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Even the most insensitive people now knew that something big was going to happen in Dunhuang Prefecture, and at noon on December 1, the city lord issued the highest level of wartime emergency order, which was the first time in 34 years that Dunhuang Prefecture declared a wartime emergency.

Less than an hour after the order was issued, a team of 6,000 people was sent out of the military city to enter the cities and begin to count the population, check the household registration, and especially conduct a strict inventory of the non-local merchants and travelers stranded in Dunhuang Mansion in winter.

Anyone who did not have a household registration in Dunhuang City or could not prove their origin or intention would be taken away and imprisoned in the prison of Wengcheng.

The government is so tough, it deters the citizens, and even more so some people who don't know their intentions.

All the young men and women over the age of sixteen and under the age of fifty-five in the city were re-registered, and the lord of the city demanded that no one in the city exist.

The manhunt continued into the night, and more than 3,300 unregistered or unidentified people were taken away by the military.

At the same time, the government announced that the night market in Dunhuang City, which had not stopped for 30 consecutive years, would be closed from today, and that a curfew would be imposed on the whole city from the hour to the end of the day, and that all those who wandered the streets during the curfew would be punished as collaborators.

In the afternoon of the same day, the patriarchs, big businessmen, and underworld leaders of the extravagant and powerful families, who were usually high-spirited, were all invited to their homes by the managers of various markets.

No one knew what the officials had talked to them about, but the last of these big men in the eyes of the people returned home in disgrace and never mentioned the content of the day's conversation.

After returning to the extravagant magnates who usually like to beat and scold their subordinates, they became a lot more gentle and tolerant, which flattered their servants;

The children of the eunuchs, who like to bully men and women on the street on weekdays, are locked in the house by the elders of the family and strictly ordered not to go on the street;

After returning home, the businessmen who usually regarded money as their fate and deducted workers immediately settled their salaries that had been in arrears for several years at once;

After the underworld boss who usually collects protection money and kidnaps for ransom returned, he quietly released the meat ticket and brought some pastries and gifts to visit some neighborhoods who were usually bullied by them.

......

Early the next morning, more than 63,000 retired soldiers rushed to report to the various barracks in the military city, and Dunhuang City deserved to be called the "City of Soldiers." Many retired veterans chose to settle down in Dunhuang City under the attraction of the government's favorable resettlement conditions for discharge.

Such a far-sighted arrangement is very suitable for the long-term peace and stability of Dunhuang City, these veterans work in the city and farm outside the city in peacetime, and these veterans can be quickly mobilized to supplement the existing shortage of soldiers when the war comes.

After the selection of the battalions, some veterans who were too old and disabled were eliminated, leaving behind 57,000 veterans, who were separately organized as the "city defense army."

Soon, the defenders of Dunhuang City reached 100,000 people, and the pressure of insufficient troops was greatly relieved.

The garrison general's mansion led the baggage battalion to distribute weapons and leather armor to 57,000 re-enlisted veterans with great efficiency, which shows how well Dunhuang City was prepared for war in peacetime.

The garrison general also made the best use of the thousands of veterans who had been eliminated, and organized the 220,000 young men in the city who had not received military training into a team of 50 men and handed them over to the veterans for paramilitary training.

These reservists carried out half a day's military training every day, half a day's city defense reconstruction and construction, all kinds of stones, sacks, and blue bricks were sent to the city wall, and in just a few days, the city wall of Dunhuang City was raised by two zhang.

The equipment battalion and the baggage battalion continuously sent all kinds of city-guarding equipment and city-guarding materials to the city wall, and at the same time, the generals, craftsmen, and workers of the two battalions were still working day and night to make more equipment.

Young and strong women were also organized, some of them made winter clothes, sewed leather gloves and boots, made simple stretchers and bandages, some made military rations, grinded medicinal herbs, and boiled wound medicine, and some boiled asphalt and fire oil, and made ash bottles and other materials for defending the city.

On the third day, the city lord's palace guard battalion took over all the grain stores in the city and implemented military control, while the garrison guard battalion controlled all the water sources in the city and strictly protected them from anyone from destroying the water sources.

