Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 758 Oh? You've realized it now?
"This is absolutely stunning."

Emperor Jingtai stood atop the port's watchtower, watching the swarms of people below boarding the ship in different areas, and sighed with genuine emotion. Meanwhile, Xia Lin's mind conjured up the scene from the 2012 movie where they landed on the Ark—a truly awe-inspiring sight.

The cargo ships in the port were temporarily converted into passenger ships, and a fleet of 370 super-large merchant ships, each 20 feet long, began to transport people out of the port while the wind was blowing in the right direction.

The Dugu family concentrated almost all their transportation capacity, and with the assistance of the imperial court, one giant ship after another was filled with people dreaming of striking it rich and rushing overseas.

Meanwhile, at the port where the pirate crews first landed, massive construction was underway. If there wasn't enough manpower, they would recruit locally. It didn't matter if you were a local Japanese or a Maoren; in the eyes of the superior country's lord, there was no difference. They discriminated against everyone equally, regardless of their status.

Who says equality isn't equality if there's discrimination? Right?

Even so, the locals still flocked to the site, because the lords of the superior country had given them far too much. Those who came to oversee the construction already felt they were heartless enough, but they still underestimated the bottom line of the original rulers of this land.

What? You get food just for coming to work? Two meals a day? Not just rice, but also pickled vegetables? What?! You get an egg or a piece of meat every three days?

Happy Chinese New Year, brothers!

Especially those hairy people, when they were under Japanese rule, eating porridge made from ground tree bark was considered a good meal. However, since those superior lords came, they can not only eat two full meals of rice a day with vegetables, but they can even bring an egg for their children.

This isn't called "working," it's practically handing out relief. Otherwise, why would they call themselves the Celestial Empire? Then these hairy people started reporting the Japanese who were slacking off at work, and their favorite part was seeing the Japanese being whipped by the overseer for being lazy.

In any case, at least for the Japanese, these lords from the superior country were their saviors, and the Japanese also saw the lords from the superior country as people who came to help them. This even led some Japanese to join the Mao people in reporting their lazy kinsmen, fearing that these lazybones would cause the lords to misunderstand and stop them from working.

In the meantime of transportation preparations, a large number of trees in this area were cut down and a lot of open land was leveled, all in preparation for the upcoming immigration.

The power of a large population is immense, especially when a more refined lifestyle is not required. Whether it's a village or a town, it can take shape far faster than people imagine.

Even so, it was impossible to quickly accommodate a million people, so they did not gather everyone together, but instead divided them into many groups and released them from different ports.

Zhang Feng, a sixteen-year-old boy, was originally from Langya. The war in his hometown forced him to flee to Laizhou, but life there was not easy either. This time, he overheard that someone in town was recruiting people to go to Fusang to reclaim wasteland, saying that there was gold everywhere and silver all over the mountains.

He didn't believe it, because years ago he had fled famine and become a monk in a temple. During those years there, he deeply understood one thing: if praying to gods and Buddhas really worked, then people like him wouldn't even be in a life-or-death situation. But then he thought, since he was just barely surviving here anyway, he might as well go out and try his luck. New places always bring new opportunities. The more barren the land, the fewer the powerful figures there are, and the more chances there are for a nobody like him to rise above his circumstances.

So he followed the recruiters all the way south to Ningbo Port. The journey was not comfortable, but at least he didn't go hungry, which was fortunate. After boarding the ship, the conditions were even worse. Three or four hundred people were crammed into the cabin. Although it wasn't like being a slave in complete darkness, the smell of bad breath, smelly feet, burps, and farts was still unbearable.

He endured all of this until one morning he was woken up and told he had arrived at his destination. He then followed the crowd out of the cabin in a daze, and only after getting off the ship did he realize that this large ship could hold so many people, nearly a thousand.

After landing, he looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings and felt somewhat lost, but he quickly realized that he had finally left his original place and entered a completely new world.

Unable to contain his excitement, he raised his hand and suddenly shouted, feeling a sense of vastness and purpose in the world.

This continued until a few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the migrant caravans gradually stopped dropping off migrants. At that time, more than one million people were already piled up in this place.

