Surviving in the chaos of war begins in the wilderness.

Chapter 93 Another Rebellion

When Zhou Ye returned home, he huddled on the roof and looked out, only to find a "fire dragon" winding its way into the city gate. He was utterly speechless.

Are you kidding me? Is this happening again? How come there's another rebellion in this wretched county town?

No need for further explanation. Fully armed, I hid behind the woodpile; tonight would be another sleepless night!

You know what, after getting through the night, Zhou Ye was surprised to find that the chaos this time was actually slightly better than the last time.

Although there are still many homeless people causing trouble in the shantytowns, and although there are still zero-dollar purchases, at least no thieves have entered people's yards.

Especially on the morning of the second day, the city gates were opened, and squads of soldiers patrolled everywhere. The order of the entire county town was quickly restored.

To be honest, if there hadn't been so many soldiers on the street, I might have had the illusion that nothing had happened last night.

After thinking it over, Zhou Ye made a decision: he didn't need to rush back to his small home. After all, he had brought back quite a few herbs and furs. Although he had mainly been hunting bison and fishing, he had also gained other things along the way.

So Zhou Ye picked out over 100 jin of charcoal and went to the woodcutter's charcoal shop. To his surprise, the shop was still open, so he sold some for a few hundred coins and checked in there as well.

Then, carrying the herbs, they went to Wang's Pharmacy. This time, the quantity of herbs was not large; they only sold about 20 taels.

However, I learned from Wang Zhengyu that the rebels quickly brought the situation under control last night. The original new prefect was killed. The rebels... well, now it's the imperial army. The army has elected a former guerrilla general, who has become the new acting prefect, and has already reported this to the imperial court, awaiting formal appointment.

Alright! As long as you guys have fun!

Unlike last time, Zhou Ye now has a strong sense of self-confidence.

Based on his current strength, Zhou Ye is almost invincible below the level of Ming Jin!

There are only a little over a thousand Ming Jin masters in the entire county. As long as I don't do anything reckless and don't get involved in those events, I'm pretty confident I can protect myself.

Next, we went to He's Fur Shop. We sold over 30 taels of fur there, and the shopkeeper's story was similar to Wang Zhengyu's.

As a result, the residents of the county town have returned to normal life, and most shops have not closed and are still operating normally. It can be said that, apart from the change of a new prefect, they have been almost unaffected.

However, just to be on the safe side, Zhou Ye still took the initiative to visit Senior Sister Weiwei. His main purpose was to obtain more detailed information from her husband, Lü Kemo.

To my surprise, Senior Sister Weiwei was very straightforward. She quickly explained the whole story: "Aye, it's like this..."

Didn't the former prefect lead his troops out to quell rebellions and suppress bandits?

But when the soldiers saw that the lives of ordinary people had become unbearable, they were stunned.

It's important to understand that those soldiers were almost all from impoverished backgrounds. Especially after the last collaboration with the Black Iron Gang, the army gained many of the gang's lower-ranking members, mostly miners. These people were also from the very bottom of society. And almost all of them came from these impoverished families.

The army was able to guarantee sufficient food and pay. In fact, they dared not fail to do so, otherwise it would lead to insubordination and open battle. In addition, the army had been living around the county seat, so conditions there were barely acceptable.

But when the soldiers saw that the civilians were selling their children and eating tree bark, wouldn't those soldiers... perhaps have some compassion?

That's true. So far, the soldiers have only acted out of compassion. But they haven't had any other intentions.

However, an order issued by the prefect enraged them—for the villages where the unrest was most serious, they were to be massacred without leaving a single person alive!

To be fair, the prefect at that time had no other choice. The key issue was that he had no money!

You see, the last rebellion happened not long ago, followed by two consecutive years of disasters. Even if the government wanted to provide disaster relief, where would the money and supplies come from? As for the money looted from the powerful families last time? That's obvious; those military leaders, big and small, had already divided it up and pocketed it. How could they possibly use it for disaster relief?

Since there's no money or food, disaster relief is impossible. Even after the rebellion is quelled, these desperate people will still rebel. It's better to eliminate the threat altogether and slaughter them all!

However, upon hearing this order, many soldiers began to disobey.

The army in Fufeng County was somewhat different; their officers and soldiers were almost entirely local natives. While they inevitably caused trouble in their villages, many also had a strong desire to protect their homeland. Therefore, they generally wouldn't go to extremes. Now, suddenly, a village was being massacred? This was simply unacceptable!

However, faced with the disobedience of many soldiers, some officers began to beat and punish them, forcing them to carry out the order to massacre the village.

Incidentally, this shows that even within the military, officers and soldiers have subtly formed two distinct classes. In reality, a significant divide has already emerged.

But what kind of place is Fufeng County? The old tradition here is to draw your sword and fight!

Some soldiers, after being severely beaten and verbally abused, simply drew their swords and killed the officers.

Then, without further ado, the rebellious soldiers united and simply killed the prefect as well.

Then, without further ado, the soldiers jointly elected a guerrilla general to be the new acting prefect. Finally, they marched back into the prefectural capital and wiped out the entire family of the former prefect…

Therefore, this wasn't a mutiny led by a guerrilla general, but rather a rebellion initiated by the soldiers themselves. Consequently, the impact was relatively minor, and everything else remained largely unchanged…

After hearing all this, Zhou Ye was both amused and exasperated. What kind of nonsense was this? If he were to become the governor of Fufeng County, that position would be quite dangerous.

But that's fine, as long as everything is as usual!

Zhou Ye suddenly realized that it was time to pay the tuition fees for the martial arts school for the next six months, so he decided to get everything done in one go. He'd better make another trip to the Fenglei Martial Arts School!

"Junior Sister, I'm paying my tuition. I'll pay for the whole year's tuition as well. That way I won't have to go back and forth so much trouble."

Seeing Zhou Ye take out silver, the little money-grubber immediately beamed, "Senior Brother Zhou, have you struck it rich again?"

"I wouldn't call it getting rich. It's just that the harvest from mountain runs in winter is better."

"Huh? Aren't they all supposed to be hibernating in the dead of winter? It seems like not many mountain tourists venture into the mountains these days?"

"Because there are fewer people, they can sell for a higher price, right? In this kind of year, the boldest people will get rich."

"..."