Volume 1 Chushan Bandits Chapter 24: Past Events at Tongbai Mountain
"This courtyard is the property of the Zhou family in Nanxiang Village. In the early years, it was rented to a merchant who bought tung oil seeds from Tongbai Mountain. But for some reason, the tung oil merchant never came back after last autumn, and the courtyard has been empty here. I heard that this courtyard is not small, and the interior decoration is also elegant."
Walking into Dongli Lane at the east end of the market, Liu Qiong'er pointed to a courtyard with a pair of small stone lions standing under the eaves of a house and told Xu Huai some of the information she knew.
"Since everything has led to this situation by accident, and you even went to extort Zheng the butcher in order to enter Yuehonglou, I think the money and goods that can be used for our work are only the three hundred taels of silver left in my pocket; this really cannot withstand any trouble. I thought about it at night, it is not only difficult to maintain a wine shop, but also can't get any information, not to mention having an excuse to recruit people - since the crisis is so severe now, I am not qualified to think of myself as noble and despise selling smiles as a dirty job in the muddy water. And all I can do is play and sing a few songs and deal with people. I thought about it over and over again last night, find a broker to take over this yard, I also know a few women who didn't follow the rules of Yuehonglou and were expelled, find them to help serve the wine and food, clean up the yard, and buy two smart and clever maids to serve, then this Qinzhai can be set up to sell smiles as a business, without spending any energy..."
Xu Huai and Liu Qiong'er had already walked around the yard. They had not yet entered the yard, but they had carefully examined the external environment.
Although this place is far away from the main street, it is considered a high-end residential area in Huaiyuan Town.
Behind the yard is a canal about ten feet wide, which draws water from the Baijian River in the west and flows to the Huai River in the north. Most people in the market wash clothes and vegetables in this canal. In front of the yard is a paved stone alley, which is sandwiched into a narrow strip by the towering walls on both sides.
The alley is quite quiet at this moment, with no pedestrians passing by. It must not be noisy at other times.
Xu Huai thought that if the assassin heard the news and came here to inquire about the situation, it would be difficult for him to hide his tracks if he ran to this area.
And if he could ambush and kill the lone assassin and throw him into the pond behind, the body would be washed into the Huai River overnight, and there would be no risk of being caught by the government.
It is really a perfect place to set bait and lure assassins to take the bait. It seems that Liu Qiong'er is much more familiar with every detail of Huaiyuan Town than he is.
And Liu Qiong'er is a smart person. She has come into contact with all kinds of people in the past few years. She is definitely not comparable to ordinary women. She thought through the management of Qinzhai thoroughly in just one night.
"It's good to be able to take over this place."
Xu Huai nodded, praising Liu Qiong'er for being so thoughtful and choosing such a place to stay at night, and said,
"There are many poor families in Tongbai Mountain who can't make a living. If you take the 250-li horse trail from Xinyang to Biyang, you can see many boys aged 14 or 15 working as laborers, but they can't even get enough to eat. Miss Liu, please pick a few strong and talented people to hire. I will teach them how to use fists, kicks and clubs, and it won't be a problem for them to deal with three or five petty thieves in no time."
After hearing what Xu Huai said, Liu Qiong'er's face changed, her brows furrowed, and she said in disappointment:
"The assassins might come to kill you tonight after hearing the news. How can I have time to train you a newbie? I have put in a lot of effort to buy this house and resume my old business, hoping to be more useful in your eyes. However, I didn't expect that you only wanted to use me as bait. It's not a pity to die after using me once."
"..." Seeing Liu Qiong'er's emotional collapse, Xu Huai was also a little unprepared, and explained, "The assassins don't know the truth, so they will never dare to come and kill us. Even if there is danger, I will not abandon you and go alone. Besides, I told you about my situation yesterday. Where can I recruit trustworthy veterans to strengthen the defense of this courtyard?"
Liu Qiong'er was a little disappointed, but she calmed down after a while. She stared at Xu Huai with her almond eyes for a while and asked doubtfully, "Are you sure you can't find someone you can trust to help you?"
"..." Xu Huai spread his hands. Liu Qiong'er and he were grasshoppers tied to the same tree, and she had no other choice. Therefore, he told her everything he could tell her yesterday.
Liu Qiong'er asked in confusion: "You don't seem to know about your father's past?"
