Due to the geographical remoteness of Yingzhou Prefecture, it was not flooded in the flood in the Yangtze River and became a rare safe area, but because of this, after the flood, a large number of people from Fengyang Prefecture, Luzhou Prefecture, Lu'an Prefecture and other places poured into Yingzhou Prefecture.

And so many people poured in, of course, Yingzhou Mansion could not be settled, not to mention that at this time there were floods in other provinces, and it could not help Yingzhou Mansion, and at the same time caused a large number of social contradictions, and at this time, the leaders of the Red Lotus Sect appeared as monks, Taoist and other religious figures, which is also a characteristic of the White Lotus Sect, the congregation often dressed as monks and Taoist priests to confuse the public, but no one dressed as priests. Then, in the name of healing, excess, soup kitchen, relief, etc., he widely recruited believers among the victims.

These leaders will have some medical skills, and they have also prepared some food, plus they can speak and deceive, and make up some myths such as the chaos in the world, the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha, and the salvation of the Lotus Mother. 3,000 strong and brainwashed young men gave them more food, let them take care of their bodies, and organized martial arts training as their backbone.

At this time, the food prepared by the Red Lotus Sect was basically exhausted, and although the leaders of the Red Lotus Sect had some assets, they were not people with a lot of money, not to mention that the price of food in various places was soaring now, and even if they had money, they couldn't buy much food. Of course, the leaders of the Red Lotus Sect were not in essence for disaster relief, but to gather the cultists to raise an incident through disaster relief, so now they were almost ready, so the leaders of the Red Lotus Sect commanded the sect to attack the big households in the countryside. Of course, there will still be some excuses for conflicts between the two sides, or pointing out the other party as demons and monsters.

After robbing several large households in a row, the Red Lotus Sect not only controlled a lot of food, but also played some prestige in the Yingzhou area, so it was able to recruit more believers from the disaster, and soon the number of believers expanded to more than 20,000 people, and the number of backbone forces also exceeded 5,000.

The activities of the Red Lotus Sect, the local officials of Yingzhou Prefecture have heard of it to some extent, but they have not paid much attention to it. Preaching and teaching apprentices are common things, and these behaviors also help to appease the victims and stabilize the place, and naturally there is no reason to stop it, and there are large households that have been robbed, one occurs in the countryside outside the city, and the news cannot reach the city for a while, and the second is that this kind of thing is also commonplace in the year of famine, and the government has no energy to manage it, so it can only ask for more blessings, and it only needs to guard the city well.

However, at this time, some members of the Red Lotus Sect had already mixed into Fuyang, and in the evening, they set fire to the city, and joined forces with the attacking sects outside, and took Fuyang City in one fell swoop.

Occupy the city, you can get more resources, you can recruit more believers, so the Red Lotus Sect's team has also expanded more and more, reaching more than 100,000 people, and also obtained a small amount of guns and ammunition, and at the same time captured Taihe, Yingshang, Mengcheng and other places, basically controlling the entire territory of Yingzhou Mansion.

At this time, East China ** also entered Anhui for disaster relief, and established disaster resettlement camps in Luzhou and Fengyang, so the disaster victims no longer flowed to Yingzhou Mansion, and after the Red Lotus Sect's team expanded to more than 10 thousand, it lost its source, and the speed of expansion also stagnated.

Of course, at this time, the number of Red Lotus Sect troops was also quite large, but the leaders all knew that it was impossible to maintain such a large team for a long time only by looting, so it was necessary to further expand to the periphery, but the leaders had contradictions in the way of expansion, some people advocated the use of force to attack, Bi Jing now Red Lotus Sect's team has expanded to more than 100,000 people, and there are enough troops to wage war; In the name of rescue, recruit followers, and then start an uprising, the Yingzhou Mansion can be used as a base for the Red Lotus Sect to provide support for actions in various places. After all, Yingzhou is bounded by Fengyang Prefecture to the east, Luzhou Prefecture to the southeast, Lu'an Prefecture to the south, and Henan Province to the west and north. But the surrounding area is either the territory of East China, or a resettlement camp has been set up, at this time, the heads of the Red Lotus Sect are still sober-minded, knowing that East China is not easy to mess with, so they finally decided to adopt the Yingzhou Mansion model and expand to the four sides of Yingzhou Mansion.

But the expansion of the Red Lotus Sect is extremely unsmooth, because Fengyang Mansion and Luzhou Mansion have disaster resettlement camps, which have already contained a large number of disaster victims, including some of the disaster victims who fled from Liuhe Prefecture, after all, they can survive, and the people will respect the monks and Taoist priests at most, and they will listen to the brainwashing myths such as the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha and the salvation of the Lotus Mother, that is, to listen to it as a story, but they should believe in Maitreya Buddha, The Lotus Mother or something, no one is willing to do it, so the Red Lotus Sect can't recruit many believers here at all, and it has been busy for nearly 20 days, and there are only 2 or 3,000 believers recruited.

