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Chapter 613: Side Story: Growth Diaries of the Empress (III)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

What are bandits?

They are robbers who make a living by rampaging and pillaging. They commit only bad deeds and do no good. It is an occupation that only benefits oneself at the cost of others.

However, ever since an intrepid woman became the leader of the bandits in the hills, the bandits realized that they could rename themselves “Lei Feng” [1].

1“Eh, guys, tell me, is there something wrong with this leader of ours? We are bandits, not government officials. We are only in charge of robberies and murders, so why do we have to open up land and grow crops? Doing all this weird stuff makes me feel embarrassed to death!” A bandit pointed to his head discreetly, then glanced towards the house at the center of the stronghold.

“Who cares if there’s something wrong with her, we can’t defeat her anyway,” another bandit grumbled in a low voice. “We can’t defeat her. She can beat your brains out with a single blow of her fist. Who would dare to provoke her? Didn’t you see how our previous leader ended up? His neck was crushed by just two fingers until he stopped breathing. I saw it. So much of his tongue was hanging out...”

Initially, the stronghold of the bandits had been a colony of men. The women there only had one role. They were tools for the men to sleep with and express their lust.

But it just so happened that a fearsome woman had appeared out of nowhere and single-handedly mowed down all the men in the stronghold.

At first, they were afraid of her physical power and had no choice but to submit to her rule.

After some time, a few men that were originally in charge were dissatisfied with her “tyranny” and protested severely.

After all, they were men, impetuous bandits used to a promiscuous lifestyle. How could they stand life without women by their side?

It was a pity that all the women in the stronghold whom the bandits had captured had been released by the female leader. She was the only woman left in the stronghold after that.

Affected by vile emotions, the few men that were originally in charge planned to launch a sneak attack on the female leader and tie her up as their sex slave.

In the end... Before the men even had a chance to act, the female leader acted preemptively and strangled them to death in front of all the other men in the stronghold. She crushed their cervical vertebrae, then awarded their corpses to a few tigers that she’d captured.

His words reminded his companion of cruel memories. He shivered stiffly.

Since then, all the men in the stronghold were traumatized by fright. All those who could escape ran away. Those with nowhere to go could only tremble as they worked under the female leader. No one dared to lift his head and look directly at her for fear of being chopped up and fed to the tigers.

“Hey, don’t scare me. I had nightmares for more than half a month after that day...” Recalling that he had just mentally criticized their female leader for being wrong in the head, the bandit couldn’t help but feel his legs shaking. He trembled nonstop.

Meanwhile, Jiang Pengji was too lazy to bother with these rumors.

To her, it didn’t matter whether or not the bandits were loyal to her. What mattered was that they were sufficiently obedient.

“Why are there so many bandit strongholds nearby?”

She’d promoted a relatively clever bandit to be a not-so-competent advisor to her.

He was said to have been a somewhat reputable scholar before becoming a bandit. He had studied for two years and was fairly literate.

“Alas, the climate hasn’t been good for the past few years. Who knows how many civilians will survive? The high-ranking officials in court only care about themselves. Who knows how many people have been hounded to death because of the taxes their family owes each year? They have to become bandits when they can’t sustain a living, so there are quite a lot of bandit strongholds forming nearby,” the advisor said.

Jiang Pengji frowned.

Paying taxes?

“People get hounded to death because they can’t pay their taxes?” She rarely spoke, and when she did, it was with a strong, unplaceable accent.

The not-so-competent advisor was surprised.

He wondered where on earth this leader had come from. How was it possible that she didn’t know this?

He replied, “If they can’t collect taxes, the authorities will seize everything in the household that can be sold. If the family has good-looking daughters, the daughters might be taken away and sold too... In short, anything tragic that you can think of is probably happening out there. Being born as a human being nowadays means suffering.”

Jiang Pengji was silent for a moment.

She remembered that Widow Zhao’s late husband had been killed when his head hit a rock after a tax officer pushed him violently.

Every time the incident was mentioned, Widow Zhao’s expression would turn pale. She often had a despaired and pained look in her eyes.

The present situation was so bad that a lot of civilians became bandits.

The government couldn’t be bothered to deal with the bandits. Suppressing the bandits required a lot of manpower, material, and monetary resources. The money allocated by the higher-ups was all used up by the time the funds went through layers of bureaucracy and embezzlement. So, the bandits acted more and more reckless, rampaging and pillaging, fighting and taking over each other’s territory. Not long after Jiang Pengji occupied the stronghold, they were attacked by some of their “peers.” The other bandits had heard that the stronghold had just changed leadership and thought that they might have a good opportunity since the stronghold must have been weakened.

However, endings commonly went beyond expectations.

Not only did they fail to rob the stronghold, but their headquarters were seized by Jiang Pengji and her minions.

She sorted and counted the various incomes, expressionless. “No wonder so many people have become bandits. It is indeed faster to earn money through robbery.”

The bandits kneeling on the ground at her feet were nervous. Some couldn’t help but wet their pants, suffering from urinary and fecal incontinence.

One couldn’t blame them for behaving too cowardly. It was because Jiang Pengji killed people so ruthlessly.

She fought her way through the gates of the stronghold. Countless corpses lay by her feet, the bloody aura making her seem like a malicious ghost that had climbed out of hell.

Bandits were bolder than ordinary people, but they were still mortal beings after all. How could they withstand her suppressive aura?

For the ordinary person, a fierce aura was something that must be cultivated over time. For her, she could suppress others in the mental region and forcefully sear slave markings onto their minds, making them unable to have the slightest intention to fight back when they faced her.

Having obtained “financial income” this time around, Jiang Pengji liked to seek trouble more and more.

On one hand, it provided “additional income” for the stronghold colony. On the other hand, she expanded her territory and manpower.

Gradually, Jiang Pengji became a well-known bandit in Hejian District. Some strongholds took the initiative to submit to her rule without needing her to seek them out. In the short span of half a year, the number of people in the stronghold increased from a few dozen to four or five thousand. It expanded so quickly that it alarmed the district magistrate of Hejian!

The district magistrate of Hejian was nervous, afraid that Jiang Pengji was going to stir up trouble. But Jiang Pengji restrained her subordinates and lay down several strict rules. Whoever disobeyed them would be chopped up and fed to the tigers.

However, as bandits, how could four to five thousand people make a living without an illegitimate income?

Of course, there were ways. On one hand, Jiang Pengji gave orders to open up land and be self-reliant. On the other hand, she chose better-talented bandits and trained them in martial arts, letting them protect the companies of traveling merchants and collect certain sums as a “protection fee.”

At the moment, the world was starting to descend into chaos. It wasn’t so easy to run a business, for companies of merchants would often get robbed by bandits.

The luckier ones would lose money and goods. The unluckier ones would lose their lives. One single incident was enough for them to lose everything.

It was the first time that many of the merchants heard that bandits were working as armed guards instead of robbing and murdering people!

On a side note, could they not pull off an inside job?

Due to the lack of competition from their “peers,” it was relatively easy for them to get jobs.

They would directly go up to the main road and wait, acting as though no one could pass as long as one of them was blocking the road. They would then force the passing businessmen into hiring them to guard their goods.

So, would the businessmen choose to pay a small sum of money to hire them as guards, or wait for them to rob them of all their goods?

Many of the businessmen were furious, but they couldn’t do anything about the situation, so they had to force themselves to bear with it.

[1] Lei Feng is a Chinese historical figure well known for being altruistic and always helping other people.