Chapter 823: Beacon Boy

Chapter 823: Beacon Boy

  Chapter 823 Beacon Boy

  The end of May.

  Pingdenbao, Fengdeng Township, Men County, Wu'an Prefecture, the smoke from the kitchen at dusk rises from the bunker, and the tired birds are returning to their nests, but the children are still playing and don't know how to go home.

  In front of the gate of the fort, the archers in the fort are standing on the fort tower with their bows and arrows behind their backs, while the red guns are patrolling the outside of the fort with red guns on their shoulders.

  Because of the Juding barbarian invasion happening in the north, it also affects the people in Zhennanguan to some extent. For the people of Baozi who immigrated from the Central Plains, they feel more and more uneasy.

   Only the kids don't quite understand what's going on.

The knight lord of Pingdenburg is Qian Dexing, a son of a nobleman who came from Chang'an with Duke Wei. His father is Qian Jiulong, Duke of Xun. Because of his father's crimes, he was demoted to be a palace slave, and finally rewarded to Tang Guogong's mansion.

  The Qian family was also a powerful family back then, and the Qian Jiulong family was an official from generation to generation.

  Qian Dexing voluntarily followed Qin Lang to the southern fiefdom because of the lowly status of the **** son of his concubine. Qian Jiulong gave his son some tribal slaves, a lot of money, food and horses.

  Back then, Qian Dexing gritted his teeth and went south to become Qin Lang's vassal knight. After arriving in Lingnan, he also fought several battles and made some contributions. Finally, he was allocated a piece of land in the Qiqiong River Valley to be his knight fief. He led the slave tribes assigned to him by his father to lay the foundation here and set up a fort.

  In the past few years, he bought slaves and offered various favorable conditions to attract immigrants to settle down. Qian Dexing spent a lot of money in the Pingdeng River Valley, including all his belongings.

In five or six years, Pindenburg became more and more lively. There were more than 300 households in Tunpu, and many fields outside the village were reclaimed. Rice was planted on the flat land in the valley, and upland rice and upland rice introduced by Duke Wei were planted on the hillside. The millet and sorghum brought by the Central Plains were used to plant sugar cane, and to raise pigs and sheep.

  From scratch, life is getting better day by day.

Fort Pinden also went from simple wooden fences at the beginning, to thick wooden fence walls later, to today's rammed earth mountain stone fortress walls, and then to Qian Dexing who built a small prismatic fortress on the nearby highland. It is big, but it is very strong as a military defense. It can garrison troops, store food, and have a water source. It is not comfortable to live in it, but with this castle, there are watchtowers in the castle, so there is no need to worry about being attacked.

  The strong and dangerous bastions and the towering watchtowers also made the immigrants in Pinden Fort feel more secure.

Because it is on the edge of the Qiqiong River, although Pindenburg is not as rich as Langshan, the Qiqiong River is the source of the Ping River in the upper reaches of the Zuoxi River, and the source of the river is in Annan, so there is still a certain degree of convenient transportation. Lang Son, the downstream can also be connected to Qiyuan City, Tong Shixi, Longzhou, all the way to Yongzhou.

  Because of the mobilization for the war, Qian Dexing had already recruited his own knight attendants, and set off with his servants and a hundred young and strong villagers.

  At this time, Qian Dexing led thousands of troops gathered from Tunbaoxidong in various counties and townships of Wu'an Prefecture, and went out to Nanguan to reinforce Shixi.

  Pindenburg is much less young and strong, and feels much deserted.

  In the morning, there was no sound of running and practicing, and at dusk, the archers were not seen shooting arrows.

  Only the children are still playing and playing, but the faces of the women are more worried, and their eyes are frequently looking to the north.

   Liu Laosan came back from the field with a **** on his shoulders. Although the boss of the fort told him that he should try his best not to go out recently, let alone go out alone.

   But seeing that the rice in the field outside the fort was growing just right, and it was time for water conservation, he was worried, fearing that if the water was cut off, the growth of the rice would be affected.

  He immigrated from Henan. Henan is a large plain, a vast plain that stretches as far as the eye can see, and has always been densely populated. The imperial court's land equalization order only gave the amount of land granted.

But in fact, how much can be awarded depends entirely on how much public land can be granted in the locality. Liu Laosan has been poor all his life, but he has a lot of children. Once he delivered food in Liaodong, and came back from a narrow escape. When he was recruited for the second time, he directly broke one of his hands to escape from the army. Although this severed hand made him suffer a lot, it also allowed him to escape successfully. A few folks went away under conscripts, and many never came back.

   That is his blessing.

   It's just that the broken hand has become disabled, but life is getting more and more difficult. The war at the end of the Sui Dynasty made life even more difficult. A group of young children finally starved to death three, and survived seven.

  In order to survive, Liu Laosan once ruthlessly broke his own hand. In order to survive, he also took his family to escape in the end of the Sui Dynasty, and also followed the refugees as bandits and robbers.

   It's all about survival.

After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Liu Laosan returned to his hometown, but under the order of land equalization, he did not get any land, because there was no land to divide, and a large number of fields were owned. After the unowned land became official land, A lot of public land, job land, school land, etc. have to be set aside, and a lot of land has to be set aside for those meritorious officials and relatives.

Liu Laosan had to be a tenant farmer. Landless tenant farmers had a hard time living. The whole family rented land to the landlord, and his wife, children and mother had to work as servants for the landlord’s house. .

  When Liu Laosan learned that Wei Guogong was going to recruit people to immigrate to Lingnan to open up wasteland, he resolutely decided to embark on the road of leaving his hometown again because he had no money for medical treatment and died of a child.

  Although my hometown is good, I can't survive.

   Farmers without land live worse than dogs.

  I came to Lingnan with hardships all the way, got sick on the way, regretted and hesitated, but finally came to Lingnan.

  At the beginning, there were only thatched huts, which were ventilated on all sides, rain leaked from the roof, and a group of people lived there crowded together, but life has gained momentum.

  They work together to dig wells, reclaim wasteland, and build houses...

  A few years have passed, and more and more land has been reclaimed. The first barren land has now been plowed into mature land, and the river valley rice fields with sufficient rainfall can produce twice a year.

The rice seeds that Duke Wei got from Linyi, although the taste is much worse, but the yield is quite high, the production capacity is guaranteed to be more than two stones per mu in one season, and almost five stones per mu in two seasons a year, although it is not very easy to sell , the price is not high, but at least the family no longer has to worry about being hungry.

   "Uncle Liu, you went out again?"

  At the gate of Tunbao, the young archer persuaded, "The village has just come down to inform, and the combat readiness level has been raised again. There is going to be a war. It is not safe outside, so don't go out alone."

Liu Laosan stood still at the gate of the fort, and an archer immediately handed over a betel nut, and Lao Liu threw it into his mouth and chewed, "I'm so afraid, the Juding Liao barbarian is not capable of breaking through the Zhennan Pass. We are so many Erlang goes north, the gate of the town is as solid as gold."

  After chatting for a while, Lao Liu walked into the Tunpu with a **** on the last ray of light between heaven and earth, and all the way to his small courtyard.

  Old Liu’s house has a fairly large yard. Although it has a thatched roof and bamboo plastered walls, it is very spacious, sheltering from wind and rain, and keeping the family warm.

  The front and back of the house were surrounded by wicker. Some fruit trees were planted in the front yard, and a hut, a pigsty, a chicken coop, a doghouse, a kitchen, and a firewood house were built. In the backyard of the house is a vegetable field, which is neatly arranged by Lao Liu's wife and mother like a chessboard, with no weeds in sight.

  The thatched cottage is low, but very warm.

  Old Liu pushed the chaimen door and coughed.

  Old Liu's wife, Mrs. Zhang, said from the kitchen, "The meal is ready, I'll wait for you, let's serve."

  Old Liu put down his hoe, the youngest son had scooped water from the water tank with a gourd for him to wash his hands and feet, and the daughter took out the pine mushrooms prepared at home from the kitchen.

  Under the twilight.

  The grease-laden pine bonfires burned, emitting a yellow glow that illuminated the home.

  The sound of weaving in the inner room stopped, Mother Liu staggered out, and Lao Liu's other two daughters also came out.

