Seeing this, Zhao Ju quickly stepped forward and bowed: “Why has Master Ming returned? This place isn’t completely safe yet. Please follow the guards immediately back to the Yuzhou garrison.”

Ming Yu looked ahead and saw three Yuzhou soldiers still alive on that side, then said to Zhao Ju: “We were careful all along the way and don’t know how our whereabouts were exposed. They ambushed here in advance, so they must have already sent word back to their camp.”

Hearing this, Zhao Ju immediately counted and found they only had eighteen men. His eyes narrowed slightly, and he stepped forward to ask: “How did you know the convoy would pass through here?”

The soldiers hadn’t been killed, which meant they were captured. They had no particular loyalty to any specific person, so they directly said: “We discovered it ourselves.”

He continued: “We changed our patrol time and came early this morning. As soon as they left the village, we saw them from the high ground, so we sent someone back to notify the camp while setting up an ambush here.”

The soldier complained somewhat: “All along the way were farmlands with no cover. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have chosen to ambush at this small grove. It’s too close to the border.”

But they weren’t worried, thinking that with eighteen of them against ten on the other side, they’d surely win. If not, they’d just cross over—after all, they often crossed the border.

How could they know the other side had support, and that reinforcements would arrive so quickly?

Hearing they’d discovered it themselves, and had spotted them as soon as the convoy left the village, Zhao Ju’s expression changed.

Ming Yu raised his eyelids and looked at him impassively, saying gravely: “If so, the Yanzhou army already knows we borrowed passage through the villages?”

Zhao Ju pressed his lips together and turned to Ming Yu: “Please, Master Ming, quickly board the carriage and leave. This place is dangerous.”

Ming Yu didn’t move, but looked worriedly toward the village.

Zhao Ju’s heart tightened, and he became somewhat anxious. After brief consideration, he said: “I’ll take men to relocate them.”

Ming Yu’s eyebrows moved: “Relocate?”

“Yes,” Zhao Ju said. “If we let Gou Chun know the convoy borrowed passage through the village, no one in the village will survive.”

He asked: “How many villages are ahead?”

“Three, all very small,” Ming Yu said. “The farthest is nine li away.”

That wasn’t very far—on horseback they could arrive quickly. But relocation meant moving whole families with all their possessions, and they had no carts or horses. Such relocation would take a lot of time and couldn’t possibly be completed before the enemy reinforcements arrived.

Zhao Ju narrowed his eyes, recalling how recently Gou Chun had even led troops to plunder across to their side, stealing some grain and injuring people, though no one died.

But the Yanzhou people on this side of the border weren’t so fortunate.

Regarding Gou Chun’s actions in this area, probably even the Yanzhou officials didn’t understand as well as he did. With Gou Chun’s character, if he learned the villagers knew but didn’t report, he would definitely massacre the village.

The thought flashed through his mind, and Zhao Ju became more determined. He arranged: “Chang You, you take ten men with Quan Wu to escort Master Ming back to camp. Take Yuan Li and the others along. Order Gao Yi to bring two thousand troops for support. The rest of you, follow me to relocate the people.”

Everyone clasped their fists: “Yes!”

This time Ming Yu didn’t argue further. After bowing to Zhao Ju, he turned and boarded the carriage. This time, he had the two most seriously wounded also board the carriage.

Zhao Ju mounted his horse and told them: “I’ll go to the village nine li away. You two work as teams and stop at the other two villages to persuade them to migrate. All treatment will match that of the lowest-grade craftsmen.”

Having done something many times, it would be continuously refined and improved to develop in a direction more beneficial to oneself and the situation.

So Zhao Hanzhang’s treatment for accepting refugees was now divided into different grades.

Ordinary refugees received relief grain for a certain period, were assigned places to stay, given fields and land, then began work-for-relief programs, building their own houses and clearing land…

These were first recorded as debts. Later, when the land produced yields, they could repay them.

Oh, to encourage production, newly settled refugees were exempt from taxes for the first year. So although refugees lived in newly built houses and had to keep accounts when applying for cloth from the local office, they still felt the treatment was very good.

But there were exceptions—special talents. Their settlement houses didn’t need to be recorded as debts; the local office gave them for free.

The lowest-grade craftsmen had such treatment. If the craftsmanship was more refined and they were rated as high-grade craftsmen, or if they were learned scholars, upon settlement they not only received houses but also cloth, grain, and even settlement money.

Of course, the requirements for that were very high. Currently, very few people qualified.