Many grain merchants who wanted to hoard in the war were caught off guard, many complained bitterly about the domineering and rudeness of the government, and some grain merchants who had backers behind them came up with a lawsuit against the military.

The military did not tolerate them this time, and acted vigorously, and after Li Ming, the commander of the pro-guard battalion, personally ordered the arrest of several grain merchants who took the lead in making trouble, all voices were silenced.

These two military management actions immediately attracted the attention of the people of the whole city, and the people in the city were like frying pans, and countless women, children, and old people flocked to the grain store, hoping to buy more grain from there and store it at home.

According to the population records of the first day, the soldiers of the Keqin Guard Battalion and the officials of each fang and city would sell only three days' rations to the family at a time, and the daily ration of three rice noodles for adults and half for children would be halved, and each purchase would be registered.

Through such military management, grain merchants can not only prevent them from taking advantage of the opportunity to hoard and accumulate food, but also control the residents' food rations and avoid waste; for those families whose families still have hidden populations that have not been discovered, controlling the ration of grain will be conducive to discovering suspicious persons who have not been investigated.

At the same time, officials also encouraged people to collect snow and store it in their homes to avoid a shortage of water in the city.

For a while, the atmosphere of the whole city was extremely tense, everyone was full of sorrow, two days ago I thought that it was just some enemies from the border, and people who criticized the government for being too nervous, and then they were also nervous, and it seemed that the people and horses besieging Dunhuang City this time were definitely beyond everyone's imagination.

Some families with a particularly strong sense of distress have turned their dry rice into gruel and began to consciously hoard grain, and some well-to-do families have taken out their savings and rushed to pastry shops, pickle shops, restaurants and other places to buy some non-staple food and surplus grain at a high price.

However, when the family returned, they learned that all these shops had been ordered to close yesterday.

With the closure of all food-related stores, the operation of other stores has also been affected, and the business atmosphere in the city has become extremely withered, and many jewelry stores and antique calligraphy and painting shops are no longer asked, and no one will give them money at this time, no matter how low the discount is.

On the contrary, the business of the pawn shop is super good, and many pessimistic people take out all the valuable things at home, and want to exchange them for some gold and silver, in case the city is broken and escaped, they can also bring some family wealth out.

After two days of open acquisition, the pawnshop finally realized the deterioration of the situation, and no longer dared to eat the goods, so he could only close his doors and wait to see how the situation changed.

There are also cloth shops, ready-to-wear stores and shoe and hat shops that are also dismal, and at this time, how can anyone have the heart to replace themselves with new clothes, a large number of cloth and ready-to-wear clothes are placed at home, and the war will become useless.

At this time, the government took action in time to buy out the linen and cotton cloth in the cloth stores in the city at a low price, and also purchased a large number of cotton clothes, cotton shoes, and cotton hats, all of which were used as military supplies.

The only shop in the city that is still functioning is the charcoal factory, but the charcoal and stone factory is government-run and military-controlled.

The carbonite factory in the south of the city is shallow and easy to mine, and most of the carbonite is supplied to the military, and a small part of the carbonite is used for sale, and the subsidy for military expenditure is insufficient.

At this time, the fire oil factory in the west of the city is even more full production, usually the hole of black oil automatically appears, at this time it is expanded larger, and the fire oil and asphalt refined by black oil are the sharp weapons to defend the city, and how many are not too much.

The whole city seemed to be busy like spinning tops around the coming war, and the most miserable of them were the more than 3,300 unidentified people.

They were hung down with ropes and carried out the most dangerous and physically demanding work, clearing the snow and deepening the outer ditches of the walls.

Because of the heavy snowfall these days, the snow under the city wall reaches a thickness of one zhang and five feet, which is equivalent to reducing the height of the city in disguise, so that the ladders and hooks of the siege troops will be easier to erect on the city wall, which is extremely unfavorable to the defense of the city defenders.

Only by clearing the snow can the trench more than one zhang deep under the city wall be revealed, which is equivalent to invisibly increasing the height of the city wall by nearly three zhang.

