In the sound of the carriage, Liang Shifa watched for a while, and saw the convoy leaving, and the sentry watchman followed and left, and the whole market returned to calm after a short time.

Liang Shifa didn't look any further, turned back, and entered the inn on the corner of the street, where there were mostly ordinary people passing by, and more than a dozen people crowded into a large shop, and the snoring sound in the house was shocking, and the smell was stinking.

Liang Shifa didn't care, his current status is not low, his income is also high, his home is clean and tidy, and his wife also hired a small maid and a maid, a mother-in-law, and an old man in the porter.

There were four more people in the family, serious tiled houses were built in the backyard and open space on both sides, the original five thatched houses were overturned and rebuilt, and a three-entry mansion of about 20 rooms has become a shape.

The original six people and four servants lived in the twenty-odd mansion, which seemed quite empty.

This is not only the Liang family, Min Yuanzhong, Min Yuanjin, Yang Zhijin, Gao Cuncheng and others have all stripped off the old house and built a new house.

Due to the needs of the salt pond and the workshop, a number of small brick kilns were built on the vacant land near the 400th household, and more than 100 people made bricks every day.

Liang Shifa didn't think much about his family and his own courtyard mansion, he is now an ordinary merchant, he came to Huai'an Mansion to buy goods, and he will leave soon.

Putting down the pick at his feet and covering the futon he brought with him, Liang Shifa seemed to be fine, and soon fell asleep.

……

At dawn the next day, Liang Shifa packed up his belongings, ordered a bowl of soup cakes at the soup cake shop at the corner of the street, and ate them like a storm.

While he was eating soup cakes, the Zhu family had people coming in and out, looking around like flies.

Overnight, all the people who could be the masters of the family disappeared, and these subordinates were also flustered, and they didn't know what to do for a while.

After a short time, the sound of horses' hooves was heard from the corner of the street, and a group of cavalry galloped from the direction of Liu Zeqing's mansion, led by the Chinese officer Li Huajing.

Yesterday, Liu Zeqing sent his brothers, nephews and confidants to lead his troops, and that night he remembered that there was still the Zhu family in the city.

Liu Zeqing and Zhu Renzhong have dealt with each other a few times, the status of the two sides is not far from each other, Liu Zeqing is also humble and polite, the Zhu family is a generation of wealthy businessmen, not only among the clansmen, but also many relatives and friends have status, and ordinary businessmen can not be compared.

There is also Nanjing Xungui behind him, otherwise he would not be able to stand up among the salt merchants, and Liu Zeqing would not be able to offend at will.

At this time, the soldiers have been used to pass the cloud ladder, and they can't let go of the Zhu family, otherwise they will have to bother to go to Zhang Luo's channel to get the salt pool, even if there is Yang Shili's helper, but according to Liu Zeqing's temper, there are ready-made candidates available under his rule, so why bother to go near and far? After arresting the Zhu family, after getting the salt pond, are you still afraid that the Zhu family will not work?

As for the gentry among his clansmen, as well as the forces of relatives and friends, according to the current general trend, Liu Zeqing is no longer very concerned.

More than ten years ago, as long as the Zhu family had a short county from a jinshi, it was a trivial matter to bluff Liu Zeqing, the general soldier, at least to make him rein in a little bit, and not to do things too much.

Even three or five years ago, with the background of noble and high-ranking officials, Liu Zeqing would not break up and would leave some leeway for both sides.

At this time, it is the time when he is arrogant, and even Emperor Hongguang regards him as his protégé, and he lacks respect for top officials like Ma Shiying and Shi Kefa, and is just polite on the surface.

In the old days, the matter of welcoming the Donglin Party was regarded as a shame by Liu Zeqing, if no one mentioned it, it would be fine, and if someone dared to mention it, I was afraid that it would be difficult to save their lives.

Li Huajing took the errand in the morning and didn't dare to slack off, and quickly rushed to Zhu's house with a team of people.

Unexpectedly, the Zhu family had become a pot of porridge, and Li Huajing didn't believe what the Zhu family said, so he ordered the soldiers to enter the house to check it.

After a while, Zhu Renzhong, Zhu Wanchun, Zhu Wanhe, and the women and children were not there, and there were no cronies and housekeepers or the like, only those domestic servants who did heavy work stayed in the house.

Li Huajing was angry for a while, Liu Zeqing's temper was ruthless to the people around him, and if he couldn't do it, he would beat and scold, even Li Huajing was no exception, the things in front of him were messed up, and in a fit of anger, Li Huajing asked people to arrest all the people of the Zhu family and torture them on the spot.

The torture lasted for half an hour, and two servants were crushed on the spot, and most of the rest were seriously injured.

In the early morning, the damp streets of Fucheng were covered with blood, and the sound of screams spread for miles.

No one dared to come out to see the excitement, all the shops hurriedly closed their doors, and those who opened closed their doors again, and even the sound of the top door could be heard.

In front of these vicious guest soldiers, no one dares to guarantee that Li Huajing will not wantonly take out anger on irrelevant others, once it encounters it, it will be a disaster of pond fish, and it will be unlucky.

After the torture was useless, Li Huajing led the crowd away with a gloomy face, and the Zhu family's subordinates were either dead or injured, and they fell to the ground one after another.

At this time, the shops dared to open the door, but no one dared to treat them for a while.

