In late July, Xu Shiliu took a 600-material medium-sized fortune ship belonging to Xu Shiyang, went south along the coasts of Qi and Jiangsu provinces, bypassed Chongming Island in early August, and went upriver from the mouth of the Qiantang River to Hangzhou.

At this time, Hangzhou was the seat of the Great Zhou Dynasty that moved south, and the official face was called Lin'an Xingzai.

Originally, Hangzhou had a population of almost 300,000, with the imperial court moving south, more than ten years, Lin'an Xing's population expanded rapidly, and now the population has exceeded 1.3 million, known as the world's largest city in this era, there is no one.

After landing, Xu Shiliu, together with the other stewards of the fleet, hired two carriages and acted separately.

The fleet needed to sell the less valuable goods of Qi Province and exchange them for grain and salt; Xu Shiliu took his father's letter and visited several of Xu Muhe's teachers and friends one by one according to the address.

The carriage went straight along the wide road to Lin'an City, and there was still some distance from entering the city, but at this time, Xu Shiliu could not tell whether the street in front of him was inside or outside the city.

The bustling streets, the rows of buildings, and the pedestrians wearing silk shirts and red faces all show the peerless prosperity of the world's largest city.

The scene in front of him is indeed very shocking to Xu Shiliu, who was born in the southwest countryside of Qi Province, but he is not in the mood to appreciate it at all now.

At least not yet.

If he wants to have a place in Lin'an in the future, he must run and cry out for the coming war, and fight for every ounce of power that can be used for his brother, who is thousands of miles away in the north.

"Let's get moving." Xu Shiliu sat in the carriage, looked at the bustling street scene outside, and said to himself: "First, go to visit Wen Xianggong first." ”

Strictly speaking, it should be the former Wen Xianggong, the spiritual leader of the main battle faction of the Great Zhou, although he has now become a scholar, but he still has a certain influence on the court, and the Wen family has a great business, with thousands of hectares of fertile land, thousands of acres of mulberry forests, and hundreds of shops in the south of the Yangtze River.

If he can get his support, not only is it equivalent to the entire Great Zhou main battle faction supporting the Xu family, even if there is a little money and food leaking between Wen Xianggong's fingers, it will be enough for the third brother's hundreds of soldiers to eat and drink.

……

In August, the sorghum in the fields began to be harvested, and the date for the Tartars to move south was approaching.

Perhaps smelling the smell of danger, the displaced people in the Central Plains began a new round of large-scale migration.

Beginning on the third day of the first month of August, the soldiers of the Dingyuan Battalion intercepted many displaced people who had fled to the eastern part of Qi Province in the west, and at first it was only a small group of more than 100 people, but within a few days, hundreds or even thousands of displaced people began to appear.

Xu Shiyang ordered the Dingyuan battalion to suspend training and began to arm the displaced people.

At first, the small group of displaced people was fine, basically no one dared to resist, Xu Shiyang placed them in two forts, 151 and 152 respectively, and by August 15, he had gathered thousands of men, women, and children.

But then the situation became a little different, on August 16, just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, a large army of refugees with a total number of tens of thousands of people appeared near Fei County, and the owners of Fei County's dock fort did not dare to intercept them, allowing them to continue to advance eastward, during which one of the dock forts was accidentally broken by the displaced people.

Wherever the displaced people passed, all the unharvested grain was eaten and touched, even the straw was uprooted by the displaced people, and many dock forts lost most of their harvest for half a year, and watched the displaced people roll away like locusts to the east, leaving only patches of bare land, wanting to cry without tears.

At this time, the head of the Xu family convened a meeting of all the Wubao lords again to discuss how to deal with the displaced people, but Xu Shiyang refused to attend, and on August 22, he led the Dingyuan battalion alone to launch an attack on the growing army of displaced people.

The process of fighting was very tedious, the homeless people lacked a reasonable organization, and there were no sentry posts even arranged at night, and they were huddled in a chaotic manner, with weak old people and some half-grown children who had lost their parents on the periphery, and some of the relatively strong homeless people on the inside.

Most of the food obtained by the displaced groups fell into the hands of these strong men, and the old and weak on the periphery could not even drink some soup, and became weaker and weaker.

And Xu Shiyang's Dingyuan camp, in the past year, has been well fed and warm, and there are fish or meat in the stomach every few days, not to mention the physical strength, and the nutrition is far more adequate than that of the homeless.

Under the leadership of non-commissioned officers at all levels, the unit adopted the tactics of dealing with the Tartars last year and attacked the homeless army at night.

The Dingyuan battalion carried 10 wooden cannons for fire support, but they were not used at all in the actual battle, and the Fengfeng soldiers kept touching the camp of the homeless camp, and the old and weak on the periphery were not aware of it, they just curled up around the fire, roasting something that they didn't know what it was, waiting to fill their stomachs.

It wasn't until the Drafters rushed closer, brandished their swords and axes, and began to slash and slash, that the old and weak homeless people let out a scream like they had just woken up from a dream, trying to get closer to the core.

The able-bodied homeless people were woken up in droves, but all they could see was the frightened crowd coming, and they couldn't even figure out what was going on.

Some people were trampled to death by the panicked homeless, and many more followed the crowd and began to flee together.

Someone shouted: "Here comes the Tartars!" Run for your life! ”

Others shouted: "The bandits are coming!" Run! ”

No one knew who exactly was coming, and in the chaos, the displaced people who lacked unified command directly bombed the camp and completely collapsed.

……

Xu Shiliu took his father's letter and waited outside the Wen family for a long time.

There was an endless stream of people who came to visit Wen Xianggong, but most of them were directly blocked out by the Wen family's housekeepers like Xu Shiliu.

The housekeeper announced loudly: "The princess of Wen Xiang has gone to watch the tide!" Come back in a few days! Don't be annoyed by the door! ”

Xu Shiliu stepped up and quietly handed a handful of copper coins to the housekeeper, but he didn't expect that the old man would directly ask someone to throw him out, and those copper coins almost smashed on Xu Shiliu's face.

"Where's the old hat?" The housekeeper snorted coldly: "Don't look at whose house this is!" Get lost! ”

Although Xu Shiliu was thrown out, he really understood the housekeeper's approach in his heart, and he felt that such a person who did not love money was worthy of being the disciple of Wen Xianggong, the spiritual leader of the main battle faction.

On the contrary, it is shameful that he himself should use this copper-smelling thing to stain the nobility of others.

Xu Shiliu was about to step forward to explain again, but saw a chubby rich man who handed the housekeeper a small wooden box.

The housekeeper opened a gap and took a look, standing in Xu Shiliu's angle, he could see the silver light flashing in the gap.

Such a box, at least a hundred taels, right?

"The adults are Mingjian, and the little ones are really happy to learn that Wen Xianggong is going to open a academy." The rich man nodded and said with a smile: "The little Fu Bo can't listen to Wen Xianggong's teaching, but the villain also knows that Wen Xianggong is a great thing to do for the benefit of the country and the people, so he is willing to offer 5,000 copper coins and 1,000 silk horses to fund education." ”

"Well...... what do you want?" The butler handed the box of silver to the little servant behind him, and asked the rich man with his head held high.

"I just want the dog to be able to enter the academy and ......."

The rich man bowed to the end.

"Let's go home and wait for news."

The housekeeper glanced at the stunned Xu Shiliu, snorted coldly, and turned to leave.