Chapter 59: The Azure Eyed Slave

  Li QIN walked at the forefront of the crowd, the bearded man on the wall had already seen him, narrowing his eyes to look at those hardworking bearded men, he thought: "There are quite a few bearded men who have come, and regardless of male or female, they are all working hard, it seems that they are really surrendering to me."

  At this time, Feng Cheng had already firmly occupied a position beside Li Qin through his tireless efforts. He was also very nervous, after all, he had invited so many barbarians, and didn't know what Li Qin would think in her heart, or if she would blame him for inviting too many.

  Feng Cheng said in a low voice, "Jun Hou, these people were all brought by Zhong Lao Han. Most of them are Di people, and there are also a small number of Qiang people. They are all destitute herders who have no way out. There are probably around fifty able-bodied men who can be soldiers, the rest are old and weak, but they're not just idle mouths to feed..."

  Li Qin nodded and said: "If you want to recruit strong men, you must take good care of their families. You can't just use whoever is available and ignore the old and weak."

  Hearing that everything was fine, Feng Cheng finally breathed a sigh of relief. He continued: "Those barbarian soldiers were originally herders. If they are to be enlisted, they can immediately take up arms and go into battle. They are also skilled in archery and horsemanship, so no further training is needed. That's why I took them in. General Mo shouldn't blame me for acting on my own initiative."

  Li QIN turned his head and smiled at him: "What's wrong with blaming you, I instructed so before leaving! They all live in Fuping, and they are all kind-hearted people. They can come to rely on us, this is a good thing!"

  Feng Cheng also became happy, and his credit was not small. He was about to say a few more words when he felt someone push him. Lowering his head to look, it was Xiao Ma Chao.

  Ma Chao felt wronged, he was robbed of his position by Feng Cheng, and was far away from Li Qin. He was unhappy in his heart, and forcibly squeezed Feng Cheng to one side, calling out: "Uncle Li, hug!" Little kids are good at this point, they can act spoiled anywhere and anytime, win Li Qin's favor, and attract his attention. Adults can't compare with them, at least Feng Cheng wouldn't dare to shout "hug".

  Li Qian smiled and said, "You're a big kid now, still wanting to be carried!" But he still picked up Ma Chao. He asked, "I've seen your Eldest Brother, which one is your mother, and where are your younger brothers?"

  Ma Chao pointed to the wall of the fortress and said, "They are over there!" He was still young after all, and he himself knew who his mother and brother were, but he had no way to accurately point them out to Li Qian. There were so many people on the wall of the fortress, and several children as well, it was impossible to tell who was who.

  Li QIN pretended to see and said: "You look very much like your mother, and your younger brothers also look very much like you. At a glance, they are a family!"

  Ma Chao was delighted, and in Li Qiang's arms, he twisted his body and said: "My younger brothers and Xiao Chao are not like that at all, they are all crybabies."

  As they spoke, the crowd arrived at the foot of the city wall. The Hu people on top were working even harder, no one dared to speak, and everyone was doing their best to work hard, including Old Man Zhong.

  Li QIN exclaimed: "Old Man Zhong, is that you? Ah, it's really you! It's great, I've been worried these days, afraid you wouldn't come! You're here, it's really great, now I can finally put my mind at ease!"

  When interacting with people, the first sentence and the first impression are really important! Li QIN didn't ask what was going on with so many people, nor did he ask about the project, or say anything else. He just said that he was delighted to see Master Zhong and was worried that he wouldn't come. Just this one sentence was like a magic pill, making all the tense Huans relax and their mood suddenly improved!

  Zhong Lao Han's hanging heart finally put down, he was afraid that Li QIN would see so many Hu people unwilling, after all, in Bei Di Prefecture, or the whole Liangzhou, there were not many Han officials who could accept Hu people, and Li QIN had already become a military marquis, in the eyes of the Hu people, it was already an unattainable big official!

