When the time was approaching, a messenger came to report that Linzi City had been taken, Liu Zheng and Wei Boyuan did not have much joy on their faces, after all, they had already expected that if there was anything wrong with Linzi, which was almost an empty city, then Yuboda would really be a pig. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

When it was almost noon, suddenly there was a report at the door of the tent.

"Come in!"

Liu Zheng's voice fell, and the messenger walked in quickly, knelt down on one knee and hugged his fists and said: "Report to the lord, Battalion Commander Xu and Battalion Commander Chu have entered Changle City!" ”

Liu Zheng nodded, and then asked, "Are there any casualties?" ”

"Report to the lord, there were no casualties, when our army began to manufacture siege equipment, the magistrate of Changle County led the officials in the city to surrender out of the city!"

"Got it, you go back and send an order to Xu Wenxu and Chu Yuanzhong, and ask them to immediately post a notice to the people, strictly ordering the soldiers not to harass the people, and those who violate the order will be beheaded!"

"Yes!" The messenger then turned and left.

When the messenger came out of the tent, Liu Zheng's eyes fell on the small model representing Shouguang City on the sand table.

Of the three cities that are expected to be easily won, two have already been won, and there is only Shouguang County that Zhou Yun and Tian Hongda attacked.

Liu Zheng and Wei Boyuan talked about the plan discussed with Zeng Kaiyu yesterday in the marshal's tent, until sunset, a day passed, and no news of Shouguang came, but he was not in a hurry at all, in his expectation, Shouguang and Changle did not surround for a few days, did not scare a few times, it was impossible to get it, and now Changle arrived so quickly, it has far exceeded his expectations.

After dinner, Liu Zheng called the three company commanders of the 11th battalion to the tent: "You wait for the soldiers to have a good rest tonight, and set off for Shouguang for reinforcements tomorrow, and after arriving, everything will be under the command of Battalion Commander Zhou and Battalion Commander Tian!" ”

"Yes!" The three of them should be holding their fists.

Liu Zheng didn't say anything more, and waved them back.

Wei Boyuan looked at the sand table while drinking tea on the side and said with a smile: "You went to Shouguang Zeng to a battalion this day, in case our people are sent out, but Shouguang still doesn't fall?" ”

Liu Zheng got up and walked to the sand table from behind the handsome case and pointed to Shouguang County: "Such a small city, the city wall is only two zhang, and there are only more than 1,000 farmers guarding the city, and they dare to refuse to defend the city?" Are we really eating rice? Even if the soldiers have not practiced ant attachment to attack the city, when the craftsmen build the ladder and attack from all sides, there will always be one side that can go to the top of the city, right? ”

Wei Boyuan was just joking, in fact, he himself knew that the small county town of Shouguang was by no means the opponent of Zhou Yun and Tian Hongda, even if they refused to defend the city, they couldn't hold it, the reason was very simple.

One is that the city wall is too low, less than two zhang, even if there is no cloud ladder, with Zhou Yun's martial arts, it is very simple to climb the city.

The second is that the guards in the city are all a group of patrol soldiers who will only be trained when the farmers are slack, and to put it bluntly, they are a group of farmers.

The third is that there are no tools to defend the city, such as rolling stones and trees, not even bows and arrows!

This third reason seems to be ridiculous, but in fact it is a fact, in the Wanli period, there are only soldiers at the border pass who have bows and arrows to resist the enemy, in these cities in the Central Plains, in addition to the city of Fucheng, there are very few archers like this, although Qingzhou is also a city of Fuzhou, but don't forget that there is a vassal king in Qingzhou, in this kind of place where there is a vassal king, there will never be any archers, the reason is very simple, that is, those people sitting on the dragon chair, extremely afraid that these soldiers will be bought by the vassal king and become a tool for rebellion.

The people sitting on the dragon chair are all thieves and thieves, there are no elite soldiers with sharp weapons in the city next to your vassal king's station, it doesn't mean that there are no around, take the king of Heng in Qingzhou, for example, if the king of Heng rebels, then where are the soldiers who stop them?

To the east, there are Laizhou Soldiers, Dengzhou Soldiers, Dengzhou Guards, Weihaiwei, Chengshanwei, Jinghaiwei, Dasongwei, Aoshanwei and Lingshanwei, which are all very strong regular troops.

To the south there are Linqu and Muling Pass, to the west there are Qingshi Pass and Jinan Mansion, Jinan Mansion is the location of the political envoy of the mountain (anti-harmony) Dongcheng Xuan, and the mountain (anti-harmony) Dongdu command envoy who moved to Jinan Mansion during the Yongle period, here is the resident soldiers and horses as many as 50,000.

Although there are no strong soldiers to the north, it is not far north from Qingzhou to the Yellow River, and along the Yellow River there are Jiyang, Qidong, Qingcheng, Potai and Lijin cities that have no seats to guard the ferry.

In this way, King Heng was directly confined to the domain of Qingzhou Mansion, and Liu Zheng was also trapped here, what he urgently needed to do was to find a way to the outside world.

He sent people to harass Qingshi Pass last year, in order not only to divert the sight of the six gates, but also to hold this place in his hands, to get Qingshi Pass, if the imperial court soldiers and horses attacked, the army was defeated, then from the Qingshi Pass into Laiwu, through Laiwu continue west through Tai'an Prefecture into Dongping, that is, 800 miles of water Boliang Mountain, so as to survive here.

