The Great Rebel at the End of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 010 Escaped Household

As luck would have it, after leaving the county town, Zhou Lun and his group did not take the official road, but instead detoured southeast onto a mountain road.

The original plan was to pass through the grand canyon southeast of the county town and then continue eastward. This grand canyon has a rugged terrain and covers a vast area; it is the famous Ganquan Grand Canyon of later generations.

This place was sparsely populated and difficult to find; apart from the local mountain people, few people ventured here. To be on the safe side, Zhou Lun specifically chose this route. However, unexpectedly, after traveling more than halfway through the journey, passing through Birch Gully, and just about to leave this area, they were unexpectedly confronted by a group of highway robbers.

These people, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, carrying weapons, jumped out and shouted, "This mountain is mine, this tree is mine, if you want to pass through, leave your toll!" They actually started a business without any capital in this desolate wilderness.

Zhou Lun and Li Shouyi didn't want to cause any trouble, so they tried to reason with them politely and even offered a few taels of silver to send the man away. However, the other party was insatiable; the leader not only demanded they leave behind all their money and provisions, but also set his sights on the bow on Li Shouyi's shoulder and the goose-feather knife at his waist.

Li Shouyi was unwilling to agree to this. The silver was one thing, but these two items were heirlooms from his ancestors, treasures he cherished dearly. Since they couldn't reach an agreement, then let's fight! Zhou Lun and his three companions weren't pushovers either; they had just accomplished something significant in the county town—were they really going to be intimidated by a few petty thieves?

Li Shouyi was an excellent archer, able to hit almost any target within fifty paces. Combined with the swift and ruthless martial arts skills of Zhou Lun, Wang Tieniu, and Li Shoutian, the fight began. Li Shouyi struck first, shooting down the leader with a single arrow. He then followed up with several more arrows, pinning the leading bandits to the ground.

Zhou Lun, Li Shoutian, and Wang Tieniu charged forward like tigers entering the forest, drawing their weapons and slashing down several opponents in no time.

"Grandpa, spare me! Grandpa, spare me!"

It was the same scene again. The leader was already dead, and his henchmen were also finished. The one who was still alive was howling on the ground, and he was about to die. The remaining henchmen were all terrified. They threw their weapons aside and their knees buckled as they knelt down, kowtowing and begging for mercy to Zhou Lun and the others.

Seeing this, Li Shouyi immediately abandoned any thought of continuing the attack, let alone eliminating any remaining threats. He frowned and glanced around, realizing that the remaining people were all fugitives.

In recent years, there have been quite a few absconding households in Shaanxi. Many people cannot pay their taxes and have fled their hometowns with their families, hiding in the mountains to barely make ends meet. They are all pitiful people.

If the leader hadn't harbored malicious intentions and taken advantage of them, Li Shouyi wouldn't have resorted to such ruthlessness. Now that the leader is dead and several Tie Gans have been killed, it wouldn't hurt to let the remaining ordinary people go.

"Brother, this might be a way out," Zhou Lun whispered a reminder.

Li Shouyi's eyes lit up instantly, and his mind immediately became lively.

Zhou Lun's words made sense. They had run away from the county town precisely to find a place to stay. They had originally planned to cross the Grand Canyon and continue eastward, bypassing the prefectural city before continuing on their way. Now that they had encountered this group of fugitives here, since they could settle down in this place, there must be a hiding place nearby.

Thinking about it that way, this place couldn't be more suitable.

This place is a no-man's-land, more than a hundred miles away from Bao'an County, Ganquan County and Yan'an Prefecture. Moreover, the canyon is a maze of roads and the terrain is extremely complex. If you hide here, even if the government knows your whereabouts, they will not be able to find you. It is simply an excellent hiding place.

Having made up his mind, Li Shouyi pointed to the crowd kneeling and begging for mercy, and randomly selected two seemingly honest-looking men to step forward and question them. As expected, the questioning revealed the answer.

These people are indeed fugitives, most of whom have fled to this place over the years. In addition to farmers, there are also some military households.

