Farming to Defy My Fate 52

Chapter 52: Backbone

Zhang Wei, while reporting to Hu Sheng about the army’s arrival at Zhaojia Village, couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief.

Although they had all imagined that the emperor might send an army to encircle and suppress them, they hadn’t expected the army to arrive right after the assassins. Fortunately, they had run fast enough; otherwise, they would have been caught like turtles in a jar.

Upon hearing that an army had arrived at Zhaojia Village, Hu Sheng’s first reaction was to grab Zhao An’s hand.

However, Zhao An did not lose his composure as Hu Sheng had imagined. He just looked back a few times and then said to Hu Sheng, “Let’s hurry back to the stronghold and gather the remaining men. If they have other troops coming to surround the stronghold, we’ll have nowhere to run.”

The most nervous person present was Zhao Wencai, who had just come out with Zhao An. He stomped his feet anxiously, pacing back and forth. “Are we just going to leave the village?”

Although his father was very strict with him, he had always saved a little something good to eat for him since he was a child. There was also his virtuous wife and his son, who was not yet three years old.

Thinking of these, Zhao Wencai’s eyes turned red, and he was on the verge of tears. However, Zhao An gave him no chance to be weak. He said to Zhang Wei, “Take him and go. Let’s speed up.”

Then, Zhao Wencai was roughly thrown over Zhang Wei’s shoulder, like a tattered sack.

Although Zhao An’s physical strength couldn’t compare to Hu Sheng’s, he was not inferior to Zhang Wei and his men. The group of them traveled at their fastest speed and arrived at Daqing Stronghold in less than two ke.

The sentries saw someone approaching from a distance and became nervous. They had just captured a group of people who were trying to sneak into the stronghold from the side of the mountain.

They learned from the captives that the county magistrate planned to join forces with the prefectural garrison to encircle and suppress Daqing Mountain. The reason they hadn’t panicked yet was simply because they hadn’t realized the importance of this matter, thinking it was just a small skirmish by the local county magistrate.

When Ma Chuan heard that Hu Sheng had returned with his men, he quickly ran out to see him and told him that the county magistrate had sent people to poison their wells on the mountain. “Damn dog official! Why are there such people everywhere? We’re doing business properly, not causing trouble, even showing them respect and paying taxes. Yet, for no reason, they want to put us to death.”

Hu Sheng, however, did not get entangled with him over the county magistrate’s petty tricks. He told him the real situation. “The one who wants to annihilate us now is not the county magistrate of Changxi County, but the emperor. We have too many people. Even if we do nothing, we are a threat. Besides…” He glanced at Ma Chuan and still said the unspoken words, “Most of the people are fugitives from the court.”

Of course, he didn’t want to cause any resentment in Ma Chuan’s heart, so he patted his shoulder and said, “Didn’t we already occupy a piece of territory in the Nanyue Kingdom? Now is the time to go there.”

At this moment, Zhao Wencai, who had been put on the ground, interjected at an inopportune time, “What about my parents? Are you just going to leave them?”

Hu Sheng said decisively, “Of course we’ll take care of them. You go with our horse caravan first. I’ll pick a few good men to stay behind and see the situation.”

Zhao An wanted to speak, but was interrupted by Hu Sheng again. “You must also leave. I admit that your strength, speed, and fighting skills are not inferior to most people, but you have no combat experience.”

In fact, he did have combat experience, he was just out of practice. But Zhao An didn’t say it. Besides, his combat experience was against mutated plants and animals. His judgment of people was not as strong, and he was not decisive enough. He couldn’t compare to these elite soldiers who had been trained on the battlefields of the cold weapon era.

So he just took out the revolver from his back and handed it to Hu Sheng. “Take it for self-defense.”

Now, the workshops under their command could use the stir-frying steel method to cast cannons, but precise firearms like the revolver could only be made by hand-forging and grinding the precision parts. So there were only three finished revolvers in total. The other two were in the hands of Li Dake and Hai Bo, who were both people with little combat power, so they needed firearms for self-defense.

Of course, Hu Sheng did not accept it. He said to Zhao An, “You need it more. The journey ahead will definitely not be peaceful. Before you leave the country, you must be prepared to face a large-scale encirclement and suppression at any time. As for us, we’re a small group. We can hide among the crowd and not be discovered.”

Zhao An had nothing to say. He could only put the gun away again and then said to Hu Sheng, “If the government troops push too hard and the villagers of Zhaojia Village can’t survive, you should take them with you.”

Hu Sheng chuckled. “You have a lot of confidence in me.”

It would be fine for him to secretly protect the people of Zhaojia Village with a dozen or so men. But to lead the people of Zhaojia Village to migrate with a dozen or so men was a difficulty of a different magnitude.

But none of them had expected things to develop to such a serious extent.

Even Hu Sheng had made a misjudgment in his prediction this time. They had all thought that the law does not punish the masses, and besides, the villagers of Zhaojia Village had not done anything illegal. Even if it was to exterminate the nine clans, the Liu-surnamed villagers of Zhaojia Village had no relation to Zhao An. Even the few Zhao families were already beyond the fifth degree of kinship and were not within the scope of implication.

