After settling the main affairs and confirming that there was no conflict of interest between the two parties, and since the destination was the same in the short term, the group decided to go with Ryunosuke's troops the next day.
Going forward with the mighty Ronin troops originally went against the original intention of keeping a low profile, but combined with the newly obtained relevant information, after a little thought, you can understand that the advantages actually outweigh the disadvantages.
In a sense, the riots in Pingshan County that occurred when Ryunosuke stepped down more than ten years ago have not ended to this day. Only a few close friends knew that Saburo, who was very popular at that time, faked his death. Most of the civilians who loved him very much believed that the Chinese had killed him. Although the large-scale riots by the mob were quickly suppressed by the authorities, some of the people who went underground and lurked under the influence of thoughtful people are still engaged in various small-scale activities.
But that's not all.
The newly appointed Chinese knew what these civilians were doing secretly, so the punishments became more severe, curfews were issued, and samurai patrols were often sent out. Anyone who behaved slightly suspiciously would be imprisoned. But this approach only drives more people to become dissatisfied. After the population was lost due to arrests and executions, fleeing or becoming bandits, they dispatched immigrants from other territories to restore the population, and tried to let these easy-to-control new immigrants gradually influence Pingshan County and stabilize it.
The newly arrived immigrants had not experienced the Saburo era, so they had more trust in the newly appointed Chinese. Naturally, conflicts with the original Pingshan County residents were inevitable in their daily lives. There were many conflicts between civilians and between civilians and nobles, which led to the fact that southern Zhangzhou was infested with bandits and violent incidents. Moreover, except for Pingshan County, which is controlled by a large Chinese force, other areas are entangled with various small and medium-sized forces. It is difficult for outsiders to tell whether the other party is hostile or friendly.
The county seat controlled by the nobles and the surrounding core areas closer to the county seat are relatively stable, but this stability is based on high-pressure rule. They were searched inside and outside various checkpoints, and even when entering the city, they had to pay a tax to obtain an identity card. Once they were lost or lent to others, they were directly imprisoned and beaten with sticks and corporal punishment.
Ryunosuke and his party, who have a sensitive identity, naturally want to avoid places like the county seat. For Henry and his party, it is actually a subtle choice to go to the county seat that seems safer and is governed by aristocrats.
Theoretically, they are both nobles and have privileges. The young master and others can avoid a lot of interrogations, but in practice, there is a lot of room for interpretation. The nobles of the vassal area cannot be compared with those of the directly-governed states. They are the kind of people who go near the county seat if nothing happens, but if something happens they are in the core area of the opponent's influence and cannot escape.
So the final conclusion was to go with Ryunosuke and others through the more chaotic areas. According to the explanation of the former county magistrate, although the forces in these places are so intertwined that it is difficult to distinguish between ourselves and the enemy, they are not actually the kind that are always in a state of struggle.
The rules here are simple, the weak eat the strong. If you have enough power, you can pass through peacefully. Everyone will be polite to you. As long as you show enough respect to the other party, it is also feasible to trade materials and obtain the assistance of craftsmen. But if you are unable to protect yourself, the villagers who are smiling and nodding will immediately show their claws and eat you.
Narumi, Ogami and other Aoda clan warriors looked at each other in shock when they heard this. Only some areas of the vassal territory are like this. A large area of the directly governed prefecture under the direct influence of Xinjing has become a place where villagers rely on force and refuse to obey discipline. This kind of thing is simply unreasonable in the Moon Country where the emperor's grace is so great.
Unity and peace have been the symbols of this country for four thousand years, and the people should obey the nobles. However, they gather together on a village scale to commit such barbaric banditry. And it has lasted for more than 10 years without countering the rebellion - which naturally made them blurt out: "What is the newly appointed county magistrate doing?"
Ryunosuke looked at them deeply, and finally just sighed: "This place is different from the feudal land."
He didn't explain much, but our sage who was listening could probably understand the reason.
The Kingdom of the Moon is an empire. Many people cannot tell the difference between an empire and a kingdom. Most people only think of it as a difference in size, and this is indeed one of the criteria for differentiation.
At first glance, an empire is just an enlarged version of a kingdom, but in fact it has several decisive differences - the first of which is naturally the distribution of power.
Including the former Kingdom of Avenella and the United Kingdom of the West Coast where our Mr. Sage and the girl from Roan met, most of the kingdom systems do not even have standing armies.
Although the royal family is the symbol of a country and the most powerful nobles, they do not have as strong power as the royal family of the empire. The territorial governance of local nobles and the military power within their territories are controlled by local nobles themselves. This is usually a small group of professional soldiers with knights and sergeant units as the core, plus some lower-level private soldiers who recruit stronger farmers. Then when the scale of the required war is large enough, the main force will recruit militiamen, and this group of people will As the backbone.
