Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 78 (Requesting a first order) Maybe it’s time to find a monkey!

The next morning, Yuanye finally had a fried egg for breakfast, which was runny, saying goodbye to the tasteless boiled eggs. He felt better, thinking that if things continued like this, the braised pork would be ready soon.

He decided to take a day off today to reward himself. After dinner, he walked around the house. When he walked along the wooden corridor to the front yard, he looked up and saw A Qing feeding the chicks. She was holding a flat basket and was concentrating on spreading rice bran to a group of furry, golden chicks. Most of the chicks lowered their heads to peck at the food, but some playful ones ran around her, and some even pecked at each other.

She was not angry. She gently picked up the chicks and teased them for a while, then put them back gently, telling them to stop fighting and play and eat their food well.

This is a very ordinary farm scene, nothing special, but there is an indescribable tranquil beauty that makes Yuan Ye unable to help but stop and admire it.

He first looked at the cute and lively little chicks, and then his gaze turned to A Qing.

It was around eight or nine in the morning, the sun was neither too high nor too low, the soft and clear light shone on Ah Qing, making her figure look even more slender and taller, and also giving her black hair and small bangs a faint golden glow. Her usually cold and expressionless face now had a warm smile, and if you looked closely, you could see the shallow dimples.

Her eyes and brows were also very gentle at this moment. She was not a peerless beauty, and her facial features could only be described as delicate, but when her eyes and brows became gentle, there was an indescribable gentle temperament that made her whole person more lively and bright, like the finishing touch to a painting.

Yuanye looked at it for a while and couldn't help but reveal a warm smile on his face, as if he was infected.

Well, he had never seen Ah Qing like this. Ah Qing was usually like a puppet, with no expression most of the time. Sometimes he would sit there for hours without moving. It was rare for him to be so childish...

Well, it’s not childish at all!

Yuanye took another careful look and found that Ah Qing seemed to have grown a little taller in the past few months, at least five centimeters taller. However, he saw Ah Qing every day, but he had never noticed it. Maybe it was because he could eat whatever he wanted during this period and had enough nutrition, so he grew taller?

She has grown taller, and her face is not as dirty as when we first met. Looking at her from this perspective, she looks a bit like a junior high school girl in modern times, and you can no longer say that she is childish.

But why hasn't Ah-Man changed? She eats the same food, she doesn't seem to have grown much, and she still looks like she deserves a beating all day long!
Yuanye's thoughts couldn't help but start to wander again, and Aqing soon noticed that he was standing in the corridor in a daze. He couldn't help but tilt his head strangely, and the little tuft of hair on his head seemed to have formed a question mark.

Yuanye came back to his senses, strolled over, smiled and asked a big nonsense question: "Are you feeding the chickens?"

Ah Qing tilted her head again, looked at the little chicken, then looked at him, but didn't respond. It was her personality that wouldn't allow her to respond to such obviously nonsense.

Yuanye was not surprised. After all, they had lived together for more than a hundred days. He was used to it. He looked at the lively chicks with interest and asked, "Are these the chickens you raised?"

Ah Qing nodded gently: "I want to... kill some time."

Yuanye nodded in understanding. A Qing was currently his personal bodyguard, and he basically stayed in the laboratory during this period and rarely went out, so A Qing had nothing to do.

Yuanye was easy to talk to in this regard. He was actually a very generous person who was willing to consider the people around him. He immediately said, "I won't be in danger in Takeuchi Village. If you are free, you can go out for a walk. You don't have to stay at home all the time."

Ah Qing shook his head slightly: "It doesn't matter, I... can also learn to read when I have free time."

She is not a street stalker like Aman who cannot sit still for three minutes. On the contrary, she likes her current life very much. It is quiet and peaceful. She is very happy to feed horses and donkeys, play with monkeys, feed chickens, practice martial arts and learn to read every day. She does not need more.

"That's fine!" Yuan Ye didn't force her, mainly because he couldn't figure out what she was thinking. But when it came to literacy, he immediately asked with concern, "Have you encountered any problems?"

A Qing is actually a bit stupid and doesn't like to communicate with others. If she can't learn something, she will just stay there and keep it to herself. In fact, she has a lot of problems, but she doesn't want to cause trouble for Yuanye, so she hesitated for a moment whether to nod.

Yuan Ye saw it and took the responsibility. He had been busy improving his life during this period. This teacher was indeed not doing a good job. He immediately said, "I happen to have time. I'll help you take a look."

The two went to Yuanye's study. A Qing took out the "textbook" she had copied and asked him about some sentences that she couldn't read and some words she didn't recognize. Yuanye patiently helped her answer them and pointed out some copying errors in the "textbook" and asked her to correct them herself.

Ah Qing obediently moved a desk over, sat down and began to correct the mistakes seriously. Yuan Ye sat cross-legged beside her and watched for a while. He noticed that the small tuft of hair on her head was shaking all the time, and couldn't help but suggest: "Have you ever thought about... growing your hair longer?"

He was deeply impressed by the scene of Aqing feeding the chicks. He felt that Aqing was already a girl, and she didn’t have to keep having a little boy’s hairstyle and wearing childish pigtails all day long. She could definitely make a change.

