Chapter Twenty-Four: Sweeping Away

  The time for changing the list has changed, and I was caught off guard. Please vote for me with recommendation tickets and collect them, so that Lao Bai can rush up the ranks on the new book list and update more frequently.

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  In a place about four or five miles west of Xuejia Thousand Households, there is a place called Wopeng Village. Several dozen households live here, all of whom are refugees who fled from the famine in Henan a few years ago and found a place to settle down nearby. Because the land here is barren and the Wei authorities don't bother to care about it.

  These Henan refugees settled down here, barely making ends meet. Even in a small place like this, the people living inside are also divided into good and bad. The village's bad guy is surnamed Wang, seventh in line, everyone calls him Wang Qi.

  These bad guys generally have bigger guts, the villagers who rely on the sea for food also boil seawater to make salt and sell it at the nearby Ling Mountain Salt Field. Later, because Li Meng collects salt, they all sell it to Li Meng, after all, they can earn half a cent more silver. However, recently, Wang Qi, who has been wandering around everywhere, discovered that if he sells the salt in Fengmeng Town, he can earn several cents more silver. Relying on his own strength, he concentrated all the salt in the village.

  He also got a chicken cart and pushed it to Mengmeng Town, and he was lucky enough to go twice without meeting Yandian, earning some extra money. However, Wang Qi didn't give the money to the villagers, but instead gathered two more people with similar character to him, forcing the villagers to sell salt to them.

  Three ruffians, each with a hatchet and a wooden stick, would beat anyone who refused to comply. The villagers were timid and afraid of trouble, and since they lived in an area not under official jurisdiction, they feared that if they called the authorities, the problem might not be solved and instead bring them more trouble. So everyone could only swallow their anger and let the ruffians bully them, which made Wang Qi feel triumphant.

  It's almost Mid-Autumn Festival, he came up with three loads of salt again, pulled over three villagers to push the cart, and he followed with his companions, thinking that this time they would find a local prostitute in Fengmeng Town and have a good time on August 15th.

  In front, three villagers with gloomy faces pushed a wheelbarrow, while behind them, Wang Qi and three others bit on grass roots, holding either wooden sticks or hatchets, humming a tune as they followed. They were prepared to rob any lone traveler they saw, and if they saw the salt police, they would run away with their legs. Anyway, it was always the misfortune of the villagers who pushed the salt.

  As a result, they had only gone three miles when five men with bamboo poles suddenly appeared in front of them before they even reached the main road. These people were quite frightening at first, but once Wang Qi and his companions saw that they were also dressed in tattered clothes like poor people, their courage immediately surged up.

  Among the five people blocking the road, one of them was still familiar and should be from the hundred households on the west side of Xue Jiaqian's house. Looking at the bamboo pole in his hand, Wang Qi weighed the large hatchet in his hand and walked to the front with a smooth flow, opening his mouth to say:

  "Damn it, have you all gone blind? This knife..."

  Those few people holding bamboo poles didn't say much, the five of them gathered together and charged over. The hatchet was less than two feet long, heavy and hard to swing, before they could even raise it, they were already poked with several holes by the sharp tips of the bamboo poles. The two on the side hadn't even taken action yet, seeing this scene scared them into dropping their hatchets and kneeling on the ground.

  The villagers who were pushing the cart fell to the ground, thinking it was all over. But then those few people took away the cleaver and used bamboo poles to beat the remaining two rascals until they could hardly move. Only when they were almost motionless did one of the men with the bamboo poles step forward and say:

  "Wang Qi is very wicked, let's deal with him first for the sake of our fellow villagers. And don't sell this salt outside anymore. What if we encounter salt smugglers halfway? Let's send it to Xue Jiaqian's village instead. Four taels of silver per dan, and pay in cash without any fuss!"

  After finishing speaking, the man who shouted kicked those two rascals hard and coldly shouted:

  "Again to harm fellow villagers, this Wang Qi is a model, don't pretend to be dead there, quickly get up and throw this corpse into the sea!"

  When the villagers who were pushing carts came to, they went back and told everyone in the village. At first, everyone was happy that Wang Qi had been killed and wouldn't be able to harm them anymore. Then, some people started to get scared - after all, the way he was killed wasn't something to be taken lightly. They thought it would still be better to send the four taels of silver to the west village instead, as the people there were relatively more friendly.

  From August 5th to August 20th, all the single households within a radius of thirty miles around Xue's thousand-household village received similar warnings. Those who were evil and had many faults were directly poked to death with bamboo sticks. Those who boiled seawater and sold salt together also received warnings and could only sell it to the west village of Xue's thousand-household village for four silver coins per load.

  This price is almost two mace higher than the purchase price at the salt yard, and you can choose between copper coins and silver, absolutely no arrears or deductions. If transported to Pingmang Town, more profit can be made, but the risk is also greater.

  And those who were poked to death by bamboo sticks are right in front of you, the other side is not joking around. The honest villagers all chose the most secure way, and earned some hard-earned money.

  It's not that there are many good citizens, those who want to report to the government or find salt workers, often as soon as they leave their homes, their houses are burned down by fire, or they are beaten halfway. Anyway, the road from Lingshanwei to Mengtang Town is just a few roads, it's easy to block people.

  In fact, after the Mid-Autumn Festival, Li Meng and Zhao Neng's courtyard started to be filled again. The sea salt from each village was sent here, and each village used simple methods to dry and boil salt, but the output was not high. However, with a large amount of salt being sent in, it eventually piled up like a tower.

  By September, Li Meng and his group had already sent salt to Fengmeng Town twice. Not only was there news circulating among the people and villages, but it is estimated that there was also news circulating among the salt workers. On the small road where Xue Jia's thousand households arrived in Fengmeng Town, nearly twenty salt workers did not return.

  Although there were less than 200 salt dings under Mu Xun's inspection, these 200 people were scattered throughout Jiaozhou, Gaomi, Miquan, Pingdu, Changyi and Weixian, setting up checkpoints to search for them. The salt dings under Mu Xun's inspection were divided into many gangs, although it was said that Jiaozhou and Fengmeng Town had always been active with many salt dings, the number of people was also limited.

  Unbeknownst to them, twenty had already died and their bodies couldn't be found. The remaining salt workers who were slightly smarter focused on secretly buying and selling salt at the salt yard in Miao Town, and didn't dare to do anything about the ban anymore.

  Some people say, why not go to the government office, these salt workers in the patrol inspector's office usually don't take the yamen of various prefectures and counties seriously, and those yamen officials, runners and catchers won't interfere with trivial matters either.

  For a time, a strange situation emerged, with the salt producers and salt merchants not interfering with each other, each delivering their own salt, all of them being extremely polite to the salt warehouse owners in Yunmeng Town, fearing that they would offend these powerful salt merchants who were like their parents providing for their food and clothing. This was truly a great irony.