Chapter 2: Heroes Rise in a Chaotic World, With a Sword, One Can Be a King of the Grasslands

  （0002）

  Zhang Zhun sat up and turned his head to look at the position of the door.

  The dark door curtain was lifted, and a young girl came in, carrying a bamboo basket.

  She was about fifteen or sixteen years old, with a slender figure and fair skin. Her eyes were bright and clear like autumn water, her cheeks were white as condensed fat, gentle and elegant, healthy and lively. She wore very ordinary hemp cloth flower clothes, several patches could be seen clearly. The simple clothes couldn't hide her beautiful face, slender figure, emitting the unique youthful charm of a young girl. She walked in with small steps, looking natural, as if she had returned to her own home.

  Zhang Zhun hastily searched his own mind, but found that the memory felt very familiar to him, he liked being with her, but who she was and what her name was, just couldn't remember. What a strange thing. The original silly boy, it seems that there is indeed something wrong with his mind.

  "Are you... Xiaoyao?" Zhang Zhun said tentatively.

  Just now, Haozi said that the wound on his forehead was treated by "Xiao Yan". When the young girl came in, he had already seen some common herbal medicines in her bamboo basket, which should be related to his wound.

  The young girl heard him say that, her shiny black eyes turned slightly, and her gaze brightened slightly, with a hint of liveliness in her simplicity. She seemed to find it strange but didn't say anything, just nodded lightly and said: "I'll take a look at your wound first, then I'll brew some medicine for you to drink."

  He said, walked over and reached out to feel Zhang Zhun's forehead.

  A whiff of girlish fragrance wafts over, refreshing the heart. This is an original scent without any cosmetic flavor, fresh, natural, light, and serene. Like a lotus blooming in clear water, it's unadorned yet elegant. The young girl's voice isn't particularly crisp, but her words are well-articulated and pleasant to listen to.

  Since being detained in the detention center, Zhang has not had close contact with women for three years. As the saying goes, after serving as a soldier for three years, even a sow can be compared to Diaochan (a legendary beauty), let alone being detained in a detention center for three years? To put it bluntly, any woman would look like a flower. Fortunately, his self-control is still good and he doesn't lose his composure.

  "Are you Haoyi's sister?" Zhang Zhun asked again, probing.

  "Yes!" The young girl replied casually.

  "Uh... what's your name again? Sorry, I... forgot your name." Zhang Zhun asked with great embarrassment. Forgetting someone's name was indeed a bit rude, but there was no way around it - he really couldn't remember.

  "Forget? You've never remembered my name." The young girl said indifferently, her fingers brushing over the wound on his head. However, Zhang Zhun still felt a hint of warmth from her words.

  "I'm sorry," Zhang Quan said sincerely.

  "My dad calls me Xiaohe, my mom calls me Hehe, and my brother calls me Xiaoyao. You can call me whatever you want." The young girl said nonchalantly.

  "What's your name, then?" Zhang Zhun had no idea that in ancient times, asking a girl her name so directly was actually very impolite. He just felt that he and the other person should be very familiar, and it was necessary to know each other's names, just like how people would exchange phone numbers in later generations.

  "Yang Yinghua! You won't remember even if I told you!" The young girl was apparently very familiar with him, casually mentioning her own name.

  "Yang Yingwan, I remember." Zhang Zhun said slowly.

  Not bad name.

  The lotus flower before it blooms.

  The sky and the earth are infinitely blue, reflecting the sun's rays on the lotus flowers in a different red hue.

  The young girl no longer speaks.

  She lifted the gauze off Zhang Zhun's wound, cleaned out the herbs inside, and reapplied some new ones. With each movement, Zhang Zhun felt it. She wasn't a professional doctor, nor did she have professional tools; wanting to do things perfectly was impossible. Among ordinary women, her actions were already quite good.

  Suddenly, she asked: "Do you still remember what my name is?"

  Yang Yinghua! Your dad calls you Xiao Hua, your mom calls you Hua Hua, and your brother calls you Xiao Ya. But I don't remember what I used to call you, so I'll just follow your brother's lead and call you Xiao Ya too - you won't mind, will you?

  Yang Yinghua's movements came to an abrupt halt, her fingers hovering over his wound as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening. "You really remember?"

  Zhang Zhun said: "I still remember that your father's name is Yang Kaidi, and your mother's surname is Huang. But as for your older brother, I only remember his nickname was 'Haozi', but I forgot his real name. Just now when he was here, I forgot to ask."

  Yang Yinghua fell silent for a moment, not knowing what she was thinking about. Her fingers remained still on the wound, and after a while, she said: "He is my second brother, named Yang Dahu. My older brother is named Yang Cuifeng. I also have a younger brother and sister, named Yang Dansheng and Yang Lingshuang. Do you remember?"

  Zhang nodded and said: "I remember."

  Yang Yinghua didn't say another word, her hands moved deftly as she continued to help him treat his wound.

  After a while, the wound was treated. Yang Yinghua bent down to pick up the bamboo basket and turned around to leave. As she walked to the door, she suddenly stopped in her tracks, without turning back, and asked: "Yulin, what did I just say to you?"

  "Let me tell you, Haozi is your second brother, his full name is Yang Dahan. Your older brother's name is Yang Rui Feng. Your younger brother's name is Yang Gan Sheng and your sister's name is Yang Ling Xue."

