Under the increasingly fierce summer sunshine in mid-May, two horses and one carriage were slowly moving on the narrower and narrow official road. It was Sun Tu and his party. At this time, they had entered Qingzhou Prefecture.

However, compared with the prefectures along the way, Qingzhou has become more and more desolate and withered. There are fewer pedestrians on the road, and even the official roads seem particularly cramped. Sometimes, wild wolves can be seen nearby from afar. Not to mention that they are prosperous places like Tokyo and Jiangzhou, even Jeju before is much more lively than here, at least there will be no desolate scenes where there are no people within thirty or fifty miles.

This naturally surprised Sun Tu, Tang Feng and Yaer, who had never seen such a scene, but Lu Da looked disapproving: "This is where we went. We have been to Weizhou City before. As long as we left the city gate, there was a wilderness outside. Often, it was normal for us to see no one for one or two hundred miles."

"That's different. Weizhou is already on the northwest border of our Song Dynasty. It will fight against the Xixia people from time to time, so the people naturally cannot leave the city to stay. However, Qingzhou has many cities from the border of Liao, so they can't fly here to invade this place." Sun Tu's face suddenly darkened when he said this: "So after all, it's better to look for the reasons from the government. Either the local officials levy the people and make the people live in poverty, so they all flee to other places; or it's a lot of bandits here, which also makes the people have no way to live."

"Then the burden on us to Qingzhou this time is really not light. Have you figured out what to do after the Duguan?" Tang Feng, who took over Sun Tu's car, frowned deeply when he heard this and asked uneasily.

"That's right, but it's hard to say. Anyway, someone was transferred to Qingzhou this time, but I don't want me to live too well. Moreover, it is said that the governor of Murong in this state has always been arbitrary and powerful. It's hard for us to be a servant under his command." Sun Tu shook his head with a wry smile. He had been indirectly striking from Cai Dezhang early in the morning and knew that this guy was not easy to serve.

"If you want to talk about anything else, the most important problem now is how to spend this night. It will be dark. There are no villages and towns to stay in. Before, Sa's family had seen three wolves. If they couldn't find a place to live after dark, there would only be more wolves." Lu Da was more concerned about the difficulties in front of him. While speaking, he touched his belly: "I haven't eaten meat and drank well for two days. I had known that dozens of miles of land here were deserted, and Sa's family should have had more wine and meat when they were playing first."

This made the originally heavy atmosphere relax, and Sun Tu even quipped: "Brother Lu, I can't agree with what you said. With your belly, even if we bought wine and meat early in the morning, I'm afraid you would have sacrificed to the Wudian Temple at this time."

As soon as these words were spoken, Lu Da and Tang Feng laughed out loud. Even Yaer, who had been sitting in the car quietly thinking about her daughter's thoughts, couldn't help but chuckled. After just smiling, she looked at Sun Tu, who was not far away in front of the car with a slightly resentful look.

At this time, Sun Tu, who was sharp-eyed, suddenly became energetic and pointed to the end of the road and shouted: "Look at it, isn't it just a village? It just so happens that we can stay there for one night tonight. We must have arrived in Qingzhou in two or three days." The other people followed his fingers and found that there was a small village outline there, which made him feel very happy. He quickly urged his horse to move forward quickly.

But when he was rushing forward for a while and could see the basic appearance of the village, Luda frowned uneasyly: "No, it's almost dusk, it's time to eat, why can't there be a wisp of smoke in the village here?"

"It's indeed a bit strange, let's be careful." Sun Tu also woke up immediately and winked at Lu Da. After lifting the reins, the two of them rushed forward quickly with the horse under their crotch. At the same time, they made a gesture to let Tang Feng stay where they could protect Ya'er's safety.

These two horses had already been moving slowly for a few days and had already grown up their energy and strength. They were urged to speed up and rushed to the entrance of the village in just a short time. Seeing that there was still no movement inside and no one was seen, the two of them pulled out their own swords and rushed into the village again. Without taking two steps, their expressions suddenly changed because they saw that there were several pools of dry blood on the yellow mud path in the village.

The two stopped the momentum of the horse rushing forward, then slowly walked in with the knife. While walking, they also tentatively shouted: "Is there anyone in the village? We are passing by and want to stay overnight..." But the village was still deserted and silent, and there was not even a dog barking.

Now they had a vague answer in their minds. Luda jumped off the horse first, grabbed a slightly slump village house next to him in two steps, and pushed it open, thus revealing a more tragic scene inside.

