The rugged mountain road was not easy to walk on. Everyone was hurrying along in a muffled voice, and the atmosphere was a bit solemn.
In fact, everyone has a problem in their hearts. If we don’t get easy grain, why should we get grain from local tycoons?
Everyone is sitting leisurely inside the fortress, guarding the courtyard with high walls. How can we, the servants, fight?
And even if it were defeated, how many people would die.
So, why go to all this trouble.
Duman was always in the middle, and he felt the atmosphere keenly.
He strode to the head of the team, found Zhang Chong, and whispered:
"Shi Zaizi, have you noticed that everyone is not in a good mood?"
"Of course, no one would be happy to let him chew the bones instead of eating the meat."
Zhang Chong didn't take it seriously. He thought this was not a problem.
Duman saw that Zhang Chong was in a bad mood, so he clicked on Zhang Chong:
"Shi Zaizi, our team is very mixed, and all the old brothers in Da Sang have grown up with you.
To be honest, we are all committed to the law of the country and gathering loyalty, but it is not the time to be satisfied yet?"
Zhang Chong saw that he had completely misunderstood and did not dare to neglect.
He needs to be satisfied now.
No one else, because this gentleman is the only one in this team who has received orthodox Confucian education and has a certain social vision and connections.
So Zhang Chong didn't pretend to be mysterious in front of him.
He said to Duman sincerely:
"People don't think I'm despicable, so they elected me as their leader. Naturally, I want everyone to live a good life.
But you also saw what happened before.
Everyone is as timid as a chicken against the powerful, and as fierce as a tiger against the petty people. If allowed to develop, our team will only become a band of thieves.
Let alone returning to Jinan alive by then, I'm afraid powerful tribes like the Li family will hunt us down wantonly.
Therefore, I want to use this young rich man of the Xue family as a target to help everyone practice their courage and eliminate the thieves in their hearts.
Moreover, it is really impossible to get much food from those mountain shacks.
The little rich man from the Xue family had just scanned it once. Even if some were hidden in those sheds, how much could be hidden.
Therefore, this food can only be obtained from the Xue family.
Finally, Damn, there is one sentence that I have never said indiscriminately.
That is, I want to help poor people like us understand this.
You must have seen our escape along the way. Where in the ravine was there not an abandoned baby gnawed by wild beasts?
Why do we poor people not take care of our children but abandon them to be eaten by wild beasts in the mountains and forests?
In fact, everyone doesn't care about this, because they are used to it, and they are used to how difficult life is for ordinary people.
But Daman, you have read books, and you know that this is not because your parents are cruel, but because of the world.
Thousands of small people in Guizhou devoted their blood to support the Liu family.
Which of his clan, meritorious deeds, relatives, and wealthy family are self-reliant? Aren’t they all extracted from us?
Take this abandoned baby. Wasn't it because of the Liu family's reputation?
We can only get so much millet from digging in the soil, and one person's salary can offset a year's hard work.
It's okay for those of us who are strong, but those young sons and daughters who can't even dig up dirt still have to pay for themselves.
Doesn't this force parents to abandon them?
Even more so now.
In the past, people were still required to pay if they were over seven years old, but now they are so shameless that even if they are one year old, they will be charged.
This is what we saw along the way, why there are abandoned babies in gullies and abandoned children in gullies.
Daman, do you think the Liu family can continue?"
Duman was silent, and then said leisurely:
"Shi Zaizi, do you want to join the Taiping Road?"
Zhang Chong was shocked. He had never told anyone about this matter, and how could Duman guess that Taiping Dao would rebel.
But Zhang Chong still chooses to be honest:
"Well, I also thought about this on the way.
Think about it, if our team keeps wandering around the lakes and seas, we will definitely become bandits in the end.
At that time, let alone realizing my above ideal, it will be difficult to even save one's life.
Therefore, I wanted to follow Big Beard's path and lead the team to join them on the Taiping Road.
You may also have guessed that with the current power of Taiping Road, it will be impossible for them not to rebel in the end.
