"By the way, what's going on over there at the salt works?" Xie Mingfang asked curiously, because she often went to the executive committee building, she could know some of the resolutions of the executive committee without asking.

"Oh," Yang Minghuan looked at Xie Mingfang in amazement, and suddenly remembered that everyone had forgotten about the affairs of Yancun because of the hectic situation after the battle and the subsequent trade preparations. "I forgot about it, I'm dizzy, I have to hurry up and prepare the group to go over there, and I'll trouble you with these things about building bridges!"

Saying that, Yang Minghuan hurriedly turned around and ran towards the executive committee building, and before he could run a few steps, Xie Mingfang stopped him, "Why are you running so fast?" How to solve the problem of the bridge? Gotta give me a resolution! ”

Yang Minghuan hurriedly turned his head and said, "The problem of the bridge can be decided by your engineering department, if we don't understand this, we won't be a layman to command an insider." ”

…………………………

It had been several days since the battle against the pirates ended, and the city of An Yun had been overcrowded, and the villagers who had fled back first rushed back to the city, and then fled separately to their respective villages. These pirates killed people without blinking, and the fire guns continued to fight, and the fame spread like rain to all the villages of Anyun. Let those villages that did not send Xiangyong secretly rejoice, and the villages that sent Xiangyong complained bitterly, and the village owners and village chiefs were crying women every day in front of their houses, asking them to rescue their husbands. In these years, men are the pillars of the family, and if the pirates are killed, they can only remarry.

Because more than 1,000 captives were captured by the crossing this time, several of the nearby villages became women's villages almost overnight, and almost every household in these villages was crying with red and swollen eyes, and without men, the fields could not be cultivated, let alone feed the children, not even themselves. As for those who knew that their men had been killed in the attack, they cried all night......

At this time, Liu Mingyuan is like sitting on pins and needles, his Liujiazhai has been the local tyrant that An Yun relies on for many years, the reason is that his township Yong has always maintained a scale of nearly 400 people, and in addition to the busy farming, they are all diligent exercises, encounter ordinary bandits and pirates, and often go out to fight bandits and pirates who endanger the neighbors or something to accumulate experience points, this attack on the beacon tower of the pirates is based on his township Yong as the backbone, and gathered several nearby villages of the township Yong wanderers as many as 2,000 people, I thought that even if I couldn't attack this pirate den, I would at least be able to scare this group of pirates into retreating to the sea. Unexpectedly, it was only a few quarters of an hour that he was beaten by the ferocious fire of the pirates, and he was quickly interspersed with the demon cars of those pirates to wrap his back, if it weren't for a few horseback townsmen who bravely dragged him onto the horse, I am afraid that even he would have been captured by the pirates. What scared him was that fortunately, Xiang Yong's side collapsed quickly, and he heard that the five hundred elite soldiers on Ruan Qianhu's side encountered the strange fire array of pirates, and nearly four hundred people were killed, wounded, and captured. This group of pirates is also too powerful, and he is also the master of the bandits who have fought bandits in this Anyun realm, and he has fought a lot of pirates on weekdays, not to mention his own country bravery, even if it is a few thousand officers and soldiers, I am afraid that they will not be able to rush through.

But now he is most worried about not whether he can drive away the pirates, listening to the report of the spies who went to the beach to inquire about the news, the Xiangyong captives who thought they would be slaughtered were not slaughtered, but were called out to work every day, and did some strange things along the coastline to the north, saying that the wood was spread on the ground, stretching for several miles, and there were two slender logs on it, I really don't know what these pirates are doing. And the strangest thing is that these pirates also teach these captives at night, teach them to read, and sometimes you can hear the ghosts crying and wolf howling inside, and I don't know what these pirates plan to do with these villagers, is it to let them join the gang? Thinking of this, Liu Mingyuan was restless, almost all of the more than 1,000 captives were taken by him in Liu Jiazhai, if they all voted for pirates, wouldn't he have to be labeled as a thief? When the counterinsurgency army of the imperial court comes, I am afraid that I will not be able to keep my family business.

While he was fidgeting in the house, Zhou Jinfeng was no better here. He could see the tragic situation of Xiang Yong who came back clearly, the wounded were either cut wide in their arms or punched in their buttocks, and the other wounded were all captured by the pirates. Many people were bleeding profusely, and even several died that day when they entered the city.

He couldn't help but secretly regret that he listened to Li Xijue's suggestion to directly crusade against the pirates, at this time, An Yuncheng not only failed to defeat the pirates and get credit, but actually made trouble until now, and there are no soldiers to fight in the entire An Yuncheng. There are only more than ten soap subordinates left in this city, and even the military households who were originally sent by Ruan Qianhu to assist in defending the city have been recruited back, and there are now less than 400 people left in his guard, and when he ran to the gate of the city to try to stop the military households who returned to the guardhouse, the other party didn't bother to pay attention to himself at all. There were two tiger squat cannons in the city before, but this time they were dismantled by Xiang Yong and transported to the front of the pirate camp, but the pirates were called to surrender without a single shot.

