The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 363 A Whole Nest Arrested

This day.

After Tian Jiu and the others had run out of the grassland 300 miles west of Weilumu, they were stopped by a messenger who came from Huozhou to report the news.

The generals exclaimed, "What's going on? Don't delay our journey!"

The messenger was panting heavily:
“General Tian, ​​you and General Gan took the wrong route! General Gan had asked foreign merchants to help transport the goods all the way, and he took the route through the Grand Canyon. But when he got there, the foreign merchants said they didn’t have the necessary permits and refused to go any further into the territory of Angmenbei Kingdom. So they unloaded the goods in the Grand Canyon.”

Nani?

Upon hearing this, Tian Jiu flew into a rage:
"Those damned foreign merchants dared to abandon their mission halfway through the journey! Is General Gan really going to manage guarding so much grain all by himself?"

The messenger wiped the sweat from his brow:
"With General Gan and Rat King guarding the area, it should be fine! General Gan also sent Da Jin's wife back to Hami City to report the news, and General Xiong ordered General Huozhou to send 10,000 troops to help in the Grand Canyon. If you turn around and speed ahead now, you should be able to catch up with them."

"Then what are we waiting for? Lead the way through the Grand Canyon!"

"Giddy up! Let's go!"

The generals all expressed their regret at not being able to greet General Gan's grain transport team immediately.

This sense of regret lasted until it reached the Grand Canyon, where it completely disappeared!
Far away.

They then saw a large herd of horses and camels in the passageway of the Grand Canyon.

Just a cursory glance.

Thousands!

Good heavens!
They say you can't catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger's den!

General Gan, she's gone and brought back the tiger's den.

Large livestock are one thing.

According to her, the pigeons wriggling inside those burlap sacks were live pigeons.

When did pigeons become so easy to catch?

This single grab yielded hundreds of bags!

The most breathtaking scene was when Tian Jiu and the others followed Gan Minglan into a cave in the middle of the Grand Canyon.

This is a rock cave that is about 25 meters high and more than 500 meters deep.

The reddish-brown rock layer was extremely hard.

At the open entrance of the cave, tens of thousands of filled leather bags blocked the way, serving as the door.

Gan Minglan pointed to the bags: "They are seeds! Grain seeds, vegetable seeds, bean seeds, and pasture seeds."

Everyone nodded vigorously: "Okay, okay, with these seeds, we won't have to worry about the task of cultivating land next year."

The tens of thousands of bags of seeds are already quite a sight from the outside.

Once inside the cave, you have to hold your chin with your hand.

The wheat piled up like a mountain of grain!
Tian Jiu and the others were initially very excited.

They kept digging on the grain mountain.

Then he started swearing again:

"Why didn't the foreign merchants carry bags when they bought so much grain at once?"

Gan Minglan: "."

I need to think carefully about how to code this bug.

Fortunately, she didn't have to come up with a solution yet.
The crowd's attention then shifted to other things:

"These foreign merchants are really incompetent! They're so careless! Although it's not easy to seal the seeds well in leather bags, with blizzards becoming more and more frequent, we don't want the seeds to freeze."

"General, how much gold and silver did you spend this time? How many bushels of grain are there?"

General Gan spread his hands:
"They used all the gold coins in the Kashgar Khanate's treasury! The grain, plus all the seeds, amounted to about 700,000 shi (a unit of dry measure)!"

"hiss"

First came a series of gasps of astonishment.

"Gudong."

Then came the sound of everyone swallowing hard.

Good heavens! How many gold coins does a country actually have in its treasury?

And it was all used to buy food!

The key question is, how were so many gold coins obtained?

Tian Jiu asked curiously, "Did you go on a killing spree in Shache, slaughtering the entire royal palace of the Hu people?"

Gan Minglan was speechless at his imagination:
"If you were to overturn the King's Palace, would I be able to escape? I only asked the Rat King to invite all the rats in Shache to help me with a small matter."

"What kind of help did you provide?"

"Isn't it said that rats are the best at digging holes? Let them dig their holes all the way into the vault! Then steal the gold coins one by one. The Hu people eat very well, and there are hundreds of thousands of rats in Shache City."

Everyone stared at the Rat King, who was fast asleep on the head of a white camel, with starry eyes.

They all wished they could be the Rat King's underlings.

I just want to ask Your Majesty, since I've acknowledged you as my elder brother, will I receive any gold coins as New Year's money?

There are no gold coins, of course.

Gan Minglan put it away and put it in her own storeroom.

I wonder how the Rat King was found.

Surprisingly, from that pile of rare treasures, they found five exquisitely crafted pure gold rats, each only the size of a palm.

The Rat King repeatedly told its owner that these were all its gifts.

The last time I gave a gift, I received a heartfelt thank you from the whole family.

They've even gotten addicted to giving gifts!

Gan Minglan felt a toothache upon hearing this.

Giving gifts to family members or something.

She wouldn't bother with that.

Anyway, all those rare treasures in the space are for the children.

Today, she is incredibly wealthy.

The grain and seeds must be purchased, and can only be purchased, with gold coins from the Hu people's treasury!

and so.

Her contributions during her trip to the Kashgar Khanate included figuring out the route to the Kashgar Khanate and witnessing the succession of the Hu people's throne.

What remains are over 700,000 shi of grain and seeds, more than 10,000 Hu horses, and more than 5,000 camels!
Tell me, is this a significant contribution?

General Xiong went out of the city to greet Gan Minglan, and his first words were:

"General's merit is immeasurable! He has saved all the soldiers and civilians of the Nine Guards of Guanzhong from dire straits!"

Gan Minglan humbly replied, "You're exaggerating. I was just lucky."

General Xiong took off his leather hat and pointed to his full head of white hair for Gan Minglan to see:

"It's no exaggeration, General. You don't know that before receiving the letter brought back by the Jin, I hadn't had a full night's sleep for half a month."

The total number of soldiers, military dependents, and immigrants in the Nine Guards was 500,000. The grain in Huozhou and the grain and livestock in the hands of other ethnic groups in Guanzhong that could be sold had been almost completely bought up.

Two weeks ago, the quartermaster told someone that no matter how carefully they budgeted, the grain and livestock wouldn't last past January. And some idiot even suggested slaughtering the cows after the sheep were gone!

Gan Minglan sighed, "Slaughtering cattle? There aren't that many cattle! We'll still need these tens of thousands of cattle for the farmland next spring."

Xiong Zhen laughed heartily:

"That's why we say that the grain and seeds the general brought back saved the people from their suffering. With these, it's enough to last until next autumn's harvest."

Actually, that's not the case.

Given people's current appetite, even if they eat to their heart's content, they could only last for three months at most.

Think about it, more than 90% of families probably can't do this.

I heard my mother-in-law, Madam Lu, mention it.

Those military dependents and their wives are all very good at managing their households.

A pound of flour is boiled with a few bowls of water to make noodle dumplings. Add some wild vegetables, mushrooms, or other ingredients to the noodle soup, sprinkle in a handful of salt, and that's enough to feed the whole family!
(End of this chapter)