Day by day, it's getting colder and colder.
Entering November, the sky seems to be shrouded in snow. In Xiaohua's impression, it seems that the snow has never stopped outside in the past few days. But when it was cold, she didn't leave the hall all day long, and she didn't have time to pay attention to whether the snow had stopped.
During this period, King Jing went out of the house again. After King Jing left, Xiaohua learned from the chat of the two little eunuchs who served in the palace that it turned out that King Jing left the house this time because there was snow in a place under his rule. It was too big, and there was a snow disaster, which seemed to be a little serious. King Jing went to see the situation in person.
Therefore, Xiaohua came to the conclusion that King Jing was a good vassal king.
What kind of snow disaster, Xiaohua has never seen.
After she was sold as a child, she lingered in various households as a maid, and could not understand the seriousness of the 'disaster'. I had seen floods when I was a child, but the impression was too far away. In my memory, except for the faces of my parents and my young brother, there were only crying everywhere.
When Xiaohua came to the conclusion that King Jing was a good vassal king, King Jing was riding outside in the snow, and the guards of the palace all suggested him to take a carriage. But he felt that the carriage was too slow, so he abandoned it and rode.
Jingzhou has always been a place of bitter cold. The so-called bitter cold means that the common people are not rich because of poor agriculture. The cold is that Jingzhou is located in the north, and it has always been cold. In winter, the weather is cold and snowy.
Because this fief is very barren, the sage is also very generous today. The area of Jingzhou is the largest fief among several vassal kings.
The so-called vast and vast land is nothing more than that.
In fact, this trip to King Jing is not used. There is no reason to deal with the snow disaster in a small county, and a prince's honor has to come and see it in person. However, King Jing has always been serious in his work. When I came back in this life, I spent a lot of time on my fief.
He couldn't be a farmer, so he specially recruited an agricultural talent and promoted a lot of suitable crops according to the geographical environment of Jingzhou, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes and other high-yield crops newly introduced from Fanbang. In the past two years, under his rule It's almost never happened that people starve to death.
Business was not good, so he let his people go to other rich state capitals to do business, and even sold good things such as fur and ginseng, which were specialties under the control, to the outside, and then brought in things from other places.
King Jing thought very simply, if he couldn't manage his own fiefs well, how could he say that he could change his destiny.
In the past few years, the effect has been good, not only the tax and silver collected under the rule have increased, but King Jing's personal pocket is also very sufficient.
And he came this time out of deterrence, telling the officials under his rule not to try to rule the common people harshly under his nose. He didn't have to do anything, he just had to run back and forth for a few days, and the result was that the people below didn't dare to ignore it, and there would be no death from freezing and starvation. King Jing felt that it was quite cost-effective.
King Jing's ideas have never been different from others, but no matter what, at least the people under his rule are living well. In recent years, many people have said that His Royal Highness King Jing is a good vassal king.
It didn't snow much when I went out, but when I was halfway through, the snow was getting bigger and bigger, and the wind was rushing, so I couldn't see the road conditions ahead.
A guard wearing a ceremonial hood and a black face scarlet cloak approached King King's mount.
"His Royal Highness, there is a village nearby. Let's go there first to avoid the snow. The snow is too heavy." As soon as the guard opened his mouth, a mouthful of snow foam was scraped.
King Jing didn't react slowly this time, but nodded quickly.
This guard is also familiar with King Jing's temperament. With a wave of his hand, a guard will lead the way on horseback.
A group of people ran for a while, and they saw a village in the distance.
Looking at it, the village is not big, and the houses are even small and simple, but in such weather, everyone is happy and anxious.
After riding a little closer, before entering the village, I heard faint screams and screams in the village along the wind.
King Jing's mount was at the forefront, he reined in the reins, the horse galloped for a while, and the guards behind him did the same.
Not only did King Jing hear the unusual sound, but also the guards behind him. The guard on the side waved his hand, and a few people ran out of the team and rode their horses into the village, followed by King Jing and his party.
As soon as they entered the village, a tragic situation appeared in the eyes of everyone.
There was a lot of blood on the snow, and there were three or two corpses on the trails between the villages. They looked like villagers in the village.
Seeing the dead man, everyone was stunned, King Jing said rarely, "Go and have a look."
King Jing came out this time and brought dozens of guards from the palace, no matter what happened, he was not afraid. Hearing King Jing's order, a group of people were well-trained and divided into several groups, chasing after the voice and galloping past.
