In Yang Zhengshan's heart, Yang Mingcheng was the most honest, Yang Mingzhi was the one who could least sit still, and Yang Minghao was the carefree, heartless one.
But Yang Zhengshan did not know that among the second generation of the Yang Family, the most restless one was actually Yang Mingzhao.
This could not really be blamed on Yang Zhengshan. Yang Mingzhao had simply been extremely well-behaved from childhood to adulthood. Growing up, marrying, having children—he had always followed the rules, and he had always been diligent in martial practice and cultivation. This gave Yang Zhengshan an illusion: my son is a filial, sunny big boy.
Yet this sunny big boy had now run off to Bashu to become a bandit.
Bashu, northern Kuizhou Prefecture.
In a valley hidden among layer upon layer of peaks lived more than five thousand commoners.
These five thousand commoners had all fled into the mountains after the great drought in Kuizhou Prefecture over ten years ago. When they first arrived here, there had only been a little over three hundred of them, and the valley had been nothing but wasteland. But after more than ten years of reclamation and development, they had grown to more than five thousand people and opened up over twenty thousand mu of farmland.
Although the valley was very barren, the grain it produced was not much, and life was bitter and poor, they were still willing to hide in these mountains and live here, simply because here they still had a mouthful of food to eat, while once they left this place, they might be starved to death alive.
There were no harsh taxes and levies, no corvée labor. Even if life was poor and hard, they could still survive.
High mountains stood all around the valley, and only