After drinking their tea, the group was in no hurry to eat. Instead, they cooled themselves in the shade and chatted merrily.
Some among them were better informed. Having held it in all morning, now that they had the chance, they could no longer keep it bottled up. They immediately opened the floodgates and said mysteriously to their companions, "Have you heard? They say Bing Province, You Province, and Yang Province have all sent people over. Guess what they're here for?!"
But their companions merely exchanged smiles before saying, "Wang Si, your news is already old. This spread everywhere last night. What else could they be here for? They've come to submit their letters of surrender."
"If that brat emperor of Great Cang learns about this, he'll probably be angered to death on the spot."
"But it only serves them right. When Great Cang ruled us, they never treated us like people. Back when we did corvée labor, not only did we have to provide the labor, we had to bring our own grain and money too. Otherwise, we either worked ourselves to death, starved to death, or got beaten to death. Meanwhile, those big households made a fortune every time there was corvée labor. It's not like now. I heard that Chen Qi, who works the fields next to mine, is the young master of a wealthy family from the south. Yet isn't he still working alongside us all the same now?"
"And those scholars are no good either. Before, they actually claimed the Grand General loved slaughtering cities, making it sound utterly convincing. But in truth, all the people the Grand General fought and killed were tyrants and bullies. I nearly got fooled back then."
"Tell me, how can people who've read books be so wicked?!"
Someone picked