After being demoted, my 300,000-strong army trampled the imperial city!

Chen Futu shook his head, pointed to the thatched hut from which the sound of a child crying was coming, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Dian Wei, standing to the side, was also dumbfounded, staring blankly at the pitiful woman with his tiger-like eyes. "You already have a child, how could you do such a thing?"

The woman's nose stung, and tears streamed down her face. "My husband was beheaded by the authorities. We've run out of food. I'm starving, and my baby has no milk. He'll die..."

These few words were so poignant that Chen Futu was speechless and asked the heavens in despair.

What kind of world is this!

"Brother, do you need it? I can give you a discount."

"Old Wei, you go."

Chen Futu gave him a look, and Dian Wei shook his head frantically, "I won't go, I can't do such a beastly thing."

Besides, he's as strong as an ox; such a frail woman couldn't handle him.

"I told you to go inside and wait a while, and give her some money. Don't you understand?" Chen Futu scolded in a low voice with a dark face.

Dian Wei slapped his forehead in sudden realization, and then, steeling himself, followed the woman into the thatched hut.

Next, Chen Futu led several guards forward. Along the way, women came out one after another to ask if he wanted to drive piles. Chen Futu found it both funny and sad. He simply told the guards to go, but not to do anything else. He told them to come out after he paid them some money. If anyone broke the rules, they would be killed without mercy.

The guards dared not cross the boundary, and so Chen Futu returned to the village chief's house alone. When he mentioned the matter to Yan Qing and the others, Yan Qing burst into tears, sobbing, "If the emperor is tyrannical, how can the people live in peace?"

She has always been kind-hearted and cannot bear to see the suffering of the people. Unfortunately, no matter how strong the northern frontier is, it is beyond her reach at this moment. She only hopes that the king will soon subdue the Central Plains and allow the people to live a decent life. If that day ever comes, she is willing to donate all her family property.

"I have sensed your intentions, Madam. That day is not far off."

Everyone was in a bad mood that night.

The following morning, as the convoy left the village, they saw several women kneeling by the roadside. These were the women who had been rewarded the previous night. They dared not express their gratitude in public, so they got up early to wait for the convoy to come and thank them.

Chen Futu couldn't bear to look and urged the caravan to speed up.

Three days later, the convoy was about to arrive in Beijing. The people's lives were still not good. They even saw some corpses along the way that had not been collected, as if something had happened.

According to Liu Longyue, the people in the capital region were doing alright, but those outside the capital region lived in poverty.

The main impact was from the war.

War is a continuation of politics and a powerful tool for shifting internal contradictions.

Each campaign consumes countless resources, and only by achieving results can the morale of the people be appeased and the losses from the war be made up.

After Chen Futu left the capital, the Great Qian Dynasty suffered countless defeats, a complete rout. This led to insufficient supplies and forced them to levy exorbitant taxes on the people, a form of plunder.

The people of Daqian are currently under a state of high pressure. In addition, Chen Futu has sent the Imperial Guards to spread rumors among the people of Daqian. It is foreseeable that a people's uprising will break out soon, and if things go wrong, it will spread like wildfire.

Yan Qing said angrily, "That's even better. A short pain is worse than a long one. Only by killing all those damned royals can the people have any hope of survival!"

Chen Futu neither confirmed nor denied this; his purpose in coming here was simply to add fuel to the fire.

"Sir, there's a small town ahead. Let's rest there."

Qiwen pointed to the town in the distance.

Chen Futu decisively ordered them to move closer.

When the convoy reached the vicinity of the town, they realized something was wrong. The town had been sealed off by government troops. After inquiring, they learned that there was a plague in the area.

"No wonder we saw the remains of some people along the way."

Chen Futu was somewhat numb. He was no longer surprised at all by how the old and incompetent emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty had governed the country.

The old dog's mind is no longer on the common people; his attention is focused on the excessive exercise of imperial power. He leaves the court officials to deal with the crisis among the people, but they only go through the motions. Their motto is to avoid mistakes rather than seek merit.