Xu Huai admitted that he knew very little about his father, saying, "I was indeed ignorant and clumsy before, but in recent years I suddenly became enlightened and understood many things - but no one mentioned many of my father's past events to me, even if I heard them from others, few people in the clan talked about them either."
"You know that I deal with all kinds of gods in Yuehonglou. In addition to playing the piano and singing, I also have to think about making the guests happy, and I can also hear all kinds of anecdotes from these guests. Of course, I haven't verified these things, and I just listened to them as stories. Just take it as what you said." Liu Qiong'er said.
"You said, whether it is true or false, I can still tell one or two." Xu Huai said.
Liu Qiong'er said, "I've heard that although your father Xu Wuxuan is a direct descendant of the Xu family, he doesn't have a good relationship with the eldest branch of the Xu family, Xu Wufu. When he was young, his family was impoverished, and he left Tongbai Mountain to venture out to other places for a few years. Have you heard of this story, too?"
"That's what I know. Are there any other versions?" Xu Huai asked doubtfully.
When he heard Lu Xiong mention that more than a dozen members of the Xu family, including his father, had returned from the Jingsheng Army, Xu Huai had many doubts in his mind at the time, but he was not in a position to ask in detail.
He didn't expect that Liu Qiong'er had come into contact with all kinds of people in Yuehonglou, and had even heard about his father's past experiences.
"I also heard it from someone," Liu Qiong'er said. "Twenty years ago, the governor of Tangzhou was Wang Xiaocheng, a man who is still admired today. When Wang Xiaocheng took office in Tangzhou, he saw that the bandit problem in Tongbai Mountain was very serious, so he organized troops from many sides to clear it out. At that time, the Huaiyuan Inspection Office changed to recruit local soldiers, which was promoted by Wang Xiaocheng alone. Wang Xiaocheng's suppression of bandits was indeed effective. When he left Tangzhou and became the commander-in-chief of the Jingsheng Army, many bandit chieftains and bandits captured in Tongbai Mountain were incorporated into the Jingsheng Army. Although the Xu family has always been very secretive, there are still some people in Huaiyuan Town who believe that your father and those Xu clan members who returned home from the Jingsheng Army in the future were actually the bandits who were incorporated by Wang Xiaocheng from Tongbai Mountain back then; and your father went to other places in his early years to make a living, and actually hid his identity and became a bandit in Tongbai Mountain - your father was even a bandit chieftain, which is why he was able to hold a military position soon after joining the army..."
Xu Huai held the knife in front of his chest with both hands. Although his face was silent and gloomy, his heart was in turmoil:
Although all these were rumors that Liu Qiong'er heard, Xu Huai believed that this version might be closer to the truth.
At that time, there was a tradition of hunting down bandits and recruiting soldiers to form the army. This made local security relatively stable, but it made it difficult to enforce discipline on the imperial guards and the garrison troops.
The officers and soldiers of the Imperial Guards were lifelong soldiers. Unless there were special reasons, they would stay in the army until they died of illness, old age or were buried. To prevent them from escaping the camp, the officers and soldiers had gold seals tattooed on their faces. Their status in the world was actually very low. It was rare for sons of good families to voluntarily join the army unless they had no other choice.
Therefore, without special reasons, it is hard to imagine that his father would join the army with so many members of the Xu family in his early years; and his father had no military achievements, so apart from being a bandit leader who accepted amnesty and made repeated military exploits, it was difficult for him to be among the military officials.
It is easier to understand why his father had to hide his identity when he became a bandit in his early years.
The purpose of hiding one's identity or changing one's name is, firstly, to avoid bringing trouble to one's family and clan, and secondly, after saving enough money, one can return to one's hometown, buy land and a house, and become a wealthy man.
In today's world, being a bandit is so willful.
These things were by no means glorious, and were kept secret within the Xu family. It was normal that no one mentioned them, let alone brought up these old things in front of him.
"If these rumors are true, in the eyes of those old soldiers of the Xu family who returned home from the Jingsheng Army, you are the real young master!" Liu Qiong'er said excitedly when she saw that Xu Huai believed her words.
"What kind of young master is this?" Xu Huai laughed at himself. "When my father was in the Jingsheng Army, he was just a small commander, not even as good as a regular patrol inspector. Can the position of bandit leader be hereditary?"