  Men farm and women weave, men live outside and women live, immigrated from the Central Plains, and the immigrants in Pindenburg still maintain this tradition.

When the farming season is busy, the whole family goes to the fields to plant and harvest. Usually, the men are responsible for taking care of the crops in the fields and collecting firewood in the mountains, while the women raise silkworms and weave cloth. The family wears clothes all year round, and they are self-sufficient, and they also have to take out some silk and cloth to go Sold to subsidize the family.

  Pine candles are actually some oily branches that are cut down, split and dried, and then **** for lighting. This kind of pine branch oil is easy to burn, but it consumes a lot of money and smokes a lot.

  But for these ordinary people, oil lamps and candles cannot be afforded for lighting at night. Candles are only used by nobles. They are made of honey wax and some white wax insect excrement. It is not easy to produce and the price is very high. An ordinary candle costs tens of pennies, and one candle can buy two buckets of rice. This is not available to ordinary people.

  The cost of oil lamps is not low, ranging from animal fat to vegetable oil, but cheap oil costs tens of dollars per catty.

  So for ordinary people like Lao Liu, it is dark at night. They usually burn a fire at night in winter for both heating and lighting. In summer, they mostly use pine branches to make torches.

  The pine branches found on these mountains cost some effort and no cost.

   It's not a busy season, dinner is very simple.

In the dim light, a few members of the family sat around the table in the hall, with rice boiled with shredded taro, sauerkraut made from taro stalks, and small dried fish that the youngest son caught before soaking and cooking. Dried miscellaneous fish soup, and a boiled wild vegetable.

   Mrs. Liu serves the rice for the mother-in-law first, and then for the old Liu, and the children serve the rice themselves.

  The family eats quietly and quickly.

Although the dinner is simple, everyone is very satisfied. Lao Liu and the others, who have experienced the chaos of the end of the Sui Dynasty and endured hunger, will not waste a grain of food. Although there is no shortage of food now, and white rice can be eaten every day, but The Liu family seldom eats white rice, and always eats some miscellaneous grains.

Either taro, or yam, or sorghum, or some seasonal vegetables and wild vegetables, Lao Liu’s family also raises pigs, as well as chickens and ducks, but the family rarely eats meat. Cut a little bit from the bacon hanging on the stove to make a tooth sacrifice.

  The eggs laid by chickens and ducks are usually saved up and sold, and only when the family celebrates their birthdays will they cook two eggs specially for the birthday star.

  After eating a bowl of taro rice, Lao Liu wiped his mouth, then lowered his head to check the pottery bowl carefully, and only put down the bowl after confirming that there was not a grain of grain left.

   "Xiao Liu ate the fish soup." Lao Liu said to his younger son with preference, picked up the last bit of vegetable soup with one arm and poured it into his son's rice bowl, watching his son eat him up.

   "Father, people from the village today said that Wu'an Prefecture has been upgraded to a first-level combat readiness alert, and some middle-aged men under the age of fourteen have also been dispatched to the county to gather and stand by. I was selected."

  Old Liu was taken aback for a moment.

   "Your elder brother went to Guanbei with Qian Bingcao, and your second brother was conscripted to Zhennan Pass as a united soldier a few days ago. You are my last son. Why do you still have to be recruited?"

  Xiao Liu put down the bowl and wiped his mouth, "I want to go."

  Old Liu sighed, "Wars are always dangerous."

"The township said that we just go to the county to gather and stand by for orders, do some training, and at most assist the county's security and defense, and will not go to war. And as they said, we went to the county, and the county has all the food and lodging, and there is one liter per day. Subsidies of food and ten Wen. Maybe, at that time, another set of clothes, shoes and socks will be issued.” Xiao Liu is fourteen this year, born in the year when the Tang Dynasty was established, and Yang Guang, the emperor of the Sui Dynasty, was in Jiangdu in that year. was murdered.

   "When will you leave?" Lao Liu asked with a sigh.

   "Tomorrow morning, we at Pingdenburg have a total of ten people. In addition, we have five people in each of the other two villages in Qian Langjun's fief, making a total of twenty people."

  Old Liu was silent, his wrinkled face looked like a sculpture in the dim light of pine smoke.

  (end of this chapter)