The results of the missionaries in Henan were even worse, because the peasants in Henan under the rule of East China had already been allocated fields, their living standards had been greatly improved, and they had basically achieved food and clothing. Moreover, the management of religion in East China is quite strict, and it is absolutely forbidden for them to run around to preach, and religious people can only preach in religious places, not to mention foreign religions like the Red Lotus Sect, and the control of the grassroots level in East China is far from being compared with the Qing court, and it is simply not feasible for the Red Lotus Sect to take the route of encircling the cities from the countryside. The missionaries were soon discovered by the local **, most of them were arrested, and only a few who saw the opportunity quickly escaped.

The failure of missionary expansion also forced the Red Lotus Sect to take risks and use the method of military expansion, after all, trapped in the Yingzhou Mansion, there is only a dead end, and only by expanding outward can they have a chance to survive, and even sit big.

However, the missionary experience of the Red Lotus Sect in Henan Province also attracted the attention of East China, and soon figured out the ins and outs of the Red Lotus Sect, and also attached great importance to it, Bi Jing was too close to Luzhou Mansion and Fengyang Mansion.

And how to deal with the Red Lotus Sect, there are also two voices within East China, some people think that the Red Lotus Sect can be included in East China, because the Red Lotus Sect is basically from the middle and lower class people, which is also the part of the East China ** to fight for, and there are many members of the original Boxer Rebellion in the People's Army, and the Red Lotus Sect has also participated in the Boxer Rebellion Movement, even if East China can accept the members of the Boxer Rebellion, it will naturally be able to accept the members of the Red Lotus Sect. There are even people who believe that after accepting the Red Lotus Sect, they can also use the religious attributes of the Red Lotus Sect to serve the best, such as stabilizing the grassroots, engaging in underground work, and so on.

But this opinion has also been strongly opposed by another part of the people, although the People's Army did accept a lot of Boxer members, but these Boxer members are scattered to join the People's Army, and did not join the group, and after joining the People's Army, these people basically broke away from the identity of the Boxer Rebellion, completely transformed into the People's Army soldiers, and if the Red Lotus Sect joins East China, it will inevitably join collectively and retain its religious attributes, and the Red Lotus Sect, a loosely organized and random religion, will inevitably give East China ** Causing a lot of instability. Moreover, the goal of East China is to establish a modern country, and a modern country relies on laws and systems, and must not have any dependence on religion, so the Red Lotus Sect should be resolutely blocked, even if it is to be accepted, it must first be broken up by violent means, so that the members of the sect can integrate into East China as individuals, and then accept reform.

After discussion in the Executive Yuan, it was finally decided to adopt strong measures against the Red Lotus Sect and resolutely block it. And at this moment, the Red Lotus Sect also launched an operation and entered Lu'an Prefecture, apparently to invade Luzhou Prefecture. So Qingdao immediately sent a telegram to Shanghai and informed the disaster relief headquarters of the news. He also said that when necessary, he could apply to East China for the transfer of the garrison in Henan Province to provide support.

At this time, Luo Yue had already set sail with the transport fleet, and only Li Songchen remained in Shanghai. After receiving the notification from Qingdao, Li Songchen did not dare to slack off, and immediately sent a telegram to Luo Yue, who was still on the voyage, as well as the resettlement camps for victims in Luzhou and Fengyang.

After reading the telegram, Luo Yue realized that it seemed that the action of this inspection was probably not simple. However, he was not too worried, Bi Jing inspected this time that he brought two battalions of guards, and the resettlement camps of Luzhou and Fengyang also had two battalions of troops each, even if not counting the security teams formed by the resettlement battalions, Luo Yue also had 6 battalions in his hands, about 5,000 troops. Although the Red Lotus Sect has now gathered more than 100,000 people, they are all rabble, Luo Yue doesn't think that the Red Lotus Sect has many modern weapons, if there are not enough modern weapons, then no matter how many people are in front of the People's Army, they are just a pile of meat. Not to mention that there is also a garrison in Henan Province that can provide support. In addition, East China ** also controls the advantage on the water, so Luo Yue thinks that as long as he doesn't make a big mistake, the Red Lotus Sect is not worried.

Of course, the top priority now is to rush to the resettlement camp in Luzhou as soon as possible, understand the specific situation, and make arrangements. In Bi Jing's battle just now, the fleet had been delayed for more than 2 hours. But before that, the issue of the captives must be resolved.

So Luo Yue ordered two warships, Zhecheng and Shipu, to escort the four captured warships and Qing soldiers back to Shanghai, and handed them over to the Shanghai Disaster Relief Headquarters for disposal, and then rushed back to the Luzhou disaster resettlement camp to join him.

The officers in charge of each warship were left on the Zhecheng, and the other crew members and soldiers still lived in their own ships, but all the weapons and ammunition on the ship were collected, and the guns on board nailed the fire door, and two squads of soldiers were left on each ship to guard. In this way, there will be no accidents on the way back. Moreover, Luo Yue was not very relieved, and sent a telegram to the Shanghai Disaster Relief Headquarters, explaining the situation, and asking Shanghai to send a warship to meet him halfway, so that nothing would go wrong.