The primary purpose is to join up with Galeva and others. If you only consider this, going to a restaurant to have a meal first sounds like a careless act that cannot distinguish priorities. But some things really can’t be rushed.
They are now basically out of the danger zone. Even though the distance is only about three to four days on foot or even shorter on horseback, this place has absolutely nothing to do with the massacre in Swamp Village.
For the Roan girl who was born in Rigar and even our Mr. Sage, this is a somewhat absurd but understandable experience to a certain extent.
After officially entering Qingzhi Town, and even descending from the mountain to the unknown village, everything that happened in Marsh Village seemed to have disappeared.
Although Henry, Mira and Sakura all deeply understood that all that had indeed happened, no one in the small mountain village or here cared about it, and no one was worried that they would be next.
From the perspective of Rigal people, this is really a lack of sense of crisis. But if we think about the history of the Moon Country, these He people who grew up in very different cultural backgrounds, as people of the Moon Country with huge national power and strong central power, will think that "everything is nothing." Big deal" actually has its own reasons.
The continent of Rigal is relatively chaotic, so most civilians are insecure and lack trust in the social structure and other people. Based on this, the vast majority of Rigal people feel the crisis very keenly. Even ordinary Rigal peasants would worry and flee to the castle or other countries after hearing that a nearby city was burned down. This is especially true for the mercenary industry that licks blood at the edge of a knife.
Although some people choose to stay in their hometown, it is a kind of despair and helplessness that they are aware of the crisis but are unable to escape due to the difficulties of life. Although the results are the same as those of the Moon Kingdom, their starting points are completely different. Take the people of Qingzhi Town and Xiaoshan Village as an example. Even though these civilians in the Moon Kingdom learned about the destruction of Swamp Village a few days away, they still believed or preferred to think that the people of Swamp Village were to blame.
They naturally begin to defend their country's system out of habit, tending to classify this incident as a "single accidental" incident, and firmly believe that as long as they keep to themselves, this incident will not happen to them.
Covering up the facts can be found in any country. In the Rigal continent, large empires such as Padrosi are especially popular - but it is basically the upper class deceiving the common people in order to protect their own interests: The nobles, big businessmen, and church leaders deliberately concealed some of the facts in order to avoid harming their own interests. Although the people could not express it in words, they were extremely angry at this behavior in their hearts.
This is very different from the thoughts of common people.
People here don't have to wait for official rhetoric to come out, and they will unify themselves. Major issues to minor ones out.
They regard the collective as higher than the individual; they regard the class they represent as higher than themselves; they regard the concept of a large country and "family" as greater than a small "family".
Everything is stable, everything is peaceful; even if something happens, it is just an accident; if a samurai kills a civilian, then the civilian must have committed some unforgivable crime. Rather than criticizing the samurai, we should reflect on what civilians are doing and make sure we don't offend the samurai either.
The civilians who rushed to stop the two people from rescuing people and resisted the samurai behavior in the swamp village; Qingzhi and the people in the small village at the foot of the mountain scorned the dead in the swamp village; and a once prosperous village just a few days away was destroyed overnight. They ignored the fact that thousands of people died without burial.
Although they had just arrived and had not communicated with many Kazuzu people, they were already aware of the fact that not only their language, clothing, and faces were different from the Rigar people, but their thoughts were also very different.
To a certain extent, this makes a Roan girl who comes from a country like Avenella feel uncomfortable. But considering that the rebel samurai will most likely not give up intercepting and killing their group, this avoidance of a unified voice buried deep in Kazuto culture is actually a good thing.
At least based on this, a large-scale troop pursuit on the surface would definitely not happen in a large town like Qingzhi Town with a population of tens of thousands. Although Henry and Mira did not know whether the local garrison joined the rebels because the list was carried by Aya. But the eldest son of the Kaga family was causing too much trouble. In order to avoid Xinjing's further suspicion, even if they still planned to continue tracking him, they would definitely do it secretly.
Thousands of people in the direct pursuit force were completely wiped out, and coupled with the chaotic corpses in the swamp village, the mess required manpower to deal with. After those people calm down and re-send their troops to pursue them, it will take more time no matter what. Instead of doing it openly, we can only send out small-scale troops to carry out covert operations. This alone has greatly reduced the threat.
The time advantage gave them time to move south, and the closer they went south to Honshu and closer to the sphere of influence ruled by Xinjing, their situation would become relatively better.
The rebels certainly do not have the strength to challenge Xinjing directly, otherwise they would not need to behave like this with their tail between their legs.
So in summary, although there are a lot of things to do, they should really spend some time, slow down and think about it in the long term.
Joined forces with Galeva and others to help Lulu, Temulun and other Yi people find a place to resettle. There is also the initial task of escorting Alfonso and others to join the local monks. In addition, there are other miscellaneous problems, as well as how to deal with the rebel list. These things are all crowded together. If you want to understand and solve them all, you can only do it step by step. There is no need to rush. Make trouble.
In addition to this, regarding the previous rift and the strange world sage, he blurted out his judgment that it was related to the rebels, but did not give any further explanation afterwards.
Mira understood the reason for her teacher's behavior. Sometimes knowing too much is not a good thing, especially when you can't make any changes to what is happening now, knowing more will only increase your troubles.
When he was there, he originally planned to explain that it was actually to survive in it, but now that he is out of it, the necessity has become less high.
Although she still wanted to know what happened, Henry always had his own judgment. He thought that the time was ripe and he would only say it when it was time to say it. Before that, other things had higher priority.
