Traveling through the Prosperous Pastoral of Peasant Girls

Chapter 25

Chapter 26 The future is bleak

The person who commanded them should be someone sitting in a luxurious carriage. Jin Yang and the others couldn't see clearly in the distance, but they saw officers and soldiers constantly coming to the carriage to ask for orders.

The horse bandit village was an abandoned bandit's lair, with an oval shape around the top and a diameter of more than a mile at the wide part, covering a size of a hundred acres. It was surrounded by cliffs on three sides, and only the side near the barter area had a dry ditch. There is a suspension bridge connected to the mountain road outside.At this time, hundreds of officers and soldiers had already crossed the dry ditch, cut off the suspension cables of the suspension bridge, and lowered the suspension bridge.But the gate of the horse bandit village is the same as the gate of the city. A large stone fell from the gate tower four or five meters high, and many officers and soldiers were killed and injured.Later, the officers and soldiers changed their tactics and dispersed to the bottom of the wall to climb up. Unfortunately, there were too few bodyguards for merchants in the horse bandit village. There were only more than 30 people in the horse bandit village. They could not stop the organized siege of these regular troops, and soon they climbed up the wall. Breaking through the horse bandit stronghold, except for those who resisted them were killed on the spot just now, the rest of the women, children, old and weak were driven out of the stronghold.

"Young master, if someone asks your name, don't say it's Jin, and tell them something else?"

"why?"

"Because Jin is the national surname of the Daqing Kingdom, and the people in the north hate the surname Jin because they have been fighting against the Daqing Kingdom for many years. They are likely to be assigned the most tiring and hardest work, and the supervision is the strictest. It would be even more hopeless!"

"Oh, Uncle Huang, I see."

All the goods were loaded onto trucks or camels, and the cattle purchased by Jinyang were also missing.They were driven across the boundary river and headed north.Lao Huang stayed close to the golden seedlings all the way, and pointed out to him what he saw along the way in a low voice. The road along the way was similar to that of Dazhang Country, and there were also sparse villages and towns. Just after passing Shuangzi Mountain, there were large fields, and the trees on the mountain were also primitive. The appearance of the forest.The further you go, the larger grasslands appear.Walking on the high slope, you can see the sea in the distance.

Old Huang told him in a low voice: "Little Yan Kingdom has always been ruled by women, so it is the so-called queen..."

"When the queen is in power, is their country rich?"

Old Huang didn't make it too clear, he just said: "It's about the same as Qinglang Country...."

When they entered the junction of Qinglang Country and Xiaoyan Country, they could see Yajing Port, a port jointly owned by the two countries. It was a large port, and there were many large and small ships from a distance.Cars and horses pass in and out of several roads leading there, from which we can see the busy scene of the port.

The next night, I arrived and stayed in the dilapidated Yawei Harbor. Although it is a ruined place, I can still see the former glory.The port is not small, but it was burned, killed, looted and destroyed by pirates before it was fully developed. It is said that pirates have killed and robbed the port twice in two consecutive years. Since then, no one has dared to live here.

When they entered the territory of Xiaoyan country, some of those who were arrested together were assigned halfway, and they didn't know what kind of business they were doing. In the end, they arrived at the northernmost grassland near the sea in Xiaoyan country .Some of these merchants were assigned to mines and some to pastures. Because Jinyang was the youngest and Lao Huang had bad legs and feet, he was assigned to the salt field by the sea with 30 people, and the rest continued to walk north.

This salt field is three hundred miles away from the Shuangzishan barter area, and eighty miles away from Xing'an City, the capital of the Little Yan Kingdom. The salt field is located on the edge of the territory of a nobleman of the Little Yan Kingdom, and is also owned by that nobleman.In the same salt field, there are more than a dozen people around, and most of the workers are from the Daqing country, and there are guards with iron guns to prevent people from escaping and making trouble.

