In years of famine and drought, their village even rejected fatty meat.

Chapter 367 Feeling a Shared Sympathy

Chen Dao didn't like seeing others cry, but when he saw these two women sobbing, he felt no impatience, but rather a deep sense of sympathy.

When a country's order collapses, it is always the ordinary people at the bottom who suffer the most.

Large families have manors and their own retinues, making them virtually untouchable by ordinary thieves. On the contrary, it's the common people at the bottom of society...

They had no weapons, no power to defend themselves, and were left to be exploited by others.

The experience of Lijiapo is the best proof. When the bandits came, the men of Lijiapo were killed, while the women were imprisoned and used as tools for the bandits to vent their desires.

At this moment, Chen Dao felt extremely fortunate, fortunate that he had a cheat system after transmigrating to this world, otherwise...

Chenjia Village is probably not much better than Lijiapo.

About fifteen minutes later, the two women stopped crying and walked out of the house with Chen Dao.

Meanwhile, all the men Zheng Qing sent out to search the village returned, bringing back a large number of young women.

"Prefect".

Qi Zhong, a martial artist from the Zheng family, reported with a gloomy expression: "My subordinates have searched the village and found a large amount of money, grain, and goods, in addition..."

Qi Zhong glanced at the large number of women who had returned with him and said, "We also found these women. They were originally villagers of Lijiapo. After the Taishan bandits massacred the village, they kept them for their own pleasure."

When he said this, Qi Zhong subconsciously lowered his voice so that the women of Lijiapo would not hear him and touch on their painful memories.

What makes humans human, and not beasts, is that they have a moral bottom line. But what the bandits did has trampled on that bottom line.

They slaughtered all the men in a village and kept all the women as their sexual objects...

Qi Zhong, a martial artist, had also killed people before, and just now he had personally killed three Taishan bandits. However, the number of people he had killed was nothing compared to the Taishan bandits, not to mention the outrageous acts of the Taishan bandits after they killed people.

Zheng Qing glanced at the women whose clothes were half-exposed, a hint of shame flashing in his eyes.

Although he didn't share Xu Zhiwen's strong affinity for ordinary people, he still felt a surge of indescribable emotion when he saw these women, half-naked, with numb eyes, and even timid and hesitant.

As the governor of Taicang County, all the people of Taicang County were considered his subjects. However, when these people were slaughtered and women were bullied, he failed to protect them in time, which was undoubtedly a dereliction of duty on his part as governor.

"Find them some clothes to wear, and then temporarily house them at the village chief's house."

Zheng Qing waved his hand and said helplessly.

It was impossible for these women to continue living in Lijiapo, because there were no men left in the village, and having experienced such a thing, they probably wouldn't want to stay there any longer.

Under these circumstances, Zheng Qing had no choice but to take them back to the county town.

Of course, not now, because we still need to wait and see.

After Qi Zhong settled the women in the village chief's house, Zheng Qing looked towards the village entrance and murmured, "Will the Wang family come?"

Zheng Qing chose to eliminate the Taishan bandits first because he wanted to use them to lure out the Wang family. Therefore, after eliminating the Taishan bandits, the group did not leave immediately, but waited for them to come to them in Lijiapo.

"It's highly unlikely they'll come."

Han Yue glanced at the sky; the sun was already setting in the west. If the Wang family were coming, they should have arrived long ago.

"Wait a minute."

Zheng Qing knew that the chances of the Wang family appearing were slim, but he still held onto a sliver of hope. Unfortunately, he didn't see anyone from the Wang family appear until dusk.

"It seems the Wang family doesn't value these Taishan bandits as much as we thought."

Han Yue shook his head and said with a sneer.

It was his idea to lure the Wang family out by using the Taishan bandits, but it is clear that the plan failed. The Wang family paid very little attention to the Taishan bandits and did not send any manpower to support them.

"Let's go back to the city first."

Zheng Qing reluctantly issued the order, and then everyone mounted their horses and led the rescued Li Jiapo woman back to the county town.

"Squeak."

On the city wall, Ding Yi, having confirmed Zheng Qing's identity, opened the heavy city gate, let the group into the city, and then closed the gate again.

"Prefect Zheng".

On the way to the prefectural governor's mansion, Chen Dao asked, "What do you plan to do with these women from Lijiapo?"

Zheng Qing pondered for a moment and replied, "I will ask for their opinions. If they are willing, they can stay in the prefectural governor's mansion to make a living. If they are not willing, I will set them free."

Chen Dao nodded. Zheng Qing's solution was essentially that the Zheng family would support these women. However, the Zheng family was large and wealthy, so they probably didn't lack for the expenses of these dozens of women. Moreover, these women wouldn't eat and drink for free; at least they could do some work for the prefect's office.

They traveled in silence, and a quarter of an hour later, they arrived at the Prefectural Governor's residence.

"Father."

Zheng Qiuyan greeted everyone at the door.

After handing the horse over to the servants in the mansion, Zheng Qing led Chen Dao, Han Yue, and the others to the living room of the house and sat down.

"Yan'er, serve tea to Young Friend Chen and Master Han."

After Zheng Qiuyan personally served tea to everyone.

Zheng Qing began, "Yan'er, tell me about your situation in the city."

"Okay, Father."

Zheng Qiuyan paused, organized her thoughts, and said, "Father, after you left the city, I followed your instructions and led the city guards to the prefectural government office to kill all the officials who were affiliated with the Wang family. After that, I led a team to search and confiscate all of the Wang family's grain shops in the city, and confiscated a total of 2000 taels of silver and 5000 shi of grain."

5000 shi of grain!

Upon hearing this number, Han Yue's eyes lit up. 5000 shi of grain is equivalent to 50 jin. Assuming an adult eats four jin of grain a day, 50 jin of grain is enough to feed more than 4000 people for a month.

This is already an astonishing number.

however……

Zheng Qing's reaction was completely opposite to Han Yue's.

There was no joy on his face; instead, he frowned and said, "Isn't 5000 shi of grain a bit too little?"

As the prefect, Zheng Qing was more sensitive to numbers. As soon as Zheng Qiuyan announced the amount of grain, he began to calculate in his mind.

5000 shi of grain sounds like a lot, but it's just a lot in theory.

It should be noted that the population of the county town alone is 20, and the daily grain consumption is at least 80 shi (a unit of dry measure). 5000 shi of grain is not enough to feed the people of the county town for a day.

Of course, this does not mean that Zheng Qing wanted to distribute the grain to the people for free; he wanted to stabilize the grain price in the county town.