In the afternoon, when the sun was not so poisonous, they went on the road again, heading towards Wuling Mountain.

Originally, they thought that before going to Wuling Mountain, if they could find a slightly larger county town, just like Jiayin suggested, they would buy some local specialties and ask Qingzhu to send them back to Fangjiacun together with letters from home.

Of course, they also asked Qingzhu to help bring some of the specialties they bought on the road, even if they were New Year's goods purchased in advance.

Unexpectedly, we were about to reach the foot of Wuling Mountain without encountering a single county seat, not even a town, only a few scattered small fishing villages.

That's right, it's a small fishing village.

As mentioned before, they have been walking along the road to the sea. After leaving Wuling City, there are mountains on the left and the sea not far away on the right.

Those near the seaside are basically small villages that make a living by fishing. There is no so-called county town at all.

Of course, after the good news was scanned with spiritual consciousness, there was still a county seat, but it only appeared after passing Wuling Mountain. Because Wuling Mountain was relatively close to Wuling City, there was no county seat.

Wuling City was actually a county seat before, named Wuling County. Later, because of the Tianzun Temple on Wuling Mountain in the previous dynasty, more and more people settled here, and it developed into a city.

Even Guanhai City is second only to Hainan County in size.

The reason why it was called Guanhai City was because pirates often came to harass the local people in the past. The imperial court sent heavy troops to guard it, so things got better.

Later, the soldiers stationed at the border settled here. With the defenders, more and more people lived and worked here, and gradually it became the largest city in Hainan County.

The imperial court named this city Guanhai City. This name means to keep all harm away from the sea, and also keep it out of the Great Flame.

The previous county seat was Qingyuan City located close to the inland, but Guanhai City was built and heavily guarded. It became a trading port with foreign countries, and its importance is self-evident.

Naturally, the county town changed hands.

Dayan State has maritime trade routes, and its trade is with some small surrounding countries.

And because of the development of maritime commerce, a profession, piracy, emerged.

They say they are pirates, but they are actually the army of a small maritime country.

There is a small island country called Banyue Kingdom on the sea separated by three small countries from Dayan Kingdom.

The overall area of ​​that country is smaller than a county in Dayan Kingdom. There are no minerals on the island and only a few fields to grow food.

The food was not even enough to feed the nobles, who had to live by eating fish, shrimps and crabs from the sea.

It will definitely not work if things go on for a long time. The country will only become poorer and weaker.

Later, I don’t know which bastard gave the King of Banyue Kingdom an idea to have the army pretend to be pirates and rob passing merchant ships!

You must know that the supplies on a merchant ship that can travel far across the ocean are by no means limited. After the first successful taste of the benefits, it became even more uncontrollable.

After that, the princes and nobles personally led the teams out to sea to rob.

He used the looted property to rebuild many strong and durable ships and continued looting.

After that, the team grew bigger and bigger, and even developed into a country full of pirates!

In normal times, they are the nobles and ordinary people in the country, but once they get on the ship, they become brutal pirates.

Especially the islands near Dayan Kingdom have their spies, and the fishermen on the sea are their sentinels.

I usually make a living by fishing. As soon as I find a merchant ship passing by, I will immediately go back and report the news.

A large force of pirates will be dispatched, usually more than a dozen pirate ships surrounding the merchant ship.

After a few years of this, Banyue Country was obviously much richer than other island countries, and everyone discovered the clues.

A small island country that was poor and weak suddenly became rich, presumably because of this kind of business without capital.

Although they are rich, there is also a disadvantage, that is, as mentioned before, their country is too small and there is no place to grow.

Basically all food and vegetables are bought from other countries, most of which are Starlight Country and Dayan Country.

But if it is normal trade, it is actually not bad. One hand pays the money and the other hand delivers the goods. There must be brave men under heavy profits, and there will still be merchants trading with them.

But it can only be said that they are robbers in nature. Even if they are merchant ships that go to their country to do business, they will rob them. This angered all the merchants and they no longer went to Banyue Country.

However, this would end their livelihood. The food would not be enough for the princes and nobles on the island, and the common people could not all starve to death.

So it later developed that the few caravans that regularly traded with their country would fly the flags given by their country, and the ships would also have symbols painted on them.

As long as there are these flags and symbols, the pirate ships will stay away from them and will not rob them.

In fact, other countries also know the tricks involved, but they just tacitly understand it.

The only thing that can be justified is that although they robbed merchant ships of property, they never harmed anyone's life.

Of course, this does not mean that they are benevolent, but every time they rob a merchant ship, they will ask the people on the ship to contact their families to ransom them.

This is another way to make money, and of course they won't hurt people's lives. After all, there will be nothing left after killing them, and it will not do them any good, and they may even form a deadly feud.

