Chapter 278: Jade Swordsman Huang Yifu
"The Xingyue Sect has seven star halls, namely Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji, Tianquan, Yuheng, Kaiyang, and Yaoguang. Each star hall has four heads and many swordsmen."

"Huang Yifu is the swordsman from Yuheng Hall, one of the Seven Star Halls!"

Wu Zhan explained simply.

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly. He knew the Xingyue Sect and the Qixing Hall.

The Xingyue Gate is divided into the inner and outer parts. The inner part has the April Flag and the outer part has the Seven Star Hall. The April Flag has four flags: new moon, waxing moon, full moon and waning moon. The seven stars are the Seven Star Hall mentioned by Wu Zhan.

Well, that's all he knew, and he didn't know much more details.

"So what does Swordsman mean?"

"Well, to put it simply, the swordsmen are the thugs of the Seven Stars Hall. They usually have a group of people entrenched in the mountains and forests."

Yang Zhengshan nodded, "So it was this Yuheng swordsman who robbed our cotton cloth!"

"Well, Huang Yifu has been entrenched in Qingfu Mountain. He has more than 200 bandits under his command. He makes a living by collecting tolls from merchants passing by."

"Normally, they wouldn't rob a caravan, but this time, for some reason, they stole our cotton cloth!"

Wu Zhan said.

Qingfu Mountain is located in the southern part of Jing'an Prefecture. It is the remnant of Changqing Mountain, that is, the Changqing Mountain where Yangjia Village is located.

The official road at the foot of Qingfu Mountain is one of the important passages leading to Jing'an Prefecture City. Huang Yifu relies on this official road for his livelihood.

Yang Zhengshan stroked his beard with a calm expression, but he was secretly shocked in his heart.

It was done secretly by these bandits who were actually squatting on the mountain and collecting tolls.

Wow, this is much easier than robbing!

"Are the people in the convoy okay?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

"Several bodyguards who were escorting the convoy died!" said Wu Zhan.

Yang Zhengshan's face suddenly darkened.

Of the three batches of cotton cloth, except for the first batch which was escorted by Wu Zhan himself, the remaining two batches were escorted by escorts hired by the cloth merchants in Jing'an City.

It would be fine if they just robbed things, but they actually killed people!
This is a little too much!
Yang Zhengshan stood up and paced back and forth in the study.

Liaodong is different from Chongshan Town. Chongshan Town has ruffians and rioters, but no bandits.

There is no place for bandits to survive in Chongshan Town, so we can't let them rob the army.

However, the rebels in Chongshan Town used to be more hateful than the bandits. But later they were disciplined by Lu Chongde and Liang Chu, and there were no more rebels in Chongshan Town.

However, there are many bandits in Liaodong, and there are many brutal bandits in Changqing Mountain.

Didn’t Yang Zhengshan fight against bandits when he was still in Yangjia Village?
However, compared with this Yuheng swordsman, the group of bandits he fought was nothing.

The cotton cloth was stolen, should we take it back?
Logically speaking, this batch of cotton cloth had not yet been delivered to Tenglongwei, and he had not paid for it, so it had nothing to do with him if it was robbed.

But this was what he wanted, the cotton cloth that the military households needed.

Now there are still many military households in Tenglongwei waiting for this batch of cotton cloth!
Moreover, if this batch of cotton cloth was not there, it would be difficult for Jing'an City to gather so much cotton cloth.

“We must get it back!”

"Come on~"

Yang Zhengshan couldn't help but swear. They were just a bunch of bandits. How could he, the commander of the Tenglong Guard, be afraid of them?

"Master, the people from Xingyue Sect are not easy to mess with!" Wu Zhan said in a deep voice.

Yang Zhengshan grinned, "Why? Are officials in the court easy to mess with?"

The underworld forces are the underworld forces. Compared with the imperial court, the underworld forces are nothing.

Of course, this does not mean that the forces in the martial arts world are not powerful. In fact, there are still many powerful martial arts sects in the martial arts world.

But then again, the Darong court does not allow any powerful martial arts sects to exist within its territory.

