The quarry is located in the southwest of the town of Changshan.

Where Chen Wu lives, in another corner of the town, after each work, he has to trek seven or eight miles of dirt roads across the town to return to his residence.

For Chen Wu, who has lived in another world for more than 20 years, life in Changshan Town is completely a kind of suffering. But more than ten years of experience in the game has made him know that the lower-class farmers on this continent have lived such a hard life for generations. The only difference is that when there are no natural disasters, they can be a little more relaxed, or at least not starving.

Walking all the way, Chen Wu hurried into the town before dark.

"There are more displaced people from Ganding Mansion......"

Looking at the ragged and weak people lying on the side of the road, Chen Wu couldn't help frowning. I remember that when I was working this morning, I didn't see these people when I passed by here, and in just one day, there were more than a dozen. Looking at the bearing of a few of them, I am afraid that there is no shortage of rich people who are willing to settle down.

It's a pity.

He shook his head and walked past a woman on her knees.

Although the woman in her twenties has a yellow face and thin muscles, she can still vaguely see the charm of the past. Beside her, there sat a little boy of four or five years old with a straw mark on his head, and the price was extremely low. The child probably hadn't eaten for a long time, and he was so hungry that he didn't even have the strength to cry, and he tilted his head and fell asleep, looking very pitiful. However, few people in Changshan Town who passed by cared, and occasionally stopped to take a look, but they only sighed helplessly.

In this world, the people of Changshan Town are only barely maintaining, how can there be extra food to feed the children?

When Empire first launched, most enthusiastic players would choose to do their best to help. But now, Chen Wu is only one of the countless ordinary people who are in danger, and he is powerless. I can only force myself to turn my head and speed up my pace to leave.

It wasn't until he was about to get to the Qian Ji grain store that he came back from his trance.

Glancing at the board hanging on the outside of the grain store, Chen Wu's heart sank, and he wrote crookedly with charcoal: "Add another copper coin to today's grain price!" ”

Five copper coins, can't even buy a pound of grain......

He took out the five copper coins in his arms and looked at them, and couldn't help but smile bitterly. He is obviously not the only one who thinks that food is expensive. The other townsfolk who were queuing up to buy food were also in pain, and after cursing a few times for the black heart of the grain store, they hesitated to buy less, or insist on coming back for a few days. But Chen Wu knew very well that in the next ten years, until he crossed over, there was no possibility of the price of grain in the whole continent dropping, and it would only continue to grow wildly.

Because of this, he didn't argue with the people in the Qian family's grain store, or tried to bargain, silently carrying the small bag, and staggered home.

It's said to be a home, but it's actually only slightly better than a thatched house.

A hedged courtyard with a few pieces of wooden furniture, and nothing else. The grain tank in the corner of the house, I don't know how many years it has been used, there is a gap missing on it. There is no doubt that the inside is now empty enough to run mice. Chen Wu carefully put the grain bag in and sat next to him to rest.

The aches and pains all over my body, the exhaustion, and the scars on my back suddenly came up like a tide.

Before he went home, Chen Wushang could barely support it. Now, as soon as he sat down, the exhaustion that penetrated deep into the bone marrow could no longer be suppressed, and he wished that he could immediately throw himself on the straw and sleep well for three days. However, the cows in the cowshed in the courtyard mooed and woke him up from his drowsiness.

By the way, Chen Wu is not nothing.

For the townspeople of Changshan who make a living from farming, a ploughing cow is definitely a great wealth. If it weren't for the drought, Chen Wu wouldn't have to worry about starving with this cow. But the problem is that there is a big drought in Taiping County this year, and there is no harvest of grains, so it is very embarrassing to save the cattle. Not only could he not help, but Chen Wu also had to bother to find forage all over the world to serve him.

Cattle!

Chen Wumeng, who remembered something, stood up violently, but his eyes darkened with exhaustion, weakness, and hunger. Still, he tried to hold himself, and with the help of the moonlight shining in from the panes, he looked at the crooked numbers carved into the earthen wall on one side. It was an important event in the novice village that he recalled after crossing over, and it was specially engraved on the wall in order to prevent forgetting.

