Since all these young and strong men and women are leaving, only the elderly, weak, women and disabled are left in the village.
Lin Yan originally intended to arrange for some people to protect them in the village, but a letter brought back by Hai Dongqing made her give up on that idea.
She could only suggest that the whole village go together, but the elderly in the village were unwilling to leave their homes. Helpless, she could only go to the ancestral hall to find the clan chief.
After hearing her request, the clan chief sighed softly:
“Yan’er, you can go in peace. As the clan chief of this village, I must lead the villagers to guard our ancestral graves. Besides, the capital is so far away, and the journey is too long. The elderly in the village can’t bear it.”
Seeing that the clan chief remained unmoved, Lin Yan had no choice but to hand him the letter.
"Chieftain, why don't you take a look at this letter? It was sent by someone I arranged in the Northern Rong."
As the clan chief of a village, he was naturally literate. After reading the contents of the letter, the clan chief was both angry and afraid, and his hand holding the letter began to tremble involuntarily.
"These shameless barbarians! Don't worry, Yan girl, I will persuade the whole village to leave together. The most important thing is that people live."
With the clan chief's persuasion and the villagers' fear of the barbarians' ferocity, they began packing their things to leave the village.
Not only that, the clan chief also had his eye on other villages, so he sent people to notify several nearby villages.
Fortunately, conditions in Xiaolin Village have improved considerably in the past six months. There are quite a few oxcarts and donkey carts, so it's not too much trouble for the elderly and children to come along.
With Prince Su's troops leading the charge, Lin Yan faced much less resistance.
Furthermore, with their silver and surplus grain, what was clearly a large rebellious force was transformed into a sightseeing trip.
Although Lin Yan's main goal was to overthrow the imperial court, she could not bear to see the people embroiled in war.
Upon arriving at a new location, she would take out the imperial seal and declare that she would not harm those who surrendered. Gradually, more and more supporters joined their ranks.
Upon arriving in each city, the local officials, having heard of her achievements, dared not resist any longer and opened the city gates to welcome her.
And just like that, Lin Yan easily became the leader of the rebel army.
At this moment, the army of Prince Su, a hundred kilometers away, encountered an unprecedented problem.
Unlike Xiao Yu, Xiao Jue, despite his rebellion, still cared for the people. He always remembered his identity and never forgot the support they had provided for him over the past twenty years.
Therefore, when the Northern Rong took advantage of the internal turmoil of Daqi and led an army of 100,000 to approach the capital, Xiao Jue didn't even care about rebelling. Instead, he held the last city gate before the capital and confronted the Northern Rong army head-on.
Unfortunately, he only had a force of over 30,000 men, which was extremely difficult to deal with when facing the elite 100,000-strong army of the Northern Rong.
It just so happens that at this critical juncture, when one is in danger of losing the other, the other will be in danger of losing everything.
Having just ascended the throne, Xiao Yu, instead of thinking about fighting the enemy together, only thought about protecting his own throne. At this critical moment, he even sent someone to assassinate Xiao Jue.
Upon learning of Xiao Jue's predicament, Lin Yan led her men to lend him a helping hand.
During this period, Lin Yan was followed not only by farmers, but also by some soldiers whose pay had been withheld, bringing the total number of followers to more than 100,000.
The daily cost of food alone for more than 100,000 people is quite high.
Whenever she conquered a new place, Lin Yan's first stop was the local brothel.
In front of everyone in the brothel, he burned all the prostitutes' contracts of indenture and extorted money from the madam and the patrons.
Some were distributed to the poor women, while the rest were kept as military pay for the rebels.
Many of the rescued women were homeless, so Lin Yan let them join the main group and work alongside the women to do laundry and cook for everyone.
He who eats another's food is bound to do his bidding.
Since the main force's daily expenses were covered by the prostitutes' hard-earned money, even if they felt disgusted by these women, they dared not show it.
So everyone got along fairly well.
The strong women, like the men, would train daily under the guidance of Xie Jiajun, while the weaker women would do things like washing clothes, cooking, and taking care of the children.
With such a division of labor and cooperation, the more than 100,000 people did not become chaotic.
A few kilometers from their destination, Lin Yan ordered the main force to regroup there.
After nightfall, she and Xie Muqing discussed their plan, and the two of them each led 10,000 men to raid the Northern Rong camp.
While the Northern Rong people were fast asleep, they suddenly smelled something burning and had no choice but to get up haphazardly to fight back.
Faced with this unexpected turn of events, the soldiers of Prince Su who were on night watch on the city wall all stared wide-eyed, wondering what had happened.
One of the soldiers had excellent eyesight. After carefully examining the words on the flag in the distance, he excitedly shouted to the person next to him:
"Look! Isn't that the word 'thank you' on the flag?!"
The other soldiers also saw the flag and shouted excitedly:
"It's the Xie family army!! Quickly inform the Prince, the Xie family army has come to rescue us!!"
These past few days, Xiao Jue hadn't had a good night's sleep at all. When the soldiers came to tell him about it, he jumped up after lying down for only fifteen minutes and loudly questioned them:
"What did you say? The Xie family army has arrived?!"
"Your Highness, I saw it clearly, it was Xie's army!"
The soldier who came to report was also still in shock, after all, the Xie family army had not appeared since General Xie passed away.
Now that they have descended like heavenly soldiers, how could he not be excited?
Xiao Jue hurriedly tidied his clothes, while giving instructions to the soldiers:
"Quickly prepare yourselves and follow me down the city gates to meet the enemy!"
Even though Xie's army had not been on the battlefield for a long time, tonight's fighting had awakened the muscle memory in their bodies.
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