In August, a bumper harvest has begun to begin to emerge around the North Sea, where alfalfa, soybeans, spring wheat and other crops are mostly grown, as well as large maize crops.

It is impossible to harvest corn in such a cold area of the North Sea, but the main purpose of promoting corn cultivation here in Xia Guo is to provide a large amount of silage for local livestock in winter, so as to maintain the physical strength of cattle, sheep and horses in winter, so the planting range has been expanding.

A flat gallop road with a width of ten zhang from the distant Jiangzhou City through the Ku Yuanbo to the Shepherd City, in the area of more than 2,000 miles west of the Shepherd City, more than 100,000 slaves are working hard to build a gallop road connecting the Shepherd City, the Condor City, and the Wucheng.

Under the encroachment of the Xia State, the territory within hundreds of miles of the southern part of the Beihai Sea has been included in the control of the Xia State for more than a year, and when this gallop road is completed, there will be a series of small cities and castles to be built, and then this land will be completely mastered by the Xia State.

The galloping road between Shepherd City and Condor City has been built, and it has been extended to the west for more than two hundred miles, and another five or six hundred miles will be connected to Wucheng, but it will take at least two years to build it all the way to Jianshui City on the east bank of Jianshui west of Dingyuan City.

"Hey" "Hey" "Hey"

In the sound of the neat horn, the gallop road is almost extending at a speed of more than ten miles a day, if it is in the land of Sanqi, this road has already been built, but this is Beihai, although it is the southern part of the North Sea, but the winter here is still long.

There were only four months of the year to build, so it was rare to get the road here after a few years of construction, and the slaves had already worked hard.

The whole gallop road is divided into ten sections according to the sections, each section has more than 10,000 slaves, more than 1,000 Han craftsmen, and 2,000 Han soldiers to guard, and they are all cavalrymen who are good at riding horses, and they have thunderbolts, crossbow arrows, and long knives on their bodies.

It was not without slaves who took the opportunity to make trouble and wanted to escape, but they all died soon under the suppression of the soldiers, and the corpses of the rioting slaves could be seen hanging on trees from time to time on the road, as a way to deter these disgruntled slaves.

However, in order to make these slaves better build roads, the policy of restoring the freedom of the slaves of the Xia Kingdom is also constantly implemented, and in a few years, at least hundreds of slaves have recovered their freedom because of various exploits, not to mention, and even obtained a large area of land around the North Sea.

In addition, in order to ensure the speed of road construction, the Xia Kingdom really cared for these slaves, except for no freedom, all food and clothing were not deducted, and each slave had sufficient meat and warm winter clothes.

After all, these slaves have been building roads for more than 20 years, and they have had good experience, and it would not be good if they died suddenly and unexpectedly.

"Click"

The sound of horses' hooves attracted the attention of several slaves, and in the distance, dozens of cavalrymen with red flags behind their backs were speeding westward, and the fine horses specially bred by the Xia Kingdom and the sophisticated weapons on the soldiers made these slaves envious.

Not to mention these slaves, the status of the officers and soldiers of the Xia State has always been very high, and even many people of the Xia Kingdom have great respect for these soldiers, although many of these slaves' homes were destroyed by the Xia Army, but they are the most fanatical fans of the Xia Army.

A short slave looked at the armor on Xia Jun's body, and then looked at the shabby sheepskin jacket on his body, and shook his head helplessly: "I really hope to be reborn in the Xia Kingdom in the next life and be a Han Chinese!" Look at our current hardship, but we are much better than we were in Nanyang! ”

Another thin slave in his forties glanced at him and said expressionlessly: "That's not impossible, the Taoist leaders of the Haotian God Sect are preaching over there, you hurry up and convert them, and after death, you will definitely be reincarnated as a Han Chinese!" ”

The short slave didn't seem to hear the sarcasm of the thin slave, but after thinking about it, he felt more and more reasonable, and immediately walked to the Taoist priest who was preaching in the distance, and it was time to rest, and the short slave did not attract the attention of the others for a while.

When people are far away from their homes is the time when their hearts are the emptiest, Haotian Daomen has spread for more than 40 years, of course, they have accumulated countless experiences, so these craftsmen who are far away from their homes and come to the north of the desert to build Chidao need to be comforted by their souls, and Lu Han, who is in charge of the teaching affairs around Beihai, sent several Taoist priests to accompany him all the way.

When the dwarf slave was about to walk up to the group of Han craftsmen surrounding the Taoist priest, he finally caught the attention of the vigilant soldiers, who even thought that the soldier was a Han Chinese craftsman who was trying to attack the place, or that it was simply the Taoist master.

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Immediately, several soldiers drew their steel knives and rushed up to capture the short slave, and even dozens of soldiers drew their long knives and looked around, for fear that there would be other accomplices involved, and all the slaves around them were so frightened that they all lowered their heads.

