After interrogating Tang Er, Lao Hu realized that they had defeated a whole "Shanxi Anti-British National Salvation Army", and the guy he let go of was not only Tang Er's brother, but also a "military marshal" with thousands of general officials, which made Lao Hu beat his chest.

It's useless to regret it, before the battlefield is finished, a team of black-clad and red-sleeved inspectors came, asking them to hit the road as soon as possible, and the Third Army Brigade was behind.

There was no accident in the next trip, the Northern Expedition army that entered Shanxi, the vanguard had passed Huozhou City, and the tail of the rear team was still crossing the Yellow River at Fengling Ferry, stretching for hundreds of miles, and there was no more than a few miles between each other. There is no Qing army brigade in Jinnan and Jinzhong, that is, all kinds of "National Salvation Army" and "Loyal and Righteous Army", and even if Tang Da dares to intercept the Northern Expedition Brigade on the official road, even if they succeed, the black-clothed superintendent who wanders on the official road will appear in less than two or three quarters of an hour.

It was 15 March since Lao Hu, Li Hongde and others entered the city of Pingyang, and according to the notice of the resettlement of the Yamen of the Shanxi marching army, they entered the city and drove directly to the warehouse in the south of the city to rest and recuperate.

After entering the city, Li Hongde saw that the people in the city either looked indifferent or panicked, and did not dare to look directly at his people, as if he was afraid of being burned by this red. A few guys wearing melon skin hats, holding sleeves with their hands, and hunched over looked at each other coldly, but when they looked at each other, they bowed their heads in horror, with a look of complaining about the little daughter-in-law, and quietly unconsciously, Li Hongde's heart was sublimated.

"The people on the ground in this Qing Dynasty are all in the same ...... Prison gas. ”

Li Hongde didn't know how to describe these wilting Qing people, he felt that these people, whether rich or poor, whether rich or poor, rich or low, were shrouded in a layer of dull twilight.

Li Hongde's sense of superiority was suddenly born, as a citizen of Great Britain. I used to live a life with my head buried in my life, and I didn't have any self-consciousness, but now compared with these Qing people, I really don't know how to be blessed in the blessings.

As his thoughts extended, Li Hongde suddenly became impulsive, and he wanted to rush to Jingle as soon as possible and do his best to do a career.

"The Tartar governor Muhd is making a big deal of moths in Taiyuan Mansion. Li Xiangguan, I'm afraid you will have to delay for a few days, us? ”

Chatting with Lao Hu about the next trip, Lao Hu looked regretful, but when he talked about himself, his face turned high-spirited again: "We have to stay and be hunters." ”

Pingyang Fucheng, the original prefect's yamen was requisitioned as the military department of the Third Army of the British Northern Expedition. Shanxi's marching dispatch envoys, supervision envoys, and transfer envoys to the yamen, as well as the Shanxi Hedong Road to set up the yamen, all kinds of official flags fluttering in front of the yamen, it is spectacular.

In the back hall of the yamen, Gu Shining frowned and said to Tian Ying, the envoy of Shanxi Hedong Road: "This policy is indeed to pull out the poison, but it will also provoke the local gentry and businessmen to rebel with the people. ”

As the chief general of the Shanxi side of the Northern Expeditionary Army, Gu Shining's rank was on par with Zheng Xie, the governor of Daying Shanxi. Under the governor, there are three envoys: pacification envoys, solicitation envoys, marching dispatch, supervision and transfer, and the subordinate envoys of the separation system or the pacification envoys are separated by two layers of Gu Shining. But Gu Shining was unusually polite to Tian Ying, for two reasons.

Tian Ying's father is the governor of the Imperial Patent Office, the head of the Tiandao Academy, and has the title of founding duke, and the people of the country are respected as the "craftsman king" Tian Dayu. This identity is still secondary, Tian Ying himself is the twenty-first year of the Holy Dao Jinshi Ke Tanhua, this Tian Tanhua was in Sichuan when he was a county magistrate. It changed hands and suppressed the local salt merchants who had rebelled by the revocation of the privilege of mining well salt. He was praised by the government and the opposition as a model of a new generation of capable ministers, and he was very optimistic about his future.

Tian Ying is only twenty-four or five. But with an old-fashioned look, he bowed to Gu Shining according to the number of courtesies: "Don't worry about the back road, there is a volunteer division left in this road, as well as one hundred and seventy-two dart teams under the jurisdiction of the marching supervision envoy Yamen, which can not only ensure the smooth flow of the official road, but also enough to pacify the places outside the official road." ”

Gu Shining waved his hand and said: "Of course Gu is not worried that the back road will be broken, the guerrillas will be scattered, no matter how much it will not work, Gu is careful that the place is difficult to treat, is this strategy too ...... Too harsh? ”

Tian Ying smiled slightly: "So that Gu Dudu knows that the lower officials don't dare to act casually, Mu Hede tried to confuse Shanxi, and the General Administration of North and South Affairs decided to use the wind to face the fog and drive the chaos in Shanxi." ”

Is it the decision of the North-South Affairs Agency? Gu Shining felt a little relieved in his heart, and then thought of the response of Mu Hede, the governor of Shanxi in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he had to admit that only by acting like this could he pacify Shanxi.

