is similar to what Hong Tao thought, this group of people is not bandits at all, not even amateur bandits, at best, they are people. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoTheir village is not too far from Hong Tao's camp, about four kilometers, right next to a river. The village is not big, sixty or seventy households, the most awesome family is a broken boat upside down as a house, half of the bottom of the boat has been broken, and the other half can be considered to be able to protect from the wind and rain. Not to mention the clothes, the most decently dressed people who came out to be robbers were the most decently dressed, and the old and sick who remained at home could only cover their bodies with reed leaves, straw mats, and rags.

"If there was food, they would not take the risk to rob the ships of the officers and soldiers. You see, all of the houses we walked through hadn't had a fire for at least a day, which meant that they were hungry for at least a day. If it were me, I would have to go out and grab food for three days left, and I would be a kind person compared to them. Hong Tao got off the horse and drilled into a few small shacks with his hands and cats behind his back. None of the people in the shack dared to come out, not because they were afraid that it would be rude to be naked, but because they were afraid that their hot bodies would come out and be blown by the cold wind. They are no longer afraid of death or something, they are about to starve to death, you give him a knife, and he will suffer from it.

"I went to interrogate the leaders of those people in the middle of the night, and they said that the village ran out of food half a month ago. Before winter, they can also go to the lake to dig some water chestnuts, lotus roots, and the like to eat, but in this winter, they can't even eat tender reed roots. The water has just been flooded here in October, and the fish are not easy to catch. They didn't dare to go to the south, saying that the imperial court wanted to arrest the homeless people to fill the border, and if they were caught, they would have to leave their homeland and go to the far north to freeze to death. Seeing that the whole village couldn't survive anymore, he had a bad heart and wanted to go to the canal at night to rob the passing grain ships, and eat a full stomach first. As for the fact that the officials and soldiers came to encircle and suppress them, they didn't care too much, and they took their families and rowed small boats to find a small island in the lake to hide for a few days, and the officers and soldiers withdrew, and their ancestors came here like this. I thought my family was poor enough back then, but I didn't expect it to be as good as the Northland. Kong Pei and Bo Jiao also followed Hong Tao's side, Bo Jiao had no concept of life in the mainland, but Kong Pei was deeply touched, and pleaded for these people in and out of words, for fear that if Hong Tao made a mistake, these people would all turn into ashes.

"Bo Jiao, you bring someone to give them some food, and by the way, ask them if they are willing to follow us to the north to settle down. I can't guarantee anything else, anyone who follows us, gives food, drink, clothes, and doesn't have to do any work, just follow along. When I got to the place, I divided their fields among their households and helped them build houses and brick houses! This is the decree of the imperial court, you ask them if there are any literate people, and if they don't believe it, let them see for themselves. If you don't want to go, let them fend for themselves, God specializes in blind birds, if people want to live, they must first figure it out for themselves. Hong Tao didn't have much to do with these people, and he knew that if there were places here, there would be somewhere else, and maybe there would be thousands of homeless people hiding in this swampy area. I have more important things to do, and I can't wait here to go from village to village for relief. Besides, what they need is not a mouthful of food, but a way to survive.

I don't know if Bo Jiao looks more believable, or if the holy decree worked, or if the conditions opened by Hong Tao were more generous? Not long after, the whole village began to dismantle the shack under the leadership of several old men, and collected the straw mats, rags, rotten jars and broken bowls, all tied into bundles, carried by adults, and appeared in front of Hong Tao's eyes.

"Aren't you afraid they'll take the lice and the contagion with them?" Hong Tao is very disdainful of Bo Jiao's ability to do things, there are still hundreds of miles ahead of him, these people are already weak, and they are carrying so many things, even if the army slows down the march, they can't keep up. Besides, it's useless to carry these things, it's 100% cumbersome.

"If you don't let them carry it, it's like killing them, and I didn't let you carry it anyway. When I arrived in Chuzhou, I borrowed some cauldrons from the locals, boiled water for them to bathe, and then changed into clean clothes. Now put it on, in less than an hour, it will have to become a rag, you look at this road...... "Bo Jiao felt that Hong Tao was a mallet, just to look comfortable, without considering the actual situation at all.

"Your Majesty, let them take it...... These things are a burden to us, and for them they are the only way to survive. They won't fully believe us, you may not understand that, but I can understand it. Kong Pei also followed Bo Jiao to persuade Hong Tao, but the meaning in and out of his words was that Hong Tao didn't have a backache when he stood and spoke.

