142: Chapter 142 Visiting the Grassroots, the Quagmire of Social Classes (3)

Turning the corner. After turning the corner, there was another row of tents—just as short and just as dilapidated as the rows before.

But one tent in this row was different—a sign hammered out of a piece of iron hung on the tent flap.

The surface of the iron plate hadn't been polished—it retained several hammer marks of varying depths from when it was beaten out.

A single character was engraved on the iron plate: Cai.

Xue Mingyuan lifted the tent flap.

The moment the flap was lifted, a thick, pungent smell of smoke rushed out from inside the tent.

The smell came from burning Spirit Beast bone powder—the powder was mixed with wormwood used for repelling insects.

The smoke tasted bitter—so bitter that even standing two zhang away outside the tent, one could feel a thin layer of bitterness clinging to the root of their tongue.

There was only one person inside the tent. An old man—crouched on a broken wooden crate.

The lid of the wooden crate was flipped to one side—the crate was filled with short knife sheaths, broken sword hilts, and a bundle of whetstone strips tied together with old leather cords.

A shallow, dark red web of blood vessels floated on the surface of the old scars on the old man's face—these were aged wounds, and the skin at the edges of the scars had shrunk toward the center, pulling the right side of his entire face down by a fraction.

He was the one surnamed Cai—Commander Cai.

"Are you the new arrival?" Commander Cai lifted his head from the wooden crate.

His eyes were small—the whites occupied most of the eyeball, with the dark pupils shrunken in the center.

When looking at people, his eyelids drooped slightly—as if he had seen so much that he couldn't be bothered to open his eyes fully.

Lu Changyuan drew the transfer order from his sleeve.

The bamboo slip casing flipped in the dim light inside the tent—the three characters "Lu Changyuan" written in vermilion ink on the casing reflected a faint, dark red in the bone powder smoke.

Commander Cai glanced at the transfer order.

He moved his hand away from the wooden crate—reaching out to take the transfer order.

His fingers were thick and short—the knuckles bulged outward, and the calluses on his joints were from years of gripping heavy sword hilts.

The distribution of calluses on this type of hand was different from the finger patterns of Lu Hu—Lu Hu had been gripping a blade for twenty years, and his calluses were concentrated on the web between his thumb and index finger. Commander Cai's were from gripping a sword—his calluses were concentrated in his palms.

He looked at the transfer order for three breaths. After finishing, he handed it back.

"Logistics Supervision Department—signed personally by the Iron Controller."

He picked up his pipe from the edge of the wooden crate—the bone powder in the bowl was still burning, and the iron at the bottom of the bowl was glowing red.

"The Sin Battalion hasn't had a proper commanding officer in three years. The last one who came wore a set of brand-new iron armor. He stayed for less than a month before leaving on his own—when he left, three plates had been pried off his armor. He said this battalion couldn't be saved."

He tapped the pipe twice against the edge of the wooden crate—the ash from the burned bone powder fell from the bowl and landed on the wooden crate lid.

The ash was dark gray—the same color as the dirt on the camp's muddy paths.

"Deputy Envoy Lu—there are two thousand seven hundred people in this battalion. Every person's military record has a stain on it. Can you wash it away?"

"It cannot be washed away."

"Then why have you come?"

"I have come to tell you—from today on, the Sin Battalion's supply rations will not go through the Unified Coordination Department. They will go through the Logistics Supervision Department."

Commander Cai rested his pipe on his knees.

The bone powder in the bowl had finished burning—the last wisp of smoke emerged from the bowl and dissipated into the dim air of the tent.

He glanced at Lu Changyuan—that look lingered longer than the time he spent looking at the transfer order.

"Last night—someone from the Logistics Department sent word. They said the Sin Battalion's spirit rice ration for tomorrow would be issued according to the lowest-tier battalion standard. One-quarter."

"That was word sent by Right Commander Li Feng. Those are Vice Commander Han Yi's people from the Unified Coordination Department—they cannot control the supplies of the Logistics Supervision Department."

Lu Changyuan tucked the transfer order back into his sleeve, "The first batch of military supplies from Blue Moon Island arrived at the fortress's Logistics Department yesterday. The manifest includes one hundred and twenty bottles of purification liquid—with a purity over 1.3 times the military standard. Spirit rice—Blue Moon Island's spirit fields yielded six thousand shi this season. After deducting what they keep for themselves—at least two thousand shi can be transferred over."

Commander Cai picked the pipe up from his knees.

He didn't light it—he just twirled the pipe bowl between his fingers.

The iron at the bottom of the bowl stopped when it had turned for the fourth time.

"Two thousand shi of spirit rice—are you willing to part with it?"

"It's not about being willing—it's that these three thousand people cannot work on an empty stomach. The Sin Battalion is under my command—if one person starves to death, it is not just a soldier who dies, it is my soldier."

Suddenly, footsteps came from the muddy path outside the tent flap.

The footsteps were hurried—one could hear the sound of mud squelching out from under the shoe soles as they stepped on the muddy ground.

The tent flap was lifted—Wei Chuan poked half his body inside.

His expression was different from usual—his mouth was pursed, his lips pulled inward into a very thin line.

"Young Lord—in the direction of the fortress's central training grounds. The war drums have sounded."

Lu Changyuan turned his head.

In the morning light filtering through the corner of the lifted tent flap—the sound of horns from the distant sea and the drums were mixed together.

The drumbeats were extremely deep—each one sounding as if someone underground was striking an iron plate with a heavy hammer.

When the first drum sounded, the bone powder ash in the tent vibrated on the wooden crate lid.

When the second drum sounded, a few grains of ash jumped out from the bowl of Commander Cai's pipe.

Three beats. Three beats in total.

The third beat was deeper than the first two—so deep that standing on the muddy floor inside the tent, one could feel a very faint vibration at the soles of their feet traveling up along their leg bones.

The Oath-Taking Ceremony.

After the three war drums—the clouds above the training grounds were scattered by the vibration.

The training grounds of Zhenhai Fortress were in the very center of the fortress—a flat area about five hundred zhang square.

The ground was paved with a layer of hard soil, made by crushing sea sand and then tamping it down—the surface of this hard soil layer was mixed with a very thin layer of iron sand, which shimmered with a cold, dark gray light in the morning sun.

Twelve Array Pattern flagpoles stood on both the north and south sides of the training grounds—the military flags on the flagpoles were pulled taut by the sea breeze into straight, dark red horizontal lines.

On the east side of the training grounds was the Generals Review Platform.

The platform base stood about two zhang above the ground—the platform surface was paved with bluestone bricks carved full of Array Patterns.

Very thin, dark golden spirit light lines were embedded in the gaps between the stone bricks—the direction of flow for every single line could be seen in the morning light.

In the very center of the Generals Review Platform sat an iron desk—the four legs of the iron desk were fixed to the stone bricks by Array Patterns.

Behind the iron desk was a row of seven iron chairs—the one in the very center had the highest back, and at the top of the backrest was carved a pattern of crossed sea swords with their tips pointing downward.

The training grounds were packed with people.

In the front row was the Vanguard Battalion—their armor was the newest, and their formation was the neatest.

The horizontal and vertical lines of their formation looked as if they had been measured with a ruler—two steps between each row, one step between each column.

In the back rows were the logistics battalions—there was no such thing as neatness in their formations; as long as people stood together, it counted as a square formation.

The further toward the edge of the training grounds, the more crowded it became—the Loose Cultivators and small lords at the very edge didn't even qualify as a square formation; they just stood in piles.