Chapter 39 Chapter 39 Our army and wild boars, these two words are...
Xuan Jinyu lifted the curtain of the car and saw an old man with a slightly hunched back and a strong middle-aged man walking quickly towards the southeast.
The curtains were closed, and she heard Su Guanzhang ask, "Brother Wensheng, do you know what happened nearby? I heard that person say the whole village was flooded."
The whole village was flooded?
Did a lot of people die?
Xuan Jinyu couldn't help but tremble slightly at the thought. Su Guanzhang's hands quickly came up to embrace her, holding her in his warm chest and strong arms.
Xuan Wensheng nodded. "The village to the southeast was flooded. Luckily, the thunder woke everyone up, so no one was killed. It's a pity that the houses are uninhabitable."
These days, poor families all live in thatched houses, and when it rains, they have to climb onto the roof to replace the thatch.
But the rain yesterday morning came so fast and hard that it easily ripped the thatch off the roof. The whole house was exposed to the rain, soaking everything, including the furniture and quilts.
"Is that village the place where you proposed to stay overnight that day?" Seeing that Su Guanzhang looked a little strange, Xuan Jinyu asked subconsciously.
Su Guanzhang said "yes" and tightened his arms around her again. "Fortunately, you didn't agree that day, otherwise..."
He didn't say anything else, only the slightly rapid heartbeat told Xuan Jinyu his fear and relief.
Xuan Jinyu finally understood why she subconsciously resisted when Su Guanzhang told her that he would stay in the village the day before.
So that's how it is.
She hesitated to speak.
Xuan Wensheng understood her thoughts and soothed her gently, "When I came to find you, I saw the government sending people to help them. They won't really let them die."
"I also sent people to help, it's nothing."
That's good.
Xuan Jinyu felt relieved.
She didn't know the tricks of the officialdom, but since her third brother said that nothing was wrong, then it really was nothing.
Su Guanzhang, however, felt a surge of fear. He held Xuan Jinyu's wrist and slowly stroked her soft and smooth skin, not daring to think further.
If Jinyu hadn't been reluctant to go into the village that day, they would have been the ones woken up by the rain in the middle of the night...
Before the sunset faded, they saw the manor at the foot of Lingfeng Mountain that Xuan Wensheng had mentioned.
It is called Zhuangzi, and it is even bigger than the Sifang Town they encountered just now.
Hundreds and thousands of acres of farmland stretch out at the foot of this beautiful and vast mountain.
Because it had rained heavily for a day and a night, the soil in the field was still wet, but it was very smooth. It was obvious that the diligent farmers had plowed the field during the day.
What is rather strange is that the farmlands near the mountain are surrounded by stone walls, wooden fences or earth slopes, leaving only a solid stone gate facing the path up the mountain.
A conspicuous manor is located on the side of the official road, occupying most of the land designated for houses opposite Lingfeng Mountain.
Dozens or even hundreds of wooden houses, tiled houses or thatched houses are sparsely scattered around the village, like stars surrounding the moon, forming a fairly large village.
The curtains on all five carriages were lifted.
Looking out from the carriage, one could only sense that the village was very large. Even as one looked all the way across, one still couldn't see the end of the village.
What is surprising is that there are still crops grown in the village.
"Farming in the village?"
They rarely see this kind of practice. Generally, people live in the village and farm outside the village. It is rare to enclose the fields and houses in the village together.
In the carriage where Xuan Wensheng was, Xuan Jinyu couldn't help but ask this question.
Not only the fields, but when they looked out from the carriage, they could also see the densely packed fruit trees in the farm, the lush branches and leaves of the fruit trees all fell outside the high walls.
"There's nothing we can do. There are dense forests and many wild animals here. If we don't fence off the fields, the crops we've worked so hard to grow will be destroyed by wild boars."
Xuan Wensheng explained to Xuan Jinyu, "Wasting food is a minor issue. One year, a village head was weeding in the fields when a wild boar escaped and nearly ate him alive."
It's so dangerous.
"So later, the farmers in the village came to the housekeeper to discuss going into the mountains to kill wild animals."
"I was nearby when the housekeeper wrote to me, so I went there and found that the mountains and forests were too vast to hunt wild animals."
"Not to mention that these farmers don't have the good skills of hunters, if they kill wild animals, the hunters nearby will also lose a lot of opportunities to survive."
"It just so happened that I saw that there was no shortage of stones or trees in the mountains and forests, so I had people build stone walls and wooden fences according to the terrain."
"Look at that slope. It's covered by a bamboo forest, and it's steep, so even wild animals don't dare to go there easily. It serves as a perfect barrier."
Xuan Jinyu listened with great interest.
She had heard about this from her third brother before, but this was the first time she saw it with her own eyes. She found it very fresh and interesting.
In the other carriages, someone from the Su family also figured out the purpose of building this farm. The adults were fine, but the children couldn't help but marvel at it.
They seldom had any contact with farming, so this kind of clever idea actually aroused their interest.
