The ambush and grain snatching plan of the Niujiaozhai bandits began with a vigorous start and ended with a dead end. Although the black whirlwind Zhang Guangzu was angry, his mind was still sober and he did not make overly impulsive moves.

After judging that he might fall into an unfavorable situation of being caught between the east and the west, he quickly led the bandits to withdraw from Heilong Beach and slipped back to Chenjia Village. There is not much food left, and the belly problem has been heartburning. To this end, he sent a large number of spies to inquire about the surrounding villages and towns and even the county seat, hoping to find any news about the grain. In order to get food, even if he needs to attack a county town, he is willing to take risks!

A burst of drums scared away the bandits who were determined to win. However, what happened to the white-clothed army of more than 10,000 people?

According to Liu Hongting, she is a native of Taicang Prefecture in Nanzhili. Since she is a native of Taicang Prefecture, her father Renshou's predecessor, Liu Sance, is naturally also (Note 1). His father was a scholar, and he took office alone, where did the more than 10,000 so-called relatives and slaves come from in Sichuan Province? The only people in Sichuan who can get close to Liu Sance himself are his only daughter Liu Hongting, and the other is Liu Mingsheng, a bearded man who escaped from the bandits' den.

Three years ago, Liu Sance went to Sichuan to take office. On the way, the domestic servant brought out by his hometown fell ill and died on the boat on the Yangtze River. After he went ashore in Jianzhou, he took in a man named Huazi by the Tuojiang wharf and retook the surname of the head of the family, that is, Liu Mingsheng.

Liu Sance's original intention of buying people was just a number of servants around him who served tea and water and listened to the call. Who knew that this Hanako was very loyal and very smart. After three years of training by the master's side, Liu Mingsheng can not only read the text roughly, but also often complete the important things assigned by Liu Sance, which can't help but impress the master.

This time the thief entered Kou Renshou, and Liu Sance hurriedly handed Liu Mingsheng an important task related to his family's life, that is, to deliver an urgent document to the governor's yamen and Chengdu Mansion, and begged for reinforcements. But when Liu Mingsheng passed through Longquan Mountain, he didn't want to be intercepted by bandits. He wanted to escape among the refugees, but he was trapped in the village by bandits with the refugees.

After Liu Mingsheng escaped with the bandits, he ran back to the county seat along the opposite route. He learned that Liu Zhixian's officials lived in the county office, so he found Miss Liu. Liu Mingsheng is a house slave bought by Liu Sance outside, and Liu Hongting does not know him. So Liu Mingsheng tore the hem of his clothes and took out Liu Sance's handwritten letter asking for help to prove his identity.

Knowing from Liu Mingsheng's mouth that the bandits were ambushing the grain transport team in Heilongtan, Liu Hongting eagerly came up with a brilliant attention. She asked all the big-footed women in the city to wear the winter clothes they had sewn for the refugees in the past few days, wrapped their long hair in cotton cloth to cover their identity as women, and each found a wooden stick and bamboo pole to use as a weapon. Because all the cotton cloth was plain that had not been dyed, she took the opportunity to pretend to be Liu Sance's family Ding slave Zhuanghu, and in the name of avenging her father, she drove to the mouth of the Black Dragon Beach Valley to challenge the bandits. In fact, Liu Mingsheng and more than a dozen bodyguards led by Lu San were the only men in this operation.

The white-clothed army stopped at the mouth of the valley, and Liu Mingsheng, Lu San and others went out away from the brigade and separated themselves from the women's team behind, so as not to let the bandits observe the white-clothed army at close range and leak the details. Liu Mingsheng, Lu San and others played with guns and posed in front of the bandits, just to let the bandits see their gender clearly, so as not to make the other party suspicious. In order to make her bluff plan more realistic, Miss Liu also wrote a letter to the bandits, made up an inexplicable reason, and put on a posture of fighting the bandits. Of course, when she made the payment, she changed her name slightly and replaced it with a man's name.

Based on the information provided by Liu Mingsheng, Miss Liu deduced that as long as the bandits did not recognize the white-clothed soldiers as women pretending, they would not dare to come out of the ambush site to fight them.

Why? Because bandits are also a pot of rotten porridge!

Although the bandits had a large number of troops, they formed an army very late. There are very few veteran bandits, and they generally serve as backbones, and most of the rest are newly coerced civilians, and there is no training or grouping, so their military quality is extremely poor. It's okay to fight an ambush and knock a dark stick, but to engage the officials and soldiers head-on, the bandits don't dare.

In addition, the secret rivalry between the two surnames is also a major reason. Among the seven bandit leaders, the eldest Zhang Guangzu and the fifth, sixth, and seventh surnamed Zhang; The second Chen Huainian and the third and fourth are surnamed Chen. The two surnames Zhang and Chen are fighting openly and secretly, and they all rely on Zhang Guangzu and Chen Huainian to maintain a harmonious atmosphere. In such a bandit, more than 10,000 white-clothed troops suddenly appeared in front of them, and there were also 10,000 or 20,000 people in the grain transportation team, one in the east and one in the west, putting on a posture of attacking from both sides. In this way, the bandit leader must be worried:

If you rush into a head-on battle, you will be entangled by one of them, and the other will come out from behind. Under the attack from both sides, the bandits not only failed to grab food, but even their lives had to be spared!

