All Heavens Strategy Game

Sishui Village.

This small village is nestled deep in the folds of the mountains, in a remote and sparsely populated area, a typical example of a poor and desolate place.

It is currently the busy farming season.

Between the ridges of the fields, the villagers bent over, working the land with hoes, one hoe at a time.

The sun was scorching, and sweat rolled down their dark backs, splashing into the parched earth.

Among the crowd was a seven or eight-year-old child, also holding a small hoe, laboriously turning over the soil and pulling weeds.

"I'm exhausted..."

The child straightened up and wiped the sweat from his eyes—it was Su Ming.

Looking at the seemingly endless farm work before him, Su Ming couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "When will this hardship ever end?"

After using the "Rotten Wood Machine World Strategy Token", he descended into this new world.

This is a feudal ancient dynasty called "Da Zhou". It has been established for three hundred years. Corrupt officials are rampant, natural disasters and man-made calamities are constant, and it is difficult for the people to even have enough to eat.

Su Ming had been in a daze until he fainted from hunger three days ago. When he woke up, he suddenly realized the mystery of his birth and remembered his past life.

"What a hellish start." Thinking about his family situation throughout his life, Su Ming sighed.

In this life, the father died early, leaving only the lame old mother to struggle to raise five children on her own.

With an older brother and a second older sister, Su Ming is the third child in his family. He also has a younger sister who is only three or four years old and a younger brother who is five years old.

The large family lived in abject poverty, and Su Ming had hardly ever had a proper meal since birth.

At only eight years old, he already has to work in the fields and help with the family's chores.

In their previous lives, eight-year-old children would still be nestled in their parents' arms, able to command the wind and rain and have whatever they wanted.

But here, you have to work in the fields, from dawn till dusk!

It's not just your child who's like this; other children are too!

Not doing it?

Just wait to starve to death!

"It's getting late, time to clock out..."

Accompanied by shouts, villagers returned home in twos and threes.

Su Ming followed the older man working next to him home; their so-called home was a dilapidated tile-roofed house.

After finishing the work, the thing I look forward to most is eating!

The whole family sat around the broken table, and each person received a bowl of thin porridge.

This is really thin porridge.

The soup was thin and watery, with only a few millet grains at the bottom.

The vegetables were just a few wild vegetable leaves.

This kind of thing would have been considered too disgusting to feed pigs in his previous life, but Su Ming was eating it with great relish at the moment.

He figured if he dumped the pig feed from his previous life here, a bunch of villagers would fight tooth and nail for it like it was a delicacy!

"I want to eat rice! I want to eat thick rice!" The youngest of the five cried loudly.

The mother, Liu, held the child and comforted him, "Don't cry, Xiao Wu. Tomorrow I'll go to the neighbor's house to borrow some grain and cook you some thick rice."

"I want it now!" the fifth child cried loudly.

The eldest brother, Su Yuanbao, the second sister, Su Yuyu, the third brother, Su Ming, and the fourth sister, Su Linlin, looked at each other, knowing that the child was hungry, but none of them knew what to do.

This is a year of disaster!

Every household has very little food stored up!

It's already a blessing to have a bowl of thin porridge; thick porridge is unaffordable. The mother is just trying to appease the child!

But this excuse might work once, but it won't work if you use it too often. The fifth child has been fooled so many times that he clearly doesn't believe his mother anymore and just keeps crying.

Fortunately, the child was weak and cried himself to sleep.

—I don't know if she fainted from crying or from hunger, but at least she stopped causing trouble.

Just as the family breathed a sigh of relief, the sound of gongs and drums came from outside.

The fifth child, who had just fallen asleep, was woken up and started crying loudly again!

Madam Liu, however, had no interest in comforting the child. Instead, she exclaimed in a panic, "Three beats of the gong and drum! The tax collectors are here! You must hurry and hand over your grain, or you'll be arrested!"

We'd rather starve to death than not hand over grain!

