Tianmen Mountain, Tianmen Pass.

The pass is located in the west ten miles of Beiliu County, Tianmen Mountain and Longgou Ridge two mountain ranges stand opposite each other, the mountain peak is towering, to the Tianmen Pass is tight and narrow, into a key pass.

Xu Xiake once looked south of Hengzhou, and the twin peaks of Tianmen Pass stood between them, and even he thought it was a wonder. Xu Xiake walked from the path to Yulin, which was not closed by Tianmen, which was a regret in his life.

"In the past, it was passed on the Miasma River Road, and now it is at the Ghost Gate". Qinlian, Jiaozhi, Qiongzhou ancient miasma epidemic, the Central Plains exiled officials regarded as a ghost land, stepping into the Tianmen Pass, the hope of surviving the Central Plains is slim, so this iconic pass is also called the Ghost Gate Pass.

Observing the Ghost Gate Pass on the spot, Shou Xiang did not hesitate to give up the plan to fortify the Ghost Gate Pass in the future. Most of the maps of the Ming Dynasty in this era are very freehand and do not reflect the details. Only the results of field surveys can guide operations.

The Ghost Gate Pass is to block the main road between the Nanliu River and the Beiliu River, and it is very convenient to set up a card to collect taxes. But around the Ghost Gate, from north to south, there are quite a few mountain paths that can enter the Yulin Basin.

It is impossible for the defenders to place their main force on the Ghost Gate, which can accommodate up to 500 men, and if the enemy forces are interspersed with light infantry, this small fortress will be difficult to defend.

The Ghost Gate Pass reminded the guards that it was necessary to transfer army staff officers from the country to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the two Guangxi provinces in a few years.

Approaching the Ming army guarding the pass, Shou ordered to ride a short Guangxi horse and passed this dangerous pass. The expeditionary force purchased more than 40 local horses in Yulin, and brought them all with them this time.

"Commander Lu, where did you bury the silver?"

Lu Zhan smiled mysteriously, "Go another 20 miles." ”

Shou Xuan raised his eyes and saw that the direction indicated by Lu Zhan was all mountains.

The Beiliu River meanders through the valleys, and the volume of this river is larger than that of the Nanliu River, and the course is very tortuous. A small population is gathered around the county seat, and the mountainous areas are inaccessible.

At night, the tiger roars in the mountains and forests, declaring the sovereignty of the territory to competitors. In this kind of place, no one can find something in the barren mountains and mountains.

The silver was buried by Lu Zhan himself, and it took him three days to find the burial place. At that time, the pits dug were scattered on three hills, and 300 people were brought in order, and they were opened one by one.

In the end, there were more than 290,000 taels in total, and 30,000 were missing.

Lu Zhan was shocked, "Someone hacked my money. ”

It's fun to keep order, it's money that falls from the sky, and it doesn't matter if it's a little less.

"According to the previous distribution plan, Commander Lu and Zeng's cabinet will each get 100,000 taels, and the rest will be mine."

Lu Zhan was still gritting his teeth, "The person who was caught by me for black money, I will kill his whole family." ”

Shou Xuan shook his head helplessly, "Commander Lu, counting the gold you invested, it is almost 150,000 taels now." How are you going to spend this huge amount of money? ”

150,000 taels is equivalent to the cost of a first-class battleship, which is a huge amount of money.

"Take out 100,000 silver to build a long slope fortress, and the gold will not move. Archon, the gold bond has an annual income of 4,000 taels, and your country guarantees to pay it, right? ”

"You can rest assured, credibility is the signature of the Federation."

Lu Zhan crossed his fingers to settle the accounts, "Not counting the income from the plantations in Borneo, I will take half of the 4,000 taels out every year to buy arms, and the other half to buy grain." The price of grain in Siam is so cheap, I have my own ship, and it will not cost more than 5 yuan of silver to ship Siamese rice to Dianbai one stone. 4,000 stone of rice, combined with fishing, in the worst case, I can also maintain an 800 garrison at the Changpo Fortress. ”

800 men were enough to defend a fortified fortress. In extreme cases, Lu Zhan only considered the soldiers' rations, and the families of the officers and soldiers were waiting for him to be released to Borneo.

Taking advantage of the power in his hands, Lu Command started the reclamation plan of the Borneo plantation as soon as possible. Invest early and return early, and the time left for you is only two or three years at most. ”

Thinking of Borneo's territory, Lu Zhan finally smiled, "So there are still three north wind periods, I'll start when I go back." ”

It was now the middle of October, and Lu Zhan had to convene and prepare the fleet in vain. It takes 2 months for the Junk boat to sail from Denbai to Kuching. He has less than 3 months to go, and the time is still relatively tight.

