Walking out of the city lord's mansion, a desolate and dilapidated atmosphere rushed to Chen Luo.
When Dongcang City was founded, the court at that time had high expectations. According to historical records, at that time there were two great Confucians, 36 masters, 300 Confucian scholars, and a total of 200,000 civilian prisoners. It took half a year to build this Eastern Cang Palace in this barren land. city.
"Guangya" says: The color is Cang; "Erya·Shitian" notes: The east is called Cangtian.
Therefore, the city is named "Dongcang".
"Kao Gong Ji" records: The great Confucian camp can accommodate millions of people, with a square area of 29, three gates on the side, nine warps and nine latitudes, and nine rails.
This means that when Daru designed the Dongcang City, he planned to accommodate a population of one million. Each city wall was eighteen miles long, with three gates on each wall. There were nine avenues running through the city, and nine dedicated carts. rail.
In fact, Dongcang City did have a short-lived glory when it was first built, but it soon fell into desolation because of the obstruction of shipping.
The ground is paved with blue rocks, but now it is full of potholes and overgrown with weeds on the roadside. Looking around, except for the official residences that were built in advance, the rest are all wooden houses and thatched huts built randomly, with no layout at all.
Along the way, the streets were empty. There were people in the wooden houses and huts, whether they were women, children, or old people. Everyone looked out through the cracks in the doors and windows at Chen Luo and Yun Siyao who were walking along the way. , Chen Luo sensed the gaze and looked towards the other party's gaze. The gaze immediately dodged away, and then blocked the gap between the door and window.
After walking for a while, they walked out of the street in front of the city lord's palace, and suddenly there was a smell of stench. The ground was full of dry black filth. Yun Siyao couldn't help but raise his hands to cover his mouth and nose. Chen Luo was not in the mood to continue shopping when suddenly a cry came from his ears.
Looking closer, there is a hut on the left hand side. Chen Luo walked over with Yun Siyao, opened the door, and saw a little boy of four or five years old sitting on the ground crying loudly. There was a chain tied to the little boy's feet, and the other end of the chain was fixed on a stone pillar. . The little boy held half a blackened baked bun in his hand, and there were a few broken pieces of porcelain on the ground.
The child must have accidentally smashed the porcelain bowl, which made him cry in distress.
Chen Luo frowned slightly, and just as he was about to take a few steps forward, the little boy saw Chen Luo and Yun Siyao, and immediately backed away in fear, covering his mouth with both hands, his eyes full of uneasiness.
Yun Siyao pulled Chen Luo and patted the small gourd pendant hanging on his earlobe. The pendant shook and fell to the ground, turning into Xiao Qi.
This is a new spell that Xiao Qi learned at some point. It can turn herself into a small gourd pendant. Between the handpiece for her grandfather and the earrings for her beautiful sister, Xiaoqi still chose the latter.
The little boy had never seen a little girl like Xiao Qi, who was as polished as Xiao Qi and who gathered the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. His eyes were stunned for a moment, and he subconsciously wanted to pull his pants down to cover the iron chains on his feet.
Xiao Qi glanced at Chen Luo and immediately understood what Chen Luo meant. She jumped up to the little boy, took out a wrapped candy cake from her small purse, and handed it to the little boy.
The little boy hid back with a sense of inferiority, but soon smelled the sweet smell emanating from the candy cake and swallowed. Xiao Qi skillfully opened the candy wrapper and handed it to the little boy. The little boy hesitated for a moment, took the candy cake, and just licked it with his tongue, with a satisfied expression on his face, and then carefully handed the candy cake back to Xiao Qi. .
Xiao Qi took out a handkerchief from her purse, wiped the little boy's dirty face, and shook her head to indicate that she didn't need to give it back.
The little boy dodged slightly, worried that he would soil the beautiful-looking handkerchief, but did not dodge. He thanked her in a low voice, carefully wrapped the candy cake in sugar paper, and put it in his arms.
Chen Luo raised his eyebrows: "Why don't you eat?"
