Heirs of the Seven Swords of the Qin Dynasty

Chapter 1956: The Seven Stars of the Azure Dragon (Part )

"Your Highness cares about the people, which is a blessing for the country. It is all my fault that I am incompetent as a minister. I can neither solve the difficulties of the king nor relieve the suffering of the people."

While Meng Tian was praising Fusu, he also took all the responsibility on them as his subjects, trying his best to relieve Fusu's psychological pressure. By the way, he also hinted that there was no solution to this problem - the king's difficulties were unsolvable.

There is no need to say whether Emperor Ying Zheng was a difficult person or not. Everyone knows it and those who understand will understand.

At least from the performance point of view, it is indeed difficult for him.

He had to take care of all the military and national affairs, including the garrison in the north, the war in Lingnan, the projects of transporting troops and defending against the enemy, his own imperial mausoleum, etc.

As a result, even the emperor was in a difficult position - the supplies were running low!
The emperor could not solve this difficulty, so he could only force it through regardless.

Ying Zheng had no choice, and those working under Meng Tian had even less choice but to follow orders.

If Fusu wanted to relieve the suffering of the people, he had to relieve the emperor's difficulties first, and then... he would be blocked.

Fusu could hear the deeper meaning in Meng Tian's words. Although he did not agree with them, he did not take his anger out on him.

Meng Tian was a general who had fought in the battlefields of battle and had lost countless lives. We cannot expect him to personally understand the hardships of people's lives and the preciousness of human life.

As a soldier, what he was most accustomed to was obeying and giving orders.

But things still need to be solved.

"General Meng Tian, ​​you are too polite. You are just following orders. After all, Fusu is incompetent." Fusu sighed, "But we can't just ignore the tens of thousands of people at the foot of the Great Wall!"

"It is difficult to disobey the king's order... Your Highness, I know you are in a difficult situation, but I can only do it reluctantly." Meng Tian didn't want Fusu to anger Ying Zheng again, so he wanted to persuade him, "I am willing to take full responsibility for the supervision. Your Highness has been traveling a lot these days, so you should take a good rest for a while."

Meng Tian really had nothing to say about Fusu. He simply removed Fusu from the responsibility of supervising the project and was ready to take all the blame on himself.

Fusu just raised his hand and waved, signaling Meng Tian not to say such things anymore. He just ignored what he had said and continued to talk to himself.
"Of course, the king's orders cannot be disobeyed, but we must also do our best to protect the people... in the way we can."

Seeing Fusu's resolute attitude, Meng Tian could not persuade him any further and could only ask tentatively, "What is your highness going to do?"

"Let's first raise a batch of supplies for the winter. The larger the quantity, the better." Fusu immediately gave his answer.

His method is simple.

Since it is impossible to persuade Ying Zheng to suspend the project, the only way is to find ways to improve the survival ability of the people who come to serve and work, that is, to provide sufficient food and warm clothes, and try to control everyone's working time.

Serving corvée was an absolute obligation for every citizen of the empire, and no one could refuse it - of course, this only applied to civilians, with the exception of those with military ranks, or those who were very rich, who could pay a small sum to avoid the disaster.

In this obligation, the empire was only responsible for providing jobs, while the people had to take care of themselves for food, clothing, housing and transportation during their service.

For ordinary people who are generally struggling to make ends meet, this is undoubtedly a huge expense.

Under normal circumstances, a household only needs to provide one able-bodied laborer per year, and the time of labor service is no more than two months, including the time spent on the road. Generally, they are nearby projects, such as repairing rivers or paving roads. It may be tiring, but not dangerous.

Although it is still very difficult, most people can still barely hold on.

But now the average service time of the people in the empire is more than three months, and they are all large projects. If you are lucky, you may be a local citizen nearby. If you are unlucky, you may have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles, and it may take one or two months just to walk, which is very dangerous.

What's even worse is that the Empire can provide some subsidies for normal military service, giving a "salary" that is not too expensive.

But now the extra corvée labor that the people have to perform is basically because they have violated the imperial laws and cannot afford to pay the fines, so they can only "replace jail time with corvée labor."

If you serve in the military to atone for your crime, don't expect subsidies from the imperial court. You have to bear all the expenses by yourself, and the working hours are arranged in a way that squeezes the people's energy to the utmost.

The end result was that the civilians who served and worked were generally not well fed, not well clothed, and not allowed a moment's rest. They either died of exhaustion, starvation, or freezing to death.

