1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 28 Pingzai Mountain

The leader of the mountain people chewed on grass leaves, and the blazing campfire, swaying in the mountain wind, reflected in his dark pupils.

The two boys on night duty seemed to have noticed the commotion and kept looking in their direction.

“Those on night duty at the fourth watch don’t slack off. With the three of us, I’m afraid we can’t take them down.”

The leader of the mountain people suppressed his strong desire for money and food, assessed the situation, and made a rational decision.

"We don't know their background, and we don't know if this mountain area is being protected by Boss Xie."

“If Chief Xie is protecting Honglianping, he would have informed us in advance, but he didn’t.” A villager tried to persuade their leader.

"Are we just going to give up on this easy prey that's practically delivered to our mouths?"

Pingzaishan was dirt poor; the brothers rarely had a proper meal, so they didn't want to give up this piece of meat so easily.

"I'm afraid they're not fat sheep, but thorny hedgehogs that will prick your mouth and hands." The leader of the mountain villagers remained calm and did not let himself be blinded by greed.

“We’re just here to scout out the location. Since they’ve chosen to develop Honglianping, they’ll definitely be staying here permanently. We have plenty of time. It’s getting late, so let’s call it a day and head back.”

The east is turning white.

The boys, who were gradually waking up, had already gathered around the stove to start a fire and cook.

Peng Gang saw that Lu Qin had given some bamboo shoots to Li Qi despite Lu Qian's objections, and guessed that he wanted Li Qi to teach him to read.

Huang Dabiao and Jiang Ci, who were on night duty, reported the situation of their two night shifts to Peng Gang, who hadn't slept well all night.

“Boss, I heard some noises on the mountaintop last night, like someone was watching us,” Huang Dabiao said, rubbing his slightly red eyes.

"You did a great job. Where did that noise come from? Take me to see it."

Huang Dabiao wasn't the only one with this feeling. Ever since leaving Bitanxun and arriving at Honglianping, Peng Gang had also been hearing noises in the shadows and felt like he was being watched.

However, the trees and shrubs around Honglianping are tall and dense, making it difficult to spot people hiding in the shadows.

Peng Gang couldn't be sure if it was just a gut feeling or if someone was really watching him and Honglianping from the shadows.

Peng Gang gathered eleven or twelve men, and led by Huang Dabiao and Jiang Ci, they climbed to the top of the mountain to check the situation. Sure enough, they found a series of messy, fresh footprints at the top.

“None of us have been to the top of the mountain. These footprints must have been left by the villains who were spying on us last night!” Huang Dabiao said with great certainty.

Their activities these days have been confined to a radius of two or three acres around the camp, and no one has yet gone up to the mountaintop.

"Fortunately, they were local bandits from Huzhe or Min, and they were only there to scout the area. There weren't many of them, otherwise we would have all died here last night," Xiao Guoda said with lingering fear.

He was relieved that the bandits who had targeted them yesterday were local part-time thugs, not professional bandits.

There are many types of bandits in Guangxi. The so-called "local bandits" are local bandits. Because they are locals with their families in the area, they have more concerns and are less likely to commit crimes. They are more cautious.

However, once bandits commit a crime, they are often ruthless and will always choose to silence witnesses.

Besides bandits, there were also itinerant thieves and out-of-town bandits who committed crimes while on the move. Because they were moving around and committing crimes in different places, out-of-town bandits had no scruples and basically robbed whenever they could.

Bandits from Guangdong who fled into Guangxi were called Guangma or Dongfei.

As long as the above-mentioned bandits do not gather to attack market towns or county seats, do not kill government officials, and do not kill students or scholars, the government generally does not bother with them.

In addition, there were also "gang bandits" formed by various branches of the Heaven and Earth Society. These gang bandits would establish a name, gather together, and address each other as brothers. A single gathering could number in the dozens or hundreds, and when combined, the number of members could reach thousands or even tens of thousands. This was a common organizational form of the Heaven and Earth Society's armed forces.

The Heaven and Earth Society armed forces led by Zhang Jiaxiang, Luo Dagang, and others who are currently most active in Xunzhou Prefecture are the kind of gangsters or secret societies that the Qing government deeply abhors in its reports.

The bandits who raised the banner of anti-Qing and restoration of the Ming had a relatively clear political goal and were no longer ordinary bandits, so the Qing government often dealt them a heavy blow.

After having breakfast down the mountain, Peng Gang didn't dare to delay and rushed to Shangdongtang.

However, he had never been to Shangdongtang and did not know the way there, so he could only ask the carpenter Xunbing, who was familiar with the local terrain, to lead the way.

Peng Gang's uncle, Xiao Guoda, was worried about Peng Gang's safety and didn't feel comfortable letting Peng Gang go to Shangdongtang alone, so he decided to go with Peng Gang.

