"Yo, Brother Chuang General." Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Ru, who were walking side by side, saw Li Zicheng and said hello with a smile.

"I've seen Brother Huang Hu, Brother Cao Cao." Li Zicheng bowed, "The two brothers are coming back from the camp?" ”

"Exactly, the brothers from the old camp have sent out a lot, or if you don't have snacks, I'm afraid that the homeless people will be restless." Luo Rucai responded.

Zhang Xianzhong smacked his lips, "Now I don't even have to drink that sour wine, otherwise it would be a happy life to invite the two brothers to drink and have fun together, and this mouth will fade out of the bird." ”

"Brother Huanghu, don't worry, as long as you find the dock fort, you will definitely be able to let your brother grow up and eat happily." Li Zicheng said with relief.

"What, you have news?" Zhang Xianzhong looked at it with a pair of strange eyes.

Li Zicheng shook his head with a wry smile, "The little brother doesn't have a clue yet." ”

Wang Jiayin led everyone to plunder in Jizhou City, and quickly withdrew from the city, fearing that there would be officials and troops to pursue, and ran a long way before finding a place to camp in the wilderness.

The first thing after settling down temporarily, the major leaders scattered their elites and searched everywhere for news of the Dock Fort, hoping for an unexpected gain to solve the current predicament.

There were fewer people to listen to the call, and the leaders had to personally patrol the camp to prevent the homeless people from mutiny.

"But the younger brother has something else, I wonder if the two brothers want to hear it?" Li Zicheng asked.

Zhang Xianzhong said dissatisfiedly, "You are just not happy, you like to hang people's appetites for everything, talk about it quickly." ”

"That's the little brother's." Li Zicheng said with a smile, "Have the two brothers noticed that this homeless person seems to have settled down a lot?" ”

"Hey, I thought it was a big deal, although Jizhou didn't harvest much, but he also shared some of their grain, what's so strange about it." Zhang Xianzhong disagreed.

"I don't think it's that simple, Brother Huanghu." Li Zicheng disagreed, "I have been carefully checking in the past few days and found that the real reason should be that there are fewer of them." ”

"Less? You mean, some of the homeless people ran away? Zhang Xianzhong asked, apparently not noticing.

For the displaced people who are coerced by them, Wang Jiayin and others do not directly manage them, and generally hundreds of people appoint a leader who speaks effectively, and when he handles affairs by himself, distributes food, or needs them to be cannon fodder, he deals with this leader.

They don't know the exact number of displaced people.

Li Zicheng is no exception, but these days he personally patrols the camp, and what he has to guard against is the homeless, so he has to pay attention to observe, and this time he has made a discovery.

Since coming out of Jizhou, there seem to be fewer displaced people who have attached themselves to him to break into the camp.

At first, he thought it was an illusion, so he specially selected a group of more familiar homeless people to check, only to find that although the number of people who disappeared was not much, the number of homeless people was indeed decreasing day by day.

Li Zicheng specifically asked the leader of the displaced people, but he only knew that someone had run away, and he didn't know what the specific reason was, as for why he didn't stop them? Hehe, one less person will give one less piece of food, and he will stop it if he is stupid.

I'm afraid this phenomenon existed before the attack on Jizhou, but no one in the leaders found out, this may be the real reason why there is little food, but it has not caused big trouble.

Luo Rucai nodded, "There is such a thing, I also found out that there are fewer people every day, but this is a good thing, Brother Chuangjiang, we don't have much food, less waste, less pressure, and longer persistence."

"Yes, Brother Cao Cao is right." Zhang Xianzhong didn't notice this phenomenon, but he knew that Luo Rucai was shrewd, and since he also said so, it would definitely not be wrong.

Li Zicheng shook his head secretly, a little disappointed in these two people.

In his opinion, whether it is the homeless people, the elite old camp people, or even the leaders of them, they are not familiar with the life in Jinxi, and if they want to have something to eat, the only choice is to follow the team of people and horses, so as to survive.

Occasionally, one or two people sneak away, and it can be said that they have gone to their relatives, but it is too abnormal for people to disappear every day.

The only explanation Li Zicheng can think of now is that there is a place in western Jinxi where refugees can wrap their stomachs, and this place can allow the displaced people to slip away without distinguishing the real from the fake.

If this conjecture is true, then their situation is even worse.

If the government concentrated money and grain in the capital city, so that they were not only unable to expand their strength rapidly, but also faced the dilemma of lack of food, which was considered to break one of their legs, then to help the displaced people was to break their other leg, if the displaced people abandoned them one after another, then their gang would not be able to jump for long.

can hit their soft underbelly again and again, this opponent is not easy to deal with.

"The two brothers are right, but I'm too worried, and my patrol is not over yet, so I'll leave." Li Zicheng didn't tell Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai what he thought in his heart, or figure it out by himself first, if he was talking nonsense, and the truth was far from what he thought, it would be a shame.

In this matter, Li Zicheng's concerns were correct, but he overestimated the Ming court.

Geng Ruqi, the governor of western Jinxi, did not want to help the victims, so that this gang of bandits who slipped over from northern Shaanxi became a source of water, but he was really powerless, although there was some money and grain gathered together in various places, but these money and grain were to be handed over to the imperial court, and it was a big crime to use them without authorization.

If you ask the court for food relief, then don't think about it, because of the war in Liaodong in the past few years, the Ming Dynasty has long been unable to make ends meet, and there is a deficit every year, even if you can squeeze some money and grain to allocate it, under the normal process, it is also a matter of the year of the monkey and the month of the horse, and under the layers of exploitation, there is not much left.

"Uncle, what do you command?" Li Zicheng returned from his camp tour and motioned to his nephew Li Guo to talk to him in the camp.

He counted it just now, and there were two less than two, eight people.

"You don't have to follow me for the next two days."

"Oh, are you going to let me out and explore Fort Dock?" Li Guo asked.

Li Zicheng shook his head, "It's not necessary, it won't help if you have one more, you find a few people, pay close attention to the movements of the homeless, if someone sneaks away, take it down for me, I want to see what they are running away for." ”

"Yes!" Li Guo replied.

"Let's start tonight." Li Zicheng said, "Don't let them find out, and when you take people, don't wait for them to run to a secluded place before you do it." ”

Now people's hearts are already unstable, if this causes the anger of the people, he Li Zicheng will have to walk around without eating.

"Yes!" Li Guo clasped his fists and saluted, and retreated.