The village chief pulled Aunt Liu: “Do you want to borrow? Why not get a household registration? Maybe you can get away with it.”

Aunt Liu shook his hand away: “You stingy man, is this the time to be stingy with money?”

“If we are discovered, our whole family will be beaten with a stick, and we won’t be able to move after being beaten. Look at the people around you, do you think that at that time, our family’s food can still be kept?”

“Our silver and food will be robbed! My grandchildren may also be captured and sold, we will either starve to death or die of pain!”

The village chief recalled the miserable situation described by Auntie Liu and nodded helplessly: “Okay, then borrow it. Alas, I have spent all my family’s wealth fleeing famine. We shouldn’t have left.”

Auntie Liu glared at him: “We shouldn’t have left?”

“If we don’t come leave, someone will come to our house to steal food. Do you believe it?”

Their family was one of the richest in the village. If those people have no food, won’t they steal or rob them?

Haven’t they seen too much evil along the way?

The village chief sighed: “That’s right.”

He waved his hand painfully: “You go borrow it. Alas, I don’t know when I can pay it back after borrowing it.”

Gu Zhang picked a piece of wood to use as a table to write the letter, but there was no ink pad, so everyone rubbed some ink on the edge of the ink stone and pressed their fingerprints.

The village chief’s family borrowed 30 taels. Auntie Liu was such a smart person, she knew that the opportunity was rare, and it would be good if she could borrow more.

Gu Zhong borrowed 20 taels, Aunt Huang borrowed 10 taels, and Zhang Laoda’s family borrowed 30 taels.

The eldest aunt’s family borrowed 30 taels.

Gu Rong also borrowed 30 taels.

Su Chen lent almost 150 taels of silver. Zhang Ze took back a stack of IOUs.

While holding the silver bills, everyone looked at Gu Zhang and had a new question.

Who should they give the silver to? How should they pay it back?

Uncle Ma said in a deep voice: “Get the cart on the harness and rush to the city gate. Since everyone has decided to enter the city, don’t delay. This place may not be safe at night without soldiers.”

This was true. Some disaster victims around were staring at these mule carts, but they didn’t dare to do anything because there were so many soldiers at the moment.

Uncle Ma said again: “Each family will hand over the silver bills to Zhang’er according to the number of people, and everyone will enter the city together.”

The silver bills that had just been received were not even warmed up, and they were handed to Gu Zhang one by one.

Gu Fei also took out 120 taels and gave them to her father.

Gu Zhang was careful and took the household registration of each family, and put the silver bills and household registration papers of each family together.

After harnessing the cart, everyone walked through the pile of disaster victims and walked to the city gate.

Seeing so many people and carts coming at once, the officers and soldiers who were specially checking the household registration at the gate perked up.

Walking in front was the village head and his family. Gu Zhang smiled and handed the household registration paper to the officers and soldiers, and flipped his fingers up slightly to reveal the silver bills underneath.

The officers and soldiers were very sensitive to silver bills.

If there was no silver to be collected, they would not be willing to guard the city gate and do this hard work.

The high-ranking soldiers took the biggest share of the silvers, while the soldiers guarding the side could only take the small share.

The officer pretended to look at the household registration, but he was looking at the number on the banknote. A soldier beside him had already counted the heads and shouted: “9 people.”

The officer nodded and counted the banknotes. It was exactly ninety taels of silver. He quickly took out the banknotes and put them in his sleeves, returned the household registration to Gu Zhang, and shouted, “Pass–”

Gu Zhang stuffed the household registration to the village chief, and the village chief and his family hurried through the city gate.