Unable to diagnose Yu Zizhen's illness through pulse diagnosis, Doctor Feng did not dare to assert that Yu Zizhen was not sick.
Thinking about the fact that they had been traveling in drought-stricken counties these days, although the team from the Zhenbei Palace was not short of food and water, the environment alone was uncomfortable enough for their young master and a child who had just recovered from an illness, not to mention that they had sped up their journey just to get out of this drought-stricken area as soon as possible.
He pondered for a moment, "Maybe we're tired from traveling these days. Anyway, we've already made it out, so why not stop and rest early tonight?"
Mr. Jiang hesitated for a moment and said, "I'll send someone to find a place to stay."
If Yu Zizhen was not feeling unwell, he would actually like to travel for another day. After all, although their current location is no longer a drought-stricken area, most of the refugees from the drought-stricken areas are stranded in several nearby states and counties.
With more refugees, there are naturally more potential dangers. Mr. Jiang doesn't want to cause any trouble, so he is eager to leave here as soon as possible.
He sighed secretly and ordered the guards to go forward and look for an inn, post station, village or manor that could accommodate so many people.
The guards took the order and left. About half an hour later, they came back with the news they had learned.
According to them, the county town closest to their team is now overcrowded with people, not to mention the inns, even the houses are overcrowded.
The nearest post station to them was already full of officials' relatives.
Given the status and position of the Zhenbei Palace, if Yu Zizhen and his men insisted on moving in, even if those people had complaints in their hearts, they would still have to respectfully make room for them. However, the guards knew that Mr. Jiang would definitely not allow them to bully others by taking advantage of their power.
Taking this into consideration, the guards rode their horses to visit the villages and manors on both sides of the official road.
In order to prevent refugees from stealing or robbing, villages have set up checkpoints at the entrances and exits of the villages. If their convoys want to enter the village, they first have to organize people to fill the traps, which is very inconvenient.
In addition, the accommodation conditions in the village were very poor, so the guards decisively changed their destination to a manor only more than ten miles away from the county town.
They showed their guard badges to the manor owner, who immediately agreed to let them stay at his manor for one night.
The owner of the manor, Meng Tingru, was a country gentleman in his early thirties. Although he only had the title of scholar, his ancestors had been officials of the third rank.
Their family has been operating here for generations, and more than 40% of the surrounding fields belong to them.
Last year, there was a drought in the neighboring prefecture and county, and a large number of refugees could not bear it and fled to other surrounding prefectures and counties.
Kangping County, where Meng Tingru's family had lived for generations, became one of the destinations for refugees because it was adjacent to one of the counties suffering from drought.
Like other gentry in the county, Meng Tingru provided a lot of food relief to the refugees after they arrived.
He was a kind man. He cooked thick porridge with grains that were neither moldy nor mixed with gravel or other things.
After hearing the news, some local people who had no food to eat came to get porridge with the refugees, and Meng Tingru would also have people serve it to them.
He has been doing charity work all year round. In the past, when there was no influx of refugees into the county, he would also distribute porridge for a period of time every winter.
In addition, he, his relatives, and servants were all native locals. The Meng family knew very well who was truly poor in Kangping County and who could make a living and did not need assistance, so there was no need to worry about anyone taking advantage of the situation.
But even such a person who really does good deeds and has great prestige in the local area, his ending is particularly miserable in the original book.
Yu Zizhen pretended to be unwell in order to stay at the Meng family's farm for one night and use the guards and soldiers in their team to change the tragic fate of Meng Tingru's family.
The guard who found a suitable place to stay came riding back to report. Mr. Jiang, who got the news, also sent someone to inform Yu Zizhen. However, he didn't know that Yu Zizhen had actually known in advance that his plan had succeeded through the system, which was his ears.
The large group of people slowly entered the Meng family farm under the respectful welcome of Meng Tingru and his son.
The Meng family's farm covers a large area, but there are not many houses built in each courtyard. Considering the number of people in their team, Meng Tingru's family vacated the front yard, the second courtyard, and the east and west courtyards for them.
In addition, Meng Tingru asked his servants to kill two pigs, two sheep and twenty chickens to entertain them.
According to the menu that Mrs. Meng had urgently set, the cook used all her skills to prepare two tables of the same exquisite dishes, and then stewed large pieces of pork, mutton and chicken for the guards and ordinary soldiers with sauerkraut, radish and dried mushrooms.
Two hours later, the tempting aroma of meat drifted out of the manor, across the fields, and towards the refugees who were sitting or lying down.
In the village, everyone was eating delicious meat and white rice. Because Yu Zizhen was not feeling well, he also got a bowl of chicken soup that had been skimmed of oil and a bowl of soft and easy-to-digest dumpling soup.
Adhering to the principle of not wasting food, Yu Zizhen left two of her favorite dishes, and gave the remaining eight to Yaoguang, Yuheng, Madam Zhang, Master Bai and Mr. Jiang respectively.
Mr. Jiang gained the most. After all, although he was nominally a subordinate of the royal palace, he was actually the controller of this team. He was also the mentor of Yu Zizhen and the other two.
Of the eight dishes that Yu Zizhen distributed, Yaoguang, Yuheng, and Madam Zhang each kept one, Master Bai got two, and Madam Zhang sent the remaining three to Mr. Jiang.
This was not the first time that Yu Zizhen had done this. As usual, Mr. Jiang asked Madam Zhang to convey his gratitude, and then called the captain of the guards to enjoy it with him.
The group of people had a delicious meal, completely unaware that outside the village, eight or nine hundred refugees had lost their minds due to the smell of meat and were cursing Meng Tingru's family.
These refugees have been staying in Kangping County for a long time. They are different from ordinary refugees who only want to have something to eat and want to keep themselves and their families alive.
When ordinary refugees fled famine, they either brought their own food and drink with them, found them on the way, or bought them from others. These people did a lot of bad things on the road of fleeing famine without any moral or legal constraints.
Stealing things and bullying men and women are common, and the worse ones will even kill or eat people.
When everyone finally left the water-scarce counties and arrived in Kangping County, which was not affected by the drought, these refugees still refused to be obedient.
While they continued their previous evil deeds, they also secretly set their sights on the indigenous people of Kangping County.
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