Start with a red name

After learning this information, Chen Zhan and others could easily come to this conclusion.

These "savages" living in the "ochre-red eyes" were not native savages, but people from Yuanzhou who moved in after the death of Emperor Yuan to avoid the war.

If you know more about the history of the more than 500 years since the death of Emperor Yuan, you will know that this phenomenon is not an isolated case.

For more than five hundred years, the people of Yuanzhou have come up with countless ways to avoid the war.

In addition to digging holes underground and creating a "super project" that covers the entire underground of Yuanzhou.

Hiding in the deep mountains and forests where few people go is also the choice of many people.

Isolated from the world, living in seclusion.

Work at sunrise, live in and rest.

Drill a well and drink, and plow and eat.

Ignore the turmoil and conflicts in the outside world and just focus on managing your own life.

It’s a pity that this beautiful picture only exists in our imagination.

Everyone underestimated how weak an individual's power would become when separated from the "group".

Ironware, handy farm tools, warm silk fabrics, pottery, medicine...

All the items that were originally thought to be common and could be obtained by spending money will become luxury goods and may even be impossible to reproduce.

Many seemingly ordinary items are necessities for human survival.

I have underestimated the horror of heaven, earth and the forces of nature.

Leaving the land that has been opened up and managed by generations over hundreds and thousands of years, and going to a wild place, starting from scratch.

The hardships involved cannot be fully understood through imagination unless one experiences them personally.

Even if all these problems are overcome and solved, there is still a greater difficulty lying ahead.

That is reproduction itself.

Even if we put aside the ethical issues, it is difficult for a community to continue stably if the base is insufficient.

The problems arising from insufficient population base are far more than these.

Social divisions of labor will gradually blur and then disappear.

In other words, craftsmen who specialize in a certain industry will disappear, from construction, to weaving, to tailoring, to charcoal burning and pottery making...

The direct consequence of this is the overall regression of human material life.

In a fixed and small environment and with a fixed group of people, communication between people will gradually decrease, leading to the deterioration of language ability.

People cannot imagine the world beyond their cognition.

Limited by the narrow world, human cognitive ability will also degenerate, the depth of thinking will also degenerate, and the wisdom that humans are proud of, which is different from other creatures, will also degenerate...

When all this happens, people naturally gradually turn into savages or even beasts.

Therefore, those people who chose to hide in the mountains and forests and avoid the world because of the war.

Either they disappear silently in the long river of history, or they return after a period of seclusion and cultivation.

Among them, the smartest approach is to manage the secluded place while actively opening a window for interaction with the outside world, ensuring that there is always a steady flow of "living water" and it does not become stagnant water.

Develop yourself into a secret force.

But this requires a prerequisite, that is, having enough power to protect it all.

The "wild people" of the "Ochre-Eyed" Basin have been able to survive to this day only because it is large enough and the number of the first batch of immigrants is large enough.

Although there has been deterioration in all aspects, the speed of deterioration is not that fast, and it has persisted until now.

……

Chen Zhan and others naturally did not think so much about it until they discovered that these "savages" were the people of Yuanzhou who moved in after Emperor Yuan and Overlord Wang.

Then think of the "super project" built throughout the underground of Yuanzhou, which was also built to escape the war.

It is natural to think that these people were able to move into the heart of Chiwu Mountain, where the mountains are high and the roads are difficult to access, because there must be either a convenient natural road or a tunnel connecting to the outside world.

When these situations were presented to Dong Guan, he was excited.

Because if this road is counted, plus the "Ochre-Red Eye" basin which runs more than 200 miles from east to west.

The Chiwu Mountains, the "natural barrier" that stretches between Yuanzhou and Haozhou, has actually been opened for more than half!
Dong Guan, who had been planning to "go all out in his later years", made a decision immediately.

【Control the "Ochre-Eye" basin. 】

[Find the road leading to the "Ochre-Eye" basin, so that ordinary people can move in smoothly. 】

【Continue to expand westward.】

It was only after all these had achieved some phased results that Dong Guan arranged for "Giant Bear" to lead 500 elite cavalrymen south to ensure the safety of the large quantities of food and medicine purchased from various forces in Yuanzhou. This was just the superficial reason.

The most important reason is to bring this crucial, strategically important location under the control of his own forces.

——Dong Guan himself was very clear about the "loyalty" of the special envoys and would not give them the opportunity to be "caught in a dilemma".

This is also the reason why "Giant Bear" led 300 cavalrymen south to Qingyuanji to target "Su Ruiliang".

Other reasons are fine, but "Su Ruiliang" is also involved in "The Earthly Chapter".

The "Earthly Chapter" is directly related to the strategic-level task assigned by Dong Guan, so of course we need to be extremely careful and eliminate any hidden dangers as much as possible!