  Zhong Lao Han hastily said: "Li Lang, you're back! The old man greets you!" He patted his chest and bowed against the wall, but felt it was not suitable to be condescending, so he hurriedly waved at the crowd of Hu people and said: "Everyone, don't just stand there stupidly, quickly go down and pay respects to Li Lang!"

  The crowd scrambled down the wall, hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to pay their respects. They looked at Old Man Zhong, who had gotten off the wall and was performing the Han family's ritual, kneeling down and kowtowing to Li Qín. They all knelt down, calling out "Li Lang" in strange tones and various pitches.

  Li Qinfang put down Ma Chao and rushed forward, saying: "Hurry up and get up, everyone will be their own people from now on, don't be too polite!" He helped old man Zhong to his feet.

  The other Huren took Zhong Lao Han as an example. Whatever he did, they followed suit and slowly stood up.

  Ma Chao ran towards a woman who was not very old and shouted: "Mother, this is Li Lang, it's him who has been feeding our family, your illness can be cured!" Behind the woman were two small children, one five or six years old, the other four or five years old, not much different in age, but from their appearance, neither of them was as handsome as Ma Chao, and they didn't seem very sturdy either. They hid behind their mother's back, blinking their eyes at Li Qian.

  Zhong's family was a bit at a loss, saying: "The little girl is from Ma's family, and has met Li Lang!"

  She was the wife of Ma Teng, and like her father, Ma Teng married a non-Han woman due to poverty. Before leaving home, Ma Teng was a woodcutter, with no constant property except for his family name, which others did not recognize. However, Zhongshi was not purely a Di woman; she had Han ancestry and was also of mixed Hu and Han blood. She was the adopted daughter of Zhong Laohan, originally not surnamed Zhong but raised as if she were his own daughter. In an era where men were revered and women were inferior, no one cared about her true origins, whether high or low.

  Li Qian was very polite, nodding and smiling at her, calling out to Ma Dajie. No matter what, she was Ma Teng's wife, although Ma Teng could abandon her to seek his own fortune, but in the end, she was still Ma Chao's mother.

  Ma Chao pulled out a little boy from behind his mother and said, "Li Shu, this is Ma Xiu, Xiao Chao's second brother." After introducing them, he pushed one aside and pulled out an even smaller one, saying, "He's called Ma Tie, Xiao Chao's third brother. The two of them are a pair of snotty kids!"

  Zhong shouted at Ma Chao, "You don't behave like an elder brother should!"

  Ma Tie, who was held by Ma Chao, wrinkled his nose and snorted. He really was a snot-nosed kid, as Ma Chao had said. He stuttered: "Li Hui is back, has...has sugar? What's sugar?" It was clear that Ma Chao often talked about sugar, but the young child, due to poverty at home, had never tasted sugar and didn't know what it was.

  Li Qin was taken aback, and couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness. This child was Ma Tie, who would later become a renowned general, but for now he was still just a naive kid who didn't even know what sugar was. He said: "Yes, yes, I have sugar! I had someone prepare a whole sack of it!"

  He turned back and beckoned, Jing Qi immediately took down a large hemp bag from the camel, held it in his hand, and smiled: "Want to eat as much as you want."

  Li Qinchong waved his hand at the crowd and said, "Come on, let's divide the sugar and eat it. Everyone has a share. Let everyone taste the sugar I brought back from the prefecture. It's sweet! Little Chao, you come and distribute it to everyone!"

  For the extremely poor common people, it is already difficult to have enough food to eat, let alone sugar. Some people haven't even tasted sugar from birth to death. When Li Qin distributed the sugar, not only were the children excited, but also the adults came over and wanted to try the legendary sugar to see what it tastes like!

  Ma Chao pressed down on the big sack of rice and shouted: "One block for adults, two blocks for kids! I'm a kid, so I'll take it first!"

  Everyone shared the sugar and ate it. Although it was chaotic, their relationship with Li QIN quickly drew closer, and they all looked up to him as a leader.

