Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 148 The Fragile Great Wall Defense Line

While resting at the hot springs, Yun Ce exchanged all the children under the age of eight from their parents.

Eji didn't understand why these people, who were clearly Yun's property, needed to be exchanged. They could have just been brought over directly, and they wouldn't have dared to utter a sound.

However, when she saw Yun Ce hand a new piece of cloth to a child's mother in front of the child, and the mother unhesitatingly pushed the child to Yun Ce, holding the new clothes up to herself and ignoring the child's cries, E Ji felt that it would be more appropriate to exchange something for it.

When Yun Ce received five thousand slaves from the Grand Marshal, he deliberately did not make any demands on them. As a result, many clever officials took the initiative to send in many unwanted women with children, thus saving more strong and healthy slaves to sell at higher prices.

The same applies to the slaves obtained from Ren Zhong. The strong, good-looking, and skilled ones have long been sold at high prices, and what remains are naturally the women with children and the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled who are not easy to sell.

If the order to give Yun Ce slaves hadn't come from the Grand Marshal's office, they would have preferred to replace all of Yun Ce's slaves with worthless women and children.

Therefore, after taking the count, Yun Ce discovered that he actually had more than three thousand slaves under the age of eight. What pleased him most was that these young slaves were basically not counted in the total number of slaves, and were essentially given away by the government for free.

Zhang Min looked at Yun Ce racking his brains to name more than three thousand babies with a puzzled expression. She couldn't understand what Yun Ce was trying to do.

“If you want to use these children as your foundation, I think it’s not appropriate. They are too young, and it would take too long to raise them.”

Yun Ce smiled and said, "Anyone over eight years old is called a slave."

Zhang Min said, "They are still young, it can be corrected."

Yun Ce shook his head and said, "Those over eight years old are no longer children. They are called slaves. Self-respect, self-reliance, independence, and self-confidence will never be instilled into their heads."

"You don't have to recruit from slaves; as you said, good families will do too."

"Originally, I thought so too, until I showed great goodwill to the soldiers at Jingkou Pass, and they thought of feeding me to the wild beasts, and even hoped that we could fight the wild beasts to a draw. After that, I no longer thought highly of the so-called good family son."

Because they have been educated by their parents and teachers into people who don't know how to be grateful and are selfish.

Although these children of slaves live in appalling conditions, because their parents have no time to educate them, they remain a group of blank slates who only know how to eat. I am confident that I can mold them into people like me.

As Yun Ce spoke, he picked up his pen and added a character after the name of a child named Lei—Ming.

"Should we name this child Leiming?"

"Yes, thunder should roar loudly so that the world will listen."

Eji clapped her hands happily and said, "These 3,122 children will be under my care from now on?"

Yun Ce watched as E Ji took her hand and gently patted the back of it, saying, "They are very important, extremely important. You must take care of them with the same compassion as a loving mother."

Eji's smile faltered for a moment, and she quickly asked, "Can you fight?"

Yun Ce asked in surprise, "Why not? I want to train them to be successful, not turn them into useless people. If any born bad seeds are found, they should be removed from the team immediately."

Zhang Min then asked, "What if the one born with a bad seed is the most outstanding one?"

Yun Ce shook his head and said, "That's not called being excellent, that's called being a black sheep."

The area near Jingkou Pass is rich in geothermal resources. In addition, there is an abandoned source of the Qinghe River called Qingshui River that flows through the vicinity.

With winter approaching, Yun Ce decided to start his land reclamation project in the Jingkou Pass area.

The two ferocious beasts that had died with their cries of agony earlier deterred other beasts from following suit, so they stayed away. Only the dog skins were unconcerned; their population was so large that the death of a few was of no concern to them.

Even so, Yun Ce and Zhang Min thoroughly cleared the wasteland before setting it on fire upwind.

The vegetation on the wasteland was very lush. Once ignited, the fire quickly spread and spread like wildfire. Countless poisonous insects and small animals hiding under the vegetation immediately suffered, desperately chased by the fire line until they collapsed from exhaustion and were swallowed by the flames.

During the Frosty Moon season, the prevailing northwest wind caused the fire to rise from the northwest and head straight for the southeast. Yun Ce had it all planned out: the fire would start in the snow pine forest and spread all the way to the Qingshui River before it was extinguished.

This land covers a full 300,000 mu. If 100,000 mu are cultivated intensively, 100,000 mu are slash-and-burn farmed, and 100,000 mu are reserved as replacement land, it would be a very good plan. Of course, it would be even better if the garrison commander of Jingkou Pass didn't always come to him to plunder.

Winters here aren't extremely harsh; the freezing period lasts only about twenty days each year. During those twenty days, the greatest threat is the legendary 'heavy snowfall'.