Hu Sheng saw Zhao An and his group off, then returned to the mountain forest near Zhaojia Village with Zhang Wei and his dozen or so men, finding a place with a wide view to hide.

As soon as they came down the mountain, they saw that everyone in Zhaojia Village, men, women, old, and young, were all kneeling on the earthen dam of the market at the village entrance. Around them were more than three hundred cavalrymen in full armor.

Don’t look down on the small number of cavalry. As long as there were more than a hundred, they could start a small-scale battle of a thousand people.

In front of the fully armored cavalry, the infantry were no different from wooden stakes standing there to be chopped. So they could basically fight one against ten. What’s more, facing these unarmed villagers, these cavalrymen sat even more relaxed on their horses, not even drawing their sabers.

In addition, there was the new county magistrate of Changxi County, Zhang Hui, surrounded by a group of yamen runners, standing in front of the villagers, holding a prefectural order in his hand, and personally reading, “You rebellious people, gathering to form a band of bandits, forging weapons, and harboring rebels, your crimes are too numerous to list. Today, you are all demoted to official slaves, never to be common people again.”

After Zhang Hui finished reading this order, he smiled at the villagers. “Whoever among you knows how to fire cement, stand up. I can take you to work at the newly built kiln in the county yamen. There, although you will be criminal slaves, I can guarantee that you will have three full meals a day.”

No one among the villagers stood up. Zhang Hui continued, “I didn’t expect you rebellious bandits to have some backbone. Let me make it clear to you again. Besides those who know how to fire cement, who can eat three full meals a day, all other criminal slaves will be taken to the frontier to build city walls. Not to mention how hard it is to build city walls, just the bitter cold of the frontier can freeze people to death in winter. When the Xiongnu from the grassland come to invade, you will be taken to fight. Not to mention that half of the people will die on the way. You’d better make up your minds early whether to live or die.”

Zhang Hui had studied hard since he was a child, just to change his destiny. At that time, he thought that being an official would be very glorious. Now he knew that being an official was even more glorious than he had imagined.

He didn’t actually care what the people of Zhaojia Village chose. He was enjoying the unparalleled pleasure of controlling people’s destiny, controlling life and death.

Finally, the old man kneeling at the very front crawled to his feet and kowtowed. “Your Excellency, this old man is the most learned scholar in the village. I know the entire process of firing cement. I beg Your Excellency to let me stay.”

Most of the people in the village gritted their teeth in hatred when they saw Scholar Zhao betray them like this. Only Liu Huan’s eyes showed a trace of sadness.

He knew that although this Scholar Zhao had a thousand bad habits and ten thousand evil intentions, he was actually a very proud person. He would never beg for mercy like this.

As Liu Huan had thought, when Scholar Zhao was allowed to stand up by Zhang Hui, he suddenly drew a pair of scissors from his sleeve and stabbed fiercely at Zhang Hui’s stomach.

His stab was accurate and ruthless. The surrounding yamen runners didn’t react at all. But the cavalry commander standing behind Zhang Hui on horseback quickly swung the long saber in his hand. Scholar Zhao had tried his best to dodge, but his shoulder was still cut. He smiled. “My scissors were soaked in feces and urine. Surnamed Zhang, you just wait to die a slow and painful death with a rotten stomach.”

The cavalry commander saw that Scholar Zhao could still speak and was about to turn back to cut his head. At this time, a woman who had been kneeling at the very edge also suddenly attacked the cavalryman on his horse.

The weapon in her hand was a ridiculously sharpened chopstick, and her target was not the cavalryman, but his mount. One chopstick pierced the artery of the horse’s neck. Blood gushed out, drenching Liu Hu’s wife in an instant.

She was the wife of the hunter who had once hunted a tiger with her father. Later, she had become the cafeteria supervisor under Zhao An. Although she had never killed a person in her life, she had killed countless animals and could see where an animal’s blood vessels were at a glance. She had actually managed to kill a precious warhorse in an instant. The commander’s attention was also drawn to the commotion on her side, and for a moment, he didn’t even pay attention to the fallen Scholar Zhao.

It was only at this time that Zhao An and Zhang Wei and his men appeared in the open space next to the market. He drew his bow and fired an arrow, which pierced the commander’s chest armor. However, the commander just lightly pulled out the arrowhead, which was stained with a little bit of flesh and blood, and then ordered the cavalrymen who had originally wanted to cut down the villagers, “Charge with me!”

These cavalrymen were also well-trained. Everyone immediately gave up their original targets and followed the commander’s steps, charging towards Hu Sheng and his dozen or so men.

When the cavalrymen were only ten zhang away from Hu Sheng and his men, each of them took out a small bamboo tube with a small iron head, pulled the fuse, and threw the bamboo tube into the cavalry group.

That’s right, this thing was a simple version of a hand grenade. Even if a complex revolver couldn’t be mass-produced, a thing like a hand grenade was not too convenient to produce.

After more than a dozen explosions, the originally neat charging cavalry team began to riot. The horses in the middle ran amok, and soon someone was knocked to the ground and trampled into a bloody mess. At this time, their full body heavy armor could no longer protect them and had become a burden preventing them from escaping.