The military household system of the Ming Dynasty played a significant role in the early years of the dynasty, but as time went by, this system inevitably developed numerous drawbacks.

According to Emperor Taizu's original plan, military households would serve as civilians in peacetime and as soldiers in wartime, which would allow them to cultivate land and support themselves while ensuring that the court had a sufficiently large army.

The idea was good, but the system itself had inherent flaws. Military households were hereditary, and if one's ancestors were military households, then the next generation would be military households for generations. In addition, the strict hierarchical system made the accumulated problems gradually become apparent over time.

By now, the military household system had long since become a mere formality. The military households' garrison lands had been seized by officials at all levels of the military garrisons as their private property, and ordinary military households lived like cattle and horses, their lives even worse than those of farmers.

At least farmers had their own land, and even if they didn't have land, they could rent land to cultivate and pay rent to support themselves. But military households didn't even own their land. All the land nominally belonged to the garrison, but the garrison commanders, centurions, and even the generals treated it all as their private property, and the military households under their command were their slaves. Under such circumstances, one can imagine how miserable the lives of the military households were.

In recent years, the desertion of military households has become increasingly serious, even more so than that of agricultural households. Many military garrisons are now empty, with a large number of military households abandoning their status and becoming deserters.

Nearly half of the robbers this time were military households, including the leaders who were shot by Li Shouyi.

According to the prisoners, they hid in a nearby valley and barely survived by clearing land and farming.

Although there are no government offices or tax collectors here, life is far from easy. Hiding here, they lack food and clothing, and the land in the valley is already barren, with even less arable land. Moreover, since last year, there has been a severe drought, and the heavens have stopped raining. The fields they have painstakingly cultivated are about to yield nothing.

To survive, they had no choice but to find another way out. This wasn't the first time they had disguised themselves as bandits like today. They would either rob a few lone travelers or sneak out of the valley to do a low-risk job near the main road to the north.

It was quite a coincidence that I ran into Li Shouyi and his group today. The leader had just pulled off a heist with his men at the Jade Emperor Temple in the north, and they happened to bump into Zhou Lun and his group on their way back.

Seeing that Zhou Lun and his group were carrying bundles and acting suspiciously, choosing mountain paths instead of official roads, the leader guessed that these people were not ordinary citizens. They were either fugitives or smugglers. Either way, they were easy prey, and it would be unreasonable not to fleece them.

So this group set their sights on Zhou Lun and his companions. Little did they know, they had encountered not ordinary fugitives, but four desperate criminals.

In the blink of an eye, the leader and his henchmen were overthrown by Li Shouyi and his men. As for the others, they had never seen anything like it. Although they had followed their leader in a few risk-free ventures, they had only ever stood by, bolstering their courage and waving flags. This was the first time they had witnessed a real, bloody battle. Seeing their leader dead and Zhou Lun and his men charging towards them like ferocious demons, it would be strange if they weren't terrified.

Having ascertained the location of the other party's hideout and learned about the situation of these escaped people, Li Shouyi immediately decided not to continue on his way and to settle down here.

The group escorted the escaped people back to the enemy's camp. With absolute force and skill, Li Shouyi easily replaced the leader who had been shot dead and became the new leader.

There weren't many people in the entire deserter camp. Apart from the few who were killed, there were 118 people left. These people included both military households and farmers. In fact, at this stage, there wasn't much difference between military households and ordinary farmers. These military households didn't train at all. They just did farm work and labor for their superiors. Their lives were even harder than those of farmers. Otherwise, they wouldn't have become deserters.

And so, the four of them settled down here for the time being.

After settling in and becoming familiar with the place, a crucial problem arose: not that anyone was dissatisfied, but rather how to survive.

As mentioned earlier, these fleeing people already lived a hard life; otherwise, they wouldn't have frequently disguised themselves as bandits to engage in risky, low-risk businesses. The entire camp had only about thirty able-bodied men; the rest were women, children, and the elderly. These people also needed to eat and survive! But now, with the severe drought, the crops they had painstakingly cultivated were on the verge of total loss. What would they eat and drink next?