Chapter 225 Going South

Actually, Qin Ji was opposed to his future son-in-law's plan to travel thousands of miles south to join Gao Yuan.

In his view, no matter how grand other places were, they couldn't compare to one's own humble home; nowhere was better than home.

Moreover, he was a Local Head, a legitimate member of the civil service and part of the establishment.

However, a single sentence from Gao Yang dispelled his illusions.

"We were on corvée duty. Now, not only have the goods not been delivered, but the escorting soldiers are all dead. This is already a capital offense."

"Furthermore, those bandits looted the Qingzhou Granary, and the Prince of Lu is furious. How do you think he will deal with us?"

These simple words made Qin Ji break into a cold sweat; it turned out he really had no choice but to follow his future son-in-law to the ends of the earth!

Raising his waterskin and taking a large gulp, Qin Ji asked,

"Have you thought about how to get to South of the Ranges? It's more than a thousand miles from here!"

Gao Yang nodded; he had already formed a plan for this.

"Taking the land route is definitely out of the question. We'd likely be caught before even leaving Dengzhou, so we can only go by water."

Qin Ji shuddered at the thought.

"The weather at sea is unpredictable, this..."

"Staying here is a dead end. Going south offers a glimmer of hope; we have to take the gamble."

Qin Ji sighed, cursing the ancestors of those bandits eighteen times over in his heart.

After resting, the two continued their journey, returning to their hometown in just a few days.

While Qin Ji went to pack his belongings, Gao Yang quietly made his way to the small courtyard where his mother lived.

Although that unscrupulous uncle had sold him out, he hadn't been too cruel to his mother.

In the dilapidated courtyard, a woman in her early thirties was laboriously washing clothes.

Lacking any other skills, Gao Yang's mother could only earn a meager living by doing laundry in exchange for a little money and food.

Seeing his mother's exhausted figure, Gao Yang felt a pang of sorrow.

After glancing around, Gao Yang didn't use the front door but instead hopped over the low courtyard wall and landed inside.

"Who's there!"

Gao Yang's mother, Madam Hu, clearly heard the noise. Startled, she stood up, clutching a laundry mallet tightly in her hand.

"Shh! Mother, it's me!"

Realizing the newcomer was her son, Madam Hu rubbed her eyes and pinched herself before she was convinced it wasn't a dream.

"Yang'er, you... aren't you..."

"This isn't the place to talk."

Gao Yang looked around and quickly pulled his mother into the main room.

After the mother and son wept together for a while, Gao Yang learned that his mother had worked so hard in the hope of saving enough money to buy his freedom.

Seeing his mother, who had grown thin from exhaustion and frugality, Gao Yang felt a surge of grief and a sudden impulse for vengeance as he stood up abruptly.

"Yang'er, you can't go, you can't! If they discover your current identity..."

Held back firmly by his mother, Gao Yang's mind quickly cooled down.

Right, now was not the time for revenge. He had to endure until he had the power.

"Mother, pack your things quickly. We're leaving today."

Madam Hu looked around and gave a bitter smile.

"What is there in this house worth packing?"

Gao Yang looked around and saw there really wasn't much worth taking. Finally, he bundled up some clothes and grabbed the kitchen knife.

They waited until nightfall before the mother and son hurried to Qin Ji's house under the cover of darkness.

"Brother Yang!"

Seeing Gao Yang, Qin Cui jumped up in excitement and clung to him like a koala.

After comforting the young girl, Gao Yang discussed the escape route with Qin Ji.

"We'll leave under the cover of night and reach the pier as quickly as possible to buy a boat."

"Buy a boat? Do we still have money?"

The ten strings of cash given by the bandits had mostly been spent on food, drink, and bribing the patrolling soldiers along the way.

Gao Yang, however, was very confident.

"If we don't have money, we still have horses. Those two horses can be sold for at least fifty strings of cash."

Although their two horses weren't high-quality warhorses, they were still capable of carrying riders.

In times of peace, a horse might be worth seven or eight strings, but it was different in times of chaos.

With wars everywhere, horses were needed everywhere. They were considered consumables in war, so their prices naturally skyrocketed.

Especially since the State of Lu had no horse-breeding grounds and the horse-producing Yan State was an enemy, the price of horses naturally rose even further.

If sold normally on the market, these two horses would fetch at least twenty strings.

But since they were in a hurry, they had to accept a loss.

Just as Gao Yang said, the group of five reached the port of Dengzhou and sold the horses easily.

Not only did they get a decent-sized fishing boat, but they also bought plenty of dry rations and waterskins.

Gao Yang also spent a few days using his silver tongue and the lure of money to trick a boatman into bringing his wife and joining them on their journey south.

Thus, the group of seven boarded the fishing boat in the cold of winter and embarked on their journey south.

As for the large-scale operation to wipe out bandits that later occurred in the State of Lu, it had nothing to do with them.

Wiping out bandits and outlaws not only allowed Chang Xingrong to recruit a large number of fierce bandits into his army,

But also allowed him to extort a vast amount of wealth, and the common people even cheered for it.

For a time, Prince of Lu Chang Xingrong's reputation, which had previously declined among the people due to forced corvée labor, rose significantly.

This made Chang Xingrong feel as if he were the chosen one; an action originally meant to vent his anger had yielded such great rewards.

Lu Kuan had originally been happy when Chang Xingrong was stabbed by a bandit.

He didn't expect that the man would turn around and make a fortune through bandit suppression.

This made Lu Kuan, the Prince of Yan, unable to sit still, and he couldn't help but follow suit.

Consequently, bandits everywhere truly suffered.

Despite their extreme cruelty, they could only bully unarmed civilians and, at most, suppress those weak yamen runners in the county towns.

When they encountered a well-trained regular army, they instantly became weaklings themselves.

In just three months, Lu Heng and Zhang Su swept through the bandits of over a dozen prefectures.

At the same time, Lu Heng issued a notice: any bandit who abandoned the darkness for the light would be pardoned for their past crimes.

bandits in many places were scared out of their wits, either hiding in the Taihang Mountains or coming forward to surrender.

By the end of May, Lu Heng had expanded his army by nearly ten thousand men by absorbing the bandits.

At the same time, the grain and money seized from the suppression were enough to support an army of fifty thousand for three months.

With strong armies and well-fed horses, both sides were full of confidence and fully prepared to swallow the other.

Returning to February, while the north was still frozen, Zhongnan Circuit and Annan Circuit were already becoming busy.

After several years of careful cultivation and promotion, high-quality Champa rice had been spread to various regions.

In most parts of the Indochina Peninsula, Champa rice could be planted for three seasons.

Although the taste was far inferior to the single-season rice from the terraced fields of Diannan Circuit, the prerequisite for good taste was being able to eat one's fill.

In the backward feudal era, there was never enough food.

No matter how much grain was stored in the granaries, Gao Yuan never thought it was too much.

If it weren't for the fact that some grain had been stored for too long, Gao Yuan wouldn't have been willing to use it for brewing wine or feeding chickens.

It was precisely because the grain used was old that the wine in Gao Yuan's territory was truly unpleasant to drink and expensive.

If one wanted to drink good wine, they could only hope for merchant caravans or ships to bring it from Jiangnan or the north.

The price was naturally exorbitantly high, and many people had no choice but to give up the idea of drinking.

This, in a roundabout way, helped many people quit drinking and save money.

Without wine to drink, the saved money could be used to buy good things to eat.

As the scale of chicken farms grew, the stock of White Feather Chickens became higher and higher.

Now in the Nanyue Kingdom, eggs and chicken meat had become regular fixtures on the tables of the common people.