Chapter 6: Eating Clean

  As they spoke, Li Meng had already run over and shouted around:

  "Everyone, brothers, first carry the body over here."

  Zhao Neng and the others thought that whether they abandoned the corpses or not, it was all up to Li Meng. At this time, everyone trusted what Li Meng said, so the seven corpses were immediately moved over.

  Li Meng squatted down, ignoring the bloodstains on the corpse, and directly felt around the collar and waistband of the deceased's clothing. His movements were very meticulous, and the people around him were all staring in amazement, completely unaware of what Li Meng was doing. When he entered the financial transport company, there was a course on body searches during the induction training, which was said to be useful in certain special situations. Li Meng was now using this professional knowledge.

  Before long, Li Meng found valuable things on the bodies of these salt smugglers. These salt smugglers were a group of vagrants and rascals recruited by the patrol officer from the local area, all of them were unemployed idlers who naturally kept their valuables on themselves for safekeeping, but they weren't wealthy characters either.

  There were over ten taels of loose silver and several hundred copper coins, which was indeed a large sum of money. Li Meng and Zhao Neng had pushed the salt cart for nearly thirty miles to sell it at Mang Town. If they really made as much money as Li Meng had predicted, it would not be more than this amount.

  A dozen or so sons of military families were all looking on with envy, thinking to themselves that they had not thought there was still money on him. After Li Meng confirmed that he could no longer find any silver, he lifted his head and smiled, saying:

  "These are ill-gotten gains, let's divide them among ourselves and live a few good days."

  As they spoke, he divided the silver and copper coins into twelve portions and placed them on the ground. Fortunately, these silvers were all small pieces, otherwise it would have been difficult to divide them. For these poor military dependents, one or two taels of silver was a considerable sum of money, not to mention that there was more than that, and someone bent down to pick it up.

  Who would have thought that Zhao Neng suddenly grabbed the man and shook his head at Li Meng:

  "Little Li, you saved everyone's life today. If it weren't for you, we still wouldn't know what would have happened by now, and our families might have suffered too. This money is all yours, let's not take it."

  These words are all true, Chen Liu Zi was the first to speak in agreement, and everyone else nodded their heads, the man with his head bowed also smiled awkwardly in agreement. Li Meng, on the other hand, was taken aback, he squatted there, looking up at the tattered military dependents in front of him, their dark faces filled with sincere expressions.

  This moved Li Meng somewhat. In a modern society with a market economy, where could one see such an innocent expression? After a moment's hesitation, Li Meng took back half of the silver and divided the remaining half into eleven portions. He smiled again and said:

  "Since that's the case, I'll take half of it, and the rest can be divided among everyone else. We're brothers who have been through thick and thin together, if you're too polite, I won't be happy."

  Li Meng said this, and Zhao Neng and the others couldn't help but take the silver. After all, Li Meng was also a person who had crawled out of the modern workplace, and his words were not something that these poor and inexperienced soldiers could compare to. Since Li Meng said so, and there was silver to be taken, who would refuse? Zhao Neng led the way, and everyone took the silver.

  "Put those waist knives and iron rulers under the salt bag, these weapons are at hand."

  Again, the military dependents hastily followed Li Meng's words and did as he said. Li Meng didn't notice that from the beginning of his sudden rise to now, the attitude of these military dependent sons towards him had changed from surprise to awe, from awe to admiration. Now when Li Meng spoke, everyone listened and obeyed.

  It's been almost half a day since we met Yan Ding, and the sun is already slightly west. After calling out, they were about to set off again. Li Meng shook his shoulders, thinking that he would have to suffer again when pushing the cart. Who knew that there was still someone to help him lift it? Under Zhao Neng and Chen Liu's direction, everyone took a package of salt from Li Meng's cart, one by one, to carry for him. In the end, only a small package was left on Li Meng's small cart.

  This made things a lot easier, and Li Meng hurriedly thanked them. Everyone was smiling and didn't accept his thanks, instead scolding him for being too polite to his own brothers. Chen Liu's body was splattered with a lot of bloodstains, so he simply found some old clothes to change into. Li Meng specifically told him to make the clothes look older and dirtier, otherwise people would suspect something.

  On the road ahead, everyone didn't seem as cautious as they were on the first half of the journey. With just a slight rustling of leaves, they would be tense for half a day. The twelve military dependents chatted and laughed with each other, partly because Li Meng's bravery gave them a lot of confidence, and partly because the iron ruler under the chicken coop salt bag also boosted their morale.

  All along the way, it was indeed as Li Meng said, safe and sound, with no one blocking or intercepting them.

  At this time, Liao Jiang led Kong Youde with more than 10,000 people to make trouble in Dengzhou. The whole Shandong Province became a large battlefield, and soldiers and horses from all over the place gathered in Dengzhou to quell the rebellion. All local government offices were also strictly controlling the local area, fearing that there would be civil unrest. Since Chongzhen 2 years ago, there have been continuous great chaos in various places in Shandong Province, and it is really impossible to be careless. As the control was strict, and bandits, rebels, and local ruffians were rampant, ordinary people did not dare to leave their homes easily. The main roads and small roads were all deserted, and Li Meng and his group walked on this small road, and they didn't see anyone else except for the salt workers.

  Everyone's attitude towards Li Meng has changed greatly, so whether intentionally or unintentionally, everyone answers questions about him without anyone questioning anything.

  Li Meng only then knew why the Xue family's thousand households were under the jurisdiction of the Wei Suo, and how they didn't even have basic military training on a daily basis. The Ming dynasty's financial taxes, one-third or more are collected from the fields of the Wei Suo, and the burden on the military households is extremely heavy. Moreover, military households cannot be removed from their registers, and generation after generation must endure this suffering.

  About a hundred years ago, the officers of the Wei camp began to conceal the household registration of the Wei camp, turning the military households under their jurisdiction into civilian households. However, these civilian households were not listed in the official records. These converted military households continued to cultivate the land as before, but the object of paying grain and money changed to the military officers, such as the thousand-household leader or the commander-in-chief. The Li Meng family originally had such land, but after Li Meng's parents were killed by pirates, the land was allocated to Zhao Neng's family for cultivation by the thousand-household leader. Since Zhao Neng's parents had a relationship with Li Meng's parents, they felt guilty about taking over their land and therefore took care of Li Meng from time to time.

  In other words, the military households of Xue Jiaqianhu are actually just tenant farmers of the landlords, farming peasants, so don't mention training and drilling.

  It is said that within the Ling Shan Wei, each thousand households had dozens of soldiers who could fight, and the commander had more than 200 soldiers, plus a dozen personal guards. This was the actual number of soldiers in the 5,600-strong Wei army. This is also why Mu Xun Jian was able to dominate the Wei so easily. Mu Xun Jian relied on his wealth and recruited nearly 200 ruffians and fugitives as his subordinates, whose combat strength was even comparable to that of the commander.

  Upon hearing this, Li Meng's excitement after killing the person completely disappeared, and he became very disheartened. Looking at Wei Suo's appearance, it seemed that even if they were to encounter a disaster, they still wouldn't have the ability to protect themselves. What to do?

  ......

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