Hearing someone call him to attack Liu Ba's fortified village, Zhou Yisheng didn't understand what was going on for a moment. He didn't even take this question to heart. Returning to his hometown this time, Zhou Yisheng only planned to take his family to Fengtai to avoid the disaster. If his parents and brothers insisted on bringing some relatives and friends, he would also take them all. Learning that his family actually suffered such a tragedy, Zhou Yisheng was so grief-stricken that he wished to die. What he wanted most now was to go back with his third brother to see his eldest sister's illness. There were military doctors on the Insurance Corps fleet; letting the doctor treat his sister was the top priority. As for breaking Liu Ba's fortified village, or rebelling and killing people, it was not within Zhou Yisheng's consideration at all.

But obviously, other fellow villagers didn't think so. The middle-aged man asked several times in a row, seeing Zhou Yisheng had no reaction. He simply grabbed Zhou Yisheng's brother, Zhou Yizheng. "San Wa (Third Child), Little Five doesn't listen to me. You talk to your brother. Everyone has to act now. If we can't last through today, how many more people will starve to death. San Wa, it's not that I don't sympathize with you brothers. Everyone took out the last bit of things to eat. Tomorrow, where will everyone have the strength to attack the fortified village?"

Zhou Yizheng had also stopped crying at this time. Not that he wasn't sad, but the hunger of these months and the pain of losing relatives had tortured Zhou Yizheng to numbness. He accepted these facts; even seeing his brother couldn't make Zhou Yizheng sadder. Attacking Liu Ba's fortified village was something everyone had decided long ago. Zhou Yizheng opened his mouth but couldn't say anything. This was really a strange mentality. Before his brother returned, Zhou Yizheng was also full of indignation, holding a courage of burning boats (*po fu chen zhou* - no retreat). What he wanted most was not grain but the medicine of the Zhou family. There was a doctor in the fortified village. Letting the doctor treat his eldest sister who had only one breath left and saving his sister, this was Zhou Yizheng's most urgent thought.

Since the flood, Liu Ba's fortified village had closed its gates tightly, refusing anyone entry. Begging or pleading, the people inside the fortified village simply ignored it. When his sister was sick, Zhou Yizheng knelt outside the fortified village for a morning, shouting for a doctor until his throat was hoarse. As a result, like other pleading people, the family guards patrolling on the wall didn't say a word. If there was any change, it was that originally the faces of the family guards more or less carried some pity like a fox mourning the death of a rabbit. Now even this expression was completely gone. What hung on the family guards' faces now, besides disgust and disdain, was nothing else.

"San Wa, say something." The middle-aged man couldn't help shaking Zhou Yizheng's shoulder forcefully. "Little Five is back; do you feel you have a backer now? Mn?"

The middle-aged man was an elder in the village named Zhou Xingrui. Watching the change in Zhou Yizheng's expression, he had roughly guessed Zhou Yizheng's thoughts. Zhou Xingrui couldn't help scolding angrily: "Little Five is dressed cleanly; it seems he didn't walk back. The person who came with him is the same. Are you thinking that since Little Five came back by boat, you and Little Five will go home, take your sister and leave, and be done with it?"

These words revealed anxiety. If it were in normal years, no one could say Zhou Yizheng was wrong to do so. But now it was a disaster year. It started raining from late spring when the green crop was not yet ready. Several months passed; there was no surplus grain at home originally, and the grain planted in the ground was completely drowned. Everyone survived the big water with difficulty, but this disaster didn't end at all. Instead, hunger and disease raged even more fiercely. If it were a drought, everyone could at least flee famine. But in the flood, boats were destroyed. Merchant caravans refused to come to the disaster area anymore. In a muddy swamp, there was no place to escape even if one wanted to.

Everyone struggled to live. Almost every day someone died. The common people who survived until now were completely hungry and weak. The ground was barely walkable, but thinking of going to a place with food, they didn't know how far they had to walk. Foreign refugees who occasionally arrived here described the same disaster situation as Liujiapu. Many places had reached the point where the common people couldn't survive without eating human flesh.

Zhou Xingrui had always been considered a very capable person in these few villages. Besides farming, he also made a living by water transport. Although not very old, because of his high seniority in the clan, he was considered a somewhat famous figure in the ten *li* and eight villages of Liujiapu. The death rate of old people and children was extremely high in the disaster year. Now there were no fellow villagers with higher seniority or older age than Zhou Xingrui. Zhou Xingrui knew that in such a situation now, if the Zhou Yizheng and Zhou Yisheng brothers were allowed to leave with the person who came with them, the hearts of the fellow villagers would definitely scatter.

