The Seventh Section: Going into Public Service

  A silver flask was pulled out from the sleeve, and after a sniff, it turned out to be wine, not very strong. A small sip, the wine was quite dry, probably around 30 degrees, without any blending or flavoring. The strongest during the Tang Dynasty was only about three degrees of rice wine anyway. After three fermentations, the alcohol content could reach over thirty degrees, which was pretty good. The wine was a bit murky, but who cares? As long as there's wine today, get drunk today! He picked up the flask and "gulp gulp" downed two mouthfuls. For Yun Ye, who was used to drinking strong Qingxiang wine, this wasn't a big deal. Cheng Chumo's face cramped up.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Why?"

  "What's going on?"

  "Cloud brothers were only fourteen or fifteen years old,"

  "I'm fifteen years old,"

  "Why can you drink strong liquor like water, and at a glance, you can tell the name of the wine? It's clear that you're a connoisseur, and it seems that you often drink this wine. Sanle Chong is produced in the Western Regions and has a great reputation in Chang'an, its price is not cheap. Ordinary people can't even get a sip, but my brother, this is our family's treasured collection, originally intended to show off in front of Yun brothers, but unexpectedly, Yun brothers drank it down without changing his expression, and at a glance, he told the name of the wine, which really surprised me. Brother, you must also come from a famous family, why are you living in this desolate place?"

  "Brother Cheng, it's hard to say, but I'll try my best. Since childhood, I was adopted by a kind master and listened to his words. According to him, I should be from the Long'an people, but when I was picked up, I was still in swaddling clothes."

  Among them, the quilt had a cloud character written on it, and Master En gave his younger brother the name Yun He. At that time, it was a chaotic era, and they couldn't find the younger brother's parents, so they took him on a journey across the country, along the rivers and lakes. When the younger brother was ten years old, Master En's body was not well-suited, so he settled down with his younger brother by the river, far away from human habitation. This year in early spring, Master En passed away, and the younger brother followed Master En's will, cremated his body, and scattered it into the great river. The younger brother lived on the riverbank to mourn for Master En, but unexpectedly, a flood in the spring washed away the thatched hut where he lived, and he barely escaped with his life by climbing up the bank. He wandered around the wilderness for a whole month before meeting Zhang Da Shu and his party, which led to this matter of taking salt.

  There was no way out, so I had to fabricate a complete family history. After all, my Yun clan has been living in Langan since the Sui Dynasty, and later on, I would have to go pay respects to our ancestors. Even if I said it like that, it wouldn't be considered cheating him. If I told him about my real origins, he would think I was cheating him even more, using a kind of unskilled cheating method.

  "It's pointless to talk about the past, it's like smoke that can't be caught. Being able to survive in this world is already a blessing from heaven. Today, I'm reunited with Brother Cheng and we've hit it off, so let's just drink to our hearts' content." As he spoke, Yun Hao took another big gulp.

  "So, Cloud Brother is now alone and has no worries?"

  "It's all right, a great man has no worries, and should be free to roam the world." Pretending not to see Cheng's deeply concerned eyes.

  "How do you see the many brothers in our camp?"

  "They were all men of noble character and bravery, good at fighting."

  "Will you stoop to our level and tarnish the reputation of Yun brothers?"

  "When I descended into the mortal world, I could be with all of you brothers, but little brother couldn't find me, only fearing that being alone in white clothes would bring unclear experiences and trouble to Brother Cheng."

  "Trouble? Ha! My old friend Cloud doesn't know that our family has never been afraid of trouble. Come to think of it, would the King of Troublemakers be afraid of trouble?"

