allonlinenovel Chapter 172 The Decay of the County Town, Unwelcome to Lin Feng and His Two Men
Chapter 172 The Decay of the County Town, Unwelcome to Lin Feng and His Two Men
After finishing their meal, Lin Feng and his two companions left the town together.
All three men's horses were quite fast, and they traveled without any difficulty.
As dusk fell, a great city came into view.
Upon seeing such a large city, Lin Feng's eyes widened in astonishment.
The section of the city wall that one could see was fifty li long and about thirty meters high.
Qinghe County is nowhere near as large as Longyuan County.
This county town must have at least several million inhabitants.
Seeing Lin Feng's expression, Zhai Chengyuan asked, "It seems that this is Lord Lin's first time visiting the county town."
Lin Feng said with a smile, "I'm sorry to have made you laugh, Lord Zhai."
Zhai Chengyuan quickly waved his hand, "No, no, I had the same expression as Lord Lin when I first came to the county town."
Besides the size, Lin Feng also noticed some other details.
The city walls of the prefecture seemed somewhat dilapidated, covered with moss, and in many places even trees and weeds had grown, as if they had been neglected for many years.
He understood what was going on as soon as he thought about it.
How could those greedy officials in the city lord's mansion be willing to spend money to repair the city walls?
A century of peace has made these people forget what war is like. They spend their days bullying the people and drinking and having fun. If this continues, they will be doomed sooner or later.
However, it's not necessarily true; the Demonic Sect might be in an even worse situation.
Zhai Chengyuan squeezed the horse's flanks with both feet, urging the warhorse forward. "Let's go, let's enter the city."
There are far more places to have fun in the county seat than in Qinghe County.
Several guards stood at the city gate, seemingly only responsible for maintaining order and not checking pedestrians entering the city.
They seemed completely unafraid that bad guys might enter the city.
It seems that order in the city has been maintained quite well.
After entering the city, the three parted ways.
Zhai Chengyuan went to the city lord's mansion.
Lin Feng and Sun Yu went to the headquarters of the Ma Yi Wei in the county town.
When Lin Feng arrived there, he learned that the generals of the Ma Yi Guard from the other nine counties of Longyuan Prefecture had arrived that afternoon, and the general of the Ma Yi Guard in the prefecture city had taken these people out for drinks.
The people at the headquarters of the Hemp Guard received Lin Feng and his companion, settled their horses, found them lodging, and then nothing more was said.
Lin Feng and Sun Yu were in a small courtyard, and Sun Yu kept looking out.
"What's going on? Shouldn't there be a welcome banquet?"
Lin Feng roughly figured out what was going on.
"Didn't that person just say that the general of the prefecture city took the generals of the other nine counties to a restaurant in the city for drinks?"
"Are we too late? Why didn't they invite us for drinks?"
"I'm afraid it's not that we're late, but that they don't want to see us."
"We're new here, and we haven't offended any of our colleagues."
"Perhaps our Qinghe County has been too prominent, raising the performance evaluation standards for the Ma Yiwei, which is why we have been ostracized by these colleagues."
Sun Yu understood somewhat, "What Big Brother means is that we've been too timid."
"Yes, that's what it means."
"This isn't our fault. The problem came to us, and we can't just leave it unresolved. I'll go out and find out if it's the same thing we thought."
Sun Yu left the courtyard.
Lin Feng sat at the stone table in the courtyard and opened the bamboo tube, about the size of a little finger, that Han Qianshan had given him.
The bamboo tube contains a kind of spice. When opened, the aroma will spread and attract the messenger lark from the headquarters of the Sword Sect's Hemp-Clad Guard.
Lin Feng then took out paper and a very fine pen from the bamboo tube and wrote a few words.
Then roll up the paper.
Just then, a lark flew over.
Lin Feng poured some food out of the bamboo tube and fed it to the lark.
Put the rolled-up paper into the bamboo tube tied to the lark's leg, and plug the bamboo tube.
After the lark finished eating, it spread its wings and flew away.
