Chapter Eighteen: Conflict

  As soon as they left the mountain, Hu Meng took the lead and guided them forward, because Long Chen was completely unfamiliar with the outside world.

  "Look over there, sir! I found you right there!" Hu pointed to a small river bend, which was already gradually freezing as winter approached.

  "I'm curious, how did you come down from the mountain before?" Long Chen remembered that Song Gang had told him that only generals above the rank of commander could have the face to go out and stroll around every now and then from the small village at the back of the mountain, but Hu Meng was just a small flag.

  "Hey, every month we have to go to the provincial capital to collect military rations. These hard labor tasks are naturally not done by the soldiers, so they're assigned to us in rotation. Last time I came back from transporting grain, I passed by here and saw you lying unconscious by the river. Your attire was a bit strange at the time, but it wasn't Korean clothing, so I thought maybe you were a Han civilian, and I carried you back." Hu Meng said excitedly, after all, he was now the lifesaver of his superior officer.

  Two people chatted idly as they walked, and after half a time, they crossed a gentle slope, and the shadow of a county town could be seen vaguely. At this time in late autumn, there were no crops in the fields, but the smell of human habitation was strong. Scattered among the fields were some farmhouses, simple and dilapidated ones being ordinary farmers' homes, while grand and majestic ones surrounded by walls were naturally those of wealthy families, although this grandeur was only relative.

  "Look, that's the Jin residence. Every time we transport grain, we take a break there." Hu Meng was excited when he saw the Jin residence.

  The Jin residence occupies a large area of land, with stone walls built outside. Although it is daytime, there are still guards patrolling on the walls.

  Long Chen would not have thought that the owner of the Jin mansion was being hospitable and inviting these grain-transporting Tianchao soldiers to enter his mansion to rest, but rather that these soldiers were taking advantage of the opportunity to go to the Jin mansion to cause trouble and extort some money. As the saying goes, "guest soldiers are like bandits", let alone foreign soldiers who can be so hospitable to local villagers.

  "Hu Meng, can we get into this mansion now?" Long Chen asked, mentally calculating the height of the wall and the guards patrolling on it.

  "Haha, at this time, it's natural that we can't enter, every month when we transport grain, we have more than a hundred soldiers, everyone holding guns and shouting in front of the Jin mansion to rest for two days, the owner of this house has no choice but to come out and invite us?"

  "Since we can't get in, let's just forget it. I reckon the owner of this Golden House is already considering whether to move out or not, being disturbed by you people coming to their doorstep every month, they must be very uncomfortable."

  "Who said he was the largest household closest to our journey? Sir, you don't know, these Korean civilians and our Liaodong refugees have almost the same life, basically there is no profit, all the profits are in the hands of these big households."

  "Let's go a bit further and take a look, we'll come back here tonight." Long Chen gently pushed Hu Meng.

  "Come at night?" Hu Meng was stunned for a moment, "Sir, you wouldn't be thinking of leaving from here?"

  "We can't just come here empty-handed, right?" Long Chen said calmly.

  "Sir, there are about twenty guards inside the Jin residence." Hu Meng's heart skipped a beat as he realized they were going to sneak into the mansion with just the two of them.

  "It's just twenty, let's go, I want to take a look at the county town." Seeing Hu Meng still in a daze, Long Chen couldn't help but urge him.

  Hu Meng only then remembered his own master's skills, these twenty guards were still not enough in the eyes of the master, he just needed to be careful at that time.

  The castle walls of Joseon are naturally incomparable to those of the Great Ming, and are simply a smaller, simplified version of the grand city walls, just like comparing the royal palaces of Joseon to the Forbidden City in Beijing. However, although small, they have all the necessary organs, with soldiers patrolling the walls and sentry posts at the gates, and some peddlers starting to sell vegetables, fruits, and poultry at the gate, turning the area into a small vegetable market.

  "These people setting up stalls here all pay a small tax to the soldiers at the checkpoint, which is much lower than the taxes collected in the city."

  "Do you know this? Can you understand Korean?" Long Chen was puzzled how Hu Meng knew these things.

  "There are few people here who speak Korean, but many Koreans can speak Chinese. Last time when we were transporting grain, a Korean official saw us off at the city gate and couldn't help but scold the soldiers guarding the city in Chinese."

