Transmigrated into a minor official in a county government, with children at home waiting for rice t

On the fifth day of the eighth lunar month, before dawn, Zhang Sanlang went out.

As soon as he came out of Jinshi Lane, Liu Sandao, who had been waiting there, rushed forward and said, "Zhang Yashi, two people went out of the back gate of Yongning Temple last night and headed west of the city. They came back before dawn."

Zhang Sanlang kept walking, "Male or female?"

"They were dressed in black robes and took large strides, unlike women. Granny Fang told me that this group might be men in disguise..."

After recounting the unusual situation at Yongning Nunnery, he leaned closer to Zhang Sanlang and lowered his voice, "Zhang Clerk, Brother He said there's some commotion at the docks..."

After Liu Sandao finished speaking, Zhang Sanlang continued on his way to the county government office.

After clocking in, he dealt with some documents for a while, then strolled over to the magistrate's residence.

Zhao Xie was the only one in the east wing.

He sat by the tatami mat, wiping a short knife.

The blade was narrow and thin, turning back and forth in the morning light, casting flickering shadows on his face. Only after Zhang Sanlang pushed open the door did he lazily tuck the knife back into his boot.

Zhang Sanlang sat down opposite Zhao Xie and told him about the Yongning Nunnery.

Granny Fang delivered another letter last night.

Three new nuns have arrived at the nunnery. They say they came from Ganlu Nunnery in Yizhou. They have complete ordination certificates and there is nothing wrong with them.

Seven other pilgrims also stayed there, saying they had come to listen to Abbess Jingchen preach the Lotus Sutra. They all stayed in the back courtyard rooms.

Granny Fang went to deliver tea and peeked through the crack in the door. One of them was standing there changing clothes. His shoulders were so broad that they didn't look like a woman's, and there was an old knife scar on his back.

"A man dressed as a woman!" Zhang Sanlang concluded seriously.

Zhao Xie picked up the bowl and took a sip of tea. "Did Granny Fang see it clearly?"

She said that men and women walk differently, and those seven people all swayed their arms when they walked.

"Ten?" Zhao Xie lowered his head and repeated the question softly.

Ten.

Zhao Xie nodded.

He didn't question whether the ordination certificate was genuine or not, nor did he ask whether the seven people had brought any weapons.

Zhang Sanlang then recounted a few other matters.

He Lantou was too busy to attend to everything, so he sent his capable subordinate, Liu Sandao, to report that there had been a lot of merchants coming to the dock recently, either selling cloth or porcelain. They all said they came from Yizhou and Mizhou and wanted to catch the market before the Mid-Autumn Festival.

But these people don't stay in inns or go out on the streets; after unloading their goods, they just stay in a few empty warehouses by the dock.

They don't go out during the day, and only turn on the lights at night.

He Lan counted them; there were at least twenty or thirty.

There's an even stranger one.

For several days in a row, he saw smoke rising from chimneys in the neighborhood near the abandoned dock.

Since the canal was diverted, there has been no business at the docks there, and even beggars don't go there anymore.

He Lantou became alert and went to investigate himself. Across a patch of reeds, he saw a hut built on the riverbank.

He dared not get too close, but counted the heads from a distance. There were at least two hundred people, and everyone was carrying a weapon. However, there were very few standard knives and guns. Most of them were machetes, sickles, clubs, and the like. They looked like refugees.

In addition, Fang Dajiao from the post station also brought a message that many unfamiliar strangers have recently appeared in Wangjiazhuang and several nearby villages.

The Wang family told outsiders that they hired short-term laborers from other places because they were worried that the tenants in the village would be too busy to handle the good harvest this year.

However, the villagers in the surrounding area were very dissatisfied. In previous years, the Wang family would hire able-bodied men from the surrounding villages for the autumn harvest. This year, they suddenly went to other places to hire people, leaving the able-bodied men in the village idle and losing an income.

More importantly, this group was quite large, numbering around two hundred people. The village elders then sent Fang Dajiao to the county government to deliver a message, suspecting that something was amiss.