Yun Ce thought it was pretty good. If the soil was turned over before winter, the freezing period combined with heavy snow would kill more than 90% of the pests, which would be very beneficial for planting crops.

Without further ado, Yun Ce equipped the chestnut horse, which insisted on pulling the plow, with a double-headed plowshare made in Chang'an, and plowed a furrow ten miles long on the blackened earth scorched by the fire.

Yun Ce worked tirelessly from dawn till dusk every day, cultivating the wasteland with his jujube-red horse. It was a helpless situation. Not only Yun Ce, but Feng An and Liang Kun also put down their work and joined in the great undertaking of farming.

In the end, even a few young girls like Eji, Zhang Min, and Anji started plowing the fields on the big horned horses. This wasn't an act; it was because the vast majority of the slaves were too stupid. Even after more than ten days of training, they still couldn't create a relatively straight furrow in such a simple task as plowing.

Therefore, Yun Ce, Feng An, and Liang Kun, the three experienced farmers, first divided the large field into small plots, then let the inexperienced prospective farmers break up the hard ground in the small plots with plows, and then let the women who were not very strong pick up the grass roots, tree roots, stones and other things that were plowed out and pile them up.

Liu Che, the garrison commander of Jingkou Pass, was a member of the royal family who knew how to do business. Seeing that Yun Ce's men were clearing land, he came to Yun Ce to discuss whether his men could help them build houses in the geothermal area. He also said that in another month, heavy snow would fall, and even with geothermal activity, it would not be able to stop the cold wind blowing from the Qinghe Plateau.

Yun Ce didn't want to exchange goods, but Liu Che said that green coins and gold would be fine, and he wasn't picky.

He still had a lot of green coins, which he kept to use for crafting some complex weapons. As for gold, Eji should still have quite a bit left. Although she used gold to buy a large amount of supplies when she left Chang'an, unfortunately, the supplies that Chang'an could provide were not unlimited. After she bought a certain amount, they would stop selling to her. If they sold to her again, it would cause turmoil in the Chang'an supply market.

Seeing Yun Ce hesitate, Liu Che tapped the table with his finger and said, "Actually, I still have some slaves and supplies that you need."

Yun Ce raised his head blankly and looked at Liu Che with confusion.

Jingkou Pass is a very small town, with few inhabitants within a hundred miles. To the north lies a desolate wilderness, and no one here makes a living.

Therefore, based on Liu Che's impoverished appearance when they first met, Yun Ce did not believe that he could produce slaves and supplies that would satisfy him.

"Although Jingkou Pass is a place far from the emperor's reach, and we can do things that go against the law, if what we do is too outrageous and resented by both heaven and man, then your dream of living a peaceful and uneventful life like you are now will probably be shattered."

Liu Che chuckled and said, "Even the Grand Commander couldn't maintain such a peaceful and uneventful life, how can you expect me to? The reason I didn't lead the army away from Jingkou Pass this time is because I didn't want to be the first general to flee the Great Wall."

Of course, I don't want to be the last fool to flee the Great Wall. Now, do you understand what I mean?

Yun Ce frowned and said, "Slaves cannot serve as soldiers."

Liu Che laughed loudly: "What you said is too absolute. If slaves can't be soldiers, who will repair the damaged Great Wall over the past few hundred years, and who will build the Great Wall to continue?"
"Rely on those mentally unstable bastards at Tiewei Pass who shout slogans all day, are quick to call for war, and constantly provoke border conflicts?"

Yun Ce looked at Liu Che and said, "Give me Jingkou Pass too."

"Sure, I can give you my seal and the military messenger bird. You can receive any news from the Grand Marshal's mansion and handle it yourself. If anyone insists on asking where I went, just say I went north to scout out the enemy's situation."

If they insist on waiting for me, just say I just died in battle. If they don't ask, you can continue to be the garrison commander of Jingkou Pass.

Don't look at me like that. In the past decade or so, you are the first official I've met who has honestly come to the North to work, and the only one I've met who is willing to spend so much money on matters of the court.

Yun Ce said, "Slaves and money belong to the imperial court."

Liu Che laughed loudly, "Once it falls into your hands, it's yours. I only regret that the court is unwilling to give me the money. If they had, I would have run away long ago."

Yun Ce nodded and said, "Tell me, how much money do you want to give me Jingkou Pass, including the army there, and everything else I need?"

Upon hearing Yun Ce's words, Liu Che's eyes gradually turned bloodshot. He spread his two dark, calloused hands, presented his ten fingers straight up to Yun Ce, and roared, "I want five million!"

Yun Ce angrily asked, "Five million taels of gold?"

Liu Che, without blinking, said, "I want five million coins!"

Yun Ce grabbed Liu Che's dirty hand and said, "Okay, deal!"

　I'll revise the next chapter and post it later. I didn't say anything inappropriate.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)