The vast crowd drove cattle and sheep and walked in the knee-deep snow. Although there were horses, no one was riding on horses. Warriors carrying scimitars and carrying bows on the outermost periphery. Not riding horses was to ensure that the war horses had physical strength. Even horses were extremely laborious to move on such snow. In order to have sufficient physical strength in the war horses when encountering emergencies, these warriors would rather walk.

Seeing the sudden appearance of a large group of cavalry in the distance, the pace of these people who were moving suddenly accelerated. The front stopped, and the back quickly moved closer to the front. When Li Ze completely saw them clearly, they had already stopped. Tens of thousands of people were curled up together, and they did not occupy a large area.

In the middle are more than a dozen carriages, next to the carriage are children, outside the children are women, and often, there are young and strong people in the tribe. These young and strong people have no horses. They all took off their bows and held their fingers on the strings. And on the periphery of these young and strong people, there are all old men and women.

The outermost part is the real warrior, and they have already stepped on the war horse.

When he saw the Li banner, one of them turned around and waved his hands and shouted loudly. Li Ze could feel that the other party's alert seemed to relax. The man who led the horse headed towards Li Ze. When he was still ten feet away, he rolled off his saddle and took a few quick steps forward. He knelt down straight, and his head was pounded heavily, and his head was almost buried in the snow, almost invisible.

"Shiwandan Yeluqi, I have seen the young master." The visitor raised his head, and the fur hat, eyebrows, and the messy beard were covered with snowflakes, which looked very funny.

Li Ze turned over and dismounted, walked forward a few steps, and said, "Get up, Yelu Qi, now do you know that I am not a person who promises me?"

"The young master promised a thousand gold medals and was willing to exchange for Yelu Qi and other tribes, Yelu Qi and the 30,000 tribes of the Wandan tribe. From then on, he will be the most loyal subordinates of the young master and will follow him to the death." Yelu Qi said loudly.

Li Ze laughed, "Get up, don't kneel there, you are the leader of the clan, and you must have your own majesty in front of the tribe."

Yelu Qi then got up.

"Why are there so few livestock?" Li Ze frowned slightly after looking at the Siwandan tribe in the distance.

Yelu Qi smiled bitterly and said, "There were many, but they were locked up by Zhang Zhongwu's subordinates. They said that the young master only said that he had replaced people, not a single person, but he did not mention livestock. Almost all the adult war horses were stolen by them. They could leave this for the sake of giving the young master a face and fearing that the young master would be angry. When I saw them on the Yingzhou border again, I had nothing to say except anger. I sold Zhang Zhongwu for so many years. It was the end. Even if I had pity for us, I shouldn't do this! When I saw my tribe like this, Zhang Zhongwu and I would only be enemies in the future."

Li Ze nodded: "Zhang Zhongwu may not have such a small weapon, but his subordinates are not sure."

"No matter what, I can only keep this account on Zhang Zhongwu. If it weren't for this, my tribe members would have killed fewer people."

"How many people died?" Li Ze asked.

Yelu Qi smiled bitterly and said, "Three thousand, six hundred and eighty-one people."

"So many died?"

"It's okay! In fact, every winter, they die much more than this. And those who die are basically the old, weak, sick and disabled." Yelu Qi said: "I originally thought that fewer people would die this year, because the young master gave us hope that as long as they are under the young master's rule, they will not need to die. Unfortunately, they did not survive the land."

"Since I'm on top of my land, there will be no more deaths." Li Ze said lightly.

"Thank you, Young Master." Yelu Qi bent down deeply.

"Yelu head man, you are not short of fur. Why are there so many people in your tribe who don't have any clothes worn out? How can you not freeze people to death in this winter?" Min Rou, who was on the side, couldn't help but ask.

Yelu Qi smiled tragically: "General Min, you are a Tang Dynasty man, and you are from a wealthy family. How can you know the suffering of us? We do have a lot of skins and many livestock, but do you know how much tax we have to pay? How many war horses and meat are needed to provide Zhang Zhongwu every year? Even if there are some surpluses, we still have to use these surpluses to buy grain and daily necessities. Do you know how many skins we need to buy an iron pot? Five cowhides, one tea brick, and ten cowhides."

Min Rou was speechless, he really didn't know about these things.