After packing his belongings, Peng Gang explained the day's events to his two uncles who were staying behind in Honglianping and Peng Yi, and then set off down the mountain to head to Shangdongtang.

The guide for Peng Gang was Qin the carpenter. Like him, Qin the carpenter was a Hakka.

Qin the carpenter's ancestors settled in Bitanxun at the end of the Kangxi era, which means there have been several generations of them.

The Green Standard Army was a hereditary military system, where soldiers were allowed to enter but not leave. Ever since their ancestors joined the Green Standard Army in order to get a share of military rations, their family had never had the chance to take off their uniforms.

Qin, a carpenter who has lived in Bitanxun for generations, knows the terrain and roads in the vicinity by heart. Even at night, he can walk in the dark from Honglianping to Bitanxun and Shangdongtang.

Few people travel the road from Honglianping to Shangdongtang, so there is no existing road.

Peng Gang and his group could only draw their machetes and carve out a path through the dense forest and thick grass, barely wide enough for one person to pass through.

Peng Gang originally thought he wouldn't encounter many people along the way, but unexpectedly, halfway through his journey, he ran into two people covered in tree bark digging for bamboo shoots and wild vegetables in the forest.

The two men were barely clothed, disheveled, and looked no different from primitive people. Their faces were not clearly visible, let alone their ages.

The sudden appearance of the two startled Peng Gang, who thought he had encountered wild men.

Upon discovering that three men carrying guns and knives had spotted them, the two men darted into the dense forest like startled monkeys, vanishing without a trace in an instant.

"Are these refugees?" Peng Gang was still in shock from what he had just witnessed.

“Migrants usually flee to places with more people and more food. There’s no reason for them to run into the deep mountains.” Carpenter Qin shook his head. “They are families from nearby who are fleeing the spring famine.”

Spring famine, a familiar yet unfamiliar phrase, evoked memories for Peng Gang.

The last time he heard this word was from his great-grandfather, who had experienced the old society.

At that time, he was still young and could not understand why his great-grandfather, who lived in the old society, had to borrow money to make ends meet even after working hard all year.

For farmers, the end of the year is difficult, but spring plowing is even more difficult.

During the so-called Kangxi and Qianlong prosperous period, a middle-class farming family, with the whole family toiling in the fields from dawn till dusk, could earn only thirty-two taels of silver a year, while their annual expenses amounted to thirty-five taels of silver.

In other words, even after a year of hard work, one still needs to borrow three taels of silver to maintain a basic standard of living.

This was during the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns, a period praised by experts on the Manchu remnants and bondservants.

The situation would only worsen towards the end of the Daoguang era. Ordinary farming families simply couldn't survive without borrowing money at exorbitant interest rates.

Farmers typically repay their high-interest loans during the autumn harvest and before the Lunar New Year.

Shortly after the New Year, spring plowing begins.

It was common for ordinary families to not even have enough grain to plant before spring plowing. If they wanted to continue farming, they could only borrow grain to plant. In Guangxi, this money was called "slash-and-plow money."

This cycle repeats itself, creating a vicious cycle.

This is why Peng Gang's ancestors insisted on keeping the nine mu of high-quality paddy fields in front of their house. Without these nine mu of high-quality paddy fields, their family would have been burdened with debt sooner or later, sliding from the rich peasant class to the middle peasant class, and slowly waiting for their family to be ruined and their lives to end.

Therefore, the spring planting season, when food is scarce, is prone to what is known as spring famine.

The high price that Peng Gang's family was able to sell their 18 shi of grain for was largely due to the soaring grain prices during the spring famine.

"Did those two run away from us just now because they mistook us for patrolling soldiers?" Peng Gang asked Qin the carpenter.

Carpenter Qin led the way, wearing the uniform of a patrolman and carrying a rusty fish-head knife at his waist. Peng Gang and Xiao Guoda were either holding long guns for self-defense or machetes for clearing the way, and they did indeed look a bit like patrolmen going into the mountains.

“We don’t even have a livelihood to rely on, how can we have the mind to patrol the mountains and catch them?” said Qin the carpenter.

"Unless the higher-ups are keeping a close eye on us, our soldiers at Bitan Flood Control will not venture into the mountains for patrols without warning. It's too dangerous to go into the mountains."

The patrol duties in this area were the responsibility of Captain Xie at Shangdongtang.

The families near Shangdongtang are mostly Hakka, and Commander Xie speaks Hakka. As long as they don't go too far, Commander Xie usually turns a blind eye and won't make things difficult for them. The only thing I'm afraid of is…”

"What are you afraid of?" Peng Gang asked.

　I apologize, I wasn't satisfied with this chapter, so I rewrote it. I couldn't update on time at 8 PM.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)