One of them, which happens to be tomorrow.

"It's time to come, but you still can't hide it?"

Chen Wu sat down again against the grain tank and smiled bitterly.

In two months at most, the Tile Thorn cavalry in the northwest will be on the border and plundering the grain and grass for the winter. Over the past few years, this has become a common practice in Wuwei County on the northwest border. But this year, the empire was not willing to be passive again and decided to use 300,000 troops to meet the cavalry of the Tile Spurs.

This unprecedented war will take place in three months' time. However, the soldiers and horses did not move the grain and grass first. As early as the time when the empire decided to make a move, the center had already begun comprehensive preparations. One of the things that directly affected Chen Wu's life was to requisition the people's animal power in order to transport grain, grass and weapons from Qinghe County and Wuhu County to the northwest.

By now, this order should have been issued to the counties of the Empire.

There is nothing wrong with this requisition order in itself. After all, the people of the army of 300,000 eat horses and chew, and the consumption will be an astronomical amount. Moreover, the empire made clear regulations on the quantity and type of animal power to be requisitioned, and explicitly required the local officials in charge of the requisition to give compensation equivalent to the market price.

However, no matter how good the decree is, once it reaches the end of the dynasty, it will be completely distorted.

The officials of Taiping County, when they saw this requisition order, were afraid that they were excited to cheer. They finally got a chance to loot the place with impunity and legally.

The biggest loophole that can be exploited is in the word "market price".

The central order was well-intentioned, and it was worried about the uneven price of goods in various places, which caused dissatisfaction among the requisitioned peasants. But in the hands of local officials, it has become the best excuse. a horse, "market price" of eight copper coins; A donkey, the "market price" of five copper coins...... What, you dare to stand up to the requisition of the Empire? The local officials in power will not mind charging you with the charge of resisting law enforcement and sabotaging military supplies, and by the way, they will arrest you and put you in prison and then exile your home.

If nothing else, Changshan Town, where Chen Wu is located, will fully implement the requisition order starting tomorrow.

And Chen Wu's cow ......

The reason why he remembers it so clearly is because in Empire, it was a large mission in a newbie village. It is up to the players to unite against the servants sent down to recruit them and the servants of the barons who collude with them. At the beginning, Chen Wuzheng had also taken over the mission in righteous anger, but he never imagined that one day he would become an NPC in the mission. And this time, there are no countless players who stand up for him.

The only valuable family property is to be taken away, and it is definitely a matter of life and death. But what made Chen Wu most unwilling was that he knew that this was going to happen, but he didn't have anything to do.

Cattle are reported to the local government, and slaughtering them without permission is a big crime!

What to do?

Chen Wu was a little distraught, sitting under the pitch-black, courtyard eaves, looking at the cattle flicking their tails in the cowshed in the distance, and fell into silence.

What should I do if the government doesn't give me a way to live?

Two words came to his mind!

………

Chen Wu's biggest fear happened just like the history in the game.

Early the next morning, the requisitioning officer who had set off from Yicheng a day earlier arrived in Changshan Town. There were also ten officials wearing brave clothes, carrying iron rulers at their waists, and holding water and fire sticks. Greeted by the baron's servants, the group beat gongs and drums, posted a document that almost no one could read, and then walked around the small town of Changshan, announcing to all the villagers the contents of the Imperial Requisition Order, which had been slightly "redacted", of course.

"There is a war going on in the northwest of the empire! The bigwigs in Zhongzhou had to requisition all the animal power to transport grain. ”

"This is the will of the emperor today, and whoever dares to disobey it is to resist the will. At worst, you will be imprisoned, or you will be exiled or even beheaded, don't make mistakes! ”

The people of Changshan Town, except for the baron, almost all of them were illiterate peasants, and they could not read the documents pasted at all. But they could still understand the content of the requisitioning officer's preaching, which immediately caused an uproar in Changshan Town, which has a population of thousands.