Aspirations for Nation and Beauty: Chapter 46 Tooth extraction (1)

Just after the grain merchants in the Central Plains shipped goods one after another because they worried that once the grain was harvested in the spring, it would greatly affect the huge profits obtained at such a high grain price at this time, the grain price in the empire began to drop slightly. At the peak, eighteen gold coins per load fell to twelve gold coins, and the rest of the miscellaneous grains fell below eight gold coins, but adjustments were made quickly. Dan hovered around. Although the price of grain in the Central Plains has risen a lot, it has finally eased the food crisis of the entire empire. Even the Heshuo area has benefited from the fact that it is not cut off from the interior of the empire. However, this is not the case in some places. It is said that there is a price but no market, and it has developed into a social crisis.

As the guard of the Anyuan Taiping Defense Army, Zhang Zhentian is a believer with a strong belief in the holy religion. The holy king is undoubtedly the **** who will never be desecrated and violated in his heart for the sons of farm laborers. When he moved eastward, he had already made up his mind to die in the house.

He has always firmly believed that he can hand over the complete Anyuan Mansion to the Holy King who will return to Anyuan in the future. The 70,000 elite soldiers and countless faithful believers under his command are the strongest support in his mind. One side's invasion, he still believed in it even after Yulin, Pinglu and even Qinghe had fallen.

The betrayal of the Kamanians was not beyond his expectations. In his mind, those guys wanted to use the Holy Religion for something. The wound was deep and painful, and Li Wufeng was the most ferocious enemy of the Holy Kingdom. The Northwest Army under his command was even more brutal and threatening to the Holy Church than the Kamans.

The Kaman is just a wild dog. Although it looks fierce, it only takes one bite to count, but it still needs a lot of energy to slowly digest that bite of food. Li Wufeng is different. His appetite is not only It was so huge, what scared Zhang Zhentian the most was the astonishing digestion shown by the other party. He had been in business for so long and Lulong, Pinlu and Longdong Tianshui, these were originally the areas with the strongest foundation of the Taiping Holy Cult, but in Luoyang After falling into Li Wufeng's hands, in just one or two years, the power of the holy religion was uprooted one after another. Countless elite children and loyal believers of the holy religion fell under Li Wufeng's butcher's knife. It cannot be said that there are not many people who dare to dedicate themselves to the cause of the holy religion, but they are few in number. This is the news brought back by the envoy Zhang Zhentian sent to contact the believers in the surrounding areas.

The **** wind is enough to frighten too many people whose beliefs are not strong enough, and the softness and corruption can make many people and forces who were originally loyal to the holy religion turn to the enemy one after another. Under their guidance, the Holy Cult hardly had much hidden power to hide. Zhang Zhentian sadly found that there were no supporters around Anyuan Mansion who could help him.

With the fall of the three prefectures of Pinglu, Yulin and Qinghe, and Lulong, which had already fallen into the hands of the Northwest Army, Anyuan was the only remaining base of the holy religion among the five prefectures of Beiyuan, and it was also the strongest fortress of the holy religion. In addition to checking and patrolling defenses everywhere without sleeping and eating, and giving speeches in the countryside to boost the morale of the people, Zhang Zhentian even intensified his efforts to find excuses for the gentry with a little property in Anyuan City and throw them into prison. After squeezing out all the gold and silver, he searched for a reason On one charge, he ransacked his family and killed him.

Zhang Zhentian didn't take the goods he got. Apart from rewarding a small amount to his subordinates, he spent most of the funds on building defensive weapons and strengthening the city's defense capabilities.

In the past few months, he not only raised and strengthened the entire city wall, but also rebuilt a low wall a few meters lower than the city wall on the outside of the city wall, and built additional A large number of arrow forts and hidden military rooms. All iron workshops in the city were forcibly requisitioned, and the only job was to make various weapons and arrowheads. Although the catapults were very simple due to technical reasons, under Zhang Zhentian's huge reward and high-pressure coercion, six catapults were installed at each city gate. There is one at twenty meters, and the whole city is filled with rolling logs, stones, and lime. Under the **** of the high wall in the west of the city, Zhang Zhentian also imitated the ancients and built dozens of iron pulleys, which were hung tightly with suspension cables and lined up. If an enemy army came from this side, just facing these dozens of iron pulleys It will bring them infinite shock.