What Fusu has to do now is to use his own money to subsidize these serving people and provide them with sufficient supplies to ensure their survival.

It is difficult to say how effective this approach will be, because the living environment of the people who come to the north to serve is too harsh, and the help Fusu can provide is ultimately limited - this limitation is not in quantity, but in quality.

The winter clothing of the pre-Qin period could at most ensure that the people would not freeze to death under normal circumstances, and it was certainly not comparable to the down jackets of later generations.

If people are exposed to the outdoors for a long time and have to do a lot of heavy physical labor, it is hard to say how much effect it will have.

The same goes for food. The most Fusu could do was provide enough staple food and hot water. Don't even think about oil or anything else. There might be some, but definitely not much.

For those serving in the military who have to do heavy physical labor every day, the effect is also very limited.

In general, under ideal circumstances, if Fusu did his best, he could probably raise the survival rate of the laborers building the Great Wall and the straight road from less than 50% to around 70% to 80%.

But this is only an ideal situation.

It is difficult to say how much supplies Fusu can mobilize.

The number of laborers required for these two major projects is tens of thousands, which is too large, and Liusha is also unable to spare any manpower now.

What Fusu did, in the final analysis, was just doing his best and leaving the rest to fate... although this fate was essentially a man-made disaster.

Meng Tian did not dare to disobey Ying Zheng's orders, nor did he want to go against Fusu's wishes, so he could only do his part:

"Since Your Highness is willing, I will do my best to help."

The Meng family is a wealthy family, but no matter how wealthy a family is, it is difficult to support the food, clothing and daily necessities of tens of thousands of people. Meng Tian definitely does not have the ability to directly provide money and materials.

All he could do was to mobilize border troops within the scope of his authority to assist in the construction of the project in order to reduce the pressure on the serving civilians, and at the same time study whether he could squeeze out some military rations and supplies to be distributed to the people.

The empire is quite generous in the supply of military supplies and will not be too tight-fisted, so they can squeeze out some without affecting the army.

Do your best and help in any way you can.

Then Meng Tian quickly changed the subject, "Your Highness, there is a piece of news that I almost forgot to report."

"We have received accurate information. Mirage has set out again. There shouldn't be any mistakes this time."

Fusu's attention was successfully diverted, "Oh, Mirage is gone again... Any news about the teacher?"

Meng Tian shook his head and said, "No, the Imperial Master seems to have disappeared. He had clearly appeared in Sanghai not long ago."

"Hmm..." Fusu looked thoughtful, and after a moment he raised his head and replied, "In that case, there is no need to ask about the Yin-Yang family's affairs anymore."

"For the next period of time, we just need to focus on dealing with matters in the North."

"The rest... we'll talk about it later."

………………

In Guanzhong, the far suburbs of Xianyang, the Imperial Mausoleum of Mount Li. The Imperial Mausoleum always seems to be the same, with people coming and going. While others watch the hustle and bustle, the people inside just want to escape - whether they are the laborers or the supervising soldiers.

It's a troublesome, hopeless and boring job. No one likes it.

As winter approached, some of the corvée laborers at the Lishan Imperial Mausoleum began to feel uneasy.

The working environment and working conditions at the Lishan Imperial Mausoleum are much better than those in the north, but winter is still a hurdle for many people - winter is dangerous even for ordinary people with normal lives, not to mention prisoners who are serving their sentences as substitutes.

No one wants to die, so when the year comes to an end, some people start to have evil ideas.

However, the construction of the imperial mausoleum was a long project that lasted more than twenty years and a whole generation. Most people worked here for more than a year, and they knew very well that the possibility of escape was very low.

Therefore, not many people really plan to escape.

But this year something else happened to happen.

There is a shortage of manpower in the North now. Although the emperor is generous with the manpower of the people, the total population of the empire is limited. No matter how generous he is, he cannot create people out of thin air.

The imperial court naturally had to change its thinking and look for ways to make up for the loss, and then they found the problem with the imperial mausoleum project.

Building the imperial mausoleum is a major event, it is the emperor's face, so it cannot be stopped.

But the imperial mausoleum project is nearing completion after all, and the number of manpower can be appropriately reduced.

The part of the people who have been removed can be arranged to work in the north.

There is no specific arrangement yet, only some rumors have been heard, but they are enough to make people in the entire imperial mausoleum uneasy.

The north is bitterly cold, and the environment is not as good as that in Mount Li. However, the journey to the north is a great opportunity for them to escape.

