The situation in the south of the Ming Dynasty was dizzying, but it did not affect the steady development of Zhang Qiang's rebel army.

In the past month, about 100,000 people who fled from various places occupied by the Qing army still thought that they were the people of the Ming Dynasty, filling the population gap in Zhang Qiang's territory, and making the population of the entire Jinhua Mansion soar to 150,000.

But this did not bring any benefits to Zhang Qiang, there were many people, but many of these people came to Jinhua Mansion alone for refuge, many of them were homeless, even some wealthy landlords, squires, and former officials of the Ming Dynasty did not have much property, and the important thing was that there was no food to eat.

Not only can Zhang Qiang not be able to use their manpower, because they are all unstable factors, Zhang Qiang has to send troops around to take care of them, and he can't collect taxes, because they don't have much silver taels on them, and they can't loot if they want to, let alone drive them away, because Zhang Qiang needs these people.

So Zhang Qiang had to build a porridge shed and give them alms.

Zhang Qiang had to transfer Zhou Congee back from Wuyi County, and then sent Hu Kui to take over his post as the garrison of Wuyi County, and personally served as the garrison of Jinhua and Wucheng.

Zhou Congee has been busy this month, although he has found out a lot of former Ming officials from the refugees, but after some selection, the available manpower is still not enough, and he does not dare to promote those former Ming officials at will, who knows that they are not the rat feces that spoiled the pot of porridge, which will disturb the livelihood of the people in Zhang Qiang's territory, cause the displaced people to gather to make trouble, and become the rogues who rebel against Zhang Qiang's territory, bandits, even without them, Zhang Qiang's territory is not peaceful, there are bandits everywhere, water bandits, bullies, bullies who block the road and rob.

Zhang Qiang has trained two batches of elite soldiers with a total of 1,000 volunteers, and in addition to the 700 elite firecrackers, the other 300 elite soldiers of various arms have been sent to the troops of various subordinates to exert their influence, improve their loyalty and combat effectiveness, and unite the troops.

But this is far from enough, and it will take some time for Zhang Qiang's troops to go from being scattered to condensing into a combat-ready force.

His main force from more than 1,000 people in the past, only increased to more than 3,000 people, these are the soldiers he trained, the others are trained by his subordinates, or surrendered soldiers, there is a heart to attach, and the heart of Zhang Qiang's soldiers, after sneaking platoon, the total strength is only 5,000 people, that is to say, his 17,000 troops, in fact, at the critical moment can play combat effectiveness is only 5,000 people, and the other soldiers can only fight with the wind, if the war is unfavorable, it is likely to be like Nanming's army, which will collapse at the touch of a button.

Maybe these soldiers are more than enough to do some work to defend the place, but they can't go into battle to kill the enemy, although they actually still have combat effectiveness, but to face the Qing army, they can only rely on the city to hold on.

And most of these soldiers are Zhang Qiang's 2,000 firecrackers, 150 personal guard cavalry, as for the group of cavalry stationed in Wucheng, patrol and maintain local order, and when Zhang Qiang's troops win, the pursuit is still okay, and they can only turn around and run away in a decisive battle.

Just when Zhang Qiang was at a loss in the face of the current situation, Zhu Dayou walked in, coughed, and woke up Zhang Qiang, "My lord, there is a person who said that he is an official of the Longwu Dynasty and has come to see you." ”

Zhang Qiang frowned, he didn't want to have a relationship with the Longwu Imperial Court now, that meant that he had to listen to others, what Longwu could let him do, he would definitely lead the troops to rescue him.

But the problem is that there are several state capitals that are hundreds of kilometers in front of him, and he can't fight all the way through, so does he want to have a foundation in Jinhua?

