Volume 1 Chushan Bandits Chapter 41: Autumn Insects and Grasshoppers Should Not Be Ignored
In the Tongbai Mountains, even among the veteran soldiers from the Jingsheng Army, not many had learned the large-frame bow-drawing method, let alone using the large-frame method to draw a hard bow on horseback using only the strength of their arms.
Xu Huai calmly rode on horseback and shot three arrows in quick succession, all of which were aimed at Tang Tiande's face. The farmhands who were skilled in martial arts could of course see how extraordinary this archery skill was.
This idiot actually has such a clean and neat archery skill? !
What’s even more rare is that Xu Huai was born with supernatural powers and could shoot arrows with a longbow on horseback.
Can you find more than ten or twenty people like this in the entire Tongbai Mountain?
Everyone couldn't help but worry for Tang Tiande, thinking that if Tang Tiande hadn't been so agile, he would have died in front of the village gate today.
Feeling the threat from the longbow in Xu Huai's hand and hearing Xu Wufu's harsh rebuke, the two men around him subconsciously took out their longbows and pointed them at Xu Huai.
Xu Wukun, with his sword and sheath, started to beat the two farmhands who had taken down their longbows and were about to point them at Xu Huai, cursing, "Idiots, who the hell are you aiming your bows at?"
The two farmhands realized that no matter what, they had to unite and face the outside world.
Seeing that Xu Wukun was still protecting Xu Huai, Xu Wuliang patiently stood in the crowd.
Xu Huai held the longbow horizontally in front of him, faced the furious Xu Wufu calmly, and asked, "Master, do you have any other instructions?"
Xu Wufu was so angry that he wanted to vomit blood. Before he could get internal injuries, he turned around and said to Tang Tiande:
"Captain Tang, please go back today. I will talk to Lord Deng about Xu Wujiang's matter. How to deal with him and whether Xu Wujiang really surrendered to the bandits must be reported to the prefecture and county. Lord Deng and I cannot make the final decision. I have said this much. Whether you listen or not is up to you today."
The four arrows Xu Huai shot were aimed at his face, so how could Tang Tiande dare to pretend to scare him?
If he really rushed in with more than twenty soldiers behind him to arrest people, would these experienced soldiers listen to him?
He glared at Xu Wufu angrily and said, "Xu Wufu, you know what's good for you. Go to the military camp today and talk to Lord Deng..."
Afraid that Xu Huai, that fool, would shoot him in the back again, Tang Tiande did not dare to turn around and leave. Instead, he slowly retreated towards the village gate. After he had put some distance between them, he mounted his horse again and fled towards Huaiyuan Town with his men in a panic.
After Tang Tiande left for a distance, Xu Wuqi took a longbow from the farmhand behind him, took out four feather arrows and put them in his hand, staring at Xu Huai and said, "You bastard, hand over the longbow and don't force me to fight!"
"Old Five, why are you arguing with Xu Huai?" Xu Wukun shouted in dissatisfaction.
"Take the longbow from this bastard and give it to the master of the family!" Xu Wuqi shouted at Xu Wukun mercilessly.
Xu Wukun was cornered by Xu Wuqi, so he walked towards Xu Huai with a wry smile and said, "Xu Huai, your fifth uncle is afraid that you will get into trouble, so please don't shoot me with an arrow!"
Xu Huai threw the longbow in his hand towards Xu Wukun and shouted angrily: "The mad dog has run away, what's the use of this longbow? Here you go!"
At this time, Xu Huai really didn't have the confidence that he could defeat Xu Wuqi.
What's more, without the threat from Tang Tiande, if Xu Wufu really ordered to capture him, Xu Huai believed that many farmhands would still obey his orders. He could not continue to maintain a stalemate at this time.
Xu Wukun caught the longbow and said, "Don't make trouble again, you little bastard!" He turned around and walked back to Xu Wufu and handed the longbow to him.
"Let's go!" Xu Wufu took the longbow in his hand and walked towards the northern camp with a gloomy face.
"Dad!" Xu Heng chased after him unwillingly and shouted.
Xu Wufu strode forward but ignored his eldest son Xu Heng.
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"Xu Wujiang left Qingxi Village without seeing a single person or corpse, and Su Di and that idiot happened to return to Yuhuangling to celebrate his birthday. I think what Tang Tiande said just now is right. The so-called birthday celebration was just a cover for them to escape from the military village. Even if Xu Wujiang did not surrender to the bandits, he must be hiding somewhere in Tongbai Mountain."
Xu Heng panted and chased for twenty or thirty steps, lowering his voice and saying,
"Speaking of which, it's easy to verify. As long as someone knows the date of birth of Xu Wujiang's father, they can ask her and see how she denies it."
"What do you want to do?" Xu Wufu glared at his son and asked in a low voice.
