Super Cultivation System of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 63 There is always a way
Liu He rode forward, pointed his axe, and shouted, "You evil thief, there is no need to flee. We have sent troops to seize your stronghold since you left. Even if you go back, you will only seek death! Surrender quickly and I will spare your life. Otherwise, I will kill you mercilessly with my axe!"

Looking at the densely packed militiamen around him, each of them was in high spirits, while there were only seventy or eighty of them on his side, each of them was panting and could hardly stand straight. In addition, they were ambushed and surrounded, so how could the bandits have the will to fight?
"Don't kill us, we are willing to surrender..."

Many bandits laid down their weapons and surrendered.

Watching his men kneeling down and surrendering one by one, the leader looked extremely angry.

"Chief...ah...there is no other way, just surrender..." the military advisor next to him advised.

When the leader heard the military advisor's words, he immediately glared at him fiercely.

"Humph, it was all your bad idea that caused us to suffer such a great defeat. Now you are trying to persuade me to surrender. Have you been bribed by them to harm me?"

When the military advisor heard this, he felt really aggrieved.

"Boss, how could I be bribed by them? I really am..."

"Shut up! You're the one who killed me, die now!"

The leader interrupted the military advisor, raised the big knife in his hand, and stabbed it into the military advisor's abdomen.

"Leader...you...I..."

The military advisor didn't expect that the leader would actually kill him. He widened his eyes and fell down with unwillingness.

The seventy or eighty bandits around saw how ferocious their leader was and feared that he would vent his anger on them. Some of them who originally did not want to surrender also immediately announced their surrender and moved towards the militia team, trying to seek shelter.

"I won't lose, I won't lose, I want to go back to the village, get out of my way, you little thing!"

The leader seemed to be crazy, raised his sword and rushed towards Liu He.

Seeing him like this, Liu He sighed, "Alas, he is so stubborn and unrepentant. How pitiful and lamentable."

As soon as he finished speaking, he swung the axe in his hand and chopped towards the leader.

Liu He was so strong that he could easily lift a huge rock weighing seven or eight hundred pounds above his head without changing his expression. What's more, the double-edged axe was a relatively heavy weapon, so the force of such a blow was more than a thousand pounds!

The leader raised his weapon to block in front of his chest, and then his body turned into a black shadow under the bright moonlight, and flew backwards for more than ten steps, leaving a scarlet curve in the air.

"You...how could you...possibly...I...I won't...lose..."

The leader managed to utter a few words before falling to the ground and dying.

Liu He displayed his extraordinary power, and the bandits became even more frightened. They knelt on the ground, kowtowed and begged for mercy, not daring to have any other thoughts.

"Since you are willing to surrender, our Huangshui Township will never treat you unfairly. I'm sure you have heard about how our township treats bandits. As long as you haven't done anything to kill people before, we can forgive all other crimes. As long as you behave yourself in the future, you will be a good citizen of our Huangshui Township!"

The bandits, who were originally very nervous, felt relieved after hearing Liu He's words.

Having a house to live in and a field to plant is already good enough. Although they have to join the militia to protect the local area, it is far less carefree and happy than before, but they are farmers who have suffered from the disaster. Now they have such a life, so they are content. It is much better than losing their lives. At this time, the sky was slightly bright. Liu He ordered people to escort these seventy or eighty people back to the village, and he took more than a hundred militiamen into the mountains to meet his second brother Guan Yu and his apprentice Ye Xiang who were going to seize the mountain stronghold.

It was not until dawn and the sun was high in the sky that Liu He, Guan Yu, and Ye Xiang, together with the local militia, came out of the mountains, escorting thirty or forty bandits and carrying the property from the stronghold.

The two mountain strongholds were completely cleared, with a total of more than 240 civilians, including more than 160 healthy young and strong men, about 100,000 coins, nearly 100 stones of food and fodder, and dozens of livestock of various types.

Liu Qian, Tingzhang Qian and Tingzhang Lu led many villagers to classify and store all the items, and then registered the two hundred and forty people.

In a place like Huangshui Township, there is a lack of everything except vacant houses and abandoned land.

Over the years, many people have died or fled, leaving behind many empty houses and many fields deserted and overgrown with weeds. On normal days, people don't have enough to eat, so naturally they are not willing to take the effort to cultivate the land. But now it is different.

The two pavilion chiefs organized a group of people to help the two hundred people, and together they repaired and reclaimed the land. Within half a month, people could live there and farm there.

When these people saw that their names had been registered and houses and lands had been allocated to them, they were all pleasantly surprised and the only doubts in their hearts disappeared.

The three guards said that they would distribute as much land as they could reclaim, which made everyone work very hard. The women served the men and the men served as oxen.

Afterwards, the three pavilion chiefs used the coins seized from the mountain strongholds to buy seeds, farm tools, etc. in the county town and distributed them to these people.

It happened to be a few days after Qingming Festival, which was suitable for sowing. Many villagers spontaneously helped the more than 200 people to work in the fields. In just three days, they sowed the thousands of acres of reclaimed land. These people were deeply moved and felt very ashamed of their previous looting behavior.

On the day agreed to report to the militia, more than 160 people came very early, arriving half an hour earlier than the agreed time. They were all high-spirited and full of passion.

Looking at the newcomers who were working twice as hard in training, Liu He and others were extremely happy.

In fact, at the beginning, many people were skeptical about accepting these former bandits. It was only after Liu He made a firm statement that everyone agreed. In Liu He's mind, in addition to the nice words he said, there was another important point to accept these people.

There are not many young and middle-aged men in Huangshui Township nowadays. Some starved to death, some wandered to other places, and some went to the army or did labor service. For various reasons, they never returned. Now young and middle-aged men account for less than a quarter of the township's population. This is actually very unfavorable for agricultural production, for developing one's own power, and for resisting the chaos in the world brought about by the Yellow Turbans. Without people, everything you say is in vain.

The addition of this group of bandits will undoubtedly inject a batch of fresh and vibrant blood into Huangshui Township. With the continuous suppression of bandits, there will be more and more young and middle-aged people in the township. By then, they will reclaim more wasteland, popularize new technologies exchanged in the system, increase agricultural output, and have sufficient manpower. Then they will truly have no worries.

Of course, I couldn't tell the villagers directly about this, so I could only explain it with high-sounding words like "the bandits are also good people who have no choice but to become bandits, so I will only punish the ringleaders, and the rest can surrender as long as they haven't committed serious crimes." Fortunately, Liu He and his men are now very prestigious, so the villagers don't have much objection.

"Brother, you are really thoughtful. You used kindness to persuade people instead of slaughtering them all. We could only understand it at that time, but seeing this scene today, we can truly feel your kindness and righteousness."

Guan Yu said to Liu He with emotion.

Liu He looked at Guan Yu and thought to himself, "It seems that Master Guan is just fooled by this. He was so devoted to Liu Xuande in the beginning, probably because of the kindness and righteousness shown by the emperor's uncle."

"Haha, second brother, you are too kind. Didn't you also advocate killing fewer people and surrendering more people? We brothers are like-minded, so we can get along so well. Even though brothers Zhu and Cheng have slightly more violent personalities, their sense of benevolence and righteousness is no less than you and me."

After listening to Liu He's words, Guan Yu smiled and nodded. He fully agreed with his brothers.

(End of this chapter)