Sanliang City is not as prosperous as the nearby county seats, and even compared to other towns in the county, it is only a moderate level. ##看xiǎo说必去##但是相比内地边陲的一些穷乡僻壤处的州县城要繁荣的多.

Today is not a market day, there are no vendors on the threshing floor, only a few idlers chatting and watching the excitement. Seeing the boat enter the pool, everyone was whispering.

This old man Luo on the ship is the number one gentleman in this town, named Luo Tianqiu. Luo Tianqiu is a person in the last years of Wanli, not to mention the fame, his family is still a local old household, not only the population of the clan, but also a few talents, the grandfather of the old man Luo has also been lifted, and he has been a state and county official for several terms, so the family has accumulated thousands of money, and has raised many family thugs, Sanliang City is not so much the country of the Ming Dynasty, but the fiefdom of the Luo family.

The sedan car of the Luo family was already waiting at the dock, and Master Luo came back from going out today, and after getting off the boat, he always had to stand on the barge for a while, look around, and then stomp his feet to relax his muscles. However, today he was not so interested, and went directly into the sedan chair and left.

The sedan chair was carried across Yahang Street - the earliest trading house on this street was the Yahang opened by the Luo family, and the Luo family started its fortune by relying on his family's ancestors to violently monopolize the mat grass here. After four generations of kung fu, he finally became one of the best people in the local area.

The house was rebuilt when Luo Tianqiu's father was alive. It's very magnificent. However, after a few decades, the gold-lettered signboard on it was a little dim in the sun, and Luo Tianqiu's heart moved: it's time to re-gilt!

The Luo family's mansion, in the northwest corner of Sanliang City, is a large area of houses under black pressure, which looks very weather-strict. In addition to residences, there are also "barn-house", "rent-house", "steward's house", and "group-house house". Among them, the warehouse yard is dedicated to storing all kinds of goods and daily necessities. The rental yard is specialized in collecting rents and weighing scales, storing grain, indigo, mat grass and various agricultural products; The Stewardship is responsible for the management of various properties under the name of Luo Zhai; The group house was for the householders, servants, subordinates, and men of the Luo Mansion to live in. There are hundreds of houses.

On the blue brick mén wall, there is a large empty space paved with stone slabs in front of the mén, and at this time there are dozens of stewards, stewards and elders and other figures, all dressed in green clothes and hats, neatly dressed. As soon as the sedan chair fell, in the shout of the leading butler: "Welcome the master back to the house", all the deacons knelt down together and kowtowed.

Luo Tianqiu didn't look at the courteous greetings of the slaves. His face was a little haggard, and in the three or four days in Dongguan, he feasted and drank and entertained, sang dogs and horses every day, and went around to give gifts to guests, and his body and bones were really unbearable.

He went up to an inner house and used the shoulders of two people, and was carried to the inner house by the sedan chair drivers.

Luo Tianqiu went to the county this time to compete for the post of deputy head of the Dongguan County Youth League Training Bureau. The main regiment of the regimental training bureau is always the county order, and the two deputy regimental commanders are actually the principal personnel of the regimental training bureau. And the income of the League Training Bureau has made many people salivate: Dongguan County has been leviing three cents of silver per mu on the field since last year. The hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the county are tens of thousands of silver.

In addition to the money, the regimental training bureau can also use the name of running a regiment to "raise donations", which is actually no different from forcibly recruiting hardliners. All in all: a good income.

The normal use of the regimental training money was to recruit and train regimental warriors, purchase weapons, and build fortifications, but in fact, two-thirds of it was embezzled by officials at all levels and the gentry in charge of running the regiment. Therefore, the deputy regiment has always been the object of prying eyes of the powerful gentry in the county. In the past, the Luo family could not compete for this position, but now the head of a family died suddenly, leaving only a minor son. This vacancy immediately attracted the attention of many people.

In order to compete for this position, Luo Tianqiu immediately brought a large amount of silver to the county seat as soon as he received the news. After some sī entertainment, Luo Tianqiu finally competed for the deputy head of the Dongguan County League Training Bureau.

It stands to reason that the deputy regiment will always bring the 1,000 brave men recruited in the county to be ready to fight at any time, but Luo Tianqiu, or Song Yasi, the other deputy regiment commander, are all from the squire. They can't compete for power. Moreover, they do not have the concept of leaving their nest to fight and serve the people of the county. After the power was in hand, the two of them coincidentally sent their own sons and nephews to the county to act as their agents. Luo Tianqiu is ready to send one of his nephews, Luo Heying, to be the "acting deputy head of the regiment".

Luo Tianqiu was in the county for three or four days, and heard a lot of bad news -- Liu Xiang, who had been active at the mouth of the Pearl River, was gone, and the thieves who claimed to be Australians came, and they also fought a battle with another group of pirates at the mouth of the Pearl River and won. Taking advantage of the situation, the officers and soldiers of the tiger mén were also defeated, and now they are occupying the tiger mén, and it will not take a few days to plunder everywhere along the river.