The guards were thoroughly familiar with these conditions, after all, they often helped the local office settle refugees, then selected suitable candidates from among them to enter the military.

They divided into four routes, with one route needing to monitor the Yanzhou reinforcements to provide early warning.

The three teams immediately set out together. Shortly after, they reached the first village. Only two riders stopped here; the two teams didn’t pause and continued forward.

With such loud hoofbeats, the villagers couldn’t pretend not to hear. So someone secretly looked out, and gradually people noticed something wrong: “They don’t look like Yanzhou soldiers.”

The two guards had already ridden into the village, directly calling out: “Where is the village chief? We are Yuzhou soldiers from across the way. The carriage that left from here this morning carried relatives of ours from Yuzhou, but when leaving the village they were discovered by Yanzhou soldiers…”

As soon as the words came out, the villagers were shocked. Someone immediately pushed open their wicker gate, eyes wide: “It wasn’t us who informed! Don’t falsely accuse us.”

The guard paused before finding his rhythm again: “We didn’t say you informed. They discovered it themselves. The Yanzhou soldiers have already been killed.”

“Then why did you come looking for us? You should just run away.”

The guard realized they hadn’t yet thought of the danger and couldn’t help saying: “We can certainly run away, but what about you?”

Only then did the villagers belatedly react, their eyes widening. Yes, what about them?

An old man sat directly on the ground in his own courtyard, slapping his thighs and wailing: “Heaven damn it, there’s no way to live! Gou Chun will surely kill us all!”

A young man ran into his house, grabbed a pitchfork and came out saying: “If they dare come kill, we’ll drag them down with us. We can kill one, then that’s one. Who’s afraid of who?”

But the young man could fight enemies—what about the old people, children, and women?

The village immediately filled with wailing sounds. The village chief, who had been hiding, finally ran out and asked the two men: “Have you military gentlemen come here just to notify us, or do you have other ways to help us?”

Many of them felt some resentment, thinking they could have taken any route but chose to pass through their village.

Well, they passed through, but then they got discovered.

The guard immediately said: “Our general has a way to save your lives, but we don’t know if you’re willing.”

“What way?”

The guard said: “You come with us and migrate to Yuzhou.”

The villagers froze: “Mi-migrate?”

Didn’t that mean leaving their homes?

Everyone couldn’t help turning back to look at their houses and fell silent.

The guard waited a moment. Seeing they still hadn’t responded, he became anxious: “What’s the problem? You’re just moving across the way to live. It’s only across a water channel. Later if you really miss home, when both sides restore good relations, you can come back to visit.”

Hearing this, the villagers felt less distressed and quickly asked: “Just moving across the way? Will our local office agree?”

“We’re fleeing for our lives! Why would your local office need to agree when we’re migrating without authorization?” The guard urged: “Hurry up and go pack your things. The Yanzhou reinforcements will arrive soon, and we need to leave quickly.”

The villagers immediately became chaotic. Some ran home to pack, while others crowded around the guard asking questions. So after family consultation, they simply had the men of the household stay to ask questions and make decisions about whether to go, while the women took the children home to pack.

The guard shouted while running around: “Don’t take pots, pans, bowls, and dishes first. You can come back for those later. Just bring clothes and important valuables from your homes. We need to move faster.”

At the same time, he answered: “Housing? Don’t worry, there are places to live over there. If there aren’t any, the county office will build them for you.”

“What about our fields?”

“Abandon the ones here. We’ll allocate you fields over there.” Because of severe population loss, large areas of land were left fallow. Their army had already claimed several large plots for military farming, and there were still many abandoned fields with no one to cultivate them. So he said: “Don’t worry, you definitely won’t get less land.”

He continued: “And don’t worry about food. There will be relief grain. As long as you go over and register as households, each family will receive a portion of grain based on headcount to ensure you get through the winter.”

The villagers, who had been conflicted, heard this and couldn’t help but look at each other, immediately making up their minds.

This year’s harvest—most of it was seized and harvested by Gou Chun’s soldiers. The grain harvested still had to pay taxes to the local office. They didn’t even know where this winter’s grain would come from.

So when the guard said this winter’s grain could be guaranteed, they immediately leaned toward migrating to Yuzhou.

However, some were still suspicious: “Is it true or false? This treatment seems too good.”

“It should be true,” someone quietly pulled the suspicious person aside and whispered: “My younger sister said before that the Yuzhou side takes in refugees with that work-for-relief program. The houses the refugees build through their work are for them to live in. They just need to repay part of the construction costs later, and the county office pays the rest.”

