Chapter 467: Substituting
Tuoba Jin led the Xianbei army to the scene and tried their best to put out the fire. There was a small river next to the fire, but they had no containers. In the end, they tried every possible way and could only rescue the food closest to them, which totaled about 10,000 to 20,000 kilograms, but most of the food turned to ashes.
Thinking of the vast expanse of food that had been burned, Tuoba Jin could not help but beat his chest and stamp his feet, "One step too late, just one step too late!"
He Ximing seemed to be thinking, "Second Prince, is this fire burning too fast?"
Tuoba Jin: "Is that so? But it's autumn, the weather is dry, and this grain is tax grain, so it's usually dried out. It caught fire all of a sudden, isn't it? And they used a pale yellow stuff, which seems to be quite combustible?"
He Ximing said nothing. He rummaged through the ashes, only finding some unburned grain. Was he overthinking it?
How could Tuoba Jin and others have imagined that most of this batch of grain had been stolen and replaced?
They didn't suspect anything about this at all. After all, who would dare to falsify the grain and grass handed over to the court?
"The Dali people are so hateful!" Tuoba Jin gritted his teeth.
They often fought against the Dali people, and it was very difficult to intercept their food supplies. If they found that their food supplies were being robbed, they would rather destroy them than give them to the enemy.
Thinking of this, Tuoba Jin suddenly became murderous and wanted to slaughter all the Dali people here!
…
After running for half an hour, Lu Dayou controlled the grain cart with one hand and tore off the black mask covering his face, "I'm suffocating!"
Others also took off their masks and breathed deeply.
Doing such high-intensity exercise while wrapping your face with a layer of cloth is really killing me.
"careful!"
The grain cart pushed by Zhu Peng almost overturned due to balance problems. Qin Sheng beside him quickly caught it, while his own grain cart was tightly controlled by him.
Whoosh—whoosh—
Zhu Peng gasped for breath, "Thank you, Sixth Master."
"Zhu Peng, you don't have enough physical strength." Chen Jinlong said. Although the others were also panting, they were not like him, panting like an old cow.
"Yeah, you're the boss, don't you feel guilty?"
Zhu Peng rolled his eyes inwardly. Who could be like them? Pushing a cart full of grain, they could run through the forest like it was flat ground, as nimble as monkeys. And how long had they been running? Half an hour, right? How did these people do it?
"How can I compare to you brothers?"
"That's right." Lu Dayou and others nodded without any modesty.
Zhu Peng choked.
No one else thought Lu Dayou was wrong. After more than a year of training, they were first-rate in terms of running.
In non-plain areas, the Xianbei cavalry could do nothing to them.
Then, former village chiefs such as Chen Jinlong took turns to preach to him.
"Honestly, Zhu Peng, you really need to practice harder."
"Exactly. When I first met you, you had gained weight. You must have become less active since moving to Youbeiping County."
"If you don't practice anymore, how can you be worthy of your title as the leader of the Wohu Village? Do you know that with your current strength, if the bandits in Pingzhou were ranked, you would be ranked outside the top two or three hundred?"
Zhu Peng: ...Is he that bad?
"Master Chen, with my thirty years of experience in butchering pigs, this kid is not convinced."
Chen Jinlong and the others didn't boast, but each gave Zhu Peng a meaningful look. This time, Master Qin Liu had said he'd only bring 300 men. With so few opportunities for exercise, everyone wanted to go out, so in the end, everyone had to rely on their own abilities. Each of these 300 men was as skilled as Zhu Peng.
Zhu Peng covered his face. He had been trying to endure it but finally couldn't help it. "My brothers are really awesome. You are robbing your own people. You are really good at it." Zhu Peng just met them and realized that the target of their robbery was actually the team transporting tax grain in Pingzhou.
"What do you know? This grain is handed over as tax to the imperial envoy sent by the court, and it no longer belongs to the grain of Pingzhou." So they can rob.
"Then you are so bold that you even dare to rob the imperial court of its taxes and grain."
"What else? The crops we worked so hard to grow will just be given away to the Xianbei army? And have you forgotten, kid, that we are using the name of Weihuzhai?" Chen Jinlong touched his head.
Zhu Peng: ...He used to be glad that they were just borrowing someone else's name, not someone else's name. Now, what's the difference?
Qin Sheng found a place with a wide view and announced that they would rest on the spot!
Chen Jinlong took one last look and said, "What a pity those bastards didn't catch up."
"Don't worry, we will deal with them sooner or later! It's just a warm-up now, right, Sixth Master?" Lu Dayou asked with a smile.
Thinking of the massacre in Songzhou, Qin Sheng's face turned cold. "Now that we're done here, we should go close the net in the other place!"
"Sixth Master, the food we robbed is probably over 10,000 kilograms, right?" Zhu Dazhuang approached Qin Sheng and asked.
Each grain cart carried about 300 to 400 kilograms of grain. They dispatched 300 people, each of whom seized a grain cart.
Qin Sheng: "Yes."
Zhu Dazhuang, Chen Jinlong and others were all delighted when they heard this.
Zhu Peng didn't understand. They only managed to snatch over 10,000 kilograms of grain. What was there to be happy about? Such a large amount of grain had all gone to the Xianbei army. Although the grain had been set on fire, with so many people in the Xianbei army, they should have been able to save most of it.
"Xiao Zhu, you're overthinking it. The food will definitely be burned to ashes. They won't be able to save it."
Zhu Peng: ...
Thinking of all the food being burned, even as a bandit, he felt heartbroken. If he had been given this food, he could have immediately taken over several more strongholds!
"Xiao Zhu, I didn't expect that despite your small stature, you have such great ambitions."
Zhu Peng: Haha.
Chen Jinlong: "After all this, we are now in the same boat. Let me tell you, of all that food, only the outermost circle is real."
Upon hearing this, Zhu Peng was dumbfounded.
"It's a loss, still a loss." Zhu Dazhuang muttered after calculating the bill.
Qin Sheng nodded inwardly when he heard this. This batch of tax grain contained nearly 100,000 jin of real grain on the periphery alone.
He felt that too much real grain was mixed in, but his wife said that you can't catch a wolf without sacrificing your child.
After a long time, Zhu Peng reacted, "To say that you are extremely bold is an understatement. Aren't you afraid of being discovered by the imperial envoy?" Tax grain, the tax grain paid to the court, you dare to forge it.
Qin Sheng's eyes darkened.
"You are so naive. What do you think we are doing here?"
The two imperial envoys had only two endings: if they found no abnormalities in the tax grain, they would live; if they did, they would die. The reasons were all clear: either they would die at the hands of the Xianbei or at the hands of the bandits.
In summary, the stupid ones stay and the smart ones go away.
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