In the Great Zhou territory, even the King of Hell was not as terrifying as the grain-collecting officials. The people would rather starve to death than waste grain to pay taxes!

Su Ming followed his elder brother Su Yuanbao and found a bag of grain in the corner of the mud-brick house, and they carried it out together.

"Time to collect grain tax!"

"Time to collect grain tax!"

At the village entrance, several officials were beating drums and gongs, collecting taxes from house to house.

Su Ming's family lived at the entrance of the village, and the first family to pay the grain tax was Su Ming's family.

"Su Yuanbao, right? Your family has ten mu of land, so you should pay grain at the rate of one hu per five mu!"

After saying this, the tall official in charge ordered his men to bring out two "large bushels," which are similar to wooden buckets and are a unit of measurement. Each one can hold about twenty or thirty catties.

"Just fill these two bushels with grain."

"Yes, sir..." The eldest brother, Su Yuanbao, hurriedly opened the grain bag and poured the grain in until the two large bushels were full.

Su Yuanbao breathed a sigh of relief. His family's frugality had paid off, and they had enough grain to pay the taxes. He turned around and was about to leave with Su Ming.

"Wait!" an officer called out to the two men.

He raised his foot and kicked the two large bins hard, causing them to shake and spill a lot of grain out.

The once full bushel suddenly became several centimeters shorter.

"It's not even full yet!"

Seeing this, Su Yuanbao dared not speak out, knowing that this was a "tradition"—these officials would kick him every time he paid taxes, and the grain that fell out was considered "loss."

So Su Yuanbao took Su Ming back home, took out another grain sack, and continued to fill it with grain until the bushel was full again.

The officers were not satisfied, and kicked the two large measures again.

Before the eldest brother, Su Yuanbao, could even ask a question, the other villagers who were watching started to make a ruckus.

"This... gentlemen, usually one kick is enough, why are you kicking twice today?"

"This year is a year of famine, the harvest is bad, and everyone is starving. Where are we going to get enough grain to pay our taxes?"

The grain-collecting official chuckled, "The harvest is poor, and the higher-ups are short of grain, so naturally they have to collect more. You have to pay today whether you like it or not!"

After saying that, he kicked the two large measures again: "This is nothing, the rule is to kick them three times."

Su Yuanbao, his face filled with grief and indignation, was about to refuse when Su Ming tugged at his elder brother and whispered, "Brother, we can find another way to get food, but once people are gone, they're really gone. They need someone to make an example of!"

Su Yuanbao then noticed that the officers were looking at him with eager anticipation!

How could ordinary people possibly fight against the government officials?

No one can change the government's decision!

Since we can't change it, we might as well hand it over. Otherwise, we might be used as a scapegoat and suppressed!

He was startled and, forgetting all about the food, had no choice but to fill the large container and flee as if he were escaping.

Once home and locked the door, Su Yuanbao sighed in despair:

"Third brother, thank goodness you were quick-witted, otherwise I would have gotten a beating for nothing."

"But... we only had two grain sacks of food stored up, and now there's only half a sack left. That's not enough to eat this month. How are we supposed to survive?"

"What? The grain tax has gone up again?" Hearing the commotion outside, Madam Liu came out to inquire and only after learning the reason did she turn pale.

In the past, they would only kick once, but this time they kicked twice more, and the extra grain went to feed those corrupt officials!

The officials were all fat and bloated from eating.

But what about the villagers?

We're already starving, and now they're raising the grain tax!

How can anyone survive this year of disaster?

Seeing his family in such despair, Su Ming sighed inwardly.

What a damn world!

They have to work hard in the fields every day, but they still don't have enough to eat or wear, and they are exploited by corrupt officials.

Damn it, I can see the end of my life in the blink of an eye. If I continue like this, I'm afraid I'll be trapped in this small village for the rest of my life, working as a farmer every day, facing the yellow earth and turning my back to the sky, not even knowing when I'll starve to death!