Ignoring it was definitely not an option, but openly interfering was also not an option. So Xia Lin came up with a clever trick: fabricating history for the Japanese and making the Pirate King a descendant of their emperor. The Pirate King even went to Xia Lin and cried, saying he had never suffered such an injustice in his life.

Xia Lin could only try his best to appease him about this matter, since it was not a respectable thing to do, and it would be even more unfair to ask someone else to do it.

What to do? Consider the bigger picture. This perfectly good pirate king from the Celestial Empire has suddenly become the offspring of the former Japanese Empress Suiko, left behind in China.

Empress Tuiko's body was barely cold when a bastard suddenly appeared. When asked who his father was, it was discovered that he was the deceased Yang Ying.

After some calculations, everyone realized that the two were about the same age. Empress Suiko had indeed traveled to the Central Plains and studied there for more than a year. Yang Ying was the one who received her.

At that time, Empress Suiko was in her thirties, and Yang Ying was in her twenties... Hey, here they come.

Well, now the blond-haired man has become the legitimate ruler. Before the Japanese could even react, this guy has already started calling himself a daimyo.

Since they were going to set up their own team, they naturally needed to recruit people, right? So Zhang Feng, being young, capable, literate, and able to read and write, quickly stood out from the crowd and became a local sheriff.

He witnessed firsthand how a village rose from the ground up, and how he himself transformed from an ordinary refugee into someone others had to call "adult."

Zhang Feng's daily task is to lead the patrol team to patrol around the villages and towns, preventing attacks by bandits and wild animals.

Of course, the most important job was to serve as a sentry, which was to guard against attacks from the Japanese army.

His patrol team included not only Han Chinese but also some Japanese and Mao people. They often made fun of these short locals, but as citizens of a superior country, they still had the proper manners.

On this day, as the villages and towns behind were preparing to celebrate the festival, Zhang Feng, as usual, led his team to patrol the surrounding area.

"Do you think these Japanese have realized what's happening yet?"

During their midday break, Zhang Feng joined his teammates in starting a fire and cooking in the wild. It was a rare moment of rest for them, so they inevitably chatted. The Japanese and Mao people were mainly in charge of cooking, while the Han Chinese sat on the sidelines waiting for the food to be ready.

"Who knows? These people are absolutely rotten."

As they were talking, they heard a commotion in the distance. Zhang Feng, being particularly quick-witted, immediately put on his helmet, picked up his spear, and crouched down to approach. He parted the grass and felt a chill run down his spine. About two miles away, a force of nearly a thousand men was approaching in their direction. Judging from their appearance, they were soldiers; the leader, clad in armor, rode straight towards them.

"broken."

Zhang Feng had no time to think and immediately took out the horn at his waist and blew it, but the sound of his horn also completely alarmed the Japanese soldiers on the other side.

Those people picked up their weapons and charged towards Zhang Feng and his group. He glanced back at the direction of the town, thought for a moment, and then charged forward with his weapon.

Some people said he was overestimating himself, but in reality he didn't want to fight head-on. Instead, he wanted to lure the Japanese in another direction to buy time for the brothers in the town to gather.

A thousand or so people isn't a lot, but the problem is that in this small place, there are only about seven hundred people who can carry weapons, and only about three hundred who are truly capable of fighting. Three hundred people are definitely no match for these people, and it will take about 25 minutes, or half an hour, for reinforcements to arrive here.

The dozen or so patrol members immediately understood Zhang Feng's meaning, picked up their weapons, and followed Zhang Feng.

Although their training time was short, fortunately, they had all been selected and were quick-witted. After running towards the ambushing enemy for a while, they almost simultaneously took out their repeating crossbows from their backs.

A volley of fire from a dozen men immediately pierced through the group of Japanese soldiers in the front row, pinning them to the ground. It was clear that their location had been exposed, so the Japanese soldiers began to pursue them without hesitation.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Feng immediately waved his hand and shouted, "Brothers, run!"

They took off running without looking back. Occasionally, he could feel something bumping into his back, or even appearing on his head. Although he didn't turn around, he roughly knew it was a Japanese arrow.

