"Get out of here! There's no room for so many people here."
"You can go to the fortress in Taoyuan County, or go to Qingyang County. You won't be allowed in here!"
"Hit! Hit me hard! Let's see who dares to force his way in!"
Outside the fortress, many nobles looked at the common people who followed them and spoke viciously.
A group of guards, selected young men and yamen runners, all holding weapons, stared at the dark crowd with eager eyes.
Seeing that the people no longer came forward, the nobles snorted coldly. These unruly people deserved to be punished and would be obedient after a beating.
The people who were not selected were in despair. They felt like the sky was falling because the fort wouldn't let them in. They were left to fend for themselves.
"County magistrate, please say something. I also contributed to the construction of the fort. Please let my mother go in as well."
A middle-aged man looked at Xue Wenju and begged, followed by a woman, a child and a white-haired old woman.
Xue Wenju felt a little reluctant and was about to speak when Pei Li whispered, "Master Xue, don't start this. There are already enough people entering the fort. One more person will require an extra portion of food."
"Besides, why would an old man take them in? He has lived enough at such an old age."
Upon hearing this, Xue Wenju wanted to retort, but he did not say it out loud. Although he had also contributed money and manpower to the fortress, he could not compare with the gentry and he had no say in the matter.
But as a senior official, he felt really bad that he couldn't save the people.
The white-haired mother tugged at her son's sleeve, her cloudy eyes full of tears. "I've lived to this age, and it's enough. You can go in with your wife and children, and don't worry about me anymore."
After saying that, he turned and left, his back looking lonely and desolate.
The middle-aged man knelt on the ground and kowtowed three times: "Mother, I am an unfilial son..." Before he finished speaking, he burst into tears.
The daughter-in-law and children also knelt on the ground and kowtowed, their faces covered with tears.
Seeing this, the people around them all had red eyes. Some sobbed quietly, some shed tears silently, and some even collapsed on the ground in despair.
Knowing that they could not get in, the crowd slowly began to leave. The nobles also entered the fort and closed the heavy door.
Xue Wenju looked at the people leaving and sighed. He didn't know how many of them would survive.
…
"Boss, all the banks in the county have been closed, and the nobles and common people have all fled. They say the barbarians are coming to attack us."
Xu Zong returned the banknotes to Pei Yun, originally intending to ask him to go down the mountain to get the silver, but he ended up encountering groups of fleeing civilians.
Pei Yun frowned. Are the barbarians attacking?
He put the banknotes away. During this period, the cost of building the village was quite high, so he asked Xu Zong to go down the mountain to get the money. He didn't expect to encounter such a thing.
It seems that we need to speed up the construction. Although we think that it is just a mountain stronghold and the barbarians will not attack it, after all, the barbarians are not here to suppress bandits or do good deeds, but it is always better to take precautions.
Now the two watchtowers have been built. In the middle of the watchtowers is the gate of the mountain stronghold. For the time being, it is still a wooden gate, but it is much thicker than before. The craftsmen have put steel bars through the wooden door to make it more sturdy.
Extending from the watchtower to both sides is the city wall, which is slightly lower than the watchtower, only 13 meters high. Mainly because it is on the mountain, the foundation is difficult to lay. After several craftsmen reported this to Pei Yun, it was finally decided to build a 13-meter wall.
Even at this height, it has already exceeded the city walls of this era. The border Great Wall built by the Jing Dynasty, including the height of the battlements, was only 12.86 meters.
Therefore, 13 meters is enough. More importantly, the city wall built with reinforced concrete and red bricks is much stronger than the city wall built only with stone or rammed earth.
The left part of the wall surrounding the village has been built. Pei Yun asked the craftsmen to speed up and build the entire wall before the southern barbarians appear.
For this reason, these bandits were not given any training. Instead, they all followed the craftsmen to learn how to build walls. For a while, the village became a large construction site and everyone was working in full swing, comparable to a modern house-building site.
Pei Yun made some other preparations. He bought a large fixed searchlight and installed it on the city wall. He then used an extension cord to pull the plug board to the city wall and specifically reminded the bandits to pay attention to the plug board.
In this way, even if the barbarians want to attack at night, they will not be afraid with these searchlights.
…
Niulan Village.
This is a relatively large village located between Biancheng and Ruifeng County, with thousands of farmers. It is usually very lively and even survived the famine years under the leadership of the village chief.
Even every household still had some seeds left, having plowed the soil and planted them in the early spring. They originally thought that the natural disaster was over and that as long as they could hold out until the autumn harvest, life would gradually get better.
Who would have thought that the natural disaster was over, but man-made disaster came. The moment the southern barbarian army appeared outside the village, the villagers knew that they were finished.
After a desperate resistance.
The whole village fell into deathly silence.
There were several corpses hanging on the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, swaying in the cold wind. This was a unique sign of the invasion of the southern barbarians. Whenever they arrived at a village, they liked to hang human corpses on the tree, as if this would serve as a deterrent.
Most of the houses in the village had been burned down, leaving only charred ruins. The air was filled with a strong smell of burning and blood, which was nauseating.
The originally neat farmland has now been trampled beyond recognition.
The seedlings that had just been planted were uprooted and scattered all over the ground. Many southern barbarian soldiers were rummaging through the fields, laughing vulgarly from time to time. They then mixed the seeds they had dug out with soil, wrapped them in cloth, and put them into the cloth bags they carried with them.
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