Chapter 615: The Artifact's Papa Fruit (Please vote and subscribe)
The matter of the captives was quickly dealt with. After a three-way meeting between the Qianniu Guard, the Huben Guard, and the leader of the fleet, Youfu, they first issued a battle report to Luo Chong to report the victory, and then asked about the army's next move and suggestions for the treatment of the captives.
When the news was delivered to Luo Chong, he was still changing diapers for his two children. Luo Chong, who had just become a father, was delighted. He moved his office directly to his home and went to see his children from time to time, even though the two little guys slept from morning till night every day and ignored him as their biological father.
Unfolding the letter and seeing the battle described on it, Luo Chong nodded seriously and began to write back to them.
The reply contained a lot of content. First, it praised their bravery in fighting and their spirit of living up to the trust. Then, it ordered the Huben Guards to use the residence of the barbarian tribe as a temporary camp, set up camp on the spot, and treat the wounded in this battle. If there are disabled people, they can return home by boat after recovery. In addition, the logistics soldiers' way of gathering the population of the surrounding tribes is very effective. Hereby report the commendation. During the Huben Guards' camping on the spot, they can visit more surrounding tribes to attract people to join the Han tribe. At the critical moment, they are allowed to dispatch troops.
The second is the statistics of military merits. Sima at all levels are required to count the list of meritorious officers and soldiers as soon as possible, and they will be approved as soon as possible after reporting.
The third content is the transfer of personnel. The fleet is ordered to separate all three-masted ships to transport prisoners to the dock of Weishan County. Women and children are waiting for allocation and arrangement. Slaves will recover in Weishan County after being punished, and will be escorted to various places for labor after recovery.
All other two-masted sailing ships and three-masted wreck ships were responsible for transporting all officers and soldiers of Qianniuwei and horses and vehicles to the west bank of the grassland lake. You Fu led the fleet there and contacted You Zhi, the commander of Jinwuwei, to inquire about the final location of the city. After arriving, all Qianniuwei went ashore and stationed at the landing point. They camped and trained on weekdays and waited for the arrival of follow-up supplies, and were responsible for the subsequent construction and defense of the new city.
This reply letter was quickly delivered to them, and the leaders of the two guards began to act according to the orders from above. However, after they saw the arrangements made by the leader, some were happy and some were worried. The happy thing was that the Hubenwei could camp and rest on the spot, contact the surrounding tribes to try to attract people, and even allow them to send troops. This meant that the Hubenwei still had a battle to fight here, and if there was a battle to fight, they could make merit. Who wouldn't like to be promoted to a higher rank?
However, more than 2,000 officers and soldiers of Qianniuwei were sent to the grassland by the chief's transfer order. It was said that there was nothing there, and there were no enemies, so their main task became building a city. They were not afraid of hard times. Who had not suffered before joining the Han tribe? But now they have to suffer and have no chance to make merit, which is quite a pitfall. Therefore, the officers and soldiers of Qianniuwei were somewhat emotional, but due to the prestige of the chief, they still reluctantly boarded the fleet heading south to the grassland.
A few days later, Luo Chong was very angry when he got the news. He immediately sent a letter to Qianniuwei by flying eagle, and reprimanded Ying Rui by name. As the military commander of Qianniuwei, who was in charge of intelligence, logistics and the ideological state of the troops, how could he let the soldiers have such emotions?
Qianniuwei went to the grassland to fight against the nomadic tribes. Now that they haven't arrived yet, their morale has already dropped by half. If they encounter the impact of enemy cavalry when they land, can I still expect you to win the battle? Can I still expect you to bring back more than 2,000 elite soldiers alive? Can you be worthy of the families of more than 2,000 soldiers?
After receiving the letter, Ying Rui immediately realized his mistake, or rather, he knew about this matter a long time ago, but he didn't expect the consequences of this matter to be as serious as the leader said.
So he immediately summoned the Sima at all levels under his command, and then organized them to convey the leader's will to their soldiers. Qianniuwei went to the grassland with a heavy responsibility. Now the grassland situation is chaotic and the war is imminent. All soldiers must not slack off.
The soldiers understood immediately. The leader's meaning was very simple. You have your own battles to fight. I sent you, the Qianniu Guard, because you are better at fighting. Now the forces on the grassland are fighting each other. We are going to build a city on their territory. We may fight at any time. So you all should be smart and don't let your guard down.
After the soldiers learned the news, their morale quickly lifted up. They were no longer idle and waiting for death like before. The momentum of the elite division was on their faces again.
