Chapter 256: County Officials Do Not Treat the Common Folk as Humans

Several other jail guards, including the prison chief, immediately appeared and likewise joined Li He's camp.

Li He felt a warm surge in his heart and said, "Thank you, brothers!"

The guards' actions left the officials and county officers both shocked and angry.

During the fight, someone shouted at them, denouncing them as traitors and rebels.

The prison chief, following the voice, closed in and thrust a blade through the man, fixing his terrified eyes on the victim and snarling:

"I've tolerated you for a long time! My fellow jail guard brothers and I serve in the County Office just like you, yet you never regarded us as humans, never as comrades. How can you call us traitors? As for rebels—ha! If in the future we no longer have to endure oppression from people like you, and the people of Ding County no longer suffer, then we are acting on Heaven's behalf; becoming the government's rebels is no problem!"

Several jail guards shouted in agreement:

"Chief! Well said!"

"Exactly, chief, what you said is what we think!"

"Kill!"

In an instant, the jail guards charged even more fiercely than Li He's band of hot‑blooded youths.

The remaining officials, seeing this, couldn't help but feel a bit cowardly.

Moreover, as they kept fighting they realized they were at a disadvantage, and with the County Elder's head in the courtyard, gradually some began to think of giving up resistance.

The officials and county officers who outnumbered them kept retreating step by step.

Zhao, the Captor Head, noticed the situation, hesitated no more, and leapt forward shouting, "Constable brothers under my command, hear my advice! The prison chief is right! Indeed, we act on Heaven's will! We must also follow the Dao of Heaven!"

Upon hearing this, several constables attached to Zhao's retinue immediately sheathed their swords and moved behind him.

Their attitude was obvious.

The jail guards and Zhao's group stood with Li He's side, and counting the officials and county officers wounded in the earlier clash, the two sides now had almost equal numbers.

Clang—

An official weakly dropped the knife he was holding.

Then came the sounds of knives, bows, arrows and shields being tossed down one after another.

The remaining county officers and officials finally chose to surrender.

The senior clerk hiding in the shadows, seeing the tide turn, tried to slip away with a few civil county officers.

But after only a few steps, Li He and Fang Hui spotted him, sprinted forward, and blocked him with a sideways slash.

The civil county officers were paralyzed with fear on the spot.

The senior clerk even knelt, trembling, and begged for his life.

Li He slowly crouched, hooked the clerk's chin with the tip of his blade, and smiled, "If you weren't still useful, I'd have liked to stab you to death."

The County Magistrate of Ding County turned the local scourge into what it is today, with the senior clerk's scheming behind it.

But now the County Office still needs someone to manage affairs for Li He.

Especially since this so‑called anti‑bandit operation is an order from the higher‑ranking Prefect, and the County Magistrate is dead; when the Prefect sends someone to investigate, only the senior clerk can take the blame so the Prefect won't discover the truth.

"Thank you, Young Hero… thank you for sparing my life!" the senior clerk hurriedly pledged, "From now on, if you tell me to go east, I will never dare go west; if you tell me to urinate backwards, I will never dare take off my pants the right way!"

Li He ordered, "I command you to take these people, inventory all the food and goods of the County Magistrate's household and the County Office's storehouses, allocate them per capita, and later distribute them to the people of Ding County."

The senior clerk quickly replied, "Yes, yes, I will certainly see to it!"

Li He sheathed his blade and said, "Scram."

The senior clerk got up, leading the civil county officers in a scramble away.

"Everyone," Li He said, looking over the officers, "stop loitering here. Clean up the County Gate, those who should patrol the streets go patrol, those who should guard the city gate guard it. But remember, if anyone again harms the common folk, I will definitely take their life!"

Now no one dares to doubt or despise him.

The formerly arrogant officials and county officers instantly became as obedient as possible, all bowed their heads and replied "As you command," then complied.

——

Several days later.

The anti‑bandit force that set out from Ding County arrived at Black Water Bay.

The troops plus a thousand conscripts formed the vanguard, boarding dozens of vessels of all sizes, a spectacular sight.

However, the conscripts rode in dilapidated fishing boats that the county officers had forcibly requisitioned from riverside villages around Ding County; a boat with a canopy was considered good, many lacked even half their hulls, and some had no oars, so the conscripts had to poke with long sticks or row by hand.

Only the ten vessels the troops used were proper government ships—large, sturdy, equipped with sails and cabins, twenty men per group, spacious and comfortable.

The eight hundred conscripts, driven along the way, were almost like walking corpses.

