There are a total of 20,000 thieves in the central county, but in fact, most of them are the people who have been coerced, and those thieves have destroyed the homes and crops of these people, so that these people have no choice but to follow the thieves to flow around, they are like locusts, everywhere they go, rob and eat them all, eat them all, and then change places, if they are not surrounded in the central county, I am afraid that they will continue to loot everywhere.

Besides, the officials and troops from all walks of life outside the central county town jointly dispatched, and after a short time, they killed all the 3,000 thieves wandering in the market, and the rest of the homeless people were hiding in the houses, all of them trembling.

After killing the thieves on the streets, the officers and soldiers broke into people's houses and looted in the name of searching for and killing the thieves.

Fortunately, this official army is not only led by their own generals, but also Hong Chengchou is supervising outside the city, so the officers and soldiers do not dare to go too far, at least they dare not insult beautiful women and girls on the street.

It took the officials and the army an hour and a half to search and kill the real thieves in the central county, and then drove all the people who were coerced by the thieves out of the central county and headed in the direction where Hong Chengchou was.

Hong Chengchou, who has been fighting outside the city, is actually as clear as Ming Jing'er about what the Ming army has done, but he doesn't want to say anything or interfere.

Because it is the time to employ people, the imperial court cannot solve the problem of salary, and if the officials and soldiers under their command do not allow their officials and soldiers to loot, they will not be able to maintain their combat effectiveness, and in the process of looting, there will definitely be things that humiliate women, but this is nothing to do.

Plundering the homeless to settle the military pay, at least the thieves can be exterminated, so that at least the places that have not yet suffered will be spared, and the people there will at least be spared such a fate.

It's all fate!

Hong Chengchou shook his head helplessly, and sighed heavily in his heart.

As the governor of the three sides, he actually knows very well that the reason why the thieves are inexhaustible and kill them is not because of natural disasters.

It is not the first time that a famine has occurred in the Ming Dynasty, even if there was a famine in the past, it was no big deal, because the imperial court still had the strength to relieve the famine, even if someone rebelled, it could send troops to suppress it in time.

But now, the Chongzhen Dynasty and the 'Zhongzheng' gang of the Donglin Party control the imperial court, cancel the commercial taxes of the Tianqi Dynasty, and put all the expenses of this empire on the Tianfu.

These Donglin Party members, known as the family of cultivators and scholars, are all good land, and there are also contributions, that is, the relatives of a person with merit will hang the land property under the name of the person with merit, so that the relatives of the person with merit do not have to pay taxes.

In this way, the wealthy family relied on their own prestige to bully the government and not pay taxes; The family of cultivators relies on privileges and does not pay taxes, and even Xiucai can be exempted from it, and he does not have to pay a dime.

In the end, the burden of the empire as a whole weighed on the poorest of ordinary peasants.

When the government collects taxes, it does not care about the fertility of the fields and the degree of water conservancy, but collects the land taxes according to a unified standard, that is, the harvest of the most fertile land in the south of the Yangtze River.

In such a barren place like Shaanxi, the burden of the people is inevitably extremely heavy, but the local officials in this place are not from a good background, and in order to curry favor with the officials, they do not care about the lives of the people and go all out to collect taxes.

In this way, natural disasters and man-made disasters are intertwined, which has caused the scourge of thieves who are now poisoning Shaanxi and Shanxi.

Hong Chengchou started by killing thieves, and rose from the senator of Shaanxi Governor Grain Road all the way to the governor of the three sides.

In the past, there were only one or two thousand thieves, but now there are usually seven or eight thousand or even tens of thousands of thieves, but the officials and soldiers are fighting less and less, and some officials and soldiers even fight and defect to the thieves halfway.

Because being an official and soldier is very hard, there is not enough food, no warm clothing, and no money, but being a thief is very easy, eating and drinking spicy, so unhappy.

It can be said that if it weren't for Hong Chengchou's strong suppression of the thieves and the wanton massacre after he came to power, the officials and soldiers would be somewhat afraid in their hearts, and I am afraid that there would be more officials and soldiers who defected to the thieves.

Hong Chengchou knew the way to completely solve the thieves, kill all the thieves who led the rebellion, even the small leaders, and then the exiles who were coerced were sent back to their hometowns, resumed production, and settled down.

When this simply can't be done.

First of all, Shaanxi has been in drought for many years, crops are not viable, and water conservancy in various places is slack, unable to irrigate, in addition, the local government is extremely poor, there is no way to allocate seeds to the displaced people, the squires and other huge families who can afford to lend seeds, either are killed, or they migrate to distant places for refuge.

