Nanzhili, Suining, the peasant army small Yuan camp military village. Ｘ

The main tent in the wall, the oil lamp is bright. Yuan Shizhong put down the letter that Jian Yu had written to him.

"You want to form an alliance with me and attack Huai'an together?"

Although the person who delivered the letter had shaved the tail of the money rat, he was a Han man, "Exactly, so that General Yuan would know that Huai'an Mansion is also an important town on the canal, and there are countless children of gold silk." Your army is in Henan, our army is in Hebei, as long as your army accepts us to cross the river, capture Huai'an. When all the captures are taken, my two families will be divided equally. ”

Yuan Shizhong did not express his position, "King Chuang and the Eight Kings, do you also have contact?" ”

"Exactly. General Yuan is in a remote location and has only now been seen. General Li Zicheng and General Zhang Xianzhong had already sent people to contact us when they arrived at the Yellow River. ”

"Did they reply?"

"The villain doesn't know. My master said that if you are willing to send a letter to His Majesty the Emperor, we will convey it. If you want to send Shengjing, we will send someone to escort you. ”

Yuan Shizhong let out a heart-palpitating sneer, "Your master." Did you grow up eating shi, a dog minion? ”

Jian Yulai was surprised, "What does this mean, general?" ”

Yuan Shizhong took the case, "Dog slave, Lao Tzu's self-snack is cereals, and I admire Yue Feiyue's grandfather." For the Tartars and their minions, they hate to sleep on their skins and eat their flesh. ”

"General Yuan, China and North Korea are our common enemies. ”

Yuan Shizhong was furious, "Lao Tzu killed officials and rebelled to give the poor a way to live." You are a traitor and deserve to be compared to your grandfather. After speaking, before the messenger could distinguish it, Yuan Shizhong shouted loudly: "Come on, drag it down, rip off the heart of this traitor, and throw it out to feed the dogs." ”

Two peasant soldiers picked up the traitor and dragged him out with the screams of "the king spares his life, the king spares his life".

Yuan Shizhong took the tea and moistened his throat, "Two gentlemen, you can come out." ”

Liu Jinqing and Shen Lian opened the curtain behind them and walked into the tent, Shen Lian gave a deep salute to Yuan Shizhong, "Hundreds of thousands of Nanzhili fathers and elders of Shen's generation thank the general for his righteous act. ”

"Don't thank me, Grandpa Yue is a role model for my generation, and I finally have a chance to learn from Grandpa Yue to kill Tartars. Yuan will order his troops and horses to go to Haizhou tomorrow. ”

"My lord has prepared a boat in the Huai River, please rest assured."

Yuan Shizhong nodded and said to Liu Jinqing, "You can go back and tell your lord that Yuan is not a human trafficker, so he won't accept this money." I won't help you either, after capturing Haizhou, you can send people to recruit yourself. If these displaced people can really get a share of the farmland overseas, it will also be a matter of merit. ”

Yuan Shizhong believed in Buddhism, and his department was called a Buddhist soldier, and Shen Lian and Liu Jinqing had also heard of it before.

Liu Jinqing also saluted, "Just follow what the general said." ”

Shen Lian and Liu Jinqing walked out of Yuan Shizhong's big tent, the moonlight was like water, and the water vapor spit out between the two of them was clearly visible. Soldiers armed with waist knives patrolled around the village, passing by the two of them.

The root cause of the decline of Liu Jinqing's family was the Battle of Luoyang, and he had a deep hatred with Li Zicheng's troops, and he also worked hard to study the situation of the peasant army. Unlike other peasant armies, the size of the Xiao Yuan battalion was not large. The subordinates of King Chuang, the Eight Great Kings, Cao Cao, Lao Huihui and others all numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and the displaced people and the robbed men and women were like a mobile country. Xiao Yuan's camp does not kill people, does not plunder women, and has excellent military discipline, so there are no people in the army.