After receiving a reward of three hundred coins last time, Fang Dajiao figured that Zhang Sanlang was also a member of the county government, so he went directly to Jinshi Lane and told him first.

After Zhang Sanlang relayed the information from several sources, Zhao Xie's face suddenly darkened. "The day laborers from Wangjiazhuang, the merchants at the docks, and the displaced people from the abandoned docks. There are over four hundred people in these three places alone?"

Zhang Sanlang nodded.

As the two were talking, Li Hang and Sun Jizu entered one after the other.

When Li Hang entered, he was carrying a teacup. He placed the teacup on the table, sat down in a chair, looked at the three people, and said, "Everyone's here."

Li Hang looked at Zhang Sanlang, "Shouli, you go first."

Zhang Sanlang then repeated what he had just said to Zhao Xie.

There are ten people at Yongning Temple, twenty or thirty at the dock, nearly two hundred at the abandoned dock, and nearly two hundred migrant workers from other places in Wangjiazhuang, whose identities are unknown.

After he finished speaking, Li Hang didn't reply immediately. He tapped his finger on the table and looked at Zhao Xie, "Changyan, what about you over there?"

Zhao Xie's face darkened. "I wandered around outside the city for a few days. I found two groups of people acting strangely. One group was delivering grain to the abandoned dock. I didn't follow them too closely, but from a distance, I could tell that group had about two hundred people."

"The other group went further, with several donkey carts carrying grain, heading into the mountains. I followed the cart tracks and found myself at the old site of the prison camp. I could see people moving around in the camp from afar, with ten sentries visible and at least three more hidden sentries."

"I didn't dare get close. Judging from the smoke from cooking fires, the food supplies, and the waste dumped from the camp, there were probably two hundred people there. However, there are also mines near the camp that could hide another hundred or so people."

His gaze lingered on Zhang Sanlang's face for a moment as he spoke.

Zhang Sanlang nodded slightly.

The information they found corroborated each other, indicating that the intelligence was accurate.

Li Hang's face darkened. "So, there might be as many as seven or eight hundred of these people."

Zhang Sanlang picked up the conversation, "Based on all this information, the number of men that Master Wang has gathered must exceed seven hundred. That's more than double the three or four hundred we originally estimated."

The room was quiet for a moment.

Li Hang leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers lightly on his knee. "This matter must be reported to the prefectural government."

Zhao Xie raised his head.

Li Hang didn't look at him and continued, "The enemy this time is far greater than expected. Seven or eight hundred bandits have gathered here, which is no small number. With only a hundred archers from the county, I'm afraid we'll lose more than we win."

"Even with the able-bodied men in the city, they can only defend the city and cannot launch an offensive. If the bandits split up, with one force containing the archers and the other attacking into the city, the civilians will have no power to resist and will suffer heavy casualties."

"Our original plan was far from sufficient. We cannot gamble with the lives of the entire city's elderly and children. Reporting to the prefectural government and requesting the Imperial Guards to encircle and annihilate them is the only sensible course of action."

He spoke these words with a solemn tone, his concerns were well-founded, and not a single word was untrue.

When he finished speaking, Li Hang looked at Zhang Sanlang with a questioning look in his eyes.

Zhao Xie immediately shook his head, "It can't be reported!"

His tone was even harsher than Li Hang's. "The prefectural government is a mixed bag. Who is the registrar Hao Yun, and who is Kong Wenfu? Who knows if these people have any connections with Feng Jian or that Master Wang!"

"Once this matter is reported, the news is very likely to leak out. If the bandits act prematurely or do not act as we expect, all our preparations over the past two weeks will be in vain."

Li Hang turned his face and said, "If we don't report it, how can the Imperial Guards and the local troops coordinate? Without outside help, the ambush plan on the day of the Autumn Sacrifice will be difficult to execute even if we win, with only the manpower of the county. We won't be able to leave many survivors."