knife

Chapter 53 The foundation of one’s life
Heading south from the Helan Mountains toward the interior of China, there is a vast marshland stretching for hundreds of miles. The precipitous mountains and the marshland together form a natural barrier, rarely visited by humans. Only birds, with their ability to soar through the sky, can settle here and regard it as their paradise. Even beasts on the ground are not commonly seen here.

Because those ubiquitous swamps, quicksand, and undercurrents have always been wide-open, ready to devour anyone who dares to easily step into this forbidden land.

This is a no-man's land, as everyone agrees.

Unless someone is desperate and wants to escape trouble, or has offended someone they shouldn't have and has no choice but to flee here for a way to survive, virtually no one will come here.

Of course, the danger here is greatly reduced in winter, as nature automatically eliminates some of the traps, allowing them to reappear when spring arrives. The problem is, however, that food is extremely difficult to find to survive in winter.

At this time, even the birds came less often.

In the vast world covered in white snow, a group of black dots suddenly appeared. As these black dots drew closer, it became clear that they were a group of knights.

What the world considered a dead end, these knights knew well, even chasing each other, their laughter echoing through the sky, only to be frozen into clumps by the cold wind and slammed to the ground, bringing a touch of life to this desolate world.

The team did not travel in a straight line through the marshland, but rather followed a winding and circuitous path.

There is a road in this great swamp.

However, this road is clearly unknown to outsiders.

Li Dachui lifted his hood and shouted at his overly cheerful subordinates, "Put your hoods on properly and protect your eyes. Don't get carried away and develop snow blindness; you'll be in for a world of hurt."

"Understood!" The subordinate laughed loudly, "Young master, this time we've been away from Helan Plain for more than three months. Soon we'll be able to go home to our wives, children, and warm beds. How can we not be happy?"

"Lu San, I'm going to tell your wife that you went to Yingchun Tower in Tai'an City to drink and carouse, and even stayed overnight!" someone shouted. "Still enjoying your wife, kids, and warm bed? I guarantee your wife will grab a big broom and kick you out to eat ice and snow."

"Old Ma, if you dare to utter a word, I'll cut off your big dick and make you a eunuch in your next life!" Lu San roared.

"Are you threatening me? Fine, I'll go back and find Third Sister-in-law!"

"Fourth brother, fourth brother, aren't we brothers? You can't just watch me lose my wife and children! Your sister-in-law is a tigress, you absolutely can't mess with her. Next time we go out, it's my treat, Yingchunlou or Zui Deyu, you can choose whichever you prefer!" Lü San immediately softened his stance.

Laughter erupted from the group: "Third Brother, how can you show favoritism? Can't we go and have a chat with Third Sister-in-law?"

Lu San said with a bitter face, "A bunch of ingrates."

Seeing his subordinates all beaming with joy, Li Dachui was also very happy. This trip out of the mountains had been extremely fruitful. Not only had he completed the deal with that important figure in the capital and protected Zhang Ruo, but he had also further strengthened his bond with Xiao Changche.

Cooperation is just the beginning, but once both sides start moving in the same direction, the future is promising.

As for Zhang Qingyun, besides being Zhang Ruo's daughter, she seems to have a good talent for intelligence. At least the report she gave Li Dachui on expanding the intelligence system within the pass was well-reasoned and contained all the necessary plans and action plans. If she could actually implement it, even if she could only achieve half of what she envisioned, it would be an unexpected gain for Li Dachui.

Although the focus is currently on areas outside the Great Wall, intelligence gathering is all about planning ahead and accumulating strength before unleashing it. If you wait until you need it to start collecting information, it will be too late.

Let Zhang Qingyun go and try her luck; it will be a gain for Li Dachui anyway.

There is a road through the swamp, but in the past, it was intermittent and fraught with danger.

Back when Li Dachui left Tai'an City and began his adventures in the martial world with Fang Xiaomao, Xia Zhi, and a group of others, because they were weak, they could only choose to settle in a remote place where others could not easily find them.

Ignorance breeds fearlessness. These young men, fresh out of school and unafraid of tigers, chose this vast marshland and began years of pioneering work.

Because of Li Dachui's seemingly superhuman abilities, this group of people crossed the Great Swamp and found a foothold on the southern slope of the Helan Mountains.

Helan Plain.

For them, the Helan Plain in Baili Fangyuan was a paradise on earth.