  Taking advantage of everyone's busyness, Li Qin walked towards the castle, climbed up the wall and looked around, with Feng Cheng and others accompanying him. He saw that the castle wall was not very high, only about two people tall, and not even as good as the courtyard walls of large households in Long County. However, it was built very solidly, with large wood as the skeleton and earth bricks as the flesh. The exterior was exactly the same as his design, a five-pointed star shape. It can be said that Feng Cheng had strictly carried out his orders without any changes.

  The circumference of the castle is only one mile, and it can't be considered big. However, this was Li Qin's first base, where he started to make a fortune!

  Soon, the world will be in great chaos, and a tragic scene of "a thousand miles without crowing chickens" and "empty names but no residents" will appear. I also thought that with 5 million people in Hebei Province, only 300,000 were left after the great chaos, and Cao Cao still shouted: "Got a big state!"

  Li Qin suddenly felt a surge of heroic passion in his heart, and he declared loudly: "From now on, this fortress will be our home! Everyone, let us unite as one, build our homeland together, and make this place a paradise where we can live and work in peace! I urge you all to strive for it!"

  Jia Zhen murmured: "We should encourage each other, we should encourage each other!"

  Everyone looked up at Li Qín, and under the sunlight, Li Lang seemed like a god, as if his presence alone could bring peace and happiness to all, and they no longer had to worry about poverty and hardship.

  After a while, Jia Yu suddenly shouted: "Follow Li Lang, and build a supporting horn together!"

  The common people all shouted together: "Follow Li Lang, follow Li Lang..."

  Li QIN looked at the excited people and nodded slightly. There are still too few people now, it would be better if there were more!

  Suddenly, he saw that among the crowd, there were several foreigners who were tall and had eye colors different from others, including some with blue eyes. Li QIN thought to himself: "What's going on? I didn't think Europeans would come here too, I don't have that much influence, do I?"

  He pointed at those few barbarians and asked Feng Cheng: "What tribe are those people from?"

  Feng Cheng glanced at them and said, "They claim to be Qiang people, but the Qiang people themselves rarely acknowledge them as their own kind. They say they are mixed barbarians and call them 'Biqing slaves'. It's said that their ancestors came from a land in the extreme west, but no one knows where this extreme west refers to - they themselves may not even be clear about it. However, these people do have good physiques and are very capable of doing labor."

  Li Qian sighed, he remembered that after Ma Chao grew up, he would establish a famous Liangzhou army, quite Romanized, skilled in using large shields and javelins, and also skilled in retreating and counterattacking. He had defeated Cao Cao before, but was also defeated by Cao Cao. This army also triggered debates in the academic circle, and even when painting the Liangzhou army, it should be painted according to the Roman military formation, although it was not really painted out, but still left a little shadow of the Roman legion, and many people believed that Ma Chao's armor equipment was different from those of the Central Plains generals.

  However, these are things that Li QIN cannot verify, and he can't tell whether they are true or false. Because Ma Chao is still a kid who shouts to eat candy now, his legions don't even have a shadow, where can he go to verify, unless he improves one himself and establishes it.

  Li QIN said to Feng Chengdao: "The sea accepts all rivers, and has the capacity to be great. We are in a time when we need to use people's talents, so we should treat them well."

  "Feng Cheng hurriedly said: 'I understand.'"

  Li QIN looked at him and smiled: "Feng Shi Chang, no, it's Feng Dui Shuai. You have made great contributions to the construction of the fortress. I promote you to be the leader of the team and give you more responsibilities. Are you willing to take on this responsibility?"

  Feng Cheng was overjoyed, he knew his ability was not enough, when the garrison commander was afraid it wouldn't work, being able to become the team leader was already satisfactory, and he repeatedly said: "Thank you, General Hou, for promoting me. I will do my best to repair the fort and build my home!"

  ——

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