The little boy looked at Chen Luo and bravely replied, "Leave it for daddy."
Chen Luo wanted to ask again, but Luo Hongnu's voice came from the door: "Master..."
Chen Luo turned around, Luo Hongnu had walked in, and Master Qin followed behind him. Luo Hongnu handed the storage order to Chen Luo and said, "Sir, everything is done."
Chen Luo nodded and looked at Master Qin. Master Qin quickly saluted and said, "The herbs have been arranged. I thought that my uncle wanted to know the current situation of Dongcang City, so I came here to listen to the order."
"Not bad." Chen Luo said, pointing to the chains on the little boy's feet, "What's going on?"
Qin Dangguo knew the situation of this household as soon as he entered the door, and replied: "Back to uncle, the head of this household is Zeng Wannian. He was injured when the wild blood beast attacked the city, and his wife was taking care of him. He must be worried about the children running around. , was picked up by the wild-blooded beast, and that’s why he took this trick and tied up the child.”
Chen Luo nodded. He probably had the same guess, so he stopped going into detail and said, "Let's go back to the city lord's palace. I need Master Qin to help me with some things."
After saying that, he pointed to the little boy and said, "Take this child with you."
"Here!"
…
"Uncle, there are currently 4,642 households in Qingcang City, with a total of 16,336 people. This is the household registration list."
In the city lord's palace, Qin Dangguo handed a volume of records to Chen Luo. Chen Luo took it casually, put it aside, and asked: "There are so many people here?"
Qin Dangguo sighed: "When Dongcang City had the largest population, it was when it was first built. Because a large number of civilians were stranded, there were once a hundred thousand people."
"Later on, the number increased and decreased, basically fluctuating around 20,000 people."
"Dongcang City is said to be a big city, but in fact, except for the official residence and some pre-built structures, it is equivalent to building four walls on the flat land and surrounding it."
"It's nothing more than leveling the ground and paving it with stone bricks."
"Residents are generally gathered in three areas. One area is surrounding the city lord's palace and is expanding outwards. The local officials and Confucian scholars are the main ones."
"Then there is the east of the city, which is closest to the Qushui River and is convenient for planting. There is a group of people reclaiming wasteland there."
"Then there is the north of the city. Twenty miles away from the north of the city is Dayeling. They make their living on Dayeling."
"Although they are all in the same city, Dongcang City is vast and sparsely populated. There are not many people coming and going on weekdays. They are more like three tribes of barbarians."
Having said this, Qin Dangguo realized that the wording was inappropriate and quickly apologized: "I'm sorry for the inappropriate wording."
"It doesn't matter." Chen Luo waved his hand and asked again, "Tell me about the attack on the city. I remember that barbaric beasts hate Tiandao, so they won't take the initiative to attack Tiandao territory, right?"
Qin Dangguo quickly explained: "My uncle is right. However, there are always some wild beasts that are infiltrated by the power of heaven for various reasons, so they give birth to offspring with congenital impureness. Such offspring are wild blood beasts. Savage blood beasts Without spiritual intelligence, the highest level cannot exceed the fourth level, but it can travel between heaven and man."
"The closest contact between Manyuan and me in Dongcang is Manhou Valley. It is one of the nine gathering places of barbaric beasts in Manyuan. Naturally, the chance of barbaric blood beasts appearing is very high."
"Barbarian beasts don't like the aura of barbarian blood beasts, so they often abandon them after they are born. Barbarian blood beasts that can survive do not dare to go near Barbarian Roar Valley, and most of them survive in Dayeling."
"The ones that are invading Dongcang City this time are the wild blood beasts of Dayeling."
"Dayeling?" Chen Luo glanced at the specific map of the city lord's palace and quickly found the specific location of this place on it.
Twenty miles northeast of Dongcang City, there is a north-south mountain range. According to the map, it is about five hundred miles wide and two thousand miles long. Half of it is in the land of heaven, and the other half falls under the barbaric sky. .
