"Bai Mouse, are you saying that as long as you go to the county magistrate to help build the city wall, you can drink this cool white porridge and eat this pickled mustard with oil and salt?" asked a passerby who knew Bai Sheng.
Bai Sheng nodded without any hesitation and said: "Of course, and the county magistrate also said that as long as you come to work, the white porridge will be enough for you!"
After hearing this, the people around them all had their eyes shining brightly.
What is refined grain? These people in Pingliang County have never even seen it, let alone eaten it.
Even for the wealthy families in Pingliang County during the peaceful harvest period, what they usually eat at home is coarse grains and chaff.
So someone soon asked suspiciously: "You idiot, are you just making this up here? No matter how nice the county magistrate is, he is willing to give us refined grains?"
"This pound of refined grains can be exchanged for four or five pounds of coarse grains around us. Even this is priceless!"
"Believe it or not, if you don't want to eat refined grains or pickled mustard, then don't affect others." Bai Sheng didn't argue too much with the doubter. After saying this, he went to other places to promote it.
In order to complete the task of pulling people's heads assigned by Zhou Yi, Bai Sheng spent half a day this afternoon traveling to every corner of Pingliang County where there might be people.
Bai Sheng said that his mouth was dry and his throat was smoking for a long time.
Watching the sunset about to set, Bai Sheng looked at the bowl of thick white porridge in his hand again. Feeling that he had almost completed his task, he happily walked towards the dilapidated home.
Just as Bai Sheng expected, his wife, who usually looked down on his idleness, greeted him with a smile after seeing the bowl of white rice porridge and pickled mustard in his hand.
In the evening, Bai Sheng's wife found some coarse grains, added water to the bowl of porridge and mustard, and put them in the pot to cook.
Just such a pot of random stew, with the blessing of the oil and salt in the mustard, Bai Sheng's wife still feels that the cooked food is as delicious as fine wine.
At the same time, in a dilapidated house in Pingjiang County.
Wang Erniu, fifteen or sixteen years old, lives with his widowed sister-in-law and five-year-old nephew.
At night, Wang Erniu's sister-in-law Cuihua looked at the little food left at home and couldn't help but burst into tears.
Since her husband was killed by the Huns six months ago, Cuihua has been dragging her five-year-old son and her husband's half-grown brother along.
Now half a year has passed, and there is not much food left in the family.
But now that there is a shortage of food and food, Cuihua really doesn't know how her mother, her husband's brother, and her three brothers can survive.
But this afternoon, I heard that idle white rat Bai Sheng say that the county magistrate is recruiting people to build the city wall. At noon, not only can we eat rice porridge made from refined grains, but we can also eat mustard with salt.
Cuihua naturally didn't believe this news.
In these years of war and chaos, coarse grains are extremely valuable, let alone fine grains which are even more valuable than coarse grains.
But now she really has no choice, but even if the white rat helps the magistrate to deceive people, Cuihua can only try to take a gamble.
Cuihua didn't expect the magistrate to really use refined grains to make food for everyone. She only hoped that the magistrate would not miss out on the food for the servants.
So Cuihua decided to ask her husband's younger brother Wang Erniu to go to the county magistrate to do corvee work to build the city wall tomorrow.
After boiling a pot of water and cooking a pot of rice soup with enough grain to count, sister-in-law Cuilan informed her brother Wang Erniu of the decision.
Wang Erniu also heard about corvee service from his brother Wang Daniu.
My brother Wang Daniu once said: "Serving as a corvee is not a human job at all. Not only do you not have enough to eat, but you are often whipped and scolded."
And today, one of Wang Erniu's neighbors, Zhao Xiaomao, also went to Nancheng in the morning to help repair the city wall. When he came back, he had whip marks on his body. This also proved that what Wang Erniu's brother said was true.
If possible, Wang Erniu really didn't want to work as a corvee to build the city wall.
In fact, the reason why the city wall of Pingliang County was so easily breached and destroyed was because when the corvees were recruited, those people were not fed well, which resulted in them not having the energy to complete the project on time and quality.
The final result also led to the tragedy after the Xiongnu invaded the city.
Wang Erniu drank a bowl of rice soup that was like water. He knew that if he didn't go to do corvee tomorrow, he wouldn't be able to save his morsel of food.
Otherwise, a family of three would starve to death very quickly.
Wang Erniu put down the bowl of rice soup from which he drank every drop, and said firmly: "Okay, sister-in-law, I will go to the county magistrate tomorrow to do corvee work to build the city wall."
Seeing how sensible her brother Wang Erniu was, sister-in-law Cuilan couldn't help but shed a tear of sadness.
The next morning, Wang Erniu came to the south gate with an empty stomach and a depressed look.
He saw many familiar faces here, including Zhao Xiaomao, his neighbor who was whipped yesterday.
Seeing Wang Erniu here, Zhao Xiaomao greeted him excitedly.
Wang Erhu, who was empty in his stomach, just nodded slightly.
But what Wang Erhu couldn't figure out was why Zhao Xiaomao was still so happy to come to work today after being whipped yesterday.
When Zhou Yi came to take a look, he found that the number of people today was double that of yesterday, and there were already more than 400 people.
This is when Bai Sheng and his mother-in-law walked up to Zhouyi as if asking for credit, knelt down and said: "Young and old, you have fulfilled your mission. Yesterday, I ran all over the city to spread the word that you used refined grains to feed yourself and do hard work, so today So many people came to help repair the city wall."
"You are brave enough to bring your own mother-in-law here to do your part for you. Please take her in."
When Zhou Yi repaired the city defense this time, he not only had to repair it on the original basis, but he also planned to reinforce, heighten and thicken the city wall.
The more than 200 people yesterday seemed like a large number, but most of them were disabled people. In addition, they had been hungry before and had no physical strength at all, so their work was extremely slow.
Today, so many people came to help repair the city defenses. Not to mention women, even Zhou Yi, a dog from the county, wanted to pull them over to serve as labor force.
Zhou Yi nodded lightly and said to Bai Sheng and his wife who were kneeling on the ground: "Whether you are a man or a woman, as long as you have contributed to the defense of the city, I will not treat you badly. Let's get into the queue first!"
When Bai Sheng and his wife heard this, they immediately kowtowed and knelt to thank Zhou Yi for his great kindness, and then entered the crowd excitedly.
Here, Bai Sheng's wife Cuilan also met the widow Pan's sister-in-law who came to work with her three or four-year-old baby on her back.
When Pan's sister-in-law saw Bai Sheng and his wife coming, she immediately came forward to say hello and asked in detail.
"A Sheng, is what you said yesterday true? I don't expect to have any real food, I just want something to eat. I really can't open the pot at home!"
