Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 104 Misbehavior
In the dead of winter, Beiji Wu neglected state affairs and slept in bed making a baby.

Gao Qiuyue and several women and children sat on the kang (a heated brick bed) in the inner room, their legs covered with large quilts, working together against the warm wall.

An oil lamp was lit inside the house, and the sky outside was dark, so dark that it was difficult to see clearly even in broad daylight.

Li Bing sat next to her sister, holding a bellyband in one hand while watching her sister Li Hong's needlework.

Noticing her sister's gaze, Li Hong smiled and said, "Let me see what you made."

Needlework is an essential skill for girls, but Li Hong wasn't very good at it, and she looked at her older sister with embarrassment.

Li Hong was very good at needlework and quickly began to instruct her younger sister on how to use a needle and thread.

While the two were talking, everyone else was listening, like attentive students.

Xianglan sat beside her, listening, holding a woolen sock in her hand.

Just as they were listening quietly, Xi Dan and Jiang Cao ran over from the innermost room.

"Xianglan, let's play together, then go inside to sleep."

The two little girls beckoned Xianglan to play together, saying that it wouldn't be fun with just the two of them.

Xianglan quickly refused, "No, I don't play with children."

Upon hearing this, Xi Dan exclaimed seriously, "How old are you? You're still wetting the bed!"

Xianglan blushed with anger after her little sister exposed her secret. "Don't tell anyone! I'll hit you! That'll teach you a lesson for saying that!"

Xianglan quickly jumped down and chased after Xidan, while Xidan and Jiangcao happily ran back to the children's room inside.

"You bedwetting brat! Shame on you!" Xi Dan shouted, oblivious to the danger, and ran back laughing.

Xianglan retorted, "You wet the bed too! And you have the nerve to criticize me?!"

Seeing this, Xiulan reminded her, "Keep your voice down, don't disturb the master."

Xianglan quickly shut her mouth and hurried after the two little followers who dared to challenge her status as the eldest sister.

The others just smiled and ignored the children's playful fighting.

After the troublesome children were gone, Li Hong started talking about men.

Li Hong said, "At first, we called him 'brother,' then 'grandfather,' then 'patriarch,' then 'sir,' and a few days ago we were asked to call him 'master.' I don't know what other titles we'll use in the future."

Gao Qiuyue, who was working, stopped what she was doing and, abandoning her usual demure and virtuous demeanor at home, jokingly said, "Maybe I'll have to call you 'husband' or 'my husband' from now on!"

Li Hong lowered her head with a smug look on her face.

Gao Conglian smiled and said, "I wouldn't dare to think about such a wonderful thing. I'll just shout whatever I'm told to shout. A servant has to serve her master."

Li Hong said with a smile, "It's not just about serving with your mouth."

Gao Conglian rolled her eyes at her with a smile, "Look at you, so wanton! You're even more slutty than that widow Ma in the house!"

"Get lost, you're no different!"

Li Hong and the other women were not strangers; they were all women of Arctic Martial Arts and family.

Even if Gao Qiuyue has a husband, it's not a big deal. There are more than one husband, son, and daughter here.

Even worse, there are women like Ma Tuchai, whose husbands were killed by Arctic warriors, who are still diligently serving them in the house.

Once someone is taken over, she naturally becomes Beijiwu's woman. Unless Beijiwu himself doesn't like her and gives her away to someone else, she will have to stay here and serve him forever.

Neither royal law nor civil law can control Arctic martial arts.

The others forcibly abducted women; abducting someone else's wife is a capital offense, and many have already been killed.

Arctic Martial did what he did, and no one in the entire Shannong County dared to discuss with him whether he had broken the law.

The rules set for servants will naturally not apply to themselves.

More than half an hour later, Ma Tuchai, wearing a robe, lifted the curtain and walked in.

"Make room for me, I need to lie down for a bit."

There are only three heated kang beds in the house: one for the children, one for Beijiwu, and one for the women who don't serve Beijiwu.

Several women shifted their positions, making room for Ma Tuchai.

After taking off her robe, Ma Tuchai crawled to the inner part of the fire pit against the wall and lay down. Her body was pressed against the warm fire pit, and her face had a rosy and tired expression of satisfaction. She seemed to have no strength left.

Gao Qiuyue put the clothes away and hung them on the clothes rack on the wall. This kind of wooden clothes rack is very suitable for hanging the clothes of the mountain farmers.

The clothing of the mountain farmers is mainly designed for ease of work, and both men and women wear trousers.

Gao Qiuyue glanced into the bedroom and found that Beijiwu was no longer in the room.

"The master has gone out."

Gao Qiuyue returned to her bed and continued to chat with the women while doing her work.

This was no longer the oppressive Wen family compound. Here, Qiuyue not only found release from her sexual repression, but she also spoke without so much restraint, quickly becoming familiar with the other women in Beijiwu's household. They worked together every day, ate together, talked, and even took turns having children with Beijiwu, enjoying the pleasures of love.

Ma Tuchai continued, "There are so many things going on outside. Going out to handle things is what a real man should do. We don't care about this marquis title now. Our master is going to be the emperor in the future!"

Li Hong glanced at her and teased, "Still not asleep? Usually you fall asleep in the blink of an eye when you're exhausted. Did the master not exert himself today?"

