The Tyrant's Beloved Empress

62

Edited and Proofread by KitKat

Xie Ling left Suzhou's General's Manor and traveled for half a day before arriving at Kangyong County.

Kangyong County was now occupied by the Common Man's Army. Because it was surrounded by mountains and rivers, there were only three traversable paths, all of which were heavily guarded by the people who had joined the rebellion. Members of the rebellion identified themselves using a piece of blue cloth tied around their waist. Most of them either carried a hoe or ax as weapons. Although they all seemed amped up, to Xie Ling who had been fighting the Beidi Army for many years, they looked rather foolhardy.

The might of this Common Man's Army solely depended on numbers. But the larger the army, the more weapons and armor they'd need. It was impossible to fight all of Da Ye's troops with the sole mentality of not fearing death. That was simply a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

No wonder Xiao Zhige had sent him here.

Not to mention the Third Prince, if Shen Tu Xu hadn't been merciful towards them, the Suzhou army could easily disassemble this gathering.

Xie Ling stopped his horse at a junction towards the main road. He scanned the area and not long after, was approached by a watchman holding two axes.

"Who are you? You can't stay here! Hurry up and leave!"

Xie Ling was relieved to see that although the watchman bore a menacing attitude, he had no intention of attacking innocent people. He dismounted and introduced himself, "I am Xie Ling, I've come to take refuge. Please take me to meet the leader."

The man was suspicious at first but seeing that he was alone, decided to let him in after some deliberation. He notified his colleague and motioned to Xie Ling, "Wait here. I'll go to consult our leader."

The two brothers who led the rebellion had been motherless from a young age. When they got older, their father fell ill and needed medication to stay alive. To earn money, the elder brother had learned butchery to support the family while the more intelligent younger brother had studied from the village professor.

Initially, the family was looking forward to sending the younger brother off for the Imperial Exams when the snow storm hit. It took a lot from them to pull through the disaster but unfortunately, shortly after, the county magistrate came and demanded payment. On top of that, each family was forced to send one person to work on the construction of the pagoda.

Within their family, only the elder brother was fit for such strenuous labor but he was also the breadwinner of the family and, without him, their livelihood would be lost.

With no other choice, their sickly father had begged the officials to let his eldest son stay in exchange for money. But the officials had been merciless. They had kicked him aside and caused him to hit his head against the wall. The father had then died on the spot.

The elder brother heard the news of his father's death and immediately ran home. After he had buried his father, he gathered the villagers and went to find the officials who had killed his father. He took his revenge by hanging their corpses at the village gate. Seeing this, the quick-witted younger brother proposed that they might as well band together and revolt since that seemed to be the only way to survive.

And so, as the hatred for the local officials increased, more and more people had come to join their cause.

Because the elder brother was powerful and the younger brother was persuasive, the villagers had unanimously established them as their leaders.

When they heard that someone named Xie Ling was requesting an audience, the brothers looked at each other in befuddlement. Even among the flow of people wanting to join their cause, only a handful had wanted to meet them. Furthermore, with the news that the Third Prince had been sent to subjugate the rebellion, they couldn't help but raise their guard.