"I'll station the others in the village to prevent bandit raids. If there's danger here, send a signal arrow," Shangguan Jian instructed with finality. Normally, only twenty soldiers were stationed here, rotating duty between two centurions. But in these troubled times, this cave storeroom, crucial to the lives of over a thousand people in Shangshui Village, required utmost vigilance. Shangguan Jian couldn't afford any negligence, thus he left Chief Li here with his men to guard it, totaling fifty to sixty men. Yet, even so, Shangguan Jian was not at ease, which is why he transferred Ye Shikai here.
Ye Shikai was new and unfamiliar with many aspects of Qin Law. In reality, if the storeroom were truly destroyed, the villagers of Shangshui would suffer hunger and cold through the winter; that was one issue. But if the required amount of provisions wasn't met for the county, all villagers would be punished.
