In the blink of an eye, six days passed, and the day of Ren Ye's meeting with the Jingshan Bandits arrived.
Over the past few days, Qingliang Prefecture seemed shrouded in dark clouds. Rumors and unease filled both the Prefectural Yamen and the streets outside.
Among the common people in particular, after the city's residents learned that the trade routes had been cut off and eight traveling merchants killed, their outrage was accompanied by considerable resentment toward the local authorities, as well as distrust and doubts about Prince Huai's personal leadership.
Such sentiment among the people was actually rare. Whether when the Prince Huai Party seized power in Qingliang Prefecture and blood ran in rivers, or during the later battle at Dangshan Pass, with tens of thousands killed or wounded, the common people had offered little complaint and taken no extreme action...
Why?
Because for most ordinary people, who held power and who was in charge did not matter, nor was it something they could decide. Whether Qingliang Prefecture remained independent or submitted to the Great Qian Dynasty made little difference to them. They simply had to be good little nobodies.
Yet once the trade routes were severed, complaints rose everywhere, provoking intense public discontent.
Because this concerned their livelihoods, their daily lives, and even their survival.
With their immediate interests under serious threat, how... how could anyone feel at ease?
Over the past few days, quite a few gentry, wealthy merchants, and ordinary people from the bottom rungs of society had come together to the Prefectural Yamen to ask about progress on restoring trade.
But while they called it asking, it was more a matter of applying pressure. And this was not something the Prefectural Yamen could suppress by force, which would only backfire. Old Huang was truly overwhelmed