In the forty-third and fourth years of Wanli, Shandong experienced a major drought that had not been encountered in a thousand years, and at least several million people were lost due to the ineffective handling of the imperial court, which can be said to be a catastrophe that Shandong had not encountered in a thousand years, but this was only the beginning of a series of disasters.

Not to mention the increasingly frequent droughts, locust plagues and floods, Shandong has become a battlefield of fighting several times over the years.

During the Apocalypse, there was a Wenxiang Sect Xu Hongru uprising that swept Lunan, and in the second year of Chongzhen, there was a change in Dengzhou, and in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Qingshan occupied Liangshan to cut off the canal, not to mention that Shandong also had to assume the responsibility of aiding Liao after a disaster.

However, the greatest population loss still comes from the Qing army entering Koushan Shandong twice in the twelfth year of Chongzhen and the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, each time it was a slaughter of countless cities, killing all of them, and losing at least a million people.

It is said that millions of people were killed after the massacre of Jinan alone, and Linqing City also lost hundreds of thousands of people under the slaughter knife of the Qing army, and the ordinary county town was repeatedly ravaged and slaughtered by the Qing army.

After all, even Jinan, Linqing such a big city was easily broken by the Qing army, ordinary counties are more fragile, even if the Qing army can barely hold on for a day or two in the siege, but the Qing army's red-coated cannon is still the end of the immediate city, and the Qing army will definitely slaughter the city after breaking the city.

In May of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Xu Biao, the governor of Baoding in the Ming Dynasty, said, "The minister came from Jianghuai, thousands of miles to see the city fall into the emptiness, that is, there is a complete city, only four walls remain, the basil is full of paths, the chickens and dogs are silent, and they have never met a cultivator." How many lands, people, and people are there now? Why did the emperor rule? ”

And now less than a year before Xu Biao traveled north, the situation in Shandong has become worse and worse, and there are rampant bandits everywhere, some of which even directly went out of the banner of Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, and did not take the court in his eyes at all, and in fact, the law of the court has disappeared in the eyes of the officials and the people.

Tong Yili has always been known for his "knowing soldiers", so when he was in Cangzhou, he had already planned to organize the army of King Qin in Shandong, and even thought that Empress Zhang did not have to go south to Huai'an, and completely summoned Shandong Fu and political envoys on the canal, and then directly took up the position of supervisor in Jinan, but when he saw the two sides of the canal broken, his heart was cold: "It seems that Shandong cannot be defended for the time being!"

Liu Yongxi also agreed with Tong Yili's opinion: "Shandong is completely undefendable and undefendable, not only is it already ruined and there is no usable army!" ”

Everyone thought that he was talking about how to fight against the Dashun army that might go south, but what Liu Yongxi was actually talking about was the bad situation after the Qing army entered the customs.

The Qing army entered Koushan Mountain twice as if it was in a no-man's land, and even attacked all the way to the Haizhou line, except for a very small number of cities, most cities and towns could only break the city immediately when the Qing army attacked, and only a few cities could hold on for several days, and as long as the Qing army used red-coated artillery, there was no city that could not be attacked.

After the Qing army entered the customs, Shandong bore the brunt of the situation, and the situation was even worse.

After all, the Qing army entered Kou Shandong twice and fought baselessly and did not dare to stay for a long time, but then the Qing army could rely on Beizhili and Henan to launch a larger-scale offensive.

Taikang Hou Zhang Guoji is an understanding person, seeing that Liu Yongxi and Tong Yili are not optimistic about the situation in Shandong, he immediately made up his mind: "Since Shandong cannot be defended and cannot be defended, then there is no need to delay the time to cross south as soon as possible!" ”

It's just that Shandong is broken and there are also benefits of being broken, recruiting soldiers and buying horses suddenly became easier, in Cangzhou Fuding not only promised a lot of conditions, but also as long as you enlist in the army, you can get an family bank and allow advance military salaries, and there are still very few people who are willing to take the initiative to sign up.

After all, people leave their hometowns cheaply, and ordinary people will not leave their hometowns unless they have to do so, and a small half of the more than 30 people who enlisted in the army this time are still coerced and coerced by all means.

These Cangzhou recruits did not break the idea of escaping until they arrived in Shandong, where they were unfamiliar with the place and did not know how to go home, and the white bones on both sides of the canal were like mountains and extremely dangerous, they were safer to stay in the team, and if they broke away from the team, it would be a dead end.

Since the banks of the canal are so dilapidated, it is difficult for them to survive now, no matter whether they were gentry and powerful in the past or Shengdou small people, as long as Liu Yongxi and Fuding take the horse team to run over, there will be hungry and almost formless homeless people kneeling on the ground and expressing their willingness to follow Liu Yongxi south.

The composition of these displaced people can be said to be extremely complex, some of them were originally scholars who had been cultivated and studied for generations, and there were many talents, tributes and even people in their families, some were once strong and powerful in the fish and meat township, some were honest and honest people, and there were many merchants, butchers and even county officials in the past.

Some of them were even originally bandits who plundered on both sides of the canal, but most of them were ordinary Ming people before they became bandits.

But no matter what their past status, they are now only seeking a way to live, and many of them have bathed for the first time in months and eaten for the first time, let alone eaten the horse broth that Liu Yongxi specially prepared for them.

In the past few days, everyone has been eating the batch of dead horse meat pickled in Cangzhou and is almost tired of eating, but in the eyes of these homeless people, this is an incomparable delicacy, and they almost cried: "Finally eat meat!" ”

Although Liu Yongxi's force is changing its banner every day, sometimes it is the Sincere Bofu and the Governor of Caojiang, sometimes it is the king Li Zicheng, and sometimes it becomes the Liangshan Li Qingshan, but for these displaced people on both sides of the canal who are trying to survive in hell on earth, it doesn't matter what banner they play, they just want to live.

As the so-called "people leave their hometowns and are cheap", but not only have their families been ruined, but even the hometown where they grew up has been wiped out, and the butcher's knife of the Qing army has destroyed all the original order, so they did not hesitate to join the team of Chengyi Bofu after smelling the fragrance of horse broth, and even several small groups of bandits were brought by the leader to surrender.

Most of these bandits were forced to go to Liangshan because they couldn't survive, but now Liu Yongxi's appearance allowed them to see a ray of light in the infinite darkness, so they rushed over to surrender as soon as possible, and they only had one condition, that is, to ask Liu Yongxi to allow them to go south with their dependents.

Liu Yongxi not only contained these bandits, but even allowed them to temporarily maintain their original structure and go south together, and their dependents even had the opportunity to sit on the boat and travel south together, but in this way, the strength of the Sincerity Bofu naturally snowballed more and more.

Only 30 recruits were recruited in Cangzhou Fuding, but after entering Shandong, the "righteous people" and their dependents who came to defect have exceeded 200 people, and even if some of the old and weak dependents who are not suitable for the battlefield are removed, there are still more than 100 soldiers who can fight.

And these Shandong recruits may have lived out of hell, and now after a few full meals and horse broth after taking a bath, they have all become outlaws who are not afraid of death, although they only have improvised spears and knives in their hands, but they have the spirit of sweeping Liuhe.

And the fleet is about to reach the next goal: "The front is to Linqingzhou!" ”