The men and women in the Zhuangzi had been fully gathered at this time. Mo Ming glanced at it and found that most of them were women, servants and the like, these people lowered their heads, their bodies trembled a little, and they didn't know if it was because of the cold or fear. It's just that the main house seems to have run away!

After Mo Ming casually glanced at them, he lost interest in these people, and after ordering his subordinates to start interrogating them, he sat down in the main hall surrounded by staff officers and began to wait for his subordinates to report to him.

The subordinates did not let him wait too long, and when the robbers were already familiar with the road, they soon found key facilities such as silver cellars and grain depots in the Zhuangzi, and searched and found a large amount of property. And when he heard that his subordinates reported that there were more than 10,000 taels of silver hidden in the silver cellar and more than 1,000 stones of grain in the granary, Mo Ming was shocked. There is so much oil and water at home!

The soldiers went in and out of the manor, searching almost every room carefully, before returning to the courtyard in front of the hall. At this time, the Korean masters outside the door had already swarmed in, and began to move out the grain stored in the granary and the silver in the silver cellar one by one, ready to be transported away by horses. It's just that there are more than 1,000 stone of grain here, more than 100 tons, and according to the weight of each horse 50 kilograms, even if all 400 horses can transport 20 tons at a time. It took five round-trips to transport all of this grain from the east coast, not to mention some livestock, silver, silk and other goods in this village.

"According to the interrogation, the owner of the house was a scholar, and he escaped on horseback through the back door, and should not have gone far. Do you want to send someone to chase after you? Júnior, a young combat staff officer, walked in from outside and asked softly in Mo Ming's ear.

"What are you chasing him for? We're not here to raid our homes. I'm just borrowing some food. Mo Ming waved his hand. Said shamelessly: "This guy is running very fast." What about his family? ”

"The family is said to live in the county seat." The staff officer continued, "His family has a grain store in the county seat, and most of the grain harvested by the family is stored in the grain store, so there is not much grain in the manor, probably only more than 100 tons. On the contrary, there is a lot of silver, and according to my rough estimate, it is conservatively estimated to be more than 11,000 yuan. ”

"By the way, we also captured almost five hundred captives. Most of them were the scholar's personal slaves, and only a few were his employees and their families, such as governesses, accountants, grange managers, and so on. In addition, several of the militia officers were also warriors hired from within the county and had a certain reputation in the neighborhood - although I find their will to fight questionable; Most of the militia were not freemen, but slaves of the scholar and rancher, including their families. Júnior flipped through a small notebook and kept reading: "In the previous battle, a total of nineteen militiamen were killed by us, three others were wounded, and most of the rest, except for a few who fled, were captured by us. As a result of their unwise resistance. Caused four members of the Standing Guard to be injured, should they be tried? ”

"Don't put any kind of trial on them just yet. Give them the treatment they deserve as prisoners of war. Mo Ming replied. Of course, he knew what Júnior meant by judgment, that is, to take out and execute the enemy soldiers who had caused them harm; If the exact perpetrators of the violence could not be found, the law of eleven killings was applied to them, in accordance with the tradition practiced on the battlefields of South Africa. Mo Ming naturally didn't want to use this method of dealing with barbarians on the Ming people, so he decisively stopped this proposal.

"Unload all our war materials and store them in the manor, load them on pack horses to load the food we urgently need, and then return to Yantai. Start the action now, after all the horses of the pack horse team have been loaded, the 3rd Squadron of the Standing Horse Team will be responsible for escorting them, and they will return after delivering the grain to Yantai Fortress. Repeating this cycle and striving to complete the shipment of all these grains and goods within a week. Oh, by the way, this showman... Well, the books in the scholar's library are also packed away, and they must not be left out! Carry out the order, trainee ensign! Mo Ming began to give orders.

The young intern staff officer saluted, and then hurried down to make arrangements.

The Korean masters of the pack horse team quickly loaded all 400 horses with heavy grain bags on their backs, each carrying 40-50 kilograms, and then they walked out of the manor one by one under the escort of more than 200 officers and soldiers of the marching team led by Kurhan, and headed in the direction of Yantai Fortress under the guidance of their guides.

After they left, the infantry and artillerymen of the 102nd Company of the Army also packed up and shrank into the manor. They repaired the artillery-damaged gates, then buried the bodies inside and outside the walls of the manor, and sent sentries to the top of the wall to keep guard.

The captives in the manor were still cowering at the foot of the wall, and they watched numbly as the high-nosed and deep-eyed thieves carried away the grain from the village one by one. They didn't feel any heartache, because the food had nothing to do with them, they just felt some hesitation about their unknown fate.

