Quick Transmigration: Underdog Turns out to be Untouchable

Chapter 1045: Chapter 956: Official of the First Rank 17

After achieving a complete victory, the villagers looked at the corpses of the mountain bandits in front of them, with rivers of blood flowing, and only then did they begin to feel fearful. Some had weak legs, some vomited, and the bloodlust from before had all dissipated. Only a few people with strong personalities remained standing. After all, they were ordinary common people who had never seen blood, and such a large-scale scene was overwhelming.

Fortunately, the mountain bandits were all people who deserved to die. The villagers were just not used to killing and the brutal aftermath, but they didn’t have the burden of conscience for killing, so it was relatively easy to recover.

After that, it was time to report to the officials. The villagers’ act of killing the mountain bandits was a great achievement. The County Magistrate and the County Magistrate themselves arrived. When facing these mountain bandits, the young men in the village thought of the bandits’ previous ruthlessness, and subconsciously used all their strength, striking the most vital spots. The more afraid they were, the harder they struck.

As a result, most of these mountain bandits died on the spot. By the time the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate brought people to the scene, more than half of the surviving bandits had died.

In the end, only a dozen bandits could be handed over to the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate. They did not care about the casualties of these bandits. After all, these people were destined to die, and even if they didn’t die here, they couldn’t escape the blade on their necks.

Compared to how many bandits died, the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate were happier that with these bandits dead, the county finally found peace, their official positions were secure, and reporting the eradication of such formidable bandits was another merit.

As for the fact that the bandits were not eliminated by the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate, it was not a big deal. Granting Yu Family Village a three-year tax exemption in exchange for the credit of eliminating these bandits was a good choice for them. The County Magistrate and the County Magistrate glanced at each other with a smile, both seasoned officials with an unspoken understanding.

The villagers of Yu Family Village had no room to object. In fact, it was benevolent of the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate not to seize credit or exaggerate the merit by including the villagers of Yu Family Village among the bandits and arresting them to make up the numbers.

Actually, according to the current law, aside from the Emperor, no officials have the authority to exempt taxes, but now corruption is rampant, and the Emperor is ignorant, with minimal control over the officials below.

The County Magistrate’s power was not very great, and he did not dare exempt an entire county’s taxes, but exempting a village’s taxes for three years was still achievable for a County Magistrate accustomed to reporting false tax figures.

To put it bluntly, this tax exemption wasn’t truly granted by the officials; it was just that the County Magistrate privately ordered his tax collectors to skip Yu Family Village during collections. However, if the County Magistrate were to leave his position during the three-year period, this so-called promise of tax exemption would no longer exist.

The County Magistrate and the County Magistrate left happily with the bandits, but they still needed to take some of the horses the bandits rode in on. The County Magistrate and the County Magistrate took away only the best horses, leaving the remaining horses for the hundred or so households in the village, along with the bodies of five horses that had been accidentally killed.

This was truly an unexpected joy. The villagers, already overjoyed with a three-year tax exemption, didn’t expect to gain such benefits as well. They genuinely knelt in gratitude to the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate, referring to them as Mr. Qing Tian.

Perhaps the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate were not particularly good officials, but they clearly had some compassion for the common people, at least not treating their lives as insignificant. In this world, that makes them the hardest to come by good officials.

After the County Magistrate and the County Magistrate left, the village chief and the elders invited Murong Shuangshuang to distribute the horses to each household. As the one who contributed the most, Murong Shuangshuang received the best horse.

The villagers had no objections to this. Everyone knew that if it weren’t for Murong Shuangshuang, they would have been looted empty like other villages, or suffered heavy casualties.

It was Murong Shuangshuang who tirelessly trained them, Murong Shuangshuang who hunted in the mountains to provide enough meat for the people to eat well and build strength, and it was Murong Shuangshuang’s planning that led the village’s young men to crush the attacking bandits.

Without Murong Shuangshuang, Yu Family Village would no longer exist, let alone the current three-year tax exemption and a horse for each household. With talent and real benefits brought to everyone, even though Murong Shuangshuang is just a child, she is revered as a prodigy of the village, trusted and respected even more than the village chief and elders.

As for whether Murong Shuangshuang’s wisdom at such a young age indicated a reincarnation of a demon, in peacetime someone raising such a suspicion could have led the whole village to fear and reject Murong Shuangshuang.

But now, although there is no great chaos, it is already a chaotic world. In such times, anyone capable of saving them from danger, ensuring they have enough to eat and drink, is like an immortal descended to earth.

If anyone dared claim something wrong with Murong Shuangshuang, saying she’s a demon, the villagers, thoroughly convinced by Murong Shuangshuang, would rip the person apart themselves, then treat Murong Shuangshuang as a reincarnation of a Bodhisattva, praying for her protection over the village.

This aligns with the logic of seeking any possible cure when desperate. People in peaceful times are calm and rational, but in desperate times, praying to ghosts and gods, hoping to change their lives in the intangible divine, and revering once-demonized people or ghosts as gods, passionately worshiping them daily, is not an uncommon phenomenon.

After dividing the horses, the villagers were deeply pained by the five horse carcasses. During the bandit attack, though the young men of the village targeted the bandits on horseback, some villagers, too nervous, accidentally hit the horses, causing their deaths.

Now the horses belonged to the villagers, and the sight of the dead horses made their livers tremble with pain. Though horses aren’t as strong as oxen for farm work, they are still a great labor force.

Rural people cherish their livestock. Seeing these horses dead was a blow, and though dead, there’s nothing they could do to bring them back. They could only endure the pain and butcher the dead horses to make jerky.

Murong Shuangshuang took the opportunity to suggest preserving the horse meat with the previously prepared wild boar jerky, assigning the village elders the task of cooking meat soup every day, allowing everyone in the village, regardless of age or gender, to have a bowl for nourishment daily.

Especially with the County Magistrate’s promise of a three-year tax exemption, the entire harvest from the fields would be theirs. Without the need to pay taxes, there would naturally be no shortage of food and drink, and they wouldn’t have to rely entirely on meat for nutrition.

Murong Shuangshuang believed that with this approach, the villagers would improve their physical fitness more quickly, be better able to withstand training, and this time, Murong Shuangshuang intended for the entire village of Yu Family Village to participate in training. Except for elders and young children who couldn’t train, Murong Shuangshuang hoped for the whole village to arm itself.