Like Gao Qi, Muhd was unwilling to sit idly by, but unlike Gao Qi, he not only did not understand military affairs, but also had no available army under his command. Shanxi Green Camp has long been eroded by the British and Chinese merchants, and even became a whistle and a shed was secretly hired by the British and Chinese merchants to be a dart master. In the early days of Qianlong, the newly built Shanxi Banner Battalion, the soldiers were actually the "Green Banner of the Han Army", although the loyalty was barely reliable, but they also had to guard the front line of killing the tiger's mouth, prevent the invasion of Mobei Mongolia, and hold the line of Taiyuan, Datong and Niangziguan to cover the flank of Zhili.

In the face of the Anglo-Chinese invasion from the south to the north, Muhd knew very well that he could not rely on the officers and soldiers to resist the Red Clothes, and his strategy was to set off a vigorous anti-British mass movement to defend the Qing Dynasty and engage in a "people's" war in which all the troops went into battle.

Under his promotion, the Jin merchant group in Shanxi broke out with amazing strength, and the local officials and gentry worked together to gather all kinds of militia groups in Yining Road, Yanping Road, and the two halls of Guihua and Suiyuan, with a total estimated total of no less than 100,000 people.

The anti-British aspirations of the Shanxi people are far stronger than those of the Shandong people in Henan, because the local vitality class represented by the Jin merchants is basically a vested interest group dependent on the Manchu rentier. "Jin merchants" is just a synonym, and its targets include not only merchants who trafficked goods, industrial and mining owners who mined coal and iron, but also grassroots officials who ruled the local area, landlords and gentry who owned large fields, and officials who floated in the Manchu court. And the imperial merchant group, which blended with the Manchu royal family through the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was the backbone of the Jin merchants, and these people themselves were members of the Manchu clan that Yinghua wanted to uproot.

Although public opinion in the Anglo-Chinese country did not mention in detail how to deal with the Jin merchants, the raging crusade against the Manchus had already made the Jin merchants tremble and feel that they were in trouble. Two years ago, Tanggu revised the treaty, and Yinghua Capital went north in a big way, and these Jin merchants were crossed the river and the bridge was demolished, and the losses were not light. Now that the British are on a northern expedition, Mohd raised his arms. The Jin merchants all subconsciously gathered in the past, quite the style of the Jiangnan people during the changes of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Heaven and Earth Society, the Ministry of Military Intelligence, and various channels have all sent back news that with Taiyuan Mansion as the center, a resistance base of "all the people are enemies" is taking shape. When Gu Shining adjusted his military deployment, Tian Ying also adjusted the strategy of dealing with the localities according to the instructions of the General Administration of North-South Affairs.

Militarily, of course, it is to implement General Xie Shen's turtle and shell flow strategy, honestly occupy a place to stabilize a back road, and clean up the civil affairs of the occupied prefectures and counties. But much more radical than militarily.

"Those who have the identity of the flag man are directly removed, and those who do not have the identity of the flag man but have a close relationship are also directly removed. For the rest, merchants were ranked according to wealth, landlords according to the number of fields, and officials according to rank and influence. 100 households per county in each category, and priority is given to the following categories: proprietors of ticket numbers, salt merchants, usurers, proprietors of coal and iron mines, prison heads, and clerks of county households, ......"

This is the strategy of the General Administration of North-South Affairs in Shanxi to deal with the "people's war" in Mukhdi, there is no fairness, there is no punishment according to the law, and the goal is the "three lights": let the flag people run away, arrest the local "dynamic class", and kill all the staunch anti-British elements.

This kind of disposal naturally made Gu Shining worried, and seeing that he still had concerns, Tian Ying said again: "Don't worry about it, this matter is only for a while." The north is also in the sky, and Shanxi is the first. ”

Since the place is so confident, it doesn't need to stay in red to stabilize the situation, and Gu Shining doesn't need to force it. The Anglo-Northern Expedition, the military and political are two systems, he only needs to fight with peace of mind, and the places are all through the governors of the provinces, pacification envoys, recruitment envoys, and acting prefects and counties.

When Gu Shining and Tian Ying were discussing, in the south of Pingyang Prefecture, in the dilapidated shack area outside Xiangling County. All sorts of people were crowding into a large room that was supposed to be a storeroom. There is a melon skin hat and a straight coat, and there is a short. There are even people who are bald and barefoot.

"Loyalty and righteousness will protect the Qing Society, Wu Dusi is here-!"

"Save the country and save the people, Wang Guerrilla hit-!"

