(Thanks to bv6579 and Zero Kkexin for their support, thank you!)

Liaogang is the abbreviation of Liaoyang Iron and Steel Plant. This large steel plant was built in Liaoyang City, Liaozhou, Liaodong Province. Because of its huge scale and strong technology, it is very famous among the Qin vassals. It built it in the outer city of Liaoyang City, on Jinshan Road.

In September of the first year of Guangming, the workers here were still some apprentices under the age of 18 and older people over the age of 50. Because many young and strong men were mostly recruited to the front line, either united soldiers, village soldiers, or militias, and many even recruited to serve as transporters, and many were transferred to build roads and mines. The workers were busy from morning to night and couldn't stand up. Gao Duo, who was fifteen, is now an apprentice in this factory.

Before he could finish processing a batch of forgings on hand, the one-eyed veteran troupe in his sixties had already thrown another bundle of jingles at his feet. He wanted to clamp up the horny crust-shaped bristles that were burned to snow and put them in the vise with wide mouths... Iron products, cast iron and steel everywhere. If you can deal with them, you have to work hard and don’t want to rest. If you don’t work hard, don’t want to get a salary.

At noon, the workshop was so hot that it was suffocating. The air was filled with dense metal powder, making the throat itchy. His hands were heavy and heavy, and his back and shoulders were filled with lead. He wanted to take a breath, but it wasn't possible. The head of the team was behind him. It was not so easy to go to the toilet. Two hours a shift, he could only go to the toilet twice at most. Each time he had to wait for the wooden sign that said "Unknown's hand" to be unused, so they had the chance to change the working sign with the working sign. Only in the five minutes of going to the toilet can they be allowed to temporarily put down their work.

On the left and right of Gao Duo are two 14-year-old and 15-year-old boys, like him, who fled from the Central Plains to the Qinfan, and then arranged to come to Liaodong. Because his father served in the army, they got a place to be an apprentice in the factory. Although the apprentices in the steel mill are very tired, three shifts a day and have to work for six hours. However, for those newlywed immigrants who were originally just ordinary farmers and had no background and no education at home, being able to learn a craft in the steel mill is a useful thing for life, and they will not worry about having no food to eat anywhere in the future.

The two young men were so tired that they were not good enough. They just slowed down a little, and after a while, the team found out that the veteran who was said to have been a mate leader shouted angrily, "If you produce scraps, bad products!" He shouted while waving his huge fists back and forth in front of them, "Little bastards, I want to teach you a lesson."

Gao Duo took this opportunity to throw the work in his hands like those young people with a full mind, staying motionless. He looked at the shouting team and took advantage of his yelling opportunity to rest. When the one-eyed old team found out, they were so angry that they waved their fists even more powerfully and roared at everyone.

"Damn guys, you guys are fighting on the front line, waiting for the various equipment made in the rear. You are just sweating in the rear, but you guys are bleeding on the front line. Do you know how many arrows and shells you have to consume every day? How many swords and guns will be lost? You are lazy here, just putting you in a dangerous place. Don't you want you to come back? Damn little bastard, if you don't want to, just do it quickly. The highest yield and the best performance this month can get fifty kilograms of potato flour and ten kilograms of lard. Damn, even if you are the first in the team, you can get twenty kilograms of canned whales. If you want to get these, work hard."

Hearing these rewards, the originally tired young people suddenly had a gleam in their eyes. This is a large sum of grain and oil. Even if they were only the first in the team, the 20 kilograms of canned whale meat, it was very good. Since the first year of Guangming, the people of the Qin vassal discovered that the originally abundant grain supply had begun to shrink. Now the average grain supply of a middle-aged man is only two liters of rice, the middle-aged man is only one and a half liters of genitals, and the elderly are only one liter. This is much less than the previous grain quota, and it is also accompanied by many non-staple foods.

The food that is short of oil and meat will only increase the appetite. Especially for workers like Gao Duo and others who live in first-tier cities like Liaoyang, there is no place to grow vegetables or pick wild vegetables, and they can only buy food and drink with various tickets. They are all half-baby, poor, Gao Duo has a lot of children, but only his parents have jobs. With the portion he has to eat and eat porridge every day, and he can't see any meat for a long time. This is an extremely headache for their brothers and sisters who are growing up.

It is very tempting to earn twenty kilograms of canned whale meat.

Such a life made him always recall the days when he first arrived at the Qin vassal state. Before he came, their hometown was Caozhou, Henan, which was Huang Chao's hometown. As early as when he was a child, there was already a mess there. On the opposite side of the Yellow River in northern Caozhou, there were the Three Feudals of Hebei, which had always been disobeying the court. Caozhou had long been a place of thieves and the nest of salt dealers. Moreover, the Yellow River often had water. At that time, there were either drought or flooding. After a few years, there were locust plagues. With the plagues, and the lives were much harder than now. Later, Wang Xianzhi, Huang Chao, raised an army, and the officers and soldiers conquered the nests. The wars were fought in several directions, and the soldiers passed by like bandits. They could not survive. The family and young followed the refugees all the way eastward, went to Dengzhou, and finally settled in Liaodong.

