Three months have passed in the blink of an eye, and the situation in Xifeng is gradually improving. The second season of sweet potatoes and corn has been planted, and the harvest of these crops in winter will provide some relief for the people, so they will no longer have to rely solely on relief grain to survive.
After all, the amount of relief grain was limited, and in addition to the civilians, there were 100,000 soldiers waiting to be fed. If they did not speed up the planting of grain, they would all starve next year.
The officials recruited by the government office are becoming more and more skilled at their work and are now able to work independently. Ye Moxun has a good understanding of each person's work ability and performance.
People with high academic qualifications don't study for nothing. The only one who passed the imperial examination was the most capable and had a good character, so he was temporarily appointed as the prefect.
It's impossible to decide to appoint him as prefect directly; we still need to test him. The other positions have also been decided, and Ye Moxun thinks it's fine for him to leave for a while.
These scholars are all honest, at least for now, and they are doing their job properly. Moreover, Bai Pingfeng and others hold military power, so these acting officials can't cause any trouble. As long as they do their job well, they won't be treated unfairly. But if they have other ideas, their fate will not be good.
As for Bai Pingfeng and the others, Ye Moxun has spent half a year with them from the beginning until now, and has figured out their character. They are genuinely willing to do things for the people and are guarding Xifeng with a sincere heart. He can rest assured that he can entrust Xifeng to them.
Ye Moxun wasn't going anywhere in particular. He just wanted to go back to Songlin Village before winter and hopefully return to Fengcheng before the snow fell. Although he often complained that managing so many things was too tiring and that he wanted to be a hands-off manager, as time went by, he gradually developed a subtle affection for Xifeng.
How to put it? It's like not wanting to have children at first, but then the child suddenly comes along and you just let it happen naturally. After the child is born, as you raise him, watching him change every day, from a skinny little monkey to a fair and chubby little boy, you grow to love him more and more from the bottom of your heart.
Therefore, there are even more things to care about. Not only do we hope it can grow up quickly, but we also hope it can become healthier and healthier, and that it can achieve great things in the future and live a stable and wonderful life.
Well, that's just a metaphor. Anyway, Ye Moxun's feelings right now are as complicated as those of an old father.
Besides taking Liu Cheng and others out of the mountains, returning to Songlin Village also involves taking young men and women of marriageable age out to find partners. And then there's the most important thing: Zhong Qingyi and Song Zhuiyan want to get married before the end of the year.
Although it seems like only a few months have passed from engagement to marriage, and it looks like they've been in a rush, it's actually not rushed at all. The two have known each other for several years and have long been sure of their feelings for each other. Most importantly, they are not young anymore; one will be thirty after the New Year, and the other is twenty-two.
In ancient times, the two were considered to have married very late, so no one thought their marriage was fast; it just seemed a bit sudden. The villagers of Songlin Village were particularly surprised, as they hadn't heard anything about it before leaving the mountains, and then returned to announce their marriage. While everyone was stunned by the news, they weren't too surprised.
There's no one in the village who can match them. These two hang out together every day and have been living together for a long time. It's normal that they've decided to live together long-term now.
In everyone's eyes, the two are used to each other and have long regarded each other as family. As for the issue of love, no one knows if it exists or not, and no one thinks it is important. If it is suitable, they will get married. Why think so much?
Who isn't married by their parents' wishes and a matchmaker's arrangement? There are plenty of blind marriages. People who have never met before can only meet on their wedding day. It's too much of a stretch to talk about feelings. If you can't fall in love after marriage, then just live like this. Everyone else can live like this, so why can't you?
However, they haven't set off yet. The four of them are at home discussing what to bring back, because Song Zhuiyan has a spatial ability and can take everything except the house with her.
Zhong Qingyi was unaware that Song Tantan also possessed a spatial ability, so all her belongings were stored in Song Zhuiyan's space. Although they had lived there for over three months, the four of them still didn't feel a sense of belonging to this place.
Perhaps because they've experienced too much war, they always feel unsafe here, so they want to move everything away first and then take it back when they come back.
"Don't bring the pots and pans, they're not valuable. Besides, we can make our own porcelain. We'll leave the blankets and clothes here. Just bring the valuables." Ye Moxun sighed, not understanding why Song Tantan and Song Zhuiyan wanted to take everything.
If they could, they'd probably even want to move their house away.
"It's just a matter of putting it in there, it won't get in the way, and I only feel safe when I have something in my hand, so that no one can take it away." Who told her to experience a life of running around as soon as she transmigrated? If it weren't for the space, even if she were lucky enough to survive, she would be skin and bones, just like a refugee.
They were waiting all day for the government to send relief grain. Oh no, if they didn't have their own space to protect them, they wouldn't have been able to pacify Xifeng so quickly, and Duke wouldn't have died so soon. Who knows how many more years the war would have lasted.
"Calm down, Xifeng is perfectly safe right now, no one dares to come in and steal anything," Ye Moxun said calmly.
"I'm not worried about someone coming in to steal; I'm worried about something unexpected happening while we're gone. It would be terrible if someone brought troops in," Song Tantan said, expressing her concerns. It wasn't that she wanted to curse Xifeng, but there were several forces outside eyeing them covetously.
Ye Moxun paused for a moment. He had also considered this possibility, but after analyzing the current situation, he believed that no one would attack Xifeng in the short term.
First of all, Bai Pingfeng is quite talented in leading troops, which can be seen from the usual training exercises. In addition to drills, the military camp also conducts exercises, which was suggested by Ye Moxun.
Previously, because many soldiers were unruly, Ye Moxun divided them into two teams and treated them as enemies to be killed. If anyone disobeyed, he would feed them a poison pill. Intimidated by the power of the poison pill, those people could only fight to the death in order to save their lives.
Although this method was cruel, it had a great deterrent effect. The others naturally became obedient and did not want to be thrown into the life-or-death training camp and trained to be like cold-blooded animals, with no emotions other than obeying orders to kill.
Most people are pragmatic, so only about a thousand people were captured for life-or-death training, while the rest underwent normal drills.
After three months of life-or-death struggle, less than two hundred of the thousand men were left. These men naturally became suicide soldiers. Ye Moxun kept them for his own use. The suicide soldiers were given drugs, with a one-month time limit. If they did not take the antidote within a month, they would suffer inhuman torture when the drug took effect.
These people are inherently rebellious; if they are not controlled with drugs, they are likely to rebel, so we must be ruthless in dealing with them.
Before leaving, Ye Moxun met with Bai Pingfeng again, giving him many instructions. Finally, he told him to protect Xifeng well, "...Now that you have military power, you can mobilize 100,000 troops. However, you can only mobilize 100,000 troops at once as a last resort. In short, you must protect the people of Xifeng."
"Rest assured, Lord Ye, our families are all in Xifeng. I will risk my life to protect Xifeng and supervise the officials in the government office to prevent them from deceiving their superiors, colluding with the enemy, or oppressing the people. Otherwise, they will be executed without mercy." Bai Pingfeng solemnly accepted the order, holding his sword.
Since Ye Moxun recruited officials for the government, everyone stopped calling him Young Master Ye and started calling him Lord Ye. He didn't care about the title; both Young Master Ye and Lord Ye were fine with him.
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