After thinking wildly and unable to make sense, the white-haired girl finally chose to give up trying to get into trouble and started to enjoy the scenery of Qingzhi Town.
The businessmen who were originally traveling with them said goodbye to them after walking together to the residential area near the back mountain. The businessman uncle also invited the four of them to his home for a home-cooked meal before saying goodbye, but Soujiro refused, and then led Henry and the three of them towards the river.
Similar to the Rigal continent, even the Moon Country, which has been unified for thousands of years, actually has only a few capitals with stone paved floors. Although Qingzhi Town is very prosperous, it is still dominated by compacted dirt roads. Except for some wealthy families whose yards are paved with stone slabs, the roads are just ordinary dirt roads.
The closer you get to the riverside where the tributary of the Yongchuan River is located, the taller and more resplendent the buildings become. From the bamboo-forested back hill they entered in Qingzhi Town towards the river, they went from the courtyard of the large workshop to the residences of small self-employed craftsmen and civilian residences, which evolved into restaurants and inns. Judging from this well-organized appearance, Clearly the town was planned.
And this is also a major feature of the Moon Country: places like Swamp Village, even if the number of people and scale are not small, meet the entry standards of the town level. It has no official name and no official personnel stationed there. It lacks planning, is prosperous but chaotic. In contrast, towns that have official personnel, are officially given names, and are recorded on maps issued by the Moon Country will, after reaching a certain scale, be planned by specialized land doctors according to the terrain, and the entire town will be planned. Organized according to function and priority.
The place closest to the tributary of the Yongchuan River is the sales point of the Chamber of Commerce and various inns and restaurants. Of course, travelers who have just got off the boat will be attracted by the dazzling array of local bambooware at the first moment. It is also very convenient to stay in a hotel or taste local food, everything is placed closest to them.
The side of the mountain behind where Henry and the others were walking was the location of a workshop that produced bamboo wares that most people would not be interested in at all. The processing workshop was moved to a place where ordinary people would not go, so that the various noises from production and the accumulation of debris would not affect the appearance and hinder traffic. This seemingly simple plan clearly distinguishes priorities, allowing many buildings to maximize their effectiveness.
The closer you get to the river, the more expensive things will be. Knowing this, Soujiro still led them towards the river, making it clear that he wanted to treat the three of them to a good meal to please Henry.
The wrestler, who has been champion in the nearby area for many years, has a lot of savings. Although he is short-handed and soft-spoken, they go to the hotel not just for food.
There are quite a few large and small hotels along the coast of Qingzhi Town, and there are always a lot of ferries coming and going. Henry and Mira didn't know what kind of ship Galeva and others were on. But they have funds and so many mouths to eat and drink. It is relatively simple to find out whether a group of barbarians or a group of southern barbarians have visited.
No matter where you are, connections are very important. Sakura has communicative skills, but Sojiro is obviously more familiar with the locals. With his introduction and the oiran stepping forward to establish relationships, everything will go much smoother.
Being in a foreign country, the sage and the Luoan girl, who had always had to deal with these matters by themselves, became the hands-off shopkeepers for one reason or another.
The two of them were sitting in the corner, waiting for their meals to be served. The first floor of the tavern, which was made of mahogany wood and paper windows as the main structure, was well-lit. However, the two people who were sitting in the corner without taking off their bamboo hats, took a closer look. It doesn't seem to be particularly unique.
There are many people dressed like them. Obviously, for a hotel in such a busy area, there are many people who don't want to reveal their identities.
The waiter who understood this quietly came up and brought two cups of tea and left them, but Henry and Mira did not drink them. After Sakura and Soujiro both returned, they exchanged information while waiting for the meals to be served.
"No one has heard of it. It seems that there are some people who escaped from the swamp village, but there is no news about the person they are looking for." The communication between the three people did not avoid the middle-aged man. They wanted to come to Qingzhi to find someone. I already talked about this on the way here. Although Henry was not interested in making a fortune from cooperation as Soujiro said, this man did not pose any threat to them. Although not everyone here is friendly to the Nanman people, not everyone is plotting to harm them.
"I have found out about the store that I want to ask about. I won't ask any more questions. Since it has something to do with Swamp Village, it must be a better thing not to ask." The Swamp Tiger glanced at the table where the two of them were sitting. There were wrapped weapons underneath. Before entering the tavern, they sorted the weapons and wrapped them roughly to make them less conspicuous. Henry asked the well-connected Sojiro to find out where he could find a store to sell stolen goods.
The swords they got from the samurai were, at best, just for temporary protection. And the few taels of money earned from activities in the small mountain village are not enough to support the next trip. Now that we have arrived in a slightly larger city, in order to prevent someone from following the clues and identifying who got it from the inscriptions on the weapons, it is better to sell them for money.
After all, those knives are all custom-made ones used by elites. You can just buy slightly worse ones without inscriptions and use them later.
In addition, Henry also plans to sell some of the things he carries into passable money, and then see if he can buy some armor in less formal stores. This is to deal with possible pursuit forces by the rebels in the future. If it is an assassination force like Qingshi from Swamp Village, body armor will be more useful than weapons.
This and the search for traces of Galeva and others can be carried out simultaneously, but before that, lunch with local characteristics is served.
"This is the famous Qingzhi Rice. I eat here every time I come here. It is the most authentic here! Bamboo shoots, river shrimps, and rice. The rice is carried by rivers from further south! In this northern part of the country There is no way to grow rice in this place, but when paired with the large river shrimp here and the bamboo shoots dug from the back mountain, it is very suitable!" Soujiro laughed and said.
