I have been a county magistrate for ten years. My subordinates insist on giving me a yellow robe.

Taiping County Gate.

When Ding Yin, who was trapped tightly, was brought in front of Jiang Yuan, he still had a look of fear on his face, as if the sword energy had not yet fallen.

Jiang Yuan smiled faintly and patted Ding Yin's face: "This is a treasure, take it away and take good care of it."

"Sir, what should we do with these people down there?" Long Guangxian looked at the soldiers under the city wall who had dropped their weapons and surrendered. Although there were not many of them, there were still about a thousand of them.

"Give each of them an IOU, stating that each of them owes us Taiping County 100 taels of silver. Then, take them to work in the mines. Each month, we'll pay them 5 taels of silver. Two taels will be deducted to pay off the debt, and two taels will be used as daily food expenses. The remaining 1 tael will be given to them."

"Also, we'll sell them our newly built house for three hundred taels. Let them pay us back, and we won't stop them from leaving if they want to."

After some calculations, Long Guangxian immediately gave Jiang Yuan a thumbs up.

By this calculation, each person owed Taiping County 400 taels of silver for no reason. With 2 taels of silver per month, excluding holidays and rest time in the mines, they could pay back 20 taels of silver per year.

Two hundred taels in ten years, it will take a full twenty years to pay back the four hundred taels. Most of the soldiers below are in their twenties or thirties. After twenty years, they will probably have lost the courage to go out and explore the world.

"All officers were taken to the prison for labor reform. Be careful not to allow them to participate in the production of weapons."

After speaking a lot, Jiang Yuan brought a few guys to the secret room at the city gate.

There are still a few unlucky guys locked up in here.

"Listen carefully, everyone inside. We've captured your general, Ding Yin, alive, and the rest of you have surrendered. Have you considered this carefully?"

"You're talking nonsense! Impossible!"

Li Man's voice was the first to be heard: "We have 5,000 soldiers outside. How could you defeat us so easily? Stop bragging!"

"That's right! How could General Ding surrender!" Chen Xudong's voice also came out.

Jiang Yuan clapped his hands, and a crack suddenly appeared above the heads of the people who were locked in the city gate, and Ding Yin's sword was thrown down.

"The facts are before us. I will come again tomorrow."

After Jiang Yuan finished speaking, he turned and left.

The guys inside looked at each other in confusion as they saw the sword dropped to the ground.

"General, this seems to be true." Several soldiers who rushed in whispered to Li Man.

Li Man's face looked extremely ugly. How could he not tell whether it was true or not? Since his sword had been taken away, Ding Yin had most likely either surrendered or died in battle.

"I won't stop you from doing anything you want." Li Man said softly, then slumped to the ground, staring blankly upwards.

Not only Ding Yin and his men had been hungry for a day, they were the same. Even Chen Xudong, who was driving the war beast, could not bear it anymore.

But at this moment, there was no one from above to persuade them to surrender. Jiang Yuan was determined to wait until they were starving and weak all over before opening the city gate. Otherwise, if a few people were taken away by the war beast, it would be a loss for no reason.

Time passed slowly, and before anyone knew it, it was dark and then light again. However, all this had nothing to do with the guys who were locked up.

In their eyes, the world has become eternal darkness.

"General... How long has it been... I'm hungry..." Chen Xudong, who had already taken off the war beast, stared blankly at the front.

Just as Li Man was about to speak, footsteps were heard, followed by a dazzling white light.

As they gradually adapted to the situation, they discovered that the secret door and the city gate in front of them had been opened, but both the front and the back were blocked by people.

"Ah!" Li Man's eyes suddenly turned red, and he was about to rush forward with his spear in hand. However, before he could take a few steps, Zhao Kai came quickly and kicked him in the face.

"Damn it! If you don't behave yourself, get back here!"

Li Man, who had not had a drop of water for two days, was unsurprisingly kicked over and lay on the ground gasping for breath. The others didn't even have the strength to get up and could only watch as they came towards him with ropes.

After everyone was tied up tightly, Jiang Yuan immediately gave the order: "Take this idiot away and lock him up with Ding Yin. The rest of the people will follow the same old rules."

"As for this child, take him to the county government office and I will personally interrogate him."

After saying this, Jiang Yuan turned around and walked towards the county government office.

Not long after, in the Taiping County Government Office, Chen Xudong, who was dizzy and hungry, was thrown into the center of the lobby.

"Make him a bowl of soup first." Jiang Yuan said lightly.

"Sir, I, I want to eat." Chen Xudong spoke weakly. Anyway, he was already a prisoner now, Ding Yin had surrendered, so it would be no problem for him, a child, to surrender.

Jiang Yuan smiled and nodded: "Don't worry, as long as you cooperate honestly, you can eat whatever you want, but you have to wait until you finish answering the questions."

As he spoke, Jiang Yuan waved his hand, and Wang Gang handed a bowl of broth to Chen Xudong, while Zhao Kai and others worked together to lift the war beast up.

While Chen Xudong was drinking his soup, Jiang Yuan walked forward and looked the war beast up and down.

"Well, it does look like Mark I." Jiang Yuan knocked on the shell of the war beast, and suddenly a series of banging sounds were heard.

"It seems that it can be separated from both sides. Don't just stand there, come and help." Jiang Yuan waved his hand and called Zhao Kai and his group to start trying to study it.

At this moment, Chen Xudong, who had drunk a bowl of broth, spoke tremblingly.

"Don't touch me, what if you break it?"

Jiang Yuan curled his lips immediately. What do you mean by "yours"? This is clearly mine now!

"You're done drinking, right? Come here and tell me how to open this thing."

With dozens of experts standing around him, Jiang Yuan was quite confident in saying this and was not afraid at all that Chen Xudong would suddenly put on the war beast and attack.

In front of so many people, especially Li Hu, this guy would be awesome if he could get into this turtle shell.

Chen Xudong walked helplessly to the front of the war beast, grabbed the middle finger of his right hand and turned it around. The iron monster in everyone's eyes suddenly split apart from one side, like a dumpling with its mouth opened.

"You can control it by getting in from here." Chen Xudong said gloomily.

Jiang Yuan looked inside curiously and suddenly had a speechless thought. The inside of the war beast made his scalp tingle. There were so many buttons and mechanisms that it would be impossible to understand it without a few months of practice.

"The mechanical engineering is really amazing." Jiang Yuan couldn't help but admire it. He originally wanted to study the war beasts and mass-produce hundreds of them to serve as Taiping County's ace troops in the future.

After taking a look, Jiang Yuan completely gave up the idea. This thing was too difficult. The ingenuity of each internal component was not something that could be learned in three to five years. Even for Jiang Yuan himself, it would probably take at least five years to imitate it.

"What's your name?" Jiang Yuan turned to look at Chen Xudong. Now he could only put all his hopes on this kid.

"Chen Xudong."

"Well, can you make this?" Jiang Yuan said expectantly.

Chen Xudong hesitated for a moment and then nodded: "Yes, I will, but I don't think you can afford it."

"What the hell is this? Who are you looking down on?" Jiang Yuan was immediately unhappy. This iron monster had an ingenious structure at best. It was just a piece of wood and iron. There were plenty of these things in Taiping County.

"I need meteorite iron from outer space and thousand-year-old cold wood from the snowy land."

As soon as Chen Xudong finished speaking, Jiang Yuan fell silent.