  Before the words had fallen, Yang Yinghua suddenly shook her body, as if she had convulsed for a moment. Then she raised her hand to wipe away tears from the corner of her eyes, lowered her head, lifted the curtain and quickly disappeared.

  "Weird."

  "Even if I regained my memories, you don't have to be so excited, do you?"

  Zhang Zhun muttered to himself.

  He decided to get down from the kang and go for a walk outside.

  Pushing aside the dark door curtain, I went out. Outside was a chaotic empty space with weeds, garbage and dirty children playing around. Surrounding the empty space were dozens of thatched cottages, all in disrepair. To make up for the holes in the walls, anything usable had been used: mud, straw hats, bamboo rain hats, banana leaves, spider webs...

  Some thatched roofs have large and small stones on top, I don't know what they are used for, nor do I worry about the stones falling down in the middle of the night and hitting my forehead. Some thatched roofs have lush cucumber vines growing on them, but no cucumbers can be seen, probably because it's not the right season. Under someone's eaves, many dried calabazas are hung.

  The stinky ditch in front of the thatched hut, black as if ink had been poured into it. Because of the cold weather, the water flow seemed to have frozen solid. Faintly visible were flies that had been frozen to death, who knows how many months they'd been there? The buzzing of horseflies was particularly jarring, but no cows could be seen anywhere. The air was filled with some kind of smell, making it feel like being in a chaotic slum from the end of the world. Hmm, to be accurate, even the slums at the end of the world would be much better than this place.

  "Secondly, my home is on this side."

  Suddenly, that familiar voice rang out again.

  No need to look, I know it's a waste, huh, his name is Yang Dahao.

  Hao Zi walked over and said familiarly: "Xiao Ya is brewing medicine for you, do you want to come over and sit down?"

  Zhang Zhun shook his head and stepped forward.

  He wants to observe the surrounding terrain.

  This is a soldier's habit. When arriving in an unfamiliar environment, the first thing to get familiar with is the surrounding terrain. Only when you have figured out the surroundings can you react correctly in case of unexpected events. The late Ming dynasty was a truly chaotic world where human life was worthless, and it was even more so after the seventh year of Chongzhen's reign. He didn't want to die regretfully at someone else's hands again.

  If he died, he would be unable to change the course of history, even in the slightest way. If the course of history cannot be changed, his father, his wife, and his daughter will all escape a tragic fate! He must live on, only by living can he play a role!

  Having learned from his past life, Zhang Zhun no longer believes in any justice or righteousness.

  He only believed two sentences:

  One's fate must be grasped in one's own hands.

  In chaotic times, human life is as cheap as grass, and whoever wields a sword becomes the king of the grasslands.

  "Second Brother, where are you going?" Haozi hastily followed behind him.

  "I'll just take a walk around. Right, I don't really have any impression of this place anymore, can you introduce me to it?" Zhang Zhun said.

  "What's good about this rotten place." Haozi said with a face full of reluctance.

  "After all, this is also our hometown!" Zhang Zhun said calmly.

  The mouse had no choice but to start explaining in a nagging tone.

  According to Zhu Yuanzhang's original regulations, each thousand households should have 1,120 military households, and each guard should have 5,600 military households. This is the standard organization. In addition to the military households, there are also small flags, general flags, garrison commanders, hundred households, thousand households, deputy commanders, deputy commanders, commanders, and commander-in-chief. The guards were an important part of the Ming army, but now they have completely collapsed. Due to various reasons, the military households have fled continuously, and now there are only less than 450 military households in the Fushan Guards.

  During the Ming dynasty, Laizhou Prefecture and Dengzhou Prefecture in Shandong had a small number of civilian households to begin with. The people living here were basically all military households. During the Jiajing period, Japanese pirates repeatedly invaded various coastal areas of Shandong, causing large numbers of civilians to move inland, leaving even fewer behind. In the fourth year of Chongzhen, Kong Youde and others occupied Dengzhou Prefecture and caused chaos, with people eating each other, actually killing a lot of people, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of military households. The current Laizhou Prefecture and Dengzhou Prefecture can be said to be truly sparsely populated, and at midnight, only the howling of wolves can be heard.

  The place where they lived was called Yangjiatun, one of the twenty-five villages under Fushan, with about sixty or seventy households and a total population of around six to seven hundred people. Due to its remote location, the internal turmoil in Shandong Province rarely affected Fushan. There were no decent buildings in Yangjiatun, all were thatched cottages, looking like the slums of later generations, even more miserable than the slums.

  The household registration system of the Ming Dynasty was too abnormal. The military households were hereditary, and when the father died, the son took over. If one person was a military household, the whole family was a military household, including the daughter-in-law who married in. It was not easy for military households to change their registration, and as time went on, the number of households did not increase at all, but the actual population increased by quite a few thousand people. The total population of Fushan may have been several thousand people.

  However, most of the population was not recorded in the yellow book (equivalent to the household register of the Ming Dynasty, with a yellow cover, commonly known as the yellow book). In other words, these people were all black households. The country "did not know" about the existence of these people and did not care about their lives or deaths. As for the reason, it was naturally because the military officers at all levels of the Wei Suo were corrupt. Embezzlement and eating empty salaries, no dynasty was more severe than the Ming Dynasty.

  "Jade deer, the medicine is ready, come and drink it quickly!"

  The two turned back to the empty land in the middle of Yangjia Village, and Yang Yinghua's voice came over faintly.

  Very gentle, very pleasant to listen to, very touching.