There is a big manager in the salt field who is in charge of everything, and the person in charge of cooking salt is Su Qing, the junior steward. Su Qing asked the names of the 30 people to register in the register, and Lao Huang reported Huang Bole's real name. Knowing that Brother Su is the national surname of Qinglang Country, and there are many people surnamed Su in Xiaoyan Country, he fabricated that his surname is also Su. Thinking of Brother Su’s family of four, he said that his name was Su Wu, and the person in charge finally registered for him. Became Su Wu.

Jin Yang didn't care about it either, as long as there was a code name for Su Wu or Su Wu.Seeing that there was only one surnamed Su among these people, Su Qing told Jin Yang that he belonged to his family. Seeing that he was young and thin, he took extra care of him, and Jin Yang and Lao Huang settled down in the salt field. .There used to be more than 100 coolies from the Daqing Kingdom who were also arrested here, and there were nearly 200 people including them.They told the newcomers in private that there were nearly 200 people in the past, but too many died of illness and exhaustion, and some were killed while escaping. Because of too much wear and tear, they bought them to replenish Come in…….

The salt field is located inside a small rocky cliff close to the sea, and the name is called Aoya Salt Field.The stone cliff is said to be a low cliff, and Jin Yan's visual inspection is also 30 meters high.There are relatively good houses on both sides of the salt field, some are for guards, and some are for family members of salt field management personnel. There is a road at the gap of the stone cliff to communicate with the grassland behind.

Their salt-making process is to boil water to make salt, that is, to add seawater to a large pot, then light firewood to evaporate the water from the seawater, and the crystals left behind are coarse salt.This kind of salt-making process is extremely backward. The boiled salt is called salt, and it has a bitter taste when cooking, because there are many impurities in the finished product, such as magnesium ions, calcium ions, and sulfate radicals. Salt crafts come a long way.If Jin Yang is allowed to manage it, he will open up a large area of ​​salt ponds and make salt using the principle of natural crystallization by evaporation of sunlight. The salt produced by that process has no bitter taste.But it's none of your business, so there's no need to tell them the method to make things easier for the enemy.

On the first day of work, Lao Huang and Jin Yang were exhausted. In fact, the labor intensity was not too great. The reason for the fatigue was that they were not allowed to rest from sunrise to sunset. Will whip.Jin Yang reckons that this kind of work will have to be repeated in the future, day after day, who knows when it will end?
At night, Jin Yang, like those merchants, lay sore in the earth shed under the rocky cliff, missing his family, Jin Yang especially missed Liu Tao, and didn't know how Liu Tao was doing now.

On the seaside of the Aiya salt field, sometimes you can see the shadows of ships and sails in the distance in the sea, and look at the sea as close as you can see. Although there is a metaphor of "the sea is wide, the fish leap into the sky and the birds fly", but the slaves His identity imprisoned him, and he couldn't let go of his hands and feet even if he had lofty sentiments.

Su Qing's family is on the edge of the salt field. He has a 15-year-old daughter who is as beautiful as a fairy. The wind and frost of the grassland have not left a trace on her face. Symmetrical plateau red, but much lighter than other women.The round smiling face is a bit childish, with two dimples, which attracts the eyes of these coolies.She and her mother accompanied her father to live in the gap on the south side of the rocky cliff in the salt field. She also came to the salt field to hang out when she had nothing to do. The salt field was full of adults, only 13-year-old Jin Yang was the youngest.She was very curious when she saw Jin Yang, so she asked about Jin Yang's origin.It was rare for Jin Yang to have a girl of about the same age come to strike up a conversation, so he told her roughly about his life experience.For the grassland daughter, Daqing Country has many mysteries, especially Jinyang's lofty ambitions, telling her that she still needs to buy milk to go back, and make delicious candy and cheese that is different from traditional ones.

There is no half-grown boy like Jin Yang in the salt field, and Su Qing is also very happy to see that Jin Yang and his daughter can talk well.

(End of this chapter)