Urban Sims

JiZhou.

It is a state with a large population, important transportation areas, mountains and rivers, and a developed economy.

This is also the hometown of the two saints Qu and Meng, a state where the literary style is at its peak!

The people in this state, even if they are farmers, are more humble and courteous, respect talent and learning, and attach great importance to those who study.

Therefore, among the scholars who went to the imperial capital of Zhongzhou to take the imperial examination every three years, the largest number were from Jeju, and the largest number of them passed the examination. They even formed a powerful "Ji Party" in the court.

but……

Even so, Jeju has the largest number of bandits, water bandits and strongmen road bandits among the ten states in the world.

Since Zhou Ming and others entered Jeju, they only traveled more than 600 miles and encountered five or six groups of trail-cutting thieves. There were a small group of seven or eight people and a large group of dozens of people. Extort money and do business without capital.

However, these thieves didn't get any advantage. Instead, they were beaten up by Li Dazui and the eight clan soldiers, crying for their father and mother.

Zhou Ming curiously asked these thieves, why do they ignore good ordinary people and insist on being thieves in the mountains and engaging in beheading business? Aren't they afraid of being pursued by the government?

These thieves who knelt down and begged for mercy explained the reason for him. In fact, they didn't want to be that thieves, but if they didn't do these things, they couldn't survive at all!

The imperial grain and national tax to be paid here is too heavy, because most of the fields are in the hands of the powerful gentry landlords. In order to complete the task of tax collection, the government has subordinate officials at all levels to deal with the self-cultivation farmers who farm the land diligently. After layer upon layer of exploitation, the imperial grain, which was originally two bushels per acre, was increased to two dan, as well as the poll tax and various miscellaneous taxes, as well as all kinds of corvee transferred to them by the gentry and landlords. The burden on the yeoman farmers was so heavy that it could not bear the burden. The suffering is unspeakable.

So, will the tenant farmers who farm the land for the gentry and landlords feel easier?

After all, Jeju is the place where the two saints Qu and Meng were born. It is a place that emphasizes benevolence and morality, sacrifices one's life for righteousness, and knows etiquette despite being practical in the barn. The land rent collected by the gentry and landlords who admire Qu and Meng's ways should not be too high, right?

Sorry, generally 80%, at least 70%! Less than 60% is almost unheard of. If there is a certain landlord who only charges 60% of the land rent, it will definitely make a big news here.

Zhou Ming sneered: "This is the so-called Confucianism of Qu Meng. It is hypocritical and pretentious, cruel on the inside and forbearing on the outside. It talks about benevolence, justice and morality, but inside it is full of male thieves and female prostitutes!"

After letting these thieves go, Zhou Ming also asked Li Dazui to give some copper coins and ask these thieves to go to Haiping County in Qingzhou to look for job opportunities. A steel factory had just been built there, and there was a huge demand for coal diggers and miners. It's very big, it's a bit tiring, but the salary is very generous. After five years of work, it's no problem to build a brick house and marry a wife...

The thieves left gratefully. As for whether they would go to Haiping County, which is thousands of miles away, Zhou Ming was not sure. The choice was in their hands, and there was only so much he could do.

Let’s set off and keep going!

In front of a mountain that must pass through, three bandits stopped in front of everyone.

"Bah!"

"I opened this mountain." The tall and thin bandit on the left said with a simple knife.

"I planted this tree!" The short and sturdy bandit on the right raised his knife and shouted.

"I want to live from now on." The bandit in the middle with a scar on his forehead and dressed as a leader put on a pose.

"Stay here to buy money!" The two bandits on the left and right shouted at the same time.

"Dazui, throw them a penny. It's getting late. Go over this mountain early and find a resting inn." Zhou Ming said, not wanting to waste time.

Li Dazui took out a few strings of copper coins from his pocket and compared them in front of him. After thinking about it, he put the string with the least copper coins on the string, threw it at the feet of the three bandits and said, "Here, I'll give you all the money. And get out of the way, the grandpas have to hurry."

The bandit leader looked at the copper coins hanging on the ground, and then at Li Dazui, who looked like a black tower, swallowed and said: "Give us all the money in your pocket, and we in Tiangang Village will let you go. "

"You ungrateful animal!"

Li Dazui was furious, and with his python-thick arms, he lifted the bandit leader up like lightning, glared at him fiercely and said, "How dare you challenge Grandpa's idea of ​​paying for food?" He flicked his arm, and the bandit leader, Buttocks first and fell to the ground.

The bandit leader coughed twice, his eyes were thick with anger, and he hurriedly got up and shouted to his two men: "Tiancongxing, Tianqiaoxing, build the three-star array! Let this guy have a taste of the power of our three-star array!"

"yes!"

The three bandits surrounded Li Dazui, holding simple swords in their hands, and formed a mysterious formation. Their momentum also changed a lot, and they seemed to have become much more powerful.