Shen Lian is Shen Tingyang's family, since Jian's entry into the Kou, Shen Tingyang has been contacting Yuan Shizhong, and the messenger is Shen Lian. Liu Jinqing visited Shen Tingyang with a letter from Order, and things went smoothly beyond his expectations, and Shen Tingyang agreed to help Orderly transfer immigrants. But it was inconvenient for him to organize this exile in the area controlled by the Ming army, so the matter also fell on Yuan Shizhong. Liu Jinqing followed Shen Lian to Yuan Shizhong's territory.

"Brother Shen, I look at this little Yuan camp, which is very different from ordinary rogues."

Shen Lian said with a smile, "That's true, Yuan Shizhong doesn't kill people, doesn't set fires, specializes in recruiting people and accumulating grain, and many officials in the imperial court regard Yuan Shizhong as a strange one of the thieves." ”

"Then how should Yuan Bu get along with the other rogues?"

Shen Lian said: "Yuan Shizhong also joined forces with Chuang Rebellion last year, which is really unacceptable. Chuang Rebellion and Luo Rucai were also very wary of Yuan Shizhong. Yuan Shizhong took advantage of the opening of Li Luo's second encirclement, and ran away from the thief brigade in the middle of the night, and now he is on the same page as the rebellion. ”

Liu Jinqing nodded slightly, "No wonder." ”

On the second day, Yuan Shizhong gathered 10,000 soldiers and horses and marched to the Huai River, and Cai Yuanding and Shen Lian both moved with the army. The military uniform logo of the small Yuan battalion is a half-green and half-red felt hat, and the core force of the army is more than 1,000 cavalry under the command of Yuan Shizhong, and the main force is thousands of miners absorbed in Mengcheng, who are strong and strong, and have strong combat effectiveness. Judging from the discipline of the march, the miners were significantly better organized than the peasants.

The Shen family's ships were already waiting at the ferry, and in the cold wind, the 10,000 troops of the Yuan Department crossed the Huai River in batches. On the twentieth day of the first month, Yuan's troops besieged Haizhou.

There were more than 3,000 Mongol cavalry in the city, and they went out of the city to meet the peasant army.

These poor Mongol herders had been plundering China for months, and now they were replaced by shotguns, and everyone had swords and weapons, some of them wearing Ming army armor, but the cost of sending troops in winter was also obvious. Their horses are no longer good, and there are less than two horses per person at the time of the expedition, and they are thin and weak, and they have lost weight obviously.

Yuan Shizhong was relieved when he saw the Western Tartar's war horse, he first set up artillery to fight, and then shot with arrows after the enemy cavalry approached, and then the infantry met in short combat. After killing back and forth three times, the Western Tartars fled into Haizhou City one after another.

There were many tents of Mongolian soldiers outside the city, and Xiao Yuan's camp burned them all. There were more than a dozen camels in the camp, and the people in Xiao Yuan's camp didn't know camels and couldn't raise them, so they all slaughtered them for meat. After the first battle, Yuan rescued tens of thousands of captive refugees stranded outside the city. Yuan Shizhong found some leaders among the refugees, "You have been captured, and your parents at home want to reward each of them with fifty yuan, go home quickly." ”

Liu Jinqing waited for these refugee leaders to come out, and immediately greeted them and announced the conditions for recruitment. Many of these refugees come from Beizhili and Shandong, and it is difficult for many to return.

Xiao Yuan's battalion made siege equipment such as ladders overnight, and climbed ladders to attack as soon as dawn. Yuan's selection of a front can beat three or four dismounted Western Tartars, and Western Tartars will not defend the city at all, and they will lose the city wall in three or two strokes.

Before noon, the Western Tartars opened the northern gates and fled. Yuan Shizhong sneered and led the cavalry in pursuit. The horses of the Western Tartars have been on the expedition for four months, and they can't outrun the cavalry of the small Yuan battalion at all, and the Yuan department chased out more than ten miles and cut off more than 1,000 heads. As for the scattered Western Tartars, most of them will never be able to return to their hometowns, and the landlords and villagers will teach these Mongolian soldiers to be human beings.

