"You...... Are you a great teacher? The middle-aged man's tone was hurried, his voice full of surprise, and there was a little uncertainty in the process of identification.

This change was unexpected by everyone, Wu Lin raised his hand to block the guards who were about to make a move, looked at the middle-aged man kneeling in front of him, and smiled gently: "You know me?" ”

"I'm Yonghao!" The middle-aged man knelt on the ground on his two knees, and although his hands were tied behind his back, he still tried his best to kowtow to Wu Lin three times in a row, and when he straightened up, his face was already covered with dust.

"Great teacher, I am Yonghao." He was a little excited: "Eight years ago, the Pantuo River flooded, and all the fields outside the city were flooded. Everyone has no food to eat, if it weren't for the great master who came to Iron Jaw City in person and ordered the city lord to open a warehouse and release grain, I would have starved to death. ”

“…… Yong Hao ......" staring at the rough-skinned face in front of him, Wu Lin flipped through the pictures of distant memories from the depths of his mind.

He still remembers the flood eight years ago, when the banks of the Pantuo River turned into an ocean. Because of the high terrain and the ingenious design of the moat, the Iron Jaw City played the role of flood diversion and the city was not flooded. But the grain harvest was a foregone conclusion, and Wu Lin finally said that Tiger Wang Yao first took out a large amount of grain from the royal warehouse and distributed it to the victims in various places. However, in the process of execution, it was opposed by the nobles in various places. They deliberately delayed or even refused to provide relief for various reasons, seized the opportunity to annex land from the victims, and bought and sold people at extremely low prices, making huge profits from them.

At that time, the lord of Ironjaw City took in more than 4,000 victims in one go, turning them all into slaves. Wu Lin rushed to Iron Jaw City when he heard the news, and forcibly demanded that the other party release him with the power of the national teacher. As a last resort, the Iron Jaw City Lord released 1,500 people, and was extremely reluctant to open the warehouse to put grain. As a result, Ironjaw City did not become his private city.

"I remember, you're Yongho...... It was Yonghao who ate four big steamed buns in one go at that time and was almost strangled to death. Wu Lin slowly smiled on his face, he stood up, pulled out the dagger he was wearing, cut the rope that bound Yonghao, lifted him up from the ground, and said with a smile: "I remember you, you had the biggest appetite at that time. If I hadn't sent someone to stop you, you would have been strangled to death. ”

"Thank you for saving your life." Yonghao's face was full of gratitude, and he held Wu Lin's hand hard, trembling constantly.

Looking at the tattered dragon clan military uniform on his body, Wu Lin's eyes became a little complicated: "You are obviously from the Tiger Clan, why do you want to join the Dragon Clan's army?" ”

Yonghao opened his mouth, and the expression on his face stopped talking. It was obvious that he had something to say, but in the end he fell silent.

The tied young man struggled to squeeze forward, standing side by side with Yonghao, his eyes were full of eagerness, but his tone of voice was a little uncertain: "You...... Is it really a great teacher? The great master of our Tiger Clan? ”

The guard next to him reprimanded: "Presumptuous, don't be rude in front of the great power teacher." On your knees! ”

Wu Lin waved his hand to the guards: "Don't be like this, I'm out of office now, just an ordinary person." ”

As he spoke, he turned to face the young man and smiled gently, "I'm Wulin." ”

"My name is Yongjian." The young man knelt down and said gratefully, "When my grandmother died the year before last, her last wish was to see you again. When she was dying, she kept holding my hand and asked me to kowtow to you if I had a chance to see you. ”

Wu Lin smiled and asked, "Your grandmother?" ”

"She has been favored by you." Yongjian's face was full of earnest expressions: "That year, there was a big flood in the Pantuo River, if it weren't for the great master to open a warehouse and release grain, our family would have starved to death." You...... You are the benefactor of our people! ”

Wu Lin smiled bitterly and shook his head, he looked at Yongjian and asked the same question as just now, "Why do you want to join the dragon army?" ”

"Because they're all good people." Yongjian is young after all, and he doesn't have as many worries as Yonghao, so he speaks more frankly: "They gave us food, houses, clothes, and land......"