If the royal family wants to launch a war, they need to rely on reinforcements from other great nobles, and make the other party join them through daily marriages or threats of force. The nobles have considerable say and can even refute the royal family to some extent. This is also the reason why most kingdoms are always suffering from internal and external troubles - even if the king is unwilling to initiate a war, if there is a conflict between a certain noble below and other countries at the border, he may directly defy the king's order and start a war.
The empire is different. Although most of its military power is provided by local governments, it belongs directly to the royal family and is accountable to the royal family. The royal family has the right to appoint or dismiss local officials. They are just pawns of the royal family and do not have the qualifications to sit on equal footing.
——In short, the power of the kingdom lies in the local areas, and the royal family is just one of the relatively strong local lords; while the core power of the empire is firmly in the hands of the royal family, the central government is the most important, and the local governments only serve as the execution of the central government. By.
Based on these cognitions and understanding Ryunosuke's words, the chaos in Pingshan County has not stopped, naturally because Xinjing is unwilling to delegate power to the newly appointed Chinese.
Human beings are very contradictory creatures, just like the situation of scholars. Xinjing attaches great importance to the inheritance of knowledge, but it tries every means to control the circulation of knowledge and prohibits scholars from marrying, having children, or holding power. The same is true for the chaos in Pingshan County. They definitely want to control these privately armed and unruly people, but in order to do so, they have to give the Pingshan County Magistrate considerable power.
This kind of indecision and repeated entanglement finally affected the small power of the villagers' groups formed by fellow villagers or clans in this land, which became more and more stable.
Fortunately, no matter how brave the villagers are, they are just amateurs. Ryunosuke, who has 150 professional warriors, walks in this area and no one dares to provoke him. After going back and forth, Narumi and others naturally decided that the big tree was a good place to enjoy the shade, so they went with them for the time being.
Some of the doubts before this step have also been explained - the hungry people beside the well are not the core force of Ryunosuke and others, but the marginalized poor people who have fallen into the trap and become bandits automatically followed them after receiving their favor several times. Come up here and want to have some food.
After all, he still has some sense of responsibility as a noble and cannot let these people starve to death, but in fact he does not have much control over these people.
If you have food to eat and if you can get shelter, follow along. The gangsters who had had conflicts with Henry and his party before saw that they had become guests, and left early the next morning, cursing and shouting that the nobles were all equally rotten - not forgetting to take away a lot before leaving. Material supplies for Ryunosuke and his party.
Henry and his party were not even given a chance to explain or apologize, or even if they did, these people probably wouldn't buy it.
As for the mudslide blocking the road, the result of consultation before these hungry people left angrily was just an accident of chopping firewood for cooking. They didn't care about things like landslides and road blockages, because for this group of people who couldn't protect themselves, the interests of others were not something worthy of concern.
Even if this was an "innocent mistake" made by this group of people and it turned out to be the truth, A Yong, who had somewhat recovered his strength after a night of repair but was still feeling unwell and grumpy, obviously didn't buy it at all after hearing all this.
"I'm afraid I didn't mean to do this. If the businessman who blocks the diversion is a good businessman, I will swallow it myself. If I can't fight, I will ask the samurai for help, and cry out that I was killed by the vicious gangsters, and the trouble will be diverted to the east!" He looked full of indignation, But no one, including Henry, spoke to refute, because the possibility of A Yong's speculation was really not low.
The overwhelming sympathy of the aristocrats who have no worries about food and clothing may not be accepted with gratitude by the people at the bottom. The reality is that it is very likely that they will be taken advantage of, and they will even find ways to use the other party's strength to take advantage of them as much as possible.
Treating common people as pure and weak little white flowers who need to be cared for by themselves is a common mentality among nobles. There is no difference between the East and the West. Even civilians with relatively stable lives will have such a sense of responsibility based on a sense of superiority towards beggars.
"Half kindness." Our Luoan girl still deeply remembers a similar scene shortly after she first met her teacher. The momentary charity seemed kind and warm, but it was more self-satisfaction, but she did not think it was right. These people are doing the right thing by standing aside.
Henry would not tell her directly what was right, as he had always done.
He would only stop her from making impulsive decisions that were wrong and could easily hurt herself, but more often than not, he would let her learn more, absorb more, and think more.
They can't help these hungry people. Many of the grains these people took away from Ryunosuke's camp were not shelled. If they wanted to, they could actually open up fields and plant them as seeds.
But according to the sighs of the surrounding samurai, I am afraid that they will eat it all in one go as much as possible. If there is any leftover, they will peel it off and put it in a jar to soak in water and ferment to make rice wine.
Don't think about the future, don't think about tomorrow, just eat as much as you can if you have something to eat at the moment. If you don't have any more, go beg, steal, or rob. Repeat this.
This is the cycle of death that occurs when people at the bottom of the class are forced to a dead end. It is not that their bodies can no longer work, but that they have given up their yearning for a better life and the future, and have become muddleheaded.