It's a brilliant plan, but it's important to make it happen, and that's the timing of the messaging. The women go early, and they may be recognized by the bandits and defeated first; It's too late, maybe the food has been robbed. Therefore, after carefully questioning Liu Mingsheng, Miss Liu carefully visited the women who were familiar with Heilongtan and calculated the approximate time when the grain transport team arrived at the west end of Heilongtan. Finally, there is only one important question: how to get in touch with the food delivery team?

At this time, Lu San made a great achievement, and he came up with a simple and effective idea: remove the big drum at the entrance of the county ya, load it on the car, and use the drum to contact the grain transportation team!

Beating drums to march into the army, singing gold to collect troops, this is the standard operational command signal of the Ming army. There were officers and men in the grain transport team, and as soon as they heard the sound of the drums, they knew that something was wrong ahead, so they naturally arranged troops to press up. In this way, most of the ambushes of the bandits are: the bamboo basket is empty!

In the two large-scale grain transportation operations, 20,000 stone of grain was delivered, but more than 50,000 refugees poured in, and on average, one person could only get more than 30 catties of rations. If the family saves food and adds some wild vegetables and grass roots, these thirty catties of rations can barely guarantee a month's survival needs.

With this one and a half months, Li Chongwen was able to ask Zhu Pingjin for help from Zhu Pingjian, who was far away in Mengding Mountain, and strive for some silver taels to buy grain and borrow grain from neighboring prefectures and counties. Not only to alleviate the food ration crisis, but also to solve the problem of seed food.

With this one and a half months, Li Chongwen was also able to let go of his grand plan to divide the land and divide it. If the peasants do not have their own fields, it will be difficult to guarantee their enthusiasm for production, and the good ideas of self-sufficiency in grain, consolidating the Wangzhuang, and compiling and training the Zhuangding will come to naught.

For this reason, Li Chongwen sent the five royal eunuchs, including Ding Yuan, to the five royal villages far away from the county seat. Before leaving, Li Chongwen gathered them together and set five rules for them:

First, it is necessary to divide the land fairly and not engage in favoritism;

The second is to manage the green seedlings in the field well to ensure grain production in the summer and autumn of this year;

the third is to pay attention to the people's livelihood, care about the people's suffering, help the people rebuild their homes, so that the benevolence of the palace and the prince can spread throughout the county;

Fourth, develop water conservancy facilities to ensure that water is available in times of drought;

Fifth, rest with the people, cherish the people's strength, and do not interfere with the planting of the people without authorization, and do not use labor to build residences and gardens for the head of the village.

In the end, Li Chongwen sternly warned them that if there were illegal things such as embezzlement of public money and enslavement of farmers, he would not spare them!

Luo Yin and another small eunuch were originally selected by Chengdu Wangdian, and they were also scheduled to be sent to Renshou to manage Wangdian, so Li Chongwen arranged for them to build two shops with the silver taels issued by the Shu Wangfu as the capital. a grain store that deals in grain, seeds, livestock, oil extraction, salt, farm tools and other businesses related to food and agricultural production; The other is a cloth shop, which deals in cotton, cotton, textile, tailoring, and other wear-related businesses.

The reason for setting up a grain store is very simple, mainly to do everything possible to solve the problem of eating. Obtaining food through buying and selling is also an important channel; The reason for the establishment of cloth shops is that the two counties in the south of Renshou County, Jingyan and Rong County, are the main cotton producing areas, and there are also many looms and cloths left in Renshou City, and the cotton spinning and cotton cloth business is promising.

In order to prevent bandit harassment, the He family general also temporarily made a division of labor.

The eldest He Zengshan stayed in the county seat and practiced Zhuang Ding in two Wang Zhuang around the county.

In the north and west of the county seat, facing the bandits' old nest Niujiao Village, the second He Qiukou volunteered to take his son He Huan to train Zhuang Ding in the three Wangzhuang over there.

The third child, He Tingda, practiced Zhuang Ding in two Wangzhuang in the south of the county.

Lu San was still his captain and was responsible for the security of the county.

As for the west of Longquan Mountain, Renshou County also manages a large piece of land. The land there is close to Meizhou and Pengshan County, sandwiched between the Minjiang River and Longquan Mountain, which is convenient for water conservancy and irrigation, and the terrain is also flat, and there are many excellent paddy fields and dry fields. It's just that due to the current busy affairs, Li Chongwen has no extra energy to ask. The only thing he did was to send someone to take over the 1,000 acres of land belonging to his classmate Guo Shiyu. He Zengshan's son, He Gui, will also be sent over soon.

