Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 403
In mid-March of the Gregorian calendar in 1789, when Xu Dayong was thinking about how to transport more trackers out of Sichuan, spring in the outer northeast came earlier.

The rushing torrent of snow water poured out of the valley and merged into the Sila River at the foot of the mountain. The river water that had gradually opened up from the ice started to flow slowly again. When it rushed into the sea to the south, it had already turned into countless undulating pieces of broken ice.

The smoke cannons raging randomly in the field have disappeared, and the icicles under the eaves, which look like candied haws, are slowly melting under the warm sunlight, and drops of rosin-colored water drops are dripping down in front of and behind the house.

The days of Maodong in Beihai Town are over, and the whole city seems to be alive.In the field, the snow began to melt, and with the roar of the large combined land preparation machine, the noon sun was steaming on the black soil rolled out by the coulters.On the hills, the Canxue, which is riddled with holes like fish scales, is impatiently shining its last light.

At dawn, from Beihai Town to Fuerdan City, hundreds of tractors of various sizes from the agricultural units under the Ministry of Civil Affairs roared out one after another, starting another year of spring plowing.

As Zhao Xin bought more tractors in the past few years, three 10,000+ mu of arable land has been reclaimed north of Fuldan City from the year before last.Many new farmers would fall down on the ground in surprise when they saw the vast expanse of arable land, and then greedily grabbed a handful of soil and put it in front of their noses to smell it deeply. What a big deal to come out!
And outside Boli Town, which is located at the confluence of Heilongjiang and Wusuli Rivers, the wasteland on the wilderness has not yet thawed, and several giant tractors with land preparation machines drove in, and the huge coulters were as thick as a finger apart. the ice layer, and then turned out the silt that was still frozen below.

Zhu Dagui, the new head of Boli Farm in Beihai Town, stood on the ground, his dark cheeks turned rosy by the chilly spring breeze.He introduced to a few new Shandong farmers around him: "Look, this kind of land has to be turned when it is frozen, or when people step on it and shake it, it's like stepping on a jar." It’s like miso, so there’s no way to get it. Think back when we opened up wasteland in Fuldan City, the land was greener than here, and there was what the Hezhe people called ‘red rust water’ everywhere.”

Several farmers from Wendeng sat on the ground, stupefied. They looked at the green crawler monster with a long horizontal row of coulters, and turned the hard ground out to a depth of one foot with astonishment. The deep ditch, happy and fearful at the same time.

"Come here, my mother! With this animal, I'm afraid I can grow dozens of acres of land a day."

"Brother Gui, can this animal be fertilized?"

"Yes, I can do everything. You can plow the land with a coulter, and you can harvest crops with a harvester. Tell me the truth, this is called mechanization!"

"What? The blood of the chicken? Renting a big green animal, what does it have to do with the chicken? It's bloody?"

Zhu Dagui smiled slightly when he heard this, almost every newcomer to Beihai Town, including him, had made this joke.The new refugees like to call the machines "cattle," and there are red cattle and green cattle;

A few people were talking when they saw a tractor suddenly stop a few hundred meters away.A few newly arrived young refugees were discussing quietly on the other side of the field.

"Why are you lying down?"

"I guess it's because the man who came out to take care of the livestock in the morning didn't give him enough food?"

Xu Sanshui on the side heard this, rolled his eyes, and looked at the bale of hay sitting under his buttocks.

"Hey~ Sanshui, what are you doing?"

"Wait for me, Sanshui, I'll feed you for you."

Zhu Dagui, who was explaining what "machinery" is to several old farmers, suddenly looked up, and saw two young men holding two bales of hay in the distance and running towards the parked tractor.

"What are you two doing?! Stand for me! It's dangerous!"

Unexpectedly, the two young men acted as if they hadn't heard it. When they ran to the giant tractor and turned around, they quickly became at a loss.

"Sanshui, where is this guy's mouth?"

Xu Sanshui looked up at the tracked wheels that were taller than himself, and felt more and more that this thing was not a living thing.But how can it be so powerful?The permafrost that could not be digged by an iron pick easily dug out a foot-thick deep ditch.

"Would you like to go to the front and try?" The companion tentatively gave an idea.

Xu Sanshui, who was holding the grass, was about to walk towards the front of the tractor, when suddenly he heard a loud "beep" sound from above his head, which made him and his companion fall down into the ditch, and the hay spilled on the ground.