The troops gave them a meager daily ration, keeping them from starving yet perpetually hungry.

The combined hunger, cold and relentless physical and mental torment stripped people of thought, rendering them numb and compliant.

So that the stretch ahead was a sharp, turbulent bend where a tributary merged into Black Water Bay's main channel, yet the conscripts continued to row blankly.

Seeing the lead boat about to be swept in if it didn't stop, the troops finally shouted the command, "All stop!"

The voice rang out, and all the conscripts halted their boats in unison.

On the largest government ship, a soldier entered the cabin and respectfully reported to their leader, "County Lieutenant, we have entered Black Water Bay."

The County Lieutenant, wrapped in a blanket and dozing, slowly opened his eyes, leisurely lifted the warm wine from the stove beside him, took a big gulp, then asked, "How's the situation?"

The troops replied, "Most areas have gentle currents; swamps and ponds are frozen, and many muddy grounds have hardened, but because we haven't been here in ages, the tangled tributaries have altered the terrain, and we can't discern the old navigation routes used when we hunted water bandits."

The County Lieutenant looked up, "You still remember the directions, right?"

"Remembered," the soldier added, "but massive silt has built up into a marsh, overgrown with reeds and thorns, making passage impossible; if we detour, we have no idea where it leads."

The County Lieutenant retorted, "Were the conscripts conscripted for free?"

The soldier bowed his head, "Understood, sir."

Not long after, hundreds of conscripts were ordered to disembark, wading waist‑deep in icy, bone‑chilling sludge mixed with broken ice, marching on foot to the mudflat, and using the tattered farming tools they carried to dig.

Those without tools used oars, sticks, or even planks salvaged from the broken fishing boats.

If they had none of those, they dug with their bare hands.

Eight hundred-odd strong men merely dug a little opening in the beach mud to clear a path for the official ships behind; many were frozen purple all over and also cut head to toe by reeds and thorns.

The soldiers on the official ships watched with great relish.

Seeing someone accidentally slip and fall, desperately struggling to climb up in the icy muddy water, they would laugh until they bent forward and backward.

This gang, which used to be responsible for suppressing disturbances among the Moist County populace, treated the people even less as human than the constables of the County Office.

After two hours, the blocking beach mud was cleared.

The anti-bandit force continued advancing deep into the interior of Black Water Bay.

The fleet sailed smoothly for about an hour; as noon approached, the gloomy, heavy dark clouds parted slightly, and pale shafts of light poured through the gaps in the clouds, adding a bit of brightness to this heaven and earth.

The County Lieutenant came to the bow, gazed at the seemingly calm expanse of water in the distance, recalled a bit, and then ordered a stop.

Because he remembered that there should be a trap mechanism set up by the Black Water Stronghold ahead.

When a ship passes, it will trigger the lurking underwater vine noose, easily snagging the ship's bottom.

"Send twenty strong men to dive and check; if there are vine nooses, they must be cleared," the County Lieutenant ordered.

Thus, the twenty civilians on the leading broken fishing boat were driven into the water.

The water here is deep; after they went in, they quickly fell silent, until even the ripples on the surface disappeared, with no one surfacing.

The County Lieutenant frowned, "Send another twenty!"

Another boatload of civilians dove into the water.

The same thing happened again.

A soldier beside the County Lieutenant wondered, "Sir, I recall that when the snare mechanism is triggered, it pops up above the water; if the people who just went in had triggered it, there should be some reaction, but now the situation is quite strange."

Another soldier said, "Could it have been dragged away by a crocodile?"

The County Lieutenant thought for a moment, then slightly shook his head: "It's deep winter now; even if a crocodile were awakened, its movements would be sluggish, a person bitten wouldn't die instantly but would surely struggle, yet there's not a splash of struggle, nor any trace of spreading blood. I think it's an underwater maelstrom that swept them away."

"What should we do?" the soldier exclaimed in astonishment.

The County Lieutenant laughed, "Since there is an underwater maelstrom capable of swallowing forty people in a short time, how could the bandits still be placing snare mechanisms? Even if they did, they would surely have been swept away already."

"That makes sense," the soldier immediately flattered, "you're still the wisest, sir."

The County Lieutenant waved his hand, "All right, let's go straight ahead; our ships won't get snagged on the bottom."

The fleet set sail again.

Just as he had said, every ship that passed in turn over that stretch of water where the mechanisms had been set encountered no mishap.

He couldn't help but reveal a smug smile.

In this anti-bandit campaign, even Heaven itself is helping; he believes that the entire gang of the Black Water Stronghold's bandits has surely exhausted its fate.

