"How many sins are hidden in this sky and in this dark night!" Lin Feng stood at the bow of his boat, staring at the dark night sky in front of him, and muttered softly.

Hearing Lin Feng's emotion, Li Congqian's little face twitched beside him, which could be regarded as a response.

There's a reason why the two of them are in such heavy moods.

In the past few days, the armies of Tanzhou and Langzhou have been peacefully confronted. During the day today, Lin Feng saw that it was impossible to start a war in the near future, and he didn't want to spend his days drinking with Ma Xixu all day long, so he took Li Congqian, Chen Fei and other brothers to the west and east banks of the Xiangjiang River to check the livelihood of the people along the way.

The west bank they first set foot on was fortunately, it was the "land" that the Langzhou army successfully recovered, except for the occasional people who were disturbed by the army, it was basically a peaceful and tranquil scene, but that's it, the miserable life of the people along the way still made Li Congqian, who grew up in the palace, completely open his eyes, except for a very small number of families such as fishing and doing business along the Xiangjiang River, the vast majority of the people are guarding a few acres of land, all of which can be described as four walls of the family, and there is no surplus food.

When they walked into the fifth farmhouse, it was just around noon, Lin Feng took out dry food, gave some money to the housewife with a vegetable face, and asked her to help cook some home-cooked meals. The housewife held a large handful of Chu national iron money, and actually called the whole family, knelt on the ground together, kowtowed again and again to thank her, and then shouted loudly with tears in her eyes that her husband would take out all the grain stored in the house and entertain these kind-hearted nobles.

It didn't take long for the meal to be ready, and a large pot of rice and a large pot of bacon and wonderful greens were served.

Lin Feng saw the two children standing not far away with great greed, so he went over and pulled them over and sat down to eat together. The two little guys couldn't help but say, each grabbed a piece of bacon with his hand and stuffed it into his mouth, not listening to the scolding of his parents beside him.

Lin Feng instructed the brothers to do it themselves, and take a bowl of rice and rice. As soon as he turned around, he found that the husband and wife each took a bowl of rice soup and squatted in the distance to suck it, and immediately filled two bowls of rice, piled up Lao Gao's vegetables, and sent them to the two.

The housewife burst into tears and murmured, "O kind lord! ”

Lin Feng took another bowl of rice, came over and squatted next to them, and asked why they were guarding Tanzhou City, but their lives were so hard. Li Congqian also came over with a bowl and squatted next to Lin Feng.

The man sighed and lowered his head to eat silently. The woman stared at her husband and replied with a sad expression: "If you go back to your lordship, since the construction of the Tiance General's Mansion in Tanzhou City, our family Lao Leng has often been dragged to the city to build this and that, and he can't take care of his family at all; The township tax was particularly heavy, and half of the harvest in the field was taken away. Now, we still owe some taxes to the township, and two days ago, Li was coming to the door to collect it! ”

Lin Feng was speechless, and glanced at Tanzhou City in the distance with a complicated expression.

Since ancient times, the second generation has many pit fathers! Ma Yin, the founder of Chu State, can still be said to be reasonable, but the dozen or so sons he gave birth to are "cheating fathers" one by one!

Tyrannical expropriation and reckless behavior are the unifying characteristics of these "noble second generations". In history, Ma Xisheng, the first of Ma Yin's sons to succeed to the throne, is known for his love of chicken, because he heard that Zhu Quanzhong, the Taizu of Liang, loves to eat chicken, so he wants to "see the sages and think together", and must kill fifty chickens every day.

Immediately followed by Ma Xifan, who succeeded to the throne, was "broad-minded", loved grandeur, and built a special "face project", covering an area of hundreds of acres of Tiance Mansion and covering an area of hundreds of years of Huichun Garden, which are all "masterpieces" left by Ma Xifan.

Where does the money come from? In addition to raising taxes, which is a necessary measure, Ma Xifan openly sold official positions, and also specifically stipulated that donating money could atone for his crimes. If being an official becomes a "business" with a clearly marked price, which can be imagined by individuals, and the businessman will never do a business that loses his capital, and will inevitably work hard to get back the capital and earn back the profits, then the situation of the people under the rule of these officials can only be worse day by day.