Liu Qiong'er ignored Xu Huai's self-mockery and said, "I don't know many of the old soldiers of the Xu family who returned from the Jingsheng Army, but I heard that Xu Wuliang, who runs a blacksmith shop in Liutiao Lane, was one of the ten generals in the Jingsheng Army. He taught people how to fight with fists and sticks when he had nothing to do in Liutiao Lane, and he was quite famous. He may have followed your father into exile. If you go to find him to guard this yard, he will definitely not refuse you - and when he sees that you are not as stupid as others say, he will definitely help you with all his heart!"
Xu Huai looked at Liu Qiong'er in surprise and couldn't help wondering, before she was seemingly forced by him to redeem herself from Yue Honglou, had she thought of all this long ago? Was he actually being tricked by her?
Xu Huai was of course familiar with Xu Wuliang.
After returning home from the Jingsheng Army, Xu Wuliang did not stay in Lutai Village to join his family, but married into an old blacksmith's family in Huaiyuan Town. After his father-in-law died, he inherited the small blacksmith shop in Liutiao Lane.
Xu Huai still remembers that when he was a child, he would often go to Xu Wuliang's blacksmith shop to play.
Every time Xu Wuliang would go to the street and secretly buy one or two scallion pancakes or other food and put them in his arms.
Once he was caught by Xu Wuliang's wife, who snatched the scallion pancake from his arms. When he got home, he was beaten and scolded by his mother. From then on, Xu Huai never went to Xu Wuliang's blacksmith shop, and even deliberately avoided it.
After regaining consciousness, Xu Huai thought about the past events and realized that he was wrong.
The vast majority of the tribesmen who returned home from the Jingsheng Army lived a very hard life.
Xu Wuliang inherited a small blacksmith shop from his father-in-law, which was barely enough to make ends meet. The food that was secretly stuffed into his arms was really squeezed out of the mouths of his entire family.
But he was ignorant when he was young, and could not get rid of the feeling of hunger, so he would run to Xu Wuliang at any time.
Thinking of these old events, Xu Huai was quite touched and said to Liu Qiong'er: "Although the assassins believe that all the Xu family members who returned home from the Jingsheng Army are involved, Uncle Wu Liang is living a stable life. How can I force him to be involved?"
“…”
When Liu Qiong'er heard this, she wanted to roll her eyes at Xu Huai for the rest of her life: You dragged me into this fire pit without even blinking an eye, can you have the heart to do that?
After a long while, Liu Qiong'er suppressed her anger and said,
"Xu Wuliang is not doing well running that shabby blacksmith shop. I heard that Xu Wuliang's mother-in-law was seriously ill a few years ago, and the medicine she took emptied the family's savings, so she couldn't even afford a coffin when she died. Or Xu Wuliang borrowed more than ten strings of cash from the Tang family warehouse to hold the funeral and bury the deceased. This debt has never been repaid, and the interest has compounded into a huge sum. Even if he were to tear his old bones apart now, he still can't pay it back. I heard the servants of Yuehonglou discussing privately that Tang Lingde and others said that Xu Wuliang's daughter had good bones and would grow up to be a beauty. They wanted to force his family to sell their daughter to Yuehonglou to pay off the debt. However, Xu Wuliang was born in the army and was quite skilled. He was also a member of the Xu family. They didn't dare to force him too hard..."
“I see…”
It was only then that Xu Huai realized that based on all these secrets that he had never heard of, it was the right choice for him to forcibly drag Liu Qiong'er out of Yue Honglou.
"Are you going to find Xu Wuliang?" Seeing that Xu Huai remained silent for a long time, Liu Qiong'er couldn't help but urge him.
"Let's go now." Xu Huai said.
Even if he wanted to know whether the story of his father becoming a bandit was true or not, he could only verify it by going to Xu Wuliang.
Uncle Seventeen was only a boy of eleven or twelve twenty years ago, and he was not an old soldier of the Jingsheng Army. It was only after his father returned home from the Jingsheng Army that Uncle Seventeen learned the Fu Mang Fist and the sword and spear. Xu Huai suspected that Uncle Seventeen knew the details of what happened back then.
Although Lu Xiong was acquainted with his father in the army and might know some of his father's past, he might not know the details.
