Compared with the dream-like songs and drunken gold fans in Jinling City, the Hongshan Lake area two hundred miles away is a completely different scene.

The cold wind of hunting and hunting blew the flags of the water village by the lake, and a few sentry posts with swords in their hands wrapped tightly in their animal skin jackets, and patrolled the high places with torches. The water village is brightly lit, the makeshift houses are piled up in a mess, groups of water bandits sit by the fire and eat wine and meat, and there are several sons in fancy clothes locked in the wooden cages above the water, their faces are pale and dare not squeak. There are still wooden stakes on the main road to the water village, on which are hung the human skins of several officers and soldiers, which have been dried for a long time.

The water village is called Hongshan Water Village by the local people, and it has not just appeared, but has existed for many years. At first, it was a deserted small fishing village, ten years ago, Song Ji Iron Eagle Hunting deer, forced countless unclean Jianghu people, and hid in the fishing village for the grass, the nature is similar to the dilapidated cottage encountered by the swordsman Zhang Ding, and similar fugitive gathering places, Dayue is almost everywhere, in order to avoid the government's investigation, most of them do not show the mountain dew to cause trouble.

Hongshan Shan Zhai was quite peaceful a few years ago, the owner of the village, Sun Gan, was excellent in martial arts, and he had some fame in the rivers and lakes, and gathered a group of sub-rogues, relying on the natural danger of Hongshan Lake to do some kidnapping and robbing the road, and he would not tear up the ticket if he gave the money, but he had not yet made people panic.

The reason why it has evolved into such a large bandit village where thousands of bandits gather is complicated.

Sixty years ago, after Emperor Xiaozong broke Chang'an, the royal family of Daqi fled to Mobei, and Nanyue survived in the mountains and mountains. There is only one step away from the peaceful world, and the general Xu Lie and Emperor Xiaozong naturally want to sweep the Eight Desolations and Liuhe in one go.

But the war is too hurtful to the national strength, the three kingdoms have been fighting in chaos for nearly ten years, the population has plummeted and the land is barren, and the strong men have almost died in the war, many generals and officials have achieved fame, and the soldiers are tired of licking the blood from the knife, and they can't fight at all.

Seeing this, Emperor Xiaozong could only collect troops to recuperate, and divided his six sons to various places to start post-war reconstruction work for the princes, because the threat of the enemy country was still there, so Xu Lie led his troops out of Qianyang Pass to recover the Western Regions and clamp down on the left wing of the Northern Qi.

In this retreat, Emperor Xiaozong was busy restoring the people's livelihood until his death, and the general Xu Lie failed to fulfill his wish to command the Northern Expedition. Northern Qi breathed a sigh of relief and gained a firm foothold in the Mobei Wasteland.

After the first emperor ascended the throne, he was busy rectifying the interior all his life, and it took two generations to restore Dayue to the prosperous state of the past. By the time he had the ability to go on the Northern Expedition, Xu Lie had already passed away, Da Yue occupied the entire Central Plains territory, Mobei was a barbarian land, there was no point in fighting it, most of the generals and gate valve families did not want to fight, and the first emperor naturally did not provoke a war.

But Da Yue and Northern Qi never ceased fighting, and Northern Qi could not nest in the desert and eat soil forever, and sooner or later they would move south to get back what their ancestors had thrown away.

The first emperor set up the crown prince when he was dying, because he saw this.

Song Yu and Song Ji were both cultivated as heirs by the first emperor, and Song Ji was both martial and martial, but his ambitions were too great, as long as he succeeded to the throne, it was likely to pull the whole world into the quagmire of war.

Song Yu is inferior to Song Ji in all aspects, but the mean is also an advantage, as long as Song Yu inherits the unification, he will not take the initiative to take the initiative to use troops, cut the domain, etc., and honestly be a king of success, which is enough to drag the peaceful and prosperous era for another few decades.

The first emperor guarded the family business for a lifetime, and he definitely wanted to continue to keep it, but after two generations of lying on the salary and tasting the courage, the Northern Qi Dynasty was no longer the dog that once lost his family; The Suwang line in the northwest developed into a tumor, and even had the ability to enter Chang'an City in ten days. Let Song Yu take the throne, if Xu Buling grows up to be a hero, and then let him develop a generation, Guan Zhongdao may change his surname to Xu.

For this reason, when the first emperor was dying, he still gave the throne to Song Ji. And what Song Ji took over, on the surface, is a peaceful and prosperous era, but in fact, it is a volcano that has been accumulating pressure for decades and is about to erupt.

After Song Ji ascended to the throne, he began to find ways to suppress the Jiangmen family that had swelled to a certain extent, Daxing Keju used the cold door to reduce the influence of the gate valve, and established a huge intelligence network of the Investigation Department to bypass the existing bureaucratic system to understand the news, etc., the purpose was to make the people under his command listen to his words when the Northern Qi raised troops.

