Chapter 65: Outside Lianhua County (Seeking Follow-up Reading)
the next day.

The sun rises, and the morning sunlight penetrates the gray clouds and falls on the earth.

Outside the east gate of Lianhua County.

Thousands of people who were driven out of Lianhua County gathered together.

Some have already woken up, while others, probably because they did not sleep well at night, are still in deep sleep.

The breached city gate was repaired with rotten wooden boards and did not look very solid.

And there have been no soldiers standing guard on the city wall since yesterday afternoon.

But even so, among the tens of thousands of people, no one dared to push open the fragile city wall and enter Lianhua County.

In Lianhua County, there are nearly two thousand soldiers armed with weapons and wearing armor. If they step into their original houses, they are likely to be hacked to death immediately.

The dead are dead.

Many living people still have concerns.

Even if there are still people who are not convinced and want to be the first to lead everyone to charge and fight with the bandits in the city.

But when most people hesitate, they also lose their minds.

They were either squatting or lying listlessly not far from the county town.

Now, they have no home to return to and have become refugees.

The vast land is covered with snowstorms and starving people everywhere. Even if there is no food here, if they leave here, they will really become refugees.

You might die faster due to physical exhaustion.

So everyone stays here from morning to night, and from night to morning.

One is the longing for the old city, the other is to live a miserable life.

However, they were not really waiting to die.

Just a few days ago.

A kind man came to them.

Every day at noon, I would take more than ten young and strong people here to other counties and towns not too far away.

When they come back early in the morning, they will bring several large carts of porridge.

Each of them can have a bowl of relatively thick porridge every day.

This is the day they look forward to most every day.

At this time, someone stood up and pointed at the convoy that appeared on the horizon, saying in surprise:
"Here they come!! They are back!!".

Thousands and thousands of people, whether sitting, standing, or lying down, some did not even have the strength to get up.

They all stood up and lined up in advance.

Nearly 10,000 people lined up in about ten rows in an orderly manner.

There was no scramble.

Because they knew that the porridge on the car was calculated by the kind-hearted man and they would not leave out any bowl.

Even if there was really one bowl missing and someone hadn't received one yet, the kind-hearted person would take out the little bit of his own Wowo from his pocket and give it to them.

Ten rows of people were looking forward to it, holding up their broken bowls, or crude containers made of mud or wood, waiting for the approaching convoy to start distributing the still hot porridge.

In front of this convoy was a figure in a white shirt.

He looks young, just like the scholar, but seems a little different from the dull scholar.

This is the kind-hearted person who distributed rice porridge to them these days and kept them alive.

This kind-hearted person was unwilling to reveal his name, so everyone here called him a great kind-hearted person. At this time, the great kind-hearted person they were talking about waved his hand to the dozen or so young men pulling the cart, and those young men picked up the porridge ladles and distributed hot porridge to the folks in the county.

In their eyes, this great philanthropist is truly capable.

He found a tycoon in the next county and with a few words got him to agree. He called on wealthy businessmen in their county to donate rice, made porridge every day, and provided wooden carts for them to transport it here.

While the young and strong were distributing white porridge, the kind-hearted man, who was naturally the counselor of the Tianxing Army, Li Qi, looked at the people of Lianhua County who were receiving the white porridge, and a look of guilt flashed across his face.

These people were displaced because of his Tianxing Army.

He didn't dare to reveal his identity, otherwise, even if he provided them with food every day, he would still be resented by the people.

After failing to persuade Zhao Hu last time, he did not leave, but mobilized his energy to get some food from the neighboring Yuyang County to help the displaced people in Lianhua County.

Even with his network of connections, a bowl of porridge a day was the limit of what he could do.

After all, there are disasters everywhere, and there is no place with endless food, let alone food for the survival of nearly 10,000 people.

Seeing the people wolfing down the porridge they were given, Li Qi showed a little relief on his face.

He couldn't persuade Zhao Hu to leave and let these people return to the county, but he couldn't go back like that either.

At least, he has to stay here.

As long as he stays here, Zhao Hu's brutal behavior will definitely be restrained.

If the other party insists on doing evil, he will rush forward and protect those poor people.

He has the king's order, so even if Zhao Hu had ten guts, he would not dare to do anything to him.

When the time comes, if I can protect one person, that’s it.

He was thinking so.

At this time, a young man who had finished drinking the porridge reported to Li Qi:

"Good man, when you left yesterday at noon, some changes seemed to have taken place in the county. The soldiers guarding the city wall seemed to have hurriedly come down the wall and went into the county."

"Oh?" Li Qi turned around and looked after hearing this.

He was surprised to find that, just as the young man had said, there was not a single guard on the city wall.

This is really bizarre.

Although Zhao Hu was extremely brutal, as the commander of a brigade trained by the Tianxing Army and experienced in many battles, and having led the brigade for a long time, it was impossible for him not to even arrange soldiers to defend the city.

This abnormal thing made Li Qi frown and asked the young man:

"You just said they left in a panic, but did they find anything unusual afterwards?"

The young man said uncertainly:

"For a while in the afternoon, we seemed to hear shouts of killing coming from the county government office.

But we were too far away and couldn't hear clearly what the bandits inside were shouting.

I didn’t take it too seriously at the time. After all, these bandits train every day and would shout a few times from time to time.”

"The sound of shouting and killing?" Li Qi frowned.

He had gone to Yuyang County at that time, not here, so he couldn't judge anything based on just a few words from the other party.

However, the guards on the city wall have not appeared until now, which is indeed very abnormal.

While he was thinking, the sound of footsteps was heard on the city wall.

There were hundreds of soldiers, all carrying boxes, and walked up to the city wall.

Then, they opened the box and took out bloody things from it. They used ropes to throw them down from the city wall and hung them a few feet above the ground.

When Li Qi saw clearly what those bloody and fleshy things were, his expression changed drastically! !
(End of this chapter)