When they first arrived in Liaodong, their family divided the land. At that time, there were not so many people in Liaodong, and there was not so much lively. Their family was divided into 20 acres of Yongye land and 80 acres of dew fields for each 10. His family had four people, and they divided the land into 80 acres of land and 320 acres of dew fields in total. In addition, six unfinished land were divided into 60 acres of perennial and 240 acres of dew fields. Together, there were 140 acres of perennial land and 60 acres of dew fields, which was unimaginable when they were in Henan. However, the land distributed by the family was divided into wasteland, and they had to be reclaimed by themselves. After the cultivation, these raw land was not strong enough, so they could only take turns to plant. They took a year off for planting, and the yield was not high in the first few years.

Despite this, the government rented cattle, horses and farm tools, and their family still reclaimed the land. The government also borrowed money to help them build a large yard and dug a fish pond at the entrance of the yard. It is tiring, but life is promising.

Later, my father was selected as a united soldier. At the beginning, he only went to train during the slack farming period, but gradually he was often recruited, and sometimes he had to transport supplies to the front line. Gradually, he simply had no time to come back. Until now, Gao Duo's father has not come back for three years and has been traveling around and busy transporting various supplies. Even his grandfather, who was 48 years old two years ago, was recruited into the village soldiers, and last year he was also recruited to transport supplies to the Bohai Kingdom.

The family was originally farming with their father and grandfather. Now, when the two strong laborers left, it was impossible to leave his mother and his grandmother with their group of unemployed children. In the end, the father wrote to them to rent all the land at home to the new immigrants to do. In the past few years, many people have to settle further north, and some people refuse to go, so they stayed. However, the remaining ones were not allowed to divide the land, so they could only go to the workshops and mines to work, or farm for the early immigrants.

After the family was rented out to someone else, their family entered Liaoyang City, and their father asked someone to find some things for them. The mother and grandmother worked as a servant in the city, the grandmother was responsible for taking care of the children, the mother cooked for his family, and he went to Liaogang as an apprentice, several sisters also entered a textile factory, and the two younger brothers were studying. They relied on the tenant rent of the countryside land and the salary for working in the city. But now the grain is purchased with tickets, and the supply of grain is tight, and their family is starting to lose their appetite.

Many people don’t understand why the lives of such a powerful and invincible Qin army are getting worse and worse?

Gao Duo couldn't figure it out, and many of his colleagues couldn't figure it out either. Their world was limited to narrow and hot factories. Most of them didn't have much education, although the factories would also have literacy classes at night. But after six hours of busy classes for three classes, it was so late. As soon as they sat there, everyone had already been sleeping. Who still had the energy to learn to read?

The one-eyed old troupe also knew a lot of words when he was in the army. He liked to go to the factory to get the past newspapers and read them with great pleasure. Whenever there was any good news, he would always tell them excitedly. Therefore, they often heard many good news from the old troupe. For example, some time ago, General Zhang Zimian captured Yanmen Town, the hometown of Shatuo people, and General Liu Xun defeated the Hu people in Jincheng and killed a very high-ranking Khitan. Another example is that His Highness, the King of Qin, personally conquered the outer world and wiped out all the Hu people who invaded the south in one fell swoop.

In short, there was a constant good news. The Qin army was invincible and invincible. His Highness, the King of Qin, was wise and decisive. They added two towns in the north of Yanmen and Datong. They also defeated the invasion conspiracy between Shatu and the Khitans. However, after the continuous good news, Gao Duo felt the change around him. The production tasks in the workshop were increasing, and they had less and less rest time and more work. Although their salary had not changed, their important materials, such as grain, oil, and side dishes, were becoming increasingly tight. Some food began to appear on the black market, and all kinds of food could be eaten, but it was astonishingly expensive.

"What's wrong with us?" After working for two hours, during lunch, coworker Xiaoyong asked the one-eyed team leader in confusion while picking porridge while biting a grain steamed bun.

The teenagers looked at the team. Except for some technicians in the steel mill, most of the young and strong workers were transferred and have not come back yet. Now, they are the young boys and immortals in the factory. They are doing the work of the workers before, but they still have to take the wages of apprentices and they are not even full of food.

"This is only temporary." The old man said a little powerless, "You have also seen that we have won battles one after another, and we have won one after another. The territory has won one after another. Our Qin Fan is the most powerful."

"But we can't eat enough, but we work more and more." Gao Duo looked at the Bantu with some excitement, "The county only left a very small amount of food for the food harvested in my countryside this summer, and then the rest were purchased. The county gave us the money directly at the grain station at the county grain station, but what did we want to do, but we couldn't buy food. Now our family is relying on a little bit of food coupons, and my younger brothers and sisters are not full. Bantu, I want to know, what's wrong with this? Haven't we been winning all the time? Aren't we getting stronger and stronger? Why are life getting worse and worse than before?"

The old team was also very confused, and he couldn't understand it.

