Chapter 921 The slaves who were once captured

Luo Chong's order was quickly sent to various places by the guards. After receiving the order, Lin Fei and Dali of Xingang County immediately began to form construction and management teams. Fortunately, Xingang County was ready-made. The mines here already had miners divided into teams according to the organization.

On the other side, Jing Yan's Dongxin County also received a notice, asking him to send the more than 1,600 surrendered soldiers of the Xin tribe who were captured at the time to Weishan County, and then from Weishan County to Xingang County, saying that there was a road over there that needed these slaves to build.

When Jing Yan heard the news and calculated the date, he knew that the research on the train was almost done. When everyone was visiting the leader's house on the New Year's Day, they said that the train would be built at about this time.

I think it should be a railway now, otherwise how could so many slaves be brought over?

Although the transfer of more than a thousand slaves will reduce the coal production of Dongxin County in a short period of time, as long as the tribe's train experiment is successful, will there be a shortage of people on his side in the future?

So Jing Yan loaded these people on the ship and sent them away without hesitation.

It has been more than a year since these captives from the Xin tribe were captured by the Han army outside Kaiyuan City. Since they were captured by the Han army, they were loaded onto sailboats and transported from the grassland Honghu to Dongxin County, and then they dug coal in Dongxin County for a whole year.

At first, they were not very cooperative, but after a month or two of training and the death of nearly a hundred people, these people finally chose to obey.

Although mining coal is dirty and tiring, the people of the Han tribe do not regard them as human beings at all, and use them like animals, but they still have three full meals a day, and as long as they are obedient enough, the supervisors of the Han tribe will never beat them casually.

So more and more slaves got used to this kind of life. Although it is numb, boring and extremely hard, at least they are still alive, right? !

Originally, they had accepted their fate and were willing to dig those black stones in the coal mine until they died. Although they did not know what these black stones were used for, an unexpected situation suddenly occurred today. The supervisors who were monitoring them asked them to leave work early and drove them to the river to take a bath.

Although they usually take a bath, they have to wait until it gets dark and everyone has finished eating before they can take a bath together. The slaves who don't know why are driven to the riverside, and then they walk to the riverside of the dock to take a bath. Fortunately, the weather at the end of March is already the end of spring and the beginning of summer, and the river water is not very cold. The slaves also take a bath very comfortably, but some people still have doubts in their hearts.

"Uncle, what happened to them today? Why did they let us go home early?" A teenager of sixteen or seventeen asked his uncle beside him.

The two thousand infantrymen sent by the Xin tribe to Kaiyuan County were all clan soldiers. The army was full of relatives, so now there are still many people among these slaves who are relatives.

"How do we know this, but look at the empty ships over there. They don't look like they are transporting coal. Maybe they are specially transporting us." The man called uncle said speculatively.

"What? Transport us away? No way, I see that the Han tribe never has enough coal. I thought we would have to dig coal here for the rest of our lives. Where can they take us?"

"Well, what's the point of saying this now? We have to go anywhere. Anyway, we just have to work and eat. I don't want anything else now. As long as I can stay alive, that's fine."

"I'm afraid they will ask us to do other dangerous work, work that will cost us our lives. What should we do then?" The young man asked worriedly.

"This is really possible, but you shouldn't worry. Even if there is a job that really needs human lives, we will definitely be chosen first. You are still young, and you can still work for many years if you are left here. The Han tribe can't bear to let you little kids die."

The young man smiled bitterly after hearing what his uncle said. Although it sounded harsh, he also knew that his uncle was right. This is the situation now. The Han tribe completely regards them as working animals. Even if they really want to kill a few animals for sacrifice, they will definitely kill the old ones first.

After a while, the young man continued to scrub the black mud off his body and continued to ask.

"Uncle, but I heard that our tribe was conquered by the Han tribe before the beginning of this year. Do you think this is true?"