I saw black bloodstains splashing in the small courtyard, and flies were still buzzing and flying, scattering after being disturbed. The firewood and other things were all tilted, and the door of the house opposite the door was also open, revealing the mess inside, just like being looted by bandits.

No, it’s not like being robbed, it’s just robbed by thieves!

Sun Tu had already arrived at a village house diagonally opposite, and he saw a similar scene. The only strange thing was that there was blood in these houses, but the body of the villagers' owner was not seen.

However, after the two of them quickly searched, the question was quickly answered. In the last small courtyard of the village, there were thirty or forty corpses of men, women, and young. At this time, the corpses were already smelly, and countless flying insects such as flies were flying on them, making people's scalp numb.

Even Sun Tu and Lu Da have killed many people like this and seen many big scenes, they feel cold after seeing this scene. It took a while to recover.

"This is the work of the bandits nearby? It's really a ruthless method, but he actually killed dozens of people in the village..." Lu Da gritted his teeth with anger on his face.

"Yes, these bandits are really hateful. They snatched things and slaughtered the innocent village so unwillingly. No wonder there were no people in Qingzhou, and there were no people in dozens of miles away." Sun Tu also sighed: "And judging from the current situation, the bandits had been lingering in this village for a while, otherwise they would not have piled up the bodies here."

The methods were cruel and inhumane. This was the judgment made by Sun Tu after seeing such a miserable scene. But in addition to being indignant, he always felt a little strange. The methods of these bandits were too different from those bandits who occupied the mountains and became kings that he had known in the past.

But no matter what, it is good. Today, I can only stay in this village for one night. Of course, Sun Tu had already made up his mind that as long as he had the chance to take office, he would avenge the people who died in this village!

Qingzhou Prefecture, the second hall of the magistrate.

Yang Zhi was kneeling in front of the local prefect Murong Yanchao on one knee, and a few beads of sweat appeared on his forehead because the pressure on him was really quite heavy.

Murong Yanchao is an official in his forties, with square face and thick eyebrows and a deep aura. At this time, he was looking at Yang Zhi condescendingly until he put enough pressure on the other party. He said in a deep voice: "Yang Zhi, it has been two days, why haven't Sun Dujian come to the government office yet? Do you know that this is a great disrespect to me? If I really want to give it to him, this one is enough!"

Yang Zhi then said, "The government office forgives the crime. Sun Dujian mentioned before that some of his private affairs would be delayed for a few days, so..."

"Since he is an official of the court, he should be devoted to the public. How can he have such selfish thoughts? Moreover, I have given him a chance before. Three days is not enough for him to come here to see me in time? Or is he who has any opinion on me and wants to use it to sacrifice my face?" Murong Magistrate immediately interrupted.

"I dare not, Sun Dujian has no disrespect for you, or... he encountered something delayed on the road." Yang Zhi wiped the sweat from his head and explained. He really regretted that he had to come to Qingzhou first. If he had known that the other party would make a big fuss about such a small matter that was not even a mistake, it would be better to follow Sun Tu and come slowly.

Originally, even if Sun Tu and the others were ten days and half a month later, it would not be a problem. However, Yang Zhi led the others to take the lead and Murong Yanchao caught the statement, which made him pressurized several times, which put him under pressure. How could he, a military officer from the seventh rank, dare to offend a fourth rank civil servant? Naturally, he was at a disadvantage.

Murong Yanchao sneered: "My patience is limited. I will give you another day. If Sun Dujian can't come to me before tomorrow, everything will follow the rules of the army." As soon as this said, Yang Zhi suddenly became even more panicked. He really didn't expect that the other party would have regarded Sun Tu as a thorn in his eyes before he met him, and wished he could eradicate it.

But he didn't know that, a few months ago, Liang Shicheng had already told the conflict between Sun Tu and himself and asked him to find an opportunity to get rid of this person. As a loyal lackey under Liang Taifu, Murong Yanchao naturally had to do this job well. Moreover, he also found out what Sun Tu had done before, and knew that he should suppress the other party before he was not yet stable so that he would no longer have the possibility of turning over.

After sending Yang Zhi away, a subordinate suddenly ran over with a serious expression and sent a copy of the paper: "Futai, this is the only survivor in Na Luojia Village. Just three days ago, the village was attacked by a bandit of unknown origin, and all forty-three people in the village were killed..."
Chapter completed!