At this moment, Sun Yu, with a gloomy expression, also returned.
He sat down at the table, poured himself a cup of tea, and gulped it down.
"Brother, you were absolutely right."
Apart from the Ma Yi Wei in Qinghe County, the Ma Yi Wei in other counties of Longyuan Prefecture are all in dire straits.
They almost never received any rewards from above, only twenty taels of silver per month.
In some places, the Ma Yi Guards even joined forces with the city lord's mansion.
Today, those drinking with the Imperial Guards included people from the yamen and the city guards.
It seems we've been isolated.
Lin Feng stood up and walked out, saying, "So what if I'm isolated? Come on, I'll treat you to a big meal."
Longyuan County was brightly lit at night, with brothels and street vendors lining the streets.
Lin Feng saw a vendor selling candied hawthorns and suddenly wanted to eat some.
Before he could reach the vendor's stall, two men dressed in black with tigers embroidered on their clothes walked past.
One of them said, "It's time to pay protection money."
The vendor selling candied hawthorns said with a bitter face, "Didn't we just pay it two weeks ago?"
The man in black said, "Stop talking nonsense to me. Just pay up. All the small vendors on this street have paid up, what's one more?"
Small vendors have no choice but to obediently pay protection money.
Lin Feng walked up to the vendor, pointed at the two men in black who had left, and asked, "Who were those two? Why were they so arrogant?"
Upon hearing Lin Feng's words, the small vendor's face turned green.
He wanted to cover Lin Feng's mouth, but hesitated, so he could only whisper, "Sir, please keep your voice down, it will be troublesome if they hear us."
The vendor breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the two men didn't turn around.
"You can tell from the old man that he's from out of town, otherwise how could he not know the Fierce Tiger Gang?"
The Fierce Tiger Gang was protected by the City Lord's Mansion, the City Guard, the Yamen, and the Hemp-Clad Guard, so no one dared to mess with them.
Lin Feng raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure the Hemp-Clad Guards are also protecting the Fierce Tiger Gang?"
"Of course, the people of Longyuan County all know about this."
Several colleagues, having heard that the Ma Yi Wei was an organization that stood up for the people, even went to the Ma Yi Wei to report the Fierce Tiger Gang for collecting protection money.
As a result, those people fell into the hands of the Fierce Tiger Gang the very next day.
The Fierce Tiger Gang used every torture imaginable on those men, squeezed them dry, and sold their wives and daughters into brothels.
Those people were tied up next to the execution ground and tortured for four or five days before they died; it was truly horrific.
I also went to Caishikou to take a look.
At the time, a beggar tried to give these people some water, but he was immediately hacked to death by the members of the Fierce Tiger Gang.
I heard that when the Ma Yi Guards of the prefectural city were first established, they also wanted to challenge the city lord's mansion, but they were outmatched and were easily manipulated, so they eventually submitted completely.
Sun Yu gritted his teeth and said, "These people are outrageous. Even if the Ma Yi Wei don't stand up for the people, they can't help the wicked."
"This is what happens when officials protect each other." The peddler pointed to the lights around him. "Don't be fooled by the apparent prosperity of Longyuan County; the people are actually being suffocated by oppression."
If they collect protection money from me again this month, not only will I be unable to continue doing business, but my whole family probably won't even be able to afford food.
I'm planning to pack up and head to Qinghe County in the next day or two.
I've heard that General Lin of the Ma Yiwei Guard in Qinghe County is a living bodhisattva.
General Lin has cleaned up all the gangs and thugs in Qinghe County.
"No one in Qinghe County collects protection money, so business is much easier."
Hearing this, Lin Feng felt a sense of accomplishment; the people could see what he had done.
Lin Feng plans to move out of the Ma Yiwei soon and find a restaurant to stay in.
People with different values cannot work together, and besides, they don't even like us. What are we doing staying in Ma Yi Wei?
The hemp-clad guards of the county town are not worthy of wearing this hemp robe at all.
If I could become the general of the Ma Yi Guard in the county, I would definitely turn Longyuan County upside down.