The Imperial City of Nanjing, Wuying Palace.

"Master Hou, we set up a card in Caoyun to collect centigold, which is not less than the profit of the main business of private salt, it is really unexpected, the centigold income from the six checkpoints last month has exceeded 100,000 taels."

A group of people stood on the hall, including scholars wearing long robes and facing Sven, and burly generals wearing iron armor, all quietly listening to the explanation of the head of the financial department of the military council.

Due to the southward movement of the Shandong army, the territory expanded several times, so Wang Zheng set up cards in Chuzhou and Suizhou to collect Caoyun money, and there was naturally a little turmoil at first, but these turmoil was quickly quelled by the local foreign soldiers and horses, and there was no chaos after that.

It was now a month after the Shandong Army entered Nanjing, and after Wang Zheng occupied Nanjing, after about five days of recuperation, he immediately began to deploy the battalions under the jurisdiction of the Shandong Army to the south, gradually sweeping away the strongholds of the Ming court around Nanjing.

Up to now, the counties around Nanjing have basically been reorganized, and there are only more than 1,000 defenders in these counties, most of them are still hundreds, and they have not fought much at all, and they are basically looking at the wind.

There are two people missing from this magnificent Wuying Palace, that is, Dong Youyin and Huang Yang, who went out with the Sharp Knife Battalion and the Fenwei Battalion.

The two of them obeyed Wang Zheng's military order, with the soldiers as the main force, recruited foreign soldiers and horses from all over the country to conscript, and began to clean up the towns loyal to the imperial court.

The affairs of Hezhou were relatively easy, and Dong Youyin went to promulgate various decrees of the Shandong Army, abolished the original imperial court officers and troops, and re-recruited soldiers in accordance with the regulations of the Shandong Army, without much effort.

But Dong Youyin, I don't know, there is a tragic battle waiting for him behind.

After the establishment of the Hezhou battalion, the four major battalions of soldiers stationed in Nanjing immediately sent veterans to serve as grassroots officers of local and foreign soldiers and horses, so as to control the military power.

Dong Youyin finished arranging the affairs of the state, and after waiting for someone from Nanjing, he led the sharp knife battalion to the left and entered the Luzhou mansion without stopping.

The prefect of Luzhou Prefecture and the general army of Hefei knew that the Shandong army had occupied Nanjing, but they had no intention of surrendering, and it seemed that they were still loyal to the Ming court.

After many years of conquest, Dong Youyin was no longer the reckless man he was at the beginning, and decided to adopt the method of saluting first and then soldiering.

He sent the staff officers of the army to the capital of Luzhou with letters, recruited the generals of the Luzhou capital, talked about the benefits, and let them accept the peaceful reorganization of the Shandong army.

At the same time, Dong Youyin personally led more than 10,000 soldiers of the Sharp Knife Battalion, and cooperated with 30,000 foreign soldiers to advance to Chaoxian County to camp and prepare heavy weapons, so that they could be attacked by force if they failed to persuade them to surrender.

However, there was some surprise, and the staff officer sent to return missing his left ear, and his face was carved with several blood paths, and he carried a letter with fierce words, insulting Wang Zheng as a thief who stole the country.

Hefei is one of the important towns in Jiangdong, and most of the local residents are subordinate to the military guards, even in the Chongzhen period when the military equipment is lax, it still maintains the tradition of serving in the army for generations, and it can be said that the people are strong.

Unexpectedly, these people were very resistant to the Shandong army.

There are also many children of generals here, and most of the military generals under Gao Jie, one of the four towns in the north of the Nanming River in history, were born in Hefei, the capital of Luzhou.

It's just that Gao Jie was killed when he was preparing for the Northern Expedition, and this Jiangdong town with a large number of generals and strong people was a group of dragons without a leader, and gradually declined.

The local residents of Hefei experienced the constant propaganda of Jiangnan scholars, coupled with the rumors that Wang Zheng killed Shi Kefa, a loyal minister in the world, and everyone felt that the Shandong army was a thief army that was more arrogant than Zuo Liangyu.

Dong Youyin saw the tragic situation of the staff officers, and immediately became furious, and said that the Shandong army had never had such a humiliating thing so far, and immediately led the army to surround Hefei and ordered the use of heavy artillery to attack the city.

Li Ke'an, the chief soldier stationed in Hefei, was one of the representatives of the local generals, and seeing that the general trend had gone, he understood in his heart the consequences of accepting the reorganization of the Shandong Army, and did not want to be locked up all day long and wait for death.

But Li Ke'an also didn't want to make a senseless sacrifice here, the day before Dong Youyin arrived, he used the excuse of transferring troops to Xi'an to help suppress the thieves, and fled south with dozens of family members into Anqing Mansion.

Hefei Daodu Ren was Shi Kefa's protégé, and when he heard that Li Ke'an had absconded, he immediately discussed countermeasures with the prefect and was determined to hold on.