Since we couldn't get into the town, we had to go somewhere else.

As we encountered more and more blocked-off villages along the way, everything was deathly still. Finally, as night fell, we found a small town.

As soon as they dismounted, the group heard the man's mournful cries.

In the crowd, a man was rolling on the ground, clutching something and crying his heart out.

Chen Futu and his companions curiously entered the crowd, only to find that it was a meat stall. The most terrifying thing was that there was a woman's head on the meat counter. The face was very young and beautiful, but it was bloodless. Two snow-white arms were hanging from the meat hooks on it.

Upon seeing this, Liu Longyue and Yan Qing turned pale and quickly ran out of the crowd, bending over in the corner and vomiting profusely. Ge Fei was also shocked, her pretty face turning ashen, and she grabbed Chen Futu's arm frantically.

Dian Wei and Qi Wen stared at the woman expressionlessly. They were martial artists who had killed countless people and had long since seen life and death, so they felt no disgust.

Chen Futu summoned an old woman, gave her some money, and inquired about the inside story.

The old woman pulled the man to a corner and whispered, "You must be a merchant from out of town."

"Yes, may I ask what happened?"

"Alas, how tragic, so tragic. The scholar's wife was from a collateral branch of the Zhou family. After the Zhou family was exterminated, she thought she could survive by staying away from Zhongshan. But the prince captured her, tortured her, and then ordered her to be brought back. He cut off her flesh and ate it among the villagers. Those who refused to eat were killed. He even claimed that the Zhou family had rebelled, and that as a prince, he should eat their flesh and sleep on their skin to deter disobedience throughout the land. When the scholar heard the news and rushed over, he saw his wife being eaten, and that's how she ended up like this."

As the old woman spoke, she looked down at the little dumpling in her arms and felt nauseous.

Chen Futu frowned and asked, "Whose fiefdom is this?"

"Prince Xin, Li Tong".

So it was that damned bastard...

Chen Futu laughed in anger.

No wonder he could do such an absurd thing; it's not surprising that it's Li Tong.

Li Tong was arguably the most tyrannical of all the princes. Legend has it that he specifically captured many pregnant women from the eight chieftain tribes under his second brother, the Prince Kang, and brought them back to enjoy. The details of this were too cruel and vicious to describe. In any case, he was just like Zhu Shuang, the Prince of Qin, the second son of Zhu Yuanzhang. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he was as stupid as a beast.

Chen Futu had originally thought that spreading rumors by the Embroidered Uniform Guard would have the best effect, but now Prince Xin himself had handed the people a knife.

"Oh no, oh no—"

The old woman shook her head and left.

Chen Futu looked with pity at the scholar who was lying on the ground, clutching flesh and blood, crying until he could barely breathe.

Prince Xin is a freak. If he only wanted to punish those involved, he could have killed this scholar as well, but he didn't do that. He just wanted to play around.

"Prince Xin, if you fall into my hands, I'll skin you alive!"

Chen Futu was furious.

The strange text whispered: "I heard that Prince Xin kept many retainers in his palace. He even forcibly took a minister's wife into his room, and then killed her. He hid her body in his sleeve and hosted a banquet for everyone. During the banquet, he got drunk, took out the bones, and cut flesh into a pipa in front of everyone. He cried and sang, saying that the beauty was gone and he regretted it."

Chen Futu said coldly, "The old emperor doesn't have much time left. If I'm not mistaken, Prince Xin has already entered the capital. We'll meet him there. I'm giving you a mission: the team battle can be lost, but Prince Xin must die. The other princes can wait. Before we leave, you have to capture that bastard. This time, I'm determined to kill him."

"Rest assured, I will certainly do it."

Qiwen also deeply resented Prince Xin, and the reason he stopped serving as the imperial tutor was more or less due to these princes.

Apart from the crown prince, few of these imperial sons of the Great Qian Dynasty are normal; digging deeper reveals that the whole family is abnormal.