Yang Feng then continued, "I'm so sorry!"
Upon hearing Yang Feng's words, the old man couldn't help but think of his two sons who died in battle a few years ago. Not only did they not receive any compensation, but they didn't even return a single item that the sons had taken with them. Because of the greed of those chieftains and powerful people, his two sons died in vain.
Two streams of tears slid down the old man's cheeks. He shook his head and looked at Yang Feng, "It's not your fault. Blame those greedy fellows!"
In the past few decades, the Han Empire did indeed conscript a large number of Eastern Qiang soldiers to fight alongside them in order to suppress the Western Qiang rebellion, and quite a few of them died in battle.
All the Han Empire had to do was give some rewards to their powerful families. Whether the families of those who died in battle would collapse because of the loss of a strong laborer was never a concern of the Han Empire. Of course, the powerful families of the Eastern Qiang would not be taken care of by the Han Empire either.
At the beginning of this year, on the eve of the decisive battle with the Western Qiang, Duan Jiong ordered that the salaries of the Qiang and Hu servants should no longer be distributed through their powerful patrons, but should be given directly to them in person.
Therefore, after the decisive battle, the surviving Qiang soldiers were able to return to their tribes with a portion of the pay issued by the Han army, which improved the lives of their families.
However, this only fueled the Qiang soldiers' resentment towards their powerful figures, because half of their pay had been taken away by these powerful figures as soon as they received it.
Furthermore, a rumor kept spreading among the Qiang people and soldiers: in the past few years, not only did the Han army fail to pay their wages, but even their battle merits and the compensation for fallen soldiers were all embezzled by those greedy wealthy people.
However, all along, those wealthy people have treated those soldiers and herdsmen as their private property, and those soldiers and herdsmen have thought the same way.
The Qiang chieftains' manipulation of their minds forced them to endure it silently. Thus, even though they harbored resentment, they kept quiet, hoping that their chieftains would take pity on them and grant them a chance to live.
But it was precisely their forbearance that emboldened the greed of those wealthy people.
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