Five seconds later, the three bandits who were shot away were lying on the ground vomiting blood one by one. The leader of the bandits spit out a mouthful of bloody teeth, collapsed and shouted: "Military advisor, save us quickly! We encounter There is a monster who is more powerful than Lu Bu among the people, and the three-talented star formation was broken by this monster!"

puff!

Zhou Ming, who was standing aside and saw this scene, almost couldn't hold back his laughter. These bandits were so funny. They were also among the three talents in the star formation, Lu Bu among the people... This was not what he did in "The Legend of Three Kingdoms: 108 Stars and Heroes" "The setting in "? In the comics, it’s okay for everyone to have fun, but in reality, there are people playing COSSPLAY?

After letting the clan soldiers capture the three bandits and interrogating them in detail, Zhou Ming almost felt a stomachache from laughing. It turned out that the bandit leader of this "Tiangang Village" was named Shiyu Songyi, and the military advisor was named Zhiduoxing Chen Yong. There are a total of 108 male and female brothers in the village, known as the 108 Stars. Moreover, the 108-star Tiangang Formation deployed can reverberate for hundreds of miles in radius. Even the officers and soldiers of the government encirclement and suppression did not dare to underestimate them.

I just didn't expect that at this mountain pass, the status quo that only required three stars to stand in front of passers-by to obediently pay tolls was actually broken by a group of monsters.

"Take me to meet your leader and military advisor. Take me to see the so-called Tiangang Formation." Zhou Ming really wanted to play with these funny bandits.

The bandit leader's eyes lit up and he said with great courage: "Boy, don't seek death on your own. The power of the 108-star Tiangang Formation will indeed be reduced if our three stars are missing, but it is not something mortal mortals like you can withstand. If you live here, you should be obedient and hand over all your money. If the uncle is happy, he might let you go."

"What nonsense, lead me the way!"

Li Dazui slapped him, causing him to stagger and cough. He could only stare at Li Dazui angrily, thinking that he would teach him a lesson later!

In front of the cottage.

"Tiangang's great formation, with swords and soldiers everywhere, invulnerable to fire and water, invincible in the world! Kill the stars in Tiangang Village!"

A thin military counselor with a long beard and a gray robe, ringing a bell, commanded more than 100 bandits armed with simple knives, wooden sticks, hoes and other weapons. He surrounded Zhou Ming and others menacingly, and then, without warning, Within three minutes, all these bandits were swept away and thrown upside down by Li Dazui, who was carrying a three-meter-long tree trunk as thick as a bowl. Their grief was everywhere.

The bell in the hand of the bandit strategist jingled to the ground. After being stunned for a moment, he shouted in surprise: "Monster, monster, even the Tiangang Formation can't deal with the monster! Let's stop waiting!"

"Arrange a few good rooms, and ask someone to prepare some good wine and food. I plan to spend one night in this village and leave tomorrow." Zhou Ming patted the shoulder of Song Yi, the village owner who was slightly injured. After finishing speaking, he led a few people into this low-rise and dilapidated cottage with simple conditions. He chose a few houses with better conditions and could only live there for one night.

Zhongyi Hall, at the dinner, after talking for a while, when they learned that the leader who captured their stronghold today was actually Tian Zihua, the author of "The Legend of 108 Stars of the Three Kingdoms", the leader of the stronghold, Song Yi, was extremely embarrassed, and the military advisor Chen Yong was stunned again. Meeting, he suddenly looked up to the sky and sighed: "I asked why the Tiangang 108 Star Formation was defeated so miserably. It turned out that it actually encountered all the divine kings. The divine king is the lord of the stars. How could the Tiangang Formation be undefeated in front of the divine kings? , how can you not be defeated?"

The bandits also suddenly realized, no wonder, no wonder they were defeated, the reason was here!

In the hall, there were several bandits who were originally unconvinced. When they suddenly learned that they had offended Lord Shenjun, they all trembled and knelt on the ground, begging Lord Shenjun to forgive them.

Zhou Ming has a black line. These bandits must have been brainwashed by the story of "The Legend of 108 Stars and Heroes of the Three Kingdoms". The same is true for the military advisor. Each of them has been so deeply involved, they can't really think of themselves. Think of it as a star in the sky?

The next day, after Zhou Ming and his party left Tiangang Village, the village leader Song Yi not only sent a team of people to escort him, but also sent a large number of messengers to inform the surrounding villages and ask them not to cause trouble to "Zihua Shenjun", so , during the next thousand-mile journey, Zhou Ming and others did not encounter any harassment by a group of bandits.

There were even many village owners who, out of admiration, took the initiative to invite Zhou Ming to the mountain as a guest and entertained them attentively. At this time, Zhou Ming discovered that the "108 Heroes of the Three Kingdoms" he wrote three years ago had been published in At least 70% of the bandit groups in Jeju have a very high reputation. The scale and scope of their influence surprised him...