The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 566 General's White Hair
Wu Xiao led his men to drive away a group of wild dogs and wolves and came to the ruins.

"Brother, are you working in Tianxin City?"

This brother did not answer Hu Saner's question. His neck was tilted to one side, his face was pale, and beads of sweat the size of beans were slowly flowing down.

"Get out of the way." Wu Xiao pushed Hu San away and touched the man's neck with his fingers.

"He's almost dead. He's seriously injured." Wu Xiao nodded to his men and leaned over to ask, "Who hurt you like this? Tell me, and I'll get you justice. Is there no law in Da Qi?"

"Da Qi's henchmen were tortured into this state by Da Qi's henchmen."

Zhengfu's double-entendre answer made Wu Xiao feel very embarrassed.

Over the years, Wu Xiao, like his partner Lin Yu, has focused on eliminating any enemy that threatens the emperor. No matter if the enemy is an assassin preparing to assassinate the emperor or a criminal who betrayed Da Qi, as long as they appear in the sight of the imperial guards, they will be eliminated immediately.

In this sense, Wu Xiao and his men are the most powerful and loyal henchmen of Da Qi.

A flock of crows flew over the village, cawing like low-hanging dark clouds.

"Why are there so many crows, and the wild dogs we just saw?" Wu Xiao obviously preferred to understand the meaning of the Da Qi hawks and dogs in a narrow sense.

"Death, the more people die, the more these beasts there will be."

Whether it was because he was unconscious or for some other reason, the dying soldier was willing to understand Wu Xiao's meaning.

"Water, water,"

Hu Saner took the kettle off the belt reluctantly, and Wu Xiao snatched it away.

The clear water slowly flowed into the soldier's throat and flowed out along the wound under his neck.

Wu Xiao looked at the shocking wound on his neck and estimated that the wound had already festered. It must have been pierced by an arrow. Fortunately, this man was lucky and had survived until now.

After drinking a few sips of water, Zhengfu's face became rosier and he regained his normal complexion. Wu Xiao was used to seeing life and death, and knew that this was a last-ditch effort when a person was seriously injured and dying.

"The servants of the uncle of the emperor are good at archery. The arrows shot by the Koreans are very accurate."

Wu Xiao ignored the incoherent mumbling and continued pursuing.

“Why are they shooting arrows?”

"When the work couldn't be completed, people got impatient and some of the soldiers fled or died. Those who stayed had to do the work of several people."

At this point, everything is clear.

The four million taels of project funds allocated by the retired emperor to Junzhou, the mountains of food and supplies, and hundreds of thousands of cheap laborers were all gobbled up and squandered by this group of bastards. The unspent money was transferred to Southern Ming, Nanzhili, Suzhou, Hangzhou and other places, and exchanged for mansions and skinny horses for their continued enjoyment.

Seeing that the deadline was approaching and the day for the completion of Tianxin City was getting closer and closer, they were unable to complete the task, so they doubled down on exploiting the people and the laborers, hoping to prolong their lives, which led to the civil uprising.

"My uncle said that if we combine work and relief, we will be in a dilemma..."

When the soldier was dying, he was still muttering nouns that he did not understand.

Not only he didn't understand, Wu Xiao didn't understand either.

"Work and provide relief at the same time, and you will be stuck between the two." Wu Xiaojiang repeated it several times, tears gradually filling his eyes.

"How many people did Jin Dajiu kill?"

"I don't know. All the people in our village were killed."

The last ray of sunlight was about to fade away. The soldier stopped answering questions and raised his hand with difficulty towards his arms.

"What are you looking for?"

Hu Saner reached out and took out a dirty piece of cloth from his arms. He held it in his hand and looked at it for a while before he saw that it was a sachet used by a woman, which was extremely dirty.

The sachet was soaked with blood and sweat, clumped into black lumps that looked like human internal organs. Hu Saner felt it was bad luck and threw it aside.

Wu Xiao picked up the sachet. The owner of the sachet was on his deathbed, mumbling something that no one could understand.

"The guest asked where I came from. I was originally from Nanguadian, Xiangyang. I had some education, but in the first year of the Taichu era, I was captured and forced to do labor service. From then on, I was separated from Jin'er. Two years later, I was stationed in Xiangyang, guarding the city. The cold wind bit me. I served for a year, and then I was transferred to the Huai River to repair the canal... I died in my hometown, like fallen leaves returning to their roots. Poor Xiangyang Mi family, their family has been wiped out since then."

Wu Xiao listened to him in a daze. This soldier who claimed to be a descendant of Mi Fu tilted his head and died at the end of his speech.

The surroundings suddenly became deathly silent.

Wu Xiao has witnessed countless life and death situations, and has long lost the youthful sentimentality and heroic spirit.

However, after hearing the tragic story of this dead man, he suddenly felt something strange in his heart.

"If you knew the people's lives were like this, why did you follow the emperor in rebellion?"

Wu Xiao asked in a voice that only he could hear, but no one knew who he was asking.

All the men were in a panic, and no one answered this question that they knew the answer to.

For a moment, there was a deep suspicion of the Qi Dynasty's Land System, totalitarianism, "concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks", and everything about the Great Qi.

Fortunately, this suspicion only lasted for a moment, and after a moment, the empire's most loyal minions returned to their cruel nature.

There are too many poor people in the world. Besides, these are all caused by that bastard Jin Dajiu.

"Bury it and go find Qin Jianxun and the others."

Wu Xiao put away the sachet and waited until he came back this time to go to Xiangyang City and ask if there was a girl named Jin'er and tell her what happened today.

Wu Xiao was full of curiosity about the girl named Jin'er. What he was even more curious about was how many ordinary people in Junzhou had been forced to lose their families under the cruel corvee labor of Jin Dajiu and others.

Without saying a word, the three men took the engineering shovels from their horses and chose a secluded location with good feng shui to bury the soldier.

It was getting late, so the three of them continued on their journey.

The road to Tianxin City is destined to be bumpy.

Wu Xiao rode for two miles when the horse suddenly got frightened and almost threw him off.

More and more bodies of starving people appeared in the middle of the road. Many of the bodies had their clothes snatched away, revealing their dark faces and emaciated bodies underneath.

The corvée labor implemented by the king's uncle was pure free labor. Not only were people not paid, but they also had to provide their own food, clothes, hoes, and axes.

The empire's exploitation of the people in the interior of the country had reached an outrageous level. Although all taxes on the people were abolished under the Qi Dynasty's land system, the corvee labor borne by ordinary people was even heavier than that in the late Ming Dynasty.

The empire had to rely on these complicated corvee labors to support the endless wars in the east, west, south, north, and border areas.

In the end, all the pressure was transferred to ordinary people.

The farmers were forced to abandon their wives and children, and take the meager food given to them by the farmers' association, to build roads and bridges for the army in a foreign land, build military camps, build docking areas for hot air balloons, and build ports needed by the Da Qi fleet.

In the end, ten thousand people risked their lives, but only one person ascended to heaven. How could the soldiers not feel resentful?

The corvée labor of the Great Qi Dynasty set a record, a most heaviest record.

Chen Sheng and Wu Guang at the end of the Qin Dynasty and the Red Turban Army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty suffered no more oppression than this.

Today's Great Qi appears to be a rich and powerful country, but in fact it is weak inside. In Huguang, Shandong, and every place where people are oppressed and forced to perform corvee labor, there are thousands of dissatisfied young men gathered there.

Their anger turned this chariot into a giant ship sailing in flaming gasoline, which could be burned to ashes at any time.

(End of this chapter)