Records of Cao Min in Troubled Times: The Rise of Farming and Warring Things
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the yellow talisman "The sky is dead" was passed on to the refugees, and when the government's grain trucks ran over the wasteland where the grass roots had been eaten away, the ant-like grassroots finally understood: Compared with the empty "destiny", the hoes and grain that can be held in the hands are the "yellow sky" to survive.
This book unfolds from the perspective of a group of hungry people in Chenliu County - they are tenants whose cattle were taken away by the government, refugees who eat the Guanyin soil, and ants struggling between the Yellow Turbans' "food equalization" and the government army's "suppression of bandits". While Zhang Jiao's water-talisman spell became the dawn of despair, the protagonist Liu Ji led a group of blacksmiths and farmers to build the "Gewu Yuan" on the ruins: the improved curved shaft plow cut through the frozen soil, the iron arrows of the repeating crossbow shot back the bandit soldiers, and the fire that distributed grain illuminated the ruined temple. The common people did not understand what "technology" and "farming warfare" were. They only knew that by following this envoy who "can make iron hoes", they could dig out 30% more food from the soil than in previous years, and they could raise iron-edged hoes to defend themselves when officers and soldiers were snatching food.
There are no feather-fan strategists here, only old scholars who are calculating; there are no famous generals, only Zhang Fei who carries a spear and makes wine. When the rich and powerful fight for power, the common people grind gears and practice battle formations with wheat piles - in troubled times, food, swords and guns are the "destiny".
From Chenliu thatched hut to Yanzhou granary, from improving farm tools to forging repeating crossbows, this book witnesses with grassroots eyes: when technology is embedded in plowshares, and when people's hearts gather into city walls, the so-called "destiny" is nothing more than a piece of warm wheat cake in the hands of hungry people, a spark of hope that still exists in troubled times.