Therefore, many powerful forces in the martial arts world are not based within Dayong’s territory.

For example, the Xingyue Sect is based on an island in the southeastern waters of Dayong, but the Qixing Hall is located in Dayong.

This is also the reason why the court did not target the Xingyue Sect, otherwise the Xingyue Sect would have disappeared long ago.

"Does this general still fear a bunch of bandits?"

Yang Zhengshan's expression turned cold, and he called out to the outside of the door: "Come here, pass the order, order Song Dashan to gather a hundred cavalrymen and follow this general out of the city!"

Xie Yuan was in charge of the specific affairs of the government office and was considered Yang Zhengshan's deputy, while Song Dashan was responsible for commanding the remaining two hundred cavalrymen and was responsible for the defense of the Acropolis.

It would take less than two hundred cavalrymen to deal with a group of bandits. Yang Zhengshan felt that sending out a hundred cavalrymen was a bit of an overkill.

If Yang Zhengshan hadn't felt that the soldiers were too idle these days in the Acropolis, he would have wanted to take his twenty followers to attack the stronghold of the Yuheng swordsman.

Ok!

In fact, Yang Zhengshan was also feeling uncomfortable.

A few months ago, he was on the battlefield, killing people everywhere and traveling thousands of miles. It was really exciting. But now, he has to sit in the study all day to deal with these tedious official duties. Alas, this life is really unbearable, so he also wants to go out for some fresh air.

People are like this. When they are busy, they want to find some free time, but when they are really free, they feel uncomfortable.

On the battlefield, I was rolling around in a sea of ​​blood and corpses all day long, thinking that when the war was over, I could go home to my wife and children and live in a warm bed.

I've been holding my wife and children at home all day, and I can't help but feel restless.

Following Yang Zhengshan's order, Song Dashan quickly gathered a hundred cavalrymen outside the city gate.

"My Lord! Where are we going?"

Seeing Yang Zhengshan coming out of the city with his entourage, Song Dashan hurriedly stepped forward and asked.

"Go kill people!"

Yang Zhengshan grinned.

Song Dashan's eyes lit up when he heard this. He had been very idle recently. There was nothing he could do. He was honest and simple, and he did things methodically. He would do anything seriously, but whether he could do it well was another matter.

Compared with him, Xie Yuan was undoubtedly better at handling the miscellaneous affairs of the yamen.

Therefore, Yang Zhengshan used Xie Yuan as his deputy, and Song Dashan could only be responsible for some simple matters.

On weekdays, what Song Dashan did most was patrolling the city and inspecting city defense matters. Apart from that, there was nothing else to do.

"Let's go!" Yang Zhengshan raised his hand and led 120 riders to gallop towards the south.

Qingfu Mountain is located in the southern part of Jing'an Prefecture, more than a hundred miles away from the Acropolis. If you ride a horse, it will take about two hours to get there. If there were no snow on the road, it would take about one hour to get there.

……

Jing'an Prefecture, Shang family.

The big cloth merchant Wang Zhenze ran into the lobby of the Shang family with sweat all over his forehead, his fat and big-eared face full of anxiety.

"Master Shang, please help me!"

"That's 4,000 rolls of cotton cloth, which is most of my wealth!"

"Master Shang, Master Shang!"

Wang Zhenze looked at Shang Mingde pleadingly.

Originally, Shang Mingde was the one who mediated the matter, and Wang Zhenze also thought it was a good thing. It didn't matter who the cotton cloth was sold to, and selling it to Yang Zhengshan could help him build a relationship with Yang Zhengshan.

But he never expected that his cotton cloth was snatched away by a group of assassins not long after it left Jing'an Prefecture.

Not only was the cotton cloth stolen, but more than a dozen of the guys and bodyguards who were transporting the goods were killed or injured.

Such a huge loss was already a serious blow to him. Of course, it was a bit of an exaggeration to say that it was most of his fortune. After all, he was a big cloth merchant in Jing'an Prefecture and his fortune must be tens of thousands of taels of silver.

Shang Mingde felt a little headache. Because of this incident, he, a person who just wanted to help out of kindness, had to deal with such a thing. He felt extremely upset.