Here King Jing stopped at a crossroad in the village with the remaining ten or so guards, and the guard in the armor said again: "His Royal Highness, this subordinate is looking for an vacant room, go first. Take shelter from the wind and snow inside."
King Jing nodded, got off his horse, and found an empty room nearby and walked in.
In fact, they don't need to look for them. They have long seen that many houses have their doors wide open. People who practice martial arts have good eyes, and it seems that there are dead people inside.
Who is this courageous to actually slaughter the village? Within sight, they had already seen quite a few dead people.
King Jing stepped into the main room, and there were already guards who had entered the room to deal with it. Two people found a place to sit, and two others were dragging their bodies to other rooms.
The corpses were one old and one young, there was a woman, and there was a little child who was a few years old. It could be seen that they were a family of four, and they were all killed by one knife. Unexpectedly, King Jing randomly chose a room to come in, and someone inside died so miserably.
These guards are naturally not afraid of blood or death, but someone actually treats a group of innocent people like this.
"You son of a bitch, this is such a cruel hand from that bastard!" There were many rude men among the guards, who became angry and could not help cursing.
King Jing didn't seem to hear it, sitting there, his normally indifferent eyes were extremely cold at this time.
After about a quarter of an hour, the guards sent out gradually returned.
Lin Qingting, the deputy commander of the guards at King Jing's mansion, went out to ask about the situation, and after a while, he turned back to report the situation to King Jing.
It turned out to be a slaughter village.
When the guards of King Jing's mansion arrived, those men were cutting with their knives. People divided into several waves, killing people from house to house from the inside out.
"His Royal Highness, there are more than 40 perpetrators in total. During the period when we stepped forward to stop them, some people resisted and killed a few. The rest were all tied up and thrown outside."
"Are there any survivors?"
"Yes." Deputy Commander Lin paused and lowered his voice, "There are less than a dozen people, and we are a little late. Those people saw that someone came to stop them, but they were not afraid of not running, but they attacked faster. The guards only had time to save these ten people."
It seemed that everyone in the village had gathered outside this house, and there were cries and scolding, and various voices were intertwined.
When King Jing went out, he saw several people dressed as villagers kicking and beating the bound perpetrators.
"You people who are devoid of conscience and inhumanity, what have we done to you..." An old woman who looked like an old woman, kicked and felt inexplicable, grabbed a stone next to it and smashed it on a bound person. "You return my son, return my grandson..."
The same situation also happened to the villagers next to them with disfigured faces, all holding various things to greet the perpetrators.
The guards outside did not stop it, because many of them saw the tragic situation just now, and naturally let others vent their hatred. It was not until King Jing and Deputy Commander Lin came out that they stepped forward and pulled the surviving villagers away.
"Come on, tell me what's going on here? Who knows why this group of people came to the village to kill?"
The surviving villagers shook their heads blankly. They didn't know why. They didn't even know when someone came to kill people at first. They didn't run out until they heard something wrong outside.
Some people who ran out to watch were directly hacked to death, and when they saw someone murdered, everyone ran around in a hurry. But there are too many bad people, they are all helpless, and they have no weapons, so they have no way to resist.
This group of people went from house to house looking for someone to kill, and when they saw one kill another, the old and the young were not spared. Among them, the grandson of the crying old woman was still in swaddling clothes, and was directly killed by these people, which was truly tragic.
These villagers are talking about what they know, line by line. They seem to have said a lot, but they are all useless words. King Jing made a gesture, and Deputy Commander Lin asked his subordinates to take the perpetrators down for questioning.
"If you know what's going on, such as what happened in the village before this happened, you can say it, and it will help you find the culprit," a guard said.
One of the surviving villagers, a 14- or 15-year-old boy, cried and said, "It's useless to say it. Those officials in their group are not human beings, they are all beasts! You can't help much, no one can help."
The guards around looked at the young man with those extremely weird eyes, and some were not smiling. But thinking that this village is really miserable, it is not good to show other expressions.
Deputy Commander Lin said, "This young man, if you know what you can say, this is His Royal Highness King Jing, this is King Jing's fief, do you think it might not be able to help?"
The boy looked at the man called King Jing with suspicious eyes, "Are you His Royal Highness King Jing?"
King Jing came out this time in casual clothes, but the guards wore the ceremonial clothes of King Jing's mansion, but this young man had no knowledge, so he couldn't recognize it. For any official under the rule of Jingzhou, as soon as they saw the guards of King Jing's mansion, they knew that even if King Jing was not on tour, he was doing business for King Jing.
King Jing looked into the boy's eyes and nodded.
