An abandoned lama temple in the west of the city has been simply renovated and turned into the headquarters of the Civic Party, where a Civic Party meeting is also being held.

At present, the Civic Party is in a very good situation, it closely relies on the peasant and pastoral associations in Fengzhou, and strives to reform the White Lotus Sect in the Guannai, and the number of party members is increasing day by day, and more than 50,000 new comrades have been developed in Shanxi and Zhili in the Guannai alone, leaving the Liberal Party, its sworn enemy, far behind, and at the same time, the Presidential Office has also promised to change its practice of favoring the Chamber of Commerce, and to appoint a chamber of commerce officer in the next chamber of parliament, and at the same time to appoint a councillor of the peasant and pastoral association, which is also a heavy blow to the Liberal Party. Hopes of a majority for the Civic Party in the next House of Parliament have been greatly boosted. At the same time, however, the party's organizational form lagged behind the development of the situation, and the party members were organized and undisciplined, and acted freely and recklessly, and in Shanxi, there were even a few people who used the banner of the Civic Party to raid homes and houses, seriously tarnishing the party's reputation.

In addition, the Civic Party is a party of the poor of all ethnic groups, and it should have a good mass foundation in Khalkha and Qing State, but Wang Fang completely gave up developing party organizations in other areas outside the Guanxi because of narrow ethnic tendencies, resulting in restrictions on the development of the Civic Party, on the contrary, the Liberal Party established a branch in the Qing State, and pulled the trade ambassadors of Khalkha and Qing into the party, and the Civic Party must also catch up. Infiltration into the Khalkha and Qing countries must not allow the Liberal Party to dominate the country.

Wang Fang made a profound review, admitting that he had a certain degree of ethnic tendencies and did not care enough about the Qing and Khalkha people, but the main reason was the lack of funds, and the main source of the party's funds at present was the three or four thousand taels of silver money allocated by the party leader every year, and the other was to rely on him to extort some money from the Liberal Party from time to time, and it was very difficult to maintain the party's survival with this money, let alone go out to develop the organization, so the key was to get money.

"The problem of our party is not the lack of money, but the lack of brains, don't get the money and spend it, but also think of making money with money, others can do business and make money, why can't you?" Ulan shook his head very dissatisfied, reminding everyone to link the development of the party with doing business and making money, for example, the Bakna gang of merchant troops often went in and out of the Qing Dynasty and Khalkha, which could completely help our party develop the organization outward, and also did some smuggling business for the party by the way, and they were also poor herdsmen and farmers, and they have been moving closer to the organization, what a good force this is, but because some people in the party dislike them for being horse thieves and ruffians, they have been turned away for a long time, which shows how harmful the closed-door doctrine is to the party's cause.

Ulan's words shook the comrades a lot, the long-term poverty made everyone's brains a little rigid, ignoring the problem of running party property, Zhang Guoji hesitated for a while and said: "Hatun, I am doing things in the Titang Division, Zhang Shi'an has found me several times, hoping to use the strength of our party to do things for the Titang Division, I wonder if I can cooperate with Zhang Shi'an, and by the way, also use his gang of smuggling salt dealers to help us sell salt?" ”

"Of course you can, you can also drag Zhang Shi'an and that gang of smuggling salt dealers into our party." Ulan replied without hesitation.

Everyone's brains suddenly came alive, gossiping to come up with a bunch of crooked ways to make money, and unanimously elected Bi Lige, who knows the most about business in the party, to be responsible for the management of party property, everyone also thinks that although the party's mouthpiece "Citizen Daily" is distributed to every hundred households, it has always lacked articles that can impress the people, and it is not as good as the propaganda effect of the "Liberty Daily" that has made a fortune.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the autumn harvest is about to begin, the Liberal Party will definitely win over the hearts and minds of the people with great fanfare, our party must not give them an opportunity to take advantage of, all party members must take the lead in their work, and let the villagers see who is the most credible person," Ulan stood up in front of his comrades, waving his fist and shouting, "The slogan of our party is—"

"Freedom, equality, benevolence, and the realization of universal harmony!" The party members immediately stood up and chanted in unison.