He sent people to take Linqu and seize Muling Pass, the purpose is the same as Qingshi Pass, after Muling Pass is Yishui, here is the interior of the Taiyi Mountains, the base of the old area in the later generations, even if the imperial court sends 100,000 troops to attack, he Liu Zheng turned around and drilled into the mountains, wanting to find him, he can only say hehe!

The lights in the handsome tent were bright, Liu Zheng and Wei Boyuan looked at the sand table, and what they were talking about was Yishui.

"Old man, don't look at Yishui, this place is poor, there is little arable land, but this place is a life-saving land, if the imperial army comes to attack, if we are defeated, we can retreat to this place, send heavy troops to defend Muling Pass, the pass is not broken, the court will not be able to wait!"

"In this way, we can use Mengyin, Juzhou, Zhucheng and Rizhao as bases, and slowly develop in order to make a comeback!"

Wei Boyuan looked at the map for a while before he spoke: "In that case, I still need to capture the Bauhinia Pass!" ”

Liu Zheng nodded and said: "That's true, but Bauhinia Pass is in a dangerous place, easy to defend and difficult to attack, if you want to get Bauhinia Pass, you still need to do another fight!" ”

Wei Boyuan looked at it for a while, and suddenly said, "If the imperial court soldiers and horses attack from the sea, how can we prevent it?" ”

Liu Zheng smiled and didn't speak, at sea? When the navy arrives next year, Deng Zilong will die, what can Chen Luan do with the goods that he wants money for?

Seeing that Liu Zheng smiled and didn't say anything, Wei Boyuan also asked again, after all, he was very clear about Liu Zheng's temperament, not only suspicious but also liked to hide everything in his heart and not tell anyone, if he didn't say it, even if his father asked him, it was impossible to ask anything.

However, after a day of conversation between the two, he also has a good understanding of what Liu Zheng is trying to do at the moment, the entire territory of Qingzhou Mansion, Dongpingzhou, Tai'an, Laizhou, and Xintai in the south of Jinan Mansion in the west must be taken, and whether Yanzhou in the southwest will be taken or not, it is not yet known, but eighty percent of the other places in Laizhou in the east except for Laizhou Mansion are to be taken, so if you calculate it, you must have more than 50,000 troops.

But now there are more than 10,000 people in the left guard battalion with auxiliary soldiers, even if there are still many displaced people outside the city, they can recruit at most 20,000 young men and strongmen when they are full, and this total is only 30,000 soldiers and horses, which is still far behind.

The point is that there is not so much money and food to feed these soldiers!

"Virtuous nephew, although we still have enough food, even if we recruit another 20,000 soldiers, we can support it, but we have almost no money, and without money, where will the soldiers' weapons and armor come from?"

"Don't worry, old man, we will have the silver soon!"

"Virtuous nephew, the old man has one more mouth, if you want to fight the world, you can't always count on copying the house, it's okay to copy once or twice, copy too much, the gentry and businessmen in the world will boycott you, even if you win the world, you won't be able to sit for long!"

Liu Zheng smiled and said: "Old man, you think too much, no matter how stupid I am, I can't do this, don't worry, the money will be there soon, it's all serious!" ”

Wei Boyuan lowered his head and groaned for a while, and then suddenly spoke: "Virtuous nephew, the old man has one more mouth, your character has to be changed, being suspicious is not the way to be a king, and everything is also hidden in the heart, and it is not something that a general of the army cannot do!" ”

Liu Zheng was slightly surprised, but he quickly calmed down, he understood that he was very fucked, and being suspicious was naturally not the way of a king or the character that a general should have, but he could hide it in his heart and not announce it, it was definitely the way of a king, but he was still a small leader, so this aspect had to be changed, and you always kept things in your heart and did not communicate with your subordinates, it was easy for your subordinates to misunderstand that you didn't trust him.

"Thank you for the old man's advice, the little nephew has changed since today!"

After saying this, Liu Zheng said again: "Old man, the money I said comes from the word salt in fried rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea!" ”

With Wei Boyuan's knowledge, when he heard Liu Zheng say the word salt, he immediately understood: "Are you going to do that business of selling illicit salt?" ”

Liu Zheng nodded, and Wei Boyuan set his sights on Gaojiagang in the northeast of Le'an.

Gaojiagang is one of the 19 major salt farms in Shandong, and it is also one of the top salt farms, with about 700 stove households, more than 3,000 stove drivers, and almost every male in every household is working in the salt field, how many people are there in the 19 salt fields? There were about 23,000 people in the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, and about 31,000 people in the Wanli period! At a glance, you can see how big the salt field of Gaojiagang is.

Wei Boyuan put his eyes here, not because of the size of this salt field, but because of another task that Liu Zheng had assigned to his cavalry, after taking Linzi, he immediately set off, showing his face from Linzi to Le'an, from Le'an to Gaojiagang, then from Gaojiagang to Guangling, and finally from Guangling to Shouguang, and then two or three times.

This is not a simple face, but an attack mission, and the targets of the attack are the tariff cards and checkpoints planted on the pipeline.

He originally thought that Liu Zheng wanted to clear the checkpoints in this area and seize Le'an, Boshan and Gaoyuan, but he didn't expect that his purpose was to take the salt fields in the area of Gaojiagang and Guangling.

"Virtuous nephew, although selling illicit salt is profitable, you need to have a way, and there are big salt merchants everywhere, and it is not so good to snatch food from them......

Before Wei Boyuan finished speaking, Liu Zheng was interrupted by Liu Zheng's words: "Old man, your thoughts have turned back!" You're not the old downhill tiger Wei Boyuan! Today, you have more than 10,000 elite soldiers! Those salt merchants should be afraid of us! ”