Zhang Zhentian was a little tired after his rounds of patrolling. He had barely had a day of peace in the past few months. The pressure from the Northwest Army was too great, so he had to pay close attention to the threats from the north and the east day and night. But now the most troublesome problem for Zhang Zhentian is not the military threat from the Northwest Army, but the food shortage in his own territory. Anyuan was not a large grain-producing mansion in the first place, and the food was self-sufficient. When they left Anyuan, the Holy Kings successively transported a lot of grain that had been stored here. A batch of grain was transferred to supplement the reserves, but it was unexpected that not only Pinglu fell, but also the disaster that spread throughout the Eastern Continent made all hopes come to naught. The locust plague that followed the spring drought caused 80% of the land in Anyuan Prefecture to lose their harvest, and the people in Anyuan Prefecture were already poor and did not have much surplus food. As a result, the food problem immediately became unavoidable. first problem.

Although he exhausted all methods, Anyuan's wealthy gentry's property was basically wiped out by him, but Li Wufeng adopted an extremely strict method of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness so that he could not buy food from all over the place even if he had money. . Seeing that the food in the warehouse could not last until July, and the people outside the city flocked to the city in an attempt to find a bite to eat. Although he had strictly prohibited the farmers outside the city from entering the city to avoid greater pressure on the city, they all flocked to the city. Whether it was the local soldiers who secretly let many people into the city, after all, they were all from the countryside, blood was thicker than water, and not many people could truly break the law.

Today, a rare banquet was held in the Fuzun's mansion. His Excellency personally hosted a banquet that was said to be a grain merchant from the north. It has been a long time since he smiled so happily. A year ago, he was much older, but today, the lord of the mansion, who had changed into a long gown, personally accompanied and entertained the big grain merchants from the Northern Terok Principality, and even the guards in the mansion could clearly feel the excitement permeating the mansion. Happy.

Zhang Zhentian was indeed a little happy. Although he felt that it was a little inappropriate for his general who was in charge of defending the main roads in the north to abandon his important tasks and run back to Fucheng, but thinking about the fact that such a large batch of grain had to be transported from the north, and Now that the situation in the countryside outside the Fucheng is getting out of control, the other party has no choice but to do this. If the hungry and crazy people in the countryside discover this food convoy, one or two teams of soldiers may not be able to defend it. Thinking about it, my confidant general hasn't returned to Fucheng for half a year. It is indeed too hard for the other party to guard the remote pass in the north all day. It is not a big deal for the other party to come back and relax.

Seeing the other party's eyes shining with excitement when he checked the grain, Pi Hongkui could know that the other party really needed the grain too much. Caressing the bags of grain, sniffing the fragrance of the grain, Pi Hongkui couldn't help but sigh inwardly for the majesty of the magistrate of the Taiping Sect in the Beiyuan County base to lose his composure. All the way from Nanjieluk, the entire Anyuan Prefecture is already a thousand miles away, and many places have no harvest. If it weren't for the Taiping Army with two thousand swords and guns unsheathed, those hungry people with green eyes would have pounced on it long ago. Come up, it seems that Mr. Li's blockade policy has put Anyuan Mansion on the verge of extinction.

While smiling and toasting, he was carefully looking at the surrounding environment~IndoMTL.com~ It seems that all the important generals under Zhang Zhentian should come to this banquet as long as they are in the city, except of course they are on duty Generals, after a rough count, there are six of the seven important generals, and there is probably one more who is in charge of the camp.

Look at the guards outside the banquet hall. There are four soldiers on duty at the small door on the right. Although they look very energetic, it can be seen that they are not specially trained. Can kill the opponent without disturbing the soldiers outside the courtyard. But the four people outside the banquet hall are a bit tricky, each of them is full of vigor, and it can be seen that they are Lianjiazi. I am afraid that it will take some trouble, but Pi Hongkui is not afraid, and he does not do this kind of thing once or twice. Well, if you can't even deal with these few people, then you and your subordinates really don't have to eat this bowl of rice.

There seem to be two floating whistles on the corner of the courtyard. Zhang Zhentian is obviously very bold, but in fact he is very cautious. By the way, there seems to be someone in the next room. I don't know what it is for, it should be a backup The guards on duty are diligent, and these guys have to be counted. Just as he was thinking about it, the host on the opposite side was already raising his wine glass to toast again: "Come on, come on, Mr. Ouyang, Mr. Zhang toasts you again, Mr. Ouyang is able to take such a big risk to transport food into Anyuan at this time, Zhang has to admire, isn't Mr. Ouyang afraid of Li Wufeng's ban?"

Zhang Zhentian held up his wine glass and looked through the candlelight at the man dressed in brocade clothes with a complicated expression. No matter what, he was able to bring in such a large batch of grain, even though the price has doubled compared to the price of grain in the empire. But in this situation, not to mention one roll, even another roll, I have to swallow it, as much as I want, as long as I can survive until September, everything can start all over again. But is this grain merchant really that simple?