Ying Rui breathed a sigh of relief when he saw this process. He finally improved his morale. But at the same time, he was also wondering how the leader knew about this matter and who was reporting it to the leader. But after he analyzed it, he immediately turned his suspicious eyes to You Fu.
Now all the people of Qianniu Guard are on the ship. What they said and did every day is only known by the crew members on the same ship. Who else would know such news except them? And the leader of these people is You Fu.
But Ying Rui was not stupid enough to confront You Fu. This time, he had failed to do his job properly, so he had nothing to say. But if
it happened again, he would definitely ask You Fu what he meant. However, Ying Rui had wrongly blamed You Fu. You Fu had taken the blame for someone else without knowing it. This person was his nephew, You Zhi.
It was no secret that You Zhi was promoted to the commander of the Jinwu Guard. Many people knew about it, but basically no one knew about his identity as the head of intelligence.
However, in order to make his work more convenient in the future, You Zhi did not hesitate to place a few confidants around his uncle, and these people were all from the You clan. The order that You Zhi gave them was to monitor the fleet's every move. After all, such a large fleet was also a considerable asset for the Han tribe. The cost of manufacturing and maintaining these ships was enough to support a county.
What neither You Zhi nor Luo Chong expected was that the first news reported by the Jinwu Guard was not about the crew, but about the passengers of the fleet, Qianniu Guard.
But no matter what, since this incident had happened, it could not be ignored, so the following incident happened, and You Fu took the blame for his nephew without knowing it, and he couldn't get rid of it.
The big ship and the small ship went north and south respectively, leaving only the Tiger Guards stationed there. They first spent two days cleaning up the camp there, and then used their own food to find relief for the tribes around them that were already struggling to make ends meet. The condition was still the same: those who were willing to surrender would be given food. Once this method was used, it immediately attracted many small tribes to join.
Most people in small tribes would not have any emotions. Millions of years of experience have taught them that it is the survival of the fittest. Small tribes have no chance of survival at all. They either find their own way to survive and quickly expand into a large tribe, or they can only be eliminated by the environment and eventually go extinct for various reasons. For
tribes that have no ability and do not want to go extinct, there is really a way, which is to rely on the strong. Therefore, for these weak tribes, joining the Han tribe is not bad.
For the Han tribe, the more tribes there are, the better. Moreover, absorbing these local tribes can not only get their population, but also understand the local resources and key factors such as climate conditions more quickly, which plays a good role in the subsequent development of the Han tribe in various places.
For example, this time, the Han tribe got something from a tribe called "Papa". This is not an important mineral, but for the current Han tribe, this thing is more important than ore.
This is a fruit called "Papa" by the locals. Its growth structure is similar to that of a loofah. It belongs to the climbing plant. The fruit is the size of an ordinary can, oval, and shaped like a mango, but the skin is very hard and thick. When ripe, it is purple with four vertical ridges.
When the fruit is ripe, it will burst along the four ridges on the skin with a "pop" sound, turning into a four-petal flower with the mouth facing downward. Five or six cherry-sized white fruits will hang down from the middle of the four petals. After a few days of blooming, the color of these seeds will change from white to yellow, and finally fall by themselves, becoming the favorite food of the local indigenous people. This thing is similar to nuts and can be stored for a long time.
However, what interested Xue Dongliang, the military commander of the Tiger Guards, was not the seeds of the "Papa" fruit, but the melon itself that exploded. The reason why the people of the Han tribe thought it was very similar to the loofah at first was for a reason. When the loofah got old, the pulp inside would become empty and become something like a sponge, which could be used to wash pots or even take a bath.
The fruit, called "Papa" by the locals, also has this function, because when its flesh is ripe, it turns into white flocs, which contain a lot of air. The purple shell is heated by the sun, and the air contained in the flocs expands due to the heat, which will automatically explode the fruit. Then, the flocs will attach to the inside of the peel like a cocoon and turn outward, exposing the seeds protected in the middle.
Is it the seeds that Xue Dongliang cares about? No, what he cared about was the flocs, which looked like wool and cocoons. Its fibers were thin and long, very white and very soft. Most importantly, unlike catkins, it had excellent tensile strength and toughness, and was exactly the plant wool substitute the leader had been looking for.
And its peel was a rare purple color in nature. If the peel of this "papa" fruit could be developed into a dye, it would be even more valuable. This is purple. Before chemical dyes were artificially synthesized, God knew how expensive this natural purple dye would be.
So Xue Dongliang, who was overjoyed, immediately wrote a letter to Luo Chong, and also attached four "papa" fruits that were tributed by local indigenous people, and sent it back to Luo Chong overnight using a flying eagle.
(End of this chapter)
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