Unfortunately, their arrows were too weak to penetrate their well-made light armor. But they dared not linger; a single shot from each of their thousand-plus men could send them flying.

They fought and ran, and whenever the enemy showed signs of weakness, they would immediately turn back and finish them off with their crossbows. In this way, they managed to keep the Japanese away for half an hour.

By now, they were all drenched in sweat, their trouser legs soaked through, and their physical strength was exhausted. The Japanese on the other side were not much better off, but they had the advantage of numbers and were right behind them.

"I'm not running anymore." Zhang Feng took a deep breath and waved to his teammates beside him: "My mission is complete. I'm going to fight them in a bit. Killing one is enough, killing two is a bonus. You guys go quickly."

The team members then took out a datura cigarette from their pockets, lit it with a tinderbox, and took a deep drag: "Brother Feng, if we run away, wouldn't we ruin the reputation of the Central Plains? Let's not go! Let's rest for a bit and then get to work. Shandong heroes are never afraid of this."

As they spoke, they put down their empty crossbows, which were now devoid of bolts, and drew their swords from their sheaths. Zhang Feng chuckled and said, "Give me a bite."

His brother offered him a cigarette, and Zhang Feng took a deep drag, then stood up and took a deep breath: "Brothers, bottoms up!"

After they finished speaking, they started walking back. Soon they were surrounded by a group of Japanese soldiers, but the Japanese soldiers did not dare to rush forward. They simply surrounded their small team.

The general-looking man at the head of the group spoke, but Zhang Feng couldn't understand a word he said. He had to rely on the Japanese man next to him to translate it for him in broken Chinese.

"You want me to surrender? I, a citizen of the Celestial Empire, to kneel before you?" Zhang Feng cursed, spitting on the ground. "Damn it, brothers!"

Just as they were preparing to launch their attack, they felt a slight tremor in the ground beneath their feet. Their first thought was that it was an earthquake, but Zhang Feng quickly realized that it was not an earthquake but reinforcements arriving.

Sure enough, in the blink of an eye, twenty heavy cavalrymen charged out from the side. The heavy cavalry armor that had been phased out by Fuliang was a devastating blow here; twenty heavy cavalrymen were worth a thousand troops.

Many of these Japanese soldiers were killed on the spot, and their encirclement formation was also broken in the second charge of the heavy cavalry. Their ridiculous weapons were no threat to this monster at all.

Just as the Japanese were focused on the heavy cavalry, the lightly armored infantry arrived. There were only two or three hundred of them, but they were highly armed, each holding a long sword in one hand and a shield in the other. When they charged into the enemy ranks, they were cut down along with their weapons by the Japanese soldiers.

Those Japanese were like demons at this moment. They seemed to have no idea about the enemy's fighting strength and were being slaughtered in a panic. But just then, the third echelon arrived.

"put!"

Zhang Feng liked the sound of the musketeers the most; their crisp, popping sound was enough to get one's blood pumping. The arrival of fifty Vulcan soldiers was practically a death sentence for these Japanese soldiers.

Smoke billowed from the gun barrels, and the Japanese soldiers in front fell in droves like harvested wheat. The general on horseback tried to escape, but Zhang Feng, quick-witted and agile, suddenly launched a flying kick from the side, knocking the boastful general off his horse.

After landing, he turned around to slash, but Zhang Feng drew his sword and severed his wrist in one stroke.

However, he soon collapsed to the ground due to exhaustion. Although he was envious, he could only watch as the regular army from his hometown reaped the spoils of these short Japanese soldiers.

After a while, a bearded man came over. Judging from his armor, he should be a colonel, the leader of the defense camp in this area.

Zhang Feng struggled to stand up, but his legs were really weak, so he could only sit there and watch the school principal come over.

"Good job, kid." The school principal patted Zhang Feng on the shoulder as he passed by. "Have a seat."

After saying that, he turned to the person next to him and said, "Go and inform the two generals that the Japanese have already reacted and have sent light troops to probe."

Meanwhile, Soga Irikaka's general also learned of the news from the front: "What? Our elite army has been completely annihilated!?"

(End of this chapter)