The Lishan Imperial Mausoleum is located next to Xianyang, right next to the Lantian Camp. Running away from here would be tantamount to seeking death, but as long as you are far away from Xianyang, the chances of safe escape will greatly increase.

So now many people are hoping to be exiled to the north, the more remote the better!

Even if you don't escape on the way, it will be much easier to plan your escape once you reach a remote area on the border.

Among these people with aspirations, there were naturally two farming masters, Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang.

They are the two who are most enthusiastic about this.

It was not just because they were both fed up with the days of repairing the old emperor's tomb - it was not tiring. For Chen Sheng, the daily workload was not even a warm-up. Instead, it was very exhausting, repeating almost the same work day after day.

Neither of them had ever driven a screw before. If they had, they would have a better understanding of how torturous the feeling was.

Another part of the reason is that they have someone above them!
Recently, a new person has come to manage the imperial mausoleum project. Although he is not the top person in charge of the project, he is a well-known figure and has a say in this small piece of land in Mount Li.

And Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang 'coincidentally' met this new manager with a handsome face.

With him lobbying at the top, as long as the staff transfer is implemented, the two of them will definitely be added to the list of staff transfers.

I just don’t know when this matter can be implemented - what is certain is that there is no hope this year.

Although the shortage of manpower in the north is an existing problem, even if this matter is decided now, by the time the people to be transferred are selected and these people arrive at the destination, this winter will almost be over, which means that the time period when manpower is most needed will have passed.

So this matter is not urgent, it is just a preparation for further shortage of manpower in the future.

………………

The Empire, the southern border, Kuaiji County, somewhere on a large lake.

A long spear pierced through the head of a man wearing tattered wooden armor and with disheveled hair, splashing blood onto the deck.

There were dozens of sampans parked on the wide lake at this time, with people standing and lying on each boat.

In addition, there were many people floating up and down in the lake. As the water surged, the scarlet color gradually spread in the lake.

The corpses in the lake and on the boat were basically wearing simple armor, with crude weapons at hand, while the standing living people were equipped much more luxuriously, with complete sets of standard armor.

To be more precise, it is the armor of the Tenglong Legion.

"It's all cleaned up."

Long Qie pulled his dragon-patterned spear out from the corpse at his feet, shook off the blood, and then shouted to the people on the boat next to him.

Around him, besides the soldiers under his command, there was a man who was dressed out of place.

"After we wipe out these bandits, the people living nearby can live in peace for a few days." Zhongli Mei put away his iron-framed bow and responded to Long Qie with a smile.

Long Qie also smiled, then arranged for some people to stay and clean up the battlefield, and led the rest of the people to evacuate.

"Brother Zhongli, are you planning to continue heading south next?" On the way back, Long Qie chatted with Zhongli Mei.

Zhong Limei nodded, "Well, the war in Lingnan is about to restart. I plan to go and take a look, maybe I can help."

Long Qie carefully considered his words and asked tentatively, "I remember that due to the incident at Daze Mountain, Brother Zhongli seemed to have been…"

Zhong Limei smiled bitterly and took the initiative to take over the conversation and said, "I know, but my good friend Han Xin is leading troops in Lingnan. I will go to help him. It will be fine."

"Lingnan is too remote after all. No one can recognize a 'little character' like me."

Judging from Zhongli Mei's tone, he seemed dissatisfied with his current situation and the imperial court he once served.

Long Qie's expression remained unchanged, as if he had not heard anything at all, and he continued as usual, "The war in Lingnan is complicated and a mess. It's not a good place to be."

Zhongli Mei sighed, looking cynical and helpless, "I know, I don't want to get involved in the empire's mess, but after all, we have friendship, and... I also hope to contribute to ending the war in Lingnan."

"I don't want to discuss whether the court is right or wrong, but the war in Lingnan has already dragged down many people. It is better to end it as soon as possible."

"That's true." Long Qie nodded, and said with a smile, "I haven't seen you for a long time, Brother Zhongli is still so concerned about the country and the people."

Zhongli Mei waved his hand in a disinterested manner, and unconsciously touched his armor with his palm, "Brother Long Qie, you are too kind, but... I feel that I should live up to the martial arts I have learned."

"Brother Long Qie, what about you?" Zhong Limei took over the conversation and turned to Long Qie and asked, "Will you continue to accumulate strength?"

Long Qie smiled, nodded, and answered truthfully, "Of course."

"Our current strength is still too insignificant compared to the Empire."