The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 425 Choice
Within three days, the latest news came from the front lines.

"Your Majesty, our army finally captured all the Bo people in Xuzhou at the cost of 1,691 dead and 4,600 wounded! After registering the population, it was found that the current population of the tribe is nearly 50,000."

Of the 50,000 people, not including the 5,000 warriors captured by General Gan, and the 8,000 underage boys aged eight to thirteen.

After hearing the comparison of casualties on both sides, Emperor Qianwu was in an exceptionally good mood and repeatedly praised the report.

The atmosphere inside the camp was lively.

The generals expressed their opinions one by one:
"In other words, the Bo people in Xuzhou, Sichuan, numbered nearly 130,000 before Angmen's conquest! They were indeed a formidable force; no wonder their warriors could roam freely among the local Han Chinese!"

"Hehe, no matter how tough or brave they are, they're doomed when they encounter the Guanzhong army with General Gan and Rat King in charge."

"All the adult men have been killed, and General Gan has also captured all the boys! It will take at least another ten years for the Bo people to regain their previous fighting strength."

"No, no, no, it won't take ten years at all! The Bo people's mountain village no longer has men to carry on the family line and boys who are about to come of age. How will the women support their families? And what about the young women over ten years old? They can't wait until all the boys under eight in the village come of age before they can get married, can they?"

The male-to-female ratio and the age ratio are clearly imbalanced!

What the generals didn't know was that the problem was far more complex than they thought.

It took Gan Minglan two days to inspect half of the post-war mountain strongholds.

When the women who had been hiding at home to avoid the war were brought out to register their household registration, she discovered a shocking situation.

Almost everyone under the age of thirty-five had injuries.

Head, face, and feet.

The exposed skin was covered in wounds.

Most women had a numb expression on their faces.

The unmarried young women were uneasy, their eyes filled with fear.

At first, Gan Minglan thought that the Guanxi Army had done something to these women on the battlefield.

They immediately summoned the centurions who led the teams to answer.

The centurion cried out that he was wronged:
"General, it wasn't us. Even if we've never seen a woman before, we couldn't bring ourselves to do it!"

There are many beautiful women in Kansai, especially Orangutans.

They had all eaten coarse chaff!
These Bo women were dark-skinned and thin, with disheveled hair and filthy faces.

Furthermore, military regulations explicitly state that committing adultery is a serious crime and will result in the loss of military status.

In the Kansai region, military service is the highest social class.

Gan Minglan: "If it wasn't you, do they also have a habit of self-harm?"

"General, you don't know this, but Bo men love to drink and are very combative. They fight after drinking, and if they lose a fight outside, they will beat their wives when they get home! Those old men in their fifties say that if a woman doesn't have some injuries, her husband can't hold his head up in public!"

Gan Minglan: "."

She was seriously considering the consequences of killing all the men of the Bo ethnic group.

In the years since she transmigrated, except during her exile, she has lived in the Northwest.

She had long been accustomed to the fierce and tough local customs of the border region.

In Northwest China, it's common for women to beat their husbands and children.

If we could turn back time to three years ago...

When a boy from a military household comes of age, his parents want to find him a wife, and they have to save up for several years for the dowry.

You let them suffer outside, and then they come home and beat their wives?
Whether or not they will be countered is another matter.

If I accidentally hurt her, I'll have to spend money to treat her illness.

The answer is always the same: We're too poor to fight!

Furthermore, getting past the father-in-law and brother-in-law is also a difficult hurdle.

If she were unlucky enough to end up working under her father-in-law's family, she'd never be able to hold her head high at home for the rest of her life. She forgot.

The situation is different inside the pass.

Especially this kind of primitive tribe that has preserved its folk customs for nearly two thousand years.

Their culture was completely unaffected by the Han Chinese.

Hitting women has become a custom to prove one's masculinity!
The tribal chief, who had learned about the long-term domestic violence suffered by these Bo women, continued to explain:

"Not only would they be beaten by the men in charge, but before they got married, their fathers and brothers would also take their anger out on them if they were in a bad mood."

The marriage customs here don't involve the traditional betrothal and marriage rituals! If an unmarried woman is desired by a man from another village, he can go to her door empty-handed to ask for her hand in marriage. The man and the woman's father will negotiate a suitable price, and the marriage can be arranged within ten days to half a month.

In the eyes of Bo men, raising a daughter is considered a worthwhile investment as long as she can bring in two pigs for the family. A grown man, if he has the means, can marry countless women.

Once you marry her, she'll be part of their family in life and in death.

Their greatest value is in producing offspring for them, including sons.

On average, each Bo woman will give birth to ten children in her lifetime, and she will continue to give birth until she can no longer give birth!
Besides constantly giving birth, they also have to cook and make clothes for the men. Only after becoming mothers-in-law can they have daughters-in-law help share the housework.

Once their husbands die, women under the age of thirty who refuse to be buried alive with their husbands can only have their inheritance passed on to their husband's brothers if they wish to live.

Property is generally inherited!

The more Gan Minglan listened, the angrier she became.

She had the head of a prominent Bashu family act as her translator to question the Bo ethnic woman.

"Are you willing to remarry? The female general will act as your matchmaker, find you good families, ensure you have enough to eat and wear, and protect you from being beaten by men!"

Remarrying a Han Chinese?

The Bo women shook their heads like rattles.

What good could the Han people possibly be?
They either don't take action or they don't act.

With a single move, they could wipe out an entire clan.

No matter how irritable a Bo man is, he is rarely beaten to death if the woman is docile enough.

Compared to being injured, the uncertainty of life and death is more terrifying.

The heads of the Sichuan and Chongqing gentry listened to the women's blunt words and repeatedly explained that the war was over and the officials would no longer kill.

Unfortunately, he was assigned to the opposing camp.

The more he explained, the more vehemently the other party objected.

"General, they don't know what's good for them."

"Then ask them, without a man to lead the household, can they support themselves and their children if they stay on the mountain?"

What can it feed?

The women's lives after marriage were basically confined to a radius of ten miles around the mountains.

They were all inherited as property.

Naturally, they depend on their families and men.

I can't go on living!

You can't survive on your own.

Seeing this, Gan Minglan offered only one last suggestion:
“We previously captured five thousand adult male prisoners. These are all slaves who will be taken to Kansai to mine and do hard labor. If you do not want to remarry and cannot support yourselves, you can exchange them with your men. Five women under the age of thirty-five, or children under the age of eight, can be exchanged for one adult male prisoner.”

She wanted to see how these women and tribal chiefs would choose.

(End of this chapter)