The autumn harvest of Fengzhou is connected with the autumn service and autumn exercises, first of all, the autumn harvest, men, women and children go to the field together, each harvesting their own crops, and the lack of labor does not need to be anxious, the hundred households will adjust the labor according to the situation, and the enthusiastic Mongolians lead the livestock to help, and it is the iron rule of Fengzhou not to let a grain fall into the ground; Then there is the autumn service, where everyone works together for ten days of public service, mainly to renovate water conservancy, roads and villages, which is to plan for the future, and every household supports it; Finally, there is a ten-day autumn drill, in which the reservists of each guard return to their respective formations and battalions to conduct drills, and the remaining men, that is, the garrison soldiers, are led by the officers of the garrison. This process will be busy for nearly two months, in addition to the officials, battalion soldiers and craftsmen who have official duties, other men have to participate, among which the autumn service, autumn exercise also give each Ding two liters of food a day, women and children are also welcome to participate, a liter of food a day - of course, there are exceptions, according to the Fengzhou law, men do not participate in public service, and those who train are fined twice the grain, which is actually an opening for rich businessmen, allowing them to spend money to be exempted, but others have no money, and they are eager to earn some food for their families, the Liberal Party, Naturally, the Civic Party will not let go of this propaganda opportunity.

The wealthy people of the Liberal Party have always been dismissive of farm work, even if they do it once in a while, they are only pretending, at most cooking a few pots of broth, distributing some steamed buns, and steamed buns to invite people to buy people's hearts, but this year is different, on the first day of the sickle, they appeared with a new look, lined up to beat gongs and went into the fields, kept shouting slogans, pasting slogans, and giving small farm tools to farmers in the fields. When they got out of the field, they went to the farmer's side, and while doing the farm work clumsily, they seriously said that the Liberal Party was also born from a hard background, and although they earned some money, they were still good friends of farmers and herdsmen, and they would definitely lead everyone to become rich and well-off together. The party members did not let go of the break, and seized the time to read the newspaper post to everyone, and this issue of "Liberty Daily" was also strange, and did not talk about a big truth, but specially introduced the advanced experience of raising pigs and chickens, which attracted some popularity. This scene was played out all over Toyosu, and the Liberal Party's meticulous planning was quite effective, and it seemed to have narrowed the distance between them and the poor people, and at least some people followed them to shout the slogan "Support the Liberal Party, and work together to achieve a well-off life".

The Liberal Party is pressing, and the Civic Party feels a lot of pressure, and the Liberal Party has learned the tricks of shouting slogans and sticking slogans in the past. Wang Fang quickly responded, organized a small team of party members to help people who lacked labor to harvest crops, and invited experts such as Yang Dazhi of the Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry to teach everyone the secrets of planting crops.

During the autumn service, the situation changed, and the Civic Party had the strength, rushing to do heavy work, always rushing to the front of the labor team, and even working for three more days to make contributions, and everyone said that the Civic Party was its own people. The Liberal Party really can't do it, this hardship has never been suffered, it would be good to cut corners and mix it up, but they can't be soft-mouthed, and put up a banner with the slogan "You work for three more days, we will send three more days of food, the Liberal Party has always been of the same mind as the people of Toyozhou", and by the way, it was a little popular.

The training ground is the world of the Civic Party, and Fengzhou conducts spring and autumn drills every year, and in peacetime, hundreds of households also organize training on their own initiative, and the people of Fengzhou are precocious to this set, and they play well in attack and defense in array, and the businessmen of the Liberal Party are not only in the way of mixing in the ranks, but also show their foreign appearances, and the officers of the guard station have no choice but to invite them out of the battle formation. It's too embarrassing, we also have a way to defend Toyosu, the Liberal Party complained loudly, while feeling out the firecrackle, formed a queue to train, crackled and fought for a while, proudly held the firecrackle and shouted, the firecrackle is made by us, the weapons in your hands are also built by us, and we are also defending Fengzhou.

When the party members fight, the party leader will not be idle, while shouting and cheering for the party, while also pulling people everywhere, Ulan eyed Li Mao, the director of the Xuande Iron Works, and Chen Shishi, the director of the Xinghe Iron Works, both of whom are from Baita Village, and there is no party or faction at present, but the craftsmen are good and kind, and they will almost certainly be re-elected as the councillors, and they must not be let go, even dragged Li Mao into the Liberal Party.

