Chapter 310 Ambush
The group has now left the capital city area, and the distance between the post stations will be slightly greater from now on.
The next post station is fifty li away.
If we want to arrive at the post station at the same time as yesterday, we must speed up.
However, the carriage did not increase its speed; in fact, it seemed to slow down.
As soon as the action plan was released, the advance team went to set up the site.
About 70% of the students will come to observe this live teaching class. They are not afraid of encountering bandits, but are instead filled with excitement of watching a show.
The academy was their greatest protection. Many of them felt more at ease at the academy than at home, and the academy gave them a strong sense of security.
The remaining 30% of students either couldn't bear to see blood, or were accompanied by elders from their families, making them more reserved.
Seventy percent of the students, plus two of their best bodyguards, make up more than two hundred people. In addition, there are three hundred guards and fifty imperial guards lying in ambush in front of the stage.
In addition, there are guards and imperial guards who will fight the bandits later; this is definitely going to be a big show.
According to Lan Su's investigation, the entire Yujiapu area has no more than three or four hundred people, including the elderly, women, and children, and less than a hundred able-bodied men, even if all of them were mobilized.
They calculated that the three of them could roughly share the credit for one bandit, but they didn't know if their superiors would recognize it.
The Imperial Guards actually wanted to claim all the credit, but Lord Yuan wanted everything to be foolproof and not to disturb any of the students in the academy. So the Imperial Guards had no choice but to put aside their own ambitions and cooperate with the guards from various prefectures.
Yu Zhaoyuan, the bandit leader of Yujiapu, was the same man who had previously stormed the official road.
He and his brothers were originally bandits, but after arriving in Yujiapu, they actually settled down there, got married, and had children.
Yujiapu Village has no flat land, and even the government is embarrassed to come here to collect taxes. Over time, this place seems to have been forgotten.
That year, a heavy snowfall froze and starved dozens of people to death. Yu Zhaoyuan had no choice but to lead his brothers back to their old ways. At the same time, the elderly in the village also started doing their old jobs in order to make a living.
The Yu family was originally a group of criminals who had been exiled during the previous dynasty. Not long after they were exiled, the capital suddenly turned upside down, even the emperor was changed, and the officials were completely reshuffled.
They did not receive news of a general amnesty. The officials who escorted them feared that by the time they returned to the capital, they would have nowhere to stand, so they abandoned them near Yujiapu and went back to the capital.
Some of the criminals in this group were clever, and they openly stated that they would settle down here.
Even if officials came again later, they stayed where they were and did not run away, so no additional crimes could be added to their list.
To everyone's surprise, no officials came to investigate the matter again. These people went into hiding in the village. Those who were exiled had been dead for a hundred years, but the methods of using sleeping potions, the eight tricks of kidnapping, and the techniques of swindlers passed down by those criminals had not been lost.
However, each generation is worse than the last, and it seems that they can't even afford to eat.
Yu Zhaoyuan and his companions once again led them down the old path of their ancestors.
Over the years, they have committed numerous swindles and frauds. Because they never commit crimes in the vicinity, even if they do, no one would suspect that the elderly, weak, women, and children of the village rely on this for a living.
Yu Zhaoyuan had his eye on the study tour group yesterday. They planned to pull off a big heist and then take the whole village to Jiangnan.
He heard in the capital that the Jiangnan region was prosperous, and that rice could be harvested three times a year. He thought that once they arrived in Jiangnan, they could acquire fertile land, cultivate the land properly, and no longer have to do these things.
Yu Zhaoyuan noticed that the carriages were full of women, dressed in very elegant attire.
He deduced that it must have been a large family relocating to warrant such a large-scale event.
Although the team was large, they were all ready.
There is a narrow section of the official road ahead. If we set up obstacles there, we can break through them one by one.
The roadside is lined with trees, making it a good place for an ambush.
Lan Su used a trick to slow down the bandits along the way.
Here, on both sides of the road, hidden by trees, simple "viewing platforms" have been set up, and the students who came to learn this lesson have found their places and hidden themselves.
We're just waiting for the curtain to rise and the bandits to make their appearance.
"Brother, did this horse eat something wrong today? It pulled eight times on the way back. If it still can't carry the gold when we go back, we'll have to carry it ourselves."
"As long as it's gold, how much can't you carry?" Yu Zhaoyuan glanced at the silly boy next to him, feeling puzzled as well.
They only had a few horses in their village, and for some reason, they started having diarrhea as soon as they set off, and their legs were about to give way.
But what if someone takes the horse away if we abandon it halfway through the journey?
They could only lead the horses and follow along.
Today, all the able-bodied men in the village came along. Yu Zhaoyuan originally wanted to ride a horse and show off his prowess, but as soon as he got on the horse, it stumbled and he fell off, almost landing face-first in the mud.
“Brother Yu, let alone gold, even if it’s silver, we can carry as much as we can! If we find a mountain of silver, we can carry it back to the village!” The young man on the other side was very excited, as it was his first time working outside.
They all knew this was a big deal, and the women passing through were all from wealthy families.
A wealthy family means they have money; a woman means the people in this group are all weaklings.
Apart from Yu Zhaoyuan and a few others who were carrying knives, the bandits were carrying shovels, hoes, kitchen knives, and quite a few even had sticks.
The imperial guards and protectors lying in ambush nearby were utterly bewildered upon seeing this motley crew of bandits:
Is this a bandit's highway robbery, or is the Beggars' Sect preparing for a major meeting?
If it weren't for the tree trunk blocking the road, they would have really thought they were just a group of idlers returning from the market.
"Brother, we're too early. The convoy hasn't arrived yet."
The surroundings were so quiet that not even a bird could be heard chirping. Yu Zhaoyuan's eyelids kept twitching, and he had a feeling that something was about to happen.
The horse was having diarrhea and was unusually quiet, which was not a good sign. Yu Zhaoyuan was wondering whether to turn back when he heard the rumbling of a carriage not far away. He wasn't the only one who heard the sound.
"Big brother, you're here!" The people around were all very surprised and delighted.
It's too late to set up an ambush now. We can only hide behind the tree trunks blocking the road, hoping that the passing carriages won't see us and turn around.
Yu Zhaoyuan also made up his mind:
Now that they're here, we can't let them get away so easily!
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