Chapter 19 Chapter 19
After leaving the barracks, Jiang Huai had not taken two steps when he heard the sounds of cursing and fighting behind him. The cursing sounded familiar, like the voices of his team of prisoners. He had a clue what was going on.
What is going on?
Jiang Huai originally thought that he could spend the next two days in peace, but he didn't expect that he would encounter trouble again after just one day in the military camp.
But now that things have come to this, we can only take it one step at a time.
Following the soldiers forward, Jiang Huai discovered that the task of finding someone to settle accounts with in the army should be quite urgent. Many soldiers were asking among the prisoners, but the prisoners obviously felt that this was not an easy job. Even if there were rewards, not many people stood up. In the end, many people came here because they were reported by people around them.
After following the soldier for a while, we arrived at a brightly lit barracks.
A burly man in the room stared at the account book in front of him with a bitter face, and then his eyes widened until they were dizzy, but he still couldn't bear to read it, let alone calculate the accounts.
Seeing the soldiers coming in with their men, the sturdy man was delighted. However, when he remembered the identities of these prisoners, the smile on his face faded a little. He stared at the prisoners and when he noticed Jiang Huai, his gaze lingered for a moment before he looked away and said, "You all know what you are supposed to do when you are called here. For those who don't know, let me repeat it: settle the accounts. It's your job to settle these accounts."
As he spoke, the strong man waved his hand and asked the soldiers to bring the account books and pile them on the tables, signaling the prisoners who came over to get to work quickly.
Jiang Huai was also assigned to a pile. Looking at the pile of account books, Jiang Huai flipped one open and felt dizzy at the messy handwriting inside.
But the account book still needed to be calculated. Jiang Huai calmed himself down, flipped through the account book first, familiarized himself with the writer's handwriting so as not to misread the account numbers, and then started calculating from the beginning.
The sound of abacus rang out in the barracks all night long. By the time the sky gradually brightened, Jiang Huai had almost finished calculating the account books in front of him, with only two books left to go.
Jiang Huai yawned to suppress his sleepiness, touched his rumbling stomach and sighed. If he had done nothing, the food he had eaten yesterday would have been barely enough. But now that he had been working all night, that little bit of food was not enough to last him.
Jiang Huai felt that the reason he could still calculate was entirely due to inertia, and his brain had become extremely slow.
After finishing the last calculation, Jiang Huai couldn't hold on any longer and fell asleep on the desk.
The others were in no better condition than Jiang Huai. They were dizzy from all the calculations. However, their health was not good to begin with, and they ate little in the barracks, which made their brains even slower. Even if they wanted to rest, they didn't dare to do so because they hadn't finished calculating the accounts.
But the more they dared not rest, the slower their brains became and the slower they calculated. This vicious cycle continued. When the strong men came to see how they were doing, they saw that the prisoners all had dazed eyes. Even though they were still moving the beads in their hands, they looked so confused that no one would dare to believe the results they had calculated.
Especially when he saw Jiang Huai even fell asleep, the strong man was furious. He subconsciously thought that these prisoners were spoiling him because they thought he needed help from them.
The strong man walked a few steps to Jiang Huai and was about to speak when Jiang Huai woke up.
Even though he was really sleepy, Jiang Huai still remembered where he was and had not fallen completely asleep. When the strong man approached, Jiang Huai realized something was wrong and struggled to wake up.
Looking up at the burly man's angry expression, Jiang Huai subconsciously picked up the account book he had just written and handed it over.
"General, I have already made the calculations. Please take a look." Jiang Huai's words directly interrupted the strong man.
"Have you finished the calculation?" The burly man looked down at the table and found that the accounts that were on the left last night had been moved to the right. It looked like they had indeed finished the calculation.
If he hadn't seen how other prisoners settled their accounts, the strong man wouldn't have thought too much about it. But seeing how confused the other prisoners looked, the strong man became a little suspicious of the accounts in front of him. He wondered if this guy was calculating them randomly.
"Where is the account for this armor? Find it for me so I can take a look." The burly man flipped through a few pages and decided to give it a try.
Faced with the strong man's questioning, Jiang Huai forced himself to be strong, found out the income and expenditure accounts of the armor, and showed them to the strong man.
The strong man was impatient to do the math, but he could read and do simple arithmetic. After asking a few more times and comparing, he found that there was really no problem with Jiang Huai's calculations, and a smile appeared on his face.
He was angry just now because he felt that Jiang Huai was not doing anything, but since he had done his job, he might as well take a nap.
"Okay, go back to sleep." The strong man waved his hand and let Jiang Huai continue sleeping.
Jiang Huai didn't expect that he could continue sleeping. After hesitating for three seconds, he quickly lay down and fell asleep in the blink of an eye.
Jiang Huai knew too well how bad his current condition was. If he had to go back to the barracks to rest after finishing his work, he would hardly dare to sleep. It was too easy to fall asleep in this state. But now, with the strong man around, he could at least get some sleep.
Seeing Jiang Huai was so straightforward and went to bed as soon as he said he would, the strong man was stunned for a moment, and looked at Jiang Huai with some appreciation. He liked such straightforward people who didn't beat around the bush and make people annoyed.
With Jiang Huai as a good example, the strong man also had some expectations for the accounts of other prisoners. Maybe they just looked confused, but actually the accounts were well calculated.
He just waited for him to use the method he had used to test Jiang Huai to test others. The more he tested, the darker the strong man's face became. What the hell was this? Even if he was only familiar with arithmetic, he could see the problem. It was fine at the beginning, but it got worse and worse the more he calculated later.