The two parties fought so much that the sparks were splashing, and the party members inevitably insulted each other, spit, tore slogans, and even used their hands and feet to provoke, Bi Lige and Zhou Yi fought because they didn't like each other, and the people in the inspection department couldn't afford to provoke these bigwigs, so they simply complained to the top. Ortai, for fear of causing a big incident, summoned Shen Shoulian and Wang Fang, premiers of the two parties, to the Dafa Department to warn them that they should not fight with arms, and whoever caused the accident would be unlucky, and not only those responsible would be severely punished, but the General Consulate would also deduct the number of designated councillors for the party. Shen Shoulian and Wang Fang immediately said that they would never cause trouble, they knew in their hearts that Fengzhou was no better than other places, every household had weapons, and it was not uncommon to see firearms and guns, and if something really happened, it would have to be a dead person-there was an inspection department staring at it, and the bigwigs of the two parties were also reminded at any time that this farce would have passed without danger.

Barbarian Mountain Commander's Hall, Li Yu stood quietly, his eyes stared at the map on the wall, Fengzhou's internal affairs have two governments, one courtyard and one law division do not have to worry about him, he is anxious about the battle situation in Gyeonggi, at the beginning of the autumn harvest, he took the military affairs office to sit in the camp of Manhan Mountain - Fengzhou is more like a paper tiger at this time, and released cruel words prohibiting the Qing army from going out of Zhili, but in fact, financial resources are tight, and the troops are seriously insufficient.

"After the Qing army occupied Changping, it successively captured Liangxiang, Shunyi, Dingxing ......, and has now crossed Baoding, and it seems that there are plans to go south," the military newspaper was reported by Zhang Shi'an, the governor of the Titang Division, after the Qing army entered the customs, he personally took people to Zhili to monitor the other party's movements, Ma Guangyuan couldn't help but scold, "Zhang Fengyi, Liang Tingdong, Gao Qiqian three turtles shrunk together, and the Qing army did not dare to fight, what is this, Shanhaiguan, Xuandaqin Wang Bing and the Gyeonggi garrison will never be less than 200,000 people, Follow behind the butts of the thirty or forty thousand Qing soldiers to watch the excitement, a bunch of waste! ”

"Zhang Fengyi and Liang Tingdong have been confidants of the Ministry of War, and they know each other for many years by monitoring the military affairs of Guan Ningjin, and they are forced to do so, the officers and soldiers are not well paid, and the morale is low, and they will definitely collapse at the touch of a button if they pounce on it, so the situation in Gyeonggi will be worse, on the contrary, if the strength is intact, the Qing army will not be able to gain a foothold in Gyeonggi, and sooner or later it will withdraw from the pass, this is no way, in fact, we go up the same, fighting depends on strength, and it is useless to have more people." Du Wenhuan sighed and said.

Ge Kuri frowned and said: "The disparity in strength between the two armies of the Ming and Qing dynasties is huge, and it is expected that the battle will be fought like this, and the question now is, if the Qing army enters Shandong or Henan easily, what should we do?" ”

Li Yu rubbed his face vigorously and asked Terig: "How is the reorganization of the new five associations?" ”

"It still takes time, we don't lack weapons and soldiers, but there are not enough officers, last year the Sichuan army Ma Xianglin asked for people, and you let go of the sloppy head and their seventy or eighty people with a wave of your big hand, and now the manpower below is too tight, and an ordinary big-headed soldier can be a captain and captain casually, and these people will be pulled out to fight without training." Terige replied with a shake of his head.

Fengzhou's large-scale expansion of the army, Terig wanted to lead the troops, and concurrently served as the former assistant commander of the cavalry, Jeddah was transferred to the rear assistant commander of the cavalry, Hadari took over as the commander of the Flying Tiger Battalion, Hou Shijie and Zhou Yuji were also promoted to the front and rear of the infantry as they wished, and the artillery association was split into two, Ding Qiming and Jin Guoding were appointed as the left and right assistant commanders, and almost all of the officers and veterans below were promoted, but the officers were really not enough, and the various departments poached officers and veterans in an endless stream, and some even brought lawsuits to the Grand Commander's Mansion. Li Yu could only transfer a large number of officers from the garrison posts of various prefectures to supplement the battalion. At present, there is some chaos within the Fengzhou Army, and the Military Affairs Office believes that it will take at least a year to restore combat strength, and it is very unrealistic to pull the battalion soldiers out to fight in a short period of time.

Li Yu took the military newspaper from Ma Guangyuan's hand, sat down and read it carefully a few times, flicked his fingers on the table and said: "Zhang Shi'an also said in the military newspaper that there is a plague outbreak in Shunde, Hejian, Dezhou and other places, and I want to send a letter to Azig to persuade him to retreat despite the difficulties. ”

"It's useless, Azig is a bad man, you said that there is a big epidemic in the south, he must think that we are scaring him, maybe he will run faster to Shandong." Ghkuri immediately waved his hand in disapproval.

