Chapter 778: Chapter 593 Assassinate Officials and Rebel
This is the ploy of the big landlords: using the natural disaster as an opportunity to issue high-interest loans, seize more tenants, and also swallow up the land of self-employed farmers and small landowners.
But the big landlords never expected to encounter an idiotic County Magistrate like Zhao Yuankai. You say you want Silver, we’d contribute more to you, but why would you even greedily take the little stored grain.
Is Zhao Yuankai an idiot?
Of course not!
He just felt that even if he didn’t provide any relief for the disaster victims outside the city, it wouldn’t be an issue.
Just a few thousand disaster victims, starving for a few days, would realize there’s no food around the county town and should scatter.
In his view, dispersing these disaster victims is much easier than providing them relief.
Providing relief could attract more victims and might even cause the victims to gather and stay just outside the city.
But if not relieved, within a few days these disaster victims would either die of hunger or go somewhere else to beg for food; this way, he wouldn’t have any trouble here.
But Zhao Yuankai never expected that these disaster victims would boldly storm the county government.
Watching more and more disaster victims jump into the county government, Zhao Yuankai shouted in panic: "Mr. Chen, Mr. Chen, hurry, kill these thugs!"
Chen Tong is the County Magistrate of Dachang County, a man with a strong build and a fierce face, looking like someone not to be provoked.
At this moment, the main combat power in the county government was Chen Tong leading more than twenty Government Officials.
Just a group of disaster victims, although they were all young and strong, having been long malnourished, their cheeks were sunken, and they were thin and pallid, struggling even to climb over a courtyard wall.
The Government Officials inside were not only strong, but three among them were even Martial Artists.
The comparison highlighted the disparity, as several dozen disaster victims climbing over the wall made no significant impact before being killed by the Government Officials.
Chen Tong, with a fierce expression, killed a disaster victim and roared, "Damn their mother, kill all these lowlifes!"
But just then, an arrow flew from beyond the courtyard wall, with a ’whoosh’, the arrowhead precisely lodged into Chen Tong’s throat, and he instinctively covered his throat, looking towards the direction of the incoming Arrow with eyes full of fear.
Atop a nearby rooftop stood a slim young man holding a longbow, his gaze coldly fixed on him.
"County Magistrate, sir!" A Government Official, discovering Chen Tong had been killed, couldn’t help but cry out.
But then, immediately after, two more arrows flew, claiming the lives of two more Government Officials.
At this point, where would the Government Officials have the mind to stop the disaster victims climbing the wall? They scattered like frightened animals.
"Run, there’s a master!"
The smart ones had already run into buildings, while the less quick-witted were frantically running around inside the county government.
Zhao Yuankai, clutching his head and bending his body, staggered towards the backyard.
The young man on the roof, after shooting two more Government Officials, leaped directly from the neighboring rooftop to the roof of the county government hall.
"Corrupt officials should die!"
He murmured coldly, not hesitating to shoot an arrow at Zhao Yuankai.
The arrow pierced through the back and came out through the chest.
Zhao Yuankai only managed to let out a scream before falling to the ground, never to rise again.
The main gate of the county government was finally opened by the disaster victims who had climbed over the wall, hundreds of them poured in, starting to search everywhere for money and grain.
"Not persistent, not persistent, go to the inner residence, the inner residence has the corrupt money and grain of the officials!"
A disaster victim shouted to the young man on the roof.
The young man wasted no words, carrying an arrow quiver, holding the longbow, and rushed towards the backyard along the rooftops and courtyard walls.
The youth’s name was Chen Buyu, a genius Martial Artist, who had reached the Refining Power Level at the mere age of eighteen.
Though a Refining Power Level Martial Artist might amount to nothing in the Capital City, where you can randomly pick a few people on the street and likely find a Martial Artist among them, and there’s even a good chance they are Postnatal Martial Artists, but in Dachang County, Martial Artists were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns; the entire county barely had three to four dozen Martial Artists, and Postnatal Martial Artists were few and far between.
Not only was Chen Buyu a Martial Artist, but he was also skilled in archery, his archery reaching the level where he could shoot through a willow from a hundred steps away.
His rush on the county government was not because of anything else but because his family was starving.
Yes, even the families of Martial Artists can starve.
Not all Martial Artists are high and mighty beings; many ordinary Martial Artists are actually not much different from ordinary people.
Like the previous Yang Family Village; Yang Zhengxiang was also a Martial Artist, yet he was merely a small landowner, with the Yang family owning just twenty mu of land, and Yang Zhengxiang’s family having only fifty mu.
A large family with fifty mu of land could live worry-free under favorable weather, but in the face of a major disaster, they would also have to scrape by.
If the previous Yang Family Village had been located in today’s Dachang County, perhaps Yang Zhengxiang would also have led his clan members in rebellion.
There is no choice; when clan members are starving, how could he, the Clan Leader, just look after himself and disregard the life and death of his clan?
Chen Buyu was not the Clan Leader of the Chen family, but Chen Buyu’s father was a Hundred Households in charge of the left guard in Kui State, therefore this riot in Dachang County was actually led by the military households.
The town was breached, the County Magistrate, County Magistrate’s deputy, Chief Clerk, and other officials were killed, and many wealthy households within the town were plundered.
As the sky began to darken, Chen Buyu’s father, Chen Ding’an, distributed some of the looted money and grain to the refugees, then took two to three thousand military households and refugees and directly retreated into the mountains to become bandits.
Storming the county government, killing the County Magistrate, was akin to rebellion; they could no longer return home and would have to live as bandits and outlaws henceforth.