Chapter 842: The Fragrance of Rice

"Soldiers, did you hear what they said? They want to kill Yan Wang! Can we agree to that!" Pang San arrived before the corpse of Xie Kang, not a shred of sympathy in his eyes, but rather a hint of satisfaction.

Recalling the times they were oppressed by the Shizu and the Rich Clans, he still could not suppress the hatred in his heart to this day.

Once, his family of five had only a single pair of trousers for the whole household.

Whoever went out was the only one who could wear the trousers.

They rented land from a Rich Clan, toiling hard for a year, yet not only did they have no surplus, they had to borrow debt from the Rich Clan at the end of the year to survive.

Because for the two seasonal harvests, the Rich Clan took eighty percent, and they could only take twenty percent.

In spring and summer, his family could still rely on digging wild vegetables to fill the gap in food, but when the lean season arrived in autumn and winter, there was not enough food to eat, so they could only borrow grain from the Rich Clan to be repaid the following year.

But the grain borrowed from the Rich Clan often carried high interest, multiplying more and more.

Consequently, they could only use more grain to repay the debt.

Having survived the spring and summer of the previous year, the food for this spring and summer was all used to repay the debt, and they could only continue to borrow debt from the Rich Clan again.

Thus, year after year, they became poorer and poorer.

With no grain to repay the debt, they could only pawn the items in their home to pay it off.

In the end, the house was stripped bare, and his family members did not even have clothes.

He still remembered it was a winter night when the Rich Clan came to press for the debt again.

His mother had no choice but to sell his twelve-year-old sister to the Rich Clan.

Yet, after only three days, the Rich Clan sent his sister back.

But what was sent back was a cold corpse.

His poor sister had been abused to death by a scion of the Rich Clan's household.

Yet this Rich Clan not only felt no guilt, they even fabricated that his sister had committed suicide, so the matter of using his sister to offset the debt was considered void, and his family had to continue repaying the debt.

It was on this winter night that he killed someone for the first time in his life.

He used the only iron tool in the house, a rake, to kill the Rich Clan member and two servants who had come.

This Rich Clan was precisely the Huang Family.

Afterward, they were captured by private soldiers dispatched by the Huang Family, thrown into the Water Prison, and were to be tortured to death.

It was also at this moment that Yan Wang's troops broke into the Huang Family Fortress, destroyed the Huang Family, and rescued him.

They even distributed the Huang Family's fields to the tenant farmers who had worked for the Huang Family, six mu per household.

Life seemed to become exceptionally wonderful overnight.

Thus, he decisively joined Yan Wang's army.

He swore to use his life and loyalty to follow Yan Wang for this lifetime, never regretting it until death.

"We do not agree!"

"We do not agree!"

"..."

The Wangfu Army soldiers held their Qin-series rifles high and shouted loudly.

"Right, we do not agree. It was His Highness Yan Wang who gave us land, it was His Highness Yan Wang who let our children learn to read and write so they might enter the government in the future, and it was Yan Wang who let us millions of commoners live like human beings." Pang San's eyes grew warm.

Then, he clenched his fist tightly and roared: "Therefore, whether it is the Shizu, the Northern Di, or the Eastern Japanese,

or the damn Westerners, whoever threatens our Great Song, threatens our His Highness Yan Wang, and dreams of making us serve them like cattle and horses again, I will pull out his testicles and stuff them into his mouth!"

His words were resonant and powerful; the soldiers felt their blood boil upon hearing them.

Regardless of whether Yan Wang was the Emperor or not, they shouted one after another, "Long live His Highness Yan Wang, long live His Highness Yan Wang..."

The soaring sound waves drifted into the sky, covering the entire Changcheng, and even reached the ears of the commoners outside the city.

"We won, we won, we won the battle." The Yan Wang soldiers cheered in unison, and they immediately realized something.

At this moment, his heart was sweeter than if he had eaten honey.

For them, the bitter days had finally ended, and they were about to see the end of their suffering.

In their excitement, the commoners also echoed the soldiers and cheered.

Their sound waves mixed with the sound waves from inside the city, rushing toward the plains, rushing toward the mountains and forests, and echoing continuously in the mountains.

"Scrape Changcheng clean, take away everything useful!"

The commoners' cheers made Pang San smile knowingly, and then, thinking of something, he immediately gave the order.

They had wiped out the Shizu Army, but this Changcheng still hid quite a few Shizu and Rich Clan scions.

Besides ordering the soldiers to search, he also called over several key figures of the uprising and ordered them to lead the commoners to cooperate with the Third Army soldiers.

"Load all the grain and wealth onto the baggage carts; we can go back to harvest the rice." Pang San said this last.

The baggage carts left in Changcheng by the Shizu Army were enough for them to use.

The commoners immediately laughed, their eyes full of anticipation.

Another night passed, and by the second morning, with the coordination of the Third Army soldiers and the commoners, Changcheng had been turned upside down.

Pang San did not linger, ordering the commoners and soldiers to pull the baggage carts eastward, and also ordering a portion of the soldiers to escort the captives.

Upon returning to Zhezhou, they encountered other Third Army units.

They had also successfully risen up, rescued the commoners, and were returning.

In the following days, commoners and Third Army soldiers continuously joined the ranks like streams flowing into the sea.

On the earth, a river composed of people slowly advanced eastward, gradually leaving Jiangzhou and entering the territory of Zhezhou.

At this time, many commoners looked at the rice in the fields and could no longer wait.

After receiving permission, they left the ranks one after another, hurrying back to their villages to rush the harvest.

Pang San also sent word back to Jinling at the first opportunity.

He had the Military Scribe Zhong Li temporarily place Zhezhou under military administration and organize a militia.

As they continued to penetrate deeper into Zhezhou, more and more commoners left the ranks and returned to their homes.

……

At the same time.

Anqing Prefecture.

The powerful clans' grand army was stationed here, severing the route between Xiangzhou and Jinling into two segments.

This was because Anqing Prefecture was located nowhere else but on the south bank of Jiujiang, at the northernmost tip of Jiangzhou.

"We have been deceived; it turns out the Yan Wang's goal was not Bazhou, but to bring the westward-migrating commoners back to the coastal provinces."

In the temporary residence of the Government Office, Wang Xie slammed the intelligence reports he had gathered over the past few days onto the table.

Especially when he received news that Changcheng had fallen, four days had already passed since he left Changcheng.

This was because their grand army had been continuously advancing northward.

"Changcheng has now become an empty city; what are we to do? Our provisions are only enough for half a month," Xie An said with a worried expression.

Originally, the prefectures and counties south of Jiangzhou, especially Changcheng, were their backyard.

Relying on Jiangzhou, they were able to continuously obtain supplies of grain and fodder.

But now, it was as if their backyard had caught fire.

What was even more hateful was that the Yan King Army was like a swarm of locusts, leaving them with nothing.

Suddenly, they had become an isolated army.

"Despicable and shameless!" Wang Xie gritted his teeth, wishing he could swallow the Yan Wang alive.

But now, he had to face this cruel reality.

The Yan Wang had quietly and stealthily dismantled their backyard.

Moreover, with the commoners returning home just in time for the harvest season, the coastal provinces had instead become an asset to the Yan King Army.

Their strategy of strengthening the walls and clearing the fields had failed completely.

The Yan King Army would no longer have to worry about the issue of provisions when moving south.

(https: //)

Let's set a small goal first, for example, remember it in 1 second: Book reading mobile version reading website: