knife

Chapter 175 The Forgotten Person

Twenty thousand people may not sound like much, but many counties under the jurisdiction of the Anxi Protectorate can't even muster that many!
The Anxi Protectorate has a population of over 600,000, mainly concentrated in Baoping Prefecture, Tai'an City, Helan Plain, and Yuan'an City. Other places, even if they are called counties, actually only have a few thousand people if you include Agou.

Most of the area was in a wild state, with wild animals outnumbering people.

Once these 20,000 people return to the Anxi Protectorate, it will undoubtedly strengthen the Anxi Protectorate's power.

These people are not undisciplined savages, but a group with considerable cohesion.

Considering that they lived in this open-air prison for over twenty years, paying a high price to exchange for their survival from the Yuan people, and striving to maintain the purity of their race, it is clear that these people were a group with convictions.

In other words, their leadership group must be a group of people with conviction and perseverance.

So when Li Dachui met this team, he bowed deeply to them with genuine respect.

Cui Hu, 54 years old, is a clerk and military advisor, and is now the true leader of Dragonflame Valley.

Wang Shan, fifty years old, is a guerrilla general and the military leader of Dragon Flame Valley.

Zhao Kui, 48 years old, Registrar,

Zhu Zhong, 45 years old, Registrar of Household Affairs
Huang Yi, 43 years old, Military Advisor
……

Gao Qunshu introduced them one by one, and Li Dachui greeted them one by one, meticulously. These people deserved his respect.

It is an extraordinary achievement that a mere seven or eight people can manage Dragonflame Valley, which has a population of up to 20,000, and enable them to survive here.

At first glance, the people in front of me all seemed to possess considerable cultivation.

Wang Shan, who was in charge of military affairs, was probably at the seventh level of Xuan Yuan cultivation, having entered the advanced stage of martial arts cultivation. The others were all at the fifth or sixth level of Yu Qi.

It's probably because when they were fleeing, those with weaker cultivation levels would have had a hard time surviving. Those who managed to escape and make it this far are basically the strongest of them.

I just don't know what the current level of martial arts cultivation is among the Dragon Flame Clan.
Li Dachui doesn't care much about bloodline, but he has a stronger understanding of heredity than anyone else.

The saying "like begets like" carries a strong discriminatory connotation, but you have to admit that, due to the existence of genetic factors, these sayings, which cannot be openly discussed, still make a lot of sense.

At least Li Dachui knew that if both parents were martial arts practitioners, their children would most likely achieve great success in martial arts cultivation.

Under Zhou Zhi's leadership, Tai'an City has been tirelessly promoting martial arts for decades. However, it has been proven that some people simply cannot get started. For them, simply improving their physical fitness is already quite satisfactory.

The data showed that Li Dachui had to admit that the inheritance and lineage of martial arts are sometimes really damn important.

Dragonflame Valley might just surprise him.

The group of people in front of him alone gave Li Dachui a great deal of hope.

It's important to understand that even among the officials of the Anxi Protectorate, a significant number are unfamiliar with martial arts. Proportionally, the number of people in front of us is likely even higher.

"Can we really leave here and go back to our hometown?" Guerrilla General Wang Shan seemed to be an impatient person. As soon as the two sides finished exchanging greetings, he immediately asked.

Before Li Dachui could speak, Cui Hu said with a smile, "Wangshan, Young Master Li has traveled hundreds of miles, you must be exhausted. How can you be so impolite? Besides, this is not the place to talk. Let's talk when we get back!"

Wang Shan said, "Brother Cui, there are no outsiders in this valley. Even Qun Shu is someone I think can be trusted! At least he won't betray us, right?"

These words made not only Gao Qunshu feel awkward, but even Li Dachui felt a little embarrassed.

"Young Master Li, don't listen to this boor's nonsense!" Cui Hu laughed. "All he does all day is cultivate, his brain is full of muscles. Young Master Li, please, it's still quite a distance from here to our settlement, why don't we go back first?"

"Good, I was just looking forward to properly appreciating Dragonflame Valley!"

"To outsiders, Dragonflame Valley is a pretty nice place, especially after our decades of hard work. But to us, it's a prison. I know exactly where a clump of grass has grown or a new tree has sprouted over the decades!"

Cui Hu spoke in a seemingly calm tone, but to Li Dachui, it was like a resounding bell striking his head.

The more ordinary things appear, the more extraordinary these people become. The further in you go, the better the path becomes.