In order to win the support of the people, Daodu Ren and Donglin scholars spared no effort to propagandize, going back and forth in the streets and alleys every day, saying that Wang Zheng often slaughtered residents in Shandong, and when he collected Caoyun Li Jin, he killed many righteous people.

The battle was extremely tragic, and the people in the city listened to the rumors of Jiangnan Shizi, and spontaneously went to the city to assist in the safety of their families.

There is no room for mercy on the battlefield, and the soldiers of the Shandong Army are merciless to officers and soldiers due to the constraints of military regulations, but they deliberately avoid these people.

The soldiers of the Shandong army were no less than the fierce Tartars in the battle, but they continued to die in the hands of the people in the city of Hefei.

These people looked like crazy, and the weapons in their hands could not break the armor of the Shandong army, so they pounced on them and tore their faces with their teeth, and lifted stones and smashed them down, which was extremely tragic.

Dong Youyin was heartbroken, many of them were the elites who came out of Shandong, they had experienced a hundred battles and passed many tests, but finally died in the hands of the people they wanted to protect.

Therefore, Dong Youyin had to kill the killer and ordered him to be killed.

The soldiers of the Shandong army received the military order, and immediately after a simple reorganization, they took on a new look, and launched a huge offensive again, pouring up the city like a tide, cutting down everyone who stood in front of them, and blood flowed from the city to the river.

If it is an ordinary officer and army, after the main general issues such an order, it often means that the three armies are in chaos and the city is washed in blood, but the Shandong army is different.

The Shandong army was strictly disciplined, and no one dared to take advantage of the chaos to loot Hefei City, although the bloody battle at the head of the city was in full swing, but after entering the city, Dong Youyin immediately revoked the previous order and began to stabilize the people.

However, it is not easy to stabilize the situation now, in the eyes of these people, there is no difference between the soldiers of the Shandong Army and the Left Army, and they still use knives against the people.

The process of occupying Hefei was, in some sense, even more difficult than the occupation of Nanjing.

On the day that Dong Youyin was stationed in Hefei, although tens of thousands of Shandong troops were guarding, Hefei still set off a turmoil.

Hundreds of civilians rushed to the garrison mansion in the night, Dong Youyin was sleeping soundly at the time, and hearing the news scared him out of a cold sweat.

This turmoil was quickly quelled, and the Shandong army could have killed it easily, but Dong Youyin mobilized more than 2,000 soldiers to oppress from all over the city, subdued the people and scattered them in the city.

The next day, the city of Hefei set off turmoil again, the people went to destroy the city wall that had just been repaired, and on the fifth day, the people besieged the newly built branch of the Military Council, demolished the sign, killed three soldiers, and scattered after beating several scribes to death with sticks.

On the sixth day, the Shandong army sent people to re-enter the city in the city, but the people were united and did not cooperate at all, and even many people raised sticks and pitchforks to beat the officials of the Shandong army out of the door.

Seeing that there was another turmoil, Dong Youyin hurriedly ordered the suspension of the registration and sent troops to block the troublesome market.

The civil and military generals of the Shandong army in Hefei City were overwhelmed by these people, and it was naturally impossible to kill them, but it was not a way to hold them so often.

If Zuo Liangyu or the Qing army encountered this kind of thing, they were afraid that they would directly order the slaughter of the city, but the Shandong army was not them, so they could not do this.

In desperation, Dong Youyin had no choice but to send pacesetters to report to Nanjing.

In fact, after the Battle of Hefei, only more than 1,800 of the 3,000 local officers and soldiers were killed, and the rest either fled in all directions or surrendered on their knees.

If it was just the official army defending the city, it would be defeated by the Shandong army if it could not resist a stick of incense at all, but the young and strong people regarded the Shandong soldiers as thieves robbing their homes, and they would not take a step back in a desperate battle.

According to later statistics, the number of civilians killed on the city walls alone reached more than 6,000.

While cleaning up the battlefield in Hefei City, the soldiers of the Shandong Army were exceptionally silent, and they made a decision today that would be enough to regret for the rest of their lives.

These people could have been recruited by the Shandong Army to make their mark in the battle against the Tartars, and most of them could even become part of the soldiers.

These people are all martyrs, and they should have made contributions on the journey of killing the Tartars, but for the sake of their own fame and fortune, the Donglin people used the simple hearts of these people to trick them into fighting to the death with the Shandong army.

In the end, even all the soldiers of the Shandong Army felt that these people's deaths were not worth it, felt sorry for them, and hated those soldiers even more.

The Battle of Hefei can be said to be the most difficult pass since Dong Youyin defended Pingdu Prefecture, the soldiers lost more than 1,000 soldiers, and the casualties of the regular soldiers reached 3,000.

After hearing this, Wang Zheng suddenly stood up and said:

"I want to go to Hefei in person to pay tribute to these people who died in battle!"