Compared with the music and singing in Jinling City, the Hongshan Lake area two hundred miles away is another completely different scene.

The cold wind blew the banners of the water village by the lake, several guard posts holding weapons, wrapped in animal leather jackets on their bodies, and patrolled high places with torches. The lights in the water village were brightly lit, and temporary houses were piled up in a mess. Groups of water bandits sat next to the fire and ate wine and meat. A few young men in the wooden cage above the water surface were kept pale and dared not say anything. There were wooden stakes inserted on the main road to the water village, with the skins of several officers and soldiers hanging on them, which had been dry for a long time.

The water village was called Hongshan Water Village by local people. It has not just appeared, but has existed for many years. At first, it was a deserted fishing village. Ten years ago, Song Ji Iron Eagle hunting deer, forced countless people with unclean foundations to resist. They fell into robbers and hid in the fishing village. The nature is similar to the broken mountain village that the swordsman Zhang Ding encountered. Dayue is almost everywhere in the gathering places of similar fugitives. In order to avoid the government's investigation, they are mostly not exposed to trouble.

Hongshanshui Village was quite peaceful a few years ago. The village leader Sun Gan himself had outstanding martial arts skills and had some reputations in the world. He gathered a group of bandits. He relied on the natural danger of Hongshan Lake to do some kidnaps and rob the road. He did not tear the tickets if he gave money, but he did not cause panic.

The reason for this evolution into such a large bandit camp where thousands of water bandits gather is quite complicated.

Sixty years ago, after Emperor Xiaozong broke Chang'an, the royal family of Daqi fled to the north of the desert, and Nanyue survived in the mountains and ridges. It was only one step away from pacifying the world, so the great general Xu Lie and Emperor Xiaozong naturally wanted to sweep the eight deserts and six rivers in one go.

But war was too harmful to national strength. After the war in the past ten years, the population had dropped sharply and was deserted. The strong men came to die in war. Many generals and officials had achieved success and fame, and the soldiers were tired of licking blood at the edge of the knife and could not continue to fight.

Seeing this, Emperor Xiaozong had to withdraw his troops and rest. He enfeoffed his six sons to various places to start post-war reconstruction work for the princes. Because the enemy's threat was still there, Xu Lie asked his troops to lead his troops out of Qianyang Pass to recover the Western Regions and to suppress the left wing of the Northern Qi Dynasty.

After the withdrawal of the troops, Emperor Xiaozong was busy restoring people's livelihood to death, and General Xu Lie failed to fulfill his wish to lead the Northern Expedition. Northern Qi took a breath and gained a firm foothold in the desert of the northern desert.

After the late emperor ascended the throne, he was busy rectifying the inside for the rest of his life. He spent two generations of time to restore Dayue to his former prosperous life. By the time he was able to fight the Northern Expedition, Xu Lie had passed away. Dayue occupied the entire Central Plains territory, and the northern desert was a barbarian land. It was meaningless to defeat him. Most of the generals and aristocratic families didn't want to fight, so the late emperor naturally did not provoke the war.

But Dayue and Northern Qi did not cease from beginning to end, and Northern Qi could not stay in the desert of the northern desert forever. Sooner or later, they would march south to take back the things thrown away by their ancestors.

The late emperor only made the crown prince when he died and died because he saw this.

Song Yu and Song Ji were both trained by the late emperor as heirs. Song Ji had both literary and military strategies, but his ambitions were too great. As long as he succeeded to the throne, he would probably drag the whole world into the quagmire of war.

Song Yu is not as good as Song Ji in every aspect, but the doctrine of the mean is also an advantage. As long as Song Yu inherits the throne, he will not take the initiative to take the initiative to launch troops, reduce the vassal states, etc. Being a loyal king is enough to delay the peaceful and prosperous era for another decades.

The former emperor had been guarding the family business for his whole life, and he must have wanted to continue to defend it. However, after two generations of people slept on firewood and tasted gall, the Northern Qi Dynasty was no longer a loser. The Su Wang lineage in the northwest developed into a tumor, and even had the ability to enter Chang'an City for ten days. Song Yu was given the position. If Xu Buling grew up, he would be a hero. If he had developed another generation, Guanzhong Dao might have changed his surname to Xu.

For this reason, the late emperor gave the throne to Song Ji when he was dying. The one who took over Song Ji was a peaceful and prosperous era on the surface, but in fact, it was a volcano that had accumulated decades of pressure and was about to erupt.

After Song Ji took office, he began to try every means to suppress the family of generals that had expanded to a certain extent. Daxing imperial examinations used poor families to reduce the influence of the family, established a huge intelligence network of the Investigation Department to bypass the existing bureaucratic system to understand the news, etc. The purpose was to allow the people under his command to follow the rules when the Northern Qi Dynasty was launched.

