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Chapter 138: Bandits Attack _1

Yingbao continues to join Wen Shu, while Erni starts afresh with the new students.

“Today we are going to study the comprehensive prescriptions for women,” Lady Wen opens the book.

“The world’s doctors have ‘Special Treatment For Women’ and ‘Treasures of Childbirth’ for the discipline of women. ‘Special’ in treatment means exclusivity, ‘Treasure’ in prescription means its value. The art of medicine is difficult, and treating women is even more difficult…”

Yingbao and Wen Shu listen attentively.

At the end of the class, Lady Wen beckons for Yingbao to talk to her in the inner room.

“Have you sold your gold ear?” Lady Wen asked.

Yingbao: “There are still twenty catties.”

Lady Wen: “Would you sell them to me?”

Yingbao nods. Those golden ear mushrooms were indeed set aside for Lady Wen.

“I’ll come to your house at noon.” Lady Wen has never been to the Jiang family’s home on the South Slope, so it’s a good chance to pay a visit.

“Okay.”

At noon, Lady Wen and her daughter Wen Shu took Yingbao and Erni in a horse carriage to South Slope and arrived at the entrance of Jiang Sanlang’s house.

Lady Wen got out of the carriage and looked around.

She saw three big houses built with black bricks and roof tiles, facing south from north, stood in a row from east to west, each with a large yard.

Not far in front of the yard was a fruit orchard, a bit further a large pond, and a well.

Even further away, there were large tracts of wild bamboo forests and fields.

When Chunnu heard the sound, she came out and saw it was Lady Wen and her daughter, she quickly invited them inside the house for a seat.

Yingbao went back to her room, where she quietly took out several baskets of dried gold ear mushrooms and carried them to the main house.

These gold ear mushrooms already weighed exactly twenty catties. As for the leftover, Yingbao retained them for her own use.

Lady Wen asked the servant to move the silver from the carriage. Twenty catties of gold ear amounted to a total of 240 taels of silver, which was indeed a significant sum.

Chunnu carried the silver to her daughter’s room and asked her to keep it, then she came out again for a chat with Lady Wen.

At this time, Jiang Sanlang hurriedly ran back home.

“Chunnu, villagers have reported that a large group of bandits are coming our way. Lizheng asked us to hide all the properties and grains in our homes, just in case.”

Jiang Sanlang wiped a handful of sweat and nodded to Lady Wen: “Please be careful too, it’s better not to go out these days.”

Both Chunnu and Lady Wen were surprised, “How many bandits are there? Even the soldiers at the posthouse couldn’t stop them?”

Every fifty li along the official road was a defensive posthouse with at least one to two hundred guards stationed inside. How could they not stop a band of bandits?

“It is said that there are hundreds of bandits, all extremely brave, heavily armed. The few guards at the posthouse can’t stop them. Today, I asked Xiaojie and Xiaowu to stay at home. The school was already notified, there’s no need to go to school for the next few days.”

After Jiang Sanlang finished talking, he hurriedly went to his brothers to discuss what to do.

Lady Wen saw this and rose to excuse herself, taking her daughter back to school.

Yingbao wanted to ask Lady Wen and her daughter to stay, but their home was too remote. It was safer in the village since there were more people, which should be more secure.

After Lady Wen left, Chunnu went back to her room to tidy up her jewellery. Holding the silver, she turned around and around, not knowing where to hide it. Finally, she gritted her teeth, pried open a few tiles in the corner of the room, dug deep with a shovel, wrapped all the silver in old clothes, and buried it all under the ground.

After restoring the floor tiles and treading them down again and again, and moving a table over it, Chunnu finally felt at ease.

But there was still a lot of cotton and grain in the house that had nowhere to hide.

“Baobao, Baobao.” Chunnu ran to her daughter’s room, “Did you hide your silver well?”

Yingbao nodded, “It’s all hidden, no one can find it.”

In fact, she had stored silver and other valuables in her cave, and also stored several bags of grain. Even if bandits came, as long as their family survived, they would have food to eat.

