The two followed Gu Tingzhi to the other side, and after walking for more than half an hour, they finally saw the situation in the valley.
The sky brightened and visibility improved. When they saw the valley, Xu Jing and Fu Chaosheng were both stunned.
"My God! So much farmland, and all those houses..."
The valley in front of them was large and deep. From their current location, the view was already quite open, but even upon closer inspection, they still couldn't see the entire valley clearly. There must be more behind the mountains.
Even so, Xu Jing was still frightened by the scene before him.
Because in this deep mountain forest, there are vast fields of farmland in front of you, high and low on the hillsides and along the river, looking very neat and orderly, obviously carefully cultivated by someone.
In addition to farmland, there were also some houses and sheds in some corners, which were probably places for raising livestock. However, they were too far away to see clearly what kind of livestock they were raising.
Xu Jing realized the seriousness of the situation. "This isn't a village at all, nor does it seem like ordinary villagers in the mountains... this..."
“They’re unregistered!” Gu Tingzhi’s dark eyes stared at the direction of the valley, carefully observing the situation inside. “So many farmlands, it’s not easy to manage them all, it requires a lot of people! And judging from the looks of it, this is only a small part of what we’ve seen. There should be at least several hundred more people inside, plus livestock to help them manage. It must be that some people want to make money on the black market, so they developed a piece of land here to produce grain to sell outside. As for those people working, they are mostly trafficked.”
Xu Jing said angrily, "This is insane! The outside world is heavily regulated, and everything is managed by the production brigade. It's true that some people go to the mountains to reclaim wasteland, farm, raise pigs and chickens, but it shouldn't be on this large scale! If this is discovered, they'll be shot."
Gu Tingzhi snorted coldly, "When they have enough money, what wouldn't they dare to do? There are so many enemy agents outside, let alone just secretly farming."
Xu Jing remained silent, because it was the truth.
This era was actually very chaotic. There were many enemy agents hiding in the country, and human traffickers were everywhere. It was a time when people couldn't even get enough to eat, and public security was really bad.
Fu Chaosheng was a man of action, and asked, "Boss, what's up?"
Xu Jing was startled and quickly stopped him, "Old Fu, are you crazy? This is a large-scale operation, there must be many people guarding it. There are only three of us, how are we supposed to do it?"
"Before they discover us, hurry back and report to the higher-ups to send more men."
Gu Tingzhi turned to look at him, a wild smile playing on his lips. "If someone else is transferred here, you won't get much credit."
Xu Jing was dumbfounded!
He was terrified by Gu Tingzhi's madness.
"No...no, boss, don't scare me! There are only three of us!"
He quickly looked at Fu Chaosheng, "Old Fu, say something!"
Fu Chaosheng didn't speak, glanced at him, and then ignored him. Clearly, this warmonger supported going it alone.
Xu Jing was so angry she almost cried.
"What terrible thing happened to me in my past life to have to know lunatics like you!"
Gu Tingzhi chuckled, "Alright, stop joking. There aren't that many people here. It looks big, but it's definitely not the kind that supports thousands of people. Three or four hundred at most. If you were their leader, would you make such a big deal out of losing your head so often?"
"The area of this deep mountain is so vast. Wouldn't it be safer to set up several smaller bases here? The reason it can be so large is probably because the terrain here is good enough."
Xu Jing pursed his lips. "Even if there are hundreds of people, I'm still afraid!"
"Are you stupid!" Gu Tingzhi said angrily. "There are hundreds of people working here, how could there be hundreds of people guarding them? Don't so many people need to eat and drink? If we really had to support so many people here, we don't even know if what they grow would be enough to feed themselves!"
Finally, Gu Tingzhi made the decision, "Since we're already here, let's find out more before making a decision. If there are really only three or four hundred people, then we can manage at most a few dozen. The fewer the number of workers, the fewer people we need to manage. We just need to subdue the guards."
"As for the ordinary people, we can give them a few more bites to eat while they work so they have the strength to work. But at this time of year, there's not much work to do in the fields. At most, we can give them a little food to keep them from starving. These people have neither the ability to attack us nor the ability to help us. If the other side doesn't have many weapons, then it will be even simpler for us."
"Let's go to that hill ahead and see what's going on deep in the valley."
The three of them went to a mountain to the right front, where the view was even clearer, and the entire valley could now be seen in its entirety.
It is indeed a very large farmland, stretching from the inside out, covering more than a thousand acres, and also raising a lot of livestock, so the industry is quite large.
Xu Jing glanced at the land and said, "This land shouldn't require three or four hundred people to cultivate. Even with the orchards, two hundred people would be the maximum."
Working here is probably even harder than working in those illegal kilns; these farmlands don't require that much labor.
Gu Tingzhi nodded. "The situation is relatively optimistic. There shouldn't be more than fifty managers. It's almost dawn, let's hurry in and take a look."
This is when people are sleeping the most soundly, so it will be much easier to get in. The three of them crouched down and carefully approached the valley.
The area is mostly farmland with only a few houses scattered around. Livestock are mainly kept on the hillsides and along the riverbanks.
"Be careful, there might be dogs here."
Gu Ting had been here in his previous life, so he naturally knew the situation here.
He knew there were only three dogs in total: two outside and one inside the cave, which belonged to the boss of the area.
Once they found the dog, they rushed over and snapped its neck.
Although it made some noise, it was almost dawn, and a couple of barks wouldn't cause any major problems. Sure enough, there was no more noise, and the entire valley remained quiet without alerting anyone.
There's a cave there.
Xu Jing looked at the cave entrance and said, "Should we go in? The houses outside don't look good. They're probably not where the management staff live. The main people should be in that cave."
Gu Tingzhi said, "We definitely have to go in, but let's split up and investigate first. There should be criminals in those better houses outside. Let's deal with them first. These people shouldn't have guns."
The two nodded in agreement and then went to attack the few good houses that were available.
Once the outer perimeter was cleared, the three of them headed into the cave together.
Gu Tingzhi took out some sleeping powder and lit it. "Cover your mouth and nose, don't knock yourself out."
Xu Jing was somewhat surprised, "Boss, you even have this?"
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