Chapter 19: Idiot, all idiots
He left in June and returned in August.
Yun Ye participated in the military parade of the Zuowuwei army, but there was no passion as he had imagined, only extreme fatigue and boredom.
The Qiang people were like rabbits running across the mountains and plains, with no organized resistance and no strategic confrontation. The resistance of the Qiang people’s lair was more like a naked massacre. The Zuowuwei army was like a mountain moving across, crushing all living things.
In the face of absolute power, strategy is laughable. There may be examples of small numbers defeating large numbers, but this will never happen between the Qiang people and the Tang army. The Qiang people, a once-glorious people, did not even have the qualifications to become enemies in the face of the mighty military might of the Tang Dynasty. There are still eleven such armies in the Tang Dynasty.
Cheng Yaojin had always hoped to fight the Turks or Tibetans to show his prowess as a general, but fate was not on his side. The Tibetans were too busy fighting for supremacy on the plateau to pay any attention to Cheng Yaojin’s provocations.
The Turks retreated to the grasslands. Although they lost the slaves they had captured in a surprise attack by Zhangsun Wuji, they gained more than they lost. They hid in the grasslands and never showed their faces again. It was as if the world had suddenly become peaceful, as if the war had never happened, except for General Cheng, who was clamoring to go into the grasslands and take off the head of Xie Li.
No one pays any attention to his ranting, and it seems that the entire Tang Dynasty has forgotten that there is a general named Cheng Yaojin, or is deeply ashamed and unwilling to talk about it. Since the Zuowei was sent to Longyou to eat, you should eat well in Longyou and not kill this and that for no reason. The world is quiet, which is not easy at all. Let the people of the entire Tang Dynasty have a respite.
Yun Ye was unlucky. Since General Cheng ate the oil-splashed noodles, he bragged to a group of old friends about how delicious the noodles were, and they were simply not available in the world.
Niu Jinda said that Yun Ye’s official titles were all written by his father, so it shouldn’t be a problem to ask for a bowl of noodles. He sat in Yun Ye’s tent and waited for dinner with a smile. There was no way. Yun Ye felt that these people could not be refused. Instead of inviting his brother alone, it would be better to invite the military’s top-notch colleagues to eat together. It is better to take a short pain than a long one. Take out all the chili peppers and splash them with oil to make a big bowl of red oil. Then ask the civilian workers in the logistics camp to pick a big basket of wild vegetables and call three cooks to help. Among them is the one who was beaten. After all, Yun Ye could not feel at ease after bullying people. I believe that after this meal, the three of them should have learned how to make the oil-splashed noodles, and in the future, those large and small military academies will not bother me. I have collected more than 20 giant bowls for soup, a large pot that can cook a whole sheep in one bite, and everything is ready, just waiting for the guests to arrive.
The guests came and left. They came hungry and left staggering. Yun Ye was left alone, sighing to the moon. Twenty-six men, twenty-six generals, twenty-six good-for-nothings. A total of eighty catties of flour, a wooden bucket of cooking oil, and two large baskets of wild vegetables were swallowed by these gentlemen. They complained that the bowls were too big, but there wasn’t much in them. The way they ate was fresh, so they just tasted it. Is there even a fresh taste to the noodles? The three cooks were lying on the ground, gasping for breath, their tongues hanging out like dogs, and their asses covered in footprints, all kicked by these bastards who thought it was too slow.
Yun Ye deeply regretted inviting these scumbags to dinner. Didn’t the ancients have self-control and rules, putting others before themselves? Why did they all rush to the table after Lao Cheng and Lao Niu finished eating? Even Huang Zhi’en, who had been indulging in mathematics these days, finished eating a bowl and loudly demanded another bowl, not afraid of being stuffed to death. He kicked the cook with his feet while reaching for the noodles. This university scholar, who was known as a famous mathematician, was no stranger to others. Obviously, this was how he usually behaved.
After a long time in a room full of orchids, you won’t notice the fragrance. After a long time in a shop full of abalones, you won’t notice the stench. This famous saying had a great impact on Yun Ye, and leaving Zuowei, which was a shop full of abalones, had to be put on the agenda. After paying the three cooks their usual money, Yun Ye watched them leave happily, touched his empty stomach, touched his own tent and went to bed.
In the morning, he opened the curtain and was greeted by the damp smell of mud. He had slept so soundly the night before that even the heavy rain had not woken him.
Looking at the rain curtain outside the door, Yun Ye suddenly remembered the potatoes he had planted. He quickly ran to the back of the house and saw that the potato seedlings in the five large pots were growing very well. In two months, they had grown to a height of one and a half feet. The leaves were green and dense, covering the entire pot. The five large pots were arranged in a plum blossom shape, with a thatched pavilion above them to shelter the potatoes from the rain. Occasionally, a few drops of rain leaked down and splashed on the leaves, causing the green leaves to tilt downwards, and the remaining rainwater to slide down the leaves and disappear in a flash in the shade.
Yun Ye was relieved. During the two months he was away, the potatoes had been well taken care of. Looking at the buds between the leaves, Yun Ye was excited. In another five or six days, the lilac potato flowers would bloom. As long as there were flowers, there would be a harvest. He had always worried that the potatoes’ vitality would be destroyed when they passed through the wormhole. It seems that they are fine, and his plan to make money has not been thwarted. When these potatoes grow, they will all be used as seeds. As long as they don’t degenerate, in three years, Yun Ye will have the confidence to plant them on a hundred or so mu of land. There are also thousands of mu of good farmland in Chang’an. I believe that with this new crop of potatoes, it is not difficult to get rich.
When Yun Ye was drooling and fantasizing about the future, when the sky was full of copper coins falling like rain, a burly man stumbled from the rain and walked into the pavilion. Seeing Yun Ye was deep in thought, he didn’t bother him and quietly stood by waiting for Yun Ye to come back to his senses.
This man is Zhuang Santing, whom Yun Ye pulled back from the brink of death. Because he was too badly injured, he was not taken with the troops to suppress the Qiang people this time, and was left in the camp to recuperate. A month ago, Zhuang Santing was already able to walk, but there was nothing to do in the empty camp, so he heard that Yun Ye had left a few flowers and plants, so he ran to take a look, but was stopped by the guards. He said that this was the favorite of the lord, and even the general was very concerned about it. No one else was allowed to enter, and only two flower farmers carefully took care of these flowers.
Zhuang San Ting was even more surprised. When did the general care about flowers? He was practicing his sword skills in the mansion and accidentally cut down his wife’s favorite peony bush. He was chased by his wife and became a laughing stock in the city. Now he ordered someone to carefully take care of Lord Yun’s flowers. It was strange. After much persuasion, the guards let him go in to take a look.
At first glance, Zhuang Santing, who was from a farming family, decided that these were not flowers. Although he did not know what the general was up to, he must have been up to something important. Perhaps these were precious herbs that the general had planted. At the thought of the general’s miraculous hands, Zhuang Santing’s face was full of longing. How could the nobleman’s precious treasure be left in the care of those irrelevant flower farmers? If something were to go wrong, the life-saving medicinal herbs would be lost. So he moved his own tent in front of the potato seedlings and built a straw shed. At sunrise, he put the potato seedlings outside the shed, and at sunset, he moved them back into the shed. He carefully looked after them every day, loosening the soil and watering them, and catching insects was a common occurrence. Seeing the potato seedlings grow day by day, and in recent days, buds have appeared, Zhuang Santing is overjoyed.
He got up three times last night to check if the shed was secure after the heavy rain. He was relieved to see that everything was fine and went back to sleep. Not long after, he heard footsteps outside and got up to check. It turned out to be Lord Zhuang.