But neither the "giant bear" who was leading the crowd south with great momentum, nor Chen Zhan who was guarding the outpost camp had expected that "Su Ruiliang" would be such a hard nut to crack.

Not only were the 300 cavalrymen led by "Giant Bear" annihilated, but even the "Zhehongyan" basin, which was personally designated as a "strategic location" by Dong Guan, fell into the hands of "Su Ruiliang".

Leaving the settlement in the center of the basin, he followed closely behind "Su Ruiliang" and galloped on his horse. The night wind was biting. Chen Zhan reviewed the whole situation in his mind and felt extremely bitter.

"How did the situation suddenly deteriorate to this point?!"

Originally, as long as he carried out the task honestly, it would only take a dozen days at most for the great credit to be firmly placed on his head.

Now, not only have all his achievements gone down the drain, but a huge sin has fallen from the sky, which is so arrogant and overbearing that it is pinned on his head, and he has no choice but to accept it!

Chen Zhan didn't even dare to think about the future situation.

In order to reduce the burden on his mind, he took the initiative to distance himself from reality.

The whole person is like sleepwalking, and everything happening in the reality outside of the body begins to become distorted, dreamy and unreal.

When the weapons collided and the sound of swords entering flesh rang out again, Chen Zhan, who was in a trance, finally woke up a little and looked around in a daze.

Then he saw a fierce battle taking place not far in front of him.

Some win, some lose, some get hurt, some die.

One side is preparing for an attack and has more people than the other.

One side was caught off guard and had few people and little strength.

It was called a battle, but in fact it was a one-sided massacre.

Many people died before they had the chance to put on their armor and ride their Xuanyou horses.

What hurt Chen Zhan was that someone was still staring at him at the moment he fell to the ground and died.

Do not look down.

Gnashing of teeth.

Obviously, they regarded him as a traitor.
Faced with these "slander", Chen Zhan wanted to speak up to defend himself.

No, not me!

I am a victim too!
But in front of these dead and dying people, all these excuses disappeared completely the moment before they came out of his mouth.

Finally, he looked away and looked into the distance.

This is already the westernmost side of the "Ochre-Red Eye" basin.

The ochre-red mountain range, which is more than two hundred miles long from east to west, began to converge, just like two large hands that were originally open, crossed and clasped together.

Just ahead, where the two mountains in the north and south are tightly connected, on the westernmost side of the basin below, there is a dark tunnel that leads deep into the mountain, with no end in sight.

For practitioners who already have considerable strength, the greatest value of "The Earth-Walking Chapter" is not that it makes digging less labor-intensive and more efficient, but its unique spatial perception ability.

The former can be achieved with more manpower and more extreme exploitation of each individual.

But if the latter is lacking, it cannot be accomplished simply by having more people.

The simplest truth is that the working surface of a tunnel is very small.

Even because of different needs, the tunnel being excavated now is much larger than those underground tunnels in Yuanzhou.

However, the number of "diggers" it can accommodate at the same time is limited.

Even if multiple teams take turns working to ensure that the work face continues to move forward, the advancement speed of a single work face has its limit.

In this case, there is only one way to take advantage of the "number of people", and that is to divide a tunnel into sections and deploy several or even dozens of working faces at the same time.

The tunnels are dug towards each other and eventually connected together to form a complete tunnel.

But this brings up two problems.

The first is to ensure that these tunnels will eventually be perfectly connected together. In the absence of measurement methods, the precise spatial perception ability included in the "Earth-Walking Chapter" is indispensable.

Without the assistance of this capability, the two tunnels dug in opposite directions would most likely not connect perfectly, but would miss each other perfectly.

Similarly, without the assistance of this ability, it is also worth discussing whether this tunnel could always go west and lead to Haozhou, instead of getting "dizzy" in Chiwu Mountain and finally not knowing where it is going.

——If you ask a person to walk in a straight line with his eyes closed, he will go crooked or even go in circles after just a few miles. It is conceivable that the sense of direction of ordinary people is unreliable without any reference.

The second problem arises from the segmentation itself.

Because tunnels also need to be dug to insert the working face itself from each breakpoint.

If the main tunnel is deep in the mountain, the additional excavation workload will increase.

On the contrary, if the main tunnel direction can make full use of the existing mountains and terrain, the route will move outward when passing through this area, or it may simply be a canyon.

Then the workload of additional excavation will be very small or even non-existent, and the efficiency of excavating and discarding soil can be increased.

In order to reduce the overall excavation workload and to increase the number of excavation surfaces that can be operated simultaneously, a long tunnel cannot be a straight line, but rather a winding route.

This involves the overall route design, rather than just burying your head and digging in a certain direction, without the precise spatial perception ability that comes with the "Earth Walking Chapter".