The incident of sea bandits and river bandits harassing and looting along the Pearl River has also happened in the past. That's why Sanliang City has become so heavily guarded. But this time it was the "thieves" who came with their ships and guns, and their names were already well known in the locality, and there were legends everywhere about how fast their ships were and how indestructible their cannons were. And the capture of Hu Mén made Luo Tianqiu have a great shock -- Dongguan County Ling Fan Wencai recently expanded the forts of Hu Mén, and Sanliang City also provided a lot of people and money and grain. When Luo Tianqiu personally escorted the people to Hu Mén, he went to the construction site and saw the various arrangements of the officers and soldiers in Hu Mén, and at that time he thought that no ship could sail into the Pearl River unharmed by such a dense bombardment of Hongyi cannons.

Although Fan Wencai kept silent about the battle of the tiger mén, he knew how terrifying the scene was at that time from the fact that every time he mentioned the thief, his face would turn white. Fan Wencai was obviously uneasy when he talked to him in the county seat, and he repeatedly inquired about the defense of Sanliang City. Is it close to the main channel of the Pearl River? Whether the big ship can get close to Sanliang City and other details. Luo Tianqiu thought that the county commander wouldn't want to abandon the city and escape, right? How sacred is a thief who can scare Fan County Order like this?

Huā took a little silver, and knew from one of Fan Wencai's servants that the thieves' artillery fire was extremely fierce, and several of the forts of Hu Mén were bombarded by the thieves' cannons in less than half a day, and the 2,000 officers and soldiers were routed without any effect like the earth dogs.

"I didn't expect thieves to be so rampant!" Luo Tianqiu secretly hated, of course, he was also very scared in his heart. Although the city of Sanliang also has a walled wall and two watchtowers around the town, its defense is mainly based on natural terrain: the river is as dense as the palace, and foreign ships that are not familiar with the waterway environment will run aground, and sometimes even run aground. A few years earlier, he had launched Ding Zhuang's bamboo fence along the riverbank—a simple facility that could effectively defend against the landing of bandits who drove their boats deep into the shallow waterways.

This level of defense is definitely no match for Australian artillery. Luo Tianqiu thought, fortunately, Sanliang City has a bit of a geographical advantage -- not only is the water network complicated, but the water depth of the river is generally very shallow, and boats that are too heavy and too big cannot enter.

The big ships can't get in, and the cannons can't get in. Even if the thief was coming, he could only be a bandit of the xiǎo stock sitting on a sampan xiǎo boat. There will not be many people, let alone heavy artillery and many baggage. As long as you fight locally, it seems that you can also fight the bandits.

Luo Tianqiu thought about it like this, and when he arrived in the upper room, the maids waited for him to change his clothes and wash. When his wife heard that he had not yet had lunch when he returned, she came to see him with a maid carrying a food box. When she saw him send the servant out, she sat down in the chair of the master without saying a word, and was a little worried, so she sat down at his table and said:

"Master went to the county this time, didn't things go well? Five hundred taels of silver still can't satisfy Master Fan's appetite? ”

"Things are going very well," Luo Tian said, "Master Fan has appointed me to be the deputy head of the regimental training bureau, and I will come down in a few days." It's just that now I have gone to Liu Xiang's thorn, and there is the thief's bone! ”

Da nǎinǎi didn't know who the thief was, and said, "This bandit on the sea, go one by one." This has been the case since the beginning of the Apocalypse, we are far away from the waterway, the defense is tight, and there is no one to respond, even if the pirates can enter the inland river, they will not dare to attack rashly. It's just that I've been worried about these days, and when I think that you are going to be the deputy head of the regiment to send troops to fight, my heart is scared. ”

"It doesn't matter, I don't need to go to the war in person - I plan to let Heying, this kid go to the county to be the deputy head of the regiment, he is Wu Xiucai, and if he goes to the county to experience and experience, maybe he can get a background."

"Heying, this kid is fine. That's how he asked him to dance the knife nòng gun, in case something happens, how to treat your ninth sister-in-law jiāo? ”

"Since you want to fight for wealth with a knife and a gun, you can't be afraid of death." Luo Tianqiu twisted his beard and said, "In case the thieves come to Sanliang City, Ding Zhuang will all go into battle, even if it is me, the head of the family, it will not be by the destiny of heaven at that time." ”

"Well, if only they were all safe." Da nǎinǎi is in her forties, and she is already close to her twilight years in this time and space, and she has lived a life of pampering and pampering, so she is very worried about the more and more luàn world outside, "In recent years, there have been water bandits and pirates all day long, and the weather is not good. Even the tenants have stirred up. One by one, they all came to complain and beg for please! How are you going to live this day? If you don't clean up this bunch of mud, you won't be able to live this day! ”

"How can the world be luàn, as long as we settle on these three good cities, it will not be in the way--live like this." Luo Tianqiu said, "The tenants let them take a step first, and they will be relieved of some - they will still point to them to work hard when they start a war......

"Those who refuse to contribute will chōu their land and seal their houses, look at this gang of mud tuǐzi who dares not to sell their lives!"

To be continued)