Zhang Shihua also felt accustomed to this scene in his heart, the quality of the current officers and soldiers of the Mengyuan Imperial Court is much worse than that of the bandits. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The thieves also know that rabbits don't eat the grass next to the nest, and they don't do things too well.

However, the officers and soldiers of the imperial court are the masters who can snatch 100 yuan from the people and never take 90 yuan, and there is a saying that describes the officers and soldiers and bandits as follows: "Bandits are like combs, and soldiers are like grates." It can be seen that the military discipline of officers and soldiers is now corrupted.

So much so that even if some places are attacked by bandits, they are unwilling to report it to the officers and soldiers to suppress the bandits.

Zhang Shihua didn't pay attention to those people, but led people around the place where the river pirates often landed and left after a careful circle.

After Zhang Shihua went to other places in Linshui Town, Zhang Shihua found that Linshui Town was really poor, there were few brick houses in the town, most of them were adobe houses, and the people in the town were also yellow and thin, and they were all about to enter winter, and many people were still wearing thin single clothes, and the single clothes were full of patches.

When the townspeople looked at Zhang Shihua and them, they behaved the same as the old people in the north of the town, and they hid in their homes one after another, only daring to look at Zhang Shihua and them through the windows and cracks in the door.

Zhang Shihua couldn't help but sigh in his heart when he played this scene, the single-round land and geographical location of Linshui Town are actually much better than Yangshui Town, but because of this, Linshui Town has become a piece of fat in the eyes of others.

Not only are the bandits willing to come to Linshui Town, which is close to the river, but also the Mongols and Semu people in the county, as well as the wealthy Han Chinese, will also give priority to places like Linshui Town when annexing land.

Don't look at the land around Linshui Town, but almost eighty percent of the land has been annexed by the county lords, you must know that the landlords who annex the land, whether it is the Han or the Mongolian, their land rent is scary.

According to Zhang Shihua's knowledge, when Baixin rents the land of these landlords, he has to pay half of the rent alone, not only that, but the poor peasants even have to bear the tax burden of the Mengyuan court alone, and in a year, the people themselves will lose two or three percent of the grain production.

Such a small amount of food is simply not enough for the daily expenses of the people, and it is also due to the high grain production in the south here, although the people are often hungry but can barely survive.

However, even on such days, it is difficult for the people to survive, and the river pirates who come back to Linshui Town every winter to plunder, the refugees who flee south when the Yellow River floods, and the serious illness of the main labor force of the family will make the people's insecure life come to a dead end in an instant.

When Zhang Shihua saw these poor people with the same skin color as himself, Zhang Shihua's heart was very conflicted, Zhang Shihua was a little happy in his heart, and he also had an idea of wanting to change all this.

However, Zhang Shihua cannot change the miserable life of all Han people in the world now, Zhang Shihua can only help these poor people as much as possible while protecting himself and his family.

When the sun was about to set, Zhang Shihua rushed back to the Yangshui Town Inspection Division with the archers of the Inspection Division.

Zhang Shihua was silent and didn't say a word when he went back, thinking about how to exterminate those damn river thieves.

This time, Zhang Shihua can't wait for the rabbit like the robbers in Yangshui Town, to deal with this group of river thieves, Zhang Shihua must grasp the initiative, find this group of robbers and take the initiative to solve them, instead of waiting there for others to knock on the door, after all, only a thousand days to be a thief has a thousand days to prevent thieves.

However, it is not so easy to find this group of robbers, but fortunately, Zhang Shihua at least has some clue and knows how to find this group of river bandits.

When he arrived at the Inspection Division, Zhang Shihua found out the detailed map of Taihe County that he had hired someone to make from his bedroom, and wanted to use the information at hand to find out where the river thieves' lair was.

Zhang Shihua has searched for a lot of information about river thieves in the past two days, and he can roughly deduce the location of the river thieves' lair from the scope of the river bandits' activities.

But the range of Zhang Shihua's calculation is still very large, after all, the information in Zhang Shihua's hands is too little, it is impossible to calculate the exact location of the river thieves, and it is already Zhang Shihua's limit to calculate a general range.

After Zhang Shihua selected the most likely places for the river thieves to hide from this range, and after calculating the location, Zhang Shihua called Thirteen, that is, one of the four henchmen brought by Zhang Shihua, and asked him to take a small team of his men and horses dressed as ordinary people or fishermen to search for the location he had calculated, in order to find the group of river thieves.

