The black smoke in the village became thicker and thicker, and the carbonized beams and columns of the houses on the edge finally couldn't support the heavy roofs, and the bricks and tiles collapsed with a crash.
The smoke from the kitchen has gone out.
Groups of idle men who had eaten their fill gathered around the courtyard holding their bellies and inspecting the courtyard where corpses lay everywhere.
People are leisurely and contented, knocking and knocking, trying to squeeze out the last bit of wealth from the village that has long lost its vitality so that they can return home with a full load.
Seventeen wooden carts were placed at the gate of Tuwei. In the past, they were ox carts, horse carts, and donkey carts. Nowadays, the oxen, horses, donkeys, and mules have disappeared, and they have all become people's carts.
The sacks carried to the car were heavy and full, and the wheels made deep ruts in the loess.
The leader of the thieves named Bai Yingzi walked out of Tuwei, frowned and looked at the sky. The sagging skin wrinkled deep grooves on the dark face: "The smoke has been burning for an hour. Take the corpse to the roadside and leave.
Already."
He clapped his hands, held up his trousers and limped two steps forward. He raised his legs and stepped over the body without shoes. He turned around and recognized it. He squatted down and grabbed the deserter's face with his backhand, holding his chin carefully.
He looked at it carefully, pushed it to the side and grinned.
Bai Yingzi didn't know whether this was the fifth or sixth year since he fell into the grass. He also didn't know how many people he had killed. He couldn't even remember.
I only know that in the past two years, life has been getting smoother and smoother.
In his early days, he was a day laborer who was not even considered a farmer in Suide County. He could not even be called a householder. He had no home at all, only a donkey shed.
But when Bai Yingzi was young, he was known as an honest and powerful young man in the surrounding countryside. Anyone who wanted to help would come to him for help.
Later, I married a good aunt from Mizhi. She was handsome and hard-working, and even her life seemed less hard.
The family's financial situation improved little by little. In the first year of their marriage, they bought cows and rented fifty acres of land from others. The young couple were willing to work hard on the land, and the landlord was happy to see it.
In the third year of their marriage, they got their own land, a couple of children, and a new kiln was finally built at home. The pigs and sheep were put into the pen, and the chickens and rabbits were in the same cage. Life was as prosperous as the potted peppers grown in the official's Yamen.
stand up.
On the day he moved into the new kiln, Bai Yingzi tossed and turned. He slept on the bed for the first time in his life, and it was awkward to lie down.
I kept my eyes open until dawn, and all I could think about was that my mother-in-law said that they were going to save money to send their children to study in a social school and take the exam to become a scholar.
He was full of reluctance in his heart, but he finally managed to have some money left over at the end of the year, and he was finally willing to eat a few mouthfuls of meat during the holidays, and he also wanted to save up for his baby to pay for his husband's wedding in the future?
What's more, his grandma's family, who knows if the little ancestor is a good candidate for studying and taking the scholar's exam. He also raised horses for the landlord for half a year when he was a child. What's the use? He's not a horse breeder.
He is a dog-like person, can he give birth to a scholar?
I think so.
When he wanted to eat meat, he secretly spanked the baby twice without remembering anything. Bai Yingzi still followed her mother-in-law's wishes and saved money.
After so many years, just when things were getting better and better, drought broke out in northern Shaanxi.
The drought itself will not cause trouble, but the people who do not have enough to eat during the drought will cause trouble. Clubs have broken out all over Yan'an Prefecture. The White Lotus Sect and the Luo Sect have all appeared under the guise of the Loyal and Brave Club, the Loyal and Righteous Friendship Club, and the Tongqi Club.
, killing people everywhere.
Bai Yingzi did not dare to take official positions when he went out. Large areas of wheat seedlings died of drought in the fields. The cloth woven by his mother-in-law could not be sold, but he did not dare to owe the court taxes.
The grain manager looked fierce outside the door, and the couple hugged each other and cried inside the door. After crying, they sold the old cow, and the grain tax had to be paid.
Later, he heard that it was not that taxes could not be owed, but that there were two types of taxes. One was collected by the local government and had to be handed over to the emperor. He had to tell the government officials carefully that they could be owed.
The other is local apportionment, where the salary of the government servants is included, and he is the first to refuse to pay taxes due.
Bai Yingzi regretted it. If he had known this, he would not have sold the old cow. Without the cow, he would not be able to farm the land.
After gaining experience the following year, he did not give the emperor's share to the grandfather, but even if it was leftover, he had to sell his family's land and hand over the share.
In the third year, God opened his eyes and stopped the drought.
But Bai Yingzi also had no land, regardless of whether his own land or land from tenants was gone.
When it came time to pay taxes again, there was nothing to sell at home, so I finally used the money I had saved for the baby’s repairs.
He asked his mother-in-law not to feel uncomfortable, saying that there was no such thing as a scholar in our family, and he accepted it.
Even if he accepts his fate, fate will not let him go.
Life seemed to be a reincarnation. He started working as a part-time worker again, saved money to make ends meet, bought a cow, rented fifty acres of land, bought one acre of land, and then bought another acre of land. He had to pay the county allotment and owe the court two taxes. .
