Crossing over reveals a waste's difficult journey home

Zhen'an City is the northernmost town in Daxia and also the town closest to the Xiongnu. The people living here include the indigenous people who have lived here for generations, as well as the soldiers guarding the border and their families.

At this time of year, Ningping City, the capital of Daxia, is still feeling the afterglow of summer, while Zhen'an City has completely entered autumn. It will not be long before the first snow of the year falls here.

At this time of year every year, the people of Zhen'an City are very busy. They will try every possible way to collect food and warm things, hoping to survive the cold winter.

Especially after experienced elders said that this winter will be particularly cold, the people of Zhen'an City have become even busier.

Not only are we busy preparing things for the winter, but we are also busy preparing weapons.

They knew that in good years the Huns would come to plunder from time to time. This year the weather was unusual, and their lives were difficult, and the Huns' lives were even more difficult. They would definitely come south to rob them.

In order to protect their homes, they will not only rely on the garrison soldiers but also on themselves. Regardless of whether they will need them in the future, they will feel at ease if they prepare more weapons.

Normally speaking, on such a busy day, the atmosphere in Zhen'an City should be tense and depressed, but today the entire Zhen'an City seems a little restless.

"Brother Wang, what's going on? Why do I see so many people going over there?"

A man was sorting firewood at home when he heard a commotion outside. He went out and saw many people walking hurriedly towards the city center.

He was a little confused, and when he saw someone he knew was about to go over, he quickly grabbed the person and asked him.

"Oh, it's Li Tu. The general issued a notice today, saying that he would teach everyone how to make tofu and kang outside the general's mansion."

"Tofu? Kang? What are those?" Li Tu had never heard of either of these two things.

"I heard that tofu is edible and can prolong life. The kang is used for heating. With it, you can keep warm in winter with very little firewood!"

If the need of the people of Ningping City to have enough food and not freeze to death in winter is +1 urgent, then the need of the people of Zhen'an City is +100 urgent.

No matter how bad the living environment in Daxia is, compared with the people in Zhen'an City, the people in Ningping City who live at the feet of the emperor are already considered pretty good.

At least most of them will not freeze or starve to death, and they don't have to worry about being harassed or invaded by the enemy at any time.

The situation is different for the people of Zhen'an City. The harsh natural environment and brutal neighbors make their lives extremely difficult.

Fortunately, people are very adaptable. After living in this environment for a long time, the people of Zhen'an City have become accustomed to it. They have also developed a tough character and a tough style, and they are decisive and never procrastinate when encountering things.

As a native citizen of Zhen'an City, Li Tu heard that there was something that could prolong life and keep warm. Without saying a word, he dropped what he was holding, and ran towards the city center with the people he knew, without even locking the door.

Zhen'an City was first established during the Chen Dynasty. Later, the Huns took advantage of the chaos in the Central Plains to invade many times. The original old city had already been in ruins and could not be lived in, let alone resist foreign enemies.

The current new city was rebuilt after Jiang Qi conquered most of the Central Plains, at the cost of huge manpower and financial resources.

In order to facilitate the management of the people, the General's Mansion was located in the most central location of the newly built city. In order to facilitate the entry and exit of soldiers, a large open space was left around the General's Mansion.

After all, the people are the people. Even if they have to be tough because of the living environment, they still have a natural fear of places like government offices. Usually, few people would stay in this open space.

However, today, a huge number of people gathered in this usually empty and quiet place, so many that the people in the General's Mansion had to send many soldiers to maintain order which was about to become chaotic.

Inside the general's mansion, a middle-aged man who looked 70% like Taiwei Zong Zhenghe, but was less calm than the other, asked his attendant Tian Jia, "How is it outside?"

"Report to the general, everything is ready outside."

"What about the people? Have they all been notified?"

"Reporting to the general, we have arranged for people to post notices and spread the news everywhere early in the morning. By now, most of the people in Zhen'an City have already known about it."

"Okay, in that case, follow me out to take a look!"

As he walked out, General Zong Zhengliang was thinking about what had happened during this period.

First, a group of people suddenly came from the capital, gave him the secret letter from Your Majesty, and after learning some recent news about the Huns, they quickly left and headed straight for the grassland.

Not long after that group of people left, a group of craftsmen came from the capital. After they arrived, they started to work. Soon he saw the stone mill and stone roller, and ate tofu that surprised him greatly.

He thought the matter was over, but before he had even had a chance to eat tofu, another group of craftsmen came and worked for three days to let him sleep on a warm, comfortable and firewood-saving kang.

Now he was sure that something must have happened in the capital that he didn't know about. He wrote a letter to his brother, but the answer he got was that Daxia was blessed by gods.

Zong Zhengliang, like most common people, believed that the dragon must have existed, but now it has returned to the fairyland and will not come down easily.

As for the protection of gods, haha, compared to those illusory things, he would rather believe in the halberd and bow and arrow in his hand.

However, his brother certainly did not mean to be perfunctory when he said this, which meant that there were some things that could not be stated clearly in the letter.

He continued reading the letter. In addition to asking him to pay more attention to the movements of the Huns, his brother also emphasized tofu and kangs, and asked him to promote them.

In fact, without his brother's instructions, Zong Zhengliang had already realized the importance of tofu and kang.

In the northern border where food is scarce and the winters are extremely cold, these two things are very important to both the people and the soldiers.

In order to let the people learn how to make these two things as quickly as possible, and to make the soldiers strong as soon as possible to deal with the invasion of the Huns, he decided to learn from the practices of the capital and achieve the purpose of promotion by demonstrating them in public.

The difference is that Zhen'an City is an important frontier city and it is impossible for them to set up stalls at every city gate like the capital. That would be fast but too chaotic and might give the enemy an opportunity to take advantage.

After thinking about it, Zong Zhengliang found that the open space in front of the general's mansion was good, with a large area and convenient for people to travel around. So he decided to demonstrate it to the people there.

Before the demonstration, he asked the craftsmen to build a large stone mill in the center of the open space and a large fire bed. When it was almost finished, he posted notices and preached everywhere to gather the people.

Now the tofu has been made, the kang has been lit, and the people have been attracted. What remains is to see how they can make the people accept it quickly.