"There is a village ahead. Let's go and ask the village chief if there is an empty house for us to stay in for the night."
They had already traveled one-third of the nearly 3,500 miles of exile. Now we are entering the Yanzhou area. I don’t know what is going on in this area. It is a vast area and sparsely populated. They had been sleeping in the wilderness for three days. After finally discovering a village, they really didn't want to miss it.
Unfortunately, things did not go as smoothly as they expected. They found that since they entered the village, every family in the village began to close their doors.
They knocked on several doors, but no one answered.
The whole village felt very exclusive, as if they were regarded as plague gods.
"Let's go north. I saw someone clearing snow just now. Go and ask."
Xu Zheng picked a house that looked bolder and knocked on the door. Why? When they appeared from the corner just now, someone from this house flashed into the house.
"Is anyone at home?" Xu Zheng stepped forward and knocked on the door. "That old man at the door, I saw you. But don't worry, we are not bad people. I am an officer of the imperial court, and these are my His subordinates, we are responsible for escorting prisoners. The one next to me is the chief escort of Yang Wei Escort Bureau, and the other strong men are all escorts, responsible for escorting wealthy businessmen and their goods. They are not bad people! "
"We have no other intention of entering the village. We just want to ask if there is an empty house in your village that we can lend to us for a rest?"
The courtyard door was not opened, but you could see from the short mud that the other party opened the door a crack, and a trembling voice came out, "You have to ask the village chief about this. The village chief's house is in front. You go there." It’s just a short walk away.”
Xu Zheng didn't bother, "Okay, thank you."
Not long after they moved forward, a short old man came towards them with seven or eight strong men, and the two sides met directly.
Xu Zheng stepped forward and explained his purpose, and at the same time handed the nameplate around his waist to the other party.
The other party looked at it carefully, and after confirming the identities of Xu Zheng and others, he breathed a sigh of relief, "Everyone, don't be surprised. The reason why our village is so guarded against strangers is that we are really afraid."
Xu Zheng first asked the other party his name, and then quickly asked him what was going on.
Then the other party claims his surname is Chen, and they can call him Village Chief Chen.
"Hey, it's also a crime! There is a mountain village called Qinglong Village two hundred miles away from our Qingxi Village. They often plunder the surrounding villages. Our Qingxi Village was just robbed by them half a month ago. You just made such a big noise, we I thought it was the bandits from Qinglong Village who came again."
"Is this Qinglong Village so rampant?"
"Isn't that right?"
"The government doesn't care about it?"
"Are you talking about suppressing bandits?" Village Chief Chen shook his head with a wry smile and said, "It's useless to care."
"Qinglong Village is located halfway up the steep Cangshan Mountain. It's easy to defend but difficult to attack. The government has sent troops here, but they can't wipe it out completely."
Village Chief Chen told them that often after the government sent people to come, Qinglong Village would intensify its plundering of surrounding villages. Over time, they simply gave up resistance.
Lu Songli and the others were quietly listening to their conversation in the carriage. This was an endless disaster.
"Anyway, once the people from Qinglong Village come, as long as we obediently hand over enough food according to their requirements, they will not kill people, rape women, or rob people of their children." As for not having enough food? Then tighten your belt and drink more water, as long as you don't starve to death.
Lu Songli listened quietly, feeling that Qinglong Village treated this area of hundreds of miles as its own fish pond, and knew how to follow the path of sustainable development.
But in this case, isn't Qingyun Village equivalent to the second imperial court? After the common people paid taxes to the court every year, they had to be exploited by Qinglong Village.
Moreover, as ordinary people, isn’t it the right thing to not be burned, killed, and robbed?
Lu Songli discovered that the people's requirements were really low. This might be due to the people's helplessness.
"Oh, how can I keep saying all these annoying things. My lords, I want to ask if there are any vacant houses in our village that you would like to stay at, right?"
"Yes, Village Chief Chen, look, we have a lot of people, can you make some arrangements?"
"Our village still has some empty houses, but we may not be able to house so many people at once."
"It doesn't matter, we can lay the ground and squeeze in. Village Chief Chen, please lead the way."
Later, Village Chief Chen took them to an empty farmyard. There were nearly ten large houses in the yard. The key was that this house looked quite new, but no one lived in it?
But they were too lazy to mind their own business.
Yang Weisai gave him a bag of copper, which was about five or six hundred wen. "Village Chief Chen, take this and treat it as the cost of borrowing the house."
Along the way, it can be seen that Qingxi Village is not wealthy. All the villagers are very thin and skinny, and none of them are fat anyway.
"No, no, no, I can't accept it."
"Just accept it."
Yang Wei insisted on letting him accept it. They were not short of the money. On the contrary, Qingxi Village was too poor and there should be no place to make money. Since they borrowed someone else's house, they should give them what they deserve.
Seeing that he insisted on doing this, Village Chief Chen had no choice but to say, "Brother Yang, I don't want money. If possible, can you give me some food?"
Then, he explained, "To be honest, this house belongs to my cousin. He just finished building the house the year before last, and he got an emergency and passed away last year. My nephew's wife remarried and went to another place not long after. The only thing left in the family is My poor nephew, from last year to now, has been raised by his family." In fact, this child has always been raised by his family, but his family has a large population and is not rich. Several of his daughters-in-law had quite some objections to him raising the child.
"Give me the money, and I will go to the town to buy food for him. If it is convenient for you, you might as well give it to him directly in exchange for food."
"Okay." Yang Wei helped him exchange it for grain according to the grain price. This year's grain is indeed expensive. By the end of the year, fine grain has risen to 200 cents per dou, and coarse grain is also 100 cents per dou. Yang Wei finally gave him five buckets of coarse grains and half a bucket of fine grains.
Village Chief Chen left with his people and the food.
The villagers he just brought out said with envy, "Village Chief, these outsiders are so rich."
Others nodded in agreement, "They have so many carriages. Looking at the depth of the ruts, you can tell that the carriages are fully loaded."
They have no bad intentions, they are simply envious. The other party's group consisted of nearly thirty men, all of them strong and powerful, as if one person could stand up to three of them, so they didn't dare to have bad intentions.