The young man murmured: "My father said that His Royal Highness King Jing is a good person, how can you prove that you are His Highness?"
A guard next to him scolded: "You brat really doesn't know Mount Tai, how does Your Highness lie to you? Do you know the clothes on me? This is only for King Jing's guards."
The young man looked at the large group of guards around him, thinking that he saw their martial arts skills just now, and the bad guys who killed the murderers were all in the middle of a gesture, and when he saw King Jing's indifferent expression but full of majesty, he believed it eight or nine points. .
It's just that his expression was still hesitant, "This matter is very important, and I don't know if it's because of our village that this disaster happened. At first, my father hesitated for a few days before leaving, and he never came back."
King Jing glanced at Deputy Commander Lin, then turned around and went into the room. Deputy Commander Lin followed behind with the boy.
"Go ahead."
The young man told what he knew exactly.
It turned out that the boy's father was Lizheng of this village. The village was called Shangshan Village, a small village with only a few dozen households.
Backed by the Great Montenegro, the village was in a remote location. It used to be very poor. It was not until King King promoted the planting of high-yielding crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes under his rule, that everyone gradually had enough to eat.
In the village, the men farm and the women weave, living a very hard life, but it is also much better than in previous years. There was a good feudal lord, who reduced taxes in the face of famine and snow disasters, and everyone's life gradually got better.
It was very peaceful originally, but who knew that one day a villager in the village went up the mountain to pick up stones and build a pigsty.
As mentioned earlier, this Shangshan Village is backed by Dahei Mountain, which has few trees but many stones. Many villagers build houses or build pigsties and sheepfolds, and they all go directly to Daheishan to pick up some suitable big rocks and use them.
The stones used to build the pig sties were too big to carry, and too small to be used, so he took a lot of thought and picked out a basket of stones to come back.
When I came back to build the pigsty, I found that a stone was of the wrong color. How should I put it, it was silver. It's not all silver, but a large area of silver is mixed in it.
The reason why Da Montenegro is called Da Montenegro is because most of the stones on its mountain are black. This suddenly picked a silver one, which was really surprising.
Many villagers came to see the excitement, and the boy's father also came to see it.
Li Zheng took a look and felt that something was wrong, so he said that the stone was going to go and take it back to have a look.
After returning, he held the stone and pondered, how come there is silver in this black stone, and the silver is dazzling under the candlelight. Later, he couldn't think about it enough, so he used the most primitive method to smash the stone.
Who knows that after breaking it open, the stone is not silver, but a black stone containing a lot of granular silver objects.
Those who can be in the right place are all knowledgeable, and after hesitating at home for a long time, he still took the stone and went to the county government office who is in charge of Shangshan Village...
In fact, the matter is here, it is almost obvious. After all, an honest Li Zheng found something unusual and reported it to the magistrate.
The magistrate listened to Li Zheng's remarks and saw the stone that had been smashed, so he sent someone to go up the mountain secretly to investigate. The place where I went is the place where this stone was picked up. The magistrate also understands people. Naturally, he brought someone who understands the affairs and finds out a major matter. The magistrate knows that this matter cannot be ignored, but human nature is greedy. Only then will there be the murder of the village behind.
Wealth and silk move people's hearts, but wealth and silk also kill people.
The boy here briefly told him what he knew, and the interrogation of the guards over there was over. The matter was similar to what King Jing thought. The perpetrators were not ordinary people. They were a team made up of the yamen of the county government and the servants of the magistrate's family.
But what the young man knew was very one-sided, including the perpetrators who were interrogated didn't know much. Although there was a general guess in his heart, King Jing still did not take it lightly, and went to Heishan County with his guards.
…
Many things are due to chance, because by chance, the villager picked up a broken stone, because this broken stone caused a series of things.
Even more coincidentally, King Jing received a report from the following people that there was a snow disaster somewhere under his rule, and the person who reported the snow disaster was actually the magistrate of Heishan County, the envoy of the village master.
The magistrate was probably thinking that it was snowing heavily outside, and it was not uncommon for snow disasters to occur in Jingzhou. The purpose of reporting the deaths of snow disasters was to set the scene for the aftermath, otherwise it would be difficult to deal with the sudden death of so many people under the jurisdiction. Report it at the front, and send someone to Tu Village at the back. If King Jing doesn't come this time, after this blizzard, maybe he will hide it from him. Who knows that King Jing actually came.
It can be imagined that the fate of the magistrate must be tragic.
A few years later, King Jing recalled this incident again, and it seemed that the only one who benefited was him. Of course, this is another story.