However, although the pirates have been building roads during this time, they are either going north or south, and they don't seem to have any interest in their own An Yun City, and the spies report that these pirates have now gained so many captives, that is, they are blindly planting food on the newly opened up land, building big houses, and laying wood on the ground, neither preparing the equipment for attacking the city, nor building roads towards this side, so that he can feel a little at ease.

In the past few days, the squires have been running more and more diligently to him, some suggesting that they continue to ask for help and let the imperial court send more troops to drive away the pirates, and some suggest simply ransom those captured squires, in short, they have completely lost confidence in driving away the pirates.

Today, these squires have just left, and they are sweating profusely sitting in this flower hall, opposite Li Xijue, Li Xijue has nothing to say, sitting there...... The two looked at each other for a while, and Zhou Jinfeng couldn't help it at first, and asked, "Master Li, I don't know if there is a way to retreat from the enemy?" ”

"This ......" Li Xijue sighed and said: "This matter has come to this point, I'm afraid there is only the line." ”

"Lines?" Zhou Jinfeng couldn't help but gasp, "Don't cut the land, don't pay compensation, don't get along, this is the national policy of my Wu Dynasty, if the money is made and is known by the court, wouldn't it give people a handle?" ”

"No," Li Xijue shook his head and continued: "You and I can't do anything about the money, we can only let the squire come forward, and the money for this line cannot be taken out of the county treasury, it must be raised by the squire himself." ”

Zhou Jinfeng couldn't help frowning, and said curiously: "How can the squire do this business?" Moreover, the pirates can't send even a few hundred taels of silver, and it seems that the master can't do anything about it. ”

Li Xijue smiled, "At this time, the person who wants to make money the most is already a squire, and he has been wandering outside the door of the adults for many days just to inquire about the adult's oral style, as long as the adults do not object, they themselves are afraid that they will already run to ransom people." ”

Zhou Jinfeng couldn't help but look at Li Xijue suspiciously, expressing doubts.

Li Xijue twisted his beard and said: "The villain has sent people to inquire in the city in the past few days, and the big families are all in tandem about the payment, and at this time, I am afraid that it has already been agreed on who will bargain with the pirates." ”

Zhou Jinfeng sighed, waved his hand and said, "If you can't do it, just let them go, lest they come to this county every day to disturb people's tranquility." He can't explicitly say that he is allowed to make money, and if something happens in the future, he will naturally pretend that he doesn't know.

Of course, Li Xijue knew that it was boring, so he hurriedly got up and went to contact those big families in series.

Two days later, on the official road leading to Dongfang Port, Zhang Rusong sat in a sedan chair and was shaking with the footsteps of the sedan chair drivers. He was the most dilapidated of the squires, and he had no intention of going to this discussion, but Master Li had to go to invite him again and again. During the discussion, the squire asked Zhang Rusong if he had a relative who was the owner of the ship under Zhong Bin, and he thought for a long time before he remembered the relative who couldn't be beaten by eight poles, and everyone unanimously recommended him to preside over the business. He couldn't shirk it, and was promised a lot of benefits by Li Xijue, and in the end, the squires pooled together fifty taels of silver for him as "hard-earned money", so he couldn't shirk it and reluctantly agreed.

In his early years, his ancestors were also considered to be wealthy households, with thousands of acres of land and a few houses, but when it was passed on to his grandfather's generation, he became addicted to gambling, and lost most of his land and property, and almost lost his real estate. In his father's generation, because of poor management, he lost a lot, and when it reached him, there were only thirty or forty acres of land and a house left. He inherited the debts left by his house and his father at that time, and finally worked hard to pay off his debts, but the weather has become very bad in the past few years, and he even heard that it snowed in Thang Long in Annam last year. This is something that has never happened since the beginning of the world...... So much so that the Zheng lord of Thang Long looked for auspicious rui everywhere, intending to calm the people. As the weather has deteriorated in recent years, the harvest has become worse and worse, seeing that his money and food are becoming more and more stretched, at this time, since he can give him fifty taels of silver to do his hard work, Master Li promised him some benefits, this time I am afraid that the contact with the pirates is to drive the ducks to the shelves, I have to go, I can only hope that these pirates can see Zhong Bin's face and will not directly cut off their heads, if they die, those relatives who came out of nowhere will not be allowed to occupy their own land and drive away their wives and children?