Ever since Liu Ximing ordered a secret trade with the thieves, the Liu family's trading system has benefited greatly from this.

Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, Li Zicheng and other rogues have been crisscrossing several provinces in the Central Plains for many years, and have already accumulated a large amount of wealth.

There were not only a large amount of gold, silver, jewelry, and antiques that they carried, but also a lot of silver tickets and other items that they sent into various prefectures and cities to exchange for money.

In the past six months, the Liu family has traded more than 3 million taels worth of silver with these thieves all over Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Huguang, and it is expected to reach 7 million taels by the end of the year.

Coupled with the smooth sale of a large number of goods brought back by Liu Ximing from the South China Sea, by the middle of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the Liu family's gold and silver reserves will reach 25 million taels.

Even if Liu Ximing wants to abolish the money ticket system now, relying on these gold and silver alone can effectively support the demand for money under his own power.

After more than five years of development, the grain output of the Liu family at this time has already exceeded the point of self-sufficiency.

At present, among the two prefectures and four counties secretly controlled by the Liu family, the annual output of grain is as high as 23 million stones, which is more than enough to feed one million people.

Before trading with these thieves, the Liu family's surplus grain could only be reused by brewing wine, grinding flour and making vermicelli.

Now, by exporting a large amount of their own grain and cotton cloth, not only did the Liu family be able to hoard a large amount of gold and silver, laying a good foundation for governing the world in the future, but also helped Zhang Xianzhong and other troops quickly recover their strength.

At present, Zhang Xianzhong's department in Fang County has recovered its strength, and it has even expanded.

Originally, Zhang Xianzhong was only more than 30,000 people when he was recruited, but now it has reached the scale of 60,000 people.

Liang Yizhi remembered the purpose of his trip, and deliberately laughed and provoked: "I heard that the officials of Fang County have been asking for bribes from the general recently, I don't know if it's true?" ”

"Into his mother's blanket ball", as soon as Liang Yizhi talked about it, Zhang Xianzhong was so angry that he even dropped the big bowl of wine in front of him.

"These dogs, I know how the world is rotten into this virtue, according to my old Zhang, these people should be wiped out."

Liang Yizhi nodded secretly, judging from the situation in the Liu family, not only Zhang Xianzhong was here, but Luo Rucai, Ma Shouying and others in Xunyang Mansion were also wantonly disturbed by local officials.

It is not only officials at all levels who come to ask for bribes, but even the officials want to make a fortune from these rogues, how can they not make Zhang Xianzhong and others angry.

Liang Yizhi smiled and hugged his fists and said: "It seems that the general's resurrection is not far away, now that the prisoners have entered the Kou, the imperial court is too busy to take care of itself, and the soldiers from all over the Central Plains have been transferred to the king of Jingshi Qin, this is a great opportunity." ”

Zhang Xianzhong's leopard's eyes were wide open, and his eyes were full of excitement.

"Mr. Li, you don't look like an ordinary official gentry, but you are a little similar to the other group of people who came to contact us, and they are a little afraid that the world will not be chaotic."

Liang Yizhi was shocked in his heart, "What is the other group of people, please tell the general." ”

"Hehe", Zhang Xianzhong rubbed his fingers, "It's no problem to tell you, but I still have to buy two thousand pairs of waist-length armor." ”

"This is no problem", Liang Yizhiyun agreed lightly, the production of chain mail Liu family is limited, but now it is not too easy for this world to be poured out of the official army, and he didn't take it to heart.

However, the Liu family did not sell firearms, and Liu Ximing knew very well that the Europeans simply relied on the sale of firearms to earn commercial profits because they could not complete the effective occupation of the world.

But Liu Ximing didn't want all the enemies he encountered in the future to be the same as Long Xiang, which would be too cruel for his own soldiers.

"Those people are even more mysterious than you, and they still wear masks every time they meet, but what kind of people do they claim to be from the Yang Sect, can Mr. Li know them?"

Liang Yizhi held his chin and looked pensive, but he was actually a little nervous in his heart.

As a high-ranking member of the Liu family, he naturally knows a lot about Yangzong, who had a dirty relationship with the Liu family, but he didn't expect that these people would also be involved in the matter of thieves, and it seems that he will report to the lord as soon as possible after he goes back.

Seeing Zhang Xianzhong looking at him suspiciously, Liang Yizhi pretended to be idle and shook his head, "I haven't heard of it, I don't think it's a big force." ”

"Forget it, don't talk about this, Li has one more thing to ask for this time, if the general starts an incident, our previous agreement can be fulfilled."

"What should I do, don't worry, we have more credit than those corrupt officials, and we won't touch the places you confess."