The officers and soldiers picked up horses and transported the silver back to Dingchuan Town. This money is like a long drought and a rainy day in Qiongzhou, and its importance is undoubted.

After the dedication of Yulin Prefecture, the local danger was reduced, and 200 Ming troops were escorted to return to the sea in advance, accompanied by a 40-member federal Dongshui Port garrison belonging to the Sanya Company. This group of soldiers can put an end to the covetousness of mountain bandits and small stragglers along the road.

Shou Xiang temporarily stayed in Dingchuan Town.

Chen Bangfu's army wreaked havoc in the areas of Nanning Mansion, Taiping Mansion (now Chongzuo), and Siming Mansion (now Pingxiang and Ningming). Taiping and Siming are the poorest areas in Guangxi, and there are many local toasts, and the two prefectures together are less than 1,000 taels of silver per year.

Even without Zhang Shijie's reinforcements, the armies of Nanning and Yulin were enough to repel Chen Bangfu's bandits, but the enemy had an advantage in numbers and could not stop them from plundering.

After Zhang Shijie's soldiers took over the defense of Xingye County, Liang Shiyi simply led his troops into Chen Bangfu's hometown Xunzhou Mansion to retaliate. Chen Bangfu had no choice but to withdraw part of his army in Nanning to defend his hometown in Xunzhou.

Xu Biao, the defender of Hengzhou, took the opportunity to defeat Chen Bangfu's unwithdrawn army and capture the city of Nanning. Liang Shiyi burned and looted everywhere in Xunzhou Mansion.

It was the time of chaos that Annan Gaoping Mo's was also involved. Mo Jingyao led the army to invade Taiping Mansion, besieged Yongkang County, captured Yangli Prefecture, and killed Zhizhou Cheng Jia and Xuezheng Hua Baizi, and the Taiping Mansion was supported by Yuan Lijun, who was struggling in Yongkang.

The Ming army in Guangxi fought a civil war, giving Annam the opportunity to invade. Emperor Yongli was, of course, furious. A month later, envoys from Zhaoqing went to Yulin, Xunzhou, and Nanning to mediate between the three armies.

Nanning and Xunzhou were both defeated, but in fact, they couldn't move. The two sides pushed the boat down the river and accepted the truce. Chen Bangfu suffered a big loss, and the three prefectures of Nan, Tai, and Sifu were de facto independent.

Yulin was upgraded to Zhili Prefecture.

According to the recommendation of the order, Li Yuanyin appointed Wang Daoguang as the deputy envoy of Yulin Armament, Zhou Tengfeng as the governor of Yulin, Liao Lunan as the supervisor and discipline promoter of Yulin, Lu Yanzhen as the Tongzhi of Yulin, and Wang Lichuan as Bobaizhi County. The rest of the state and county officials have also been replaced.

The people in the officialdom could see at a glance that Yu Lin was eaten by Zeng Ying. Wang Daoguang is a native of Yichun, Jiangxi, a three-year person in Chongzhen, once served as a soldier in Haibei, and now lives in Qiongzhou. Zhou Tengfeng Xuangong, a native of Lingshan, Qinzhou, has been a county magistrate in Henan. Lu Yanzhen was born in Puzhi County. These officials are all from Qiongzhou background.

As for the state and county officials who were replaced, they were all outsiders, their hometowns had long since fallen, and they were also outcasts living in other places. lost his position of real power, and his life suddenly fell apart. The order will definitely not let them end up, and all those who are unwilling to return to their hometowns will be sent back to Qiongzhou for resettlement and will be used as appropriate in the future.

The person who came to Yulin to preach was Zeng Ying's protégé, and the military department gave Xie Yuanbian in the matter.

"Brother Liang."

"Lord of the Kingdom."

Zeng Ying sought the governor of Lei Lianqiong in Fuzhou, and Xie Yuanbian was one of his masterminds. After Zeng Ying won the office, he put his protégé in a key position in the military department, which gained a lot of convenience.

Shou Xun met Xie Yuanbian for the first time, but there was a lot of correspondence. Many of the confidential battle reports were provided by Xie Yuanbian to Shou Order.

"I invited Brother Liang Ye to come here to discuss with you where Zhang Shijie's troops are stationed."

"Which battlefield does the lord plan to put General Zhang's army on?"

"Huguang battlefield, but it shouldn't go too deep, I want to find a stable territory for Zhang Shijie on the border of Hunan and Guangxi."

Xie Yuanbian leaned on the map and looked at the two of them one by one.

The waterway is the lifeblood of Guangxi's transportation, and the place to find a foothold for the expeditionary force must have a water wharf and have a certain defensive power. The expeditionary force obviously did not have the time to build the city on its own, and had to find it from the existing city.

