Cao Sen achieved his goal of 100,000 silver dollars, but unfortunately, 80% of it will have to be handed over to his family.

Moreover, he failed to achieve his goal of becoming a prefect, which was his lifelong regret.

He has taken Prefect Wu Aimin as his role model, and his usual conduct is comparable to Wu Aimin's.

This time, Wu Aimin ordered each county to send 3,000 men to attack Yuzhang Prefecture.

Cao Sen had his own agenda. If he gave the people to Wu Aimin, he wouldn't have many soldiers left. How could he get these soldiers to rob civilians for him, and how could he get them to intimidate the civilians?

Originally, only 40% of the villagers had fled, and most of them were the elderly, children, sick, or disabled. Recently, some more people have gone to Bian'ai County. There are no sheep left in the pen, so how are they supposed to slaughter them?

He had an even more unscrupulous advisor who came up with a terrible idea: to recruit a large number of refugees, like in Bian'ai County, and select the strong and able-bodied among them to send to the prefectural city.

The slogan they used was that when the refugees arrived, they would be given houses, land, and resettlement fees.

The initial migrants did indeed receive this treatment, and as word spread, many more migrants arrived.

Cao Sen sent local soldiers to guard the refugees, selected the strong and able-bodied among them, mixed them with children from local families, and added some local soldiers, and sent them to the prefectural city.

These strong and able-bodied refugees were warned that if they disobeyed, their families would be in danger; if they obeyed, the county would take care of their families.

Only then did the refugees realize they had been deceived, but it was too late.

My family members have already been dispersed and looked after; if I don't go, the lives of my entire family will be in danger.

But after the able-bodied men left, the families of these refugees were not properly resettled and were left in impoverished villages to be exploited by him.

He also issued an order that anyone who escaped from Linchuan County would be executed upon capture.

Neighbors act as each other's guardians. If someone runs away and the neighbors don't report it, they will all be punished once the incident is discovered.

This caused widespread public resentment, and various forms of resistance occurred frequently.

Shenxi originally planned to delay for a few more days until the troops of Jianming Prefecture and Yuzhang Prefecture officially started fighting and it became a life-or-death struggle, before gradually taking over Jianming Prefecture.

But given the current situation, Chenxi has changed his strategy.

Taking over Jianming Prefecture is not something that can be done overnight. Since there are neighboring counties that are envious of her, we should eliminate them first.

If you're always on the defensive, there will always be areas you can't defend against.

After Chenxi had Zheng Hongfang settle the robbed civilians, he took his guards and rode to four villages. These horses were originally obtained from the bandits and were intended to be selected for the cavalry.

Because Yunnan Ze's two hundred cavalrymen, and Yunnan Ze said that another one hundred horses were about to arrive, Shenxi left these horses for the guard team to use.

Otherwise, the guards wouldn't even have a single horse, making everything inconvenient.

Even so, not everyone has it; some can only follow on foot.

Of the two hundred soldiers selected by Zheng Hongfang, only ten had horses, and these ten men gave their horses to the guards.

These two hundred soldiers could only reach the four villages on foot.

The four villages in Taoyuan Township that were plundered were not adjacent to each other; the furthest one was twenty or thirty miles apart.

Fortunately, Taoyuan Township and Liqiao Town are not far apart, they are adjacent towns.

When they arrived at the nearest village, Liu Village, the entire village was completely silent and pitch black. The wind carried a strong smell of blood.

Chenxi sensed something was wrong.

Zheng Ankang took the lead, carrying a torch as he entered the village.

They had seen dead people and murderers, and most of the guards who followed Chenxi had also killed people, but such a horrific scene was rare.

Every house I entered was filled with corpses lying in various positions.

Blood stained the entire village.

Shenxi took a deep breath, unfazed by the strong stench of blood, and asked in a low voice, "Why is there no guard in the village?"

The purpose of establishing a militia system in the villages of Shenxi was to ensure that each village had a certain level of military preparedness and defense capabilities.

Looking at it now, where is that capability? And where are the able-bodied men in the village?

It's clear that very few of the dead were young or middle-aged.

Shenxi remembers that the documents contain records of Taoyuan Township, and that each village has a reasonable arrangement for young and middle-aged people.

Taoyuan Township comprises fifteen villages, and the militia is organized into groups of five villages, training together.

Shenxi remembers that this village was called Shanbei Village because it was closest to the mountain and had the most peach trees, most of which were wild.

When someone introduced it to me, they said that in good years, the hillside was covered with peach blossoms, which was very beautiful.

The peaches are few in number, small, and quite fuzzy, but they taste very good and are often a snack for both adults and children.

Upon hearing this, Chenxi realized that it was a wild peach. Wild peaches that had not been grafted or carefully tended did not have a large yield and were very small in size.

After arriving in this era, all the fruit that Shenxi ate was brought back by Zang Huatian, but there were no peaches.

Chenxi had been craving it for days.

I heard that Shanbei Village in Taoyuan County has the most peach trees. I recalled a lot of information about peach grafting and cultivation in the new century and handed it over to the Ministry of Agriculture. At that time, it wasn't Bai Qiao who was in charge, but it was already taking shape.

She asked the Ministry of Agriculture to refine these details, and to find people to divide the peach trees into rows, prune them, and graft them, hoping to eat big, sweet peaches next year.

After all, such a large area of ​​peach trees, if managed properly, could improve the lives of the local people.

Now, before many peach trees have even been cleared away, almost all the people in Shanbei Village have died.

There were no survivors in any of the households.

Some resisted, but ultimately they were unable to withstand the nighttime attack and the lack of able-bodied men.

Upon closer inspection, Chenxi realized that not only were there no young men, but also no young women, and even very few people under the age of fifty.

They were all elderly people and children.

That's not right!

Even if it's for training the militia, like nighttime training sessions, there shouldn't be so many people training together!

Although the entire population is mobilized for military service, ordinary citizens who are not militia members do not participate in nighttime training.

Ordinary people only participate in daily training after finishing their work each day.

There is a one-hour daily training session every evening, which everyone must participate in.

How could this village be like this?

It's impossible for everyone to train at night, and it's also possible that bandits could abduct anyone under fifty without leaving a trace.

Shen Xi's face was extremely pale; another problem had arisen.

Upon seeing Shen Xi's expression, Zheng Ankang knew that his superior was angry.

Having only taken over Bian'ai County for a little over two months, it's inevitable that various situations will arise, and so many displaced people have joined the effort.

There is no productivity without people, but when there are many people, all sorts of problems will arise. Even if we take precautions in advance and enact laws long ago, there will still be many things waiting to be solved.

Zheng Ankang ordered one of his men, "Take a few men and go scout."

"yes."

A strong, muscular man led a few others quickly out of the village to investigate.