In the forty-sixth year of Wanli, the court went to war, and the tax increased by 3.5 cents per mu. In the forty-seventh year of Wanli, the court increased the tax by another 3.5 cents. In the forty-eighth year of Wanli, the court increased the tax by another 2 cents, for a total of 9 cents per mu. centimeters.
In fact, compared with the grain production per acre, paying nine cents of silver is not much, really not much at all.
Most of them are in northern Shaanxi, which has been suffering from drought for many years. After the grain harvest failed, it was 9%.
Later, the drought came again in the Year of Tianqi.
Everyone is gritting their teeth to get by, there are fewer and fewer military households in Suidewei, and there are more and more thieves in the mountains.
First, every family ran out of food, and then hungry people rushed across the road in small groups to feed the big households. Soon, even the big households outside the city had no food to eat.
People mixed mountain wild grass, roadside bark and white stones into pancakes and steamed them to eat, but this did not last long.
There are no more thieves at this time, everyone can be a thief.
Bai Yingzi had no more recruits this year. He owed the government taxes for several years, plus a year's assessment. He was born strong and strong. I don't know whether it was out of fear or easy to bully. He became the murderer of the chicken and the monkey in the story. of that chicken.
The tax collector brothers who were so talkative in the past were all gone. The police officers took him to the government and broke his left leg with a killing stick in front of hundreds of people who owed taxes. In order to save his right leg, he gritted his teeth and took out a loan.
Bai Yingzi was lame. The mother-in-law had no land or cattle and could not afford to support the family. The public security was also deteriorating. The eldest daughter ran away and disappeared. In order to support her son, the mother-in-law sold herself for three measures of millet. Bai Yingzi The son also became a beggar.
Later, his good aunt, his good aunt, was found by a group of beggars, lying in a ditch in the moat outside the city, naked and not even given a seat.
Bai Yingzi, who was crazy and anxious, went to beg for an explanation, but he was a beggar and the slaves wouldn't even let him in.
After asking around, I found out that the mother-in-law had stolen the steamed buns from the owner's house and wanted to take them out for the baby to eat. She was found tortured to death.
The remaining child of the two of them did not starve to death. Bai Yingzi strangled him to death himself, saying he would suffer the consequences while alive.
Later, the government servant who broke his leg was strangled to death in the latrine while relieving himself; the young master of the owner who bought his wife was thrown to death on the rockery, the head of the chef was stuffed into the stove, and the elder was tied up and thrown into a pile of dead people outside the city. Scared to death.
The lame Bai Yingzi fell into a trap and became a bandit. He robbed merchants and killed travelers. He had no martial arts skills and no military background. He was beaten by the government from Suide to Qingjian, and from Qingjian to the mountains. Wherever he went, his family was destroyed. , leaving no one alive.
He did not follow morality, nor did he rob the rich to give to the poor. He would kill the rich and the poor when he met him. He stumbled around for several years, and with the help of good men, he gained a reputation for robbing homes and houses in Suidezhou.
Nowadays, Bai Yingzi is planning a lot for his den of thieves. Although he doesn't know how many subordinates there are, sometimes there are more, sometimes there are fewer, it all depends on the year.
When the year is good, the thieves in the mountains will go back to their hometowns to farm; when the year is bad, the people will go to the mountains to join the villages and cultivate land in the mountains to grow some vegetables. They are no different from ordinary people in ordinary times.
As soon as the people at the foot of the mountain came to report the news, the farmers in the village put down their farm tools, picked up their knives and sticks, and went down the mountain to plunder.
In the past, this kind of loosely organized den of thieves would not have survived. However, now that the imperial court is collapsing day by day, people are leaving their hometowns in droves and becoming refugees. The government is still unable to stop it, let alone provide defense guarantees for the people who still stay in their hometowns.
At times like this, the only ones who have the leisure to provoke bandits are bandits.
In fact, Cao Yao guessed right. Bai Yingzi did go south with the army gathered by Wang Zuoguan earlier. It was not that he wanted to join the rebels. It was because Wang Zuoguan didn't make any sense and the group came here, just like him.
The little thief had no chance to refuse.
Bai Yingzi issued the order to prepare for the transfer, and several close supervisors came forward: "Shopkeeper, should we go south, or... go back to the north?"
"Go to the fucking south. Zuo Guazi's supervisors have all been killed. Why go south to seek death? You can't use that broken wood. We don't owe him anything." Bai Yingzi waved his hand and said, "Pull up the grain truck and go back to Suide.
"
Hearing this, everyone in the left and right management team looked happy but also worried. Someone asked: "What will happen if Zuo Guazi comes back?"
"Come back?" Bai Yingzi shrugged his shoulders and sneered: "It's near Xi'an Mansion. How can the court let him make trouble? His baby will probably not come back... There is someone!"
Following his gaze, among the still burning houses at the west entrance of the village, a group of people wearing red armor, carrying helmet flags on their heads, holding swords, shields, bows and spears, came in two columns with two dragons coming out of the water. Before the people arrived, the formation
He was hit by more than ten sharp arrows, which attracted the enemy and shot down the thieves who turned around to escape one by one.
"Official troops! Official troops are coming!"
A half-exposed red flag waved on the hillside, and even the bandit leader Bai Yingzi couldn't resist. He shouted and pushed the grain carts left and right, and ordered to flee eastward.