"Wait!" Wu Lin hurriedly interrupted him and asked suspiciously, "Give you a house and clothes?" What's going on? ”

"After the dragons occupied Ironjaw City, they divided the city into East and West Districts. They loaded the people of the East Side onto ships and said they were moving north, where there was a new city. In this way, Iron Jaw City became very empty, and according to the actual situation of each family, more or less new houses were obtained. The dragons also gave us clothes, really fine cotton clothes, a whole set of blouses and trousers. ”

Speaking of this, Yongjian smiled honestly: "It's the first time in my life that I've worn such good clothes." ”

Although it was a simple conversation, the information revealed in it made Wu Lin shudder and extremely shocked.

If a conqueror occupies a city and wants to maintain his rule in the area, he must show mercy to the people under his rule while occupying it. The distribution of clothes to civilians was common, but the dragons were too manipulative. You must know that there are more than 200,000 people in Iron Jaw City, and according to Yongjian, each person will be given a set of cotton clothes, which is more than 200,000, an extremely terrifying and huge astronomical number.

Where did they get so much cotton?

Wu Lin was a smart man, and he knew that the Niu Clan had previously annexed the Deer Clan, and the Deer Clan was the tribe that was the best at textile technology in the entire northern continent. With the inventory of the Deer Clan, coupled with the production of the Dragon Clan since last winter, it is not difficult to come up with 200,000 sets of clothes to buy people's hearts. But cotton cloth is not a weed in the field after all, and it will grow after being cut. The Niu tribe successively annexed several tribes, and after the name was called the dragon clan, the population of the clan increased dramatically. Wu Lin has been secretly collecting information on this, and according to his calculations, plus the normal birth of babies and toddlers in the dragon clan over the years, the total population has exceeded five million, or even more.

If I had 200,000 sets of cotton clothes, I would certainly not give priority to conquered foreigners, but to supply my own people. The reason is very simple, no matter how good you are to outsiders, they are not your relatives after all. It takes time to switch minds and acknowledge your power and accept domination. Instead of putting precious energy and resources on these people, it is better to give more benefits to the clansmen, unite internally, and produce stronger cohesion.

Wu Lin had met Tianhao before, and he had only heard the name of the young regent on various occasions countless times.

Wu Lin used to be the national teacher of the Tiger Clan. Speaking of which, this position is in a sense the same status as the regent. Of course, in terms of power and the execution of government affairs, the influence of the national teacher on his subordinates is far less than that of the regent. However, this does not prevent Wu Lin from having a detailed understanding of the data of the Tiger Clan's population, resources, production, economy, reserves and many other aspects.

Ask yourself, if you change yourself or Tiger King Yaoxian, you will never attack the Dragon Clan, and after capturing a large city like White Deer City or Rock City, you will take out as many as hundreds of thousands of cotton clothes and distribute them to the local people for free.

The Dragon Regent dared to do this, there were no more than three possibilities.

First: he is an idiot who is extremely mentally retarded and has no experience in national politics.

Second: he completely abandoned the nobility within the dragon clan, including everyone at the level of city lords, commanders, and ten thousand heads, and instead focused all his energy on the newly conquered occupied areas, wanting to get the widest support from the people.

In Wu Lin's view, these two situations are not a cause for concern at all. Needless to say, the first one. The flaws of the second type are very obvious, especially the abandonment of the support of the powerful superiors within the clan, which is simply putting the cart before the horse. It's fine to do it once in a while, but if it becomes a long-term act, it won't be long before the dragons themselves become chaotic and even break out into civil war.

Finally, there is the third type of ———— dragon clan, which has reached an unprecedented peak in terms of productivity and material reserves, and the number is unbelievably large. Cotton cloth, for example, is so abundant that it can be used as a means of distributing such a wide range of favors to the common people on a large scale, and at the same time it has been fully approved and unanimously approved by the ruling stratum of the tribe.

Wu Lin couldn't help but twitch in silence, he felt creepy at the results of his thoughts.

Could it be that the dragons have become so powerful?

