Ye Zhou accepted the petition and indeed forbade him to take action unless these ten thousand people took the initiative to attack and harm the civilians.
The conscription in Helan City was in full swing. All things are difficult at the beginning. With the initial dozens or hundreds of people, they got new household registration and had stable food supplies. But the days of being hungry and having to steal food every day were no longer pleasant.
Originally, they wanted to survive in troubled times, but now that it is peaceful, who doesn't want to live a good life? After all, becoming a bandit is terrifying, and every day Ye Zhou would lead the 3,000 soldiers to train nearby. When they saw this, the "rebel" people became even more eager to disperse.
Helan Cheng borrowed Tie Ren again and asked Tie Ren to train the new recruits he had recruited.
When Xuanyuan Hao's first batch of 2,000 military uniforms arrived, the newly recruited soldiers put on the uniforms. Those who were originally hesitant for fear of being tricked also believed that it was a real conscription. The more than 10,000 people dispersed even faster, and a long queue formed at the conscription point in Helan City.
When Wang Lingyi heard that Chunliu had returned to the capital and that the young marquis had hidden her on the farm, she remembered that he had said that he would never let Chunliu come back. Even though his words were still ringing in her ears, he had done it behind her back.
Xuan Ling reported, "The people back home in Jinyang, following the young marquis's instructions, have found a good match for Chunliu. The couple's parents were originally village heads in their hometown, free citizens. As they aged, their master awarded them a stipend to support their retirement. The village head and his wife used the money to buy a shop, fifty acres of fertile land, and a nice, large house with their years of savings. They now live a comfortable life."
The son of this family had been learning to be an accountant. After his family had a shop, he took charge of the shop as the manager. He was also good-looking, and because it was the order of the Marquis, he also accepted the marriage with Chunliu.
Unexpectedly, in order to escape the marriage, Chunliu pushed her future father-in-law into the water at the wedding banquet, and then falsely accused the father-in-law of molesting her. After the father-in-law was rescued, he suffered a stroke in anger after hearing her words.
The mother-in-law originally thought that this matter was shameful, but when she saw that her husband used his other hand to write a report to the police for investigation even though he was paralyzed by a stroke and could not speak clearly, she realized that her husband was wronged and reported the case to the police.
Later, the government checked the time and place Chunliu said, and there were witnesses who testified that the eunuch was not there. Chunliu changed his confession twice, and it was verified that he was lying both times.
The official sentenced the couple to a fine of fifty slaps on the face because they had matched their horoscopes and held a wedding banquet but did not have a wedding ceremony or a bridal chamber. The family then called off the engagement.
After being tortured, Chunliu secretly fled back to Kyoto without telling anyone in her hometown of Jinyang. She lied to the young marquis and said that she was beaten by her man's family and that her face was severely scarred.
The young marquis initially took her in, then had someone investigate and learned the whole story. Now I don't know what the young marquis will do with her, as she's still at the manor."
After listening to this, Wang Lingyi pondered for a moment and said, "Let's go to Second Uncle's house and have a seat."
Xuan Mo and Xuan Qing had originally inquired about Chun Liu's background. Chun Liu's original surname was Yu, Yu Chun Liu, and he was not an illegitimate child born to Zhu Zhuangtou and his wife.
Instead, she was adopted by the Ningyuan Marquisate at the age of three as a commoner orphan. Before the age of three, she lived in the home of her second uncle.
This second uncle was the half-brother of the current Ningyuan Marquis, Wang Lingyi. According to Xuan Mo and Xuan Qing's findings, he had been expelled from the family by the old grandfather, the grandfather of the young marquis Jiang Heng, and had been removed from both the family tree and the genealogy, completely severing the father-son relationship.
From then on, my second uncle's family lived separately, and the two families followed the instructions of my grandfather: "Future generations should not have any contact with each other." So there was no contact between them on weekdays.
Wang Lingyi thought to herself: I am not a descendant of the future, but it’s okay to go.
However, the Helan City that was recruiting soldiers had an unexpected surprise. As the conscription progressed, some of the soldiers came with their families.
In the chaos of the past, only the strong survived, and force was respected. Aside from some bachelors without families, many of these more than 10,000 people had families and relatives. They joined the "rebel" camp just to form a team and seize food.
One to three people from a family would go and rob to provide for their family's survival. Although some of the victims were wealthy, these wealthy families and the villages that had united to protect themselves all had their own armed forces, making it difficult to take down these tough enemies, and sometimes even their lives were lost. Therefore, the victims were more likely to be poorer families.
At that time, when life and death were at stake, compassion for others was ultimately no match for the fervent desire to keep one's own family alive. With a guilty conscience, one consoles oneself: the truly good always die first.
But now that they have food, some families can't face the consequences of what they once robbed. Some worry that the women, children, and the elderly left behind after their male family members have gone off to fight will face retaliation. Still others worry about being reported, looked at, and criticized.
So many families chose to follow their fathers, husbands and sons and go to the frontier.
Some chose to stay. When the eight thousand new recruits set out, they were followed by about twenty thousand civilians, pushing carts, driving donkeys, and bringing their families with them.
By the time Prefect Yun Zhao realized this, it was too late. He was so busy every day that he didn't even think about leaving. Only when he realized that about 30,000 people were leaving did he hastily reiterate that there would be no retribution. But most of these people had already sold their houses and land, and disposed of their belongings. How could they not leave?
Prefect Yun Zhao was livid. His jurisdiction encompassed over a hundred counties, each with an average of about ten thousand people. This was like taking away three counties in one go! Three dynasties had fought wars, and his region was remote. After a decade of rest and recuperation, an epidemic wiped out over ten percent of the population, and that meant three more counties had been wiped out.
On the one hand, Helan Cheng wrote a letter asking Shang Huaitang to properly accommodate his people as the 30,000 people were coming; on the other hand, he also found trouble for Shang Huaitang, asking him to transfer doctors, nurses, and veterinarians from his jurisdiction to southern Yunnan.
Tie Ren helped him train the new recruits. He looked at the letter he wrote. The original text was very flowery. Tie Ren could understand it but couldn't repeat it, so this is what he told Ye Zhou.
"Helan Cheng said to Shang Huaitang, 'You want to go back to your own district? I do, too, but His Majesty said that the affairs of southern Yunnan are not yet finished, and I can't go back. If I can't go back, you can't go back either. So quickly, transfer 200 doctors from your district. You have at least 400 or 500 doctors in your district, and I've left more than half for you. The doctors here are almost overwhelmed. Now is a critical period. If we can put the epidemic under control, we'll be done. If we can't, it will flare up again, which will be troublesome. Send over 100 veterinarians as well. The pigs, cattle, sheep, and chickens don't look right, and they may not be able to hold on."
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