“That’s good then.” Chunniang had her two sons brought back, insisting that they stay with their sister and not venture out.

She then proceeded to the kitchen to knead dough, intending to steam buns. She planned on making an ample amount of buns and pancakes, to guard against the possibility of having nothing to eat while hiding from the bandits.

Yingbao, too, was keeping busy, had been hiding unsightly items in the cave, such as cotton clothes, quilts and some cotton seeds.

She wouldn’t store everything. Only within the limit where her parents wouldn’t notice a difference.

The two younger brothers, however, seemed oblivious to the emergency; they were merrily running around the courtyard with two puppies, even playing football with Wei Zhan, Yuanbao, Huzi and a few others.

That night, Jiang Sanlang didn’t return. He, along with other villagers, had been enlisted in a temporary village guard squad, going on a round-the-clock patrol around the village.

Yingbao had a restless night and decided to count her silver in the cave.

From last year to now, she managed to save over four hundred taels of silver, along with a small basket of loose copper coins.

With this considerable sum of money, she and her family would not starve, no matter what happened in the future.

She remembered that the following years were not peaceful; rebellions frequently broke out in various places, and the Imperial Court continuously dispatched troops to quell them.

The common people were the most unlucky – they had to contribute both money and manpower.

The remote Chuanhe Town hadn’t been harassed by rebels, but the Imperial Court hadn’t given up on exploiting this mountain village. Just as people started to recover from the flood, the Imperial Court’s conscription order arrived.

Now, bandits had moved from Zhouhe County to Qinchuan County, razing many villages along their path.

If the number of bandits continued to snowball, it was certain that the Imperial Court would once again send troops.

When that happened, the entire Chuanhe Town would become a battlefield. She guessed that her family wouldn’t be able to stay in the village much longer.

In her previous life, she was just a näIVe child and didn’t clearly understand how the bandits in Zhouhe County were eliminated. But later, many refugees with families in tow started arriving in the village, asking for food and then leaving. The sight was truly pitiful.

After organizing the cave, Yingbao at last went to sleep.

Early the next morning, a villager was suddenly beating a gong and shouting through the village: “Bandits are less than twenty li from us, everyone, hide quickly!”

His cry startled everyone awake.

People rushed to ask Lizheng about the situation, only to find that the Lizheng’s family was in chaos, packing up their things.

“Uncle Chen Sanyou, what should we do now?” the villagers asked.

Chen Sanyou also didn’t know what to do, he pondered for a moment and said:

“How about we all go to the mountains? Bring all the food from your homes into the mountains. After the  bandits leave, we can bring it back. Those with cellars at home can also hide the food that cannot be transported in the cellars.Livestocks should be taken to the mountains.”

“There’s no other way.” The villagers ran quickly back to their homes to hide the food.

Jiang Sanlang also got the news and hurried home to inform his family. “The villagers are all preparing to go to North Mountain, shall we also go to North

Mountain?”

North Mountain was dense with trees and had a vast area. Villagers could hide deep in the forest without being easily discovered.

In comparison, South Slope had fewer trees but ample bamboo forests. However, the bamboo forests were excessively dense that people and livestock would have a hard time getting in.

Chunniang frowned, “What about our food and cotton if we go to North Mountain?”

They’ve stored a lot of food and cotton, they wouldn’t be able to transport it all. Would they really just give up on it all?

Jiang Sanlang sighed, “We’ll take what we can. There’s no other way.”

The bandits were just over twenty li away. They probably covered a lot of ground by now. It wouldn’t take them more than a few hours to arrive.

Their small village was close to the official road, the bandits ransacking along their path would definitely invade their village.

A group of hundreds of people could easily slaughter a village.

“Dad, why don’t we go to the bamboo forest ahead?” Yingbao suggested, “we can hide there.”

The bamboo forest on South Slope was vast. She and Chuchu had cut down some bamboo there a while ago. Her family could hide in there for more than ten days with no problem.

The only condition was that the bandits didn’t find out there were people hiding inside..