However, after the failure of Xu Buling's move to reduce the power of the vassal states, the situation has begun to develop uncontrollable, and the hidden dangers left over from decades do not stop there.

Because the national strength of Northern Qi is rising steadily, Emperor Dayue cannot dismiss the army. Heavy troops are displayed on the long fronts on the north and south sides all year round. The consumption of military pay, war horses, weapons, food, etc. is astronomical, which has led to a lot of heavy taxes on the people. The big heads are concentrated in the world-rich Jiangnan and the Shu country of Tianfu. These two people do not have to accumulate heavy troops without foreign enemies.

Last year, when Shu was in a severe drought, the King of Shu asked the nearby King Su to raise food from Qinzhou instead of transporting it from Guanzhong Road. It was because the Shu area was gone and other places were running at full capacity, so it was difficult to squeeze out oil and water.

This autumn, it rained heavily for more than ten days, and floods were caused by Muzhou and other places in Jiangnan. The people had no harvest and could not pay the annual tax at all.

Faced with the huge hole, King Wu did not even send a letter to Chang'an to request tax exemption, because Song Ji could not agree, and he tried every means to raise money.

When there is a famine, there is no disaster relief and heavy taxes are imposed. The effect can be imagined.

In order to avoid heavy taxes, people who had to escape from their homes and flee to other places, resulting in a large number of refugees. Many of them took risks to burn, kill, and looted, scaring more people to flee everywhere. This is also the source of refugees in Huainan and other places.

Hongshan Shui Village has gradually grown in the past few years, especially this year, the number of people has increased several times. In order to support so many people, kidnapping and looting have become more and more common, causing chaos in the Hongshan Lake area, and no people dared to stay. After the officers and soldiers came to make trouble for a few times, they became what they are now.

———

Under the silver moon, the mountains and fields opposite Hongshan Shui Village.

Zhongli Chuchu, who came from Huainan, stood at a high place and looked at the huge water village in the distance. Her green eyes showed a little embarrassment and said softly:

"It's hard to deal with such a big village."

Zhongli Jiujiu set up a bonfire on the stone, put the newly caught fish on the branches and baked it, and said with a smile:

"This is the matter of the Dayue government, and it has nothing to do with us. What do they do?"

Zhongli Chuchu jumped down from a high place, sat on the ground beside his master, and said softly:

"I have nothing to do, I want to do something good. After doing this, I should be a famous chivalrous woman in the world. She is better than Ning Qingye after all. The master is also famous all over the world. Ning Yuhe is probably embarrassed to be arrogant in front of you."

“…”

I have to say that this reason is very sufficient. Zhongli Jiujiu frowned and thought, then turned his head to look at the water village in the distance:

"Okay, it's just a small water village, just wrap it around me."

Seeing that the master agreed so simply, Zhongli Chuchu was a little hesitant:

"Master, there are probably a thousand bandits who have come to the table. Do you really agree?"

Zhongli Jiujiu showed a bit of arrogance in his eyes and patted his bulging chest:

"You are not at ease to take action by your teacher?"

"Well……"

Zhongli Chuchu was really worried and thought: "Why don't you discuss it anymore? Don't make trouble until the end you get us both in..."

"Don't worry, I have a lot of wisdom and will be able to do my best. Besides, Hongshanshuizhai seems to have some vision and never touch people from those big families. If I really fail, I will say that I am Xu Buling's master, and you are Xu Buling's mistress..."

"ah?!"

Zhongli Chuchu's green eyes showed a little weirdness, and he waved his hand and said, "How can this work..."

"You are not happy? Then you can be Xu Buling's mistress..."

"No, Xu Buling is the prince of Suzhou, and he can't control this place, so it's useless to say it out... And Xu Buling knows it, and he may not necessarily pay attention to us..."

Zhongli Chuchu said here, her face looked a little lonely and she sighed softly.

Zhongli Jiujiu frowned, and after realizing this problem, she was a little dissatisfied:

"I'm so nice to him, and I gave him all the chain dragon Gu. Once I die, I didn't understand the medicine. He should come over..."

"If he really comes over for this, he will probably use his master to detoxify first, so as not to be poisoned in the future and will not be able to find you..."

Facing the toxins of the same Dragon Lock Gu, I became immune after detoxification. This obviously makes some sense.

Zhongli Jiujiu took a little seriousness and thought about it for a while:

"That's right, then do it at all?"

"Master...you can do it, I'll do whatever you want."
Chapter completed!