We agreed on a famine year, so how come your family has enough rice and wheat flour?

In Dongshan Village, after Lin Feng took Mei Yan back, he encountered Song Shun on his way home.

The two exchanged a glance without speaking, and Lin Feng followed Song Shun out of the village again, arriving at the cave where saltpeter was being boiled.

"That was awesome! So awesome!"

As Lin Feng entered the cave, he heard Song Diao's excited voice.

"Not only did we steal Chen Youtian's food tonight, we also beat him up. It was so damn satisfying!"

"We were able to escape unscathed tonight thanks to that earthenware pot Feng gave us. It's damn powerful; even a tiger would be smashed to pieces if it came..."

"Feng-ge'er, you've come!"

When Song Diao saw Lin Feng arrive, he immediately beamed with joy and called out.

Song Qing presented the two money bags with both hands, saying, "Erlang, these are your money bags and Chen Youtian's money bags."

"I've counted Chen Youtian's assets; it totals forty taels of silver!"

Lin Feng was quite surprised; the gains this time were even greater than he had imagined.

"I'll take my own purse; you can divide the remaining forty taels of silver among yourselves."

"This is unacceptable..." Song Qing quickly refused.

"Uncle Song, you all contributed tonight. Besides, now that you've joined my team, how could I possibly treat you unfairly?"

After much persuasion from Lin Feng, Song Qing finally accepted the forty taels of silver and distributed them among his three sons.

Upon receiving the silver, the three Song brothers couldn't stop smiling; this was much better than hunting.

No wonder so many people like to be bandits; it's a quick way to make money.

Of course, their heads would fall off quickly too.

"Leave these thirty bushels of coarse rice in the cave, and leave the donkey cart here for you to look after."

Lin Feng looked around the cave and saw that most of the space was filled with bags of brown rice and five donkey carts.

Fortunately, it doesn't affect the boiling of saltpeter.

"Erlang, what about the villagers... how are you going to explain this? Didn't you still need to borrow thirty shi of grain?" Song Qing asked.

Lin Feng smiled faintly and said, "Chen Youtian wanted to double-cross me, but he didn't expect that I had the same idea. After you left, I pretended that I didn't know anything and talked to Chen Youtian. He was willing to compensate me with thirty shi of grain."

Song Qing and his three sons couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Lin Feng is really ruthless!

They robbed the other party of their money and food, and then demanded compensation for their losses.

However, the other party was Chen Youtian, and they wholeheartedly supported Lin Feng's actions.

"By the way, Erlang, there's something I need to tell you."

Song Qing suddenly became serious and said to Lin Feng:

"When we came back, we found a large number of corpses lying in one place. Judging from their clothes, they looked like a group of bandits. We don't know who killed them!"

"Oh, is that so? Take me to see it!"

Led by Song Qing, Lin Feng arrived at a mountain path on the south side of Black Wind Mountain.

"Erlang, look, there are more than twenty corpses on both sides of the road."

Song Qing pointed to the corpse on the ground and said to Lin Feng.

Lin Feng's expression was solemn. He walked to a corpse, touched its surface, and found it was still slightly warm.

"It seems like it just happened recently!"

"There are tire tracks on this muddy road, and a lot of rice grains have fallen onto the surface..."

Lin Feng immediately deduced that a group of mountain bandits transporting grain might have suddenly encountered the enemy, been brutally murdered, and had their grain stolen.

"Erlang, who do you think did it?" Song Qing asked.

The murder of more than twenty bandits is something that ordinary people cannot do.

Could it be that there is another group of bandits in Black Wind Mountain?

Lin Feng shook his head. "I don't know, but we haven't heard of them. They're definitely not our enemies. After all, they'd rather rob bandits' food than raid the villages down the mountain. They still have some conscience."

As he spoke, Lin Feng turned to Song Diao, "Diaozi, take me up the mountain, I'm going to check on the situation at Black Wind Village."

"You...you want to go to Black Wind Stronghold?" Song Diao stared wide-eyed.

The others all advised Lin Feng not to do such a dangerous thing.

"It's nothing. I was just gathering information. As the saying goes, 'Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle.' Having more information gives you a better advantage."

Seeing that he couldn't persuade Lin Feng, Song Qing had no choice but to have his second son take Lin Feng up the mountain.

……

Black Wind Village, Hall of Gathering Righteousness.

Three chairs were lined up in a row. In the middle, on a stone chair covered with a tiger skin, sat a tall, one-eyed man with a large sword and a golden horse. He was Sun Li, the leader of Black Wind Stronghold and Sun Cheng's elder brother.

Sun Li's single eye, like a snake, swept across the crowd in the Hall of Righteousness, then his voice was hoarse and his tone was cold.

"As you probably already know, one of our brothers, who narrowly escaped death, just returned to report that the fifty bushels of grain we transported from Nanshan Village were stolen by some unknown force, and more than twenty of our brothers were killed!"

Wang Chun, the third-in-command sitting to Sun Li's right, had a slightly cold expression.

"Boss, we've suffered heavy losses this time. We must find those people and kill them!"

"Use their heads to appease the spirits of our more than twenty brothers in heaven!"

Inside the hall, the bandit leaders shouted their revenge.

Sun Li gestured for them to stop, saying, "I know the brothers are eager to fight their way back, but someone who can take down more than twenty of us in one go is no ordinary person."

"Right now, we have something even more important to do: in two days, we need to exchange the goods we've looted for silver to buy warhorses from the border troops and further strengthen our forces!"

"I have already sent people to contact some merchants in Qingyang County. They are willing to buy our goods. The transaction will take place at the Land God Temple in Douzi Ridge. If these goods are sold, they will fetch several thousand taels of silver, enough for us to buy a batch of warhorses."

"With warhorses, we can build a cavalry, and who in the entire Qingyang County will be our match?"

Everyone gasped!

He immediately put aside his desire to avenge his twenty-odd brothers.

Nothing is more important than a warhorse!

They used to be chased and beaten by the army sent by the imperial court.

Knowing the strength of cavalry, it would be beneficial to be able to assemble a small cavalry force.

Even with only twenty warhorses, it would be enough to sweep across the entire territory of Qingyang County.

Sun Li looked around and was very satisfied with everyone's reaction.

"Since everyone agrees, the next tasks for the stronghold, besides building stockades and digging trenches, are to sell the goods in the stronghold and then purchase warhorses for the border troops!"

"Ignore everything else, even the blood feud with my brother."

"..."

Meanwhile, on the roof of Juyi Hall, a dark figure disappeared quietly after hearing this unexpected information.