"Barbarian blood beasts generally appear deep in Dayeling. According to previous years, when there is a shortage of food in Dayeling in winter, there will indeed be wild blood beasts rushing out of Dayeling and attacking Dongcang City. But throughout the winter, , there are only seven or eight at most, and there are about a dozen of them standing in the sky, but I didn’t expect that this time there would be hundreds of wild blood beasts rushing out.”
"Among them, the hunter group in the north of the city suffered the most heavy casualties. Seventy-eight out of ten of the seriously injured people so far are people from that area."
"Fortunately, the city is big enough, so you can still hide if you can't afford to fight. After the gang of wild blood beasts made a fuss, they retreated to Dayeling."
Chen Luo frowned slightly: "Then will they come out again?"
Master Qin was stunned for a moment and then said hesitantly: "Maybe... no?"
At this time, Yun Siyao said calmly: "When something goes wrong, there must be a monster. This time, hundreds of wild beasts rushed out, which must be because something happened in Daye Ridge. If it happens again, it may not be impossible."
Chen Luo and Master Qin were silent for a moment. Chen Luo suddenly asked, "Don't we have a city gate?"
Master Qin smiled bitterly and said: "Dongcang City was built for logistics and trade, and it was determined that there was no danger at the time, so the city gates were only hastily arranged, unlike other cities that are usually equipped with formations."
"I don't know when the city gate was dismantled and sold privately by the people here..."
Chen Luo scratched his head with a headache and remembered another thing.
"Wu Peizhi said before that the residents of this city were sacrifices. What happened?" To be honest, he was more concerned about this matter than the brutal blood beast attacking the city.
Qin Dangguo paused for a moment. After pondering for a moment, he said, "Wu Peizhi was wrong."
"Uncle, when you chose Dongcang City, you must have known that the power of the gods would infiltrate into Dongcang City, right?"
Chen Luo and Yun Siyao looked at each other and nodded.
"Actually, this is a wrestling match between Man Tian and Heaven."
"A semi-saint once came here to deduce the situation for seven days and seven nights, and finally concluded that if no measures are taken, this area will slowly turn into a barbaric world."
"This is the beginning of Dongcang's city construction."
"That's why the luck of the human race is needed to eliminate this infiltrating barbarian power, so Dongcang City was abandoned but not abandoned. That's why the former dynasty forced the civilians to station in this city, but no one among the saints objected."
"That's why my subordinates said, this is a city of heroes!"
"It's just that this matter is recorded in a secret file!"
"I'm afraid the barbarians don't know about it either!"
Chen Luo's heart sank, and he thought of the people hiding in the house, and of the child who was chained and carefully kept the candy cake after taking a lick of it.
Along the way, everyone mentioned Dongcang with sympathy, contempt, ridicule and incomprehension.
It's just a ruined city.
Little did he know that there was such a mission.
At this moment, Chen Luo recalled that when he decided to choose Dongcang, his senior sister wrote to Zhulin, and the teacher quickly replied with one word - wonderful!
Only then did Chen Luo understand why the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister looked at him with meaningful eyes when he said in court that he would choose Dongcang!
They believe they can bring the city back to life.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this that we were able to see each other off eight hundred miles outside the capital.
…
"Mr. Qin, I have brought some grain, grass and cloth this time. Please discuss with the red slaves and distribute these. But it is not for free, it must be done in exchange for work."
"Clean the streets, take care of the wounded, prepare for defense... in short, everyone needs to be active."
"I want to see this city alive, not as lifeless as it is today."
"Hang Wu Peizhi's head in the most conspicuous place and say that he deducted supplies from Tianbo City and was beheaded by me."
"Then, issue an order to recruit troops!"
Chen Luo spoke his orders one after another, and Qin Dangguo recorded them one by one, accepted the orders, and turned to leave.
At this time, Chen Luo looked at Yun Siyao, who had been sitting beside him: "Sixth Senior Sister, what is your cultivation level?"
Yun Siyao seemed to be prepared. He smiled slightly, and the shadows of mountains and seas appeared behind him.
"If you are a Confucian scholar..."
"Second-grade scholar!"
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