Even Qi Ge'er has started to pester his grandfather Su Sheng and his father Su Guanyu to let them practice military exercises for him.
Just think of the wild beast as the enemy and the farmers as our army. Practice how to hunt or drive away wild boars or other wild animals if they break through the fence and run wild on the farmland.
Of course, Su Sheng was "our army", and Su Guanyu, looking at the excited eyes of his two children, had to pinch his nose and become the "wild boar general".
There were two other people in the carriage, namely Xu Yu Niang and Xu Xuan Niang, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. When they saw Su Guanyu gritting his teeth and saying "I am the Wild Boar General", they laughed so hard that they swayed from side to side and tears came out.
"Yeah, our army won."
"The wild boar has been chased away!"
The voices of Qi Ge'er and Tong Jie'er almost overlapped as they came from the carriage in front, and floated with the wind to the carriage at the back where Xuan Jinyu and the others were.
Xuan Jinyu had not yet lowered the curtain in her hand. She looked out the window curiously again and again, but still could not understand what the two children meant.
"Our army and wild boars," Xuan Jinyu looked very confused. She turned around and asked Su Guanzhang, "What do Qi Ge'er and Tong Jie'er mean?" How could these two words be mentioned together?
She could understand the victory, but could soldiers and wild boars really be put together to fight against the enemy? A human-pig war?
She didn't expect Su Guanzhang, who was also unaware of the situation, to answer. She was only thinking about the scene of the battle between man and pig, and then the man and the pig falling over, so she burst out laughing.
"I'll have to ask Sister Tong about it later." After she had laughed enough, she said to Su Guanzhang.
The group entered the farm and the carriage stopped at the threshing ground in front of the screen wall in the front yard.
"It's interesting to set up a threshing ground here." Wang Hu muttered to Chen Yang.
He had heard early on that the third son of the Xuan family, who had an unconventional temperament, was extremely talented in business and had built up a considerable fortune in just a few years.
He didn't see it with his own eyes that year, and he scoffed at it, thinking that the Xuan family was releasing the news to save face for their own young master.
Now it seems that this young man is quite capable to own such a large manor in such a remote place.
The most important thing is that the official roads along the way are full of potholes, and the people living nearby all live in thatched houses, which are visibly poor.
But when the group entered Zhuangzi's territory, everything was completely different.
The official road was very smooth and was paved with bluestone, which was obviously not the work of the government.
Most of the houses around Zhuangzi were tiled houses and wooden houses, with very few thatched houses. According to his observation, the thatched houses seemed to be used only to store miscellaneous items and not for people to live in.
"Young Master Xuan San has great ambitions." Chen Yang said, and couldn't help but look up at the towering mountain opposite, where there were clouds and mist and swaying tree shadows.
What a great place to go.
It would be very pleasant to come here to escape the heat in the hot summer.
Chen Yang didn't say it out loud, but someone spoke up for him.
"Brother Xuan San."
After the so-called "Third Brother" dispute, Xuan Wensheng took the initiative to give in, which made Su Guanwen very fond of Xuan Wensheng. So he simplified the title from "Xuan Family Third Brother" to "Xuan Third Brother", which seemed much closer.
"It's less than a day's drive from Lingfeng Mountain to the capital. If you come here to escape the heat in the summer, it's both close and refreshing. You've picked a good place." Su Guanwen praised.
Lingfeng Mountain is located south of Shengjing City. Although it is sparsely populated due to the dense forests, it is also extremely quiet.
Yu'an Prefecture, also a day's drive from Shengjing City, was bustling with people even in the summer, even noisier than the capital. The heat was already unbearable, and with the noise added, no one in the capital wanted to go there.
Meanwhile, Xuan Jinyu couldn't help but ask Tong Jie'er, "Tong Jie'er, just now in the carriage, when you and your brother mentioned 'our army' and 'wild boar', what did you mean?"
Tong Jie'er first covered her mouth and laughed for a while, which made Xuan Jinyu even more curious.
Then I heard Sister Tong say crisply, "Grandfather and father were just conducting a military exercise."
oh?
Tong Jie'er's words attracted everyone's attention, including Xuan Wensheng and Su Guanwen who were chatting animatedly about going to the foot of Lingfeng Mountain to escape the summer heat.
On the other hand, Su Guanyu, whose face always had a smile on it, looked unusually embarrassed, and there was not even a trace of smile left on the corners of his mouth.
However, few people noticed Su Guanyu, as they were all focused on Tong Jie'er.
"The theme of the military exercise is: If wild boars suddenly attack from the bottom of the mountain, how should the farmers at the foot of this mountain respond?"
Tong Jieer spoke fluently and logically, "Since it's a military exercise, of course it's two armies facing each other. So, Grandpa became the farmer general, meaning 'our army,' and Daddy became the 'wild boar general,' and the two of them began the exercise."
"Hahaha." Before Tong Jie'er finished speaking, someone couldn't help laughing.
"Wild Boar General", this title is quite strange and funny. When it is put on the Jade-faced General Su Guanyu, I can't help laughing so hard that my stomach hurts.
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