Zhou Xingrui also ran water transport before the disaster. seeing the attire of Zhou Yisheng and the Insurance Corps soldier who came with him, he knew these two must have come by boat, and that boat was definitely not small. Everyone couldn't live anymore, so they wanted to attack the fortified village. If they could see a slight hope of living (*huo xia* - typo 'huo xia' usually means live, text says 'huo xia' shrimp? likely 'huo xia qu' live on/survive), they would definitely refuse to risk being beaten to death to attack the fortified village. If the Zhou brothers left, many people would probably want to follow the Zhou brothers to try their luck. Once people's hearts scattered and everyone had other ideas, who would risk their lives anymore? Liu Ba's fortified village was hard to fight originally. Even if everyone worked together, they might not be able to take it down. Let alone if everyone didn't have the thought of burning boats? Zhou Xingrui knew that no matter what, he couldn't let the Zhou brothers choose to leave now.

Seeing Zhou Yizheng silent, Zhou Xingrui grabbed Zhou Yisheng's shoulder. "Little Five, say, how did your Great-Grandpa (*Tai Ye* - generation rank) treat you and your family usually?" Although Zhou Xingrui was not much older than Zhou Yisheng, his seniority was much higher, "Everyone's lives are in your hands now. Say something."

Zhou Yisheng couldn't figure out what was going on at all now, and completely had no thought of wanting to figure it out. He had stopped crying at this time, looked up, and said dizzily: "Great-Grandpa, I have to go home and see my sister first. I want to see my sister first."

"Bastard thing!" Zhou Xingrui slapped Zhou Yisheng's face angrily, "Little Five, your sister's life is a life; is everyone's life not a life?"

Zhou Xingrui had always been considered a very capable person in the village, plus he had experience living off water transport. He knew very well what it would be like after people's hearts scattered. Momentary indignation might make everyone burst out with power briefly. But as long as there was a trace of other thoughts, this power would vanish without a trace instantly. Zhou Xingrui was not a person keen on violence. In this Liujiapu, those interested in violence were now under Liu Ba. Liu Ba naturally couldn't choose those honest and simple characters when recruiting thugs. And those who were too dishonest either died or ran away. Now the only person who could maintain the refugees was really Zhou Xingrui alone.

It wasn't that Zhou Xingrui hadn't thought maybe the person who came with Zhou Yisheng brought grain. But he knew very well that little grain wasn't enough to eat. The fellow villagers were dying every day, their bodies getting weaker and weaker. What use could that little grain be? Thinking of this, Zhou Xingrui couldn't help clenching his pistol. If Zhou Yisheng refused to live and die with everyone, even if he had to kill the Zhou Yisheng and Zhou Yizheng brothers here, he would go with everyone to break Liu Ba's fortified village. Only inside the fortified village was there grain that could let hundreds or a thousand people survive the disaster year and last until the re-cultivation and harvest next year.

Lu Zhengping had been watching coldly from the side. This didn't mean he just stood there stupidly. Lu Zhengping participated in the battle of attacking Yuezhangji as a scout of the Insurance Corps a few months ago. However, it wasn't his turn to participate personally in the battle of conquering Zhang Youliang's fortified village. This pick-up and drop-off mission was a big event, so the Insurance Corps mobilized elite soldiers and strong generals. The reconnaissance troops, which were not numerous originally, turned out in full strength. Lu Zhengping remembered that at the mobilization meeting of the Insurance Corps before setting out, it should have been the Political Commissar of the Waterway Detachment to conduct the pre-war mobilization, but it was temporarily changed to Regiment Political Commissar He Zudao mobilizing personally.

He Zudao didn't come to emphasize discipline. If it were just emphasizing military discipline or ordinary ideological mobilization, there was no need for a Commissar of his level. At the mobilization meeting, He Zudao only talked about two issues. First, going out this time, they would definitely see very many tragic social realities. Comrades must be mentally prepared. This issue really made these scouts not know what to say.

Although the reconnaissance troops were the elite of the Insurance Corps, the scope of activities of the Insurance Corps didn't exceed the boundary of Fengtai County too much. Although everyone knew a little about the surrounding situation, most landlords in the era of 1906 had a characteristic: few landlords owned land across county boundaries. The government and landlords were not completely colluding in evil either. Even from the perspective of the ruling class, there were still many contradictions within the ruling class. Landlords owning land across counties meant being subject to the jurisdiction of more government offices. Extortion would only be more. Moreover, limited by terrible basic water conservancy facilities, cross-county land was actually not any large farm at all. More land didn't bring corresponding benefits.

The Insurance Corps took consolidating the rule in Fengtai County as the primary goal, so the reconnaissance troops only operated within Fengtai County at this stage. Since operating in the county, everyone wasn't completely unaware of the miserable state of the outside world, but they only knew some of it. He Zudao told everyone seriously that they would see many status quos too horrible to look at. The soldiers of the reconnaissance troops didn't have much sensory knowledge.