I didn't come into this world to starve to death like an animal...

I want to be superior to others and conquer this world!

With this in mind, Su Ming made a bold decision: to secretly practice martial arts.

In the real world, he is a successor of the Xingyi School, possessing a strong foundation in martial arts, which is his only source of support.

In this feudal ancient world, one should practice martial arts even more. Only with strength can one find a way to have enough to eat!

The next day, after finishing his work early, Su Ming began practicing "Xingyi Gong".

You won't know until you start practicing, and once you do, you'll be amazed.

The martial arts skills from my past life are still useful in this world!

—And it's extremely useful!

On Earth, he could never sense internal energy when practicing Xingyi Gong, and even after decades of practice, he could not draw power from heaven and earth.

However, in this Great Zhou world, Su Ming felt a special power permeating the air as soon as he started cultivating. When he was practicing Xingyi Gong, he was able to extract the power from the air to generate warmth and nourish his body.

In other words, the martial arts skills from your previous life can exert extraordinary power in this world!

Furthermore, a transparent panel appeared:

[Name: Su Ming (Player 103455)]

Age: 8

[Technique: Xingyi Gong (Beginner Level 1/10)]

"Since martial arts are useful, then this is my chance to turn the tables!"

Su Ming remembered that the Rotten Wood level world was the lowest level world, and the world introduction stated that there were no extraordinary powers.

If I could cultivate my martial arts to a high level, I wouldn't be invincible, but I could at least be a match for a hundred men. Living a happy life based on my strength would be a piece of cake!

Moreover, it can cultivate internal energy that was impossible to cultivate in the previous life...

With this goal in mind, Su Ming began to secretly practice martial arts every day.

With his martial arts experience from his previous life, Su Ming made rapid progress, but soon a problem arose in front of him.

Nourishing!

The saying goes, "The poor study literature, the rich study martial arts!"

To cultivate martial arts, one must eat a full meal, have plenty of meat to nourish the body, and even drink medicinal soup to strengthen one's qi and blood.

Otherwise, forcing yourself to practice martial arts will deplete your body, making you not only unable to become stronger, but also weaker!

In this life, Su Ming can't even get enough to eat, so how could he possibly continue practicing martial arts?

In addition, he had to do farm work in the fields every day, which consumed a lot of his time, thus delaying his martial arts training and even ruining his health!

"What should we do? Should we give up martial arts? Or wait until we grow up and earn money before practicing?"

"No, this is my chance to turn my life around. I can't give up martial arts. The earlier I start learning martial arts, the better. It's the right path to start learning martial arts from a young age. Once I grow up, my physical constitution will be set, and I'll have already missed the best time to start training..."

Su Ming must find a way to solve the problem at hand:

1. Eat and drink your fill every day, preferably with meat!

2. Must be on leave from work and cannot do farm work every day!

Money is everything.

Ultimately, these two problems boil down to a lack of money.

—Money can solve both of these problems!

Where does the money come from?

Su Ming is only an eight-year-old child, and he doesn't have any ideas about how to make money yet.

Brewing wine, making soap, and producing salt—any of these methods would be suicide, bringing disaster to the entire village.

Moreover, there were restrictions on travel permits in this era.

As villagers, if they want to leave the village to go to the county town, they even need the village chief to issue a "travel permit". No one is allowed to leave the village without permission!

Su Ming is only eight years old; there's nothing he can do!

Therefore,

If you want to practice martial arts, you need adult support!

His family was poor, and his family members were unable to help solve these two problems.

These two questions are too demanding. Even some landlords would find it difficult to support someone who takes time off work to eat meat every day. It is not something that one or two adults can support. It requires the joint efforts of many people to support someone who takes time off work to practice martial arts!

"If only the whole village could support me in practicing martial arts..."

Therefore, after careful consideration, Su Ming turned his gaze to the village chief's house, his eyes flashing with an inexplicable light.