"Forget it, Lao Tzu doesn't care, let Azig fight down, and if you have the ability, you will hit Nanjing." Li Yu threw away the military newspaper a little angrily, got up and strode out.

Several praisers looked at each other, Ma Guangyuan lowered his head and said: "You can't let the Qing army be too rampant, if you can't do it, send troops." ”

"If you don't have enough food, you can't send troops, think about it, what will happen if you go to Gyeonggi and don't have anything to eat? Once the army is defeated, we will have no capital to intimidate the Qing army in the future," Du Wenhuan shook his head vigorously, slapped the table and shouted, "Time, the key is time, let the Ming State and the Qing State fight, as long as we can fight for three years, everything will be easy to do." ”

Li Yu came out of the commander's hall and met Meng Ke and Ji Da quarreling, Ji Da was full of grievances and said that the cavalry rear association is a new army, the most lacking officers, he planned to send Zhao Ji's two personal soldiers - snow wolf and sorghum pole to be the sentry commander, Zhao Ji also readily agreed, but Meng Ke, a horse thief, abducted people halfway, and did not admit it afterwards.

"Jeddah, I'm for your good, those two guys are rampant horse thieves, you are too young to control them, it's better to leave them to me, and I'll transfer two people to you later." Meng Keman said nonchalantly.

"Why? You dig into my corner, and you push the people you don't want to me, the commander, you give a commentary, do you do that? Jeddah yelled.

Li Yu had heard of Zhao Ji's two personal soldiers, and to be honest, it was more appropriate for this kind of person who was born as a habitual bandit to be handed over to Meng Ke, but he didn't intend to let Meng Ke go easily, and asked with a straight face: "Meng Ke, how are you going to know about Wuyunna?" ”

A cold sweat broke out on Meng Ke's head, Wuyunna was originally the favorite concubine of Chahar Khan, her brother Gui Yingcha was snubbed by the Great Khan after his death, Li Yu went to Jinlianchuan to meet Chahar Khan a few years ago, Meng Ke took the Flying Tiger Battalion to escort, the two of them were eyebrows at that time, last year the Fengzhou Army expedition to Khalkha, Meng Ke found Wuyunna who was taken away by the Polo Korqin people, and immediately hooked up with firewood and fire, however, Meng Ke has been wild since he was a child, and has no plans to start a family, Wuyunna is angry, and she looks for Sutai to sue with a big belly, and this matter is in a uproar in naturalization- The folk customs of Fengzhou gradually became more and more popular, and they were very tolerant of widows remarrying, but this kind of behavior of abandoning from the beginning to the end still aroused public indignation, and Meng Ke hid in the Barbarian Mountain with a weak heart and did not dare to show up.

"Well, I'll go talk to her." Meng Ke was about to slip away.

"I don't care what you think, I have to start a family with Uyunna this year." Li Yu shouted at Meng Ke's back - three months later, Meng Ke married Wuyunna and immediately added a son.

In the middle of August, bad news continued to come from Gyeonggi, the Qing army seemed to be fighting more and more smoothly, Ansu, Dacheng, and Xiongxian were captured again, and the Ming army could not take any countermeasures except to move behind the Qing army's buttocks, and Lu Xiangsheng of Huguang was still climbing on the road and did not appear on the battlefield for a long time. Li Yu scolded that the mud could not support the wall, simply ignored the affairs in the pass, and concentrated on reorganizing the army, and at this moment, Liu Xingzuo sent an urgent report, a group of elite cavalry of the Qing army suddenly appeared east of Duolunor, the commander of the army is Dolgon, Duoduo, Yuetuo, Haoge, the strength is estimated at about 5,000 people, but the Qing army does not seem to want to fight, but asks to meet with Li Yu, just in case, Xinghe, Kaiping and Chahar in the east of Xingtai have been mobilized and are reinforcing Duolunor.

Li Yu was taken aback, it's so dangerous, Sibeile really has a back hand, fortunately I didn't enter the pass, these five thousand elite cavalry is not difficult to deal with, bite this Qing army, maybe you can bring out the Azig in the pass - Li Yu ordered the left and right associations of the cavalry to immediately assemble and rush to Dushikou to standby, and he hurried to Duolunor.