Moreover, when the reconnaissance troops set off, large-scale refugees had not yet poured into Fengtai County. For these capable comrades, it was unimaginable how bitter the outside world could be. Anyway, the Insurance Corps soldiers already felt the current days were unspeakably bitter. Every day besides working and working, there was actually nothing else. It could be said that since childhood, they had never worked so hard. One of the reasons for maintaining morale in such arduous work was that the political commissars would always tell everyone the meaning of every job. Building water channels, digging sand, plowing, leveling land. Like other farmers in 1906, the soldiers had never cultivated on such vast land looking around. And those cadres and commissars who worked as hard as them and convinced the vast number of soldiers always told them what a brand-new world would be displayed on this land in the near future.

Although soldiers might not understand or believe these propagandas. But the grain eaten every day was always real. The result of daily work was always real. Since life could go on, everyone slowly got used to such days.

So seeing the miserable state of Zhou Yisheng's hometown, seeing the miserable state of those thin and weak common people, except for eyes still turning, what everyone revealed was despair and still despair. The work in Fengtai County couldn't be said not heavy, and the food was not great either. But haven't seen anyone starve to this appearance. Watching the Zhou brothers hug and cry bitterly, only three were left out of seven or eight people in the family. Listening to the meaning, the still living sister was also dying. Fengtai County didn't lack population loss in the flood, but as long as within the sphere of influence of the Insurance Corps, population loss was not serious. Lu Zhengping's family actually also lost a younger brother. The death of the younger brother was a scene Lu Zhengping couldn't forget. In a room filled with the smell of lime water, the doctor sighed and said a sentence to the Lu Zhengping family surrounding anxiously, "Prepare for the funeral." Then went to look after other patients.

Lu Zhengping's brother had a high fever that didn't retreat, a pale face, and cracked lips. The mother kept changing the cloth strips used for cooling and fed water to the brother with a washed very clean broken bowl. But the brother finally died amidst the crying of relatives. There was crying, there was a frugal funeral. The Insurance Corps repeatedly told everyone the fact that there would be a great plague after a great disaster. So corpses were cremated uniformly, ashes put in simple ash boxes, and stored in public mourning halls. The mother could even go to offer condolences every seven days. Such normal parting by death still existed in Fengtai County.

Just leaving Fengtai County, everything that should be there was completely overturned. Lu Zhengping was not familiar with Zhou Yizheng, and even spoke for the first time today. So Lu Zhengping didn't care much about Zhou Yizheng's grief. The seeming indifference on his face was just the result of shock. Why could Fengtai County be safe and sound? Why were the days in the foreign land only three or four days' boat journey from Fengtai so terrible? He had also seen such sand-covered land in Fengtai, but tens of thousands of people changed the appearance of such land in just a dozen days. Lu Zhengping even had an illusion: maybe this sand-covered land was cursed?

Hearing those common people going to break the fortified village, Lu Zhengping immediately recalled the scene of the Insurance Corps breaking Zhang Youliang's fortified village back then. That was a team of six or seven hundred strong men, a team where everyone had weapons, and at least nearly two hundred firearms. Lu Zhengping had seen the huge gap caused by the explosives blasting open Zhang Youliang's fortified village on the spot under the leadership of the troops. He was deeply shocked by that terrible power. A thick high wall of several *zhang* was blasted open a big hole. Not to mention without Hua Xiongmao and Xu Dian killing their way in to catch Zhang Youliang. Even a hard attack, Zhang Youliang's fortified village absolutely couldn't resist.

Looking at those common people thin as dry wood again, Lu Zhengping didn't think these people could conquer the fortified village.

And the voice of He Zudao asking the second question echoed in Lu Zhengping's mind. "Do you want to save these common people? Everyone has compassion, but how to save these common people? I hope everyone can think about it carefully."

How to save the common people? Taking them to Fengtai? This is absolutely impossible. Just these nearly a thousand common people, how many boats would be needed to transport them? Although he didn't know the specific situation of other surrounding places, seeing this one place of Liujiapu, Lu Zhengping knew it would definitely not be better anywhere. Even if the Insurance Corps could transport these refugees to Fengtai County by boat, just along the Huai River, how many common people needed to be saved? If Fengtai County really had so much grain, everyone would definitely eat better themselves. Insurance Corps soldiers were only seventy percent full; where was the grain for so many refugees to eat?

Moreover, Lu Zhengping absolutely didn't want to do this. Why should his hard labor be eaten by these refugees who had nothing to do with him?

