this is an important border town of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and the current Zhou Zhaowu started his career from the border. He knows the difficulties of the soldiers, so he has always hated corruption in the army.
Is it true that there are people in the court who dare to risk the crime of confiscating their homes and annihilating their clans to embezzle money and food?
Li Hong was stared at by Wang Cheng, and the hair all over his body stood up. He immediately told what he had heard.
After hearing this, Wang Cheng sighed: "No wonder so many boxes of goods can be found in a small Nanli County town!"
It turns out that the officials in the court were not openly greedy for money, but they did so in a very subtle way.
Due to the remote geographical location of Nanli County, irregular winds and rains, crop yields are very low. Therefore, the prices of grains such as wheat and rice are very high in Nanli County, which is more than double or even twice as high as in the mainland.
The share of food and salary sent by the imperial court every year is not large, and it is more than other places on the border. However, most of these food and salary are money, but the food is not sufficient.
However, the proportion of food and money was exactly the same as that stipulated by the imperial court.
The problem lies here!
Although the total amount of food and salary is correct, it is converted into money. In fact, the food distributed is less, and the missing part is converted into money.
In this way, it appeared that the military rations in Nanli County were low, but the soldiers had a lot more money.
The soldiers who didn't understand the trick were still very happy, because they preferred the white money.
What can food be used for?
Money is of great use.
When they have money, they are the uncles, they can play as they want and be happy as they want.
This is why Nanli County, as an important border town, has very developed commerce, all due to the money in the hands of soldiers.
When they don't have enough to eat, they can only spend one to two times higher than the normal price to buy food.
In this way, the merchants in Nanli County earned not only the money consumed by the sergeants, but also the price difference of the food, thus taking away the money from the sergeants' hands.
Whose pocket did this money end up in?
Of course it's the big masters who are secretly controlling it!
