After two days of rain, the weather finally cleared. For the crops in the field, the rain was timely, but for the Taiping camp, the rain could not have come at the right time.

Under the auspices of Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong, the strategy of marching into Xiangshan had been finalized and conveyed to the level of Xiaoqi, but the rear camp was not notified in any way, not only did no one tell these old and weak women and children that they were going to Xiangshan, thousands of miles away, but no one even told them that the Taiping camp would leave Luoding in the near future. In order to keep it secret, Zhou Shixiang issued a strict order, no matter who leaked the news, he would not be forgiven.

Keeping most people in the dark is not Zhou Shixiang's style of doing things, he really wants every man, woman and child in the Taiping Camp to know what they are going to do, because only by knowing what to do, they can follow with confidence, instead of fleeing in large numbers on the road, or resisting, so that the morale of the entire Taiping Camp will drop to the freezing point. It is impossible for an army without morale to accomplish the goal of a thousand-mile turn, and the greatest possibility is that it will be scattered halfway through.

However, knowing that concealing it would do more harm than good, Zhou Shixiang still chose to conceal the news of the blockade, because this was not a hundred miles, but a thousand miles, and he completely abandoned his hometown to a strange place.

Luoding or Deqing, the distance is not too far, in the hearts of the people, these two places are western Guangdong, and they are also their hometowns, so there is no difference from Luoding to Deqing and from Deqing to Luoding. They may not have been to the provincial capital in their lives, but it is common to go to neighboring counties to walk back to relatives, so this distance of 100 miles is nothing to them, but if they know that they are thousands of miles away, and it is possible that they will never return to their hometown in this life, and most of them will be a lonely ghost who died in a foreign land, then most of them will panic. Even if there is a butcher's knife on the neck to force them to go, they will not be reconciled, and fleeing will naturally become their choice, and fleeing is precisely what Zhou Shixiang cannot tolerate, because he can't let the Taiping camp lose morale because of the escape of the people.

The people may let it be done, but they cannot know it.

Zhou Shixiang did not dare to take risks, the composition of the Taiping camp was too complicated, and if these people refused to leave, it would be difficult for him to rely on force to force them to go, because his soldiers and the people were one. So he could only hide it, take it one step at a time, and hide it until the day when the people knew the truth, but they could never turn back

The ideological work of the officers was also divided into batches, and Zhou Shixiang first personally came forward to do the thinking of officers from Daqiao Mountain, such as Ge Zheng, Zhao Sihai, Ge Yi, and Jiang He, and what these people said the most was that Luo Ding was too poor, Xiangshan was too rich, and if they continued to stay in Luoding, not only would they have no oil and water to make, but they would also be vulnerable to attack by the Qing army. Go to Xiangshan, although this road is too dangerous, but if you really want to get to the place, you can make a fortune, and you are not afraid of the Qing army to fight, if you can't beat everyone, you will go to the mountain nest to do the old business, and the left and right are all those new recruits, as long as the old brothers are afraid of something.

In the end, Zhou Shixiang patted his chest again, and he depicted the bright prospects after Xiangshan, and even coaxed and deceived the general flags from bandits, and they couldn't wait to go to Xiangshan County as soon as Brother Zhou said to make a fortune, but they turned a blind eye to the dangers they might encounter. Anyway, with Brother Zhou here, the brothers can't afford to suffer!

Blind arrogance and self-confidence are exactly what Zhou Shixiang needs, he is not afraid of the arrogance of these general banners, he is only afraid that they are not arrogant enough. Before an army is truly regularized, arrogance is a kind of capital and a kind of confidence, of course, with Zhou Shixiang personally in command, of course, he does not have to worry about this kind of self-esteem becoming a sign of failure.

Shao Jiugong is the only one who is still sober-minded, he is not stupid, others don't know what it means to go to Xiangshan, can he not know? However, seeing that everyone was instigated by Zhou Shixiang, he didn't dare to come forward and go against Zhou Shixiang, and after others left happily, he told Zhou Shixiang about his worries.

Basically, Shao Jiugong's worries are the same as Song Xianggong's worries, the difference is that for Song Xianggong and Zhou Shixiang, it is easy to explain, and for Shao Jiugong, Zhou Shixiang only used one sentence to make him die.

Zhou Shixiang said, "If you can erase those words on your back, you can not go." ”

Dog day!

This is the first time that Song Xianggong secretly scolded Zhou Shixiang in his heart after joining the Taiping Camp, and after scolding, he could only sigh, and he felt helpless that he couldn't get off the thief ship: If you go to Xiangshan County, go to Xiangshan County, I hope that this time Zhou Xiucai of the dog day will not lead Lao Tzu to death.

Tie Yi, as one of the only two test hundred households in the Taiping Battalion, also commanded the engineer battalion that Zhou Shi relied on as a "magic weapon", so Zhou Shi explained the most to him, and at the same time asked him to return to the camp immediately to prepare the much-needed weapon to control the enemy on the way south-Earthquake Thunder.

