Water Margin: Lu Bu sits on Mount Liang

Chapter 5 Money and Books

Tanzhou, Xingtang County, Bofan Village, cloudy day.

This is a village with less than [-] households. It is built on the hillside. The villagers all say that this place was established by the descendants of King Wuyi of Bohai State, the descendants of King Bohai.

A large-scale luxury house stands in the center of the village. The surrounding houses are quite a distance away from this house, and they all look ordinary, even a little dilapidated.

Probably because they are afraid of rain, the family in the middle is instructing the tenants to take back the grain that has been drying outside, lest it will be ruined if it gets wet in the rain.A few children were running around in the streets, playing some kind of game, and occasionally bumped into a pedestrian, without apologizing, they left behind a series of clear laughter and went away.

Where no one was paying attention, more than a hundred horse thieves had already arrived at a low slope on the mountain, and Lu Bu was standing in front of him, looking at the village.

A horse thief leaned over and said, "Boss, I've found out everything. Only the Zheng family is the richest here, and everyone around is working for his family."

Deng Fei answered from the side: "Isn't that the same as the Emperor of Earth?"

"That's true." The horse bandit was silent for a while and said: "When I was inquiring before, I heard that this house is not a very good bird. It beats or scolds the tenants, especially a wife. Every newcomer in this village gets married. If he is beautiful, he will take the top spot. And his bunch of bird sons, loan sharks, and practice boxing with living people, they are not human. Phew!"

He spat on the ground with a mouthful of phlegm: "Compared with them, we are all good people."

"It's really not a son of man."

"I feel like I'm a good person too."

"Forget it, if your big head can become a good person, am I not a Bodhisattva?"

"You little bird, dare to make fun of me, at least I don't practice knives with living people, how can I be a good person."

Several nearby horse bandits heard about it and clamored.

Lu Bu raised his hand, and everyone shut up when they saw it.

"Brother Deng Fei, you lead people to enter from the west end of the village, and leave a few people to guard at the entrance of the village later, don't teach people to run away." Lu Bu's indifferent voice said, "The others entered from the east end with a certain person. Remember Come on, don’t worry about others, go straight to the right family there, don’t kill people at will, don’t rape women, what we’re looking for is money, not anything else, if you break the rules, let’s see whether the knife in your hand is good or bad.”

"Yes." All the bandits agreed one after another.

"Set off."

After Lu Bu finished speaking, he got on the horse first, kicked the horse's belly and slowly descended the slope, while Deng Fei ordered the group behind, and headed west of the village as he said.

Rumbling--

The horse's hooves stomped on the ground, and the evil thoughts rushed down the mountain.

……

In the middle of the village, Lizheng Gao Chenggu had just finished his meal and was checking the account books. His son Gao Anzhi was standing on a stool with one foot and drinking with a wine glass in the other.

"Father, Zhe Mo wants to send money to that group training this month, and my uncle is the county magistrate (Note 1) and it depends on his surname Zhang?" Gao An blushed from drinking, half of the plate of cut mutton in front of him had gone down.

Gao Chenggu gave his son a sideways glance: "It's all nonsense, Uncle You can't cover the sky with one hand, and won't give him money. He loves you to cover things for you when he is here, and open your eyes for you when something goes wrong?"

Gao Anzhi put the cup down: "I have given it away once this month, how can I give it away again."

Gao Chenggu also said helplessly: "He is celebrating his birthday, what can he do for it."

Gao An groaned for a long while, and then squeezed out a sentence: "Today is the birthday, and tomorrow is the birthday. He Zhang Tuan practiced like this every month to celebrate his birthday, and he just blindly greedy."

The father and son were speechless for a while, one didn't care to look at the account again, and the other kept pouring wine into his mouth.

Tilting slightly, Gao An shook his head, tilting his head as if he was feeling something, and then said to Gao Chenggu with some doubts: "Father, why do I feel that the ground is shaking because I drank too much?"

Gao Chenggu also felt the shock, and suddenly raised his head and said, "No, I guess Dilong turned over, hurry up! Get out!"

After speaking, he lifted up his robe and ran away. Gao Anzhi also got up in a panic, and ran out staggeringly.

Rumbling--

A roar sounded nearby, and then Gao's father and son heard the sound of horses, a few curses and screams, and suddenly there were screams.

what happened?

The father and son looked at each other and walked outside together.

Before they got out of the courtyard, they heard a scream, and a figure flew over and fell straight in front of the two of them.

"Mr. Lin, what happened?" Gao Chenggu looked at the people on the ground in surprise and had a bad premonition.

Gao An looked up and saw clearly, seeing someone entering his house with a knife and a sword, he immediately understood, stepped forward and sneered, "Father, this is someone who came to our house...to beg...wildfire..."

As more and more people came in, the voice gradually became smaller.

……

Lu Bu and the others were galloping all the way, and the tenants on the road saw a group of fierce-looking strong men riding horses with weapons and hiding one after another. Seeing that these people ignored them, they dared to peek out from behind. They stopped at the door of Lizheng's house, all showing happy faces.

The two groups of Lu Bu and Deng Fei came together without any disturbance.

When he entered the door, two or three men guarding the house came up to block him, but they were hacked down by a few angry men with knives. Lu Bu didn't bother to look at him from the beginning to the end.

