Jiang Jin also sighed. "Ask them. If they are willing to come with us, we will take them back."
In truth, there was no need to ask. The commoners were all willing to follow Jiang Jin back to Gefeng because they had nowhere else to go.
Jiang Jin's harvest this time was substantial: 109 cavalry horses and 46 horse-drawn carriages, which meant another 46 horses, making a total of 155 horses.
The captured weapons included bows and arrows, as well as long and short blades, totaling 2,600 sets, along with a massive amount of arrows.
Furthermore, they gained over 300 laborers.
Standing on the city tower, Zhou Sui secretly breathed a sigh of relief only when he saw Jiang Jin's troops returning. He had also wanted to request to join the battle, but Yao Ji had beaten him to it.
He knew very well that someone had to stay behind to guard Gefeng. Left with no choice, he could only be the one to remain.
Upon returning to the county office, Jiang Jin instructed Luo Qingci, "Register the information of these newcomers as soon as possible. Arrange their living quarters in the rearmost alley of Danhu Mountain."
Fortunately, Jiang Jin had great foresight and had built many houses. Let alone 300 people, even if 3,000 more came, they could accommodate them all.
"Understood!" Luo Qingci quickly complied.
After entering the city, the commoners of Tai'an County were led to the street in front of the residential area, feeling both panicked and nervous.
Soon, Luo Qingci brought Feng Qingzhu and Chen Zi over to register their household details, asking about their previous registries, family members, and other information.
It was half an hour later when the registration was fully completed. Luo Qingci raised her eyes to look at them.
"Our Lord is kind-hearted. Not only did she save you, but she also allowed you to enter our Gefeng. Here in Gefeng, as long as you work, you will have food to eat and wages to earn."
"Given that you currently have nothing, Gefeng can advance you your wages, but you will need to repay it with your labor. Do you all understand?"
"By the way, depending on the type of work, the wages range from 120 to over 200 copper coins. The rent for a single room is..."
The commoners of Tai'an County were still somewhat dazed. They thought that being saved and taken in was already a tremendous blessing. They never expected that Gefeng would also provide them with housing and advance them wages.
Getting paid before even doing any work—they had never even heard of a ruler who treated the common people so kindly.
At this moment, a myriad of emotions welled up in their hearts, and their throats tightened.
Someone finally could not help but sob aloud. They finally had a home; they finally had a ruler who wanted them and gave them a way to survive.
"May I ask who our Lord is?" a woman around forty years old asked with tears in her eyes.
Having just finished the registration, Luo Qingci still remembered that this woman was named Zeng Wan.
She smiled. "Our Lord is the very woman who went to save you. Oh, right, the ones who accompanied our Lord to rescue you are the Jinyang Army."
"The Jinyang Army!" the commoners of Tai'an County murmured softly, as if wanting to firmly carve this name into their minds.
Luo Qingci was about to speak when she saw all the commoners kneel down, kowtowing toward the direction of the county office. "Thank you, Lord, for saving our lives! Thank you, Jinyang Army, for saving our lives..."
Waiting until their emotions had stabilized a bit, Luo Qingci finally had the runners lead the people to the residential area to allocate their houses.
Looking at the clean, brand-new houses, the commoners of Tai'an County were somewhat hesitant to enter, feeling as though they would dirty the rooms.
A runner sighed. "We will bring food over later. Just stay in your own rooms."
After the runners left, they did not disperse. Everything today felt so surreal, as if they were in a dream.
Zeng Wan wept softly. "If only we had met the Lord and the Jinyang Army earlier... My family, my family wouldn't have..."
A young woman hugged her. "Mother, don't cry. You still have me. Boohoo... Those people just said that as long as we work hard, we can eat our fill. I can work. Tomorrow—no, this afternoon, I will go to work."
The crowd all began to weep softly, crying for their deceased loved ones, crying for their past suffering, and crying because they had finally waited long enough for good days to arrive.
The information of the Tai'an County commoners quickly reached Jiang Jin's hands. They were all between the ages of 13 and 45, completely consisting of youths and adults in their prime.
Jiang Jin sighed. The elderly and the children had either been killed or eaten.
Sure enough, Luo Qingci's voice came through gritted teeth. "The flesh of the elderly doesn't taste good, so they were killed straight away. As for the children..."
She did not finish the rest of her sentence, only feeling a blazing fury in her heart, yet she was completely helpless to change it.
Feng Qingzhu and Chen Zi were also flushed red with anger.
After a moment of silence, Jiang Jin finally said, "Assign them to the various construction teams based on their specific circumstances."
Luo Qingci nodded. "Alright, I'll go handle it right now. I think they might come to work this very afternoon."
"That's fine. As long as they have the strength to work, let them." Jiang Jin did not object. She understood their feelings very well and felt somewhat distressed herself.
For peasants who had almost never received any goodwill from those in power, living and eating for free without working would make them extremely uneasy.
Especially since they had just narrowly escaped death, they severely lacked a sense of security and wanted to prove their usefulness through their own labor.
They had only one thought in their minds: do not abandon them, they are useful.
As night fell, dim yellow lights lit up the residential area.
Zeng Wan, who had worked all afternoon, entered the room and could not help her eyes turning red again. "This house is so nice, countless times better than what we used to live in."
Her daughter, Liang Qian, nodded vigorously. "Yeah, the general store here has everything. It's so wonderful. Look at this fine cotton cloth. When I have free time tomorrow, I'll start making clothes."
Both of them were capable of going to work, but being used to frugality, they had only requested a one-month advance on their wages, which was already a tremendous amount to them.
After getting off work, with the help of their coworkers—yes, the people here called those who worked together coworkers—
Under the enthusiastic guidance of their coworkers, they went to the general store to buy grain, a pot, bowls, chopsticks, cloth, and other daily necessities.
Zeng Wan wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. "Yes, but you know, we should have found two more people to share the rent with, like the others did, so it would be cheaper. This bed, this kang is so big that even six people could sleep on it."
Liang Qian rested her head on her mother's shoulder. "Mother, this place is different from anywhere we've ever seen before. Women can go to work and earn wages. We have our hands and feet. Our monthly wages are enough for us to live well, so there's no need to squeeze in with others."
Due to the rescue incident, it wasn't until the next day that Jiang Jin went to the coal mine.
As expected, the miners' houses had already been built, and quite a lot of coal had been mined.
Jiang Jin called over Mo Qi and Meng Ping, the two people in charge of the coal mining operation. "After the black stones are mined, they still need to be coked. Oh, right, make some honeycomb coal briquettes. Once they're made, transport them back to Gefeng."
Many people thought that coal could be directly used for iron smelting and forging right after being mined. In fact, this was not the case. Coal needed to undergo coking, transforming it into coke, before it could be used for smelting iron.
This was because uncoked coal had low porosity, poor air permeability, and was fragile, which would cause blockages in the furnace, thereby hindering normal smelting and severely affecting the quality of the pig iron.
Therefore, iron smelting during this era mostly relied on charcoal, as they did not yet understand the coking process.
Sure enough, Mo Qi and the other man looked utterly bewildered. "Coking? What is coking? And what is honeycomb coal?"
The process of making honeycomb coal was simple, and as soon as Jiang Jin explained it, the two quickly understood.
She had specifically asked the weapons workshop to make a few tools for pressing honeycomb coal and an iron stove, all of which she had brought along. Once the coal was made, they could test the results right away.
Seeing that they understood, Jiang Jin went on to explain the coking process—how to wash the coal, how to build the kiln, and so forth.
The two listened very earnestly. They seemed to understand, yet also seemed a bit lost, feeling that it was both quite simple and quite difficult.
