Lin Ya nodded while clearing the dishes, “Yes!”
Liu Fang suddenly laughed and said, “Then let’s kill them all. Let’s have mutton soup today. Let the whole army and the whole city have a taste of barbarian sheep.”
Lin Ya happily agreed, packed her things, and went out to talk to the cooks.
Chen Fang then lifted the curtain and walked in, “Miss, everything has been brought back. There are eighty thousand top quality war horses, and countless provisions and fodder. Our granaries are full to bursting and can’t fit anymore. According to your instructions, food has been distributed to the people in the city. This year, the whole city can have a good year!”
Liu Fang smiled and nodded, “Of course, provisions for five hundred thousand people are indeed plentiful. It’s good this way; it’ll make the people happy too.”
Chen Fang smiled and nodded.
“By the way, have those people been arranged?”
Chen Fang bowed and replied: “Everything has been arranged. they’ve all been dragged to the military fields to reclaim land. Miss’s medicine is extremely effective. Those who resisted, once poisoned, suffered a terrible death. The rest became well-behaved now.”
“By the way, don’t give them food, just give them water. These people, if they die, they die. It’s of no use anyway.”
Liu Fang said very coldly, “How are the third prince and his party?”
Chen Fang said: “They’ve all behaved themselves now. After being forced to drink the yellow river water yesterday, they suffered all night. Now they’re obedient.”
Liu Fang nodded with satisfaction, “Where is Luo Zheng?”
Chen Fang paused before saying, “He almost committed suicide, but was stopped by Liu Ping, and is now kneeling outside.”
Liu Fang remained calm and said lightly: “Where is the imperial envoy?”
“Last night they were listening against the wall all night. This morning, the leader said he wanted to see you. Miss, this subordinate heard that this time the crown prince came in person.”
Liu Fang raised her eyebrows, Oh? Is that so?
She thought of the pretty boy she saw yesterday, could it be him?
Was he the crown prince of the Dayan Kingdom?
It’s interesting.
Liu Fang tapped her knees with her fingers, “Then I’ll see him later.”
“Yes, Miss.”
…………
Murong Zhuo had lunch and was listening to Hongbao talking about how the soldiers and civilians in the city outside were slaughtering the sheep brought back by the barbarian’s camp and preparing to make mutton soup when he heard from a servant that Liu Fang had come to pay a visit.
He raised his eyebrows slightly, finally able to see this busy man.
He made tea on the couch and waited for Liu Fang to come in.
As soon as Liu Fang entered the room, she saw Murong Zhuo dressed in white, gracefully brewing tea.
“I, Liu Fang, pay my respect to the Crown Prince. May your Highness be well.”
She bowed respectfully.
Murong Zhuo looked at her, smiled slightly, and gestured with his hand, “Miss Liu, please, have a seat.”
Liu Fang raised her eyebrows. This crown prince was a bit interesting.
It was her first visit, and she didn’t perform any grand formalities, but the other party seemed indifferent, which she didn’t expect.
However, there was no rush.
Liu Fang walked leisurely to the opposite side of Murong Zhuo, sat down calmly, and watched him slowly brewing tea.
For a moment, the room became quiet.
Hongbao stood aside, looked at his master, then at the beautiful woman, hung his head quietly, as still as a chicken.
He couldn’t figure out what these two were thinking, so he just had to keep quiet and behaved himself.
Murong Zhuo poured two cups of tea and pushed one cup to Liu Fang, “Miss Liu, try it and see if it suits your taste?”
Liu Fang picked up the teacup, put it under her nose, and smelled it. The fragrance was fragrant and the aftertaste was long. It was a rare and excellent tea.
As expected from the crown prince, there were many good things.
She took a slow sip from the teacup, relaxed her body, and let out a sigh of relief.
Seeing this, Murong Zhuo raised his eyebrows and said, “What does Miss Liu think?”
Liu Fang replied leisurely: “Good tea, good water, and brewed just right! Your Highness is very skilled, and I admire it.”
It was said in an extremely perfunctory manner and without any sincerity.
Murong Zhuo smiled slightly, “Really? But looking at Miss Liu’s expression, it doesn’t seem to think so.”
Liu Fang shook the teacup in her hand and said: “A small amount of this kind of tea is worth a thousand gold. And here, a thousand gold can feed and clothe a hundred people. Your Highness, just now, I ate all the rations and clothes of these hundred people. Moreover, it was just a sip of tea.”
Of course, this statement was an exaggeration, but it was also a fact.
Murong Zhuo was silent, looking at the still steaming tea, and said quietly: “Miss, are you here this time to claim destitution?”
Liu Fang shook her head. She looked at the white snow outside the window and said to Murong Zhuo: “Your Highness, it is snowing almost every day here. And does your Highness know how long this weather will last?”
Murong Zhuo turned to look out the window, “The geographical annals say that the snow in Western Xinjiang will not stop until April next year.”
The geographical annals of Dayan Kingdom, was a specialized text exclusively owned by official and aristocratic families, providing objective descriptions of the terrain, topography, weather patterns, and customs across the nation.
Liu Fang nodded. She looked at the snow outside the window and said quietly: “It will stop in April next year, but the snow will not completely melt until May.”
She turned back to look at Murong Zhuo and said, “Does your Highness know how much food the people here can harvest from farming in a year? ”
Murong Zhuo looked back at her, shook his head, and remained silent.
Liu Fang lowered her eyelids and spoke softly, “There are two planting seasons a year, one for summer harvesting and one for winter storage. However, one acre of land only has one hundred catties of grain per season, with thirty percent for taxes, fifty percent tp supports the soldiers in the city, leaving only twenty percent for personal consumption.”
