Duchang County is located in the northeast of Drama County 60 miles, irrigation water and Weishui pass through the territory and flow into the sea. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoThe northern part of Duchang County is connected to Bohai Laizhou Bay, where the terrain is flat, and the seaside is an endless tidal flat area, with no grass, which belongs to the ownerless barren land; However, this is not the case, only to see that the tidal flats near the sea have been artificially carved out of squares of ten zhang square, and then the edges are surrounded by stones the size of human heads; There are four columns of such squares, and they are more than ten miles long along the coastline! Every twenty of these squares had a warehouse next to them, and five hundred paces beyond the squares was a fence in which several heavily armed soldiers were stationed, scanning the perimeter with cold eyes. It is conceivable that once an outsider intrudes, what awaits him will not be a friendly and warm reception.

This is the property of Lu Xu, the head of Beihai County, and those squares are the salt pans where salt is boiled from the sea. The Xia Dynasty did not have a monopoly system for salt and iron, but salt and iron making was only allowed by the government, and private individuals had no right to carry out salt and iron making, otherwise they would be sanctioned by the state; However, after the official control of the source of salt and iron, it did not prohibit private trading, so in fact, the official was the largest first-class wholesaler, thus controlling the output and market price from the source. However, as long as there is profit, there will be a market, as Tai Shi Gong said: "The world is bustling, all for profit; The world is crowded, all for profit. The king of a thousand times, the prince of ten thousand families, and the king of a hundred rooms, are still poor, and the people of the family are still poor! ”。 Although there is no Taishi Gong in this time and space, the truth is always the same, so there are not a few people who make salt and iron privately in various places. Especially in the period of Emperor Xia Heng, the central control was greatly reduced, and the real power officials in various places went their own way, and the wealthy families controlled a large amount of land and population.

Lu Xu is one of the beneficiaries in this context. As a feudal official who has been operating in Beihai County for many years, and has a vast sea territory, it is particularly convenient to cook the sea to make salt, and it is unimaginable not to convert this convenience into practical profits; Therefore, the Lu family, together with the Beihai family, divided the entire Duchang County, and even part of Xiami County, into the territory of their own salt production. Among them, Duchang County is the most important, not only the Lu family's salt industry is concentrated here, but also the hoarding place of the entire Beihai private sea salt, so a heavy army is arranged here, but I am afraid that something will go wrong.

Now there are countless strong men busy in the salt pan, some of them are wearing water supports, holding rakes, stepping on waist-deep cold water, stirring the sea water in the first layer of salt pans; Some are responsible for draining, continuously introducing the thick salt solution into the crystallization pool, or putting the diluted salt solution back into the evaporation tank; Others set up giant tripods on the tidal flats, constantly pouring semi-crystalline salt into the tripods, or collecting boiled dried salt cubes and putting them into sacks.

These people are all salt farmers who make salt, or to put it simply, domestic slaves of the Lu family; These people were either prisoners who committed crimes, or recruited from the homeless people, who belonged to the unregistered population of the Great Xia Empire, and all their livelihood depended on the Lu family; One day as a salt farmer, he has no way out for the rest of his life, he works hard all year round, and he has to be guarded by soldiers, and he lives a dark life with leather whips and sticks at every turn.

At this time, an old man in his fifties had just finished stirring a pool of sea salt, straightened his waist, and put the rake on his waist, intending to take a breath. However, when he looked at the sea, he saw that there seemed to be a little black shadow that was fleeting, and the old man thought he was dazzled, rubbed his eyes, and then opened his eyes and tried to look, hoping to see a clue. It's noon, and the glare of the sun reflects off the sea, making it almost impossible to open your eyes. When the line of sight gradually became clear, I finally saw those so-called black spots, which were obviously several warships with black sails coming in the distance, which were clearly pirate ships! The old man was stunned, pointing in the direction of the incoming ship with one hand, and even the rake on his waist quietly slid into the sea without realizing it, and his mouth only knew that there was a "ho-ho" sound.

The coast of Duchang County is an inland sea, belonging to the station of the Denglai Naval Division, although the Denglai Naval Division has a total of dozens of warships, but this side is all barren tidal flats, although there are a lot of salt fields, but a large number of sea salt can be snatched back, not to mention the low price, it is not easy to get rid of it, and occupy a position, so almost no pirate ship will go deep into the coast of Qingzhou to rob, so the old man will be so surprised to see the appearance of a pirate ship in this sea area.