"You are so old but you are still like dogs. Look at this person who is much younger than you. He settled the accounts in one night. You..." The strong man was furious and spitted everywhere.
Even though Jiang Huai was sleeping soundly, he couldn't help being disturbed by the noise, especially the various sights piercing his back, which made Jiang Huai wake up from his sleep unwillingly, and he heard the strong man pulling hatred towards him.
Although Jiang Huai felt that he would be able to leave the military camp soon and it was no big deal to attract some hatred, it was better to make more friends than more enemies, and it was too much of a loss to make enemies that had no benefit at all.
Jiang Huai looked up and glanced at the other prisoners in the room. When he entered the room last night, his eyes were full of the account book in front of him and he didn't pay any attention to what the other people looked like. But now, Jiang Huai found that several of them looked not young, and estimated that they were at least in their fifties.
In modern times, people in their fifties are considered to be in the prime of life, but in ancient times they were considered to be middle-aged or elderly. Especially during this period of exile, the days were difficult, and several of them looked extremely haggard.
Thinking about what to eat in the barracks and looking at the workload of the account book, Jiang Huai couldn't help but say: "Sir..."
"Aren't you asleep?" The burly man was cursing when he was interrupted. He turned around angrily and found that it was Jiang Huai who spoke, "Why are you awake?"
Jiang Huai's mouth twitched slightly. This question was difficult for him to answer. Did he have to say that he was woken up by you?
Jiang Huai chose to avoid the topic and continued what he had just interrupted: "Sir, I just thought that the accounts need to be settled. If we only check them once, I'm afraid it's easy to make mistakes. It would be better to divide them into several groups, and each group can check the accounts separately, and then check with each other, so as to avoid mistakes."
The strong man didn't expect Jiang Huai to come up with such an idea. He asked Jiang Huai to explain the method in detail. The more he listened, the brighter his eyes became. He felt that this was a good idea.
He only calculated it once because he was really afraid that there would be problems with the accounts.
The other prisoners didn't expect Jiang Huai to increase their workload right away, and their expressions changed involuntarily, looking at Jiang Huai with some indignation. It was clear that Jiang Huai wanted to please the strong man, so he used them as rafts to harm others and benefit himself.
"But this is only the first time. Others have calculated it like this. If they calculate it a few more times, will they really be able to calculate it well?" The strong man looked back at the others with disgust in his eyes.
"Sir, there are too many accounts. If we want to calculate them quickly and accurately, we need to find more people." Jiang Huai said.
"Find more people?" The sturdy man frowned, a little disappointed. He thought Jiang Huai would give a good answer, but considering that Jiang Huai took the initiative to solve the problem, he still explained, "I asked around yesterday, and only found people like you. I won't settle accounts with others."
"Sir, yesterday the soldiers came to ask if we would settle the score. The cause and effect are unknown. Everyone in the camp is in panic. They don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. They don't dare to take responsibility, so naturally they dare not say anything. If you explain the reason clearly and don't care about what happened yesterday, maybe you can find a few more people." Jiang Huai said.
The sturdy man was delighted when he heard this, but he noticed that Jiang Huai spoke so clearly and asked doubtfully, "Did you have the same idea yesterday?"
Jiang Huai blushed and was speechless.
The strong man laughed a few times, but didn't care about Jiang Huai's thoughts yesterday. He immediately summoned the soldiers to ask again.
"If there are still not enough people, you can also ask the prisoners who were exiled before. I believe there are some who can read and count among them." Jiang Huai added.
The strong man nodded repeatedly, and the annoyance in his heart dissipated a lot.
Seeing that Jiang Huai's face didn't look good, he suddenly thought of the food in the army. Because there was not enough food, the soldiers ate less, not to mention prisoners like Jiang Huai. Although he had never seen them, he knew that the food would definitely not be very good.
"Okay, don't sleep now. I'll ask someone to bring some food over. You can eat before you sleep." The strong man said. He understood that if you want the horse to run, you must feed it grass.
Jiang Huai's stomach rumbled at the right moment, and he thanked him with a red face.
However, meeting the gazes of the others, Jiang Huai hesitated for a moment before speaking: "Sir, could you please give the others some food as well? People work faster when they are full, otherwise they might be delayed."
Jiang Huai's intentions were not entirely good. He knew that the strong man treated him well because, firstly, he was good at calculating and had created some goodwill for him, and secondly, he was good at thinking about other people's needs and giving them advice.
But once this idea was put forward, it was only half completed. If the accounts calculated later were still not good enough, the strong man would probably blame him and think that his trip was in vain.
No matter how good he is at settling accounts, unless he can settle all the other accounts in one go, he still needs other people to help him. So he and the other prisoners who do the accounting are a temporary team, so naturally he has to fill in the gaps in the team.
The sturdy man glanced at the others, then remembered that they had done a good job at the beginning, and said, "Okay, since you said so, let's have people bring more food and you can distribute it."
The strong man knew that there had to be a leader to settle the accounts. Jiang Huai looked clear-headed, good at settling accounts, and able to come up with ideas. Most importantly, he liked Jiang Huai. He had a handsome appearance, and there was a gleam of intelligence in his eyes. He was not dull and dead, and it made people happy just to look at him.
Jiang Huai didn't expect the strong man to say that. He was stunned for a moment and quickly agreed.
After inspecting the situation here, the strong man did not stay long as he was busy with military affairs and left directly.
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