Chapter 124: Tong County Has Rebelled

Chapter 124: Tong County Rebels

Chen Youyan and the others stared at Gu Wen, eyes wide, for a long while—along with the five scruffy men of varying ages standing behind him.

"You're saying that after Chaoning told you to find help, he left a letter behind and sneaked off to Tong County with Zhimo?"

Gu Wen nodded hesitantly.

Chen Youyan took a deep breath and looked at the five men beside him. "And you're saying that Gu Chaoning hired you all and told you to come to Gu Wen's house in Little River Village today?"

The five nodded nervously, and the youngest, most timid one in the back added in a low voice, "The young master also said that if we protect the master and the lady of the house, we'll get to eat our fill."

Chen Youyan was so furious he nearly choked on his own breath. Gu Daniu and Wang Xiuxiu were both stunned.

"Husband!" Zhen Xia was startled and quickly steadied Chen Youyan, who was swaying on his feet. Yin Hongxue and Gu Muan stepped forward a moment later, also reaching out to support him. "Dad!"

The five men were also startled, looking at Chen Youyan nervously, wanting to help but afraid to.

Gu Wen didn't hesitate. He stopped putting on a pitiful act on the steps and strode forward, taking the place of the two kids.

Chen Youyan threw a punch at Gu Wen's shoulder.

"I told you to keep an eye on the kid—and this is how you do it!"

Gu Wen steadied Chen Youyan's hand, his expression falling.

He'd been worried and scared at first too. That's why he didn't head straight back to the village after Gu Chaoning left—he spent two days searching the town.

But the more he searched, the more he started to make sense of it. After all, Chaoning was fifteen already.

When he was fifteen, he'd gotten into a fight with Carpenter Wang and run off. After calming down, he'd been too afraid to go home, so he'd gritted his teeth and walked all the way to the county seat, hoping to find a more skilled master.

But without anyone to vouch for him, none of the carpenters in the county would even give him the time of day.

He couldn't find a master better than Carpenter Wang, so he'd trudged all the way back to Ferry Crossing Town.

That incident had scared Carpenter Wang half to death, and not long after, he'd sent Gu Wen home to work with his own father.

Gu Chaoning was way more capable than him. Gu Wen figured that if the kid dared to go, he must have a plan.

But clearly, he was the only one in the family who saw it that way.

For the next few days, Gu Wen wasn't allowed back in the house and ended up sleeping in Gu Chaoning's side room for three straight nights.

As for the five men—the oldest was twenty-five, the youngest just fifteen, and the other three were seventeen, twenty, and twenty-one.

Once they cleaned up, they actually looked pretty decent. All five were refugees who hadn't had a decent meal in ages. At their first meal in the house, they went through a whole pot of steamed buns without even touching the side dishes—the youngest one ate five by himself.

To that, Gu Wen was speechless: "..."

These weren't five protectors he'd hired—these were five bottomless pits.

As the saying goes, growing boys eat their fathers out of house and home, and those two youngest were exactly that.

Thankfully, they hadn't sold a single grain from the autumn harvest, or they wouldn't have been able to keep up.

After three days of settling in, the five took over all the chores—shoveling snow, clearing snow, chopping firewood, and tending the fires.

The twenty-five-year-old knew some martial arts, and in his spare time, he taught the other four, along with Jianshan, Zhenxia, Guanqi, and Tingfeng, some boxing routines.

Gu Muan and Yin Hongxue, with nothing better to do after stuffing themselves, would occasionally join in—which scared Wang Xiuxiu half to death.

She kept exclaiming, "Oh my, since when do young gentlemen learn martial arts like this!"

But Wang Xiuxiu's words didn't carry any weight. Chen Youyan and Gu Wen didn't interfere, and the two boys would say yes to her face but keep doing whatever they wanted.

After trying several times with the same result, Wang Xiuxiu simply decided to turn a blind eye.

Anyway, back to now.

Chen Youyan looked at the letter Gu Wen handed over from Gu Chaoning—over the years, everyone in the family had been influenced by Gu Chaoning, the big scholar, and had learned to read quite a bit. At the very least, they could handle basic reading.

It was a long, rambling letter, but the core message was:

Don't worry about me. I've hitched my wagon to a big shot and I'm following along to share in the glory.

Chen Youyan was speechless: "..."

After reading it, he passed the letter to Gu Daniu, who read it with Wang Xiuxiu. Their memories weren't great, and there were some characters they didn't recognize, so Yin Hongxue and Gu Muan helped them recall and explain.

After everyone had read it, they had no choice but to put aside their worries about Gu Chaoning for now.

What else could they do? It wasn't like they could find him anyway!

...

Tong County.

On the second day of Gu Chaoning's arrival there, Qi Jianwei left A Zheng behind and took off.

They'd also brought a shipment of grain and medicine that Qi Jianwei had somehow scraped together.

But those supplies wouldn't stretch far. The most important thing was to force the embezzled disaster relief funds and grain to be coughed up.

The day they arrived, they made a big spectacle of it, using the banner of imperial disaster relief grain.

