The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

"The thing I regret most in the past few years is that in the evening of the day when I finished my corvée service in the 21st year of my reign, I did not stay with Ji Ying, Xiao Tao, and Dongmen Bao to wait for the county lieutenant..."

In mid-August, in a farmland next to the township of Yushui Township, Shi Wuzhi, wearing a coarse linen brown coat, stepped barefoot in the golden rice field, looked up at the wild geese flying south, his face full of regret.

Back then, Hei Fu was the squad leader when they were doing corvée service. They trained together, built walls together, and earned money together, so they had some friendship.

However, on the evening of the day when his service ended, because Heifu was called by the then county right lieutenant Yunman, Zhui was anxious to go home, so he took his cousin Mu to go first...

Until now, seeing that Ji Ying and Xiao Tao, who were like them in the past, have been given titles and are serving as officials in the county, and Dongmen Bao is commanding 500 people, he realized what he had missed!

If he had stayed and went to Huyang Pavilion with Heifu, and went to Wei and Chu together, he would be at least a fighting official now, even if he could not command a whole village like Dongmen Bao, right?

As he spoke, Zhu sighed again, looked at Mu who was waving a sickle quickly in the field to cut rice, and said unhappily: "Cousin, don't you regret it?"

Mu, who was tall but dull by nature, looked up blankly, wiped his sweat, and smiled honestly: "No regrets, now I have been conscripted for military service, the county lieutenant saw me when he was patrolling the camp, and he actually remembered the past. He talked to me for a long time, and finally asked me to be his flag bearer, with the same treatment as the short-armed guards. I can eat one more bowl of rice per meal than the average soldier, and there are onions, leeks and fish soup to go with the rice!"

"Eat, you only know how to eat!"

After Mu said this, Zhu became even more angry. Now it seems that his cousin has at least boarded the county lieutenant's big ship, but he is short and has not been conscripted. It seems that he will miss this opportunity to get promoted and make a fortune!

He threw away his sickle in frustration and sat on the ridge of the field, sulking: "When you come back, at least you will be a public official... No, that's too good! I am still a poor country soldier!"

Honest Mu didn't know what to say, so he could only keep his head down and speed up the rice harvest. Originally, they had no chance to go home, but thanks to the kindness of the county lieutenant, they were allowed to return to the village under the leadership of the village chief and the platoon chief to help their families with the autumn harvest and say goodbye to them. Now it is August 14th, and they have to go back to gather in four days.

His arms were strong and powerful, and he could carry the banner of the county lieutenant. He was not careless when doing farm work. He quickly harvested an acre of rice. After carrying it to the ridge and putting it away, he said in surprise: "The rice is growing really well this year!"

"Of course."

The sullen Zhu finally answered: "The field assistant official had promoted the method of composting and fermenting fertilizer as early as the summer, and it was still used in public fields. But many families in the village still use the old method and dare not try it. When I heard that it was the method offered by the county lieutenant's family, I felt that it must be reliable, so I let my family use it in these ten acres of rice fields. This year, at least three or five more buckets of millet will be harvested per acre of rice fields!"

Mu went to the township pavilion to apply for training at the end of June, so he didn't know much about it. When he heard it, he also told Zhu about the "public toilet" he saw in the county town.

"When I was holding the flag on the city wall that day, I heard the county lieutenant and the county magistrate discuss that when the autumn harvest comes, in addition to the county town, a public toilet will be built in the towns of the three townships to collect manure..."

The three towns together have five or six thousand people. In a year, the manure available in the public toilets is also considerable, so the county magistrate Yong He only needs to wait for the county's approval to continue to promote the "public toilet to the countryside" campaign.

This sentence woke up Zhui, and he slapped his thigh and stood up immediately.

"Yes! My brother, the public toilets are under the management of the field assistants and cleaned by the prisoners. There must be a clerk to watch over them, right? The people with titles in the village will definitely not want to do this dirty job. Why don't I apply for it? As long as it is initiated by the county lieutenant, it will never be bad! Maybe I can get a chance to make merit and get a title!"

...

At the same time, in Chaoyangli, Huyang Pavilion, Gongshi Quji also harvested the millet from his dry land.

His wife, wearing a linen skirt, carried her one-and-a-half-year-old child in a backpack, and carried a pottery jar to deliver food to her husband and the people from the same village who came to help...

When Quji picked up the pottery jar to drink water, his wife said softly: "Fortunately, the county lieutenant showed mercy and let my beloved come back, otherwise I don't know what to do with these hundred acres of land by myself..."

"Yes."

Quji was full of emotion: "I haven't repaid the previous favor yet, and now I owe the county lieutenant another favor... No, two favors!"

The year before last, he discovered that the internal guards and the thieves outside had robbed the tomb together. Because I was afraid of retaliation, I sent the matter to the postman Ji Ying's backpack through an anonymous letter. I thought it was flawless, but I was caught by Heifu, the head of Huyang Pavilion at that time. The case was finally solved, and the internal guards and tomb robbers were all captured, but according to the law, Quji also committed the crime of writing letters and had to pay a fine of 4,000 coins.

At that time, their family had just finished a funeral, and his wife was pregnant. They could not afford so much money, so they could only use labor instead. However, Heifu directly "lent" him 4,000 yuan and burned the bonds on the spot...

With Heifu's help, Quji was able to use the family's money to hire a doctor for treatment, and successfully waited for his wife to give birth to a fat boy.

Looking at his wife and children, Quji was satisfied, but his only worry was that he had never had the chance to repay the favor. Although Heifu was promoted higher and higher, he didn't care.

This time, it was Quji's turn to serve. After arriving at the military camp with trepidation, the county lieutenant found him while patrolling the camp. After chatting with him, he saw that he had no martial arts and was reluctant to shoot a bow. After thinking about it, he asked him to be a scribe beside him...

