The mountain bandits' culture was very wild spread here, there were more bandit nests than there were rabbits. This situation could be said to resemble the saying - 'wildfire could never cease, reborn again with the spring breeze'.

The relationship between the Southern Frontier Army and the Ministry of War resembled that of a child and its stepmother: their funding was nowhere near efficient, so they could not afford to fight back against the bandits.

And although the bandits won in numbers, their general combat power was limited. If facing the imperial army, they could only end up having their nests swept through one after the other. Hence, they would greatly fear the garrison troops as well.

When people had money, all they would want to pursue was peace and stability. No one would wish to live a life of being chased after — mountain bandits, in the end, were still human.

Thus, in the long run, the Southern Frontier Army and the local bandits had formed a mutual relationship.

The Southern Army commander, Fu Zhi Cheng, was originally a bandit. On one hand, he restrained them, tried to let them loot only money without injuring passers-by, but on the other hand, he did not cover for them either. The funding for the Southern Frontier troops every year was incredibly limited, and for them to be able to sustain themselves to this day, the 'contribution' of these bandits could not be ignored.

The collusion between officers and bandits was of course not something to be proud of, Gu Yun was fully aware of this. In the past two years, the Emperor had been promoting the farming puppets and opening the business road; these were clearly great policies for the country to make the nation rich and strong. But no one knew where the problem lay -- not only did the National Treasury become emptier, even the military funds had to be cut down again.

The South had just experienced flooding. The disaster had since passed but the relieving process was still undergoing. If a battle were to break out, the bandits would start to scatter to villages and towns, and the people would be even more devastated. But if the imperial court truly wanted to remove the commander of the Southern Frontier Army because of this incident, Gu Yun simply could not think of any other who could keep guard of this place.

With these two dilemmas, one could only pick the lesser one: Gu Yun had no choice but to temporarily think of a way to save Fu Zhi Cheng.