At this moment, the short slave was extremely aggrieved, but fortunately, he had been a slave for nearly ten years and had learned Chinese, and immediately shouted: "I am a believer in Haotian God, I ask to be baptized, I want to join the religion, and I will be reincarnated as a Han in my next life!" ”

As soon as the short slave shouted, the faces of all the soldiers who heard it suddenly became very strange, but the Taoist master, who had not reacted at all, had his eyes lit up at this time, and after he whispered twice to a soldier beside him, the soldier came over.

"Boy? Do you want to enshrine the God of Haotian? "This soldier should be a chief, although he is not very old, but he still makes the short slave nervous, even if it is only a chief, for him, he is already a great man.

But for the desire to become a Han Chinese, the short slave still plucked up the courage and said: "Yes, I don't want to be an indigenous, I want to be a Han Chinese!" Although I can't change it in this life, I will be able to reincarnate as a Han in the next life when I believe in Haotian God! ”

After listening for a while, the chief returned to the Taoist priest, and then the two talked for a while, and finally the Taoist priest personally walked up to the short slave and asked, "What is your name and where are you from?" ”

At this time, the short slave felt that the Taoist was really fantastic, he knelt on the ground and said respectfully: "Respected Taoist Chief, my name is Arnold, and I am a person who has passed away from the Nanyang Sri Buddha, since the lord of the country rebelled against the Celestial Empire, I was taken to the Xia Kingdom to work as a coolie!" ”

"I remember that Sri Buddha passed away because the whole country worshiped the Futu Sect, so why do you want to believe in the Haotian God Sect?" The Taoist chief's words were very gentle, which gradually calmed down the mood of the short slave Arnold, and he also had the courage to continue talking.

"Yes, Taoist Chief, in the past, the lord of the deceased kingdom of Sri Buddha worshiped the Futu Sect, just like the Nanliang who heard after coming to the Xia Kingdom, believing in the Buddha and destroying the family and worshipping the Buddha and destroying the country, so the Futu Sect was not born to be a good person, and the Xia Kingdom took the Haotian God Sect as the state religion, but it was extremely strong, so I think the real gods would be like this!"

"So be it!" The Taoist leader thought for a moment and smiled, "For the sake of your piousness, I'll give you a chance!" ”

As he spoke, the Taoist priest took out a thick book of Taoist classics, then handed it to the short slave Arnold and said, "If you can write down all this book in a month, you only need to write down most of it, and I can accept you when the time comes!" ”

"Thank you, Chief!" Arnold left happily, and the news shocked almost all the slaves, but although most of the slaves learned Chinese, they didn't know Chinese characters at all, so there were only a few people who could learn.

"Dao Chief, you're too abrupt!" The previous Shi Chang said, "Although my Haotian Dao Sect also absorbed a lot of alien races before, but after those alien races were naturalized, they became the people of the Xia Kingdom, and the Murwei people and the Yan people were all like this, but these slaves are not qualified!" ”

The Taoist chief in his fifties listened quietly to what the chief said for a long time before he said slowly: "At the beginning, Your Majesty once said to us that the Haotian God Sect is not a tool to oppress the people, but a weapon to educate the people and allow foreign races to quickly naturalize, so my Majesty will not only not blame you, but will also be very happy!" ”

Seeing that Shi Chang was still puzzled, the Taoist Chief patiently explained: "Although most of these slaves are people of different races, but after living in my Xia Kingdom for ten years, they have basically learned most of the skills. ”

"Alas, you Taoist leaders are more eloquent than the other, but we big-headed soldiers can't talk about you!" Shi Chang sighed and said, "Daoist, you can still spread the Dao Gate here, but we have been in the army for a few years, and we haven't fought for a while, which is really uncomfortable, is it really uncomfortable, can my doll ask me in the future, can I only say that I just watched a group of slaves building roads?" ”

"Don't worry, in another month or two, there will definitely be a place for you people!" The Taoist chief smiled.

"How do you know there's going to be a war?" The young chief didn't believe it, "Could it be that you have any special channels, but you haven't seen any special situations in the past few days!" ”

"Where is there any need for any special circumstances, the group of cavalry that passed before was the personal soldiers of the Great General's Mansion of Shepherd City, and these people hurriedly went west, except for the urgent military situation, where is there anything going on?"

The Taoist chief said to Shi Chang: "I also guess based on the experience of these years, in addition, our Xia Kingdom has been encroaching on the Turkic territory in the past few years, and seeing that it is less than a thousand miles away from the Turkic tent, how can they endure it?"

Now is the time when the desert grass and yellow horses are fat, so I can't conclude that there will definitely be a big war in January, either we will attack the Turkic royal court, or the Turks will counterattack us! ”

"Great!" Hearing the Dao Chief's analysis, the young Shi Chang not only did not get nervous but became excited, "I've been looking forward to the war for a long time!" ”