Liu Ce slept for a good three hours, and when he woke up, the sky had already darkened. The tent was filled with snores, except for Xu Hui, everyone else was dead asleep, especially Feng Chouyan, whose snoring sounded like thunder. Liu Ce rubbed his belly, opened his military cloth bag, took out two dry hard biscuits, and casually roasted them by the fire at the entrance of the tent before eating them with cold water.
Due to the shortage of food and fodder, coupled with the corruption and embezzlement of officers, ordinary soldiers in the camp only had two meals a day, which were mainly a large bowl of thin porridge, accompanied by two corn breads, one for breakfast and one for dinner. Soldiers like Liu Ce who had military achievements would also receive a dry ration bag containing steamed buns, fried rice, and other dry food that could be eaten for two or three days. New recruits or those with low military achievements had nothing, only eating half-full twice a day following the crowd. When Xu Hui smelled the aroma of roasted flatbread, he couldnt help but swallow his saliva, having almost never eaten a full meal since joining the army several months ago, and having little resistance to dry food. After Liu Ce finished one piece of flatbread, he looked at Xu Hui who was shrinking in the corner, tore off half of the remaining piece, and threw it to him. Xu Hui took the slightly warm flatbread, looked at Liu Ce with gratitude, and then hid in a corner to devour it wolfishly.
Liu Ce shook his head and said nothing. Although they were in the same camp, each person basically didnt communicate with each other. Every time they went to battle, each person would take their own weapon and go to their own formation. Liu Ce vaguely remembered that he had been assigned to this camp for almost a year, but apart from knowing everyones names, he knew nothing else about them. Sometimes several weeks or even months would pass without anyone saying a word, including the captain, Zeng Yong, who also didnt communicate much with the others in the camp.
This situation wasnt unique to Liu Ces camp; it was the same throughout the entire Thunderbolt Army and even the entire Imperial military. The reason for this was that each camp had different types of soldiers assigned to different formations - there were archer formations, sword-and-shield formations, spear formations, and even different jurisdictions within the same type of soldier.
This made Liu Ce feel incredulous - how could such an arrangement possibly have any fighting power? According to some old soldiers, this was done to prevent a camp from becoming too emotional when they suffered casualties in battle. But Liu Ce thought this was just nonsense; there were only two possible reasons for this: mutual supervision and preventing cliques from forming.
Xu Hui finished eating the pancake, walked slowly to Liu Ces side, and bowed: "Thank you, Brother Liu, for the kindness of giving me a pancake. Xu Hui will remember it in his heart." After finishing speaking, he bowed deeply again.
"Sit." Liu Ce looked at this delicate face, pointed to the side and gestured for him to sit down. "I see that youre young with a clear brow and bright eyes, not like a child from a poor family, why did you come to be a soldier?"
"I wont hide it from you, Brother Liu. My family was originally quite wealthy too. My father had been in business for decades and earned hundreds of acres of land. We had two fabric stores in Luoyang County, and although our life wasnt as luxurious as that of the aristocracy, we were still well-off.
However, unfortunately, my family later offended the local gentry due to some trivial matters. Our property was confiscated, and my father was beaten to death by the officials appointed by the gentry. My family was reduced to slavery. I was lucky enough to escape when I was young, but I ended up in poverty and had no choice but to join the army just to get a meal.
After saying all this, Xu Hui let out another sigh, as if he felt that his experiences were unfair."
"So do you think the armys food is edible?" Liu Ce didnt ask what. The calm before the storm in "The Chronicles of the Otherworldly Beacon Fire" that you are currently reading only has a little over half a chapter left, to read the complete version please search on Baidu: () and then search again for: Chronicles of the Otherworldly Beacon Fire