Rise or fall, the people are suffering! Lin Feng sighed secretly in his heart, and had no intention of continuing to eat, and ordered Chen Fei to leave more of the dry food they had brought, and some money, and get up to leave.

After walking a long way, Lin Feng turned around and found that the family was still kneeling straight at the door, grateful to Lin Feng for their incomparable generosity.

This is still relatively peaceful on the west bank of the Xiangjiang River, and the east bank is unbearable.

Lin Feng and his entourage took the small boat they found, and after going ashore in a flat place on the east bank of the Xiangjiang River, they turned onto the main road and found that there were basically no figures on the road and in the fields, and they looked miserable and deserted.

Chen Fei, who was walking in the front, suddenly exclaimed, and a group of people walked a few steps quickly to surround him. Everyone looked in the direction of Chen Fei's finger and found that in the ditch on the side of the road, there were two mutilated corpses under a few branches!

Judging by the costumes and exposed torsos, the two should be an old man and a young woman. The old man's head was gone, and he was covered with knife wounds; The woman's face was cut off, and there were many cuts in her chest and abdomen, one thigh was exposed, and there was a deep and revealing cut at the base of the leg.

This is the real situation on the east bank, because it was captured by the Langzhou army for three consecutive days, and the Xiangyin Road on the east bank of the Xiangjiang River basically became a hell on earth.

Lin Feng pulled a few children aside, commanded several special soldiers to straighten the two corpses, dug up some soil with the weapons in his hands, and hastily buried them.

The group walked a short way forward and came to a small village.

On the edge of the village, there is a grass hut that has just been erected. The so-called straw shed is actually a simple A-shaped shelf, with five pieces of wood tied together, and a canopy of straw is laid on it. The two entrances to the northeast and southwest are blocked by two branches, even the front door and the back wall.

Lin Feng looked in through the gap in the branches and found that three children were sleeping soundly on the straw pile on the ground, covered with several adult clothes. There was nothing around them except a few unwashed dishes.

"What do you want to do?" Two panicked shouts, a man and a woman, came.

Lin Feng turned his head and found a couple of men and women coming out of the village, throwing away the objects they were holding in their hands and shoulders, and running towards this side like crazy.

Lin Feng looked at the military uniforms on his group, shook his head with a wry smile, and took the lead in retreating a few steps back, letting go of the door of the grass shed.

The man and woman ran to the edge of the straw hut, and when they looked around, they found that the two children were still sleeping soundly, and they immediately breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed their whole bodies.

The two turned around and protected the entrance of the grass hut on the left and right. The man's body moved forward, blocking his woman behind him with his hand, his face was full of smiles, and he bowed down and said with a smile: "Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your noble hand and let go of the small family!" The villain's house was burned down two days ago, and we really have no money and no food! ”

Lin Feng shook his head and only said one sentence: "We are the army of the Tang Dynasty!" He pointed at Li Congqian and them, turned around and left.

Li Congqian and Chen Fei immediately understood, and together with Duan Rui and the others, they took out all the remaining dry food on their bodies, gently put it on the ground, and turned around and flew to chase Lin Feng.

"Datang's army?" The man glanced at his bewildered wife and muttered.

At this time, the villagers who were secretly watching from a distance also gathered around, looking enviously at the pile of grain on the ground, and on the other hand, they surrounded the couple and asked carefully what was going on?

The couple was also confused, and could only keep explaining that this group of people called themselves the army of the Tang Dynasty.

"That's it! Their military uniforms are different from those of Langzhou and Tanzhou! One of the villagers suddenly came to his senses and said loudly.

A group of people looked at the food on the ground again, and then stared at Lin Feng and a group of people who were almost out of sight in the distance, and a vague concept suddenly appeared in their hearts: the Langzhou army came here to grab grain and kill people, and the Tanzhou army cowered in Tanzhou City and didn't care about everyone's life or death, but the Tang people left the grain, and the army of the Tang Dynasty seemed to be different from the army of Chu!

Lin Feng and the others were no longer in the mood to turn around, so they went south directly by boat.

Lin Feng didn't speak again along the way, thinking about the feudal Chinese society since ancient times, a heavy sense of powerlessness came to his heart: Originally, the officials and superiors were all supported by the people's taxes, and they should be the people's public servants and sons, but one by one they became the parents and officials of the people, wantonly bullying the people, isn't this a pit father in another sense? !