The precipitous northern foothills of the Helan Mountains were seen as an insurmountable barrier by the Hu people, while the vast marshland, hundreds of miles long and nearly fifty miles wide, made the area a daunting journey for the people to the south.

Li Dachui's bandits used Helan Plain as their base and began their rampant growth.

Over the course of more than a decade, Li Dachui's team grew rapidly, and the road through the swamp was constantly being fortified and widened. Meanwhile, more treacherous traps, deliberately set by them, awaited uninvited guests. If Tai'an City was Li Dachui's forward base, the place that attracted everyone's attention, then Helan Plain was his stronghold, a place where he could lick his wounds and rise again even after setbacks elsewhere.

Of course, Helan Plain is no longer the desolate place it was when they first arrived more than ten years ago.

Tens of thousands of people are now living and working here, and the population is rapidly increasing.

Xiao Changche has been unable to find out where the more than 30,000 young men, women and children that Li Dachui took from Wutu have gone.
The answer lies in Helan Plain.

As Li Dachui moved forward, the number of people kept increasing. Every now and then, some people would emerge from places that looked completely deserted. Some would emerge from an ordinary-looking snowdrift, some would crawl out from a thick, dead tree with strong branches, and some would simply leap out of the ground. These people had dug their own dugouts in the ground.

They joined Li Dachui's team and headed towards Helan Plain.

In the distance, the Helan Mountains stretched endlessly, rising and falling, but turning back to the horizon, a vast plain stretched out before everyone. Even though the snow covered the entire world in white, it couldn't hide the strong sense of human warmth and life here.

One by one, villages were scattered across this land that God had bestowed upon them.

Unlike the villages outside the Great Wall, this place presents a completely different layout.

All the designs were created by Li Dachui.

In his words, the goal is to transform Helanyuan into a new rural area on this land outside the Great Wall.

The houses are all of a uniform style, made of adobe with gray tiles on top, and bamboo fences are built around them. One hundred households gather to form a village, and all around the village is fertile land, fifty mu per household. The roads are well-connected, and after the foundations are leveled, they are compacted with gravel so that they are not muddy and difficult to travel even on rainy days.

Three years ago, there were only a few dozen such villages on the Helan Plain, but now there are hundreds. Tens of thousands of young men, women, and children have come to settle down on the Helan Plain.

From initial fear and anxiety to present satisfaction and joy, these people wish they could stay like this forever. For three years, they worked tirelessly and overcame numerous hardships to finally have a comfortable home of their own.

The chaos, slaughter, bloodshed, and death outside the Great Wall seem to have nothing to do with this place.

Looking back on those years, it feels like a dream.

For Li Dachui, the three years were a process of reforming these people.

In the beginning, there was no tenderness or affection, only ruthless decisiveness and absolute obedience. Any slight disobedience would be punished, ranging from the lightest being starved or beaten to the most severe being beheading. These rules and laws were formed under such high pressure, creating a consensus among everyone.

Li Dachui needed stability, more people, and people who would be burdened and bound by his family. Therefore, the first thing he did after arriving in Shangyuan was to ensure that all the able-bodied men, women, and children formed families.

They had ten days to voluntarily form families. The first families to form would move into mud-brick houses and begin their new lives. After ten days, the able-bodied men, women, and children who had not yet formed families were roughly divided into two groups. Each person was assigned a number, and those with the same number on both the male and female sides were forcibly formed into a family.

Of course, the number of men and women is not equal, so there are still quite a few more single men.

However, this is not important.

It's said that forced love is never sweet, but on the Helan Plain, Li Dachui insists that even forced love can be sweet.

Three years later, more than 90% of the melons harvested that year are still sweet. Now, on the Helan Plain, you can see little children running and crawling everywhere.

According to statistics, more than 5,000 new people were added to the Helan Plain in three years, which made Li Dachui very happy.

With the arrival of children, a family becomes more stable, which makes these people even more devoted to their leader, Li Dachui.

Of course, Li Dachui went to great lengths to bring these people to Helan Plain, build them houses, and allocate land, not just to raise them to have children. They would not be shortchanged on taxes and corvée labor, and they would have to pay everything the government required outside.

The only difference is that here you can deliver the goods without any extra exploitation. After you deliver everything the higher-ups ask for each year, there's enough left for your family to eat and drink their fill, with a little surplus.

The amount that could be collected was meticulously calculated by Li Dachui and his team; it wasn't just random collection.

To be honest, the amount people pay on the Helan Plain is much higher than that outside, it's just that the income here is higher.

(End of this chapter)