The so-called earth-shattering thunder is actually a firecracker, but compared with traditional firecrackers, this kind of firecracker is much more powerful. The sample of the earth-shaking thunder was made by Zhou Shixiang himself, because there was not enough iron, he had to make it from bamboo. The specific manufacturing process is to take a piece of bamboo with bamboo knots, then clean the debris in the bamboo tube, make a small hole on its side, and then pour the gunpowder into the bamboo tube, and then wrap the gunpowder in paper to rub the root lead, one section is placed on the powder in the bamboo tube, and the other end passes through the small hole in the wall of the bamboo tube and is tied to the outside with hemp rope. After these works are completed, a piece of paper is stuffed into the surface of the gunpowder in the bamboo tube for intervals, and some broken iron nails are sprinkled on the paper, and finally the bamboo tube is sealed with clay.

Traditional firecrackers are used in black. Fire. Medicine, this time Zhou Shixiang used granular gunpowder, and added lethal iron nails, he personally blew one up, with an effective killing area of five meters. In other words, after an earth-shattering thunderbolt explodes, not only people one to two meters in the center of the explosion will be directly injured by the gunpowder explosion, but the iron nails that explode from the explosion will also kill and injure enemies within five meters. Beyond five meters, the penetration of the iron nail will be weakened, which is the disadvantage of using bamboo to make a thunderbolt, if it is wrapped in iron, made into a grenade that is really like the one used in later generations, shrapnel alone can kill and injure an enemy.

The conditions are insufficient, and Zhou Shixiang can only hope for the mass production of the earth-shaking thunder. He made three samples, two exploded, and one was brought back to the camp by Tie Yi for trial production.

The work of the earth-shaking thunder is very simple, and the raw materials are also simple, but a sky-shaking thunder needs at least five taels of gunpowder, and there are only less than two hundred catties of medicine in the camp in total, which means that even if all the medicines are used to make the earth-shaking thunder, it can only make four hundred. In this regard, Zhou Shixiang only asked Tie Yi to do it first, because he needed to have a batch of earth-shaking thunder in his hands immediately, so that Song Xianggong could really believe that they could blow all the way to Xiangshan. As for gunpowder, Tang Sanshui can more or less have a batch there, and after setting off, he will find a way to collect saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal to prepare for his own manufacturing, otherwise, even if there are good tools and methods, it will be difficult to exert the maximum power due to the lack of gunpowder.

When Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong were doing the ideological work of the small banner officials together, Zhou Shixiang's statement was completely different from the statement to the general bannermen, and what he said the most was a way to live - to go to Xiangshan for nothing else, just for stuttering!

Xiaoqi is from a desperate poverty background, and before entering the Taiping camp, they are all honest villagers, they are not like Ge Zheng and they dare to be bandits who rob houses and houses, so they live very hard, and they are often an old snack without a meal. Now that they finally have a Taiping to accommodate them, give them a future, and give their wives and children a full meal, what else can they ask for?

The Lord of Qianhu said that if he stayed in Luoding, everyone would all starve to death, this is true, everyone in Luoding saw what the situation was, it was really poor, although some food was seized by fighting the Deqing Green Camp, but it couldn't stand so many mouths to eat, everyone used to live, and there are people in this world who can sit and eat for a long time?

That's it, since the Lord Qianhu has found a way to live for everyone, this Luo Ding really can't support everyone, so everyone will grit their teeth and follow the Lord Qianhu, as long as they can give their wives and children a bite to eat, if they die on the road, they will not be wronged

On the 19th, Tang Sanshui of Deqing sent someone to send a message that he was willing to do this business with Zhou Shixiang, but the deadline was a little delayed, because he did not have so many medicines in his hands, and now he had sent someone to Guangzhou to buy them secretly, and when the medicines were ready, the two sides could buy and sell immediately.

Zhou Shixiang was not worried that Tang Sanshui would not make this deal, because this deal would be too beneficial to him, if he was not a Han, Zhou Shixiang would even want to sell Gaozhou to Tang Sanshui, and he didn't need to do anything, just reveal to the other party that Gaozhou has no Western Army garrison.

The Qing army in Guangdong could not defeat the Great Western Army, but it was a piece of cake to fight other Southern Ming soldiers and horses. Collect Luoding first, and then take Gaozhou, after a lot of great achievements, how can Tang Sanshui, the former Qianzong, be a deputy general.

However, he is a Han Chinese, and it is no longer good to sell Luo Ding, if he really wants to sell Gaozhou again, this is not a traitor but also a traitor. Besides, Luoding, which was sold to Tang Sanshui, is just an empty city, and there are no people who can make the green camp harmful, but Gaozhou has more than 100,000 Ming people, and if you really want the Qing army to occupy Gaozhou, your own sin will become bigger, with the virtue of the Qing army, if you don't slaughter the city, the Buddha will burn incense.

Wait a little longer, just wait, a thousand miles into is not just a piece of paper, you can walk with a stroke of your hand. If only the front camp is transferred in, it will not be very difficult, but with the nearly 10,000 old and weak women and children in the back camp to follow, this road will be much more difficult. Before you set off, you have to make all the preparations in place, minimize unnecessary casualties on the road, and try to take everything you can with you.