I spent the night resting in Wushanji, nothing special happened.
The whole village has gone to De'an.
Early the next morning, the team continued westward.
After walking for only half an hour, I saw several villagers coming towards me with support.
Someone came up to ask, it was a villager from Xucun not far ahead.
They had been guarding the village because there was some food in the village.
As a result, due to an oversight the day before yesterday, the grain warehouse caught fire.
The house leaked and it rained all night, so the villagers had no choice but to help the elderly and young to seek refuge in De'an.
After asking them about the conditions of the villages along the way, Song Yang took the people and continued setting off.
On the way, we encountered three more villages, all of which had residents staying temporarily.
Song Yang told them that they could go to Jiangzhou Fucheng or De'an County to make a living first, and then come back after the autumn harvest.
There were more than 150 people in the three villages, but more than 70 people left because of this.
They said they wanted to visit De'an.
After all, there is not much food in the village.
Afterwards, the group walked slowly and leisurely, stopping from time to time to record major changes in topography and landforms.
I walked like this for a whole day without reaching Yinanji, so I had to find a village to settle temporarily.
The team continued to set off early the next morning.
"Your Majesty, I'm going to Nanji ahead."
The scout horse at the front and the team had traveled two or three miles, and they would come back to report the preliminary information.
"How many people are there?" Song Yang asked.
Sitting on his horse, he could already see the looming building in front of him.
"There were a lot of people, it looked like there were hundreds of people. But it seemed like there was no leader." Tan Ma reported truthfully.
Soon, Yinanji arrived.
Indeed, we saw many people. The arrival of Song Yang's team immediately attracted everyone's attention.
"Fellow folks, are you all from Yinanji?" Fang Zhe led someone forward to ask.
No one from the people answered, they just looked at them with a lot of fear in their eyes.
"But some old village chief came forward to answer the question!" Fang Zhe shouted to the crowd.
"Who are you? Are you all mute?"
Fang Zhe frowned and asked angrily.
After a while, an old man who looked quite young came out with a cane.
"This great lord, we are just common people in the villages around Ruichang. After the natural disaster, we have nowhere to stay and can only survive here."
The old man also spoke with trepidation, fearing that Fang Zhe would be angry and hurt others.
Song Yang's group was all armed with weapons. In addition to steel swords and spears, there were twenty or thirty people carrying bows and arrows.
This firepower is definitely not something that the unarmed people can resist.
"Don't worry, old man, I'm not a bad person." Fang Zhe said with a smile.
"I am the chief historian of Jiangzhou Prince's Palace. This time I am inspecting the disaster situation for the prince."
Fang Zhe revealed his identity and said to the people.
"An official from Jiangzhou?"
"People from the royal palace?"
"Inspecting the disaster situation for the prince?"
After hearing Fang Zhe's words, the people immediately became commotion, and they kept buzzing in private.
"Old man, why do people react so strongly when mentioning Jiangzhou Fucheng and Wangfu?"
At this time Song Yang came over.
Just now he saw that there was no movement at Fang Zhe's side for a long time, so he came over quietly.
I happened to see Fang Zhe reporting his family status and the reaction of the people.
"This young master, we are the people who fled from Ruichang. When we were in Ruichang, we heard someone say... say..."
The old man hesitated and did not speak.
"Old man, did you hear any rumors in Ruichang?" Song Yang asked.
The old man looked at Fang Zhe but said nothing.
Song Yang laughed and said:
"Don't worry, old man. He is not from the palace, he is my butler."
"We are from the Song Family Village in De'an. My father, the owner of the village, took his servants to escape after the family suffered a disaster."
Song Yang's words made the people stunned. Just now, this person said he was an official of the palace, but why did he say he was not an official after another person changed him?
"Haha. Well... I also want to take on an official position because of the turmoil in the current situation." Fang Zhe said with an embarrassed smile.
"Oh, let me tell you. I heard in Ruichang before that the capital city of Jiangzhou was in ruins and filled with ghosts, and the prince was also dead." The old man said, stroking his white beard.
"Oh? Who said that?"
Song Yang pulled the old man aside and handed over a piece of dried meat, which was smoked last night.
The old man obviously hadn't eaten meat for a long time, so he took the dried meat and started chewing it.
He had bad teeth and couldn't get any food into his mouth after chewing for a long time. He could only grind it bit by bit.
"It's the Juren Master who escaped from Jiangzhou Fucheng. When they came out of Jiangzhou, they said that Jiangzhou City had turned into nothingness, there was nothing left, and everyone was dead."
The old man said while eating dried meat.
"Master Ju Ren?" Song Yang was stunned, as if he remembered something.
"Yes. Later he became the county magistrate of Ruichang. I heard his surname was Zhao."
The old man accepted Song Yang's dried meat, but he knew everything about it.
Song Yang knew who it was as soon as he heard it. It turned out that Zhao Wenbin had gone to Ruichang and was still walking in Ruichang with rumors that Jiangzhou was destroyed.
No wonder none of the people fleeing Ruichang saw him and were actually stopped by him.
As for how he became the magistrate of Ruichang County, the old man doesn't understand.
"Hey! Mr. Zhao has never had a comfortable life for a few days."
"It seemed that only three to five days later, a group of thieves came and occupied the entire county government office."
"That Mr. Zhao was also caught by thieves."
The old man mentioned this matter, which was also the reason why they ran away.
Originally, Ruichang had a county magistrate, and the people thought that someone would lead them in rebuilding their homes.
As a result, the bandits came and the county magistrate surrendered.
Those thieves just arrived and were robbing everything.
Of course the people could not allow them to rob.
Hundreds of people escaped overnight and headed south to Yinanji.
As for the original people of Yinanji, they all went to De'an.
The empty houses can also provide a place for the people who escaped from Ruichang.
"Do you know where these bandits come from? How many are there?"
Song Yang was a little surprised. According to official records, there were only a few very small groups of bandits in Jiangzhou.
Can their dozen or so people occupy the county seat?
Can we drive them away just by pulling together a small army of civilians?
"Hundreds of people? Or thousands of people?"
The old man was a little unsure, but there were a lot of people grabbing things anyway.
"Your Majesty, he may be a bandit composed of ordinary people." Fang Zhe said in a low voice.
When there are too many refugees, it is easy to create rogue bandits.
Song Yang asked some more questions, but the old man couldn't explain clearly.
The bandits came out the next day after they arrived in Ruichang.
They had no destination when they came to Yinanji, so they could only stay here temporarily.
"Old sir, you go to De'an. Set up a refugee settlement there and you will have food to eat."
"De'an? Are you going east? Is there really food to eat there?" The old man asked several questions in succession.
These people had only heard of De'an's general direction.
No one has been there.
Most of the farmers in this era have never left home in their entire lives. A trip to the county town is considered a long journey.
Let alone another county.
Song Yang nodded and said, "Go east and follow this road to reach De'an County."
"When you go there, you'll be given life-saving porridge, and you'll also be given work arrangements, so you can earn your own rations."
The old man arranging work or something didn't hear it, but the hanging porridge heard clearly.
They had been gnawing at the barkgrass roots for days, and there was nothing more attractive than a life-threatening porridge.
As soon as the old man returned to the crowd and said this, the crowd immediately burst into cheers.