  －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

  Since Yun Ye agreed to join the Cheng family, he has been uneasy, worried about Cheng Chu's character, feeling like he had boarded a pirate ship. History is written by people, and if the person writing history has a biased brush, using the Spring and Autumn Annals style, Yun Ye would feel wronged. They say that sons are like their fathers, and if Old Cheng is also of this character, where can one go to reason with him? This is the aftermath of Yun Ye agreeing to be Cheng Chu's military secretary, after which his wine jug was taken away by Cheng Chu. Yun Ye feels like he was born to be a Tang Dynasty person, blending into the crowd in just one day, already having an elder brother and younger brothers, as well as a group of people eating with him. Life is indeed prosperous and thriving. Past events are truly fading away like clouds and smoke. There is only some faint heartache. Life must go on, once started, there must be an ending. This is the worst time, but also the best time.

  In the early years of the Zhenguan era, the young Tang Empire faced its most critical moment. The Turks invaded the Central Plains, and the states of Jing and Wu were in a state of emergency. Gao Juren led his troops to the banks of the Wei River. Emperor Taizong of Tang, with Wei Zheng by his side, defeated 2,000 Turkish cavalrymen at the Battle of Jingzhou, and then met with Gao Juren on the banks of the Wei River. The next day, they formed an alliance with the Turks on the Baqiao Bridge, killing a white horse as a vow, and the Turks retreated.

  Yun Hen knew that this was Emperor Taizong's strategy to buy time. At present, the Tang Empire had not yet pacified all the vassal kings, and the people were suffering. The grain left over from the Sui dynasty had been depleted. Eighteen rebellious kings, 72 factions of bandits, were killing each other, and only one in ten men remained. The population had decreased sharply from 1.7 million households to 640,000 households. The Han Chinese still existed, but they no longer had their former power.

  The surrounding ethnic groups were stirring, the Turks were constantly raiding the borders, the Tuyuhun people wanted to take advantage of the situation, and Songtsen Gampo of Tibet had grown up and begun his own journey. Silla and Goguryeo were also eyeing the northeastern plains. Looking back at history, all great kings who shone for eternity had emerged from a bloody path.

  Now, Emperor Taizong was retracting his claws, shrinking his body, and licking the fresh blood on his wounds. He was waiting for the moment to soar into the sky. Yun Hen knew that the glory of the Tang dynasty would shine for eternity. Just thinking about this made Yun Hen tremble with excitement. And he coldly watched the final performance of these small clowns.

  In Cheng Chumo's eyes, Emperor Taizong was a wise, open-minded, brave, and enlightened ruler. In Yun Hen's eyes, Emperor Taizong was a man shrouded in countless halos. Cheng Chumo was happy and proud, while Yun Hen was painful and felt that the higher the leader's IQ, the harder it was to deceive him. Thinking about being with so many talented people, Yun Hen felt that his future was bleak and he couldn't see his fingers when he stretched out his hand.

  The entire camp is now under Yun Ye's control, he is the military secretary, and the logistics camp is his largest. With great effort, he pushed open the thick legs that were pressing on his neck, no wonder he had a nightmare last night, Cheng Chu Mo was still snoring loudly.

  The Chinese nation is diligent and kind, which Yun Ye has always firmly believed. Look at these guys, they've been working from dawn till now, their muscles are bronzed by the sun, like copper statues, a hundred times more handsome than those deliberately tanned in later generations. It makes Yun Ye dare not take off his clothes, compared to them, he only has four limbs that have been tanned by the sun, other places are still fair and white, just like a panda. He went up to help with the work, but was persuaded to come back by a group of people, who repeatedly said: "Secretary Ye, please rest assured, these rough jobs don't require your personal attention, we will arrange them properly." Being persuaded to come back is fine, as a secretary, he's not supposed to do manual labor anyway. Anyway, few secretaries in later generations are willing to work hard. Moreover, they worked extremely efficiently, the assembly line method assigned yesterday was also very smooth. There's nothing to pick on.

  Cheng Chu woke up, rubbed his waist and walked out of the tent, asking Yun Ye how drinking could cause back pain. Yun Ye would not tell him that it was because he had kicked him, nonsense, who wouldn't get angry if someone put their foot in their mouth?