On a sunny morning, there were two people talking in a low voice on the bank of the river, one of them was not tall, with strong limbs, and a gentle expression on his face, but the light flashed in his eyes from time to time that people did not dare to underestimate this short young man, and the short young man was Shi Shihua's henchman who was in charge of investigating the news of the river pirates.

Did you notice anything unusual, Shi 13 asked one of his archers.

Brother Shi's brothers searched the nearby rivers and still didn't find anything abnormal, and they still didn't have any news of river pirates after three days of investigation.

Shi 13 patted the archer on the shoulder when he heard the archer's words and said: Don't be discouraged, since the lord said that the river thief may be here, there must be a basis, keep my eyes open when looking for it, and don't let go of any clues.

Naturally, we will not suspect the words of the inspector, Brother Shi can rest assured, if those bandits really want to hide here, we will definitely not ask them to run away even if we dig three feet into the ground.

Very good, if I find those river pirates this time, my lord will definitely be without our reward, so you can go down, and we will leave here for the next place in two hours.

Yes, the archer replied.

But Shi Thirteen was not as peaceful as comforting the archer, and he was extremely anxious.

This was the first time Shi Shisan was in charge of one thing independently, and he didn't want to end up like this.

Shi 13 is different from Brother Lu and Zhao Er, they are from Taihe County and have been following the inspection master for much longer than themselves, and they are the lowest status among the four henchmen of the inspection master, so Shi 13 cherishes this opportunity to show himself to the inspection adult.

Shi 13 was originally from Anfeng Road, three years ago Shi 13 fled alone to the boundary of Taihe County, Yingzhou because he killed the rich man who oppressed him, and in Taihe County, he met the biggest benefactor in his life, that is, "Zhang Shihua Zhang".

When Shi Shishi met Zhang Shihua at that time, he was already dying of hunger on the street, and it was the adults who kindly saved him.

Later, the adult knew his story, and did not drive himself away but kindly took him in, not only that, but also gave him a good salary every month, and also helped him become a family in Taihe County, so that he could live like a person again.

From then on, Shi Thirteen decided that his life was no longer his own, but an adult's.

In the future, whatever the adults arranged, no matter what Shi Thirteen would do, he slowly became the confidant of the inspection lord.

There is a very simple idea in his heart, the adult is as kind to him as a mountain, and he deserves to be repaid by death.

Shi 13 secretly decided in his heart that no matter what, he must find the group of river thieves.

An hour and a half later, Shi 13 had lost hope here, and was about to ask someone to leave here to go to the next location to look for it, when an archer who was on the high ground suddenly waved the black cloth in his hand three times at Shi 13.

This signal was set by Shi Thirteen's team, which meant that suspicious people were approaching again, Shi Thirteen immediately called everyone back when he saw this signal, and after hiding the boat used to search for river theft, he led people to hide on a high ground on the shore.

After the archers were all hidden, Shi 13 looked carefully at the river and found a boat coming from a distance.

This boat is not a fishing boat, but is lighter than a fishing boat, and its slender shape is a common pike boat used by river pirates.

Seeing this ship, Shi Thirteen felt a burst of ecstasy in his heart, and secretly thought that the emperor had finally lived up to his painstaking efforts, and after looking for so long, he finally found the traces of these river thieves.

After that, Shi Thirteen and the others were all in the air and didn't dare to breathe, but stared at the boat on the river with wide eyes.

The speed of the shuttle boat on the river was very fast, and it didn't take long to reach the area that Shi Thirteen's team had just searched.

At this time, Shi 13 also saw the people on the boat clearly, there were four young men on the boat, two of them were paddlers and steerers, and the other two were vigilant observers with knives in their hands.

The ship was also carrying some things, according to Shi Shisan's observation, it should be some weeds to eat in the winter, and some other things.

It seems that these people went outside to buy daily necessities for the river pirates, Shi 13 thought to himself.

The people on the boat did not stop here, but continued to steer the ship forward.

And Shi 13 did not act rashly, but kept an eye on the direction of the ship, and waited until the ship turned in a place in front of him before letting the archers get up.

After that, Shi 13 did not ask the archers to go back to report, but let them stay here to check, while he followed with a clever archer.

In order not to startle the snake, Shi Thirteen and the two of them did not follow the river, but tracked the river pirate ship on the shore.

However, in this way, the difficulty of Shi Shisan's tracking has also increased greatly, and in order to keep up with the ship, the two of them can only go into the water to swim when they encounter a land route that is impassable.

The river water in the tenth month of the lunar calendar is cold and biting, that is, Shi 13 and the two of them have good water nature and strong body, otherwise they would have been lost.