in2ebook Chapter 277: Starving
Chapter 277: Starving
The boy's eyes instantly turned red, and his voice trembled, "Xingsang, how can I not be excited!"
"This is how they work as officials. It's like this now. Wasn't it the same when they repaired the official road more than ten years ago?"
He lost his father when he was young, and his father's appearance has long been blurred in his memory. All that remains is the back of him when he left home for the last time...
If the official road had been intact back then, my father would not have taken the shortcut.
If he didn't take that path, he wouldn't be targeted by the bandits!
In the hungry north, people will eat each other...
From childhood to adulthood, the only thing he worshipped during the Qingming Festival was the cenotaph.
The young man clenched his fists tightly, and more than ten years of grievances and sadness came to his mind at this moment.
At this moment, his sleeve was gently pulled.
The young man lowered his head and saw that it was An An. He blinked gently, trying to hide his embarrassment.
A teardrop hung on the eyelashes and fell with trembling...
The little girl stood on tiptoe and raised her head. She smiled and patted the boy's head with her paws, as if this was a way to comfort him.
"Don't worry, we'll fix it ourselves this time!"
We must build a very good road!
"Such...such a wide road!"
She measured and danced with her hands, which amused the boy.
Seeing that he was smiling, the little girl pretended to wipe the sweat off her forehead and said with a cocky look on her face, "Oh, what will happen to this family without An An!"
Seeing her like this, both the guards and the young men laughed even louder.
Amid the laughter, the officials from the Ministry of Industry seemed too embarrassed.
With the young man’s words in mind, they can neither cry nor laugh.
I wish I could turn into a shovel so I could dig a tunnel and escape!
After having fun, Jiang An cast a sinister look at these embarrassed officials.
There were fourteen officials in total, divided into three groups.
Following the young man who had just spoken, Li Xingsang and the others, as well as Jiang An, they ran to three different directions, recording in detail the terrain of every place they passed.
Each of the three teams was escorted by light cavalry. They would set out in the morning, eat hard Hu cakes when they were hungry at noon, and return to their camp when the sun set.
The campsite was no more than fifteen miles away from the farthest point they had left.
Everyone who went out carried a cigarette with them.
If there is an unexpected situation, they will light the signal smoke, and then General Huo will lead his men to rush over.
After recording one place, they packed up their camp and moved to the next place, repeating this process over and over again...
These seemed to be small matters that were casually ordered, but in fact, they were all things that Jiang Jichen and Hu Yan had discussed repeatedly in the palace.
After confirming that this method was safe, the old father let his daughter leave his protection.
Chongzhou, Maozhou, Junzhou, and several states adjacent to the north...
It took several months to visit all these places, make detailed records, and send them back to Chongzhou City at full speed.
It can be said that Jiang An and these officials witnessed the fading of the cold winter in the north, the sprouting of spring grass, and the turning of the soil in the fields every day.
It is worth mentioning Xie Chaoyan,
This time she was sick and recovered, and then she recovered...
Jiang An saw that his sister looked like she would be blown away by the wind, and fearing that she would die, he rushed to Chongzhou to send her there overnight.
I don’t know if the Xie family is a stubborn family that refused to leave no matter what.
This made the little girl so angry that she jumped up and down in the camp!
In the end, Xie Yunshan got the news and rushed over alone.
Young General Xie has been spending all these days with the three provincial governors checking the number of able-bodied men in the three provinces. The population lists pile up like a mountain, and they often have to sort them out until midnight.
When Jiang An first saw him in the camp, he thought he had seen a ghost and was filled with such resentment!
Without saying a word, Xie Yunshan rushed into the tent and carried Xie Chaoyan out.
While the little girl was holding the Hu pancake and opening her mouth wide, he threw her into the carriage and climbed onto the horse.
"for you!"
Jiang An took the oil-paper bag he threw over, smelled it, and said in surprise: "Roasted chestnuts from Uncle's house!"
Still warm...
Of course, it is unknown how many days it takes to travel from this camp to Chongzhou, so it certainly cannot be newly built.
The only thing he could do was that General Xie kept it in his arms and close to his body all the way.
Xie Yunshan: "Little girl, I'm leaving!"
Jiang An waved his fat paw, "Bye~"
Xie Chaoyan in the carriage: "I won't reply..."
Xie Yunshan was not in a good mood, "If you don't go back, you will stay here and wait for death!"
"Do you really think that once you handle this matter well, the Queen Mother and the Xie family will look at you differently when you return to Kyoto?"
He stood on horseback with his back straight, his voice shrouded in sarcasm, "If that's the case, I fought in the battlefield and my military achievements may not be as great as yours, but I still have some. Why didn't they let me go back?"
The answer was the sound of the wind...
Xie Chaoyan shed silent tears in the carriage.
She couldn't get it done in the Zhenguo Palace; now she just wanted to do it well, but it still didn't work...
So what should she do?
The carriage was moving fast, and occasionally the curtains were lifted up, so you could see the vast world outside.
The haggard beauty in the carriage had dull eyes. In such a vast world, where could she find a place to stay?
April is a suitable solar term...
All the work of surveying the terrain and recording the landforms has been completed.
Upon learning that Jiang An and his companions were about to return, the old father, as usual, waited at the edge of Chongzhou with his men.
Also traveling with them were Hu Yan, Xie Yunshan and the second prince Jiang Yizhou.
After a burst of dust, the figure of Huo Lang and his cavalry gradually became clear...
Guan Yan was behind the prince, a little excited, "Here it comes!"
Jiang Jichen tilted his head to look at him and said, "That's my daughter, why are you so excited?"
"Dad~'
Hearing the familiar voice, a smile appeared on his face.
Junfeng rode his horse's hooves and moved forward very tactfully, without the need for his master to tell him to do anything.
Jiang An threw herself into her father's arms, wrapped her fat hands around her neck, and hung on Jiang Jichen.
She was thinner, with the little nose hanging down. She squinted her eyes and said in a sticky voice, "An An misses Daddy so much~"
The old father squeezed her paw and said, "Let's go home!"
On the other side, Jiang Yizhou, who was pretending to be sick, also met the officials from the Ministry of Works who had returned.
He looked at the person in front of him and called out somewhat unconfidently, "Minister Li?"
If he remembered correctly, Minister Li was a bit fat, basically, from top to bottom you could only see his belly and not his toes...
But who is this slim and pale man now?
Minister Li's eyes were filled with tears. He felt dizzy and grabbed the Second Prince's hand. He said in a miserable voice, "Your Highness!"
The corners of Jiang Yizhou's mouth twitched.
I'm still living a good life, there's no need to cry, thank you.
He held Minister Li's shoulders, his expression moved, "Minister, you have worked hard and made great contributions!"
Jiang An rolled his eyes when he heard this.
She didn't give these officials any face at all, and kept muttering, "The Second Prince praised the wrong person..."
"They didn't do anything special. They were just hungry."
Hu Yan held his forehead with his hand, what a mouth this little ancestor has!