When the time comes, we will join forces with them to start an uprising and recreate the situation in the late Xin Mang years when people rose up in rebellion. It is still unclear."
Duman hesitated for a moment, then asked Zhang Chong:
"But most of my daily activities in Taipingdao are to fool the common people. Can this kind of thing really be successful?"
Zhang Chong smiled, because he knew Duman would go with him, so he made it clear to Duman more directly:
"Daman, how do you think Confucius compiled the Six Classics back then? When we enter Taiping Dao, it is not Taiping Dao who annotates me, but I annotate Taiping Dao."
Listening to Zhang Chong's heroic words, Du Man smiled.
He didn't know where Zhang Chong got his courage, but he trusted this friend who he had grown up with since childhood.
Moreover, this sincere conversation also made him understand that the person in front of him will be an extraordinary person regardless of success or failure.
Duman patted Zhang Chong and said with a smile:
"Okay, let's go home then? We'll also settle the score with Zhang Tiehu and the others."
"Haha, okay, find Old Man Zhang and eat from Old Man Zhang."
The two laughed and held each other's hands tightly.
"Then how do you plan to attack the Xue family's dock wall? With our current equipment, it is difficult to attack a dock head-on."
Duman asked Zhang Chong a realistic question.
This problem also made Zhang Chong worried, and he had no good solution.
To put it bluntly, he has never fought a battle, let alone captured a dock wall.
Looking at it now, we can only talk about it when we go to the place.
In the final analysis, if you don’t have the strength, you will still have to take risks in the end.
————————————————————
At this time, Li Qian's troops had already arrived at the water village near Jishui.
After counting the seizures of the six canal boats, even a wealthy man like him was shocked at how rich they were.
But he still said to everyone sadly:
"If I lose my dear brother, what's the use of gaining these dead things?"
One sentence made everyone in the Li family present shed tears.
In this way, Li Qian led his team, transported six more carts of baggage, and prepared a month's worth of corn and coarse salt, and then continued toward the east to join Li Dian over there.
Around afternoon, Li Qian met Li Dian's troops who were resting by the forest.
A group of fifty people were drinking water and cooling off in the woods.
Li Dian saw the dust flying in the west from a distance, so he led two horses to meet it.
Li Qian was also surprised as to why the nephew was holding back on patrol. When Li Dian informed him of his discovery, he felt that this was a prudent move.
Li Qian pinched his beard and asked Li Dian:
"So, your judgment is that that group of people are not gangsters at all, but thieves from Luweize, right?"
"My nephew really thinks so, otherwise I wouldn't be able to explain it.
The water bandits raided the place that night. They had come out of nowhere, and now they were heading towards the Reed River again.
Those fellows from Qingzhou don’t know much about geography, so there’s no such thing as a coincidence.”
"So what are you going to do?"
Li Qian wanted to take an exam for this clan nephew.
Li Dian put his hands on his hips, pointed to the east, and said boldly:
"Those water pirates usually camp in water moors. If we don't bring a canoe now, we will definitely not be able to defeat them.
Moreover, these water bandits are originally a scattered group. If we don't annihilate them while they gather in one place, it will be difficult to deal with them in the future.
But now, at the right moment, the rat behind him was scurrying away in a hurry, and the one who stayed in the nest was about to respond.
We can be simple and brave, carry out a night attack with weapons, go under the water stronghold, catch them by surprise, and capture and kill them in the blink of an eye."
Li Dian's suggestion is actually to advance quickly and fight quickly, so as to kill the thieves like them by surprise.
But the danger lies in taking too many risks. After all, if you want a surprise attack, you have to abandon your baggage and travel light.
But if it fails, it will be dangerous to attack the enemy's stronghold.
There is no food and the situation is unstable. If you want to withdraw when the time comes, it depends on whether the water bandits agree or not.
Under normal circumstances, Li Qian didn't need to take risks, just because he was strong and the water pirates were weak.
But Li Qian was thinking about another person, Zhang Chong, the prefect of this county.