Hundreds of years ago, when the aristocratic families in the Central Plains were prevalent, in order to maintain the inheritance of their family background, the gentry attached great importance to compiling family genealogies, and there would be detailed records of their children's birth and death years, marriages, funerals, and official appointments.
When the aristocratic families were prevalent, compiling family genealogies was the main basis for recommending officials. Naturally, the government had to get involved to prevent fraud, and was also known as official genealogy spies.
However, these have nothing to do with the common people, let alone ordinary people.
After the fall of the previous dynasty, after a hundred years of war, almost all official genealogies were destroyed in the war, and the clan system was also completely destroyed.
Since the establishment of the Dai Viet Dynasty, the aristocratic families have not been popular, and the imperial examination system has been implemented to select officials. However, those literati who think highly of themselves still regard themselves as aristocrats and still like to compile family genealogies. It’s just that the government no longer gets involved.
Before the Xu family moved to Tongbai Mountain, they were not a prominent family. However, when they moved to Tongbai Mountain to multiply and live, by the time of Xu Huai, Xu Xin'an, and Xu Heng came along, it was already the ninth generation. None of them had become a scholar-official, and there was no tradition of compiling a family tree.
Within the clan, when discussing the direct and collateral branches, one can only trace back five generations to the ancestor.
Except for close relatives such as parents, brothers and sisters, who may remember someone's birthday, more distant relatives probably won't even have the slightest impression of it.
Of course, some people in the clan might have some impression of Xu Wujiang's father's birthday, but could it withstand confrontation? And after the cross-examination, what could they do? Would they really hand over all the Wuzu's families?
Xu Wufu's eyes were rarely so stern, which startled Xu Heng.
"Follow Tang Tiande and his men and see if they retreat to the north bank of Qingliu Creek."
When Xu Wufu saw Xu Wuqi, Xu Wukun and others approaching, he handed Xu Huai's longbow to Xu Wuqi and told them to follow Tang Tiande and others to see if they would honestly retreat from Qingliu Creek.
After Xu Wukun and Xu Wuqi took the farmhands away, Xu Wufu stared at his eldest son Xu Heng with great sorrow and said:
"Now that you have found someone to confirm that Xu Wujiang's father's birthday is not today, what can you do? Do you really want to send Xu Wujiang's father and Su Di to the Inspection Office and hand them over to Deng Gui for punishment? Even if this can convince the clan members, aren't you worried that Xu Wujiang, who has escaped, will ambush on the side of the road one day and suddenly become murderous and avenge his father and Su Di?"
If Xu Wufu still couldn't see that all this was arranged by Xu Wujiang at this time, then he was blind. Why did he need his eldest son Xu Heng to remind him?
The key issue is that Xu Wujiang and his men are in hiding.
"Dad, are you saying that Xu Wujiang has seen through everything and knows that both we and Deng Gui want to harm him?"
"If you didn't see through all this, do you think it's fun to escape and be charged with desertion?" Xu Wufu glared at Xu Heng and asked.
Deserting from the battlefield or joining the army as bandits are both serious crimes. Who would choose to do so unless they have no other choice?
"That bastard Xu Huai, why did dad let him go instead of tying him up and taking him to the ancestral hall to give him a good beating?" Xu Heng still felt resentful as he thought about Xu Huai's kick.
Xu Wufu picked up a branch, stirred it into a pile of cow dung on the road, threw it at his eldest son Xu Heng, and said:
"Foolish thing, tie this stick to the ancestral temple and vent your anger! Don't you understand? Xu Huai is the stick in Xu Wujiang's hand that stirs up trouble. Maybe Xu Wujiang sneaked back to the vicinity of Nanzhai last night, waiting for us to make a stupid move so that he can attack us!"
"How is he going to attack?" Xu Heng held his breath and threw away the branch covered with cow dung, asking unconvincedly.
"We can't talk about the assassins, and we can't talk about Chen Tong's lobbying. How can you believe that Xu Wujiang was not killed by the bandits, but joined the bandits for no reason?" Xu Wufu asked, "Do you think that if I order Xu Huai to be tied to the ancestral temple, Xu Wukun and others will do it regardless of the consequences? In the three armies, we have to guard against the officers and soldiers causing trouble and mutiny. Do you think that I, the head of the family, can really tell others to go through fire and water without blinking an eye? Don't think too highly of yourself. This matter is very troublesome!"
"What should we do then?" After hearing these words, Xu Heng realized that things were much more difficult than he had imagined.
"Xu Wujiang and his men are trying to escape, and they dare not easily be accused of 'deserting the battlefield', so they dare not show up unless it is absolutely necessary," Xu Wufu pondered, "So we have to wait and see how this matter develops. The clan can only insist that they died in the fight against bandits, and see what happens next..."
