"We cannot take the main road."
Sun Miao'er looked up and stared at the pitch-black road ahead. "If you keep walking along this main road, you'll reach the Li Family Ancestral Hall, but I guess we'll run into bandits not far from here."
Judging from the current situation, the number of bandits is definitely no less than fifty, because there are quite a few able-bodied men in the village. Small-scale banditry can be handled by the men in the village alone. The fact that they were all kidnapped means that they must have outnumbered the able-bodied men in the village.
"It's getting more and more unsettling outside. I wonder how much longer my Taiping business can last," Ji Changru sighed as he followed behind.
Sun Miao'er smiled, took two small lanterns from a villager's house and carried them in her hand, so that she could see clearly even when walking on a secluded path. "Manager Ji is a smart man. Doesn't he know that it's easier to make money in chaotic times?"
If war were to break out, it would indeed be a good opportunity to profit from the national crisis, but Sun Miao'er asked herself honestly, she couldn't bring herself to do such a thing.
In the end, it is the common people who suffer the most from all the fighting. They have already suffered enough, and Sun Miao'er really can't bear to make any more money off them.
"Shh!"
Sun Miao'er's footsteps suddenly stopped, and she quickly found a tree nearby to squat down. There was light ahead.
"Look, that's the ancestral hall."
Just as she had guessed, Fushui Village had been robbed by bandits. Outside the Li Family Ancestral Hall, people were patrolling back and forth with torches. Because they were too far away, Sun Miao'er couldn't see their faces clearly.
Taking advantage of the two people's inattention, Sun Miao'er quickly ran around to the side under a tree, saying, "Come with me."
Ji Changru never imagined that he, a once arrogant and wealthy merchant, would be secretly hiding in the village with a girl.
But he couldn't let the girl risk her life alone. If she died, he would probably have to ask the King of Hell for the 100,000 taels of silver.
Sun Miao'er led Ji Changru around to the back door, "Sure enough, no one was guarding it."
The back door of the ancestral hall has been abandoned for a long time, and the outside has long been nailed with wooden boards, so few people would think it is a door.
"We have no choice but to find a way in from here."
Sun Miao'er paced back and forth by the back door, kicking the wooden board twice, but it didn't budge. "It's nailed down really tightly!"
Ji Changru, carrying the sword used for exorcising evil spirits, appeared somewhat exhausted. "Shall I give it a try?"
He stepped forward, raised his leg and kicked the door, nearly falling to the ground from the impact.
Sun Miao'er rested her chin on one hand. Although the situation was tense, she couldn't help but laugh when she saw Ji Changru's appearance. "Manager Ji, are you sure you can handle this?"
Ji Changru glared at the wooden door unwillingly, drew his longsword, and said, "Try this!"
"Never mind." Sun Miao'er waved her hand. "If we make too much noise, we might attract the bandits."
Ji Changru simply leaned against the wall and said, "Why don't we wait for the officials to come?"
Sun Miao'er shook her head and said, "No, the villagers are currently in the hands of the bandits, which is equivalent to their hostages. What if they kill them when the authorities arrive?"
"Wait! Someone's there!"
Footsteps came from not far away, and Sun Miao'er quickly hid against the wall.
A figure emerged from around the corner, ran to the tree opposite, and soon the sound of pattering water could be heard.
It turns out he came out to relieve himself.
Sun Miao'er crept closer to the man, and when she was half a foot away from him, she raised her hand and placed the sword against his neck.
"Ah!" The man was so frightened by the gleaming blade that he knelt down on the ground.
Sun Miao'er threatened in a low voice, "Don't make a sound!"
The man looked up, stared intently, and saw that Sun Miao'er met his gaze.
The person on the ground suddenly shouted, "Who are you?"
“Myth Brother?!” Sun Miao’er naturally remembered who he was. He was the one who, that night, conspired with the coachman in the woods outside the city to rob the goods.
Sun Miao'er brought her sword close to his neck. "Didn't I tell you to repent and start anew? Why are you still doing such despicable things?"
Hearing the commotion, Ji Changru followed. Upon seeing the myna bird, he frowned and asked, "Where's the money I gave you two brothers? Have you spent it all?"
Sun Miao'er was shocked and turned to look at Ji Changru, saying, "No, Manager Ji, how do you know each other?"
"It's a long story."
Sun Miao'er: "To make a long story short."
The myna bird said blankly, "That day, Manager Sun tied my brother and me up in the woods. Later, Manager Ji and his group passed by and untied us. They also gave us some silver and told us to be good people from now on."
Sun Miao'er chimed in, "That's right, instead of being a good person, why did you become a bandit?"
Going it alone won't work, so now they've learned to find organizations and partners?
The myna bird, looking utterly miserable, squatted on the ground and said with a mournful face, "Alas, my brother and I are unlucky. That day, we took Manager Ji's money, thinking of finding a place to start a small business, but who knew that we would be robbed by bandits not far from Pingnan City..."
“They saw that my brother and I were young and strong, and they forced us to work with them. If we didn’t agree, they threatened to tie us up and take us to the mountains to be eaten by wolves…”
Sun Miao'er sighed, thinking that all sorts of bad luck had befallen these two brothers. But thankfully, they had their own people with them. "Tell me about what's going on inside."
The myna bird slumped to the ground and sighed. "These bandits came all the way from the west. They looted almost all the villages along the way. The bandit leader is Tu Zhenshan, who is their chief. There is also a second chief who is his strategist, surnamed Shen. Tu Zhenshan has about two or three hundred men under his command."
Two hundred people is not a small number. How many militia does the Pingnan City government have?
"How many people came today?"
The myna bird said, "More than one hundred and fifty people."
Sun Miao'er then asked, "How did these bandits grow so powerful?"
“Some were homeless refugees, and others were villagers from villages they had robbed. Those who voluntarily submitted to them became bandits, while those who were unwilling were burned down by Tu Zhenshan, who ordered his men to destroy their houses and fields to force them to join.”
Sun Miao'er sneered upon hearing this, "Impressive tactics indeed. It seems he's not just a simple brute."
"That's right. His strategist is incredibly resourceful and knows the villages in this area like the back of his hand. He can even draw a map of each village. Tu Zhenshan brought his men here easily and took over the villages with almost no effort."
Goodness, he's a local!
However, this also explains why these villages with able-bodied men had almost no chance to fight back and were easily captured by the bandits. It turns out that Tu Zhenshan had known all of this all along.
“Not only that,” the myna bird added, “the strategist can build good relationships with the villagers in each village, allowing the bandits to infiltrate the villages under a different identity and become inside agents.”
"It's less about bandits breaking in and more about the villagers opening the door and letting them in."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
