Second-hand time travel: Liu Bei, the big-eared bandit

Chapter 15: Dividing the Spoils and Making Empty Promises
These days, even bandits have a sense of loyalty.

Or rather, they are capable of being loyal when it comes to matters of loyalty.

After all, the leader of each gang must know his underlings inside and out and can find their homes at any time.

The criminals also have parents, wives, and children at home. They use aliases when they are outside to avoid implicating their families.

As long as the underlings aren't completely brain-dead, they'll realize that if anyone is disloyal and leaves without a trace, their whole family will be in trouble when the boss comes out.

Therefore, Liu Bei imprisoned the leaders of each gang and ordered his underlings, who had been conscripted as executioners, to go out and find horses to redeem their leaders.

However, because of Zhang Fei's matter, the leaders were released by Liu Bei ahead of schedule.

Of course, they "escaped from prison," so Zhang Fei also escaped from prison...

After escaping from prison, the leaders were taken by Liu Bei to the Shili Pavilion Inn, where they were still considered to be detained.

Shili Pavilion has the Taoist temple and disciples of Taiping Dao, as well as wandering knights following Liu Bei, and there seem to be quite a few of them.

In fact, Liu Bei had been getting things for nothing all along. Those wandering knights were not Liu Bei's subordinates, but only his friends.

But in the eyes of these leaders, Liu Bei now had land, an army, wandering knights following him, a large family, and even a county official like Jian Yong, whose reputation for filial piety was widespread, listened to him. He was definitely the tyrant of Zhuo County.

They thought Liu Bei was quite powerful, so they didn't dare to rebel and actually considered following him.

But if you want to follow Liu Bei, you must first pledge your allegiance.

The pledge of allegiance was not complicated and was in line with the leaders' wishes.

Just find and eliminate those disloyal underlings who never returned.

Even after they were killed, it could still be considered a merit—a merit in suppressing bandits, since they really were bandits.

During this period, most of the underlings did indeed return in groups.

Most of the gangs brought back horses to ransom their leaders.

There were nine of his brothers who were previously imprisoned. Liu Bei originally said that each brother only needed one horse to be released.

However, in reality, because many of the underlings went their separate ways, they brought back more than twenty horses, and also brought back other things... such as carriages and silk.

This is only considering that seven small groups have returned.

Yes, there were two big brothers whose entire underlings disappeared without a trace. There are still people who are disloyal and do stupid things together.

So those two older brothers have now led Jian Yong and the wandering knights to capture their former accomplices, saying as they left, "Your Excellency must kill them..."

The original number of ex-convicts was 210, but 142 returned. Two groups went missing, and the other groups were missing a few people each. Only one group had all its members return.

But this number exceeded Liu Bei's expectations.

That's how people are. If those bandits were to offer ten thousand coins or ten bolts of silk to ransom their leader, most of them would surely never return.

However, when Liu Bei asked each group to find a horse, most of them returned, and they brought back more than one horse.

In fact, the price of a horse far exceeds ten thousand coins, and a good horse is often worth more than one hundred thousand coins.

But cash and livestock are different.

For these bandits, acquiring a horse is really not difficult, without considering how to convert it into cash or worrying about how to hide afterward.

After all, most of them were former horse bandits, and stealing horses and robbing were their most familiar businesses.

Those underlings who didn't return were quickly found by the bosses; very few remained undiscovered.

Of course, some of the underlings also managed to acquire some other valuables during this time, which they hid outside and didn't bring back. However, under questioning from their superiors, most of these valuables were retrieved.

There was no trickery or collusion between the leader and his underlings to secretly hide valuables. Liu Bei would simply hand over the recovered valuables to whoever he was in charge of, and let them divide them however they pleased.

But anyone who dares to hide it is infringing on the interests of their own clique.

Apart from some horses and the cartload of white silk, Liu Bei distributed everything else. Whoever brought it back got it, and whichever leader chased it down got it, and then they divided it up on the spot.

As for whether they redistributed the spoils privately, Liu Bei didn't care.

In any case, apart from the Liu family's lost items, the owners of the other valuables could not be found. Currently, the only person who came to Liu Bei to settle the matter was Liu Yuanqi, and Liu Bei only recorded the Liu family's belongings.

Of course, barring any unforeseen circumstances, other prominent families in the county will also seek Liu Bei's help to resolve their disputes in the future.

While the leaders pledged their loyalty, Liu Bei also talked to them about life.

For Liu Bei, managing his former elder brothers was enough to manage all the exiled soldiers.

The executioners, those underlings, remained relatively stable after Liu Bei divided the spoils, and most of them were convinced of Liu Bei's distribution.

They knew they had to return the Liu family's belongings, after all, Liu Bei was a member of the Liu family.

Those who are prone to causing trouble never came back in the first place.

Although the number of personnel has decreased by one-third, the overall execution efficiency of the executioners can be improved by at least several times with the elimination of those who are disobedient.

However, these people were, after all, bandits and not very educated. With so many of them gone, they were still somewhat uneasy.

But the leaders of these small gangs were not uneasy at all, and they were all grateful to Liu Bei.

However, gratitude alone was not enough. Liu Bei wanted to treat these leaders better than expected, and then have them restrain their own subordinates.

You can't always manage a team by dividing the spoils; that's the way third-rate thieves do it.

True master thieves manage their subordinates by setting life goals for themselves.

This kind of life goal is usually called a 'dream', or a pie in the sky.

The promise Liu Bei made to them was an expression of his hopes for the next generation.

For example, providing a good environment for a child to settle down and grow up in, giving the child a head start in life, allowing the child to study under renowned teachers, and ultimately securing a government job for the child...

On this land, every parent has the same expectations, and the process has been the same for thousands of years.

Actually, everyone wants to be an official, who the hell wants to be a thief...?

But these days, it's practically impossible for ordinary people to become officials.

Even a nobleman like Liu Bei is not an official yet—the position of Zhe Rongwei is a temporary military post, belonging to the military officials within the prefecture. If he cannot establish particularly great military achievements in a limited time, he will still be a commoner after the dismissal of the Chixingshi.

The bandits were commoners, and they were commoners who had committed crimes.

So the main account is basically useless, and you have to create a new account.

Yes, Liu Bei didn't go around telling them about the process of becoming a retainer and climbing the social ladder by relying on his lord. That kind of thing was too much trouble, and these gang leaders didn't have much contact with Liu Bei, so they might not be willing to believe it.

Most of these people are in their late thirties and have wives and children at home.

What Liu Bei was teaching them was how to play the trumpet, so that the next generation might have the possibility of getting a government job.

(End of this chapter)