"Food must be bought. Because without food, people will starve to death. What is it that I am not covered in clothes? It is hard to endure winter a year. It is so cold that we can sleep in a sheep and cows, and we can always survive it. But without food, it will kill people."

"If you don't have food, you can kill livestock!" Min Rou said quietly.

"The livestock is our life. Without livestock, how can we pay taxes next year? How can we exchange for the things we need next year?" Yelu Qi smiled bitterly: "In winter, we would rather freeze some people than starve the livestock to death!"

Min Rou completely closed her mouth.

Although the Khitans had been a border trouble for the Tang Dynasty a long time ago, he still felt a little embarrassed to see the miserable appearance of these people in front of him.

"When passing Yingzhou City, Liu Chenglin didn't allocate some cotton coats for you?" Li Ze asked.

"General Liu gave me some food." Yelu Qi said: "They don't have any extra cotton coats, I'm very grateful to me for giving me some food. Otherwise, more people will die."

Li Ze reached out and took off the cloak on his body and threw it to an old Khitan man very close to him. The man took the cloak and bent down deeply towards Li Ze. However, he did not wrap the cloak on his naked body, but passed the cloak to the back.

Li Ze watched his cloak beside him, and it was spread to the center of the team. A young woman wrapped the cloak tightly with three and a half-year-old children.

Children are the future of the tribe.

Whether it is the Tang people or the Khitan people, they are exactly the same in this regard.

Li Ze turned around, looked at his subordinates, and waved his hand.

Min Rou understood and turned around and shouted loudly: "Everyone, take off her cloak."

Three thousand cavalrymen all untied their cloaks, and passed them to the front in piles, and placed them in front of Yelu Qi.

Yelu Qi burst into tears and knelt down to Li Ze again.

When he knelt down, all the Sibandan tribes behind him also knelt down.

"Don't just care about children. The elderly are also precious wealth. If you have an old family, you will have a treasure!" Li Ze helped Yelu Qi up and said, "I will send an order to Shenzhou and Jingzhou do their best to raise a batch of cotton coats to bring them over. Without cotton coats, quilts and other things are fine. Boxing County, Dezhou is the place I have assigned to you. There are some basic things that have been prepared there. After this fight, let's start working!"

"The Wandan tribe will never let the young master down. It will raise countless war horses, countless lambs, and countless strong cows for the young master!" Yelu Qi said loudly.

"It's not for me, but for you." Li Ze smiled and said, "I won't let you do it in vain. Apart from the taxes that should be paid, we are doing fair business. The leader, good days are all achieved through hard work. Under my rule, Li Ze, as long as we are willing to endure hardships and work hard, our lives will become more and more prosperous."

"Abide by the young master's teachings!" Yelu Qi bowed and said.

Li Ze looked up at the center of the team, looked at the dozen tightly covered carriages there, and said, "What are you putting on there, such a treasure?"

"Ewe!" Yelu Qi's answer almost made Li Ze's eyes fall out.

"Put the ewe in the carriage, and the people are frozen outside?" he asked in shock.

"These ewes are pregnant with lambs. As long as they are good, the tribe will soon have more lambs!" Yelu Qi smiled and said, "And, young master, there is also a variety of wool that I have specially found here. Didn't the young master say that wool is valuable? From now on, we will rely on them!"

"Let's go and have a look!" Li Ze was also interested. In this era, due to craftsmanship, there were very few people using wool to make clothes. Although Li Ze's farm had this technology, it was also secret. Therefore, sheep, which were specially used to fleece, were not popular at all in this era.

Yelu Qi led Li Ze to the center of the team. Wherever he went, the Wandan tribes were all giving way to both sides like a tide, giving them a way.

Next to the carriage, several children were wrapped in a large cloak, with only one head exposed. Looking at the dolls with red faces and frostbite on their ears, looking at themselves curiously, Li Ze smiled and touched the head of one of the guys with a terrible head.

Yelu Qi reached out and lifted the felt of the carriage, and the heads of several sheep were immediately protruded. It was indeed the kind of long-haired sheep in Li Ze's mind. The wool of this kind of sheep is much better than the wool of the sheep on Li Ze's village.

Li Ze smiled and said, "What a good thing, are all in these dozen or two carriages?"

Yelu Qi shook his head awkwardly: "No, this carriage, this sheep grows hair and does not grow meat. It was originally very small in the tribe. It was just that we would come with other tribes."
Chapter completed!