At this moment, a voice rang behind them.

"Young men, this is only temporary. The war is consuming our money, food and supplies greatly. But now, you have heard and seen it. The war has come to an end. Although we are still using troops in the northeast, at least we have stabilized our west and south sides, and we will only maintain the northern front line. Don't worry, such days will last for a year at most, and we will get better until next year. Everyone gritted their teeth and persevered for another year!"

When everyone turned around, they found that the person who said this was a new deputy factory director of Liaogang. He was only in his thirties and forties. He had a tough face and sharp eyes. He was wearing a military uniform without a badge and a erectile slutch and collar flower. He was a little white. When he wore it, it was so fitting that he made him look more and more military temperament. One of his arms was empty and he had no right hand. It is said that he was originally a military leader of the village army. He followed the King of Qin to the west not long ago. In the battle of Baishuilu, he showed courage and made contributions, but he also lost an arm. Because of this, he was finally arranged to retire and transfer to a deputy factory director of Liaogang.

Coworker Xiaoyong mustered up the courage to look at the new deputy factory director, "Director, is this true? If you persist for another year, your life will improve, my father and others will be able to come back, and you can get enough food every month as before?"

"When I was in Yanjing, I heard the promises of the King of Qin with my own ears. Now, I also promise you that life will improve at most one year."

"Cartain Director, why do we keep winning? On the contrary, our lives are backward? Reading in the newspaper, other vassal states are also fighting. They are much weaker than us, such as Chengde, Wei Bo, and the former Shatuo and Huang Chao Grass Pirates. How come they often defeated the battles, but they are still fine? Sometimes they even fight more and more soldiers?"

The deputy factory director looked at Gao Duo who asked the question and smiled: "This question is very good. Our Qin Fan was led by the King of Qin. The King of Qin is a wise, intelligent and kind-hearted Your Highness. Our Qin Fan is taking the path of sustainable development. We pursue everyone with clothes, houses, and food, children have support, elderly people have access to school, adults have jobs, and the elderly can be supported, and the people are able to be supported. What we pursue is the people and the country is strong. Therefore, we have the equalization of land order, the tax law for staked acres, education is preferred, and government guarantees. These all require great investment, in order to enable everyone to live a good life." He paused and continued

"As for other vassal states, why did they lose the battle but didn't see it immediately. Some even fought more and more soldiers? Do they need logistics? No, they also need it. But why are they okay to defeat the battle? We have already lost our lives? Because they are different from us, why? I believe there are many people here who lived in other vassal states before. You know very well that in places outside the Qin vassal states, your taxes are much heavier than here. In addition to two taxes, you also have various additional fees, and even the most painful one is Yao Shi. More so, many vassal states rely on plunder, robbery, plunder and robbery of the people's property, money and grain to maintain it."

"What is the consequence? The consequence is that the soldiers are like bandits. They arrested strong men and forced them to join the army and entered the people's homes to rob grain. Their practice was just to fish out of the waters. In the end, when the people were robbed, even the seeds were robbed, and there was no more food, they even killed people and ate meat directly. But we cannot do that. The Qin vassal under the rule of the King of Qin, the Qin army he commanded never did this. Even if the situation was tense before, the soldiers of the Unified Army were recruited, but they would still pay wages, build roads and transport grains, and pay the same wages. The living standards are indeed a bit regressive now, but that is only temporary. Because the war on several battlefields before, it was not right to deal with the invading enemy with all their might, in order to protect the people of the Qin vassal from plunder and robbery. But that is only temporary. Everyone gritted their teeth, tightened their belts, and insisted on the past together. Because our tomorrow will be better."

After saying this, Gao Duo and a group of apprentices nodded thoughtfully. Maybe it was just a temporary one. Now the food is tight and they are not full, but looking back, this is much better than when they lived in their hometown of Caozhou before they moved here. When they were in their hometown of Caozhou, the government suppressed bandits and forced the young and strong to transport supplies. Not only did they have no wages, they also had to bring their own cars, horses and dry food. The food at home was forced to be collected by the government, and they had never given any money. At least, everything from the Qin army was done according to the rules.

If you can get through this difficulty after one year, then just stick to it.

"Manager, I just received the news that the group of workers who were originally recruited in our factory will return to the factory today!" The young factory clerk trotted over to report.

The deputy director raised his eyebrows and said happily: "Are you all back?"

"It's just the first batch, and the ones that come later will come back in several batches, but I heard that they will return before the New Year."

"Will you go again?"

"I heard that it's not necessary. The mission will be over after I come back this time." Xiao Sun replied.

Gao Duo couldn't help interrupting them and asked excitedly: "Then have my father, grandfather and the recruited Liaoyang Unity Soldiers and the rural soldiers also returned this time?"

Xiao Sun nodded, "The united soldiers and village soldiers from Liaoyang have also returned. They have come back one step ahead of our factory workers. It is probably almost out of the city. The governor and the censor of Liaozhou have held a welcoming ceremony. Now many people are waiting for the welcome outside the city."
Chapter completed!