"Hahahahaha~~" A hearty and charming laughter came from above his head, Xu Sanshui looked up in astonishment, only then noticed that there was a large window as clear as glass above the "giant animal".Across the window, a handsome girl wearing a brown fox fur hat was leaning back and forth with a smile.

The reason why Xu Sanshui saw that it was a girl was because there were two big black braids hanging from her shoulders.

"Female? Why is this a female?!"

Xu Sanshui's face turned red immediately, he was a straight person, he stood up quickly, jumped on his feet and shouted: "Who's girl, come down for me! Ouch~"

At this moment, Zhu Dagui had already walked over, he raised his foot and kicked Xu Sanshui's knee, and cursed loudly: "You are a fucking bastard! Look at it, get up, that hay is for you to feed the cows." Feeding horses, who told you that you can feed machines! Go away!"

"Understood, uncle."

When Zhu Dagui walked back to the field with a smile and cursing, an old farmer asked, "He, Uncle Zhu, said, big animals have robbed us of our farming jobs, what can we do in the future?"

Zhu Dagui laughed and said: "What are you doing? Weeding the crops, raising cattle and pigs and building a shed, what are you talking about? You will be busy all year round!"

The old farmer also laughed. Farmers are not afraid of being busy, only when they are not busy.But in a blink of an eye, he said suspiciously again: "But this big animal, oh no, it's the machine that covers all the farming work, what can cattle do? No matter how strong the cattle are, there is no machine that can do it, right?"

Zhu Dagui said: "You Xu Laoshuan, you have a crush on your son! How did you forget what I said earlier? What do you do with raising cattle? Raise cattle to eat meat!"

Xu Laoshuan rubbed the back of his head which had just shaved off the braid, and smiled.

At this time, far away in the horse farm on the northwest side of Beihai Town, a group of horses had just started their spring season, making a scene of jubilation. The hair balls that fell off their bodies could be smelled acrimonious and pungent horse sweat from a distance.

Zhao Xin sat hunched over on the wooden fence, looking at his white war horse that was circling around, while chatting with Yalha beside him.

No one can manage horses better than Yalha. He has become the head of Beihai Town Army Horse Farm step by step from an unattractive groom. He also studied veterinary medicine with Liu Zheng.Every spring when the wildflowers are in full bloom, Yalha goes to collect all kinds of medicinal herbs, and digs medicinal grass roots in the wasteland, in dry caves and wet caves.

Not far away, on the wall of the barn, there are bundles of hay with different leaf shapes hanging high.Spring grass buds for burns, snake eye medicine for snake bites, black leaf grass for leg injuries, a very inconspicuous white grass that grows next to the roots of willow trees in the woods and can cure internal injuries, and many other unknown ones.Herbs that can cure various diseases and seasonal diseases of horses.

"My lord, your horse is getting fat."

"Lao Ya, how can a horse be called fat? That's called fat."

Yalha patted his forehead, laughed and said, "There are so many ways to speak Chinese, I can't always remember it."

Zhao Xin didn't laugh at him, and changed the subject: "I said, after so many years, it's time for you to find a woman."

With a pipe in his mouth, Yalha laughed and said vaguely: "Forget it, who wants to find a cripple like me."

"You can't say that, you're not such a hard-working person like Chunlai. You have to leave something behind, right?"

"Hehe, let's talk about it later, I have thousands of horses in charge now, so I don't have that much time to spare."

The military horses in Beihai Town started with a dozen or so at the earliest, and now the stock has reached more than 5000 horses.Except for the Soviet heavy-duty draft horses that Zhao Xin bought in the early days, the Mongolian horses captured from the Qing army are the most numerous in the racecourse right now.As for the Don horses captured from Luocha, they are now kept in captivity outside Yaksa City.

Due to the traffic conditions in the outer Northeast, all kinds of military horses are still necessary for the Northern Navy to travel.Among them, there are riding horses that are fast and easy to ride, and there are also draft horses used to pull artillery and baggage carts, and there are also pack horses used to carry materials.

Historically until the Second World War, except for a very small number of countries such as Britain and the United States, the main means of pulling and transporting wild artillery in other countries still relied on horsepower.

Now in Beihai Town, the only ones who can talk to Yalhati about finding a wife are Seldan and Zhao Xin. They don't care about anyone who says it, and they might even choke.The former saved his life in the ice and snow, and the latter used poor medical skills to pull him back from the death line.

