Chapter 140

After taking over the defense of Xuanfu Garrison, evening arrived. Yan Yingyuan and Jiang Yingkui sat in a small courtyard near the city gate, drinking rice porridge and chewing on salted vegetable knobs. An iron pot was set up on a nearby bonfire, the boiling water inside bubbling incessantly. A circle of soldiers sat around the bonfire, eating the same rice porridge and salted vegetables. Those who were full scooped a bowl of boiling water from the pot, placed it on the open ground nearby to cool, and drank it down in one gulp, looking utterly blissed out. In that era, only elite troops could enjoy polished rice with salted vegetables. Ordinary soldiers were lucky to have a mouthful of roasted flour to eat. (The roasted flour here was stir-fried flour; its advantages were that it was easy to carry, kept for a long time, and when hungry, one only needed to grab a handful, put it in the mouth, and wash it down with a sip of water. Its disadvantages were poor taste, low satiety, and high water consumption. The roasted flour of the Ming Army was very popular among soldiers; even the Mongols and Eight Banners of that time had records of carrying and eating it.)