Chapter 84: Bandits are easy to dodge, official bandits hard to guard against

This scene and feeling were completely different from what Du Shanü had imagined before setting out.

Du Shanü slowed her horse, her gaze continually sweeping over the fields.

A cup of tea, an incense stick, a quarter hour, half an hour......

Wherever she passed, the surrounding fields were almost entirely in disarray, the trampled straw marks chaotic, without a trace of smoke.

Although the farmers would rush the harvest before the flood season, because they cherished the grain they at least had some method, harvesting whole swaths at a time, and would not ruin the land like this.

This looked more like a crowd swarming forward, you grabbing what you could, taking as much as you could seize.

Du Shanü's brows knit tighter, several thoughts turning in her mind, yet she had not grasped a clue when the bushes beside the road were suddenly shoved apart —

""Plop""

A shadow lunged and knelt directly in the middle of the road, landing right in front of her horse's hooves.

Immediately after came several more 'plop' sounds, like dumplings being dropped, as several people tumbled and crawled out from behind the bushes, all flopping down onto the ground at once.

The horse startled, stepped forward two paces, and Du Shanü firmly reined it in.

Du Shanü looked down and saw five or six people lying sprawled on the ground—men, women, and three or four children, the tallest no higher than her waist, now clinging desperately to his mother's arm, curled up into a ball.

This is…… a 'bump-and-claim' scheme?

How can this line of work be ancient, existing since time immemorial?!

Du Shanü cleared her throat, about to speak up and scold, but the words caught in her mouth——

No.

It felt more than completely off.

The man in front, his clothes so filthy you could not see their original color, cuffs worn to rags.

He lay prone, his whole body in a crouched posture, his shoulder blades sticking out through the back fabric into two sharp angles.

The woman beside him was worse: her face covered in dust, lips cracked and peeling, strips of white skin turned up to reveal the dark red flesh underneath.

She held a child in her arms, about three or four years old, face buried in the mother's chest, invisible, only a surprisingly thin nape visible.

The other two children, slightly older, knelt at the back, their clothes hanging empty on their bodies; when the wind blew, the fabric clung to their bodies, making each rib's outline clearly visible.

A family like this, if they truly could only survive by bumping-and-claiming......

That could only be said as heaven and earth being unkind.

Du Shanü swallowed the words she had been about to say, her brows furrowed, her voice lowered half a notch:

"Get up."

No one moved.

"I said, get up."

She made her tone heavier, tapping the horsewhip downward.

The man on the ground then lifted his head.

A face so thin it was unrecognizable, cheekbones high and protruding, eye sockets deeply sunken, yet the eyeballs shone frighteningly bright.

He did not rise, but instead crawled forward on his knees two steps, his knees scraping the gravel road and making a Shasha sound.

"My lord——"

He spoke, his voice hoarse like sandpaper rubbed on wood, as if something blocked his throat, needing to swallow after just two words.

"My lord, please…… have mercy……"

Du Shanü didn't understand how she had suddenly become a 'my lord', hadn't even thought about it, when a glance aside showed the woman beside the man suddenly moving.

The woman sprang up, staggering to Du Shanü's horse side, her hands trembling, she shoved the child in her arms toward the saddle.

Du Shanü instinctively leaned back a little, and the child was shoved onto her leg, limp as a boneless cotton wad, his small hand unconsciously gripping her collar.

"My lord, you have a horse......"

The woman lifted her filthy face to look at her, two white streaks of tears cutting through the grime:

"You have a horse…… you could surely afford to keep him…… this child is well-behaved, eats little, really eats little…… just give him leftover rice and he'll live……"

The reasoning is actually very simple.

These days, for ordinary folk, being able to raise livestock at home already counts as a well-off household.

Ordinary families observing the postpartum confinement might not even get a proper few days of rest, yet feeding pigs and sheep inevitably requires daily cutting pig grass, scrubbing the stone mortar, tending to them—fearing the pigs getting cold or hot, fearing the borrowed pigs dying, so at year's end there's no way to slaughter them and settle debts for the New Year.

Even pigs and sheep are like this, let alone raising horses.

Horses eat a lot, and are picky.

They need to eat dozens of catties of fodder a day; warhorses and good horses require even more meticulous feeding.

They take up much space and are troublesome to tend, besides, the Imperial Court still implements a levy on military horses; when the government requisitions horses, they must be handed over, causing huge losses.

Nowadays within Ju Cheng's borders, there is not a single decent household; suddenly seeing a nobleperson arriving on horseback......

How could they not plan for the child?

The emaciated woman's hand kept pushing the child onto the horse's back, her motions hurried yet clumsy; the young child, not understanding, felt some pain from being shoved by his mother and let out a cry of hurt.

Seeing the child like this, the woman's heart ached more, tears pattered down, splashing onto the horse's neck and leaving dark little spots.

The man also got up, staggering over to Chinu's horse, then tried to push the somewhat larger child behind him forward.

That child, seven or eight years old, thin as a bean sprout, shoved, staggered two steps, bumped into the horse, and his small hand instinctively gripped the saddle.

"My lord!"

The man plunged down with a 'plop', kneeling upright, his forehead hitting the ground hard:

"We don't want silver, we don't want cloth, we just want a bite to eat…… take this child, let him be an ox or a horse, he can do anything……"

Hard.

Hard.

Hard.

Worldly suffering knows nothing worse than the separation of kin, nothing worse than lacking a mouthful of food.

As long as life can go on, who would willingly give away their sons and daughters?

Du Shanü steadied the wailing child in her arms who was seeking its mother; seeing the child squirm, she handed it back to the exhausted woman, lowering her voice:

"First hold the child steady, don't let it fall. I ask you—what on earth is happening here?"

Logically, the journey she and Chinu had made on horseback should have taken no more than two hours.

Why, despite the river separating them, Cang Cheng remained calm and peaceful, even allowing her to make a small profit during this period, and her life gradually improved.

But near the borders of Ju Cheng, it was like this, like this...

Du Shanü's eyes grew slightly dim; the exhausted woman, already distressed for the child, seeing it cry so pitifully, finally took the child back into her arms, still sobbing.

The man knelt on the ground, his shoulders trembling, his Adam's apple rolling several times, as if a bellyful of words were stuck in his throat, not knowing where to begin.

Du Shanü did not urge him, simply waiting in silence.

Chinu had ridden up to her side at some point, saying nothing, also listening silently.

The wind blew over the fields, carrying the scent of broken straw and dry earth.

After a moment, the man finally spoke, his voice low as if addressing the ground:

"It... it's the County Magistrate!"

"Early last month, the county posted a notice saying they would levy a labor and grain tax—each person actually had to pay one dan of grain! Our fields still need a few days before harvest, and we can't scrape together the tax grain right now..."

The exhausted woman couldn't hold back, covering her face as she let out a mournful sob.

The man's voice then choked up:

"We didn't mean to evade the tax, no! We only... we only wanted to buy a few more days, for during that time the grain heads still have some emptiness, they don't weigh full, and if we were to gather the grain, we would certainly have to pay more grain and more money than usual."

"Just... just a brief delay!"

"But that bunch of murderous scoundrels wouldn't grant even a day's delay, they went straight into the fields to reap the grain, not only ruining the land beyond repair, but even using the pretext of insufficient grain to ransack everything of value in our home."

?? came again, another punctual day! Baby, praise me? (*^_^*)