Chapter 2824: Sharing a Bed (Part 4)

Chapter 2824: Chapter 2824: Sharing a Bed (Part 4)

At the end of October, the rebellion in Hanzhong still hadn’t been put down, and now the eastern coastal region sounded the alarm again: waves of Japanese pirates kept invading, with Quanzhou Prefecture in Jiaozhou being hit the hardest. Every time they landed, they burned, killed, and looted, plunging the coastal commoners into unspeakable misery.

The Emperor flew into a rage once more and appointed Cui Wei, the Duke of Ningguo, who had experience in naval battles, as the Great General to Resist the Japanese Pirates, commanding a force of one hundred thousand to rush to Quanzhou and fight them off.

Gu Qingheng was appointed as Vanguard Officer, and Qi Jingyi as the officer in charge of escorting provisions.

Although the imperial decree was issued and the army set out immediately, both Qi Jinghao in Hanzhong and Yong Cang at sea discovered a problem: the Imperial Court’s main forces hadn’t arrived yet, and still they themselves kept getting intercepted and struck. So that in the month since raising their troops, they’d made absolutely no progress, whether in plundering or seizing territory, and they realized their plan had long since been leaked.

Yet even though they understood, by this point they were already riding a tiger and couldn’t dismount.

What’s more, to Yong Cang’s surprise, Daxuan had always enforced a maritime ban before, but now there were actually warships, forcing them to flee in utter embarrassment every time.

Another person who needs to be mentioned is Yang Ruqing. This kid had wanted to be a General since he was little, but because he was his parents’ only son, Yang Guowei and Chen Yingzi absolutely refused. Over this, he’d even run away from home last year and nearly died in the mountains.

He didn’t run off again afterward, but his dream of joining the army never faded.

Later his father, Yang Guowei, spoke up: as long as he got married and left behind a child, he would be allowed to enlist.

So the kid quickly found a wife and got married, and the very next month his wife became pregnant. At the beginning of June this year she gave birth to a big, chubby son named Tudou, so when Gu Qingheng set off this time, he took him along.

Although Third Granduncle and the others were worried, they also knew how stubborn that boy was. If he wasn’t allowed to join the army, he probably would never be happy in this lifetime. Since he already had a son, they figured he should go and make his own way. Besides, with Gu Qingheng looking after him, everyone felt at ease.

Because Baihua County was far away from both battlefields, the war had yet to reach them for the time being. So aside from those who had relatives on the front lines and fretted in their hearts, everyone else just lived their days as usual.

After the autumn harvest, the weather grew colder and colder.

The three little beans could already toddle along on their own for quite a distance, and they didn’t like being carried, nor did they like the baby walker—they just liked walking by themselves.

Fortunately, their clothes kept getting thicker, so even if they lost their balance and toppled over, they wouldn’t get hurt.

Their speech was getting clearer and clearer as they grew, and they cried "Dad, Mom, Uncle, Aunt" distinctly.

News from the front kept coming in, all of it victory reports, which allowed Yang Ruxin and the others to relax quite a bit.

At the end of October, Yu Qingge briskly finished unloading her "cargo." Yang Ruxin had originally talked her into believing she was carrying a son, so the couple had been idly debating whether he should marry Lun Dou or Huang Dou in the future. In the end, when the baby was born it turned out to be a girl, and they were overjoyed—Hei Dou was as good as taken.

Fang Tianze gave his daughter the nickname Tuanzi, and Fang Dehua gave his eldest granddaughter the formal name Fang Yuan.

Yu Qingge plunked her not-yet-one-month-old daughter onto Hei Dou’s bed for a night, saying that since they had already shared a pillow, Hei Dou had to take responsibility from now on.

Which left Yang Ruxin both amused and exasperated.

In December, Hao Jian and Peng Mingzi were married.

Only then did Peng Cheng realize how farsighted his eldest daughter was, and his attitude toward the younger Jia Family woman softened quite a bit.

Peng Mingzi asked Yang Ruxin for a favor, to spare Shen Jiashi’s life, and Yang Ruxin agreed.