Chapter 33: I'd rather be a dog of peace than a person in a troubled world
The yellow gelding on the ground was foaming at the mouth, and its four hoofs and legs were rubbing together in a panic as if they were going crazy.
After picking up the iron horse, Peng Chun raised his face before he could stand upright, and his eyes bulged in fear.
Clang clang clang!
The giant man jumped up and rolled the sword three times in his hand.
In the dim morning mist, Peng Chun had beads of sweat oozing out from his forehead. Even though he withstood the giant man's chop, he still fell a step behind. In order to save his strength, he unconsciously knelt down into the soil and looked extremely shocked.
Embarrassed.
He puffed out his face and twirled his tongue, but unfortunately, before the hidden needle under his tongue could come out, a stone arrow penetrated his back shoulder and penetrated three-thirds of his flesh.
The hidden needle that was about to be spit out also quietly fell to the ground.
Xu Mu put away his wooden bow and walked coldly for more than a hundred steps to Peng Chun.
"Brother Mu, he's cheating! I'll chop him up!" Si Hu yelled angrily.
"No rush."
Xu Mu spoke calmly and looked down at Peng Chun.
"Lao Beishan, the two great kings are nothing more than that."
"Don't be so proud!" Peng Chun roared and raised his head, trying to get up. Unexpectedly, Si Hu lifted his leg and stepped on him. His entire waist seemed to be broken, so he had to retract his movements tremblingly.
"Master Xu, you and I are not acquainted without fighting."
"Then what."
"Let me go. I will go back to the mountain and speak kind words for you. From now on, your business will flourish in the Sitong area."
"Without you, I would be even more prosperous." Xu Mu shook his head, feeling it was funny.
He has never liked seeking skin from tigers. Tigers eat people without spitting out their bones.
"You dare to kill me? There are thousands of heroes on my old Beishan Mountain! Kill your village! You are just the owner of a wild village, don't make a mistake!"
Xu Mu was too lazy to talk nonsense and raised his hand to signal. Si Hu slapped Peng Chun so hard that his face hit the dirt and he fainted completely.
In the surrounding scene, except for a dozen or so of the bandits who were dead or injured on the ground, the rest had long since escaped without a trace.
"Chen Sheng, take someone to touch it and pick up all the iron weapons."
Unfortunately, Chen Sheng and his men searched back and forth twice, and except for Peng Chun's iron horse spear, they only found a broken knife tied with a bamboo pole. The others were ordinary wooden weapons.
Even the scraps of silver I touched were not enough to make up one tael.
After sweeping the battlefield, Xu Mu divided up his ranks and only asked Si Hu and two other heroes to follow him into the city to deliver wine. The rest of the men tied up the unconscious Peng Chun and hurried back to Zhuangzi.
"Brother Mu, I discovered something!" Si Hu pulled the reins excitedly and turned around, his face extremely excited.
"What's going on?"
"Brother Mu, you seem to have changed into a different person, and you have become older and more powerful!"
"I was hit on the head that day, so I guess I got better. Si Hu, why don't you let me hit you a few times to make you smarter?"
Si Hu hurriedly shrank his neck, not daring to answer any more words.
The wheels of the carriage rolled very fast, bringing up the soil soaked by the spring rain. Not long after, two carriages carrying hundreds of jars of private wine drove into Wangzhou City.
Just like last time, there were still stickmen watching, running back hastily.
Xu Mu didn't care either. Under the current situation, Ma Guaizi didn't dare to cause too much trouble.
After delivering the private wine and exchanging pleasantries with Zhou Fu, Xu Mucai turned the carriage and drove towards the Yamen.
Fortunately, Tian Song had just finished patrolling the streets and saw Xu Mu arriving. He thought it was another good thing to make money, and he didn't even realize how much faster he was walking.
"Old Beishan, the second king?" Tian Song thought for a while, "You mentioned it like this, and I seem to have remembered it. Is the leader of the ladle called Hong Dong?"
"The leader is Hong Dong, and the second leader is Peng Chun. I heard they are two deserters from the Dingbian camp."
"Master Xu Fang, you can't talk about this. A soldier who doesn't return to camp for a month is dead. The Eighth Battalion of Dingbian has never heard of any deserters."
Xu Mu frowned slightly and didn't understand for a moment.
"Master Xu Fang is also a member of his own family, so I might as well tell you directly." Tian Song lowered his tone, "According to the system of the Ministry of War of the Great War, if a soldier dies in battle, a pension will be paid."
"So, if a deserter is registered as killed in battle, he will receive a pension and send it to the barracks?"
"Of course, the pension will be sent to the Dingbian Camp. After verification by the military staff, the Yi Cheng will give it to the relatives on his behalf."
"As for other things, I'm not sure."
Giving it to relatives? I guess they have already enriched their own pockets.
No wonder two deserters could openly recruit sixty or seventy people and bring trouble to one party. If there was really a pension, the old scholar would not be so poor and have to collect wine dregs to eat.
Xu Mu originally wanted to ask the Yamen, even if he didn't go to the mountains to suppress the bandits, he could still give him a few more registered weapons.
Thinking about it now, it's almost impossible.
Really, you can only rely on yourself for everything.
"Don't ask, you have to solve this matter by yourself." Tian Song sounded a little regretful, fearing that the God of Wealth in front of him would die in confusion.
"In recent days, don't think about moving back to the city. I heard -" Tian Song turned around and looked around several times, "I heard that the Di people in the north are making trouble again, and they are not satisfied with us.
The emperor gave me annual tribute, and I wanted to get more of it, so I started to gather troops."
"Yong Pass is broken." Xu Mu's voice was deep.
Yongguan was broken, and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. Until now, outside the north gate of Wangzhou City, it still looks like a purgatory on earth.
To the south of Yongguan is the hinterland of the Daji plains, with no natural dangers to defend.
"Seven hundred miles and a flat river, if the eight Dingbian camps cannot stop them, the Di people will attack Wangzhou City."
"Buy more pack horses and move the farm to the inner city. The owner of the old horse farm was very smart and moved it long ago."
"Brother Xie Tian, tell me the truth." Xu Mu calmly took a bag of silver from his arms and handed it over.
Tian Song rarely hesitated for a moment, then took the silver bag and hurriedly stuffed it into his arms.
"Hehe, to be honest with Master Xu, when I was an official, I seemed like a good man and didn't want to see the people being bullied. Later, I found that the old officials around me were all thinking of ways to get money."
"Later I also begged for it. I remember the first meeting very clearly. It was an old landowner outside the city. I helped catch a whole family of tenants who were defaulting on their rent, and I got four taels of silver."
"The next day, the tenant's family of five was locked up in the woodshed and beaten to death. I watched from the side, drinking fragrant tea from the landlord."
Tian Song shook his body, as if he was talking about a trivial matter that had nothing to do with it.
"The world is dirty. Dirty water has splashed all over us, and we can't clean it anymore."
Xu Mu stood for a long time.
Before Tian Song left, he handed a small dagger he carried with him into Xu Mu's hand.
"I see that Master Xu doesn't look like a dirty man, so let's go. Remember what I said, buy more pack horses and move to the inner city as soon as possible."
"There are storytellers in the theater who often say some pretentious words... I would rather be a dog in peace than a traveler in troubled times."
At dusk, the sun sets towards the west of the city.
A touch of afterglow bathed the entire ancient Wangzhou in the last sunset.