  Shouting, Zhang Cheng took a bow and arrow for himself, planning to go hunting. Since seeing the bow and arrow last night, he has been enthusiastic about this cold weapon era's main military equipment. You haven't seen what Mr. Shuoshu said: "Pushing with both hands, holding a baby in his right hand, two fingers relaxed, only to hear the enemy general's mournful cry..."

  Yun Ye's eyes widened with envy at Cheng Chu Mo's precious bow, but unfortunately, no matter how hard he pulled left and right, he couldn't even open it. It was said that this was a three-stone bow, made by the best craftsmen after three years of work, worth 300 taels, equivalent to 600,000 yuan. Good heavens! A BMW could be bought with that money, all spent on this broken bow. By the way, Yun Ye liked the value of this bow.

  Yun Ye was completely immersed in his fantasy of holding an AK-47 and sweeping across the world. Thinking about it, he couldn't help but burst out laughing. Next to him, Cheng Chu Mo, Zhang Cheng, and two women took a step back, thinking he had gone mad.

  Ignoring these low-quality people, Yun Ye chased away Zhang Cheng and brought Wang Cai and the two women into the forest to pick wild scallions. Meanwhile, Cheng Chu Mo saw that Yun Ye couldn't even open the softest bow and looked at him with disdain, bringing a few guards into the forest to hunt, saying not to bring children or women, as it was unlucky.

  (Note: I've kept the translation as close to the original text as possible, but some minor adjustments were made for readability and grammar.)

  The uncultivated land is a treasure trove, with wild scallions growing thick and lush, a handful at a time, what a delight! Spread some on the dough, fry it in oil, and the aroma of scallion pancakes makes one's mouth water just thinking about it. What great luck, even the Sichuan pepper tree was found, although they were still green, but usable as seasoning. After picking with the women for half a day, only a handful was gathered, this thing is covered in thorns, Wangcai took a bite and his mouth started watering nonstop, probably because it's spicy. Too much trouble, in one swift motion, even the tree was cut down and dragged back. Two large baskets of wild vegetables were also picked, before finally returning to camp.

  They were teaching the women to make noodles, planning to bake pancakes. Cheng Chumo returned silently, and the three wild goats were killed by him. Looking at one of them, its long horns were tangled with scabies, curved and twisted, it was clear that the lead goat had not escaped. The ancients said that Pao Ding's cow cutting was unseen, but Zhang Cheng used a half-foot-long boning knife, in an instant, the three goats became large and small pieces of meat that could be put into the pot. Let Yun Heng look at it with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape.

  Yun Ye decided to cook the meat by hand, without washing the lamb, and directly throwing it into the pot with blood. Once the water boiled, he poured out the whole pot of water and added new water to continue cooking. He added a handful of wild scallions and a handful of Sichuan peppercorns, and that was it. After taking it out of the pot, he added another handful of salt. This is the taste of heaven on earth.

  Two women had been waiting for two days, unable to bear the wait, and were called over to ask in detail. It turned out that one was Zhang Wangshi and the other was Liu Heishi, with no personal names. During the war-torn era, they were displaced and assigned by the government to be wives of soldiers Zhang and Liu. As they were officially assigned, there was no choice. This time, they were on their way to Black Wind Pass to reunite with their husbands. In the military, soldiers are like brothers, and as long as they were assigned by the authorities, they would not have any other thoughts about them. If anything unexpected happened, it would be a major taboo in the military, and no one from top to bottom would let anyone get away with bad intentions. It seems that Emperor Li was willing to do whatever it takes to increase the population. To give the two women a skill to rely on, he decided to teach them how to make sheep oil scallion pancakes: "Two sisters, you have suffered for two days, and Yun Hen Meng is grateful for your care. Today, I have a small skill that may not bring great wealth, but can at least provide food and clothing without worry. In the future, opening a small shop would be a way to make a living. Are you willing to learn?"