Jiang Zhen opened the package Zhao Jinge sent him with expectation.

He wrote a thick letter to Zhao Jinge, although he did not write very well because of his lack of experience. He still very clearly wrote all his thoughts about Zhao Jinge, so his letter could also be regarded as a love letter. He also didn’t know what Zhao Jinge sent him. Was it also a love letter?

Jiang Zhen did not see any love letters and what was in the package was another package . . . Was that a bag of flour? No, it was not just flour, there’s something else in it.

Jiang Zhen pulled out a gourd, a wooden box from the flour.

The gourd was large and heavy; he thought it was wine at first, but when he opened it, he found it was filled with solidified lard, and as for the wooden box . . . The wooden box was filled with sun-dried soy meat, and on top of the soy meat was a letter.

Jiang Zhen opened the letter that smelled of soy sauce and meat and read Zhao Jinge’s words.

Zhao Jinge’s letter was written properly without any mistakes, so he estimated that he wrote a draft first before copying it out again. At the beginning of the letter, he also wrote that he missed him, but there were no heartwarming words; he just wrote that he was fine and everything at home was also alright. At the same time, he also mentioned the flour and lard: “You said that there is not enough food, and you want to eat some home made meal, so I prepared some food for you.”

Zheng Yi said he could not bring too much, so Zhao Jinge could only do his best to stuff more food into the bag.

In fact, he initially wanted to send Jiang Zhen rice, but later, he found that flour had more uses, so he replaced it with flour. To take up all the available space, he also put lard and soy sauce meat with the flour.

“Jiang Ming, get me a fish that hasn’t been cooked yet. It has to be one of the bigger ones,” Jiang Zhen said.

“Yes, Boss!” Jiang Ming quickly brought a rather large fish to Jiang Zhen, then he saw Jiang Zhen take out a bit of lard and thin slices of soy sauce meat, which he cut into a few strips and placed them in the belly of the fish. Then he carefully used a tree branch to apply a little lard on the body of the fish before putting the fish on the fire to grill it.

Grilled fish should be brushed with oil in order to roast it, but they didn’t have oil before, so Jiang Zhen could only eat boiled fish, but now, it was different. He had a gourd of lard!

Jiang Zhen used to roast a lot of things to eat; baking fish was also very good. The fish roasted in oil smelled really good.

When Zhu Erlin smelled it, he couldn’t help  but swallow his saliva.

“Jiang Zhen, sell me this fish!” Zhu Erlin said to Jiang Zhen.

Zhu Erling got a lot of gold and silver, but he always lived very close to Hongjiang Salt Farm and had never been outside. Although he knew that gold and silver were good things, he did not know their value so at that moment; he directly took out a piece of gold the size of a baby’s fist to buy a fish.

“Not for sale.” Jiang Zhen didn’t want to sell it. “My wife sent it to me.” While saying that, Jiang Zhen caught a drop of oil dripping from the grilled fish with a branch, which was about to drop into the fire. Then he put the branch into his mouth and tasted the long lost taste.

For almost two months, his stomach lacked oil and water . . .

Jiang Zhen not only made grilled fish but also took out some flour and mixed it with water to make two cakes. Then with the baked fish, he ate up the two cakes, leaving nothing for anyone.

In the end, Zhu Erlin could only eat boiled fish while smelling the smell of roasted fish in soy sauce.

After eating, Jiang Zhen felt that he was once again full of strength.

Although Zhao Jinge was not very  romantic, the things he sent were very useful and healed his heart!

“I want to eat rice,” Zhu Erlin chanted as he looked at the people around him. “What do you think? Can we go and grab the grain from the officials?” The rice smelled good; he really wanted it. As for the pork . . . even if pigs were raised in Hongjiang Salt Farm, it wouldn’t be for salt workers, so he couldn’t miss the taste of pork because he had never tasted it.

Zhu Erlin was not just talking about it, and just a few days later, he robbed a batch of food from the soldiers chasing them.

