The soldiers of Longxing Prefecture set out in a grand procession, and a route was drawn up to send the people back to their hometowns. Along the way, bandits who guarded the mountains and robbed people, robbers who blocked the roads and plundered and burned in empty villages were all wiped out.
Those who committed heinous crimes were beheaded; those who had never killed anyone were flogged ten times and sent to do hard labor to repair the city walls; those who had just joined the gang and had not yet had a chance to do anything bad were forced to do half a month of labor.
The bandit stronghold was located on the only route for sending refugees back to their hometowns and for suppressing bandits.
The bandits went crazy upon hearing the news, and several of the more timid ones fled overnight.
More bandits gathered together, grabbed their weapons, and headed to the storeroom, planning one last raid to steal some silver and rice for their travel expenses.
Some of the bolder ones wanted to take the opportunity to visit the bamboo house and rob it of more silver.
But as soon as the warehouse door was smashed open, the bandits saw the bald man waiting inside with a dozen or so trusted men who had sworn to protect him to the death.
The bald man wasn't surprised to see them. He calmly tapped the table and said, "Line up and come one by one to collect your travel expenses and coarse rice."
The group looked at each other, about to knock the bald man unconscious and steal all the food, when the bald man's words froze them in place:
“We can’t defeat you, but holding you off for three to five days shouldn’t be a problem. Tell me, is three to five days enough time for the garrison to break through the mountain stronghold?”
After a moment's hesitation, the bandits decided to line up, collect their silver, and leave as quickly as possible.
The bald man distributed silver and coarse rice, and the accountant was responsible for recording the names of the recipients to prevent anyone from shamelessly claiming the rice twice.
When bald, he paid special attention to who came to collect the items.
Those who usually do a lot of work carry three catties of coarse rice and two taels of silver in their cloth bags;
Those who do less work can get two catties of coarse rice and one tael of silver;
He had never done any work and only wanted to sit around and wait to die; he only had two pounds of brown rice.
The dozen or so elderly people in the village had been privately warned by the bald man not to go out, but to wait quietly at home for him to bring people to take them down the mountain.
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