Chapter 157 The Truth About Food and Fodder

The bandits in Sandi Mountain in Qichang Prefecture are not well-known. They are not independent on the mountain like Tiedong Thirty-Six Village. They are considered to be half a martial arts sect, and their scale can compete with the state government's yamen.

Perhaps this is also the reason why they have been peacefully together all these years.

Qi Shan went up the mountain along the familiar mountain road. After nearly twenty years, he finally returned here.

He was still a teenager when he left home, but he was nearly forty years old when he returned.

Perhaps he was timid about being close to home, so when he reached the halfway point of the mountain, Qi Shan stopped and looked at the top of the mountain.

Susu——

A small sound, like the treetops being blown by the wind.

Qishan's eyes suddenly moved, there was an ambush.

His right foot drew a half-arc on the ground, which was the starting point of Gui Jia's three unique kicks.

The leader in the forest raised his hand to stop the others from taking action. He stared at Qishan's face for a moment and suddenly shouted: "It's a ghost mountain!"

Qi Shan sat in the village, and several children at the door poked their heads and looked curiously.

"It's all rough tea." Gui Si came in with the tea, put it on the table, and said rudely: "You are used to living in Lu's Jinwowo. I'm afraid you are not used to a place like ours."

Qi Shan refused to accept his harsh words and asked, "Where is dad?"

Gui Si raised one foot and put it on the chair, "Shout, it's his business whether he comes to see you or not."

Qi Shan glanced at the sky and became a little anxious, "I must see dad today."

"Tell me first what you are here for?" Gui Si said: "You have also seen that the gang of bandit suppressors have already arrived. They may attack at some time. Why are you unwilling to join us in the past, but now you are willing to do so?" Come to live and die together?”

Qishan said: "I don't have time to argue with you. I'm here to save people. If it's too late, I really won't have a chance."

"You?" Gui Si looked him up and down, "It seems that you are doing very well outside. Have you mastered some extraordinary magical skills that can give you one for ten thousand?"

"Gui Si!" Qi Shan scolded angrily: "The person you came to Beijing to complain to is already dead! If you don't call dad out, we will all die here tomorrow."

Gui Si stood up from the chair and said, "What did you say? How do you know?"

His eyes moved, "Just wait!" After that, he strode away.

The sun gradually rose above the head. Ten miles east of Sandpiper Mountain, under a lonely roadside tree, Shen Yu sat on a chair under the shade of the tree, drinking tea leisurely.

There were only two people behind her, the guards assigned to her by Xie Tingzhou.

Originally planning to come alone, the two guards refused to let him go and could only say one sentence: "His Highness has given orders."

This place is a flat land and there can be no ambush around it. This is why Shen Yu chose this place.

If she had already won five points in the battle of leading troops to Qichang, then she was eight points sure of the victory in Qishan Mountain.

The sound of horse hooves was getting closer and closer, but Shen Yu did not get up.

Qi Shan and his father Gui Xiong galloped towards him and dismounted.

Qishan was informed by Shen Yu, but she did not reveal her true identity, only that she was originally from Shen Zhongan's army.

Guixiong looked around and asked straight to the point: "You said you could save us, how?"

Shen Yu asked back: "Where is the food and grass?"

Guixiong is nearly sixty years old, with gray hair on his temples, but a tall figure and a straight back.

He looked at the boy in front of him warily. He looked like he was no more than a teenager, but his actions and words were calm and steady, making people sigh that a hero is born out of a boy.

Gui Xiong sneered, "Where did you get the food and grass?"

Shen Yu looked at him coldly, "There was a fierce battle at Yanliang Pass, the food and grass were delayed, and they were robbed in the Sandpiper Mountain. This is known to the whole world."

"What you know is not necessarily the truth." Gui Xiong said righteously: "If you haven't taken something, you haven't taken it. No matter how you ask, you haven't taken it."

The more Gui Xiong talked, the more angry he became, "Although I, Gui Xiong, was unlucky enough to fall into a bandit's trap, I am not so mad as to be a soldier fighting on the front lines while I am stealing food from the rear. If you are calling me here today to humiliate me, then I will go back to the mountain." Waiting for you to suppress the bandits!"

After saying this, he turned to leave.

"I believe you." Shen Yu put down the tea cup, "But you have to tell me, if there is no food and grass, where did the food and grass go? The baggage team entered Qichang and lost it at Sandi Mountain."

"There is no food at all!" Gui Xiong said angrily: "The southwest granary has been empty for a long time, and all the people entering Qichang are empty carts weighed down by big rocks!"

Shen Yu's eyes suddenly shrank, she stood up from the chair, and asked in a trembling voice: "No food and grass?"

"No!" Guixiong said firmly.

Shen Yu's legs softened and she took a step back.

If there is no food and grass, how can there be no food and grass?

Therefore, when setting off from the main army, it means that there is no reserve baggage at all for this battle.

She suddenly remembered what Ge Liangji said to her in prison: "Maybe you were on the wrong track from the beginning? Maybe the reason for killing Shen Zhongan in the first place was not something else, but someone who wanted to save his life. "

Gui Xiong slowly repeated this sentence: "There is no food at all. The southwest granary has been empty for a long time. Corrupt officials have taken it and resold it."

"In the beginning, the grain in the granary began to get moldy, and the humidity in the southwest was heavy. This was an unavoidable thing. I reported it to the authorities, but the superiors did not pursue it. The people below discovered the way and began to transport small batches out for resale. This happened every year. so."

Guixiong sighed and squatted down on the ground.

"Dad." Qi Shan shouted.

Guixiong waved his hand and continued: "It was reselling in small batches at first, but then I became more and more courageous, and the granary was emptied out just like that."

Shen Yu didn't say a word. Along the way, she could see Dazhou's devastation, but she didn't expect that it had reached such an extent.

"You want to know why I know it so well, right?" Guixiong raised his head and smiled, his dark face full of wrinkles.

"Because..." His voice began to tremble as he spoke, "Because I am guilty too!"

Shen Yu suddenly looked at him, Gui Xiong's face was covered with tears.

"We helped transport the grain they transported to various places and handed it over to Cui's shop for resale. At first we didn't know what was being transported. I only knew that transporting these items would allow people in the mountains to eat. "

"Later I found out, it's too late, it's too late, I can't get off this pirate ship. Those people are standing too high, including the Minister of Hubu, the magistrate of Qichang, and the prince. What can I fight with them? "

"I supported more than 500 people on the mountain by collaborating with them. Now there are 1,326 people on the mountain. They have all drank the blood of common people and soldiers, but we just want to survive."

Guixiong's eyes were red, "I am guilty, but the old, weak, women and children on the mountain, and those who have not participated in this matter are not guilty. If you want this old life, take it."

"Please, sir, spare the old, weak, women and children on my mountain."

Guixiong knelt on his knees and hit his forehead heavily on the barren land.

Shen Yu looked at the floating clouds on the horizon. She felt like a fallen leaf caught in the vortex of fate, floating and sinking, but getting further and further away from the shore.

The world is so miserable. She has reached this point with the word "toughness", but what is good and what is evil? She couldn't tell the difference.

A long time passed, but it seemed like only a moment passed.

Shen Yu spoke slowly: "I don't want your life, I want you to come to Beijing with me."

"What to do?"

"Go and peel off the last layer of this troubled world."