After the valley entrance disappeared from their sight, the road widened considerably, complete with curbs, shoulders, and roadside trees. The road itself was paved with crushed stones, pressed smooth and even. This happened years ago.

“There are four or five months a year when we can’t work, but people can’t be idle, so we repair a little this year and a little next year, and slowly the repair work gets longer and longer!” Cui Hu said with a smile, “But it’s only been a matter of the last ten years or so. In the past, what everyone cared about most was living. In winter, we didn’t work at all. Because if we worked, we would get hungry, and when we were hungry, we would need to eat, but there was never enough food back then.”

"Is there enough food now?"

"At least after paying our taxes, we'll have enough to eat!" Cui Hu said. "We Qin people, no matter where we go, farming is our forte. Dragon Flame Valley has one advantage: in this water-scarce place, it always has water all year round. Over the years, through our gradual transformation, the land that was originally arable has yielded higher and higher yields, and the land that was originally unarable has also been transformed into arable land. Grain production is increasing, and livestock are getting fatter and fatter, but we people have no future, so we don't save money or grain. Because if the Yuan people find out about these things, they will increase our taxes, so it's better to spend them all every year."

Li Dachui nodded, indicating his understanding.

"However, Gao Qunshu and the others who went out have helped a lot over the years. With their help in managing things, our lives have indeed become much better, and our resources have become more abundant! In addition, because of Princess Chang Le's influence, we are basically the forgotten group. As long as we can pay our taxes on time and satisfy the Yuan people who are in charge of supervising us, that's fine," Cui Hu said with a smile.

The further in you go, the more houses and fields appear on both sides of the road.

Many people were working in the fields when they saw Cui Hu and his group. The farmers waved to them warmly and greeted them loudly.

In Anxi Protectorate, spring plowing has already ended.

But here, spring plowing has just begun.

Dragonflame Valley is the source of the river in the past. Countless years ago, this deep valley must have been a bottomless lake. The surging underground river water gushed out from here, filled the valley, and then flowed down the riverbed.

Then, at some point, the groundwater dried up, the riverbeds stopped flowing, and this place, which had been a sunless underwater world, became a deep valley sunken underground.

These features can be seen from the rugged yet smooth boulders throughout the valley, and the occasional bottomless, slightly black pools of water.

There are no large trees in the valley, the most are only about a foot in diameter, and it is obvious that they were planted later, which should be the work of the Qin people who immigrated here.

There doesn’t seem to be much arable land, but the land must be very fertile. Look at the well-plowed land; it’s all black soil.

More and more prime farmland appeared, and villages along the way also sprang up. Compared to the scattered houses before, after galloping for half an hour, clusters of villages finally came into view. And cultivated land appeared in large tracts in Li Dachui's eyes.

As Li Dachui traveled through villages and households, he was pleasantly surprised to hear the sound of children reading aloud in one of the largest villages.

This made him immediately rein in his horse and look in the direction from which the sound of reading was coming.

In a thatched hut with an open window, an old scholar with patched clothes and gray hair walked back and forth among a group of children with his hands behind his back. The children sat on rough benches and tables, imitating the old scholar by swaying their heads and reciting.

“Life may be tough, but reading can teach us manners, enlighten our minds, and cure our ignorance. Although we can’t leave, our traditions must not be broken,” Cui Hu said with emotion.

“Governor Li, over the years, I have seen many people with exceptional talent for studying, yet they can only pour their talents into their meager fields, turning their black hair white with age!” Gao Qunshu said with a sigh.

“From now on, they will have a stage to fully utilize their talents!” Li Dachui said confidently. “The Anxi Protectorate is eager for talent, and no matter how many talented people are here, we can settle them in a good manner.”

Cui Hu smiled but did not reply.

Wang Shan, standing to the side, laughed and said, "A balance of literary and martial arts, a balance of tension and relaxation, Young Master Li, speaking of our Dragon Flame Valley, the most famous people now are not these scholars, but our Dragon Flame Army!"

"Dragon Flame Army?"

“Yes, they’re still in the Western Sea, but they’ll be back soon!” Wang Shan said with some pride. “Although they only have five hundred men, they’ve made a name for themselves in the Western Sea and earned the reputation of the Dragon Flame Army. And there are quite a few children in our valley who have talent for cultivation, at least more than those who are good at studying, and they are more useful.”

At this point, he chuckled and said, "At least, once you've mastered martial arts, you'll have much more strength to farm!"

His words made everyone burst into laughter.

However, Li Dachui sensed a hint of desolation in the laughter.

(End of this chapter)