"Brother Wang, it's not that I don't want to help you, it's just that I can't help you!"

"You know who Huang Yifu is. My Shang family really can't afford to offend him!"

If it was just Huang Yifu, the Shang family would not be afraid, but Huang Yifu was a Yuheng swordsman, and standing behind him was Yuheng Xingtang.

The Shang family has been passed down for hundreds of years, but it is far inferior to the Yuhengxingtang.

Not to mention the Xingyue Sect.

"But, but this~~" Wang Zhenze said with a sad face: "Then, what about General Yang?"

Shang Mingde was even more helpless, "Your goods haven't been delivered to Tenglongwei yet, you can't let General Yang give you money for nothing!"

Their previous agreement with Wu Zhan was to pay on delivery, and after the first two batches of cotton cloth were delivered to Tenglongwei, Tenglongwei paid the money very readily without any delay.

Shang Mingde felt that Yang Zhengshan was a man of integrity, but he did not think that Yang Zhengshan would help Wang Zhenze out of kindness. After all, it was not Yang Zhengshan's fault in the final analysis.

"Is there really no way?" Wang Zhenze couldn't help but feel extremely disappointed.

He was extremely distressed by the loss of thousands of pieces of cotton cloth.

He wanted to kill Huang Yifu and his gang with a thousand cuts, but he was just a businessman and he had no way to deal with people like Huang Yifu.

"Well, just think of it as losing money to avoid disaster!" Shang Mingde comforted.

Wang Zhenze had no choice but to leave the Shang family with a heart full of grief and indignation.

Compared with Wang Zhenze's grief and anger, the mountain village on Qingfu Mountain was filled with joy at this time.

"Hahaha, boss, this time we brothers won't have to suffer the cold anymore!"

"Yes, yes, with this batch of cotton cloth, we can spend the winter comfortably this year!"

In the rough lobby, a group of tough and sturdy bandits laughed triumphantly.

Sitting in the main seat, Huang Yi-fu, who was nearly 40 years old, was wearing a black mink cloak, a gray rabbit hat, and grinning.

"Hahaha, brothers, prepare some wine and food, we won't go home until we're drunk tonight!"

The heroic voice echoed in the lobby, immediately causing cheers from the bandits.

They were not short of money, as all the caravans passing by had to pay them tolls, but they were short of supplies, such as food, cotton cloth, cotton clothes, wine, meat, etc. These were the things they lacked.

After all, they are thieves and cannot enter the city to buy things openly, and the merchants in the city are unwilling to do business with them.

So they could only disguise themselves and sneak into the city to purchase some supplies.

However, by doing this, the supplies they purchase will not be too much, and they can usually only buy some daily necessities each time.

Huang Yifu was a smart man. He knew the difference between having a full meal and not having enough, so he always insisted on collecting tolls and not robbing convoys.

This time I was forced to do so.

The village was short of cotton cloth for the winter, and in order to prevent his brothers from freezing, he had to take the risk and rob some.

In fact, they had long been eyeing several large cloth merchants in Jing'an City. They originally wanted to rob them in the city, but before they could start, most of the cotton cloths from several merchants were shipped out of the city one after another.

To be cautious, they did not grab the first and second batches of cotton cloth, but first found out where the two batches of cotton cloth went, and then grabbed the third batch.

They knew that the first two batches of cotton cloth went to Tenglong Guard, but they didn't know that Yang Zhengshan was now the commander of Tenglong Guard. They still thought that Tenglong Guard was still the same as before and was controlled by the Lan family.

Huang Yifu naturally understood the Lan family. He knew the Lan family's character very well and knew that the Lan family liked to bully the weak and fear the strong, so he didn't care about offending the Lan family.

As for Yang Zhengshan, well, he probably had never heard of Yang Zhengshan's name.

After all, these people hide in the mountains all day long, and their sources of information are relatively backward and isolated. If it is news from Jing'an City or several surrounding counties, they can pay more attention to it.

Outside of Jing'an Prefecture, they had no access to any sources of information.

So now they can still happily eat meat and drink wine with big gulps.

(End of this chapter)