Zhang Xianzhong picked up a big elbow in front of him, bit it hard, and agreed nonchalantly.

"Hahaha, thank you General Zhang so much."

Liang Yizhi's eyes were full of smiles, which was another important reason why the Liu family chose to support Liukou.

With the Liu family having large strongholds in Huguang, Shaanxi and Sichuan, the defensive pressure suddenly increased dramatically.

In the past two years, because of the looting of the rogues from time to time, although the dragon master and the tiger master can repel the rogues, it is not always a way.

Therefore, the Liu family took the opportunity to trade with Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai and other rogues and asked them to avoid their own strongholds.

Of course, the name in this will naturally not be led to local officials such as Dou Yuquan and Xu Wei, but will only say where their own interests lie.

How could Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of the thieves, think that Liu Ximing's layout was so big, and even the local chief officials were all in their group.

Anyway, it's not easy to fight, so why not keep these places in a place where you can still provide them with a place to trade.

The Liu family still has a lot of arrangements and followers in these areas, but what Zhang Xianzhong didn't know was that when he recruited troops on the spot to expand himself, there were already many Liu family personnel mixed into his troops.

In April of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the news of the invasion of Shandong by the Jianyu army reached the south, and the rogues in Xunyang Mansion suddenly moved.

On April 17, Zhang Xianzhong ordered the army and captured the county seat of Fangxian without much effort with the help of fine.

More than 400 officials and gentry under Zhang Dajing, the supervisor of Zhang Xianzhong's army sent by the imperial court, and He Ling, the magistrate of the county, were all killed by him on the spot.

Not only that, on a whim, Zhang Xianzhong also wrote the records of the officials of Fang County asking him for bribes in the past year on the walls of the county government with the blood of these corrupt officials, which immediately caused an uproar in the whole county.

Zhang Xianzhong, who had sufficient grain and grass, directly ordered to open the treasury of Fang County and the granaries of various official gentry to release grain.

Until the Qing Dynasty, it was one of the areas with the most rebellions and uprisings in all dynasties.

Coupled with the response of Luo Rucai of Xunyang and Ma Shouying of Junzhou, the rogues have just recovered, and their momentum is far better than before.

At the end of April, several bands of thieves joined forces, and more than 100,000 troops bypassed Guanghua County, which was ruled by Zhao Xiangyang, and went straight to Xiangyang Fucheng.

Under the city of Xiangyang, Zuo Liangyu and Luo Dai, who hurriedly led troops to help, were broken by Zhang Xianzhong in one fell swoop, and most of the more than 10,000 troops were annihilated.

Within a few days, Xiangyang Mansion was directly broken by the Liukou army, and Zhu Yiming, the king of Xiangyang, was completely slaughtered.

All of a sudden, the world was shocked.

In the capital, before Yang Sichang had time to show off his peace with Chongzhen, he encountered such bad news.

"Xiong Wencan, you are a vertical son, and you will harm me."

Chongzhen also scolded in the palace, if Xiong Wencan hadn't been appeased, how could the thieves still have the power to recover.

Chongzhen won't remember that he himself agreed to appease the Liukou in order to settle accounts after the autumn.

In this way, Xiong Wencan was unlucky, and he was directly arrested and beheaded by Jingshi.

As for Hong Chengchou, he was also transferred to the governor of Jiliao because of the invasion of Jianyu.

Chongzhen's mind was quite sober at this time, and he knew that even if he reached a peace agreement with Jianyu, he still had to be careful about it.

It's just that the Central Plains is empty again, after Lu Xiangsheng's death, Sun Chuanting, the governor of Shaanxi, was transferred to the military department Shangshu and Xuanda governor, and the governors of the other five provinces no longer have the talent and wisdom of these two people, and Yang Sichang's plan has actually been declared bankrupt.

In order to preserve his political achievements as much as possible, Yang Sichang had to ask Fu Zonglong, Shao Jie and others to take over as governors of various provinces on the one hand, and on the other hand, he asked Chongzhen to personally clear the liukou.

At Liu Ximing's suggestion, Yang Sichang remembered his fellow villager Yang Yipeng in Hainan, and asked Chongzhen for the position of governor of Henan and transferred him back.

After experiencing the resurgence of Zhang Xianzhong and other rogues, Chongzhen's suspicion was committed again, and his senses for Yang Sichang changed from the beginning of the eagerness to talk at night, to half-belief.

But now that there are no ministers in the court who are willing to take over the suppression of Kou, Chongzhen can only pinch his nose and let Yang Sichang try it himself.

On July 14 of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the edict was sent to the cabinet, appointing Yang Sichang as the supervisor, giving Shang Fang the sword, and going south to lead the Central Plains soldiers to suppress thieves.