“Your sister came back?”

“No, I went over,” the person whispered. “The family didn’t have enough grain to pay taxes, so I secretly slipped over to borrow some to deal with the taxes first.”

“Right, we need to pay taxes. If we migrate over, do we have to pay our taxes to the Yuzhou county office?”

“Then we’d have to move the grain over, right?”

The guard, afraid they really would move grain, quickly said: “No need to move grain. We’ll travel light and move quickly. For newly settled people, Yuzhou exempts them from taxes for one year. You don’t have to pay this year—we’ll talk about it next year.”

He paused, recalling that craftsmen had another benefit: “Next year’s taxes are also reduced by half.”

“Really? Little brother, does what you say count?”

“Are you trying to trick us into going over?”

“Oh my, this is what our general said personally. How could it be false?” The guard couldn’t help but stamp his feet, wiping the sweat from his forehead: “Do you know who our general is?”

“I know—Zhao Hanzhang of Xiping!”

The guard paused, then nodded: “That’s not wrong either. However, our Administrator is currently in Luoyang. The general in charge here is the Administrator’s former retainer chief, her closest person. His meaning is the Administrator’s meaning. Our Administrator’s word is worth nine tripods, so our general’s word is also worth nine tripods. Before we came, he said that because you’re migrating due to being implicated by us, when you go over, your household registration will be good citizen status, and your treatment will match that of craftsmen.”

Hearing this, the villagers’ eyes flickered. Now everyone in the world knew Zhao Hanzhang took in refugees and gave special preferential treatment to capable people.

This capability was mainly reflected in civil and military strategy and craftsman skills.

The former—one in ten thousand people might produce one, so it wasn’t widely known. But the latter was quite common. They’d heard that even a carpenter going over could receive preferential treatment and be directly allocated a house and land.

This kind of happiness that even commoners could obtain was most tempting.

The guard, sweating profusely, persuaded everyone to hurry home and pack. After people dispersed, the two of them collapsed on the ground, utterly exhausted. There were clearly only forty or fifty people, but with each person saying one thing, it was like ten thousand ducks quacking in their ears. Yet they still had to distinguish what each quack meant from those quacking sounds and answer at the top of their lungs…

A shadow fell over them. The two looked up together and saw the village chief was still there, standing in front of them staring at them.

The village chief lowered his head and asked quietly: “Military gentlemen, when we get over there, will all of us from the same village still be in one place?”

The guard couldn’t guarantee this, but to avoid complications, he nodded.

The village chief looked relieved, then continued looking at them expectantly: “Will I still be the village chief?”

Guard: …

The two guards looked at each other, then vigorously nodded together.

Only then did the village chief smile: “This humble one will go pack his belongings now. Military gentlemen, please wait a moment.”

He said “a moment,” but it wasn’t very quick, though it didn’t delay too much time either.

In less than two quarter-hours, the whole village had gathered together.

Country folk had only so many valuable possessions, which were especially easy to pack. Bring clothes (they didn’t have many anyway—one bundle per family was enough), roll up bedding, tie it with hemp rope, and done.

Then there were those few copper coins—just scoop them up. Load all the grain onto carrying poles. Grab and tie up the chickens raised at home, hang them directly around the children’s necks, and off they went.

So after two quarter-hours, when the guards looked at them again, they were completely different people from two quarter-hours ago.

Even the village chief was carrying two large baskets containing two sacks of grain. His back was slightly bent, the heavy load pressing his neck down a notch, but he still tried to lift his head and smile ingratiatingly at the two guards: “Two military gentlemen, we’re all ready. Let’s go now.”

The guard opened his mouth, really wanting to tell them to drop their things, but thinking about it, he gave up. Even if he spoke up, they wouldn’t drop them. Instead, they’d make a fuss and delay even more time.

The two guards looked at each other and took the lead walking ahead.

After leaving the village, one guard mounted his horse and rode ahead first—he needed to scout the route.

Seeing the water channel getting closer and closer, a whistle sounded from the distant fields. Two soldiers quickly retreated on horseback from the distance, signaling that Yanzhou reinforcements had arrived.

The guard urged the villagers: “Hurry, hurry…”

Everyone quickly picked up their pace, no longer bothering to pick up belongings accidentally dropped, just squeezing forward.

On the other side of the water channel, a force of two thousand troops slowly walked to the border and stopped, silently waiting.

—