For example, he thought it would be good for Aqing to have a "Ji hairstyle", which is commonly known as the "Princess Cut". The back hair is long black straight hair, the hair on the forehead is cut into flat bangs at the height of the eyebrows, and the "hair feet" hanging on the temples are cut to the chin. It must be suitable for her face shape and temperament. Well, he didn't mean anything else, just a suggestion, after all... it's always right to look better, right?

Ah Qing was correcting her mistakes seriously. When she heard him say that, she tilted her head and looked at him in a strange way. After she saw what Yuan Ye was saying, she realized what he was saying. She quickly reached out and touched the small tuft in the middle of her head. Her face suddenly turned red.

Yuanye also reacted and felt that what he said was too presumptuous. After all, the two of them were not that familiar with each other - compared with A-man, he and A-qing were indeed not that familiar with each other. After all, he and A-man were almost to the point where they could accuse each other of bullshit. Maybe in a few months, the two of them could start boxing on a daily basis.

He quickly prepared to say "I'm sorry, just pretend I didn't say that" to smooth it over so as to avoid awkwardness in the future. However, before he could say it, Ah Qing had already lowered her eyelids and actually answered, "My hair is too long... It's inconvenient when I meet the enemy."

Is that what you were thinking?

This reason was impeccable to a pragmatic person like Yuanye. He felt a little regretful but still agreed. "Safety first, so short hair is indeed not a bad idea."

Ah Qing didn't say anything else. She continued to correct the typos with a slightly red face. After Yuanye looked at it for a while and left after thinking it was ok, Ah Qing touched the little tuft of hair on top of her head with a red face again, imagining what she would look like if she changed her hair to long hair.

No one had ever asked her this before, but now that she was asked this question, she became a little curious...

…………

Yuanye felt a little regretful, he actually wanted to see Aqing with long hair feeding the chickens, that would definitely be a more beautiful scene, but there was nothing he could do, the world did not revolve around him, everyone had their own ideas!

He didn't walk far. He didn't plan to go to the laboratory to mess around today, so he sat down at his desk and read to kill time. He had borrowed a lot of private notes of unknown warriors from Araki Kannon Temple before, and he would flip through them when he had nothing to do. This would help him understand this era better.

But the content is hard to describe.

According to many people's stereotypes, they would think that the ancient Japanese admired the ancient Chinese very much. After all, if they did not admire them, they would not have sent so many people to China to study in an era when navigation conditions were not yet developed, and they also racked their brains to abduct Chinese monks. But according to the notes he read, that was not the case at all.

Most of the notes are full of criticisms, especially about the attempt of the Japanese royal family in the Heian period to imitate the fubing system to establish a standing army, but its ultimate failure caused great turmoil across the country. Almost all the notes mention this, believing that this was the main reason for the end of the Heian period.

In addition, the Mongol expeditions to Japan failed twice and were almost annihilated, which made most of the authors of the notes believe that Japan was the country on the right track. China may have been a great power in the past and an object to learn from, but it could not even defeat Mongolia. It was obvious that Japan was already better and stronger, and it was time for it to go its own way. Even the name "China", which is so grand and has a special meaning in the Chinese cultural system, should perhaps be moved to Japan.

In addition, in order to enhance their own authority, Japanese shrines desperately promoted the "divine wind to protect the country", which led to the formation of the "Japanese Divine Country" idea, believing that Japan is a country favored by God and should rule the world.

Yuanye read for a while and found that it was similar to the books he had read before, so he threw down his notes and began to think around the desk.

He was a mediocre learner of history, otherwise he would not have had such a difficult time in medieval Japan. At the beginning, he was like a frightened bird in Hibizun Village and even dared to eat after Yayoi tasted the food. But no matter how poorly he studied history, he knew that the monkey, that is, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, launched the war of aggression against Korea.

In the past, he didn't understand why Monkey would go crazy like that. It was obvious that Japan was not stable either, and there were still local governments of all sizes. But he did it anyway, and even put forward the crazy slogan of "conquer China in two years and conquer India in three years". Before launching the war, he even arranged the "Kanpaku" of Japan and China, and planned to move his residence to Ningbo to personally command a new round of war to occupy India.

Looking at it now, it seems that Monkey was influenced by this trend of thought, or even just to cater to it. In order to make himself, the grassroots "lord of the world", more legitimate and to obtain a sacred halo, he launched the war of aggression against Korea. He wrote a letter asking the King of Korea to make way for him to attack the Ming Dynasty, otherwise he would deal with him first. However, the King of Korea decisively refused and directly asked for help from the Ming Dynasty, which directly led to the outbreak of the "Wanli Korean War".

The impact of this war was still very great. Even though Monkey King failed and the Toyotomi family's empire was directly destroyed, the Ming Dynasty did not have an easy time. It fought for six or seven years and wasted tens of millions of taels of military expenditure, which also indirectly led to the rise of the Later Jin Dynasty.

In a sense, the Qing Dynasty should really thank the monkeys - the Wanli Korean War emptied the Liaodong region, so much so that Korea said after the war that "the entire Liaodong area was trapped in the Imjin War, the population was dwindling, and all the mules and carts were gone."

If Liaodong had not been emptied, had not been depopulated, and had its military strength weakened, Nurhaci might not have been able to unify the Jurchen tribes so easily.

and so……

Yuanye walked around the desk dozens of times before his scattered thoughts were barely gathered together. He nodded slowly, feeling that he had now initially established a foothold in medieval Japan and had gained a little strength. Perhaps it was time to go look for the monkey.

(End of this chapter)