Du Fei scratched his head and thought that since violence could not solve the problem, he had to try other methods. He remembered the scene when he was in Nanjing, China, to quell the military rebellion, so he ordered the soldiers in the city not to act rashly, and he
Then he changed into regular clothes and quietly walked out of the back door.
The farmers knocked on the city gate for a long time, but when they saw no movement inside, they suddenly became a little frustrated. A tall, haggard farmer said to the leading old man: "Dad, we should go back. It seems that the city lord is really not here."
"Impossible! We saw the city lord's sedan go in with our own eyes yesterday! Today we surrounded this place early in the morning. It's impossible for him to go out in the middle of the night?" The old man pouted his beard and looked very angry.
Looks like: "We must explain that matter clearly to the new city lord, otherwise the promises we made will not count!"
Du Fei was already wearing regular clothes and blending in among them. He saw that the old man seemed to be the leader, so he quietly approached him and asked doubtfully: "Uncle, what are you doing?"
"This young man! He really doesn't care about the affairs of the village! Don't you know that the city owner has changed recently? It seems that if you are not a local, how can you have the same heart as us!" An aunt in her fifties behind Du Fei angrily
said.
Du Fei looked around and said calmly: "If you change it, just change it. What's the big deal? It doesn't matter who you change it to."
"What nonsense!" The old man seemed to be irritated all of a sudden: "You know, due to our meritorious service in killing enemy deserters some time ago, the previous city lord has promised to exempt us from taxes for a year, but now we are just about to harvest rice.
But when the city lord is changed, I don’t know if that promise will still count.”
So that's it! Du Fei felt a little unhappy in his heart. The scenes of farmers hunting down desperate warriors a few days ago seemed to reappear in front of his eyes.
"It's useless to waste it any more!" A fat man emerged from nowhere: "How about we set a fire!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he was scolded by everyone: "Idiot! We are not rebelling! That will only anger the officials! Then you won't be beaten up! They are going to massacre the village! On your side
Go play!”
The fat man was ridiculed by everyone, and he hid behind the crowd with his head downcast.
At this time, I heard the soldiers at the top of the city shouting down: "The city lord is out and it won't help you to waste your time here. I advise you to go back, so as not to make the new city lord unhappy, and you will inevitably be whipped again!"
After hearing this, the villagers seemed a little scared. It seemed that many people here had been whipped. They began to whisper and whisper to each other, and some of them even quietly slipped away to the edge of the crowd.
The old man didn't say anything after seeing this scene. He waved his hands with a grin on his face and turned away. All the villagers in Sanxia Village followed him closely.
Du Fei curiously followed this group of ragged farmers to see what they wanted to do next.
I saw this group of people following the old man to a large village not far from the city.
They walked straight to a very large courtyard with earthen walls and sat on the ground in a dense crowd. Some other villagers from the village also came to ask questions. Some squeezed in, while others only dared to ride on the ground.
of earth walls to watch.
I saw the old man sitting in the middle of the front, and two sturdy young men sitting next to him.
When he saw that people had almost arrived, he cleared his hoarse voice and said to everyone: "Everyone is here. Today we took the risk to go to the city to find the city lord, but the city lord didn't tell everyone in the city whether we will go there tomorrow."
?”
"If you ask me, let's not go. I said from the beginning that we are just writing about farmers. Haven't we been whipped enough? Fortunately, the city lord is not here today. If he was here, I'm afraid it would be more than just a whipping."
The forty-year-old middle-aged villager said with a grimace.
At this time, a young woman in tattered plain clothes sitting in the corner also intervened and said: "That's right! We have gone to those city lords more than once, but is it useful?" At this point, she suddenly choked up: "Humph, oh, oh, where are those vampires?"
Does it matter whether we live or die? Drought, locusts, bandits and taxes. Sooner or later we will starve to death."
"Minako! Stop crying!" A young man next to the old man shouted loudly: "What's the use of crying? We must survive! We must find a way to let those dignitaries understand our suffering!"
"I would rather believe in ghosts than believe in their compassion." At this time, a middle-aged man with a beard said disdainfully: "The consciences of those adults are like stars in the sky, always hanging in the sky but out of reach."