Yalha rubbed the matches clumsily with his remaining fingers, lit a cigarette, and turned to Zhao Xin, "I heard that you are leaving again? Where are you going?"

"Leave early tomorrow morning. There is news from Irkutsk that the Raksha people are wicked. I don't feel at ease if I don't go and see."

"Want to fight again?"

"Yeah. I guess the Raksha people will stop after this fight." Zhao Xin leaned on the railing and jumped to the ground, splashing a few drops of muddy water on his shiny black boots.He patted Yalha on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Go back and ask Wan Zao's wife to tell you about your relatives. Hey, I said, don't delay this time! Wait until I come back from the war to drink with you." wedding wine."

Watching Zhao Xinyuan disappear, Yalha limped towards his office with his hands behind his back.Before entering the door, a guy who looked like a scholar in his early thirties came over with a few books.

"Captain, here are the records of the cavalry battalion leader taking the horses these days and the list of feed allocated by the civil affairs side. You need to look over and sign."

This person's name is Lu Zigao, and he is in charge of keeping accounts at the military horse farm.He came on a boat from Sheyang Lake in northern Jiangsu in the 51st year of Qianlong's reign. He was arranged by the Civil Affairs Bureau because he had experience in horse business abroad.

"Well, talk to me before signing." After finishing speaking, Yalha went in and sat down, while Lu Zigao flipped through the account books and explained to him the allocation records of horses.Yalha had worked with Liu Zheng for two years, and now he can understand some numbers and Chinese characters.As for the signature, Yalha's hand is not convenient, so he usually stamps it with a seal.

When the conversation was almost over, Lu Zigao handed over transfer sheets one by one for the other party to stamp, and asked seemingly casually: "Director, Mr. Zhao is planning to travel far away, right?"

"En." As soon as Yalha said the words, he felt that something was wrong, and then he looked up at the other party.Unexpectedly, Lu Zigao continued to ask: "Where is King Zhao going?"

Yalha frowned immediately. He put down his seal, stared into the other person's eyes and asked, "What exactly do you want to ask? Can you know this?"

Lu Zigao's expression became a little flustered, he shook his hands and quickly explained: "No, don't get me wrong, I'm just asking casually."

After Lu Zigao left with the stamped form and account books, the more Yalha thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.Since this person came to the military horse farm, he has been quiet, never inquires, and is very serious in his work, but what happened today?
Besides, Zhao Xin's whereabouts are the top secret in Beihai Town. Except for the few closest people around him, no one else dares to ask.In the eyes of many old residents of Beihai Town, Zhao Xin is a god, and Yalha is no exception.

In his opinion, only gods can use such means to turn the originally desolate Beihai Town into such a rich place.

Thinking of this, Yalha picked up the magnet telephone on the table, grabbed the handle with the remaining three fingers of his right hand and shook it vigorously for a few times, and after connecting, he said: "Junmachang, I am Yalha. I accept"

Before he finished speaking, the door of the room opened silently, and a black figure rushed in like a whirlwind, and grabbed Yalha's wrist with his probing hand. Yalha suddenly felt weak in his wrist, and the phone receiver out of hand.Just as he was about to call out loudly, a trace of ice had already stuck to his throat.Immediately, a person beside him said coldly: "If you want to survive, don't talk! Otherwise, you will cut your throat with one knife!"

At this moment, the operator's voice could be faintly heard from the magnet telephone receiver hanging by the table.

"Hello? Hello? Army Horse Farm, where do you want? Hello?"

The blade was tightly attached to Yalha's throat, and he knew that as long as he made any abnormal movements, he would be decapitated.At this moment, the person behind him shouted in a low voice: "What's going on? Who is talking about this thing?"

Immediately afterwards, a figure flashed at the door, and Lu Zigao hurried in.He leaned over and picked up the phone receiver, and said to the operator: "I'm sorry, the field manager suddenly has an urgent matter to go to the stable. It seems that there is something wrong with the horse, my lord. Hang up first."

After that, he put the phone away, and then explained to the person behind Yalha: "This is called a phone, and you can communicate with each other even if you are dozens of miles away, but you have to ask the operator to help you get through."

"Bullshit! There are monsters everywhere in Beihai Town! It's been here these days, and it looks more evil than the fucking Hunyuan Sect!"

　Yesterday's chapter has been rewritten.Those who are interested can take a look again.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)