To accomplish all this is beyond imagination.

Due to the lack of a strong core support, Chen Zhan's thoughts can easily waver.

When he saw the newly dug tunnel, many messy thoughts came to his mind.

Of course, the main reason was that he let it go. Because of his confusion and even fear about the future, he was willing to let his brain be filled with these messy thoughts.

Just as Chen Zhan was actively immersed in this strange state of mind that was both vague and confused, he suddenly felt something strange beside him.

Turning his head, he saw "Su Ruiliang" standing beside him.

"Is this...the end?" Chen Zhan asked.

"Well, it's over." "Su Ruiliang" nodded slightly.

Chen Zhan glanced at the battlefield and saw corpses lying on the ground.

"Why...why are they all dead? There is no one who surrendered?"

This discovery made Chen Zhan subconsciously feel somewhat uncomfortable. If it were a different time, he would have actively suppressed this thought.

But at this moment, he asked without any scruples, and even the vague discomfort in his heart was not deliberately concealed, and was conveyed through the tone of the question.

"Su Ruiliang" seemed to understand his subtle thoughts and comforted him:
“According to my observation, there are quite a few people who want to surrender.

But their numbers are too small, and we have too many people, and everyone is too eager to kill the enemy and gain merit.

By the time they reacted, understood the current situation, and wanted to surrender, the time had passed and most of them were dead. "

One side has too few people.

One side killed too quickly.

When the smaller party reacted and wanted to surrender, they were shocked to find that "I" was already dead.

Then there is naturally no need to surrender.

Chen Zhan twitched his lips, indicating that he was comforted, and asked: "Then... do you have any other questions?"

He knew that if this "Su Ruiliang" was okay, there was no way he would appear beside him at this time.

It's impossible that she really saw that he was in a bad state and came over to comfort him, right?

He felt that he didn't have the nerve to be that big yet.

"There are a total of 200 guards in this basin, right?"

"Yes." Chen Zhan was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

"There are ten people outside the east exit, forty people guarding the warehouse in the central settlement, sixty people here, where are the remaining ninety people?"

Chen Zhan thought for a moment and asked, "Have you looked inside this tunnel?"

“I personally made the trip and ran all the way to the end. Although there were many people digging the earth, only four of them were directly affiliated with the enemy cavalry.

The sixty people I counted already include these four people." "Su Ruiliang" said to Chen Zhan very carefully.

Chen Zhan thought for a moment and said:
"If that's the case, the remaining ninety people should be scattered among the other dozen or so tunnel excavation sites."

As he spoke, Chen Zhan briefly explained the characteristics of simultaneous operations in multiple sections during tunnel excavation.

Geng Xuan understood and asked, "Do you know the exact locations of these tunnel excavation sites?"

Chen Zhan shook his head and said, "I only know that the general direction is towards Haozhou west of Chiwu Mountain. This will not change, but I don't know the specific route of this tunnel."

As he spoke, he looked embarrassed for a moment and said that the excavation of this tunnel had always been the responsibility of Dong Guan's direct forces sent from Xuan and You states.

Although those who have been working in Yuanzhou for a long time are treated with leniency, their trust is far less than that in their direct line of strength.

The attitude towards them has always been "use and prevent".

Knowing this, he will not take the initiative to learn about things that are not revealed to him.

For example, no one told him the specific route of the tunnel, so he didn't ask.

All we know is that the overall progress is extremely fast, and it will only take a dozen days for all the segmented tunnels to be connected.

When Chen Zhan was saying that Dong Guan "used and guarded against" them and never treated them as his own people, he was obviously a little emotional.

Geng Xuan really wanted to say that you have proved with your actual performance that Dong Guan’s approach is correct.

He originally wanted to let Chen Zhan lead the way, but after listening to his explanation, Geng Xuan gave up the idea.

Looking around at the steep rock walls on both sides of the tunnel, the subtle traces that ordinary people could hardly find became clearer in his eyes.

Gradually, some traces of turning steps, stopping feet, and taking advantage of the situation to climb began to become clear in Geng Xuan's eyes.

These traces extend up the mountain and toward the west.

After making these discoveries, Geng Xuan said to Xu Peng: "I'll leave this place to you for now. I'll go check it out."

"Yes... are you going alone?" Xu Peng responded first, and then asked in confusion.

"I can go alone. It's faster to go back and forth."

As he spoke, Geng Xuan had already dismounted from the Xuanyou horse, removed all the armor on his body, did some chest expansion exercises, and did a few high leg raises on the spot.

The next moment, Xu Peng felt a flash before his eyes, and the "Su Ruiliang" who was in front of him the moment before had disappeared.

He turned his head suddenly and saw that "Su Ruiliang" had already stuck to a nearly straight rock wall on one side, swimming nimbly and swiftly.