Shou Xuan heard the good news of Haizhou's recovery on Yuntai Island, and immediately took the guards to Haizhou City in a sand boat. He did not go ashore, but he sent more men to recruit refugees. Yuan Shizhong kept his promise and did not interfere with the orderly action.

After the news of Haizhou's recovery spread, more and more refugees poured in, and many of them chose to try their luck overseas. The Shen family's fleet traveled back and forth between Haizhou and Yuntai Island, making up enough people needed to keep order.

Shou Xu was very grateful to Yuan Shizhong and wrote a letter to Yuan Shizhong. He couldn't help but reveal some future developments, and strongly suggested that Yuan Shizhong should not defect to Li Zicheng even when he was cornered. If there is an opportunity, you can lead troops to Jiangnan, or Jiangxi, or Hunan, only in the south can there be a foothold for Xiao Yuanying. If he can occupy a sea in the south, he will provide support in the future.

Shou Xuan didn't know if it would be useful to do this, but he felt that he had to do his best to save Xiao Yuan's camp. Not only because of the acquiescence in the emigration, but also because Xiao Yuanying was the only peasant army to fight against the Tatars in the Battle of Renwu.

Half a month later, Shen Tingyang mobilized 60 large sand boats, carrying 14,000 immigrants, and followed Shou Xiang south. The voyage was generally smooth, except for the loss of 6 boats at the mouth of the Yangtze River and Hangzhou Bay, and most of the people who fell into the water were rescued.

After Hangzhou Bay, there are Yongjiang Estuary and Lingjiang Estuary in turn.

Chang Guowei, Shipu guards the thousand households.

Zhang Mingzhen watched the mighty fleet sail past in front of him, and his heart was surging. "Brother Ruan, now that I have seen Jinchengyi's fleet, we know the pleasure of the heroes on the sea."

Ruan Jin was a pirate recruited by Zhang Mingzhen with a lot of money, and he arched his hand and said: "General Houfu started from scratch, and fought between the grasslands in the north, fighting on the side of Tartar City, and he was no worse than a man on the sea. ”

Zhang Mingzhen laughed when he heard this, he was born in Nanjing's hereditary brocade guard, and he was once a young man in Beijing who wore a flying fish suit and an embroidered spring knife on his waist to swagger through the city. Zhang Mingzhen got along well with the eunuchs, and the first pot of gold was obtained by gambling with the eunuchs, and later engaged in the border horse trade and became rich. He was the guest of the eunuch Cao Huachun, the commander of the Dongchang Factory, and through Cao Huachun, he established a relationship with the Donglin Restoration Society.

Zhang Mingzhen was transferred from the capital to Zhejiang because he gambled too much at the beginning of the year and killed a eunuch, and spent money to move around. Now that he has not officially taken office, he first ran to Zhejiang to avoid the limelight, and his relationship is really strong enough.

Zhang Mingzhen was full of confidence, "Brother Ruan, I also want to build a ship." I don't need the imperial court, I spend my own money. ”

"How much money is the general going to pay?"

"Brother Ruan, you are an expert in shipbuilding and boating. 160,000 taels of silver, how many ships can you get me? I will fight a great ship, strong enough to fight. ”

Ruan Jin pondered for a while, "General, for 160,000 taels, we can build 80 big warships." ”

At this time, Zhang Mingzhen was the most heroic stage of his life, "Okay, as Brother Ruan said, the first batch is 80 ships." In the future, we will build more warships, and we can't be worse than those Jinchengyi. ”

Naturally, he didn't know that there was a Ming army sailor general on the shore who was watching his fleet. He had more important things to pay attention to, and after crossing Hangzhou Bay, warships flying the Zhengjia flag appeared around the fleet one after another. It is not difficult to understand that such a large southbound fleet sailed into the waters at the junction of Fujian and Zhejiang, which naturally attracted Zheng Zhilong's attention.