At this time, on the flagship of the "pirate ship", Xu Ming, dressed in black and masked, was standing on the bow of the ship, observing the coast with the 'clairvoyance' given to him by the King of the North Sea, while listening to the report of the adjutant beside him.

"There are more than 400 acres of salt pans (now 300 acres) along the coast of Duchang, of which the Lu family accounts for nearly seventy percent, all of which are concentrated in Duchang County. The Duchang County soldiers put the county's 500 soldiers here to set up defenses, but because the coastline is too long, and the soldiers have daily mobilization and rotation, the actual defense force here is only 200 people, distributed in a five-mile long area. ”

Xu Ming sneered when he heard this: "It's stupid." With such a long line of defense and so few troops, what can it do against a regular army? At most, it's just to prevent the fools from breaking into the beach! ”

The adjutant of the report slandered in his heart: It was just to prevent the common people, who knew that there would be a tiger and wolf army like us to break in? Besides, it's still from the sea, so it's even more difficult to prevent! But of course, he didn't show it on his face, but praised it in his mouth: "The general is wise!" "Xu Ming's military position is now a captain in Henghai, and he can barely be called a general according to the Xia system.

As the ship approached, the salt farmers on the shore could be seen with the naked eye, and strangely enough, these people did not flee in all directions out of fear, but gathered in groups around the edge of the warehouse, and then did not make any more moves. neither sought the protection of the officials and soldiers, nor did he escape, so Xu Ming couldn't catch his head for a while. He turned around and asked the adjutant beside him, "Why don't these salt farmers panic and flee?" ”

The adjutant was also puzzled, and only Ai Ai replied: "Maybe he was shocked by the general's martial arts and didn't dare to escape, for fear of provoking the general's anger, right?" ”

Xu Ming also asked casually, but the reaction of the salt farmers was not within his consideration. Seeing that the distance was almost there, he gave an order in a deep voice: "Raise the flag, order the whole army, and prepare to seize the beach!" ”

With the waving of the flag on the flagship, a group of seven ships and more than ten horses gradually formed a horizontal formation. Unlike the boats, which anchored and stopped off the coast and the soldiers transferred to the landing boats, the slightly smaller Red Horse ships did not need to slow down at all because they were flat-bottomed boats, and they just rushed straight to the beach!

Xu Ming brought almost all the ships and personnel of the Jiaozhou Water Battalion this time, and these original pirates and fishermen are not only skilled in the ability to operate boats and boats, but also this kind of beach-grabbing and landing! Unlike pirates who rob ships, the Gain Pirates mainly raid coastal villages, so beach-grabbing is their specialty! After only a stick of incense, the soldiers of the 300 water battalions had already lined up on the tidal flats and took the initiative to approach the fence defense line.

At the beginning, because the position of the defensive line was far from the beach, the officers and soldiers stationed in Duchang did not notice any abnormalities at sea. When he realized that the situation was wrong, the leading general hurriedly sounded the horn, and while assembling the team in a chaotic manner, he tried to expel the forward pressure of the formation.

You must know that in this era of warfare must rely on formations, and it will not work to rush up; Because the communication ability of this era was not developed, and it was not far away to command the soldiers only by sound, so the advance and retreat of the troops depended on the command of the banner. The target of the banner is not a single soldier, but a team, and the aggregate of these teams is gathered into a 'formation'. Therefore, it is conceivable that if the formation is lost, it is equivalent to losing the command, and the most casualties in the war in the era of cold weapons are not when the two formations meet and directly confront, but when one side breaks the formation and is slashed and killed by the pursuing party from behind when it flees, it is the period when the main casualties of a war occur. To sum up, we can see how important the formation is in a local battle.

However, Xu Ming's team stepped forward unhurriedly, and stopped at a position where they approached two hundred paces, and watched the Duchang County soldiers line up for a long time. When the county soldiers on the opposite side finally lined up in formation and began to trot to this side to less than a hundred steps under the beat of the drum, Xu Ming waved his hand coldly, only to see the front row of sword and shield soldiers suddenly disperse, revealing two neatly arranged columns behind him - crossbowmen!