"I remember that the handwriting on your letter was pretty good."

The county lieutenant said it easily, but Quji felt as if he had been pardoned. He regarded this as the county lieutenant's care, which was the second favor.

In addition, this time the soldiers were allowed to go home for the autumn harvest, which was the third favor.

"How should I repay it..."

Quji was very distressed, and at the same time he was also worried that after he left, it would probably take a year or so for him to return. How would his wife and a child live? Although as a public official, Tian Dian would assign a servant to help take care of the fields, but the work of pounding rice had to be done by his wife herself.

While coaxing the child, his wife comforted him, saying, "With a treadle, it won't be too hard."

"Besides, last month, Tian Dian went to the village and came back with a few craftsmen. He set up a water pounding room in the village, saying that the villagers could bring rice to pound it and pay one-fifth of the rice. This is also an instrument made by the county lieutenant. If you really can't step on the treadle, I can also go there to pound rice!"

...

The days are getting closer and closer, and the couple are about to part, both reluctant to leave. On the last day, when they woke up in a daze, the woman said cockcrow and the man said dawn. But no matter what time it is, they have to get up. The king's affairs are busy and there is no time to get up. As ordinary people, once they are called up, they have no choice.

In front of the yellow pear tree at Gongshi Quji's house, his wife stuffed a pair of newly made shoes into his already bulging bag. Her eyes were red and she gritted her teeth and said, "If my dear does not obey the military law, then we will both be sentenced to death!"

This was the customary instruction for Qin to send relatives to join the army. Quji smiled helplessly and stuffed a grasshopper he had woven yesterday into his son's pink little hand...

"Wait for me to come back!"

At the same time, in the town of Yushui, the door of Shi Wumu's house was also opened, and the tall flag-bearing soldier walked out of the house. His parents and wife, after he walked a long way, were still shouting at him: "Don't come back if you don't get the title!"

In hundreds of villages and countless families in Anlu County, these two sentences were repeated. Parents, brothers, wives and children all stood by the door, watching their children leave their warm homes with winter and summer clothes, thin quilts on their backs, chewing dry food, and meeting their squad leaders and squad leaders at the gate. After counting the number of people, they gathered towards the pavilion like streams...

…

On August 17, the eve of the assembly, Heifu was in his new home in the suburbs of Anlu County. After the family had finished the "reunion dinner" and waited for his mother to rest, after fulfilling the last bit of filial piety this year, Heifu found that his younger brother Jing had not fallen asleep, but was walking around in the courtyard a little anxiously.

"Zhongxiong."

Jing said a little nervously: "Tomorrow is the day of assembly. If someone really doesn't come..."

He had learned the law and was worried that if too many people escaped, Zhongxiong would be difficult to deal with, and he might even be punished by the county lieutenant for not recruiting enough soldiers.

"You are actually worried about this!"

Heifu smiled helplessly, asked him to sit down by the pond, and said: "Do you know why I give priority to recruiting people with property this time?"

Jing nodded and said: "Brother Zhong told me that people with permanent property have perseverance, and people without permanent property have perseverance!"

"Yes, only those who have perseverance without permanent property can be capable! In the Qin army, we always like to use good family children with permanent property, and dislike the frivolous and evil young men and people from the left and right without permanent property. One reason is that good family children can prepare enough clothes for war, while people from the left and right can't even afford winter and summer clothes..."

In the original history, Heifu and Jing who participated in this war were also good family children, and their families could at least send them clothes and money.

"Secondly, good family boys are easy to obey military orders. They may not be as good as bad boys fighting alone, but once they are in battle formation, they are countless times stronger than the light knights fighting alone. This is one of the reasons why Qi's martial arts are not as good as Wei's Wuzu, and Wei's Wuzu are not as good as Qin's Ruishi."

"Third, even if these good family boys are afraid of war, they will not run away rashly, because it will implicate their families. They can only bite the bullet and go to the battlefield!"

This is called running away, but not the temple.

In addition, Wei Liaozi said that there are five requirements for an elite army: "Forget your family when you are a general, forget your relatives when you cross the border, forget your body when you point at the enemy, and live when you must die. Be quick to win." Only in this way can you achieve a hundred people being killed, and the enemy is in chaos; a thousand people being killed, the enemy is captured and the general is killed; ten thousand people being killed, the world is rampant!

But being ordered to forget your family and going abroad to fight, forget your parents, these two points are not easy.

People are not animals, it is difficult to completely give up their families. Sometimes, the more you prevent soldiers from going home, the more they worry. On the contrary, if you let them go back to celebrate the autumn harvest, and see that the granary at home is sufficient, and their father also encourages them to "not return without getting a title", they can be more relieved and fight for the title with one heart.

This is the same as the last war, when Hei Fu suggested to Li You that the Nanjun soldiers who had been away from home for too long should write letters back home to boost their morale.

After listening to the Jing, he was convinced and bowed to Heifu and said: "Brother Zhong, I think your method of training and controlling soldiers has the style of a famous general!"

"What kind of famous general am I?"

Heifu laughed when he heard this. He knew himself: "In military struggles, I am just a fledgling with eggshells on my body and just opened my eyes. There are still many things to learn!"

He looked to the distant north and said expectantly: "Old General Wang Jian, who will lead an army of 600,000 this time, is a famous general!"

From Mu Po to Jian, there are four famous generals in the Warring States Period in later generations. Wu'an Jun committed suicide at Du Ting, Lian Po died of old age in Daliang, and Li Mu died of counter-espionage. Only Wang Jian survived!

Heifu is now looking forward to meeting this general who is as steady as an old dog in battle!

"It is also a blessing for me, a junior, to witness his duel with Xiang Yan!"