However, after the failure of Xu Buling's efforts to cut the feudal domain, the situation has begun to develop uncontrollably, and the hidden dangers left over from decades do not stop there.

Because the national strength of the Northern Qi Dynasty is rising, it is impossible for Emperor Dayue to disarm, and the long front on both sides of the north and south displays heavy troops all the year round, and the military salary plus war horses, ordnance, grain and grass, etc., the consumption is astronomical, which leads to a lot of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes on the heads of the people, and most of them are concentrated in the Jiangnan of the rich world and Shudi, the country of abundance.

Last year, there was a great drought in Shu, and the king of Shu asked for help, and Song Ji asked the nearby king of Su to raise grain from Qinzhou instead of transporting it from Guanzhong Road, because there was no Shu land, and other places were running at full capacity, and it was difficult to squeeze out oil and water.

However, this autumn it rained heavily for more than ten days in a row, and Muzhou and other places in the south of the Yangtze River were hit by floods.

In the face of the huge hole, King Wu did not even send the fold to Chang'an requesting tax reduction, because Song Ji could not agree, and he had to raise money by all means.

In times of famine, heavy taxes are imposed instead of disaster relief, and the effect can be imagined.

In order to avoid heavy taxes, the people who had already suffered from the famine had to flee far away from home and flee to other places, resulting in a large number of displaced people, many of whom took risks to burn, kill and loot, and frightened more people to flee in all directions, which is also the source of displaced people in Huainan and other places.

The Hongshan Shan Zhai has gradually grown in the past few years by accepting exiled bandits, especially this year, the number of people has skyrocketed several times. In order to feed so many people, there were more and more cases of kidnapping and looting, and the area around Hongshan Lake was stirred up with black smoke and miasma, and no people dared to stay at all.

————

Under the silver moon, among the mountains and wilderness opposite the Hongshan Water Village.

Zhongli Chuchu, who came from Huainan, stood on a high place and looked at the huge water village in the distance, his green eyes showed a little embarrassment, and he said softly:

"Such a big stockade is not easy to deal with."

Zhongli Jiujiu built a bonfire on the stone, put the fish he had just caught on the branches and baked them, and said with a smile:

"This is the matter of the Dayue Mansion, and it has nothing to do with us, what do you care about them?"

Zhongli Chuchu jumped down from a high place, sat on the ground beside the master, and said softly:

"I have nothing to do, I want to do something good. After doing this vote, I should be a famous chivalrous woman on the rivers and lakes, no matter how I say it, I am better than Ning Qingye. Master is also famous all over the world, and Ning Yuhe is probably embarrassed to be presumptuous in front of you. ”

“……”

I have to say that this reason is very sufficient, Zhong Li Jiujiu frowned and thought for a while, and turned his head to look at the water village in the distance:

"Okay, isn't it just a small water village, just wrap it around me."

Zhongli Chuchu saw that his master had agreed so simply, and he hesitated:

"Master, it is estimated that there are more than 1,000 bandits, do you really agree?"

Zhongli Jiujiu's eyes showed a bit of pride, and patted his bulging chest:

"You still don't feel at ease when you make a move for the teacher?"

"Uh......"

Zhongli Chuchu was really not at ease, and thought for a while: "Do you want to discuss it anymore?" Don't end up putting us both in......"

"Rest assured, the teacher is full of wisdom and has his own measure. Besides, Hongshan Shui Zhai seems to have a bit of eyesight, and never touches those people from big families, if you really miss it, I will say that I am Xu Buling's master, and you are Xu Buling's concubine......"

"Huh?!"

Zhongli's turquoise eyes showed a bit of weirdness, and he waved his hand and said, "How can this be done......"

"You're not happy? The concubine who is a teacher and does not give orders can also do......"

"No, Xu Buling is the son of Suzhou, and he can't manage it here, so it's useless to say it...... And if you don't know about it, you won't necessarily care about us......"

Zhongli Chuchu said this, his face was slightly lonely, and he sighed softly.

Zhongli Jiujiu's brows furrowed, and after realizing this problem, he was also a little dissatisfied:

"I'm so good to him, the chain dragon Gu has been given to him. I didn't have a cure for the dragon Gu as soon as I locked it, he should come over......"

"If he really comes over for this, it is estimated that he will directly use the master to detoxify first, so as not to be poisoned in the future and not find you......"

In the face of the toxin of the same Lock Dragon Gu, it was immune after detoxification, which obviously made some sense.

Zhongli Jiujiu was a little more serious, and pondered a little:

"Yes, but can you do it or not?"

"Master...... You can do it, I'm free. ”

……