Ma Tuchai didn't turn around and retorted defiantly, "Isn't it because you guys are talking here that I can't sleep?"

Jiang Rong smiled and said, "Okay, let's not talk about it anymore."

Li Hong retorted forcefully, "Ignore her. What's the point of sleeping now that it's neither dark nor light? She'll be unable to sleep tonight anyway. Let's talk about our own things."

Most of the others came from the same village. Li Hong was strong-willed and opinionated, and now that she was pregnant, she naturally became the backbone of the group.

"Qiuyue, your father is a doctor. Does he know any midwives?"

Qiuyue hesitated for a moment, then said awkwardly, “The other day, the master asked a doctor from the county to deliver babies. He said that from now on, men will not have to see women through a curtain, and men can also be midwives. Anyone who objects will be killed. My father had a knife to his neck by the master, so he had no choice but to go and learn how to deliver babies with the midwives.”

Li Hong was stunned; she never expected Arctic Martial Arts to do such a thing.

It's not unusual for Arctic militants to kill people; killing is quite normal for them.

But forcing a man to treat a woman's illness is rather immoral...

"Is...is this how it is outside now?"

Qiuyue sighed, "That's how it is. When the master had the doctors deliver the baby, he personally said that our family would do the same. This is the custom of the mountain farmers."

Holy crap, the mountain farmers are truly heretical and have no sense of propriety or shame whatsoever...

Li Hong and the others worked and lived in the courtyard and didn't know much about what was happening outside. They were dumbfounded.

Because Qiuyue and Matouchai were literate, they received letters and learned about things happening at home.

Qiuyue's father was a doctor in Beiyuan City, and Beiyuan City had captured many military doctors due to several major battles.

Skilled artisans and doctors were not allowed to leave; instead, they were forced to settle down and establish themselves here, becoming part of the Arctic military's public account.

In the city, people need money to see a doctor, to have their fortune told, and even to buy a coffin.

Midwives and birthing women are also good at collecting money.

In order to continue paying wages in the future, Beijiwu tried every means to get the money back from his subordinates.

What the Emperor Wen of the Northern Dynasty couldn't do, the Northern Army could do with ease.

Although warriors also have a sense of propriety and shame, and do not want outside men to touch their women, they do not care as long as the child can be born safely.

Anyway, it was the Arctic military that forced them to do it.

Starving to death is a minor matter... but the majority of people in Shannong County are surrenderers.

In addition, the local population is mostly uneducated, but they are also adaptable people of mixed Han and non-Han descent. This unique regional advantage made it easy for Arctic Military's coercive orders to be implemented.

With one or two babies delivered each day, after half a month, everyone in the vicinity of the garrison accepted this practice. Even women could now see doctors on their own, without the hassle of remote pulse diagnosis that was common before.

Despite having committed numerous unethical acts, no one attributed the lack of snow this year to Arctic Wu angering the heavens, even after the Lunar New Year had passed.

If it were Emperor Wen of the Ming Dynasty, he would already be under pressure from all sides at this time.

Arctic Martial, however, put pressure on the others.

"You fool! You've only managed to capture a little over a hundred people in two months? Go and dig irrigation ditches to deal with this year's drought!"

Woko said anxiously, "Master! It's not that I'm lazy and running slowly, it's that those people went to the west where there's more water and grass, and I got lost on the grassland."

Arctic Warrior cursed, "What excuse are you making? If you can't get things done, you can't get things done! Honestly take the craftsmen to dig wells! Build a few dry wells to prevent water from evaporating!"

"And you, each garrison only needs to leave ten people to guard the gate, the rest of you go to work in the fields. Don't worry about the bad fields this year, just use the public fields near the river. All the good land along the riverbanks is my public land. Now it's a year of disaster, so concentrate the strength of 500,000 people to cultivate these lands!"

"As long as I have food to eat, you won't go hungry. Now everyone will be assigned plots according to their assigned areas. Whoever knows how to farm will farm the best land. When the land is distributed, good people will farm the best land, and bad people will farm the worst land! I don't listen to reasons. This year's harvest will speak for itself!"

Beijiwu offered his public land for others to cultivate, demanding that the rest of the people give up cultivating their own barren land.

The land belongs to the Northern Army, and the thousand households are all the Northern Army's dogs, so naturally they dare not have any objections.

Even before the river water has fully thawed, the mountains behind the Sanggan River Basin are already bustling with activity.

Every household began to work by the river, using a mixed grain variety provided by the mountain farmers, instead of wheat, they planted millet, which is more drought-resistant.

Only after the land for the public was cultivated could they cultivate their own land. So, in order to cultivate their own wheat fields as quickly as possible, everyone worked against the clock.

The nine provinces, fifteen guards, eighty-one garrisons, ninety thousand soldiers and three hundred thousand men, women, and children worked together to cultivate four million mu of land with the manpower of four hundred thousand.

The rest were engaged in mining and iron smelting, practicing medicine, and caring for hundreds of thousands of cattle, sheep, donkeys, and horses.

The heavy labor, the immoral practice of forcing women to receive treatment from male doctors, the practice of giving concubines to soldiers as wives, and the heinous acts of executing corrupt and extorting officers caused many people to flee.

Many people crossed mountains and valleys, escaped from Shannong County, and returned to the direct rule of Wen Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)