The Insurance Corps couldn't save these common people. There seemed to be only one road left. The middle-aged man who claimed to be Zhou Yisheng's Great-Grandpa said to break the fortified village; Lu Zhengping agreed from the bottom of his heart. After breaking Zhang Youliang's fortified village, the grain confiscated was enough for tens of thousands of common people to eat half-starved and half-full for more than half a month. If this unseen Liu Ba's fortified village could be broken, even if the grain was only half of Zhang Youliang's, or even less. It could also let everyone live until next year. The middle-aged man claiming to be Zhou Yisheng's Great-Grandpa saw things very clearly.

Lu Zhengping suddenly thought of a problem he hadn't thought of before. Brigade Commander Chen Ke hadn't touched other landlords until now, which didn't mean he wouldn't touch them in the future. At a critical moment, forcing them to take out grain could also solve the urgent need temporarily. Moreover, the Insurance Corps harvest was in sight; everyone had hope. Now the common people only needed grain. The Insurance Corps now had troops of more than eight thousand people, plus tens of thousands of common people who could be pulled out to be useful. Presumably, those landlords wouldn't dare to refuse. As long as someone led the common people, absolutely no one could afford to provoke them.

Looking up at those thin refugees in Liujiapu, Lu Zhengping felt his idea might be wrong. If these common people could organize themselves like this during the flood, Liu Ba's fortified village would not be worth mentioning at all. But they didn't. If they could organize after the flood, perhaps they also had the strength to fight. But they didn't. Waiting until now when these people had no other way but to break the fortified village, they had no strength left.

As a soldier of the reconnaissance troops, Lu Zhengping had received a lot of military training. The training of the Insurance Corps was not just letting soldiers fight with their heads buried. They also wanted soldiers to understand how to fight. Lu Zhengping felt not many were needed; just fifty Insurance Corps soldiers were enough to solve these nearly a thousand refugees completely and easily. Even if these refugees had a few guns, it didn't matter.

Commissar He Zudao asked everyone how to save these refugees. Lu Zhengping had figured out the answer now. As long as there were Brigade Commander Chen Ke, Commissar He Zudao, Regiment Commander Hua Xiongmao, Magistrate Wangshan. As long as the set of the People's Party and Insurance Corps in Fengtai County could be copied over, the common people could survive. Brigade Commander Chen Ke kneaded these people into a ball. Being in this collective, everyone became more powerful. And the more people joined, the more powerful this collective became.

The common people in front of Lu Zhengping were like the sand under his feet. Although there were many sand grains, they couldn't be kneaded together. A casual step and it collapsed. Even if these people could break the fortified village, they absolutely couldn't operate like the Insurance Corps, nor could they be like the current Fengtai County, where common people could tide over the difficulties together although beating small drums in their hearts (being anxious).

Without a strong leader, without an effective organization. What if they were full temporarily? Lu Zhengping saw with his own eyes how much farm work the Insurance Corps and the common people did together. He absolutely didn't believe these refugees could do it now. Even if the fortified village was broken, the common people would scatter immediately after dividing the grain. Trying to gather them together again was basically unlikely. Lu Zhengping knew very well himself that even for someone like him who was loyal to Brigade Commander Chen Ke and convinced by leaders at all levels, facing that heavy, endless work, he still didn't like it. If cadres at all levels didn't repeatedly narrate the significance of these hard works, and try their best to let everyone see the results as soon as possible every time, and gradually accumulate everyone's trust, such heavy labor could basically not be maintained for so long.

"If you want to save the common people, you must completely copy this new system of Fengtai County. Otherwise, the common people can absolutely not be truly saved." These were Commissar He Zudao's last words. Lu Zhengping didn't understand at that time, but seeing the reality of Liujiapu with his own eyes, and recalling various things that happened in Fengtai County in the past half year. Lu Zhengping felt he understood. He finally understood that from the moment Brigade Commander Chen Ke arrived in Fengtai County with People's Party comrades, from the moment the People's Party formed the army Insurance Corps, from the moment Brigade Commander Chen Ke told everyone that the Insurance Corps was the people's team and wanted to seek benefits for the common people. The common people of Fengtai County were saved.

As long as Brigade Commander Chen Ke led everyone to carry on the new system he promoted, whether there were natural disasters or not, the common people were destined to live a good life. Although Lu Zhengping hadn't seen what the good life Brigade Commander Chen Ke and Commissar He Zudao talked about was exactly like. But at this moment he firmly believed that the endless farmland, beautiful roads, ditches everywhere, and neat big houses drawn on that huge, strange picture near Yuezhangji. The kind of life publicized by People's Party comrades was destined to be realized.

Facing a group of desperate refugees, Lu Zhengping unexpectedly felt the hope of life. And firmly believed he could live a good life. He didn't feel how uncoordinated the harsh external environment was with the beautiful longing in his heart. Lu Zhengping was not a psychologist, and hadn't even heard of the term "psychology." If a psychologist could know Lu Zhengping's thoughts at this time, perhaps he would explain like this—humans double their longing for a beautiful life precisely because of fear of the real world.