The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Chapter 54 This Man Is Terrible!

After Yang Heqing finished speaking, he led people to arrest the granary steward.

He is in the town, just ask the Zhang family where they live.

The granary manager was not a tough guy. After being caught and tortured by Yang Heqing, he cried bitterly and confessed that he had committed the crime.

Previously, he collaborated with the granary guards to steal nearly two hundred stones of grain, which was not too much.Today, he took advantage of the opportunity and boldly transferred five hundred shi of grain!

If it weren't for the rioters breaking into the granary compound, they might have smuggled more!

In anger, Yang Heqing beheaded the granary steward.

As for the grain they stole, because the Zhang family was here before, they did not dare to sell it on a large scale. They still had [-] shi, which was all hidden in the cellar of the neighbor's house.

Yang Heqing unceremoniously confiscated all the [-] shi of grain and transported it back to the granary of the Zhang family mansion...
The next day.

After the chaos, Minggang Town can still see the sun rising.

The sky was cloudless, and the sun was already a bit fierce at the end of May.

The rebel infantrymen who had received a brief training from Liu Sheng last night took to the streets one by one, walking to the north, south, east and west of the town, ringing gongs and shouting.

"Listen, folks of Minggang, the Chenshi rebels are interrogating the three men of Zhang, Cao, and Fan at Nanjiekou today!

The male and female owners of each household can come to the hearing with household stickers, and after the interrogation, they can use the household stickers to receive the food distributed by our rebel army, five dou per household!

In addition, the rebel army recruits people to reclaim wasteland in the mountains. The whole family must join in and provide at least two meals a day! "

With the clang of gongs as a prelude, the loud shouts of the rebels spread throughout the streets and alleys of Minggang Town.

The townspeople were surprised and a little skeptical after hearing this.

"Master, this bandit..."

"Hush! It's the rebels!"

"Will this rebel army really distribute food to us?"

"I heard that some rebels would open warehouses to release food after they conquered a town. The people like Red Lady didn't bully ordinary people like us yesterday, and they also suppressed the gangsters who took advantage of the chaos to rob. Maybe they really know how to release food."

"Is the head of the family going to get food?"

"Of course I want to go - my family's money has long been used up. In order to buy grain a few days ago, I borrowed a lot of usury from the Fan family. If we don't get these five buckets of grain, the whole family will starve to death."

"Shall I go with the boss?"

"No, you have to stay at home and watch the kids."

"···"

Similar conversations took place in almost every household in town.

Of course, the middle class and even wealthy families view this matter differently.

The Wang family, after the Zhang, Cao, and Fan families were wiped out, has become the largest family in Minggang Town.

The Wang family mainly deals in silk and cloth. They are also large landowners in Minggang, with more than 2000 acres of land.

The head of the family of this generation, Wang Junwen, is an old scholar in his 50s. Because his family is in business, he is not very pedantic, but rather timid.

Yesterday, he originally wanted to escape with his family, but because he had too many family members and property, he couldn't move after making a lot of noise for more than an hour.

Later, he heard that the bandits were dispatched to suppress the local gangsters, the streets were peaceful, and the Cao family was destroyed. He was worried about offending the bandits and was really reluctant to abandon his family property, so he chose to close the door tightly.

I hid in the cellar with my family and was scared all night. I didn't expect to hear such news when I woke up this morning.

Although Wang Junwen didn't know much, he had some knowledge. He felt that since the bandits were willing to maintain order in the town and were ready to release food, they probably wanted reputation.

In this way, perhaps the big families such as the Wang family will not be wiped out - if they really wanted to be wiped out, they should have taken action last night.

So he breathed a sigh of relief.

At this time, the younger son, who was usually uneducated and unskilled, came over and asked: "Dad, this Red Lady's people actually said that they would put the Zhang, Cao, and Fan families on public trial. What is a public trial? Do we want to go and see?"

"Nonsense!" Wang Junwen subconsciously scolded his younger son, and then felt that what his younger son said was reasonable.

The red lady's people don't know when they will leave, and the government people don't know when they will come.

If the Red Lady wants to occupy Minggang for ten and a half days, the Wang family will inevitably come into contact with the bandits.In this way, if you don't understand what these bandits want to do, you will suffer a big loss.

So he continued: "If you want to go, your elder brother will go too!"

Then he said to the eldest son who was already married and relatively stable: "Take two loyal nurses and pretend to be ordinary people to go to Nanjiekou to see the situation."

The eldest son Wang Ke agreed and hurried back to his room to change clothes.

When he took the two guards out to the street, he saw a small team of ten bandits patrolling along the street.Although no shops on the street dared to open their doors, they were all very quiet.

Obviously, many local ruffians who caused trouble yesterday were killed by the bandits in the street, and the villains who took advantage of the chaos to do evil were temporarily frightened.

'If this red lady's people don't rob big families, they might be a bit of a big deal. 'Wang Ke thought so in his heart.

Then he shook his head again.

Because he knew that in this day and age, bandits could only obtain money and food by robbing large households.

