Chapter 401 – Surprise Attack in the Rain
The weather at the end of spring had cool mornings and evenings. However, around noon, it was quite hot. The meat from the wild pig could not be left out for too long or else people would get sick from eating it. After getting Zhu Junyang’s permission, Yu Hai gave one adult pig and one half-grown pig to the villagers. He even helped them to cut it into smaller chunks to divide amongst everyone there.
The villagers only brought food along with them that was easily stored. Other than a few people who brought some dried meat along, the rest of them only carried some coarse grain to whet their hunger. Now with two catties of wild boar meat per family, most of them were very grateful towards Yu Hai and Royal Prince Yang.
For the past two years, the villagers at Dongshan Village had pretty good lives and weren’t as poor as they were before. In previous years, they were only able to eat some meat during the New Years. Now they were usually able to buy around a half catty of meat every couple of months so that their children could eat some. Two catties of wild pig meat were worth around a hundred copper coins on the market!
However, there were also people who had greedy hearts, such as Madam Zhang and her son, Yu Dashan. In their eyes, Yu Hai only strolled around the forest for a bit to get a lot of boar meat. That meant the Yu Family had been eating a lot of meat in these past two days! In contrast, they had only been eating wild vegetables, fruits and whatever they could scrounge. It was a worse living situation than the disaster year so they felt very resentful about this. A flame of hatred ignited in their hearts towards Yu Hai and his family!
At noon, Yu Xiaocao made a giant pot of twice-cooked pork and also braised the pig’s head and intestines. Although she didn’t have all of the spices needed, with the mystic-stone water on hand, the taste was still acceptable. She soaked the remaining boar’s meat in mystic-stone water. The caves were relatively cool so it wouldn’t be a problem to store the raw meat for one to two days.
However, when she was making lunch, Yu Xiaoao discovered that there was barely any white rice or white flour left. Everyone else could endure eating more coarse fare as they had lived through hard times before. However, the princess consort had grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth and had been pampered all of her life. Her complexion had become more sallow in these past two days. Her body was already weak to begin with and she wasn’t able to sleep very well on the hard rock bed in the caves. If she couldn’t eat well either, it was possible she wouldn’t be able to endure much longer.
Yu Xiaocao brought this problem up to Zhu Junyang and analyzed the pros and cons. Yu Hai and Commander Zheng were also present. The group was silent for a bit before Zhu Junyang finally frowned and said, “No need to worry. Tonight, I’ll go into the village and snatch some grain to bring back! The estate’s private army should be here by tomorrow or, at the latest, the day after tomorrow. Just endure another two days and then we’ll figure things out!”
Yu Hai thought for a bit and nodded his head, “This morning there were red clouds all throughout the sky which means it will probably rain in the early evening. We can use the cover of the rain and strike when they are least expecting it! Our cellar at home has plenty of grain but I just don’t know if the pirates moved it all out!”
Zhu Junyang lightly shook his head, “They probably haven’t taken all of the grain! The leader of the Wokou pirates and a few of his close subordinates are all living in your residence. They need to eat and drink too, so they absolutely wouldn’t take everything to the ships. This evening, we will also investigate their ships. The best case scenario would be to damage them. Once my family’s soldiers arrive, they won’t be able to escape even if they wanted to!”