"That...... Great Powers ...... Actually, we didn't join the dragon army. ”

After a few minutes of cold action, Yonghao, who had been thinking for a long time, hesitated and said, "We are just acting as a reserve in the city to coordinate the defense. They maintained law and order in the city during normal times, patrolled in groups at night, and stood guard on towers and city walls during the day...... That's basically what it does. I'm the same as Yongjian, we don't fight directly. ”

Wu Lin swept Yong Hao and Yong Jian respectively with a sharp gaze, and asked lightly, "Then why were you taken prisoner by our army?" ”

"That's because we helped the dragons clean up the battlefield." Yongjian hurriedly interjected and explained seriously: "They had a battle a few days ago, and there were corpses everywhere outside the city. There were people, there were horses, and there were armor and weapons. The area near the edge of Ironjaw has been largely cleared. Brother Yonghao and I discussed going farther away while I was on duty, getting something valuable, or one or two dead horses to go back, and that's it...... We were caught. ”

Wu Lin's gaze became complicated again.

He wanted to point at Yonghao and Yongjian and scold him fiercely. As a Tiger Clan, how can you not have a position that belongs to your own clan? What a shameful act to be willing to die for the aggressor?

After all, ideals are not reality, and Wu Lin knows that it is difficult to ...... It is not even possible to rebuke them on these grounds. The loss of Ironjaw City was a problem for the local city lord and army, and broadly speaking, it could even be blamed for Hu Zesheng, the defender of the Tiger Prison who had long since died in battle. What's wrong with the people? They were not warriors, and they toiled to pay the grain tax to the Tiger King and the nobles during the annual harvest season. In the end, they were punished for "surrendering", and even executed in public...... Is it really fair to do so?

Wu Lin didn't know that this was the first time he sighed in his heart. He took a slow breath, cleared his thoughts, and asked seriously, "How many people in Iron Jaw City are like you?" I'm talking about helping the Dragons, the reserves you just mentioned. ”

In addition to self-blame, anger and loss, Wu Lin also developed a strong curiosity. He wanted to know more about the current state of the Dragon Conquerors and Ironjaw. If you can, you might be able to find some vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

The first words that came out of Yonghao's mouth completely shattered the last glimmer of hope in Wu Lin's heart.

"All of them are in the reserves." Yonghao couldn't see the slightest hypocrisy on his honest face: "Women are no exception, as well as old people and children." ”

Wu Lin felt incredulous, and his voice suddenly increased: "Old people and children? What can they do? ”

"There's so much you can do." Yongjian interjected again: "The broken city wall needs to be repaired, but there are no stones near Iron Jaw City. The dragons brought peat in their big ships, and we built brick kilns outside the city to the north, and we needed people for everything from digging to burning bricks. ”

"The dragons are building a road to Gangwei City and Tiger Pass." Yonghao added: "They widened the original pavement, re-compacted it, and paved the surface with stones...... It is said that in a few days the fleet will bring something called "asphalt" from White Deer City, which will be used exclusively to build roads. No one had ever seen or heard of that thing. ”

"Some houses in the city were demolished, and old materials were used to strengthen the city defenses. Some new houses were built on the vacant land, which were large and empty. It is said that it was a new warehouse dedicated to storing gunpowder. ”

Yonghao and Yongjian's words sounded ordinary on the surface, but Wu Lin found a lot of problems in them. Thinking of the advantage of firearms that the dragons had mastered, he couldn't help but have a terrible thought in his mind———— the city was fortified.

No wonder the dragons want to move out half of the city's inhabitants. Two hundred thousand people is too much for control. According to the information obtained before, the dragons have placed tens of thousands of clansmen in Ironjaw City. In this way, in a short period of time, integration can be formed and the situation can be stabilized.

Even the elderly and children are all used, which means that the operation of Iron Jaw City has reached a height that it is unimaginable. For civilians, having a job is a good thing. However, in the eyes of the rulers, giving a large number of jobs meant spending on large quantities of rations.

Thinking of this, Wu Lin couldn't help but open his mouth and asked, "Can you usually eat enough?" ”

The ration supply of the Tiger is divided into several standards, and "full" is the highest level of supply for civilians.

"Absolutely." Yonghao showed a satisfied smile on his face, and he raised his hands and gestured: "There are cakes and meat." Such a large piece, almost two fingers thick, with vegetables sandwiched in it, two per person, and every meal. ”

Yongjian belongs to the kind of young people who are not willing to be lonely: "There are also rice balls. The first time I got it, I thought it would be nice to have a full meal of white rice, but I didn't expect the rice balls to be filled with salted fish and minced meat, as well as a delicious soup with boiled vegetables and something called "seaweed" by the dragons. ”

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