This gentleman is from Henan County and is quite capable of winning the hearts of scholars.
Four years ago, when he first took office as the prefect, he met with local wealthy people to build a monument to Emperor Yao.
The stele describes the local customs and features, and records local moral figures. It immediately won the support of wealthy and powerful families.
In addition, Zhang Chong had a teacher-student relationship with Zhang Xun, a scholar from Dingtao in this county.
And Zhang Xun was also in the same party as Cai Yong, a great scholar in China.
They are both township party members and colleagues, and have very close ties in the political arena.
Zhang Xun is from Jiyin Dingtao, and Cai Yong is from Chenliuyu County. They both belong to Yanzhou, and they are not far apart. They have been in contact with each other since they were in their hometowns.
Later, both of them were appointed by Sangong and became Yilang. It can be said that they were close to each other.
Therefore, they did a big thing four years ago and revised the "Six Classics" outside the Imperial College.
They thought that the Six Classics were very old and contained many errors, so they wanted this version to be the original version of the world. They even left it publicly outside the Imperial Academy, allowing everyone to copy and make rubbings.
This behavior greatly offended the Confucian family. If Cai Yong hadn't been the nephew of the Yuan family, he might have lost his official position at that time.
But two years ago, Cai Yong offended someone he shouldn't have offended. He actually sealed the country and criticized the eunuchs and his ministers for their many illegal acts.
But how could such a secret message be concealed from the eunuchs who lived with the country day and night.
When they found out, they immediately framed Cai Yong and his uncle Cai Zhi for slandering Liu He, the then great king.
This is actually a reason.
Because although Liu He had enmity with Cai Yong, he had an even greater enmity with the eunuchs.
At that time, his brother, together with General Dou Wu and Taiwei Chen Fan, wanted to kill Cao Jie and other eunuchs, but failed and were killed by the eunuchs.
How could Liu He, who had the hatred of killing his brother, be the sword in the hands of these eunuchs?
But it was useless. Even if the government and the opposition begged for mercy, Cai Yong confessed himself.
In the end, he was sentenced to death and exiled to Shuofang with his family, and his uncle Cai Zhi died directly.
This was enough at first, but something happened again about the great craftsman Yang Qiu hiring a murderer to kill someone.
Now Liu Gong couldn't clean himself up at all.
It turns out that Yang Qiu is not only a native of Liu Gong, but also a member of his shogunate. He can be said to be one of our own people.
But Li Qian knew that this matter had nothing to do with Liu Gong.
Yang Qiu himself was a cruel official, and he had been convicted several times before for severe torture and indiscriminate killing.
If the country hadn't really seen him as capable and pardoned him several times, he would have been punished long ago.
But he never changed at all. This time because the leader Liu Gong was humiliated, he directly hired an assassin to assassinate Cai Yong.
If the assassin hadn't thought this was unreliable and gave up on his own initiative, Yang Qiu would have died.
But why does Lala Zaza think so much?
The reason is very simple. It turns out that Dahonglu and Liu He were the previous governor of Jiyin County and Li Qian's backer.
He, Li Qian, had been actively moving closer to Liu He before. Therefore, he came up with the idea of getting rid of the Ju Ye Ze water bandits.
But the current governor of Jiyin is Zhang Chong, and his teacher is a close friend of Cai Yong, who is also a mortal enemy of Liu He.
In other words, Zhang Chong had a grudge against Liu He, and the Li family had a relationship with Liu He, so he naturally became a thorn in the side of the prefect Zhang Chong.
Now that he did not inform the county magistrate, the prefect led his troops to cross the county to hunt for the thieves, which was a big taboo.
Because Luweize is near Chengyang County, if you want to suppress the bandits, you will definitely have to cross the county.
If the suppression of bandits is delayed for a long time, Zhang Chong will definitely receive orders, ranging from punishment to imprisonment.
But he was not willing to give up like that. His brother's death could not be in vain.
After thinking about it, I could only use Li Dian's risky plan.