Murong Zhuo’s eyes widened in disbelief, “This, the law does not require people to pay military rations!”
Liu Fang looked at the tea in the teacup in her hand and said quietly: “There are no such laws. Nor are there officials here. But, in order to survive. In order to keep their family and children safe. The people here drag most of the food saved at home to the military camp every year. Just so that in winter, these soldiers can be full and have the strength to resist the barbarians outside the city. ”
Murong Zhuo fell into a difficult silence, feeling as if his throat were stuffed with cotton, making it hard for him to speak.
Hongbao was also shocked by the cruel reality. With only a hundred catties of grain per acre, yielding barely seventy catties of food, and still having to support the garrison soldiers with provisions… How… How are these people supposed to survive?
Liu Fang’s voice was still calm, but the words she spoke seemed to be filled with blood, cruelty, and sadness.
“In here, people begin to eat dry cakes every winter. Your Highness probably doesn’t know what dry cakes are. Dry cakes are made by grinding up the leftover crumbs, husks, and debris from the yearly grain, then mixing them together and grinding them repeatedly with a stone mill until they can be formed into cakes. These cakes are then steamed until fully cooked, and finally, left to dry under the scorching sun until they are completely dry and hard, almost like bricks. These dry cakes are their rations throughout the winter, keeping them alive, helping them endure the harsh winter months, and providing them with provisions if they need to flee, ensuring they won’t go hungry on the road.”
Murong Zhuo listened and slowly clenched his fist tightly. He lowered his eyelids and asked quietly: “Don’t they have any other way to survive?”
Liu Fang raised her eyelids and looked at him, “No. Here, they only have this way of living, and there are no other options. Even in this difficult way of living, sometimes they cannot hold on. This time, They almost didn’t survive.”
Without her quick response and her subsequent series of arrangements, even if Liucheng could be saved, it would still be quite tragic, with less than twenty percent of the survivors.
This is the truth!
It’s not that Liu Fang was awesome, but the fact is: that she has lived a carefree life since she was a child, never worrying about food and drink. The common people and soldiers below were really in a state of starvation from time to time all year round. It was a wonder if they had strength.
Even if everyone was incredibly talented, it’s all in vain if they can’t have enough to eat.
Do you want to say Liu Fang was awesome?
Maybe it was.
But what really highlights her extraordinary abilities was that the soldiers and civilians here were all malnourished and lacked strength. It’s not necessarily a reflection of Liu Fang’s personal strength..
She just relied on having a good family and a good father to have adequate nutrition since she was a child. Otherwise, it would be difficult for her to practice martial arts, let alone cultivating immortality.
Nothing can really be achieved overnight. There must be a process to cultivate from a mortal to becoming an immortal. If you were hungry all the time during this period, you would only end up starving to death, and nothing you cultivate will work.
Not to mention that Liu Fang only possesses elementary martial arts and entry-level martial arts. She was also just a mortal.
If she had been hungry or malnourished since she was a child, then she wouldn’t be as good as she was today.
Therefore, the reason why the military and civilians in Liucheng were so vulnerable was simply because they couldn’t eat enough, their nutrition was lacking, they didn’t grow well, their bodies lacked strength. It could be said that their strength didn’t match their bodies.
Just like a computer, if the motherboard and processor were not compatible, then no matter how great the monitor was, it would be useless.
And the fundamental reason for this situation was the greed of the officials in the capital. Under layers of exploitation, by the time the food and armaments reach here, hardly a fraction remains. With such terrifying corruption, how could it not collapse? How could the people here have a way to survive?
To be honest, it was amazing that they can insist on living on this land from generation to generation!
So, to be honest, even if Liu Fang allowed them to go out and walk around the city, the soldiers and civilians in Liucheng would not welcome these so-called imperial envoys. Not killing them on the spot in the streets already shows a lot of restraint..
Who among the people living here didn’t know that it was because of the officials in the capital that the soldiers here have no food to eat and no clothes to wear. So much so that they had to take out food from their own rations to support them. Otherwise they would have to wait for everyone in the city to die.
The common people may endure, but they’re not all fools, you know. Even if they haven’t read books or traveled far, and haven’t seen much of the world, they still have brains, they still have intelligence.
Those noble above think that the common people below were really foolish, that what made their ideas truly foolish.
The people of Dayan Kingdom could still survive now, but what if one day they could no longer survive…
These so-called ‘foolish’ people would not just obediently allow these people to mistreat and trample on them. Who wouldn’t rebel? Anyway, it’s just death. Wouldn’t it be better to kill these corrupt officials and then die?
Therefore, many slave uprisings and peasant uprisings in history were all due to survival.
If they could live peacefully, the demands of the common people were actually very low. just being able to survive, just being able to live a decent life..
Unfortunately……
Liu Fang lowered her eyes. Most of the high-ranking nobles did not understand this truth.
Maybe they understand, but they will never look up to those so-called foolish people.
The contempt in their hearts allows them to treat these so-called foolish people at will and trample on them until they can’t stand it anymore, until they resist and until they explode!
Liu Fang sneered, what these so-called nobles eat, drink, wear, and use were all obtained by hard work and toil of these humblest and most despised common people.
But they, wearing fine silk, enjoy delicious food, will never remember that it was the common people who supported them so that they could indulge in luxury and enjoy rich food and clothing!
To be honest, if the governance of the Dayan Kingdom was like this, it would eventually come to an end.
