With little effort, the Second Town invaded the city. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info Ren Xingfan immediately ordered the layout of the defensive line to prevent the Qing army's counterattack. More than 50 river boats entered the salt iron pond and blockaded the Qing army with the guns on board.

The soldiers of Zhang Tianfu's department were blinded by the artillery of the Chongming army, and Empress Cang retreated to the city of Taicang Prefecture, ordering the city gate to be closed, and the soldiers to go to the city to prevent the possible siege of the Ming army. However, after waiting for a long time, the salt and iron pond was empty, and there were no Ming ships coming down the river, Zhang Tianfu realized that maybe the purpose of the Ming army was not Taicang City, but just the grain in the warehouse!

"You take a thousand men and attack!" After thinking about it carefully, Zhang Tianfu commanded.

"A thousand, isn't that too small?" Qian Yi said with a bitter face. The Ming army had hundreds of ships, at least five or six thousand people, and a large number of artillery, wouldn't it be dead to bring a thousand people to fight them?

"Who told you to take back the warehouse? It is a tentative attack, and if it can be recaptured, it will be captured, and if it can't be withdrawn. Zhang Tianfu said impatiently.

"Great!" Qian Yi relieved himself and happily led the troops out of the city.

"General, why don't we just grab the warehouse? Although the Ming army has a large number, our strength is not bad, and there are horsemen, so we may not necessarily lose. Some cronies asked Zhang Tianfu puzzled.

"Stupid, don't you see that the rivers near Cangcheng are dense, the streets are connected, and there are houses and alleys everywhere, where can the horsemen run! I originally wanted to wait for the Ming army to attack Taicang, so that I could crush them with a horse team outside the city, but who knew that they would not leave the river at all, what do you think I should do? ”

Zhang Tianfu scolded angrily, but only he knew in his heart that the reason why he didn't dare to take back Cangcheng immediately was because of the deep fear of the Chongming Army in his heart. Under the city of Yangzhou, when attacking the south gate, the corpses of the green battalion soldiers were all over the field under the city wall, and more than 1,000 soldiers of Zhang Tianfu's headquarters died.

When the Ming army in the city retreated to Yangzhou under the leadership of the Duke of Yue, even Duoduo, the prince of Yu of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, did not dare to take advantage of the situation to attack the city. Now there is a secret consensus among the generals of the Manchu Green Battalion that the remnants of the Ming army are not to be feared, and only the Chongming army is a strong enemy.

"In fact, the capture of the warehouse by the Ming army may not be a good thing for us." The other henchman said suddenly.

"How do you say that?" Zhang Tianfu narrowed his eyes.

"General, think about it, the Ming army has captured the warehouse, and it is bound to transport the grain in the warehouse, so won't the grain matter be wiped out? Even if the Qing court sent troops to prepare for the road, Baozhun would never find out anything again. ”

Wonderful! The more Zhang Tianfu listened, the more wonderful he felt, and when he first arrived in Taicang with the army, he took over Cangcheng from the Ming army. Facing the huge warehouse, which contained hundreds of thousands of stones of rice, Zhang Tianfu couldn't bear it. In addition to taking the food used by his army, he secretly sold more than 300,000 stone of grain, and obtained more than 500,000 taels of silver. Such a large sum of money made Zhang Tianfu tremble, he has been in the army for decades, robbed and killed countless people, but he has never seen so much money at one time!

The silver is good, but it's hot! The Manchu Qing Dynasty will send a soldier in charge of military rations in the morning, and when the time comes, it will be revealed. Now it would be great if this bad debt could be smoothed out in the name of the Ming army!

"However, it is also a felony that we lost Cangcheng and lost so much food!" The other henchman was puzzled.

"Tens of thousands of Chongming troops are coming, hundreds of cannons, what can we do with such a small number of troops, it is a great achievement to be able to keep Taicang Prefecture. As for Cangcheng, there is no way! Zhang Tianfu laughed.

......

"What? There are more than 200,000 stone of rice left in the warehouse? Chen Sheng's eyes widened.

"Yes, I have checked carefully, more than half of the warehouses are empty, and most of the rest are old rice, and this year's new rice is only 30,000 or 40,000 stones." The clerk accompanying the army reported to Chen Sheng.

"That's not right! What about the million grain reserves that are promised? said that the largest granary in the south of the Yangtze River, how could it be so grain! ”

"Okay, Lao Chen, what's so hard to understand." Ren Xingfan on the side said with a smile, "The grain is gone, it must have been stolen and sold privately by the officials in charge of the grain depot, otherwise where do you think the endless grain on our Chongming Island comes from?" ”

Chen Sheng nodded and stopped pursuing.

The city was in full swing, and Chen Sheng sent people to hire more than 1,000 people nearby, and the high price of three coins of silver a day allowed them to load the goods in the warehouse onto the ship.

The coolies who relied on the wharf for loading and unloading were overjoyed, and the price offered by the Chongming army was three times their previous income, and they happily joined the ranks of transporting grain one by one.

Sacks of rice were taken out of the warehouse, loaded onto small boats, and then sailed down the waterway to the big boats in the middle of the Liuhe River. Fifteen three-masted galleons had empty bilges, each of which could carry five thousand stone of grain, and any more would have been stranded with fear of too deep a draft.

......

Zidi Village, Jiading

In the largest mansion in the village, the fifth year of the Apocalypse, the former Zhejiang political counselor, was entertaining visitors.

The visitor is also a famous scholar in Jiading, Chongzhen sixteen years jinshi Huang Chunyao. The two sides sat down separately, Hou Xuanyan, Hou Xuanjie, Hou Xuanyan, and Huang Chunyao's younger brother Huang Yuanyao sat down to accompany the prime minister.

On the 25th of last month, Wu Song's deputy general Wu Zhikui defeated Jiading and scared away Zhang Weixi of Qingzhi County. However, Vice General Wu led the troops to Suzhou, and now there are many righteous people in Jiading City, but there is no leader in the dragons, and a person with high moral standing is needed to lead the righteous people of Manxian County to raise major events. And although there are many gentry in Manxian County, who is this leader Sheyuzhan brother? Huang Chunyao's bright eyes looked directly at Hou Tongzeng.

"Since Brother Yunsheng said so, he should be a brother!" Hou Tong Zeng did not refuse, and agreed with emotion, "Since the fall of Nanjing and Hangzhou, Your Majesty has been dusted, the foolish brother has been discouraged, so he has lived in seclusion. I thought that the Ming Dynasty was going to die, who knew that the Manchu Qing Dynasty actually made a faint move, and as soon as the shaving order came out, the people of the world would inevitably rise up, and it was a good time to recover my Ming Dynasty. ”

The two looked at each other and laughed.

Hou Huang and Huang are both local celebrities, in this era when the imperial power does not go to the countryside, the gentry with the merit of the Jinshi represent absolute authority, not to mention that each of the two families has thousands of acres of land in their hands, and hundreds of affiliated tenants.

Under the call of the two, the villagers of the nearby villages came to converge, and gathered two thousand strong men in one day's work, wrapped in white cloth on their heads, and holding a hoe and iron fork in their hands, gathered behind Hou Huang and the others, and marched towards Jiading County.

Hearing about Hou Huang's actions, the gentry and people from all over the countryside came to converge, and when they arrived at the city of Jiading, the strong men gathered had reached more than 5,000 people. (To be continued.) )