Although there was no firefight, it made Shou Xuan very worried. The sand ships in the fleet were vulnerable in battle, and there were many islands and bays along the coast of Zhejiang and Fujian, making it difficult to spot hidden enemies. The fleet was temporarily parked on Dachen Island in Taizhou, and then it was Zheng Zhilong's core area off the coast of Fujian.

Waiting for the wind on Dachen Island, a week later, the wind was gentle, and the waves were not prosperous. The fleet sailed into the open sea and sailed directly to Keelung Port.

200 nautical miles, 3 days downwind.

Maiden has been waiting for him in Keelung for a long time, and in the coldest two months of winter, Maiden mobilized all the troops of Keelung and Tamsui to completely conquer Fanshe in Taipei. Today, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland have been planned in Taipei, Taoyuan and other places, waiting for immigrants to cultivate them.

The first thing he did after disembarking from the ship was to hurriedly ask Maiden, "Has the gold mine been mined?" ”

"The North Korean immigrants you sent, I've put 3,000 of them into gold mining. The rest are building a road from Keelung to Tamsui. ”

"I'll talk about the road later, how much gold is there now?"

"Extract 800 taels."

"Give it all to me."

"I promised a lot of Chinese merchants that I would pay them in gold."

"Pay first and calculate the interest on them." Ignoring Maiden's sad face, Shou ordered the guards to put away the gold.

"How many Spaniards do you have?"

"There's some left."

"Choose 50,000 taels of goods, and I will pay them to the Shen family merchant ship that helps us transport people."

"Well," Maiden sighed, "like you said, people matter. ”

Shou Xuan hurriedly found Shen Tingshu with the gold, and said apologetically: "Lord Shen, this is 800 taels of gold, I know that it is not enough to pay for your expenses on this voyage." I replace the rest with goods, I wonder if you can accept it? ”

Shen Tingshu accepted the money, and 6 ships sank on this voyage, 5 of which were the Shen family's sand boats. The 800 taels of gold paid by Shou Xian now plus the 5,000 taels of silver paid in advance are only more than 13,000 taels of silver in total, which is not enough to fill the cost of the Shen family.

"What are they?"

"Pearls, sumac, yellow wax, shawls, brocades, blankets."

"Yes, we accept."

Shou Xuan breathed a sigh of relief, it didn't feel good to owe a lot of money.

Shen Tingshu said: "My brother asked us to run this trip, but I didn't really think about making money. He felt very satisfied that we were able to give more than 10,000 displaced people a way to live. What's more, I also got acquainted with the lord of the country. ”

Shou ordered to pour wine for Shen Tingshu, "I will never let my cooperating partners suffer." While Lord Shen waits for the wind, I can help you contact the Dutch and buy some cane sugar and pepper from them to take back to the north. ”

"It couldn't be better."

Shou Xuan thought for a moment, and then asked, "I wonder if Lord Shen is willing to sell me some boats?" ”

It is risky for sand boats to sail long distances, but Jincheng still has a lot of offshore transportation tasks around the island in Taiwan, and now it occupies lucky ships and bird boats, which is actually a waste. Buying a sand boat in order can replace a ship that is more suitable for long-distance sailing.

"How many ships does the kingdom have?"

"How about 10?"

Shen Tingshu silently estimated for a while, "Yes." ”

Shen Tingshu took 60 sand ships southward, each with 30 sailors, and the fleet on the return trip was unlikely to be full, and selling 10 ships was also a lot of money for Shen Tingshu.

Shou Xuan raised his glass, "Lord Shen, we will definitely have a very pleasant cooperation in the future." The port of Tamsui will be open to you. ”

Shen Tingshu also raised his glass, "Then thank you Lord of the Kingdom." ”r