As for Teacher Lin, when he saw a thief rushing into the gate, he turned around and ran away. Deng Fei caught up with him and was thrown away by the iron chain, and fell in front of Gao's father and son.

"Say it, why don't you say it?" Deng Fei looked at Gao An and sneered.

Behind him, Lu Bu's tall and burly figure came over, his cold face was expressionless, standing there, he had the aura of a warrior on the battlefield, which made Gao Anzhi's voice drop an octave, and when Lu Bu came behind him, As more and more horse bandits appeared pressing down on the terrified servants, Gao Anzhi just shut up.

Gao Chenggu stepped forward instead, and said forcefully: "Where are the bandits coming from, how dare you come to deceive me? You know that my brother-in-law is the county magistrate of Xingtang County, and Zhang Qi, the local regiment trainer, is my best friend. Those who are knowledgeable should retreat now, otherwise the officers and soldiers will come." To tell you to wait until death without a place to bury you.”

Deng Fei pointed with his hand: "In front of so many people waiting for me, you still dare to speak nonsense, you are so rampant!"

Lu Bu's eyes widened too. He had never seen someone who dared to speak so harshly in the face of swordsmen. Are the younger generations so brave?
He winked at Bali Haili who was following him, and the big Khitan man immediately understood, stepped forward, rounded his arms, and slapped seven or eight times with his big mouth like he didn't want money before stopping.

"Ouch~yo~" Gao Chenggu slumped on the ground, humming while covering his face with his hands, his face looked obviously two times bigger than before.

Gao Anzhi kept his head down and didn't dare to make a sound. Seeing how much his hands were shaking, he was really frightened.

"Suppress it, and deal with it later, let the brothers quickly search." Lu Bu gave the father and son a disgusted look, and then said to Deng Fei: "Brother Deng Fei took someone to see if there was any crime."

Deng Fei also went as ordered.

In less than a moment, four horse thieves came out carrying two boxes and said, "Boss, did this guy know that we are coming and have prepared everything in advance."

As he said that, he put the box on the ground, and when he opened it, it was full of silk and satin. Another smaller box contained a few high-quality wild ginseng and 800 taels of silver.

"Heh, this is a gift." Ba Lihaili glanced at him and said.

Lu Bu nodded: "Good job, we found the warehouse quickly, we don't have much time."

"Yes." Several people agreed.

Lu Bu walked up to Gao's father and son again, "Where is the study?"

Gao Anzhi trembled when he heard the indifferent voice, and pointed to a place: "That...over there."

"Brother Bali, watch here, whoever dares to run, hack him to death." A deep voice sounded, and Lu Bu strode towards the house Gao Anzhi was pointing at.

Bali Haili and the rest of the gangsters in the back were puzzled, wondering why their leader was interested in the study room, they were all arresting official documents in Shanghai, so they still wanted to be officials?

Gao's study room is not big, only one table, one chair, two bookcases, there are many books on them, just to see the thickness of the dust and the newness of the books, basically no one reads these.

Frowning, Lu Bu walked over, reached out and took down the Analects from the bookshelf and flipped through it: "As expected, it is indeed much more convenient than the bamboo slips."

Throw the book on the table, he is not here for the way of a saint.

I searched for one book after another on the bookshelf, until I opened a book and read familiar content, suddenly my eyes lit up: "There really are."

Excited, Lu Bu turned the book over, and saw that there were three big characters "Three Kingdoms" written in regular script on the top, and a line of small characters "Southern Dynasty Song·Pei Song's Note" below.

Quickly flipped the book to the bibliography column, then found the page of "Wei Shu Qi·Lu Bu (Zhang Miao) Zang Hong Biography VII", and read it carefully.

Outside, all the bandits worked hard to carry the looted gold and jade, and the food was packed in carts one after another. It was convenient for this big family, even the carts loaded with grain could be collected.

He was working in full swing, when he heard a roar from the study room: "When did you 'receive your wife and love the wives of the generals', did you really think that the generals under his command had a good temper? Or did they think that their subordinates were dead? Please forgive me!"

bang——

There was a loud noise, filled with smoke and dust, but the wall on the side of the study was kicked down.

"What happened?"

"What is the leader talking about?"

"I dont understand!"

"It seems to be the language of Jiashan, but it doesn't look like it."

"What happened?"

Everyone stopped and looked towards the study room, and saw Lu Bu poking his head out with a hostile face and shouting, "Look, go find your belongings quickly."

The bandits shuddered and hurried to work.

Lu Bu gritted his teeth in the study: "Scholar!!! How dare you slander me like that!"

After breathing heavily for a while, Lu Bu opened the book and read it again. After a while, he raised his head and muttered to himself in doubt: "Why is the deed of a certain war against the eighteen princes not here? Ding Jianyang still wants to be close to me? Why not seize my military power?" Say? When did this person make an appointment to fight Guo Aduo and stab him with a spear? What’s going on here?”

Lu Bu stood where he was, and fell into deep doubts.

*Note 1: The official system in the south of the Liao Kingdom largely followed the Tang system. Local officials set up envoys such as Jiedu, observation, defense, regiment training, commanding the army, and recruiting, as well as officials such as governors and county magistrates.

(End of this chapter)