The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 280 First Impressions of Guazhou

The refugees across from Jinzhou Pass all thought that the land of the Hu people was full of cattle and sheep.

But when the first group of military dependents arrived in Guazhou, they were all very anxious.

There's no other reason than that the area beyond the Great Wall is simply too desolate!

Zhao Ran was excited to take her good friend Fatty to see the scenery outside the pass.

After getting off the bus, the two of them opened their mouths.

Before she could even utter a sound, her little mouth was tightly shut.

Here, we literally live on air and sand all the time!

The kind of person who can help themselves simply by opening their mouth!
The bright white sun overhead seemed to belong to a completely different place than the border town.

My face hurts terribly from the sun.

The two communicated entirely through eye contact and gestures.

Turning his head, Fatty saw the commander of the Guazhou Guard who had received them; the commander's face was peeling.

The child raised his chubby paws and then lowered them.

I really want to help that uncle tear it.

Unaware that someone wanted to do it for him, the centurion was explaining to the most esteemed and respected woman in the ranks, Old Lady Xiong:
"More than a hundred years ago, the Seven Garrisons of Guanzhong were occupied by the Kashgar Khanate, and all the garrisons were burned down. After they attacked, the imperial court ordered the closure of Heping Pass and the relocation of people from the three counties of Guanzhong into the pass. In the years that followed, Dunhuang, Guazhou, and Yumen became desert areas without any administrative structure."

Five of the seven guard posts were in similar conditions to those in Guazhou, with only Hami Guard post, which was closest to the Hu people's territory, having the best conditions. It had once been the capital of the Hami Kingdom and also the fiefdom of a prince of the Kashgar Khanate; the general's headquarters west of Angmen Pass was located within the prince's residence.”

In his description, Hami City was similar to an ordinary prefecture in the Northwest, with a moat, city walls, shops, and some local people living in the city.

Overall, it is the number one city among the seven guards of Kansai!
However, the disadvantages are also obvious: it is too close to the territory of the Hu people!
Hear this.

The over seventy-year-old Mrs. Xiong shouted loudly, "Wherever Ang's son is, Ang will go! No matter where he is, he will protect his own mother!"

The centurion was from Yulin Guard and had never met the old lady before.

His ears were ringing after the old lady said those few words.

Madam Xiong was different from the previous wives of the Marquis of Ningyang.

Both she and Xiong's father came from ordinary military households in the border town.

Military households don't emphasize raising daughters who are well-educated, gentle, and soft-spoken.

When a husband's family chooses a daughter-in-law, they generally only look at a few key points.

Can I go out and farm the land?
Can I do laundry and cook at home?
And also, is there anyone with a good physique who can bear children?
The stronger a woman's physique, the more favored she is in the marriage market.

Old Mrs. Xiong, who was even taller and stronger than her father, was once the object of many suitors' desires.

However, her married life after marrying into her husband's family was not very smooth.

It's not that her mother-in-law and husband are difficult to take care of, but rather that she has had some difficulties with childbirth.

Back in the day, Madam Xiong gave birth to four daughters in a row, one pregnancy per year!
It wasn't until her fifth pregnancy that she finally gave birth to Xiong Zhen, a boy.

No wonder they were so sexist; the military households in the State of Bei were a hereditary conscription system.

If a military household has no son, the individual or their relatives must continue to serve in the military until a male descendant of the appropriate age takes their place.

It's easy to imagine how important Xiong Zhen's birth was to the entire family!
Madam Xiong's health was damaged during childbirth because of this nine-pound baby boy, and she was unable to have children again.

As the only son, the whole family naturally doted on him.

His parents and four older sisters always gave him all the best food, but he got to eat it all by himself.

After he grew into a young man, Xiong's father often took his only son to study with the centurions who had been on the battlefield.

Xiong truly is the hope of the whole family.

He ate a lot, grew strong, and learned all sorts of killer moves from the veteran soldiers.

He became famous among the boys in the border town when he was just a teenager.

He's famously good at fighting!

He was notoriously ruthless. This was when Zhao Muyun was still the heir of the Marquis's mansion.

Xiong Zhen rose from a lowly soldier to a fifth-rank guerrilla general.

During a battle against the Tatars, he unfortunately fell into their trap and was lured into an encirclement outside the Great Wall.

Just when he himself was seriously injured and on the verge of death, and the more than 1,000 cavalrymen he brought were about to be wiped out, it was the young master of the Marquis's mansion who came to his rescue with his personal guards.

From then on, he became the most steadfast supporter of the heir apparent of the Marquis of Ningyang.

I followed the right person.

He is a capable person himself.

After Zhao Muyun completely seized control of the military power in the border city, Xiong Zhen gradually rose to the position of the second-in-command in the border city.

Logically speaking, the second-in-command's mother should be considered a prominent figure in the border town.

Grandma Xiong hasn't been very out socializing in recent years.

I have no idea what's going on with the Xiong family's feng shui.

From the father of the bear onwards, it was a typical case of female dominance over male dominance.

The old lady had four daughters and one son.

Even her carefully chosen daughter-in-law, Wei, with her large buttocks, wide waist, and a body as thick as a water bucket, was useless!

She has been married into the Xiong family for over twenty years, and her health is so robust that she has hardly ever been sick.

But when it came to having a son, he had to work even harder than his mother-in-law.

She gave birth to two daughters in the first three years after she got married!
After that, there was no further movement!

When Xiong Zhen's official position was not prominent, the old lady had no other way but to make her daughter-in-law drink the folk remedy for having a son every day.

Later, Xiong Zhen rose to the rank of fifth-grade guerrilla general, and she began to arrange for her son to take a concubine.

Over the course of ten years, six wives were taken in!
These concubines, who seemed to be able to bear children, were just as useless!
After all these years of struggling, she's lost half her savings!
The results of it!
They only produced five money-losing offspring!

To this day, she has not seen a trace of her eldest grandson.

Over the years, Madam Xiong has never participated in the social gatherings of the wives of officials in the border town.

It's not that she doesn't want to hear others flatter and fawn over her.

She felt ashamed that her son had no descendants, making her feel inferior in front of the old ladies who had so many grandchildren.

Her son is truly filial.

If you tell him to get married, then he should get married.

Let him take a concubine, then he will.

Now they have all become the Grand Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of Guanzhong.

Madam Xiong was both proud and resentful.

Despite being over seventy years old, she left the border town with her family without the slightest reluctance.

What she was thinking was that maybe the feng shui of the border town was not good for her son's offspring, and that if she changed the environment, her great-grandson might come!
The centurion who received them earlier said that there is an ancient temple in Dunhuang not far away that has a history of more than a thousand years, and that many eminent monks have stayed there.

Historically, it was incredibly prosperous and its incense offerings were extremely abundant!

How could the already superstitious old lady not be confused when she heard these things?
She genuinely had a simple and sincere wish: to have a good chat with Buddha.

The rest of the military families who were going to Hamiwei could not leave the old lady behind and go ahead. The main force could only stay in Guazhou for one more day and follow the old lady to see the scenery of the thousand-year-old temple.

Who knew that this would delay things for a whole day.

When the family members arrived in Hami City, Xiong Zhen and the others were already in the desert, a hundred miles away.

Perfect miss!

(End of this chapter)