Just as Yang Zhengshan was hesitating over whether to take a stroll into the mountains, a boy of fourteen or fifteen came to his home.
"Grandpa Zhengshan, my grandfather is looking for you!"
The boy was named Yang Chengze, Yang Zhengxiang's eldest grandson.
"What happened?" Yang Zhengshan asked, setting down the woodcutter's machete in his hand.
Yang Chengze quickly stepped up to him. "Some refugees have arrived outside the village. They want to seek shelter in our village."
"Refugees? Where did they come from?" Yang Zhengshan asked in surprise.
The autumn harvest had only just ended. This should have been the time when ordinary people were most well-off. For people to flee now, they must have encountered a man-made calamity.
"They're from Little Forest Village. Bandits struck the night before last and burned the entire village down! Over a hundred people died. Only a dozen or so escaped, and now they've all come to our Yang Family Village!" Yang Chengze said.
Yang Zhengshan's brows drew together slightly. The notice he had seen in the county seat yesterday had been about the bandit trouble. He had not expected to encounter refugees displaced by it today.
Little Forest Village lay north of the mountain behind Yang Family Village, roughly a dozen li away.
Winter was about to arrive. Though the villagers of Little Forest Village had escaped the bandits, they had no food and no homes. Faced with the bitter winter, it would be difficult for them to survive.
Among the surrounding villages, Yang Family Village might not have been the wealthiest, but it possessed the strongest fighting force. It was only natural that the villagers of Little Forest Village would seek shelter in Yang Family Village after suffering a bandit attack.
"Let's go take a look!" Yang Zhengshan did not refuse