Zhu Dayou's eyelids rolled, looked at Zhang Qiang, saw Zhang Qiang's embarrassed look, and asked carefully: "If you don't want to see this person, I can send him somewhere else." ”

Zhang Qiang shook his head, "Bring him to me, by the way, what's his name?" ”

Zhu Dayou said: "He claims to be the imperial envoy of the Ming Dynasty, the supervising army, the squire of the Longwu Dynasty Army, Jin Sheng, and the word Chibi." ”

Zhang Qiang thought about it with his brain, he seemed to have an impression of this person, "Chongzhen's first year Jinshi, Hanlin Shujishi, is a talent, the leader of the Huizhou Righteous Army, I heard that he died last year, was killed by Hong Chengchou, and took righteousness in Nanjing, and followed in the footsteps of Emperor Hongguang, but think about it, Tian Weicheng said that Emperor Hongguang did not die, but went into hiding, then, a dead leader of the Righteous Army, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, a civil official, is not dead. ”

"Ask him to come in." Zhang Qiang waved his hand.

An old man wearing a Confucian scarf, a cyan robe, a silk belt around his waist, and a long sword hung from his waist walked in.

As soon as they met, he immediately bowed his hand and said, "Lord Zhang, take the liberty to come and invite Lord Zhang Haihan." ”

Zhang Qiang stood up, walked a few steps, and arched his hand: "Wuyi County Garrison Zhang Qiang has seen Lord Jin,"

Zhu Dayou took a guard to move a Taishi chair, and Zhang Qiang pointed to the chair and said, "Lord Jin, please sit, come, serve tea." ”

After speaking, he said to Jin Sheng: "Lord Jin, I don't know if you come to our humble house, what advice do you have?" Zhang Qiang said as he retreated to his chair, sat down with a generous buttocks, and looked at the golden body with a smile.

Jin Sheng tilted his head slightly, his eyes were a little lonely, some self-deprecating, a little resting, and a somewhat helpless voice said: "Lord Zhang, I heard that Lord Zhang has defeated the Qing army many times with the strength of an army, captured many Qing army generals, beheaded the Ming Dynasty rebellious Ruan Dacheng, Chen Jia and others, held high the anti-Qing banner, maintained local stability, and came to join the adult, and asked the adult to take him in." ”

Saying that, he stood up, faced Zhang Qiang, knelt down, and the frightened Zhang Qiang immediately got up to avoid it, to be honest, if he had just crossed that time, he didn't care about these so-called Ming officials, Lao Tzu is still the famous name of later generations, arrogant otaku, what about working boys, hundreds of years of knowledge more than you, hundreds of years of historical knowledge, even if Lao Tzu is only the lowest figure in society, it is more of a sense of superiority than these people.

But from the recent time he has been busy with anxiety, seeing that the bandits in his territory are rampant, and all the troops are either busy suppressing bandits, or busy settling the homeless, or dealing with some trivial things, he suddenly found that he was helpless in the face of such a situation, and had to let go of that arrogance, reflect on himself, and found that his ability to deal with these situations was too tender, and his subordinates were inferior to himself, they were all some low-level people, and they didn't know how to deal with these things.

So he knew that even the so-called useless scholars and Ming officials who complained in later generations were better than their own people, to be officials, to appease the people, and to get these people, what he lacked was these people, and now a Jinshi of the Chongzhen Dynasty suddenly appeared, a Ming official who had been an imperial envoy and led the righteous army to fight against the Qing army, he felt that he had picked up a treasure.

Now everyone knows that the rebel army, at best, is just a group of peasants who pick up swords, and they have no ability to rule the country, no matter who is not optimistic about the future of these people, which means why did You Haibo leave later, the rebel army team is even inferior to the peasant rebel army that has been famous for many years, or the rogue team that has become unfamiliar, or lacks strength and legitimacy, and people don't trust it.

This is why Zhang Qiang also posted an announcement for the people, and at the same time called on some Ming scholars to come out to be officials, until now, no one has responded for more than a month, even if it is a speculator, no one has come.

"Lord Jin, you are killing the lower officials, with your ability, just come, then you still need to kneel down to the lower officials?" Zhang Qiang stepped forward to help him up.