"Who knows? It doesn't matter whether they conquer us or not. Anyway, we can't go back, and the people of the tribe can't come to rescue us." The middle-aged man on the other side said completely desperately.

"Stop talking and wash yourself quickly, otherwise you won't be able to grab food and you will starve! Be honest, after this meal today, I will send you to work somewhere else."

While the slaves below were bathing and chatting, the guard who was monitoring them suddenly appeared on the pier, holding a whip in his hand and yelling at them.

The slaves didn't dare to talk nonsense anymore. When they heard that there was no food to eat, they all started to clean themselves quickly, and then all climbed ashore and went to eat together under the guidance of the guard.

As for escaping while bathing in the river? That's impossible.

Do you know about the system of joint responsibility of the group of five? If one person escapes, the whole group will be killed, and the other five people in the same group will also be whipped and starved.

When these people were first captured, there were more than 1,700 people. At that time, the prisoners of war did have the idea of ​​escaping, but after they were organized into groups according to the system of five people, if someone escaped again, the whole group would be whipped to death, and finally beheaded. More than 1,700 people, and more than 1,600 were killed because of the system of joint responsibility. Nearly 100

people died tragically under the harsh system of joint responsibility. The direct result was that when someone wanted to escape again, the four people in the same group would directly report the person who wanted to escape, or take the initiative to chase and find him as soon as they found that the person was missing.

Why? It's because they are afraid of death.

Later, because of this system, the slaves now all work in teams of ten and five. No matter what they do, whether eating, sleeping or defecating, they can never let people in the same team be left alone.

Later, after everyone got used to this system, no one thought about escaping anymore, because it was not worth it and the possibility of escaping was not great. In addition, this place was too far away from Zhudao, and they simply couldn't run back to their hometown.

The slaves followed the guards to eat honestly, and were taken to the sailboat that night. They formed a fleet with the coal-carrying ships and went to the dock of Weishan County together. This was the first time these slaves had left the coal mines in Dongxin County and went to other places of the Han tribe since they were captured. It was also the first time they knew where the coal they dug out was transported by the Han tribe and what it was used for.

One morning three days later, the slaves finished eating their dry food in the cabin early, and then they were urged by the guards to get up and move around, because they were about to get off the ship.

Everyone was very nervous after hearing this, not knowing where the Han tribe would send them after leaving the coal mine where they had been for a year.

Many people came directly to the deck, and then they saw the third big city of the Han tribe that they had seen so far, Weishan County.

At the dock of Weishan County, large and small sailboats were docked here, and the coal ships that had arrived in advance were docked here. Some people were using hanging baskets and wooden cranes to transfer the raw coal on the ships, as well as the coking coal transported from the coking plant on the lake island.

Two different types of coal were loaded on two types of carriages. The carriages had begun to gather on the street, and the drivers were eating at the stalls near the dock. After the loading and unloading here was completed, they would drive the carts in groups to transport the coal to Xingang County.

However, these drivers were a little depressed. They had recently heard that the tribe was going to build a road from the Weishan County dock to Xingang County, and they heard that iron carriages would be used on it, and their carriages would no longer be needed.

Although they knew that they would not lose their jobs even if the road was built for iron carts,

they would definitely need to move to a new place. This was the current situation of the Han tribe. No matter how the reform was carried out, no matter how many people were laid off from various positions using high technology, the laid-off manpower could be properly arranged. There was no such thing as unemployment in the Han tribe, because there were not enough people to begin with.

If you are not needed here, there are still plenty of jobs for you to do in other places. It was just that it was a bit hard to let them move after living here for a long time.

After the drivers finished their breakfast and bought some dry food from the stalls, when they returned to the dock, they saw that several ships had just docked at the dock, and on the pier, a whip-holding guard was directing some slaves to line up to go ashore.

The drivers all looked at each other and thought to themselves that these were probably the slaves who came to build the road.

(2/4)

(End of this chapter)