"Then who should we send to talk to Deng Gui?" Xu Heng asked.
"There is no need to send anyone to find Deng Gui. The fact that Deng Gui did not hand the warrant to Tang Tiande shows that he is not stupid. He just pushed Tang Tiande, who knows nothing, out to test our attitude." Xu Wufu said.
"..."Xu Heng was a little confused. How could he have imagined that there were so many schemes?
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Tang Tiande, Xu Wufu and others left Nanzhai one after another, but the chaos in Nanzhai did not stop there.
It was only then that Xu Wujiang's mother learned that her son had led his troops to suppress bandits, but he was nowhere to be found, alive or dead, and was also falsely accused of surrendering to bandits by the Inspection Officer. She fainted from crying immediately; the other Wuzu families were also at a loss, and they surrounded talking to her.
When Su Di was a girl in Nanzhai, she was bold and capable, but no one took her seriously at that time.
At the moment, the Wuzu family had no backbone, and Su Di, as Xu Wujiang's wife, had just stood at the gate of the village to strongly stop the inspection officers from arresting people, so naturally everyone regarded her as the backbone.
Su Di asked everyone to go to Xu Wujiang's house to discuss things first, and everyone obeyed.
Of course, some people remembered that Xu Zhongyu was the head of the Nanzhai Village, and called him, "Uncle Xu, you have to help us make a decision on this matter!"
Xu Zhongyu had not yet recovered from being kicked by Xu Huai. Seeing Xu Huai standing aside with a savage look on his face, staring at him like a leopard, he panted and said angrily: "I have nothing to do with this matter. Don't drag me into this!"
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"Everyone has seen the attitude of the family head. The family head is an official in the state government. He is afraid that offending Mr. Deng and the officials of the state and county will hinder his future, so he wants to hand us over. In the end, if Xu Huai hadn't taken action, he would not have stood up and said those hypocritical words because he saw that he couldn't get over it. And Xu Zhongyu depends on Xu Wufu's mood for everything, so he can't be relied on..."
Everyone went to Xu Wujiang's yard. According to the established plan, Xu Wuliang stood up and incited everyone.
For ordinary members of the clan, they were angry mainly because they could not believe that Xu Wujiang and his men would surrender to the bandits. However, if the Inspection Office and the prefectures and counties could confirm this, or if they took a tougher stance and directly sent a large force of troops to capture the families of the Wuzu, they would not really confront the government.
In front of the government, it is no small matter for the whole family to make trouble.
However, the families of the Wuzu had no choice. Even if Xu Wujiang and others surrendered to the bandits, at least they were still alive, which would be easier for them to accept than dying without a body.
These families are the ones that Xu Huai and his team want to unite as a team first.
All the soldiers went into hiding with Xu Wujiang, but that did not mean there were no young and strong people among their families.
For example, Su Di's father, Su Laochang, was only forty-three or forty-four years old, strong and healthy, and had learned martial arts; among the other young and strong men between the ages of fifteen and fifty in the Wuzu families, there were more than forty available.
Whether it was recruiting soldiers, conducting autumn training exercises in the village, or organizing village soldiers and braves, they were all done according to the rule of "selecting one out of three men"; the soldiers joined the inspection office as regular men, and there were still many men left in their families.
There is a saying in this world that "the poor are good at literature and the rich are good at martial arts." The implication is that poor families do not have meat to eat on a daily basis, and their children practice martial arts, but their bodies cannot withstand such heavy consumption and it is difficult for them to achieve great success.
However, in reality, poor people have a more direct and urgent desire for physical violence.
If you don't want to be tied to the barren land, working like skinny oxen and horses all your life but getting nothing in return, you can practice martial arts and work as a security guard for rich families, become a village warrior, become a bandit, or become a scoundrel and run rampant in the village. There are broader ways out at the bottom of society.
As for the fact that the current dynasty controls the military with civil power, respects civil power and suppresses military power, and that the imperial examination is the right way to select officials, what does this have to do with the grassroots people?
As far as the various villages in Lutai are concerned, almost everyone in the southern village knows some martial arts.
If the Yuhuangling militia is to be fully mobilized, even though the total population of Nanzhai is small, militiamen must account for 40% of it.
The bottom line is that it’s poverty, and this is a rare opportunity for Nanzhai to replenish its food shortage.
In addition to a small subsidy, the more important thing for participating in the autumn training is that the clan provides food and a set of military uniforms, which saves the family a lot of expenses.
Therefore, although the disciples of the South Village look thin, they have the most martial arts practitioners.
What Xu Huai and his men had to do now was to gather more than 40 young and strong men, including Su Di's father Su Laochang, and concentrate them in Nanzhai to live and take care of each other - in addition to preventing the inspection department and the prefecture and county from coming to arrest people again, they also had to guard against Xu Wufu's secret persecution...
