A new day in Majiagang begins with waking up from the cold.

On the sixth day of November, dawn.

As soon as the day dawned, Ma Gui walked out of the house wrapped in a thick white bearskin coat, yawned with red eyes with an oil lamp, and exhaled the first white gas in the air.

In the past, he thought that people only had birth, old age, sickness and death without changing their status and wealth, and North Asia Melica proved that there was still cold and hunger, no matter how thick the robes of wealth and nobility made people wear, whether it was a banner army or a general.

If you don't eat enough, your stomach will growl, and you will be woken up by freezing several times when you fall asleep.

He counted the number of times he had been curled up and woken up last night, and finally gave up counting...... He seemed to be restless in his sleep, conscious or unconscious, which confirmed that he had been half-asleep and half-awake as he had been in the sleep the night before.

Few of the expeditionary force still wore cuirasses, and they generally wore only one piece of chain mail under their fur jackets, because they were too thick to move, and their bodies could no longer bear the heavy armor.

Ma Gui took a long knife from the weapon rack outside the door of the house, and the handle of the knife pierced into the snow to poke out the steps, and then walked deep and shallow in the snow more than a foot deep, leaving a long series of footprints, leading to the skin drum hanging in the center of the school field.

The drum is an old drum, but the skin on it is the third new one after landing in North Asia Melica, and the timbre is not as deep as that made in the past in the country, but it can barely be used.

After beating the drum three times, the banner army slowly and sluggishly walked out of the houses, without the order of the general, they each picked up tools to shovel snow, this is their daily work, in order to prevent the school field and the street from freezing ice, they shoveled yesterday morning, at noon began to do logging, transportation and other work, in the evening back to Majiagang was covered by a thick layer of snow, and was busy all night.

After a very poor night's sleep, they had to clear the snow in the morning - which was actually a good situation, this time the snow was not too heavy, and one morning last month, when it snowed half a man's height at night, many of the flag soldiers were trapped in the wooden huts, and finally crawled out of the chimney of the fireplace, after which the doors were opened inwards instead.

"Wait for Beiyang to send people again, I want to tear down the house, now two or three people live in a room is too inconvenient, or like in the water lake peak, more than a dozen people live in a big house, each room outside the door to build a corridor, the door to open inward, there must be a fireplace and flue."

"The houses can be dispersed a little, and a few places can be built in the fishing grounds, farms, forest farms, stone fields, pastures, ports, mud fields, and tile factories, and then a few roads can be planned to reduce the useless labor of the banner army."

Ma Gui did not participate in the snow clearing, and instructed his two subordinates that he did not always show his privileges in this way, and most of the time, he would work with the banner army, because there was really nothing more meaningful to find anything other than work that could warm up the body.

As the saying goes, people who practice martial arts should practice three dogs in summer and three nine in winter, but the solar terms of Zhili will not work here, although Ma Gui only knows a little about the celestial phenomena, but obviously this October will enter winter, and it will only come out of winter in April, maybe it will be winter eighteen or nineteen.

In fact, this has made the flag army feel very happy, at least this winter is only six months, and Shuihu Peak has nine months of winter.

The same clerk and the military craftsman re-planned the new Majiagang, Ma Gui went to visit the two flag soldiers who stole the bison and got sick, the huge bison was cut and weighed to get a weight of 1,970 catties, the huge amount of meat and the color was unusually good-looking, although Ma Gui ordered not to eat it for the safety of the flag army, and took it to the domesticated white bear to eat, but there were still a few flag soldiers who grabbed food with the big white bear, and fewer people had a stomach.

He won't hunt for his master, he will bite if he doesn't put on his hive, and it's uncomfortable to ride, and he has to think about getting food for him all day long - Magui doesn't know whether he is domesticating the big white bear, or the big white bear is domesticating him.

However, Ma Gui did not punish them, for the banner army who had no stable food source during the long migration, it was difficult to accept that the best food was wasted, not to mention them, it was Magui himself who made a lot of determination to give up those meat in the trade-off between satiety and safety.

So when Ma Gui went to visit the sick number, he sat for a long time without speaking, but listened to the sick number repeatedly admit his mistakes, hoping that the Lord would not punish them for this.

After they finished speaking, Mr. Ma, who was sitting precariously, licked his lips and asked, "Is it delicious?" ”

Sick Banner Army: "Huh? ”

"The punishment is still to be punished, but I have always wanted to ask, is that bison meat delicious." Ma Gui was very serious, with a strong yearning for meat and a spirit of exploration on his face: "That meat is very red, it looks lean and soft to the touch, how do you eat it, are you stealing oil and frying, or is it roasted on a stone slab in the fireplace, should it be boiled in water, will it be too bland and tasteless without spices?" ”

"No, no, no, General! Just put a little salt and throw two branches into the pot, and it will cook very deliciously! Much better than white bear meat! ”

The sick number banner army who was wrapped in a big jacket mentioned this and seemed to be cured, and his eyebrows fluttered: "It would be better if there was a little oil, general, we should plant some rape on the farm, this cow has too little fat, although it ...... Please also punish the general! ”

"Oh! Rape, yes, we need a saw, a hammer, a rape, no, the salmon in the sea is fat! ”

Ma Gui ignored Qi Jun's words and suddenly fell down on the couch, and it took a long time to react: "You still steal white bear meat!" ”

But why does this tone sound full of envy?

He frowned and said, "Listen, as a punishment, when you two are well, follow the fishermen to fish, we will eat the thin fish, and the fat fish, you two will find a way to make it into fish oil." Ma Gui took a deep breath through his nose, and somehow there was a look of unpaid ambition on his face, and said: "When the wind and snow are over, the hunters will bring the bison back, and you must let all the brothers eat fried beef in fish oil!" ”

When the two sick people heard it, where is this punishment, isn't there fish and meat to eat again?

Hurriedly fell down again and thanked him loudly.

Ma Gui's burly figure stood up, just looking at the expressions of the two of them, he knew what they were thinking in their hearts, he waved his hand lightly, and then sighed heavily, solemnly sighed: "All hungry, not only you, everyone suffers from cold and hunger, Ma knows what it feels like to be hungry and have abdominal pain, how can you not be allowed to eat, but there are thousands of soldiers, only you, no one can die, whether it is greedy or military law." ”

"With the best armor and weapons, the best soldiers, the best ships and the best artillery, no one expected such an encounter."

"The imperial court and Ma both put this expedition ...... It's too simple! ”

Ma Gui walked out of the sick room and returned to his room to write books, which were actually just a small book of dozens of pieces of paper, which roughly introduced the climate, tribes, and topography of the area they passed through, and attached to the mapped and mapped along the coast marked with forest farms, fishing grounds, mountains and rocks, edible fruits, and most importantly, the various tools used and lacked by the expeditionary force and the various problems encountered.

As well as Ma Gui's admission of the failure of this crusade, in the book, he strongly suggested to Chen Mu and the imperial court to reorganize the Second Expeditionary Force, with a small fleet of dozens or even hundreds of households, carrying all kinds of daily necessities other than soldiers, landing on land on the southern coast of the Heishui Ya Islands where spring wheat can be grown, building small towns, and using ships to connect them and march eastward together.

On the cover of this thin book, bound together with bent iron nails, are a few large characters written by Ma Gui with charcoal - "Records of Cutting Thorns"

"Boat!"

The wooden door was suddenly pushed open, and the soldiers shouted with their knees and the cold wind poured into the room, his arm pointed to the port behind him, but he couldn't speak, he breathed heavily several times and swallowed his saliva to moisten his throat, and then he simply bowed down and said: "General, the fleet is coming!" ”