  No sooner had Hu Meng finished speaking than he was knocked off balance with a loud "ouch" and only managed to steady himself by taking two quick steps to the side.

  "Which dog bumped into your grandfather?" Hu Meng was very honest to Long Chen, but that didn't mean he had a good temper.

  But in just an instant, the guy who bumped into him suddenly vanished without even leaving a shadow behind, and when he turned his head to look back, his own master was also nowhere to be seen.

  "Where did the adults go? They didn't even tell me. Ah, no! My money pouch is gone!" Hu Meng only then discovered that the money pouch tied around his waist was missing, and inside it were the silver coins he had saved for a long time.

  Just a short distance from Hu Meng, a shout came out of the crowd. Hu Meng squeezed through the crowd to take a look and found that the person standing in the middle of the crowd was not his own master, but rather his master's foot was stepping on a young man with tattered clothes, who was probably the thief who had stolen his money pouch.

  Long Chen saw Hu Meng coming and threw the money bag in his hand to Hu Meng. Hu Meng was overjoyed and quickly took the money bag.

  "Let's go." Long Chen pulled his foot back from the young man's back and dragged Hu Meng away.

  "Sir, this scoundrel actually dared to steal my wallet, let me go break his legs!" Hu Meng was furious.

  "It's fine as long as the money bag is returned." Long Chen came down the mountain this time to stir up trouble, but not at someone else's city gate.

  Who knows that after the young man crawled up from the ground, he spat out the dust that had just been eaten into his mouth, and his fingers pointed to Long Chen, who was full of Korean words.

  Although Long Chen couldn't understand Korean, he could still tell whether it was good or bad words. Long Chen furrowed his brow, he had let this kid off easy, but the kid seemed to be a bit ungrateful.

  Long Chen had just caught that little thief, and the commotion was a bit too loud, unexpectedly startling two sentry soldiers at the city gate.

  Those two soldiers heard the young man's shouting and turned their heads, holding up the forks in their hands to scold Long Chen and Hu Meng.

  The ones who understand thieves the most are undoubtedly the local police. That thief probably has some connection with these soldiers. At this moment, after being caught and having his money bag taken back by the owner, that young man actually felt that he had lost face, so he called over two city gate soldiers.

  Hu Meng and Long Chen were not wearing the usual Korean military uniforms, so the two Korean soldiers thought they might be Chinese refugees. They also remembered that a small thief had told them that these two men had a lot of money on them. In that case, there was no need to be polite. Take them down first, then talk about it later. The money would be theirs, and the two men could still be sent to do hard labor for the authorities. What's not to like?

  Long Chen himself was not in a good mood, the previous theft incident was tolerated, but now these two soldiers came to provoke him, so there was no need to tolerate it. I don't know why, looking at these two Korean soldiers holding long spears and dancing back and forth in front of me makes me feel very annoyed, let alone their mouths constantly churning out Korean bird language.

  "Go catch that little thief." Long Chen ordered Hu Meng.

  Hu Meng knew that this was his own family's patriarch being provoked to anger and about to take action, so he immediately nodded in agreement. Hu Meng also had a belly full of resentment towards that little thief.

  Two city guards, Ding, still holding pitchforks, intimidated Long Chen. Both Long Chen and Hu Meng were tall and strong men, but for the time being, they didn't dare to act rashly. They shouted at them to let them go, but these two commoners seemed not to understand their words.

  Long Chen's right arm reached out, grabbing the handle of a soldier's spear and pulling it towards him. The soldier was caught off guard and stumbled forward, and Long Chen immediately kicked him to the ground with one foot. The kick was not held back, and the soldier curled up on the ground, clutching his stomach and spitting out white foam.

  Another soldier saw the situation, angrily shouted and raised his pitchfork to kill. Long Chen had just snatched the pitchfork and clamped it against the opponent's pitchfork, and the two pitchforks were actually entangled together. With his right hand holding the pitchfork and stalemate with the soldier, Long Chen drew out a short knife and threw it at the soldier.

  Mao Yu Jun gave a short knife, sharp that is not to say, directly inserted into the opponent's chest, that soldier seemed to lose strength, the fork in his hand also fell.