After half a month of busyness with Li Chongwen, Liu Hongting and other cadres, the county finally returned to its former tranquility. It turned out that the refugees who could be seen everywhere on the streets returned to their hometowns one after another, cultivating the divided land, and the county streets were much more refreshing and clean for a while. The people left in the city, in addition to the people of the two kings' shops of grain and cloth, also left behind more than 1,000 women, children and the elderly.

Some of these people are homeless; Some have lost their ability to farm; Some have been damaged by thieves and bandits and are reluctant to return home. So Liu Hongting organized them and set up a weaving bureau, led by her maid Xiaolan, to continue their old job: weaving cloth and making clothes.

Although Xiaolan is a maid, she is not a mediocre person. Even in Songjiang Prefecture, which is known as "inexhaustible Songjiang cloth", she is also a well-known local textile expert.

However, a good day that goes smoothly is always short-lived.

Within a few days of Li Chongwen's comfortable life, he received bad news from Lu San.

In neighboring Pengshan County, a refugee ran over Longquan Mountain to Wangzhuang, saying that there was a big mess in Pengshan County. A large crowd of people rushed into the county seat, shouting to "get rid of the beetle". The officials of Pengshan County ran and died.

Soon, Lu San reported even worse news, saying that the chaotic people in Pengshan County were no longer willing to "get rid of the beetle", and their current slogan was "get rid of the five beetles", the yabeetle, the house beetle, the hao beetle, the eunuch beetle, the learning beetle, in short, the rich and powerful people were all beetles, and they had to be pulled out and killed.

What complicates the situation even more is that the bandits in Niujiaozhai no longer rob the people, but instead adapt to the situation and grab the five beetles. There are thousands of refugees from Pengshan County, and there are still many refugees from Shuangliu County. Wang Zhuang urgently asked for instructions, most of these refugees only carried a small amount of food, what should be done with their rations? The implication is that either some more grain will be allocated, or the county will take over.

Li Chongwen had no choice but to send Lu San with a city guard to temporarily concentrate the Pengshan refugees in Wang Zhuang of Wei Laoer in the north of the county. While he wrote to the princess again to ask for food, he transferred the only 4,000 catties of reserve grain in the county town to the emergency.

Li Chongwen had foreseen the harm of the five beetles, and he had a success when he played it right in the Shizifu. He sent a second letter to his prince Zhu Pingjin overnight, reporting in detail the grim situation here and the countermeasures he had taken, and asking Zhu Pingjin to coordinate the allocation of grain from the palace.

Li Chongwen asked the prince for help, and Liu Hongting was not idle. In a letter to the princess, she opened her mouth cheekily and asked for 20,000 stone of grain.

However, when sending a letter asking for help, Li Chongwen and Liu Hongting did not know that the eleven counties densely populated in Chengdu Prefecture - Chengdu, Huayang, Shuangliu, Guan County, Pi County, Wenjiang, Xinfan, Xindu, Peng County, Chongning, and Jintang all made a fuss about "removing the five beetles", of which Peng County is also the birthplace of the movement!

This vigorous people's movement, its outbreak was sudden, spread rapidly, and the scale was huge, beyond everyone's imagination, including the Shu Wangfu in Chengdu and Zhu Pingjin in Yazhou. The terrible civil unrest was like a powerful shock wave, centered on Peng County, and spread to the whole Sichuan at supersonic speed. In the middle of the day, large-scale civil unrest occurred in Chengdu, Qiongzhou, Yazhou, Meizhou, Jiading, and even further away in Chongqing, Baoning, Shunqing, Kuizhou, etc.

The Shu Wangfu is putting out fires everywhere at this time, how can it be possible to allocate food to Renshou? The prince had just completed the suppression of the rebellion in Yazhou and was leading the army to Qiongzhou. As for the officials of the provincial, prefectural, and county yamen in Chengdu, they are engaged in a fierce quarrel over the question of who is responsible for the civil unrest. Some heavyweight officials have already released their words to impeach the governor Liao Daheng to the imperial court. Because it was he who harassed the people during the Spring Festival by strictly ordering all localities to collect tax arrears, which triggered the people's uprising in Sichuan.

Located in Chengdu, the Dusi Yamen and Chengdu Zhongwei, Chengdu Right Guard, Chengdu Qianwei, Chengdu Rear Guard, Ningchuan Wei and the Chengdu Left Guard subordinate to the palace and other six guards, one did not receive the instructions of the governor and the military road, and the other was that the matter was in a hurry, and many soldiers were still in the fields outside the city and could not concentrate in the city. So they simply closed the four gates of Chengdu Mansion and watched the chaos outside the city, but they didn't dare to go out of the city to quell the chaos.

Sichuan, the once rich land of abundance, fell into chaos in Sichuan again almost instantly. At this time, people from all walks of life appeared one after another, some sat and watched the success or failure, some fished in troubled waters, and some took advantage of the fire to rob. And the male protagonist of this book, Zhu Pingjin, is in Yazhou, in the corner of western Sichuan surrounded by mountains.

Note 1: "Shu Bi" said that Liu Sance was a person from Raozhou.