The foremen gave these peasants only five days to build the fortifications. Xue Ye had actually allotted half a month, but if they finished in just five days, the foremen could pay the peasants only five days' wages and embezzle a large portion of the construction funds as well.
The Heaven Dou Empire did pay these ordinary people wages, but anyone who wanted wages would receive no daily meals from the noble lords. Even the meals the nobles originally provided amounted to nothing more than lunch.
Anyone who wanted breakfast or dinner had to pay for it themselves.
Although the peasants' wages were meager—so meager that, to the nobles, they were not even enough to buy a single dessert—the nobles would rather throw that money away than let these peasants live comfortably.
Only after working a full eighteen hours were the peasants allowed to return to their communal quarters to sleep.
They were called quarters, but they were really just hastily erected tents, reeking to high heaven, with cockroaches and rats occasionally crawling through them.
But to these peasants, none of that mattered anymore.
To squeeze every last bit of wages out of the workers, a small beer hall had even been set up on the construction site, with permission from the noble overseeing the fortifications.
The beer hall's prices were steep enough to drain the peasants' pockets dry. They could order a bowl of beer and a plate of fennel beans, spend everything they had earned that day, and chat together.
"Why do these nobles have to squeeze us like this? I was just doing a little honest business in Swan City, and they dragged me straight to the front to build this damned defensive line." Someone lost control of his emotions and growled through his tears.
"Exactly, they've