Liang Shifa also pretended to be afraid, mixed in the flow of people and walked towards the city gate, and soon went out of the east gate.

Not far from the city, there was a big car parked on the side of the road, Liang Shifa saw that there was no one left and right, so he hurriedly got into the car, there was a coachman's outfit and some rice goods, he changed his clothes and then went to the front of the car to whip the horse, the big car quickly set off, and drove in the direction of Guannan County.

After walking for more than ten miles, it was already past midnight, the sun was rising high, and the weather was getting hotter.

The seventh month of the lunar calendar is the hottest time of the year, and Liang Shifa, like an ordinary vehicle, rushes to the shade of the trees.

This avenue is the official road leading from Fucheng to Guannan, with rammed earth as the base, drainage ditches and trees planted on both sides, and the same as the ordinary official road of the Ming Dynasty.

After noon, the convoy of pedestrians gradually increased, and they all gradually gathered in one place and slowly gathered.

This time is not a peaceful and prosperous era, even in such a densely populated place, a few people and scoundrels gather together and dare to stop cars to grab money and goods, the government is too lazy to care about these things now, as long as it is not a large group of bandits, a few people grab things and leave, and no one pays attention to them at all.

Everyone walks in the shade of the trees, flanked by a babbling river, some fishermen with nets and small boats on the river, and some fishermen, holding bamboo poles in twos and threes fishing in the shade of the trees for fun.

At this time, it was also the time of slack, and there were not many farmers in the fields on both sides, only a few people held hoes and hoeed grass in the fields.

After walking for a while, when passing by a market town, Liang Shifa saw a large group of noisy guest soldiers in the town.

There were already a few hundred soldiers stationed here, and one or two thousand soldiers came from the city, scattered and stationed in the town.

It is calculated that this place is about more than 30 miles away from Huai'an Fucheng, and it should be that the guests marched here after leaving the city yesterday.

Liang Shifa stopped the car and listened to the crowd like ordinary people watching the excitement.

More than 1,000 soldiers also came to the town about 20 miles to the south, and they couldn't stop when it was hot at noon.

Such a large-scale dispatch is not like the usual small units of grain brigades, and even so, the faces of all the people who are talking about it are full of fear.

When such a large-scale guest soldier arrived in the town, he immediately looted and fed everywhere like a straggler, extorted the shopkeepers, and the generals did not restrain them, and they also went to the rich families in the town to requisition mansions, so that the rich families could worship them, and the upper and lower levels were effective, and those ordinary guest soldiers had no one to care about their lives or deaths, and they had to find their own way to eat, but before dark at night, all the guest soldiers had to enter the camp and set up a meal, which was regarded as a relief to the people in the market town and nearby villages.

However, the military discipline of the guest soldiers is not good, and there are a lot of evildoers who come out of the camp wall at night, because they are out of discipline by climbing over the wall, and many cases of forcible, rape and murder are mostly done by the guest soldiers who come out of the wall at night, they are more animalistic and brutal than during the day, and they will only be slightly restrained after being stationed for a long time.

As soon as these large groups of guest soldiers arrived, the people in the vicinity were already planning to move and hide for the time being, otherwise it would not be uncommon for the whole family to be killed when they encountered the guest soldiers who came out to kill and loot at night.

Liang Shifa's face was the same as everyone else's, but there was obvious resentment and contempt in the depths of his eyebrows.

Ordinary people are just afraid and angry, and even hide their anger, once something contemptuous of the guest soldier comes out, maybe they will be reported, the flail is light, and if they don't get it right, they will die.

Only Liang Shifa was full of contempt for such officers and soldiers in his heart, from leading soldiers to serving as soldiers, he was completely a group of bandits in the name of officers and soldiers.

This is still the fucking elite from Fucheng, what kind of goods are those miscellaneous brands, you can imagine!

At this time, several horse-like cavalry galloped out of the market town, galloping out of the town under the gaze of everyone, and did not care at all about the people on both sides of the official road, and galloped out in the barking and exclamation of chickens and dogs of everyone.

Then it is directly separated from the official road and the farmland on both sides, and where the horse's hooves step on, the soil in the farmland immediately flies, and a large area of rice seedlings is stepped on and floats in the water.

Fortunately, it was more time-consuming to ride horses in the rice fields with water, and these cavalry turned around in the fields, and then quickly galloped onto the official road, and in the complicated eyes of the people, they soon disappeared on the official road.

Liang Shifa cursed in a low voice, and then continued to hurry under the scorching sun.

This is a large plain area, farmland after farmland, and there will be a village for a few miles, and the scale is mostly small, ranging from a few dozen households to more than a hundred households.

Villages are usually built on one side of the road, followed by roads and canals, and then another village is located a few miles apart.

After five or six villages, or a dozen villages, there will be a market town, large or small.

The market town is formed by dozens of houses or more than 100 houses, most of them are small businesses, and there are also some large shops and commercial houses, and the scale is much smaller than that of Fucheng County.

There are some wealthy gentry and the like who will also live in the market town, and occasionally there are archways at the entrance of the town, and most of them are written to raise people or enter the meritorious name.

There are also some archways of filial piety or festival women, most of them have not been repaired by the family, and the government has left it alone after repairing, and it has been damaged under the invasion of wind and rain.