Now the most urgent task was to round up all the refugees in Tong County together.

The entire county was severely affected by snow, but the worst-hit area was a town under Tong County's jurisdiction—and that town was only half a day's journey by cart from Ferry Crossing Town!

Even with the deep snow forcing people to travel on foot, it was still easy to get there. That was why refugees had been pouring into Ferry Crossing Town without end.

Gu Chaoning couldn't show his face, so A Zheng, Zhimo, and the others all wore masks, working alongside the officials Qi Jianwei had put in place.

Tong County was a mess. On their way through, they saw many villages completely empty.

Along the road, they saw groups of refugees trudging along together.

But even more than that, they saw corpses.

People frozen to death, crushed under collapsed houses, killed fighting over food...

In the bitter cold, those bodies lay with eyes open or shut, buried and frozen in the snow, revealing a head, an arm, or half a body...

Tong County's magistrate had the county gates locked tight, refusing to let a single refugee in, but also afraid the starving refugees would riot, so he'd set up a porridge station outside.

But aside from that porridge station, there was nothing else.

Gu Chaoning and Qi Jianwei had seen the refugees' suffering the whole way here, and when they saw what Tong County was doing, they were both furious.

Qi Jianwei acted decisively—he put the Tong County magistrate under house arrest and had the officials he brought in take over.

They set up more shelters, sent people to spread the word that the county town had grain, boiled porridge and medicine, settled disputes among the refugees and between them and the locals...

Bottom line, anywhere they were short-handed, Gu Chaoning and his two buddies were there.

They worked nonstop for six days, so busy they didn't have a moment to spare, and at night, they'd pass out the second they hit the bed.

It wasn't for nothing—after six days, the chaos in Tong County finally got sorted out.

There were already thousands of refugees camped outside Tong County, and more kept pouring in.

Shack after shack went up outside the county walls, making it look like an outer city was being built.

At the same time, the grain and medicine they'd brought were being used up like water.

They all figured that at the rate things were going, their grain would only hold out another six days!

But six days was all they needed.

On the fourth day—ten days after Qi Jianwei had left—he sent word that it was time to act.

On the fifth day, the moles Gu Chaoning and the others had planted among the refugees started working the crowds, claiming the county was out of grain and, what's more, that the grain that had come wasn't the emperor's relief supplies at all—those had been stolen!

The news spread like wildfire through the refugee camps, and everyone went into an uproar.

The ones who'd just arrived that day were the most worked up—many broke down crying right then and there—while the earlier arrivals who'd already been helped didn't want to believe it.

But believe it or not, the porridge and buns at the relief stations had been shrinking day by day since the day before, and today there was only half as much as before.

The city gates, which used to stand half-open, were now sealed tight. Most of the yamen runners who'd been keeping order had pulled back inside the city, and the ones who did come out were fully armed with swords and armor.

Even the county magistrate, who'd never shown his face before, came out to say there was still grain in the county and told everyone not to listen to the rumors that the relief supplies never came.

That set off the refugees and the locals alike.

If the county hadn't reacted like that, folks might've been able to fool themselves—but with this kind of response, even an idiot could tell something was up!

And on top of that, there were people around constantly fanning the flames.

...

Dukou Town.

"What!? The folks in Tong County rose up!?"

"How'd that happen? Didn't we just hear that relief grain had arrived?"

After all, Dukou Town had gotten its own shipment of relief grain—not much, but it had folks hoping a bigger load was coming.

"Pfft, relief grain, my ass! The corrupt officials pocketed it all!"

"Yeah, I heard that too—they're saying what came was the whole shipment!"

Some folks were scared out of their wits.

"Then what do we do? If the relief grain got stolen, and we've got all these refugees outside too—they're not gonna rise up as well, are they!?"

The scary news spread fast, and the whole town knew by that same day.

The refugees outside town panicked for a bit, but Zheng Yiyang and his men shut it down hard, then talked some sense into them, reminding them how well Dukou Town had treated them since they got here. That finally calmed them down.

At the same time, Xiaohe Village received the news.

Gu Wen came rushing in from outside, his face white as a ghost.

Like they'd sensed something, when Gu Wen walked in, the whole family was standing outside, and every eye locked onto him.

It was rare for him to look so shaken, but he turned to his parents with panic in his eyes.

"Dad, Mom, the refugees in Tong County have risen up."

"The refugees in Tong County rose up?"

"Chaoning, Chaoning—is Chaoning still there in Tong County?"

The question didn't even need asking. Wang Xiuxiu held it together for the first half of the sentence, but by the end, her voice cracked, sobs breaking through as tears poured down her face.

Chen Youyan had been on edge since the day before, and now hearing Gu Wen's words, he felt a crushing sense of dread, like the other shoe had finally dropped.

Gu Muan went white as a sheet, mouth hanging open, gripping Tingfeng's hand so tight he couldn't speak.

Yin Hongxue was just as pale, his vision going black.

No—he had to round up some men. He was heading to Tong County!