"Veterinarians, grooms, blacksmiths, and other people with a skill are first screened, registered, and given certain preferential treatment to them and their families; The family members and their relatives and friends of the villagers who were killed by us should also be screened out and strictly guarded, and we should not take these people with us when we return, so as not to make trouble for ourselves. In addition, to all these people to preach the policy of our army, and to pardon the slaves as freemen. Mo Ming began to give his second order, and soon, an equally young intern staff officer of the Dingyuan Military Academy hurriedly left after answering the order.

The main contents of the so-called "propagation of our army's policy" were "paying taxes in full," "pardoning slaves as freemen," "returning land illegally occupied by the gentry," and so on. The main purpose of these policies is to enhance the prestige of the people on the east coast at the bottom, to win a certain degree of support from the common people in the three prefectures of Deng, Lai, and Qing, and to eliminate their fear of the people on the east coast, so as to increase the effect of immigration.

What is clear, however, is that this policy of the East Coasters placed themselves in opposition to the gentry and landlord class. It is not uncommon that no one has pointed out that they should abandon this policy of going down the lower class and win the support of the gentry in turn. However, this argument does not stand up to scrutiny, first of all, it is clear that the East Coasters did not have enough strength to protect the interests of these gentry in the ensuing great changes, so as to gain their support; Secondly, the attitude of these gentry towards the East Coast people was quite negative, and in their eyes the vulgar East Coast Yi people were not even as good as the Tartars; In the end, the purpose of the people on the east coast was not to seize the world of the Ming Dynasty, but to obtain the population. And it is precisely the acquisition of population that there is a fundamental contradiction between them and these gentry classes.

Although Shandong has been sacked twice by the Tartars, the control of the Ming Dynasty has been greatly weakened, but after all, it has completely become a thousand miles of red land like Shaanxi and Henan. On the contrary, when the control of the central government weakened, local power in the countryside was largely taken over by the gentry class. In this troubled world, they tried in every possible way to tie tenant farmers, domestic slaves, long-term laborers, etc. to their land, and used all kinds of means to prevent them from becoming displaced people, after all, the land also needs people to cultivate. However, the East Coast is fighting the idea of a large number of people controlled by the gentry, so how can the two sides have a basis for cooperation?

Then, in this way, it is better to take the bottom route directly, and do your own population, without asking anyone, as long as those gentry don't come to make trouble. Of course, if there is a troublemaker, it will be resolutely suppressed.

The pack horses of the East Coasters returned to the estate the next day and continued to carry the second shipment of grain. When they returned, about 100 craftsmen from Zhuangzi, such as blacksmiths, veterinarians, grooms, carpenters, and teachers, and their families were reluctantly escorted back to Yantai Fortress.

Due to the deterioration of the weather and moderate snowfall, the movement of people on the east coast to carry food, silver and books was several days later than expected. It was not until noon on November 5, when the last pack horse departed with valuable silver taels and books, that the whole operation was almost over. Before that, about 200 domestic slaves outside Zhang Yuanwai had been escorted back to Yantai Fortress by the people on the east coast crying. At this time, in addition to the soldiers of the East Coast Army who remained in the manor, there were only more than 100 Xiangyong and their families, and for these people, Mo Ming did not plan to take them away. Because many of them had brothers, friends, husbands or fathers who had been killed by the Easterners in the fighting of the previous days, it was hard to guarantee that some of them harbored a bitter hatred for the Easterners, so it was better to leave them here to fend for themselves.

In the early morning of November 7, Mo Ming and his troops evacuated the manor, which had been occupied for ten days. In the past ten days, I don't know whether it was Fushan County or Dengzhou Prefecture that was slow to react or what, in short, no one came to take any measures against them, as if everyone had ignored the bad behavior of the people of the East Coast openly attacking the gentry's manor, which was very impressive. Before leaving, he ordered the last bit of grain and silver in Zhuangzi to be scattered to those villagers, and then he marched away and returned to Yantai Fortress with his army.

After returning, they rested for a few days, and starting from November 9, Mo Ming once again led the army to set out, braving the severe cold in Fushan County, Ninghai Prefecture, Wendeng County, and even Pingdu Prefecture, and successively attacked more than a dozen gentry or wealthy merchant estates, plundering about 2,000 people, more than 70,000 yuan worth of gold and silver, more than 800 tons of grain and more than 300 heads (only) of livestock, which can be described as a bumper harvest. This operation lasted until mid-December, because of the heavy snowfall in the Dengzhou area, the difficulty of roads, and the fact that many soldiers fell ill and lost their troops due to long-term and high-intensity fighting in the bitter cold, so Mo Ming decisively ended this rural raid. (To be continued......)