Little did he know, after the fleet gradually drifted away,

From the nearby reed thicket, heads popped out one after another, adding up to over eighty people.

Forty of them were exactly the civilians the soldiers had driven into the water.

The rest were none other than the bandits of the Black Water Stronghold.

They had been waiting here all along; as soon as they saw a chance to rescue, they secretly acted, dragging these civilians away from underwater.

"Hold on," the head bandit soothed, "we'll protect you as you go ashore, follow behind me, and walk together!"

Someone stammered, "You… what kind of people are you?"

The head bandit replied, "In any case, we won't harm you; otherwise, why would we suffer the trouble of rescuing you from under the soldiers' noses?"

Although the civilians harbored doubts, his words made sense, so they said nothing more and followed this group of strangers as they waded away.

On the fleet's side, a dense forest that had grown out of the water appeared ahead.

The County Lieutenant narrowed his eyes and sneered, "The Black Water Stronghold is truly done for—I've arrived here, yet the bandits haven't even noticed me."

Just then, shadows of boats began to appear one after another in the dim forest.

One after another, it was impossible to tell how many there were, and the figures on the decks swayed like ghosts.

On the dozens of broken fishing boats ahead of the official ship, the people of Moist County were seeing such a scene for the first time.

No need to think; it's obviously the bandits of the Black Water Stronghold that the County Magistrate wants to exterminate.

The instinctive fear welling up inside made these civilians, who had been seized to serve as strong men, regain a bit of clarity; they instinctively began to punt the oars, wanting to retreat and flee.

Seeing this, the County Lieutenant's face instantly turned grim: "It seems the training isn't enough after all—actually thinking of deserting in the face of battle."

The soldiers beside him nocked arrows on their bows at a moment's notice.

Swish!

An arrow flew out, piercing a civilian's arm, frightening the surrounding people into trembling all over.

The archer shouted at the top of his lungs, "Anyone still thinking of fleeing, the next arrow will go straight into your chest! Damn it, get over here and kill the bandits for me! If anyone still isn't afraid of being killed by me, your elderly parents or young children will be punished alongside you!"

Those words were tantamount to squeezing the soft spot of these poor civilians.

Even if they feared the bandits, they would rather be shot dead by the soldiers than have their families implicated.

Driven to desperation, someone let out a anguished, wailing howl and, madly, began to paddle the boat toward the forest.

The remaining civilians also had no choice but to act.

Soon, shouts of killing rose from all sides in the woods.

The County Lieutenant amusedly watched as his own strong men successively entered the forest, a smile appearing in his eyes.

"That's exactly right," he said, "once you lot are slaughtered by this gang of bandits, the bandits will themselves suffer some injuries and severe exhaustion; rest assured, I myself will lead the soldiers to avenge you, leaving not a single tile of the Black Water Stronghold standing."

In the water bay's dense forest, there was a din, with overlapping shadows and swaying boats.

It looked like the fighting was especially fierce.

The soldiers watched from afar, patiently waiting.

However, the actual situation was nothing like what they imagined.

Hundreds of Moist County civilians, hearts set on death, stifled their inner fear and indignation while shouting that they would fight the bandits to the death; the bandits, however, while dodging, told them they had come to rescue them.

Both sides each have about eight hundred people, essentially allowing one‑on‑one combat.

The snarling roars, the explanations, the clamor all mingled together, so it's no wonder the soldiers outside the forest couldn't make out anything.

The members of Black Water Village still exerted considerable effort.

Some civilians, after hearing the explanation—though not fully believing it—calmed down because they saw the water bandits not attacking them.

But many other civilians were agitated, ignored everything, so the water bandits had to strike them unconscious and haul them onto Black Water Village's boat.

In short, the scene was utter chaos.

It wasn't until a little over half an hour passed that the commotion gradually subsided, then became oddly quiet.

The soldiers beyond the Water Bay thicket stared wide‑eyed, barely seeing a few wrecked boats bobbing on the water, as if no human silhouettes remained.

"No way?"

"Did these strong‑armed youths perish together with the water bandits?"

"Is it because their combat power was too great, or because the water bandits have become too weak to strike?"

The soldiers exchanged astonished remarks.

The county officer, however, felt something was off.

While pondering whether to lead his men inside for a look, he suddenly noticed a small boat drifting shakily out of the forest.

All the soldiers raised their bows, every arrow aimed at the little boat.

When the boat floated closer, they observed from above and found no one aboard.

Only a heap of strange objects they had never seen before…