Some of this grain was sent to the mountains for the old and weak to eat, but the rest of it allowed them to not crave Jiang Zhen’s flour cakes.

They craved Jiang Zhen’s lard and soy sauce meat at the moment.

These were definitely the most fragrant things in this world!

Since then, the people in Hongjiang Salt Farm, whether they were salt farmers or ordinary people, basically defected to Jiang Zhen and Zhu Erlin in order to survive.

The old and weak were settled on the mountain while the remaining young and strong were led by Jiang Zhen to play guerrilla warfare with the imperial soldiers.

These young and strong were born and raised here, so they were all very familiar with the terrain and could avoid being pursued by the soldiers and escape in time. They made these government soldiers who come excitedly to fight against the rebels fail  time to time and again and again, and in the end, they didn’t even want to fight with these rebels, who came and leave without a trace, any longer.

 

By the sea, in a dilapidated fishing village

 

This fishing village was originally very small, and it was estimated that only 20 or 30 families lived in it, but at this  time, the villagers had long since disappeared. No one knew whether they had been killed or had ran  away, but the village was filled with soldiers who had come to fight the rebels.

There was  a large number of these government soldiers, so not everyone had a house to live in. Most had to shelter outside.

Last night, they encountered several enemy attacks, the night before last as well; two nights ago, people came to attack them and rob them of their things. If they take all of these into account, they haven’t been sleeping well for more than ten days.

Those rebellious groups, probably because these small groups didn’t fight them head-on but sneaked on them all day long to harass them, although no one died, but they were exhausted and had no fighting spirit left.

At the  moment, these government soldiers covered in dirt, with unshaven beards were sleeping on the ground. People who didn’t know might have even thought they were dead.

Wang Xiaoqi is one of the government soldiers.

He was only eighteen years old this year when the draft came from above commanding every family to send at least one person. Because his brothers were already married and had children, his parents sent him to become a soldier.

Being a soldier was not hard for Wang Xiaoqi. In the past, although they had a lot of things to do in the barracks, there were times when he didn’t have enough to eat; in fact, it was not that much different from his time at home, but this time . . .

Wang Xiaoqi rubbed his hungry stomach and woke up to the smell of rice.

He was still sleepy, but hunger made him unable to sleep any more. Instead, he took off his shoes and pierced the blisters on his feet with a sharp branch.

After squeezing out the water in the blister, Wang Xiaoqi asked Wang Wu, who was from the same village, “Uncle Wu, how much longer do we have to stay here?”

“I don’t know,” Wang Wu said.

“In good times, Why do we have to come here to kill people, to kill a bunch of people?” Wang Xiaoqi asked again; he really didn’t know what they came here for. In the end . . .

“Brat, what are you talking about? We are here to put down a rebellion!” Wang Wu glared at Wang Xiaoqi, but that glance with his red-blooded eyes was not very intimidating.

“But . . .” Wang Xiaoqi frowned; the people above asked them to kill ordinary people.

“Don’t think about things we have to do or not. You’d better think about how we’re going to live our lives in the future.” Wang Wu said, “Those people are getting worse and worse and robbed us of all our food. We may also be killed by them later, so . . .”

Wang Xiaoqi shivered at the thought of those people who came to make trouble as soon as they tried to rest. He did not want to die yet . . .

Wang Xiaoqi was thinking this way when the village suddenly resounded with shouts of killing again.

“Enemy attack! Enemy attack! Get up and kill the enemy!” Shouts could be heard from different directions, but before everyone got up and rushed over, the enemies who suddenly came and took the rice they had just cooked disappeared without a trace.

They had already been robbed by those people, and even then, they lost the cooked rice . . . 

The food they were carrying was about to run out, and if they continued like this, they might be starved to death here . . . The imperial soldiers became anxious.

“We are about to run out of food!”

“My lord, what kind of war are we fighting in this province?”

“We have to go back!”

 

. . .

 

Edited by: Faro

Proofreader: Xiao Hua

 

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