Guangxi Huayi miscellaneous place, mountain bandits and water bandits are like cattle hair, the Ming Dynasty built nearly 300 years of infrastructure, to meet these two conditions of the castle large and small nearly a thousand, almost everywhere.

Shou Xiang is not familiar with the situation in Guangxi, so he can only use the elimination method first.

The site must be selected in the north of the main stream of the Xijiang River, not in the south of the Yangtze River. The future combat area is about the Hunan and Guizhou borders, and Jiangnan is too far away from the battlefield.

It is unlikely that the state city will be the capital city, and the big city has been divided up by the generals, and they are ready to fight a civil war by taking food from their mouths. The order itself is not very inclined to seize a state capital, and in recent years, the two Guangxi have become people's territory, and the peasant armies such as the Guangdong Army, the Guangxi Army, the Huguang Army, and Hao Shaoqi have been fighting with each other. It is too eye-catching for the Ming army in Qiongzhou to recapture the existing state capital, and Zhang Shijie does not need to go to troubled waters.

The Xijiang River and its main tributaries are also not good, it is a place where business and travel converge, and like the state capital, it is also a forbidden place in the eyes of military generals everywhere. Only grain and cotton could grow in the fields, so they leaned on the water to set up cards to collect tolls and save money.

With 2,000 troops, at least 1,000 porters and followers need to be recruited, and according to 3,000 people, the city must have enough space to accommodate so many soldiers. The patrol city and the fortified camp are large and small, and it is certainly not possible to be too small, and it is inconvenient for the expeditionary force to set up the old camp in many places, just such a small number of people, the combat effectiveness is limited, and the area of the core defense area cannot be too large.

The observance excludes most castles. The suitable targets are the county seat and the city of thousands of households. It was best to stay away from the political centers of the Ming court, such as Zhaoqing, Wuzhou, and Guilin, to reduce interference from the imperial court.

Following this line of thought, most of Guangxi is actually not suitable. The order will circle the remaining areas, the four prefectures north of the Xijiang River, Qingyuan Mansion, Liuzhou Mansion, Guilin Mansion, Pingle Mansion, there are still dozens of suitable castles.

The garrison needs money and food to raise soldiers, and the remaining counties must reconsider the economic situation.

If you open the accounting records of Wanli years in an orderly manner, the figures reflected in the accounting records are certainly different from the reality, but they can also provide the general economic situation for reference. Like the westernmost Qingyuan Prefecture, the three prefectures and counties of Hechi Prefecture under its jurisdiction are not as taxed as a county in Yulin Prefecture together, and this kind of poor place will starve the army to death, and it is certainly not wanted.

Liuzhou was originally very suitable, but according to recent news, Jiao Lian, the strongest town in the Guangxi army, took Liuzhou and Qingyuan to raise troops after Hao Shaoqi went north to Huguang. Chen Bangfu did not supply food to Guilin, and Qu Shiyun could not supply food to the front line, so the generals obviously had to find their own way. Jiaolian Town is the main army, and it naturally has an advantage in grabbing territory. Shou Xuan sighed and crossed out Liuzhou.

Guilin Mansion is not good either. Guilin is the richest region in Guangxi. The whole state under its jurisdiction is giving more than 10,000 pieces of silver, and Lingui County, which is attached to Guo, is also nearly 10,000.

Next up is Pingrakfu. The main stream of the Guijiang River and the cities along the Ling Canal were all crossed out in order, and the main road along the river was a north-south communication artery, which was not quiet, and there were too many troops coming and going, and the territory would be seriously disturbed. Like Guilin Mansion, most areas of Pingle Mansion are also the source of income that Guilin does not have much left, and it cannot be taken.

Now there are still the marginal counties of Pingle Province, Gongcheng, Bucheon, and He counties, as well as an enclave of Wuzhou Province, Huaiji County.

The Ming army in this area was withdrawn from Huguang by Cao Zhijian, the Marquis of Baochang, and Qu Shiyun gave Cao Zhijian the task of shielding the Zhenxia Pass on the east side of Guilin, also known as the Dragon and Tiger Pass, which was an important military town.

Cao Zhijian had nearly 10,000 troops and was relatively strong. In the southernmost part of Huguang, Yongming, Jianghua, Lanshan and other counties near Longhu Pass are his sources of income. When the situation was at its most critical last year, Cao Zhijian gave up all the territory of Huguang and led the army to guard Longhu Pass. Qu Shiyun gave him Guanyang County, Guilin Prefecture, and Gongcheng in the northeast corner of Pingle Mansion was also his jurisdiction. Cao Zhijian's main force was fighting on the Huguang front, and Guanyang, Gongcheng, and Longhu Pass were controlled by his younger brother Cao Si.

In this way, it is more suitable to leave Fuchuan, Hexian and Huaiji counties in the huge Guangxi.