The Red Lady only destroyed three of the most notorious families in the town, so she was considered a breath of fresh air among the bandits.

Arriving outside Nanjiekou, Wang Ke saw that more than 100 people from the town had gathered here. Under the guidance of nearly a hundred bandits, they were all standing in front of a simple temporary wooden platform, and no one dared to speak. .

Wang Ke and three others came and were also asked to stand in front of the wooden platform.

As a famous commercial port in southern Henan, Minggang Town has more than 800 residents. If you include the "floating population" without household subsidies, it is estimated that there are thousands of households, and the actual population is between [-] and [-].

If you include some surrounding villages, its population is definitely tens of thousands.

But now all the people in the villages around Minggang Town have fled, and the villages have been abandoned.

Even the population of Minggang Town has declined by [-]% to [-]% in the past two to three months despite the fact that most refugees have been refused entry.

Therefore, when nearly a thousand townspeople gathered in the audience, Liu Sheng and Lady Hong began the public trial.

Thirteen adult men from the Zhang family, including Zhang Dezhao and Zhang Debiao, were led onto a wooden platform with their hands tied behind their backs.

The Zhang family's reputation in Minggang Town was originally average. In the past two or three months, food prices have skyrocketed, and the Zhang family's reputation has become bad.

At this time, many ordinary people felt inexplicably happy when they saw that the master and young master of the Zhang family, the largest family in the town, had become prisoners awaiting trial on the stage.

Only a few members of the Zhang family who were close to the Zhang family, trusted tenants, and people from a wealthy family like Wang Ke, felt sad in their hearts, with a feeling of sadness as if the rabbit had died and the fox had died.

Under the gaze of everyone, Liu Sheng walked to the edge of the wooden bars and spoke loudly——

"Fellow fellow citizens of Minggang! Today our rebel army is here to publicly interrogate the crimes of the Zhang, Cao, and Fan families. Please come over, not only to listen to the trial, but also to participate in it!

How to participate, I will explain later.Now, we, the rebels, will first try Zhang Dezhao and Zhang Debiao, these two heinous people! "

At this point, Liu Sheng stopped and looked at the reactions of the townspeople.

The townspeople didn't seem to care, they all looked at the stage silently.

He didn't care and continued: "Why are these two people said to be so evil?

As everyone knows, Henan has suffered from droughts and war disasters in the past few years, and its food production has been reduced every year.

Since mid-spring this year, there has not been a drop of rain in many places, and the severe drought has lasted for several months.

Our rebel army learned through interrogation that in late spring, the Zhang family sent people disguised as grain merchants from other places to buy surplus grain from various places in Runing at prices several times higher than the market price, causing grain prices to rise rapidly during the severe drought. !
At this time, the Zhang family, as one of the top grain merchants in Runing and the largest landowner and grain merchant in Minggang, not only did not try to buy more grain from elsewhere to stabilize local grain prices, but instead hoarded grain and deliberately drove up grain prices!

Minggang is on the north bank of the Huaihe River and has convenient water transportation. However, due to the Zhang family's monopoly on grain trading, the price of grain has risen to 50 taels per shi!
In areas around Minggang and even in Runan, due to the Zhang family's hoarding, food prices have risen to dozens of times higher than in normal years!
Everyone, tell me, does the Zhang family earn money?
no!What the Zhang family earns is the flesh and blood of hungry people!It’s the lives and possessions of the people affected by the disaster! "

The townspeople may have more knowledge than the people in the countryside, but their knowledge is limited.

Many people know that the rise in grain prices is related to Zhangjiatun grain, but they don't know that the relationship is so great. Even the dozens of times increase in grain prices in Runan was planned by the Zhang family!

Even if not everyone has relatives or friends who died of starvation in this year's famine, the vast majority of people are trapped by hunger. Recently, many families are facing food shortages and the whole family is in danger of starving to death.

In addition, Liu Sheng's words were quite contagious. Many townspeople were filled with anger after hearing this, but they didn't know how to vent it for a moment.

At this moment, someone in the crowd raised his fist and shouted: "The Zhang family deserves death!"

This shout seemed to make everyone else find a way to vent their anger, and they all raised their fists and shouted——

"The Zhang family deserves to die!"

"Kill them!"

"···"

Hearing the angry shouts in the audience, Zhang Dezhao and other Zhang family members, who were motionless like puppets on the stage, all trembled with fear.

They were afraid of death, let alone being accused and killed.

Wang Ke waited for the wealthy family members who came in disguise and stayed in the crowd. They were also so frightened that their mouths and tongues went dry, their faces turned pale, and they even couldn't help but want to escape.

But he didn't dare to escape.

After Wang Ke calmed down, he couldn't help but look at the tall man who was still standing by the wooden platform and thought: This man is so scary. With just a few words, he incited the villagers in the same town to beat and kill the Zhang family. He must not be a red man. The lady’s men.

Perhaps he is the leader of this rebel army?
　Thanks to [An Jun] for the 100 starting coin reward!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)