"That's not going to happen! Saving people is a good thing, and I can't let a good thing become a bad thing. The soldiers' lives matter, and if they get sick, they have to die. First set aside a boat, the old man and the children boarded, and the rest followed us. The rags must be thrown away, and I can't really exchange canned whale meat for them, and I don't believe people can be so confused. Hong Tao understands Kong Pei's feelings, but understanding is understanding, rules are still rules. I can make these homeless people feel as good as possible, but I will never risk my life because of them.

After another morning of tossing, the troops were finally ready to move, this time with dozens more infantry, and the homeless people who had changed into imperial uniforms were well fed, drunk, and warm, and became pioneers, relying on their familiarity with the terrain to open the way in front, and the cavalry followed behind them, so as not to be impassable after being trampled by horses' hooves.

At first, Hong Tao thought that he was very clever in using the homeless people to lead the way, but after walking less than ten kilometers, he knew that he had been fooled. The 10-kilometer road was completed until evening, not that they were lost, nor that the homeless people could not walk fast, but they walked very vigorously on this kind of road, which was no different from walking on the official road. The problem is that along the way, they keep coming across similar small villages, ranging from three or five households to dozens of households. Since they met, they had to be taken in, but by the time they set up camp in the evening, the number of homeless people in the team had increased to three hundred.

"See, these are human spirits. Let the soldiers guarding them be vigilant and don't have sympathy in their heads. Again, don't let a good thing become a bad thing. Hong Tao understood and thought about it, and tomorrow he said that he could not let these people lead the way, otherwise his team would have to stop advancing and go back to Yangzhou to continue collecting ships and food.

"What if we go on our own and encounter a village like this?" Bo Jiao asked a very sharp question, to save or not to save.

"If you meet it, you will take it with you, and I have asked someone to return to Lin'an with my handwritten letter and tell Luo Youde to ask him to collect transport boats and sweep them along the banks of the canal again, and strive to post more notices for recruitment and reclamation. We will select a few of these displaced people with high moral standing to stay in Chuzhou, and when the time comes, we will help find the displaced people here, persuade them to return to Lin'an by boat, and then transport them to Dengzhou by sea boat. The same is true for other prefectures and counties, those who can afford to eat are unwilling to leave their hometowns, so they start with those who can't eat, and send as many people as they can to the coastal cities, and the prefectures and counties along the way must solve the problem of food and housing. ”

It's not that Hong Tao doesn't want to take these people, but it's useless to carry them like this. Even if this army of more than 2,000 people were scattered to find the homeless, how many would be found? And how much can it be convinced? If we want to solve the problem of the displaced people once and for all, we must mobilize the power of the government and carry out unified action on a national scale. Anyway, Hong Tao has a place to settle them, and it depends on the execution of the government at all levels, which is also a test for the current new government of the Great Song Dynasty. If you can't even do this, then you really have to use force to sweep the local government again, and whoever gets in the way of your own business will be the enemy.

The team went north to Chuzhou for a day of rest, and then crossed the Yellow River by boat from here, and this time it really reached the north. Before the Mongols were defeated, this was a foreign country and did not belong to the Great Song Dynasty. Now it belongs to the Great Song Dynasty, but the reconstruction of the Great Song Dynasty has not been officially rolled out, only a few major cities have been stationed in the government, and most of the area is anarchic.

On this issue, Hong Tao did not blame the Great Song Dynasty for its slow movements, who let the Jinhe Empire secretly support the Strait Company State to toss in the south. In order to cope with the threat from the south, the Great Song court had to turn its main energy and financial resources to the south, and the north would not be able to take care of it for a while.

After crossing the Yellow River, the road is easy to walk, but there are fewer and fewer people, and the villages and towns passed by have either been razed or left with ruins, and often walk for half a day without seeing a single inhabited village. But there's one thing that has multiplied, and that's banditry. This time, it's not the homeless people who come to steal food in the middle of the night to fill their stomachs, it's really bandits. When there are many people, there are thousands, and when there are few, there are more than a dozen, not only at night, but also during the day.

Because this area has gone through dozens of melee battles for hundreds of years, the Jin people came, the Mongols came, and the Great Song Dynasty began the Northern Expedition. The local people did not know what dynasty they were in, let alone who should be in charge. After a long time, the local big families took the initiative to stand up, took on some of the work that the government should do, and organized the local people to manage themselves according to the family's sphere of influence, open up wasteland and cultivate land, and be self-sufficient.

In order to protect their own interests, a kind of half-civilian and half-bandit organization slowly appeared in these places. They were also engaged in production in peacetime, and like the government, they collected money and grain as funds for the development of military power, and organized the local people to protect themselves. When a large army comes, if you can't fight, you can negotiate with the other party, and you really can't get into the ravine. If you can beat it, you will directly become a robber, rob everything, have no money, no things, nothing to do, and people want to catch it and go back to farming.

(To be continued.) )