Soon, it completely disappeared from his sight.

Geng Xuan was as light as a civet cat, and he walked on the steep and rugged rocks as if they were flat ground.

Following the footsteps of people, we quickly crossed this ochre-red mountain.

After crossing a pass on the ridge, the rock goes almost straight down again.

With such a steep mountain, not to mention ordinary people, even ordinary practitioners have to be very careful when crossing it, for fear of falling off the cliff with a single mistake.

This is the case when you are empty-handed. If you carry supplies, forget it.

There are not just one or two such mountains in Chiwu Mountain, but countless of them.

For Geng Xuan, these are not a problem.

Before he even reached the foot of the mountain, with his keen eyesight he had already seen that in one of the areas at the foot of the mountain there were a lot of traces of fresh gravel.

He searched left and right along the rubble and soon saw the outline of another tunnel entrance.

Then, near the entrance of the tunnel, we found a simple dwelling made of stone and wood.

When Geng Xuan approached the residence quietly, he heard snoring like thunder before he got close.

When I got closer and took a closer look, I saw that the residence was just a long bunk bed with forty or fifty people lying on it.

They were all covered in dust and their clothes were torn. Many of them had blood visibly dripping from their fingers.

Even standing outside the house, you can smell the extremely strong odor.

It was the disgusting smell formed by the sweat, foot odor, and other various human body odors of dozens of people, which had been "brewed" in a narrow space for a long time.

For a moment, Geng Xuan almost suspected that he had returned to the illegal construction site in his previous life.

But he knew very well that all this was just his illusion.

Apart from anything else, being able to practice the "Earth Walking Technique" and use it to dig tunnels with bare hands inside a solid mountain is not something that ordinary people can do.

According to Zha Luo, some of these people were special envoys like Chen Zhan, who were recruited from all over Yuanzhou, or to be more precise, they were unlucky people who were "cheated and deceived".

Some of them also came from internal recommendations from special envoys such as Chen Zhan. Although the work was hard, they could take the opportunity to learn a ninth-rate secret technique. For practitioners, this temptation was great enough.

Moreover, since they are all family members, there is no need to worry about being abandoned after the task is accomplished, and there is basic security guarantee.

In addition, they are Dong Guan’s true descendants and the target of Geng Xuan’s trip.

They are supervisors, maintaining the basic order here to prevent anyone from escaping or disobeying orders and acting recklessly.

He is also the technical leader of tunnel excavation. He is not the kind of supervisor who urges others to work, but sits aside with a whip, making a pot of hot tea and preparing some wine and snacks.

"Boom——"

Just then, a voice came from the distant tunnel exit.

Geng Xuan turned his head and saw several people pushing carts full of gravel out of the cave.

The gravel was dumped at the edge of the exit one truck after another, and the canyon between the adjacent tunnels of the two mountains was gradually filled up by these trucks of gravel.

"Come on, if we can get another twenty cars, our mission will be completed. Then we can have a good rest and let the next team take over."

"...Team Leader, the tunnel is almost through, right?"

"If we keep up our current pace, it won't take more than a month."

Seeing that liberation was imminent, we should have cheered.

But no one cheered, instead someone said in a worried tone:

"Team leader, we really won't be abandoned after we've done our job? ... Will you really let us leave with a 'ground-walking technique'?"

"Don't worry, I'm a man of my word. If I say I'll keep you safe, I'll keep you safe!"

"We believe in your character, but in this matter, your words will not work at all!"

"I know what you are worried about, but I am not kidding you.

However, don't keep talking about leaving with the 'Earth Walking Technique'.

Don't leave. Come back to Youzhou with us when the time comes and make it clear that you are determined to follow General Dong until death.

Believe me, with his keen insight, not to mention punishing you, it is possible for him to set up a separate 'ground army' for you.

Your abilities, at special times, are more terrifying than the same number of Xuanyou Iron Cavalry..."

These people chatted while pushing the empty carts back into the tunnel.

From the conversations of these people, Geng Xuan could easily identify their identities.

Looking at his slowly raised hand, Geng Xuan hesitated.

Originally, he had already planned that after finding these enemy cavalry members, who were Dong Guan's direct subordinates, he would not need to think too much and could just kill them directly.

But now, Geng Xuan found that he couldn't continue clapping with his hands.

No matter what their previous identities were, no matter what their original intention was in doing this, what they are doing now is a great plus in Geng Xuan's eyes.

To Geng Xuan, their identities were almost like a golden ticket of immunity from death.

Worker.

When the cultivator no longer used his powerful strength to kill people but used it to transform the world, Geng Xuan no longer had any reason to kill him.

Even if the red name above the other person's head is still bright. (End of this chapter)