Therefore, after these homeless people are repatriated to their hometowns, most of them still have no way to live, and as long as there is an incident with the bandits, they can only wander around with the thieves again.

This is an unsolvable problem, when Hong Chengchou saw the nearly 10,000 displaced people escorted out by his own soldiers, he could not order these really innocent people to be killed, nor could he guarantee that they would be given a way to live, so he could only follow the old rules and let them return to their hometowns.

And then when he was exterminating the next group of thieves, he saw them again, and he rescued them, and he released them, and so on.

"The commander, the last general and others have killed all the rogue and true thieves in the central county, and a total of 3,000 rogue thieves and true thieves have been killed."

When Hong Chengchou was still in reverie, Zhang Mingzhe told him.

When Hong Chengchou heard this, he immediately put away his mixed thoughts and signaled that he knew.

"Commander, set up an ambush on the road that the thieves must pass, and slashed a total of 2,000 thieves, including the giant thief head Black God entrenched in the central county, the star of the sky and the scorpion block."

When He Renlong reported the results, he didn't forget to glance at Liu Renyu gratefully.

Liu Renyu saw He Renlong looking at him, so he nodded slightly and didn't say anything.

"Commander, our army won a complete victory in this battle, and punished the thieves on this road, in addition, our army also rescued more than 14,000 people who were coerced by the thieves, dare to ask the commander, how to deal with these people?" Liu Wuguo asked Hong Chengchou in a loud voice.

Hong Chengchou raised his eyes and looked at the black pressure standing in front of him, ragged, vegetable, withered, hollow eyes, not like a human form, quiet and terrible homeless, he could only sigh slightly.

"According to the old custom, let them go back to their places where the thieves have taken them captive." Hong Chengchou said.

"Yes, Commander."

Liu Wuguo received the order and was about to send someone to announce the matter, but Liu Renyu, who had been silent, suddenly said: "Wait." ”

When Liu Wuguo heard this, he stopped, stood in place, and asked with a puzzled face, "What's wrong!?" ”

"General Liu is not busy announcing this, let me say a few words to the commander." Liu Renyu smiled.

"Okay, you say, you say." Liu Wuguo said with a smile.

"Commander, you want to repatriate the displaced people back to their hometown, why don't you allocate food to wrap up, now Shaanxi is very seriously damaged by thieves, they have nothing to eat when they walk on the road, but I am afraid that most of them will die on the road and become lonely ghosts.

Even if they tried to return to their original residence by all means, it would have been destroyed by the thieves, and there would be no houses or seeds, and it would be difficult to survive the winter.

Even if they can survive this winter, if they can't grow food in the coming year, I'm afraid that there will still be no way to survive, and it is very likely that they will still be coerced by thieves in the end. Liu Renyu said.

"I don't know, it's just that we are short of food everywhere in Shaanxi, and the army is in danger of running out of food, and this official really can't distribute food to the displaced people, so they can only find a way to return to their hometown. As for what you said about them being coerced by thieves again, it can't be helped, it's providential. When Hong Chengchou heard this question, he could only reply helplessly.

"Commander, in fact, there is a good plan to solve the problem of the survival of these displaced people." When Liu Renyu arrived at this time, he was ready to say what he really wanted to say.

"Oh, what is Renyu's plan?" Hong Chengchou was puzzled.

"Commander, the 14,000 thieves here will be handed over to the standard, let the standard take it back for placement, I don't know what the commander wants?" Liu Renyu pleaded.

"With so many homeless people, can you hold it in Jingbian Fort?" Hong Chengchou wondered.

"It's man-made, and since you want to bring them back, you naturally have the confidence to give them a way out." Liu Renyu said with confidence.

When Hong Chengchou heard this, he looked at Liu Renyu for a long time, and said: "This is very good, saving people's lives is better than creating a seventh-level floating slaughter, if Renyu can really save their lives, it is also a merit, so these homeless people will be handed over to you to dispose of." Well, by the way, they just said that they had captured some of the thieves' collections, and you should send someone to get your share of the Jingbian Fort Army later. ”

"Thank you for the commander's kindness, don't want to mark this part, please take it yourself, and you can take it out to reward the meritorious soldiers and inspire the army when you march and fight in the future." Liu Renyu excused himself.

"Is Renyu's words serious?" Hong Chengchou was surprised.

"Seriously." Liu Renyu said firmly.

Now those generals laughed, laughing at Liu Renyu for not wanting gold and silver treasures, but wanting those burdensome homeless people.

Hong Chengchou sighed again and again that Liu Renyu was really his blessed general, thinking about himself in everything, and his perception of Liu Renyu became better and better.