There is snow all outside the city, and I don't know where to transport the snow cleared from under the city walls?

If you put it close, it only takes an hour or two, and the icy north wind will blow the snow into the trench again, and then you have to do what you have just done all over again.

More than 3,300 prisoners worked for two days before clearing one-third of the snow on the north side of the city wall, and the garrison general Fan Yun was furious and beheaded ten prisoners in a row, but he still could not press the deadline faster.

Finally, someone suggested that why not use tree branches and fire oil to burn all the snow within 30 zhang of the city wall, and wait for the snow to freeze is equivalent to building an ice barrier of 30 zhang outside the city wall, and the enemy who comes to wear leather boots to walk on it is easy to slip and fall, which is conducive to the defense of the defenders of the city.

The idea was quickly adopted, and soon after, a fire broke out outside the city of Dunhuang, which burned for a whole day and a night.

When the sentinels of the alien coalition came to see it, they were shocked!

The snow within 30 zhang outside the city wall of Dunhuang Mansion has all disappeared, and it has become an ice surface only one or two feet thick, and there is a drop of one zhang high at the junction of the snow surface and the ice surface, like a miracle.

When the sentry sent the news back to the coalition camp, none of the vanguard generals believed what the sentry said, and the more anxious vanguard general directly killed his own sentry.

When more than a dozen vanguard generals came to Dunhuang with their personal entourage to check the terrain, they were also shocked by the miracles in front of them, and some generals with faith dismounted and bowed.

The vanguard general of the Mengyuan Empire glanced at Dunhuang Mansion at Lu, and rode away with a gloomy face, he knew that this Xiongcheng was not something that his 30,000 pioneers could take, and he could only wait for the Chinese army to arrive before there was hope.

However, the Chinese army had arrived two days later than scheduled, and they didn't know what was wrong on the road, so they still sent someone to inquire about the news.

Although Li Mao is not the most idle person in the Dunhuang Mansion, he is definitely one of them.

Although he has obtained the nationality of the Tang State and is also considered a hero by many people, the timing of his appearance is more strange, after his appearance, the Dunhuang Mansion that has been peaceful for more than 30 years will be attacked by Meng Yuan, the Western Regions and the Western Fan at the same time.

This kind of groundless speculation has affected the Xu Family Chamber of Commerce, and all the young men of the Xu Family Chamber of Commerce have been incorporated into the city defense army and reserves, leaving Li Mao alone without being recruited.

Because there is no consensus within the military, many civilian officials suspect that Li Mao is a spy and internal agent sent by the coalition forces, but in the absence of evidence, no one is willing to imprison and torture a figure who has just been established as a hero.

The best way to deal with it now is to call without warning or punish Li Mao, but just send secret agents to keep an eye on him and pay attention to his movements.

This strange situation persisted for a few days, and bad rumors began to circulate, from the beginning of the suspicion that Li Mao was a spy, to the conclusive statement that he was a spy.

Not many people began to believe it, but more and more people said that Li Mao was gradually showing signs of blackening.

Although Li Mao still has some fans in the city, their power is getting weaker and weaker, and Li Mao also noticed this sign, and he knows that he can't defend himself, and the only thing he can do is to go out less and avoid trouble.

Since he is a person who has been deliberately forgotten by the authorities, and a person who has been spurned by everyone, he has not worked hard to cultivate, how can he gain a foothold in the future, so Li Mao put all his energy on cultivation and wanted to restore his true yuan cultivation without distraction.

On this day, Li Mao just withdrew from meditation, all the running methods are based on memory, Xu Ai has successfully cultivated, proving that there is no problem with the exercises, but why can't he grasp the sense of qi.

Just as Li Mao was in deep thought, he suddenly heard a strong slamming of the door outside, and then heard Xu Ai crying into the backyard of Xu's house, crying as he walked:

"These three aunts and six women who love to chew the root of their tongues, they talk nonsense all day long, and one day they will have sores on their mouths and tongues and rot their tongues!"

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