That's right, for this operation, Zhao Min transferred all the strong crossbows to Xu Ming, and there were not even a few of his own guards left! Fortunately, it was his uncle Xia Houjie who was in charge of the supplies, or he really didn't know how to explain the whereabouts of so many big killing weapons to people.

The crossbowmen lined up in two rows, the front row was half squatting, the back row was upright, and the cold and shining arrows were aimed at the Duchang soldiers who ran on the opposite side. At this time, the Duchang soldiers had no way to retreat, and only by moving forward bravely could they have a way to survive, so under the order of the chief general, less than two hundred county soldiers began to speed up and run, while the soldiers standing in the front row only looked desperately at the sharp arrows that came to their faces!

Unlike the covering shots of bows and arrows, the lethality of crossbow arrows comes mainly from straight line kills, so there is no more tragic thing than a soldier facing the crossbow arrow head-on. In addition, most of these county soldiers are spearmen, and there is almost no existence that can block crossbow arrows except for the thin two-grade armor on their bodies, so their fate can be imagined! Fifty or sixty people fell when the crossbow arrows of Jinfei made contact with the county soldiers for the first time, and only the tearing sound of sharp arrows penetrating the body was left in the field, and the miserable screams of the soldiers who were hit by the arrows!

At this time, the general of Duchang no longer cared about whether the fallen soldiers were dead or alive, he glared angrily, revealing a trace of blood red, and only the black-clothed masked army on the opposite side in his eyes greeted the robe that could still stand, waved the spear in his hand, and continued to march forward! At this time, he was less than fifty steps away from his opponent, and the enemy seemed to be close at hand, and with a little more effort, he could pierce the enemy's body with the sharp blade in his hand, and use his blood to avenge the brother who was caught by the arrow and rolled behind him, and did not know whether he was alive or dead!

However, the reality is often so hopeless! The two rows of crossbowmen on the opposite side quickly spread out to the sides after firing, and retreated to re-wind, revealing the other two rows of crossbowmen behind them! Yes, or crossbowmen! The flickering arrows seemed to tell the enemy that the tragedy just now was only the beginning of cruelty!

Zhao Min intercepted Lu Xu's gift to Xu Dumu in the Fuyong Cottage - well, it is now Xu Ming's two hundred crossbows, and later exterminated the Beihai dead soldiers and county soldiers who were going to round him up, and captured dozens more; Coupled with the scattered purchase and repair of the damaged ones later, Zhao Min had a total of more than 300 crossbow machines, and in order to make Xu Ming's attack on the salt works go smoothly, he was equipped with a full 300 of them! That is to say, almost every person in the entire Jiaozhou Water Battalion has a strong crossbow with one stone, how can such a number not make people desperate in the face of less than 200 Duchang soldiers!

The rest of the ending was no surprise, there were less than 30 Duchang soldiers who could still stand after the baptism of two rounds of crossbow arrows, and the dead included Duchang's leading generals, and the survivors had no heart to fight again in the face of 300 heavily armed black-clothed "pirates". Xu Ming was also a little unhappy about such a one-sided slaughter, and the remaining soldiers stopped shooting, changed their swords, shields and spears and stepped forward to clear the remnants of the enemy; And the Duchang soldiers didn't even bother to make symbolic resistance, they disarmed and surrendered one after another, and were tied up by the black-clothed soldiers with ropes.

With the threat of force out of the way, all that remains to do is destroy the salt works. Xu Ming's method was to dig a trench in the seawater to introduce the salt pans, and then throw all the salt stored in the warehouse back into the salt pans filled with seawater. What is surprising is that the previous salt farmers not only did not flee after seeing the defeat of the Duchang soldiers, but cowered and came forward, and one of the older elders had the courage to walk up to Xu Ming and asked, "This good man, if we help you destroy the fields, can you take us all away?" ”

Xu Ming turned his eyes to look at the elder with a pleading expression, and he was a little helpless in his heart. Of course, he knew that the development of Jimo needed manpower, and if these strong laborers could really be brought back, it would be a big supplement to Tuntian; However, at this time, after all, he was doing a secret matter, and it was not appropriate to make extraneous branches, so after a little hesitation, he still shook his head and rejected the old man's proposal.

An hour later, Xu Ming gave an order, and three hundred soldiers boarded the ship one after another from the shore and set sail out to sea, leaving only the mess full of beaches, telling the glory of the past under the sunset.