Chapter 129 How could he possibly shoulder such a burden?
Things turned out to be even more disastrous than Huang Wei had anticipated.
When General He led 500 troops to Qianniu Town to "suppress bandits," he was confident in his superior equipment and training and did not take this "rabble" seriously.
But he never expected that Shi Zhu had served Liu Jinzhang for nearly ten years and had learned a lot from him through observation and experience.
So as soon as these soldiers stepped into Qianniu Mountain, they stepped into a trap that Shizhu had already laid.
Huge boulders suddenly rolled down the mountain walls on both sides of the mountain path, blocking the way forward and backward.
Immediately afterwards, arrows rained down from the dense forest, and the unsuspecting soldiers fell to the ground, struck by arrows.
Shi Zhu led the already assembled disaster victims, armed with hoes and sickles, and charged out of the forest. Taking advantage of the terrain and their ruthless determination, they engaged in a fierce battle with the government troops.
Although General He tried his best to command the resistance, he was unfamiliar with the terrain and his troops were in disarray, so he quickly fell into a passive position.
After a fierce battle, more than half of the officers and soldiers were killed or wounded. The remaining soldiers were trapped in the valley by the disaster victims. They were out of food and arrows and did not even have the strength to break out.
Meanwhile, Cui Dalang, in order to vent his anger and claim credit, secretly wrote a letter ordering the Cui family to send a hundred private soldiers to Qianniu Town to "suppress" the enemy.
But Shi Zhu had already led the main force to move away, and the private soldiers didn't even see a trace of the bandits.
In order to report back to Cui Dalang, the ringleader went so far as to arrest more than a dozen innocent refugees who were taking refuge in the mountains and forcibly label them as the "ringleaders of grain robbery".
Even more appalling, instead of handing them over to the authorities for trial, they dug a large pit outside Qianniu Town and buried alive the elderly, weak, women and children who were powerless to even kill a chicken. They even erected a wooden sign that read "Bandit Leader Executed" in an attempt to intimidate the disaster victims.
But they never expected that this act of indiscriminate killing would not only fail to deter people, but would instead completely ignite the pent-up anger of the disaster victims.
"The Cui family is slaughtering innocent people! We must fight them to the death!"
After the news spread, the surrounding refugees gathered and, led by Shi Zhu and his group, formed a force of several thousand people, marching in a mighty force toward the Cui family's old residence in Qinghe County.
Although the Cui family's old mansion had many guards, how could they possibly withstand a frenzied horde of refugees who outnumbered them several times over?
After the gate was smashed open, the refugees rushed into the house, smashed the carved beams and painted rafters, stole the grain from the granary, and slaughtered all the Cui family members they saw, regardless of age.
The once glorious ancestral home of the Cui family was transformed overnight into a bloodbath.
Within just a few days, several prefectures in Hebei Province were plunged into complete chaos.
The city gates of Weizhou were so crowded with refugees that even letters pleading for help could not be sent out.
The people in the city were filled with fear and unease, like birds startled by a bow.
The once arrogant wealthy families have long since lost their former grandeur, closing their vermilion gates and ordering their servants to move their gold, silver, valuables, grain, and cloth to cellars or secluded villas overnight.
Some even disguised themselves as ordinary citizens, attempting to secretly escape the city with their families, hoping to avoid this great chaos.
Ordinary people kept their doors and windows closed, and the streets were deserted, with only a few pedestrians hurrying by. They dared not speak to each other, but saw the same fear in each other's eyes.
General He, who was Weizhou's last hope, was besieged on Qianniu Mountain, and his fate was unknown.
The tragic state of the Cui family's old residence in Qinghe County terrified the powerful clans and gentry throughout Hebei Province.
That century-old mansion is now nothing but ruins, and the corpses of the Cui family members are hung on the gate, despised by people.
When the news reached the various states, the gentry were all in a state of panic, and they all increased the number of guards to protect their homes, but they still could not sleep at night.
They knew that the Cui family's present state might be their own future state.
Hearing that "resistance can bring food," more displaced people joined the uprising, storming wealthy households and seizing grain stores.
The situation is completely out of control...
Looking at the chaos before him, Li Yuanyou's eyes were filled with despair.
He finally realized that someone as incompetent as him was simply incapable of shouldering such a heavy burden.
Nowadays, even a small disaster relief effort can be turned into an unmanageable mess.
Moreover, how could he possibly shoulder the responsibility of the vast empire of the Great Qi?
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