Poor Goalkeeper

At dawn, Meng Changge was dragged from the mud into the Xuanzheng Hall. She is a fifth-grade Ningyuan general, her hands are still stained with the mud from spring plowing, and the toes of her boots are covered with half-dried mud. She thought His Majesty summoned her just for spring plowing - there was a shortage of cattle and iron plows this year, and many families were unable to plant their fields. She led troops to help the people plow the fields for a few days. What was there to say? But she was wrong. The empress asked her to take four thousand people to guard an iron mine fifty miles outside Hulao Pass. That place is within the Skeleton Kingdom. Three thousand people went there ten years ago, but less than a thousand came back. The bodies of those two thousand people were not recovered. Meng Changge is not afraid of death. Her parents died when she was seven years old. She has been hungry, frozen, and driven away by dogs. She has earned a living to be alive today. But she was afraid - afraid that the four thousand people would not come back. The fifteen-year-old female soldier was still saving money to buy an iron plow for her parents. She said that if she saved for another six years, she would be able to eat big meat buns. Six years. Can they have six years? The emperor's order cannot be violated. All she could do was to arrange troops, set up camp and build a stronghold, and then bring them back alive - whether they came back alive or dead. Four thousand people went north to sharpen their knives in the court hall. Can spring plowing be saved? Can those four thousand people come back alive? What did Qin Huaiyu, the female general who died outside Hulao Pass ten years ago, say to the empress? No one knows the answer. Meng Changge only knew one thing: she had to take them home.