Chapter 39 Comfort
In this case, the people of Baicheng will no longer have any right to doubt anything!
Thinking that from now on, people would no longer have to be afraid when entering or leaving Baicheng, woodcutters, hunters going into the mountains, and traveling merchants would no longer have to pay tolls to the bandits in Crescent Mountain, and would no longer have to worry about losing their lives accidentally while trying to make a living.

Even Zhao Yi, the garrison commander at the time, with thousands of troops under his command, did not risk suffering casualties to eradicate this cancer that had plagued the people of Baicheng for more than a decade.

It was only the second day since Wang An arrived in Baicheng, and with less than two hundred soldiers, he wiped out the bandit camp that had protected Jizhou for more than ten years!

The people passing by were suddenly excited and knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Wang An.

"Your Highness is so kind and generous. The people of Baicheng have no way to repay you!"

"I would like to enshrine the prince's longevity tablet at home and pray day and night, praying to God to bless the prince with a long life!"

Some of the elderly people were so excited that they burst into tears.

"The court finally remembered the people of Jizhou and sent us His Royal Highness Prince Xin!"

"The people of White City now have hope!"

Wang An rode on his horse and saw the scenes inside and outside Baicheng. The anger in his heart caused by the old woman's questioning just now disappeared instantly.

In the final analysis, it is because of the court's debt and long-term indifference for more than two hundred years that the people of Baicheng have no regard for the court at all, and naturally have no awe for their prince.

But at the same time, the people of Baicheng are also simple-minded. When someone really does something practical for them, they will be grateful and support them wholeheartedly.

At this moment, the people who were attending the funeral were also feeling extremely ashamed, but they didn't know what to say, so they could only kowtow continuously.

Wang An sighed, but did not blame anyone. Instead, he dismounted, walked to the old woman, and helped her up.

The old woman was very aggressive before, but now she collapsed after learning the whole story.

First, she learned that the bandit leader Guoshanhu had been killed, and her revenge had been fulfilled, which filled her with the last bit of resentment in her heart. At this moment, she had no strength left in her body.

Secondly, thinking of how rude she had been to her benefactor, she felt so ashamed and guilty that she had no face to face Wang An. At this moment, she just lowered her head and kept wiping away tears.

"It was all because of me that I offended the prince without knowing what was good for me, and I almost committed the sin of being ungrateful. If the prince wants to kill me or chop me up, I have nothing to say!"

Facing the old woman's words of apology, Wang An sighed and said gently, "I just heard that the old woman's family of four were harmed, and it is inevitable that she is excited."

"I am not an unreasonable person, so how could I blame the old man? But if the old man encounters difficulties in the future, he can come to the Jizhou government office to find me!"

Seeing that Wang An not only did not blame her but instead repaid her with kindness, the old woman felt even more ashamed.

The people around were also deeply moved when they saw this, and their hearts were filled with emotion.

Although the misunderstanding had been resolved, Wang An was worried that as more and more people gathered, there would be all kinds of people. If two ignorant scoundrels appeared and made a fuss, they would insist on executing all these two thousand bandits on the spot, which would surely cause a great chaos.

So he called Chen He and asked him to take dozens of yamen runners to immediately disperse the people gathered outside the city gate.

Chen He obviously realized this and thought Wang An’s decision was meaningless, so he immediately led the yamen runners to evacuate the people.

The people were filled with shame and moved, and although they were reluctant to leave, when Chen He said that this was the prince's order, the people left obediently.

Only then did Wang An have time to settle these captured bandits and their families. After all, there were still nearly 2,000 people. In addition to the few hundred remaining bandits, most of them were their families. In fact, they were no different from ordinary people. The reason they became bandits was because they could not survive. They had no choice but to resort to this last resort to survive.

It would be easy to kill them all at once, but that would be too much of a sin.

Besides, it was already daybreak. With only the two hundred men under Wang An, even if the Black Armor Guards were extremely elite, it was unrealistic to kill more than two thousand people in one breath.

It might even provoke the bandits to take risks, after all, even a rabbit will bite when it is cornered.

What's more, most of the people in this team are their family members. Even the bandits cannot bear to watch their families being slaughtered.

Besides, what does Jizhou lack the most? Food? Taxes?
Of course, all of these are lacking, but Wang An feels that what Jizhou lacks most is population.

Just imagine, even Baicheng, the largest city in Jizhou, has a population of only 50,000, and most of them are not young and strong.

The nearly 3,000 people in Crescent Mountain can be a great help if used well.

Along the way, Wang An was carefully thinking about what to do with these 3,000 people after they were escorted back.

First of all, it is naturally impossible to let them enter the city. After all, these bandits have just caused the tragedy in Baicheng, and many family members of the people in Baichen died at the hands of these bandits. If they are allowed to enter the city for resettlement, I am afraid that Baicheng will never have peace again.

As for locking them all up in the government jail, that is even more unrealistic. Even the South Prison of the government jail can only hold a hundred or so people at most.

We can’t lock up so many people, and we can’t relocate so many people.

We can't just release them all and let these bandits go their separate ways with their own certificates.

They were originally some poor people who could not survive and had nothing left in their hometown because they had lost their land and property, so they turned to banditry. If they were let go like this, they would probably return to Crescent Mountain in the end and gather together to cause chaos.

I can’t let go; I can’t bear to kill; there’s no place for me to find peace!

Unable to kill, release, or place him in a safe place, Wang An regretted it for a moment.

It would have been easier to give a ruthless order last night, taking advantage of the chaos in the bandit camp and killing them all at once when the bandits were unaware of their own strength and dared not resist.

However, this was only a fleeting thought. After all, this was a world where human life was at stake, and I couldn't really treat human life as worthless.

Obviously, there were some smart people among the bandits. They quickly saw Wang An's dilemma. Or rather, they did not see Wang An's dilemma, but they clearly judged the situation.

After all, how powerful Baicheng is, and they still don’t know how it is after being neighbors for more than ten years!

It is definitely impossible to support so many people.

In the minds of these bandits, the best way for the government to deal with them is to kill them.

When the city gates are closed, the people are prevented from causing trouble.

The black-armored guards, soldiers from the garrison, and government servants all spread out with knives in their hands, forming a weak encirclement that surrounded the nearly 3,000 bandits. The crowd suddenly became uncontrollably panicked, crying, sobbing, and...

A desperate fight...brutal!
(End of this chapter)