After Cheng Yaojin left, Li Daozong called Niu Jinda and other generals over, and then quickly held a new meeting.
Hanluo City is the city where the Tang army is currently stationed. Li Daozong didn't know the name of Silla, but he named the city directly based on the local name of the Silla people.
Pu Er looked at the skeletal appearance of his wife and two children inside the shack made of branches and thatch, and he was heartbroken. One of the children is just one year old, but now he is thinner and not much bigger than when he was born, and all the bones in his body are clearly visible.
The child finally fell asleep after crying because he was hungry, and there was no milk in the wife's shriveled breasts, but she still tried to feed her. For the common people, this was the only way to keep the child alive.
There is no food for the adults, let alone food for the children.
The other child was older. Looking at Pu Er with a thin face, he said pitifully: "Dad, I'm hungry."
"You and grandma must not run around at home. Dad is out looking for work. I will definitely bring you food back today." Pu Er gritted his teeth and said seriously.
"Okay..." The child nodded honestly and agreed. He did not dare to run out because there was still charcoal burned yesterday and it was still warm.
When they got outside, they only had these shabby clothes, it had just snowed, and they didn't even have a pair of good shoes. Their feet were about to freeze off.
Although Pu Er's surname is Pu, he is not a nobleman, nor are his ancestors aristocrats. It's just that his ancestors followed the nobles and gave themselves this surname, because they were all slaves of the master's family a long time ago and followed the master's family. Surname.
There are many people like this throughout Silla.
Pu Er wanted to visit the military camp of Datang. He knew that those who worked for Datang could get food and eat every day, but there were many people who thought the same as him, but... a long time ago, inside the military camp of Datang No more employees will be hired except for the small number already employed.
He didn't know...if he could find a job. Even if he knelt down and begged today, he had to go, because if he didn't go, neither his wife nor his children would survive.
It was no longer possible to find food in the mountains, and those animals did not know where they had gone. It was not so easy to find food in winter. Yesterday, he even saw someone eating voles and even digging up voles' nests.
But there are so many refugees here, and there are countless people in the same situation as him. It may not even be possible to find a rat's nest nearby.
Not long after Pu Er left, he suddenly heard a commotion in the distance. Before he could react what it was, he heard a person shouting: "The Datang Military Camp is recruiting workers! Everyone is here." stand up!"
Pu Er was stunned for a moment, and there was only one sentence left in his mind: "The Tang Army Camp is recruiting workers." After coming back to his senses, Pu Er immediately ran in that direction wearing his tattered shoes.
There are countless people like him. The entire refugee camp around Hanluo City has exploded. There are now close to 40,000 refugees gathered in the entire refugee camp. This number is much higher than the 20,000 that Li Daozong had previously estimated.
There are even many refugees who came here from Silla in the opposite direction. They want to find food from the military camps of Datang. You can imagine how bad Silla's country is.
After all, Pu Er was slow. He did not squeeze to the front, but soon he knew that he did not have to squeeze, because there were carriages pulling soldiers from the Tang Dynasty into every corner of the entire refugee camp. There were hundreds of carriages, and these carriages divided the place into gathering points. There was a carriage in front of Pu Er.
Hundreds of people also gathered around him.
"Quiet." A Silla man standing on the carriage said loudly and arrogantly. Everyone quickly fell silent.
"Dear Silla people, because winter has arrived, to avoid some problems, the Tang military camp is preparing to build some new barracks and the like, so it needs to hire a large number of people to work."
"I will explain the wages I will give you first. You will be responsible for three meals a day. Then each person will receive a pound of rations per day. In addition, because it is winter, Datang will provide you with several sets of thick linen work clothes to avoid You will suffer from frostbite and freeze to death. You don’t need to return your clothes. They will be yours after you finish your work." The Tang soldier standing on the carriage said loudly in Tang dialect.
After the soldier finished speaking, the arrogant Silla man next to him spoke loudly in the local language of Silla: "Listen up, you untouchables, you are blessed today. Our soldiers from the country are going to build a military camp." , so I specially hired you people, and the treatment I gave you was good enough. Each person received a pound of food per day, and they were also responsible for the meals and were given coarse cloth clothes."
"But remember, work hard for me, work hard, and be obedient. If anyone disobeys and annoys the soldiers of the country, I will beat him to death! Do you understand?!"
Pu Er didn't speak. He could understand Tang dialect, but there were indeed many people who couldn't understand Tang dialect and could only communicate briefly.
But... even the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty called them Silla people, but our own people...
But Pu Er was no longer in the mood to think about this at this time. He only focused on whether he could be selected.
"Okay, now let's start selecting people. The ones I called came to the side and lined up neatly." The soldier seemed not to understand the Silla dialect. Maybe he really couldn't understand it. He just continued with a smile on his face. He said with a smile.
"you you you!"
The soldier immediately started calling people in the crowd, and Pu Er was the third one to be called. Pu Er, who looked nervous at first, felt a surprise in his heart the moment he was called. I know that my wife and children can live!
He hurriedly ran out from the crowd and started lining up neatly next to them. He had seen the workers recruited by Datang lining up before, and he tried his best to line up neatly.
When he stood in the queue, Pu Er was in the mood to look at others. He soon discovered that this Tang soldier didn't seem to order people casually, and even... he didn't specifically select people who were in good health.
Instead, pick some people with physical disabilities, even some old, weak, sick, and people with tattered clothes to order. Some of the dishes were clearly made by two members of the family, but he only ordered one.
In the end, some people who were relatively healthy and neatly dressed were left behind and were not ordered away.
From the beginning to the last person, the Tang soldier did not choose people quickly, but at this time... Pu Er had vaguely noticed something. Are these Tang people... really here to hire people?
Even Pu Er saw the astonishment on the face of the Silla man who was acting as a translator in the car.
The disbelief on the faces of the selected women, old men, and a few obviously half-grown children in the queue has not dissipated yet.