A young man with a tough face said viciously: "We should play a little harder to make those big names pay attention to our opinions! Our performance is still too weak! Tomorrow we will gather people from neighboring villages and take out that tattered
The city gate was demolished by him! Drag that birdy city lord outside and give him a beating!"
I saw many young people expressing their approval for his words, and some of the troublemakers in the village raised their arms high: "Okay! Well done to Mrs. Yu!"
But the old man sitting in the middle glanced at him disapprovingly and asked, "Then what?"
"ah?"
"I'm asking you, what should we do after we destroy the city and beat the city lord as you said?" The old man's tone seemed to be very kind.
The young man scratched his bald head and said carelessly: "Ah, I haven't thought about it yet. I guess if we make such a fuss, they will be afraid of us, right?"
The older villagers all lowered their heads, and the few young people who were making noises also realized that something was wrong, so they all lowered their heads and stopped talking.
"What will happen next?" The old man looked around the crowd and said loudly: "The Shimazu family will send a large number of soldiers to surround the village, and they will set fire to it! They will burn our entire village to the ground! Then they will kill everyone they see! No matter the old man
,child,woman”
Several women holding children in the crowd turned pale with fright, and the rest of the villagers were also frightened into silence.
The entire courtyard returned to deathly silence.
At this time, Du Fei, who had been watching silently in the crowd, said, "Maybe this city lord is a reasonable person?"
The crowd laughed loudly, and a skinny man pointed at Du Fei and laughed: "You actually expect the city lords to reason with you!! It's really funny!"
"Oh, it's difficult! Most of those city lords rose to power by virtue of their military exploits. Which one of them didn't have the blood of several people on his hands? Isn't it too naive for you to expect those reckless men who are killing people to reason with you?"
Another young man next to the old man said.
"How will you know if you don't try? But it seems that the way to talk to the city lord like today is not right? It can easily lead to misunderstandings." Du Fei made indirect remarks, trying to guide them to communicate with him in the correct way.
The old man suddenly stared at Du Fei for a long time, and then said lightly: "Young man! Are you not from our village? I don't think I have seen you before."
"Ah? What!" The two young men beside the old man stood up immediately: "Who are you? Why are you here? Are you a spy of the Shimadzu family?"
"Joke!" Du Fei simply stood up, looked around at everyone and said slowly: "I am the new city lord you are looking for - Du Fei! If you have anything to say, just say it!"
The crowd suddenly became a rowdy
"Hahahahaha——" After a moment of silence, the villagers burst into loud laughter.
"If you are the lord of the city, then I will be the lord of the country!" The young man with a tough face said teasingly.
Du Fei said nothing amidst the laughter. He slowly walked up to the old man in the middle, suddenly pulled out a sword from his waist and inserted it into the square table in front of everyone!
"Wow~~~~~~~That's it!!!" Everyone was stunned again, and a wretched man who was picking his nose also stopped.
The old man looked at Du Fei solemnly, and carefully slowly pulled out the sword that symbolized the power of the city lord. After looking at it carefully, his hand suddenly started to tremble!
The sword in his hand suddenly dropped to the ground!
I saw him hurriedly kowtow to Du Fei: "I'm sorry!! Lord City Lord!! Please forgive the stupid villagers here for their blindness to the mountains!!"
After saying this, he eagerly motioned to the villagers behind him with one hand. The villagers also woke up from their shock and kowtowed to the ground one by one, as if they were pounding garlic.
Those who were watching the excitement on the gun's head disappeared in an instant, and one of them fell off the wall because he was too panicked. He got up and limped out in a hurry.
Many people in the yard were also quietly approaching the gate, waiting for an opportunity to disperse without Du Fei noticing.
Du Fei looked at these honest, treacherous and cunning farmers and was both angry and amused: "Since I came here incognito, of course I am not here to punish you! Why are you running so hard? Who dares to run! I will punish him with double taxes in the coming year!"
It was his last words that had an effect, and those villagers who had already taken one step out took another step back.
Each of them lowered their heads tightly to the ground, not daring to take a breath.