It's not a bad thing to part ways here, otherwise these hungry people who love to raise flags will get into trouble and hold up their flags, which will end up in a lot of trouble. Although many ronin under Ryunosuke's command scolded the hungry people as ungrateful dogs who eat inside and outside, the former Chinese themselves did not seem to feel much about this.
After reorganizing the team, they started to pack their gear early in the morning and prepared to continue their journey south. However, because the road was washed away by mudslides, we had to go back and forth several times.
The horses of A Yong and others recovered faster than the humans. After inducing vomiting to vomit up the remaining berries, taking care of them, eating some soybean meal and fodder, and constantly feeding them water to replenish their physical strength, they were able to stand up in the early morning. However, one horse was fed so many poisonous berries that it could not be saved and collapsed to death.
Since Ryunosuke had a lot of extra clothes, the three samurai who fell to the ground who were stained with filth were extremely disgusted by them, so they directly discarded them and replaced them with new ones. A Yong and others, who were using crutches, could barely stand and walk for short distances, but they failed several times to get on their horses with the help of others. In the end, their horses were used to carry some supplies, while the people lay down and rested on the carriage of Ryunosuke and his party.
Since it was almost dusk when they met, Rigal and his entourage were surprised to see the carriage and the horses pulling it only early the next morning. Because the shoulder height of the horse pulling the cart is 1.68 meters. Although it is not as high as the little unicorn Mitia, it is a full circle taller than the horses of the Kingdom of the Moon, which are less than 1.5 meters.
Two tall horses pulled a four-wheeled carriage with an astonishing capacity that could carry a dozen people plus supplies. This carriage was a product of Rigar and had a much larger capacity than the ox-carts of the Moon Country.
Pack horses are rarer than pack oxen, because horses are noble creatures, and if horses are to be used to carry goods, the driver must also be a warrior.
This vehicle full of Rigal style is naturally not a native product of the Crescent Continent. According to Ryunosuke and others, it was bought second-hand from the Nanman merchants who landed - and it took a lot of effort to transport it aboard. The Nanman merchants originally thought that they could pass directly, and they happily thought about getting off the ship and taking a trip to the north and south of the Crescent Continent, traveling and doing business at the same time. Unexpectedly, the horses were only used by nobles for riding, so they had to change hands in the end. But because only one samurai was willing to work as a coach driver, he fell into the hands of the informal Ryunosuke and his entourage.
It is not uncommon for derelict samurai to become ronin in today's Kazuto society. However, although these people live a very difficult life, they still have the integrity of the samurai and are unwilling to engage in "lowly" industries. In the end, only Ryunosuke's group was willing to broaden their horizons. As soon as they got hold of the Nanman carriage, they realized its advantages. Later, they tried to get local carpenters to copy it and managed to purchase some more Rigar breed horses.
The introduction of the former county magistrate was an eye-opener for the group. Apparently, after a long period of communication, the products of Rigar in Crescent Continent were far more abundant than the group expected.
Starting from the southern part of Zhangzhou, the existence of Nanman became less rare. Crescent Continent's silks, sugar and tea are favorites of the Southern Barbarians, while Rigar's tall war horses and iron ore and other materials have gradually attracted the attention of the warrior class. It is said that some people have begun to try to breed horses with better bloodlines by mixing the horses from Rigal and Crescent Island.
Although the trouble caused by the missionaries was just a short time ago, from the explanations of Ryunosuke and his party, it seems that most Rigar and the locals get along surprisingly well.
And this is also related to the fact that Joshua came to such a distant place.
The focus of communication with Crescent Continent is not the Padrosi Empire, but the Southern City-State Alliance.
The territory owned by the Southern City-State Alliance, which is located on the south coast of the Mobigas Inland Sea, includes a small section on the east side. The part of the land that passes from the doorstep of the mountain dwarf forces is very narrow. After passing through the southern lowlands of the Parosian Plateau and the canyons among the mountains, there is the coastline of the far east of the Rigal continent. Merchants from the southern border established a port there, and transported materials by land, and then transported them eastward to the Crescent Moon by sea. continent.
Joshua went all the way east from Thoradin and finally took a boat to the Crescent Continent from the south. Compared with Henry and his party taking the Northern Ligar Sea Channel, this channel is much shorter. The only drawback is that it is necessary Land transportation is converted to sea transportation, so the cargo transportation capacity is not very strong.
The imperial people launched large-scale expeditions again and again with little effect, but the small-scale but continuous exchange of people and goods among the merchants in the south won a lot of goodwill.
During the period when the missionaries were trying to stir up chaos in the Moon Country society, the keen businessmen of the Southern City-State Alliance immediately informed Xinjing that they were from different camps and cut ties, and took advantage of this opportunity to develop vigorously.
Some are happy and some are sad, but in short, judging from the news learned from the local snake Ryunosuke and his party, the fact that there are many people in Rigar in the south is a good thing for Henry and others.