It is precisely because of this that all countries did not make all their efforts to encircle and suppress this island.

However, I heard that the Banyue Kingdom had a new king a year ago, and this king was very cruel! Recently, he even ordered that after all the merchant ships were robbed, only those with high status would be retained for ransom.

Those servants or civilians were directly taken back to their Banyue Kingdom to be slaves.

It would be fine if you were a slave and just served people and worked, but that's not the case.

The reason why this king is said to be cruel is because these so-called slaves are the feed used by the King of Banyue Kingdom to feed his pets!

Yes, these people are king's pet food.

The so-called pet kept by the Lord of Banyue Kingdom is actually a sea snake.

That sea snake is more than ten meters long and can swallow a person in one bite!

It was raised by the Lord of Banyue Kingdom when he was still a prince. At that time, he led a pirate ship to rob and encountered this sea snake on an uninhabited island.

It was still young at that time, and was captured by the leader of the Banyueyue Kingdom and raised in the palace.

At first, I fed him some raw meat or sea fish every day. Although the sea snake looked scary, it was fine.

Later, after the king of the country came to the throne, the whole country came under his control, so he also changed the half-moon flag of Banyue Kingdom to a sea snake totem with a big mouth.

The sea snake has also become the equivalent of a dragon in their country.

As the body of the sea snake becomes larger and larger, the king becomes more and more obsessed with the sea snake, which is a kind of addiction to power.

Later, some palace servants even made mistakes and pissed off those who offended him, and he threw them to sea snakes as food.

The sea snake became addicted after eating the first person. Now if it is not fed a person every day, it will hit the iron pillar that traps it.

One time, an iron pillar was bent and the snake's head stuck out, eating a palace servant who was feeding it!

Fortunately, it was too fat and the snake body was stuck in the back. If it had escaped, the entire palace would probably suffer.

The leader of Banyue Kingdom felt very happy, thinking that this was in line with its status.

After that, not only did he randomly find reasons to throw the palace residents in to feed the snakes, but he also often had people secretly catch some homeless civilians.

But there were only so many civilians, and even fewer homeless people. In order to complete the task, those servants later even developed into grabbing anyone on the road and going back to do business.

Because people often go missing, many people don't dare to go out at night.

It wasn't until a minister's son was caught drinking outside in the middle of the night that the matter came to light.

The minister and some colleagues knelt outside the palace, begging the king to make the decision and give him an explanation.

It is impossible to call the shots. After all, he gave the order himself, but the explanation was given. The king was quite brave and directly admitted that it was his order.

When the ministers heard that it was okay, they all advised the king not to lose heart by playing with things, especially the ferocious beasts in the sea, and it would be best to deal with them quickly.

As a result, the minister who advised him became the dinner of the sea snake that day...

As a result, the reputation of the leader of the Banyue Kingdom for his cruelty spread out, and all the ministers jointly tried to persuade him, even to the point of death, and the leader of the Moon Worshiping Kingdom calmed down a bit.

At this time, another bastard appeared and suggested to the king that since the king must feed the giant snake, why not use captured civilians.

In this way, it is better to die in other countries than in your own country.

Anyway, those civilians didn't have enough money to redeem them. In the past, when the rich's families redeemed their people, they just put them back together.

Some kind-hearted rich people will also let them pretend to be their subordinates and take them away.

In fact, those civilians only joined the ship as crew members, helping with coolies or rowing because they really couldn't afford to eat.

After all, sailing on the sea alone is not enough. There must be oars underneath. Otherwise, with sails alone, the ship will drift away with the wind, and the direction cannot be controlled at all.

The leader of the Banyue Kingdom also knew that he could not embarrass his own country, so he agreed along the way.

Later, he discovered that this was indeed a good method. Not only did he not have to waste his own people, but the ransom given by the wealthy businessmen was also more.

There is no way, if you didn't give it before, you might still have a way to survive, but if you don't give it now, your family will have to feed the snake directly.

They don't know these good news yet. After all, they are still wandering around Wuling Mountain and have not gone to Guanhai City.

Moreover, these news are only spread among Guanhai City or several nearby island countries. After all, there are no merchant ships going to sea elsewhere, so the impact is not big.

Ever since pirates began to plunder the seas, there have been very few merchant ships going out from the Great Yan Kingdom.

The same thing is that you can eat and make money. Taking the sea route is so dangerous, it is better to do business directly on land.

Anyway, the Great Yan Kingdom has a vast territory and abundant resources. It is not impossible to move the things here to the other three directions. There is no need to fight here.

In this way, the losses of the Great Yan Dynasty were actually not great. Except for the merchants who had been redeemed at the beginning, they did not die in the mouth of the snake in Banyue Kingdom.

…
To be continued...