"Hey, you guys are really naughty! You dared to block my city gate on the first day I took office! It really makes me a little annoyed!" Du Fei said loudly, deliberately pretending to be angry.
"Ugh!!! I've told you that this won't work, but you are going to do it now. We are finished, City Lord. You don't remember the villain's fault, please don't kill us." An elderly woman begged while crying.
Du Fei couldn't bear to irritate these poor people anymore, so he sat down on a broken square table in the yard and asked with a helpless expression: "Tell me, why are you looking for me today? I just heard that you intercepted
What’s going on with killing skirmishers?”
"Sir, this is what happened." The old man raised his head slightly, opened his mouth with only a few teeth left, and told the story in detail.
It turned out that the previous lord of the city, Masami Makabe, had promised the Otomo family during their massive invasion a few days ago that as long as farmers in a village could spontaneously kill more than fifty scattered Otomo soldiers, they would be exempted from the war for a year.
tax.
This news made the whole village of Sanxia Village very excited! Because Sanxia Village is a relatively large village with a population of several thousand, and there are nearly 2,000 strong men alone!
More importantly, due to drought, locust plague and intrusion by bandits, the originally prosperous village has become extremely poor. Almost every household in the village has exhausted its food reserves. If they continue to pay taxes, they will probably starve to death.
.
So under the leadership of the village chief (old man) Mafang Chengdao, we monitored the whereabouts of the Otomo army day and night. Once a small Otomo patrol was discovered, they immediately gathered in groups and killed them with dung forks and sickles.
!
They tried their best and risked retaliation from the Otomo army to finally get enough heads. However, at this moment, the lord of the city, Masami Makabe, was recruited by Shimazu Yoshihisa to participate in the battle with the Otomo family.
Died in battle.
Listening to everyone's words, Du Fei thought again of the day when he was surrounded by allied troops~~ He couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed in his heart.
"Oh, so that's it." Du Fei clicked.
The village chief, Ma Fang Chengdao, said with a sad face: "We are just farmers after all! I don't know how much hardship we endured and how many risks we took in order to kill these fifty big friends! One of my sons also died because of this."
A total of more than 20 young men died in the village."
At this point, those whose families had died began to cry.
"We paid for the tax-free promise with more than 20 lives! Of course we can't give up so easily! Those people can't die in vain!"
"The Shimadzu family must keep their word!"
"Please, City Lord, have mercy!!!"
"For the sake of the blood we shed for the Shimazu family, please give us a favor."
"This year's locust plague and bandits have taken away most of our grain reserves! If we continue to pay taxes, we will really not be able to survive!"
The villagers all shouted excitedly, leaving all the fear behind them.
Du Fei was filled with emotion when he saw these simple villagers. To him, the village's tax for a year was really nothing, but to them, it was really a life-saving straw.
"Everyone, listen up!" Du Fei stood up, looked at everyone seriously and said loudly: "I declare! The promise is still valid! You will be exempted from taxes for one year!"
The villagers stood up happily after hearing this!
Village chief Ma Fang Chengdao asked again in a trembling voice: "Are you serious? Can we really not pay taxes?"
"Can the words of this city lord be true? However, in addition to keeping part of the rice you produce for your own consumption, the excess must be sold to me as military rations! Of course, the price is based on the average market price, so don't be cunning!
" Du Fei also had a relaxed smile on his face. He understood that this village was so large that it would be an important source of troops for him, so he agreed to the villagers' request without hesitation.
dividing line
"Where has the Lord of the City gone? Didn't I tell you?" Dongxiang Zhongwei looked around anxiously for Du Fei. He asked all the soldiers but he couldn't answer any questions.
He stood anxiously at the top of the city, looking blankly into the distance: Sir, where have you been?
At this moment, a large group of farmers slowly walked towards the city singing loud river songs. The person being carried on the shoulders of the farmers was none other than the new city lord of Duyujin City——Du Fei!
Seeing this scene, Dong Xiang Shige's face showed a joyful smile: "It seems that I am not with the wrong person!"
The kappa wearing a big bamboo hat on the side also poked its head out. It looked at the singing and dancing people in the city with its bulging eyes, and scratched its head with its huge hands.