"Qingfeng Taoist Temple, Liu Daochang has arrived-! Oh, it's rude, it's supposed to be the chief of the general's rank......"

There are still people in the door who are learning to roll call like the Qing Dynasty official mansion, Tang Dazheng is embarrassed that his Qian Zong is really worthless, and he can't wait to tear off the roof, and exclaimed: "There is such a big movement, are you not afraid of attracting the Nanban to arrest people?" ”

A thin middle-aged man stepped out with his hands in his hands and said firmly: "What are you surprised? The officers and soldiers of the Southern Barbarians are all squatting on the county seat and official roads, how can they have the ability to come here? ”

According to the rules, the leaders of all the heroes who pouted their bellies and raised their heads to see this also laughed out loud,

"Where did the turtle come from, I haven't seen the world?"

"If the name is not right, it is not good, we are now officers and soldiers of the Qing Dynasty, of course we have to follow the rules!"

"There are no rules, there are no rules, and if there are no rules, we will be with the thieves all the way."

Tang Da was suddenly ashamed, and he woke up after the door shouted twice, and quickly took out his confession and said, "The villain ......"

Thinking of the "rules", he hurriedly coughed, pinched his tone, and said to the four sides: "The humble position is the leader of the Thousand Presidents of the Anti-British National Salvation Army, Tang Da, and I have seen all the officials. ”

"The Anti-British National Salvation Army? Is it from Gaoxian, Jing'an, or Zhaoqu? ”

"In this Xiangling County, there are no less than twenty or thirty ...... of the Anti-British National Salvation Army."

The leaders of the heroes were still counting Tang Da, and Menzi nodded and said, "The complaint was sent by the prince of Yicheng County, it should be no problem." ”

Tang Da breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to answer the lawsuit, but Menzi squinted his eyes and snorted, rubbing the thumb and index finger of the other hand, Tang Da suddenly said, how could he forget this rule? Hurriedly took out a small Nanban silver dollar from his waist, saw Menzi's brows furrowed, gritted his teeth again, and a small string of Nanban ten white copper coins fell out of his sleeve, Menzi snorted and lowered his tone, and stuffed his body back.

He was familiarizing himself with the rules here, and the lean middle-aged man with the air of a scribe had already spoken: "You are all good men in the rivers and lakes, and you can't say anything loyal to the court, but when the world changes greatly, it is not only the Qing court that will die, but the whole world ......."

It's a lot of saliva, it doesn't matter if you don't understand it, anyway, the heroes in this room are said in awe, and then say, "Let's protect the Qing Dynasty, that is, protect the world, this Nanban, we must fight to the end!" Including Tang Da, they all felt their blood boiling.

"Master Jin speaks, what are we going to do!"

"Just do it! We have 300 heroes under our command, and the knives and axes in our hands are already hungry and thirsty! ”

"Today, our heroes will gather, I'm afraid that if we don't gather tens of thousands of heroes, this Jinzhong is our world!"

The heroes and leaders roared more and more vigorously, and the direction seemed to be a little off.

Liu Guanzhu, the guerrilla-level Taoist leader of the immortal wind Dao bones, shouted: "We are loyal and righteous teachers, and we are to protect the Qing Dynasty, but we are not rebels!" ”

Everyone hurriedly coughed and turned around, Tang Da knew that the middle-aged man was Master Jin, who was originally the secretary of the military room in Xiangling County, after the Southern Barbarian Army went north, the government of Xiangling County collapsed, and Master Jin was still hidden in the county, recruiting good men, committed to anti-British, and became the leader of such a large group of "righteous army" in a short period of time. Today, it is he who brings together heroes from all walks of life to discuss great plans.

But what is the origin of this Taoist priest?

Tang Da pulled a small leader who was also a thousand general title and asked quietly, and immediately stood in awe, this Liu Daochang is not small, two years ago when the imperial court set off an anti-British tide, it was Liu Daochang who brought the Jinzhong monks and Taoist group into Beijing, I heard that he not only participated in the siege of Sanlitun, but also was summoned by Daoguang Xiaoye.

"I'm going to be able to do a great job! My brother's revenge will be avenged! ”

Feeling this thick high-spirited atmosphere, Tang Da surged with a heroic heart, and he was frightened by the red vest before.

Master Jin continued: "Nanban has begun to collect muskets, we have done a good job before! Today's conference is to discuss a major event! ”

Then Master Jin's words made everyone gasp and beat Xiangling County!?

"The red-clothed brigade has gone north, and there are only a few hundred gray-clothed (Yiyong) left in the county, we don't want to occupy the county, we only want to attack the county government and kill the puppet officials of the Southern Barbarians. With this achievement, the hearts of the people in the world are greatly inspired! Mu Xian will look at us, the emperor will look at us, and the queen mother will look at us! ”

Master Jin shook his fists vigorously, hearing that it was just a surprise attack, everyone's hearts suddenly rose, these leaders, each of them had dozens or hundreds of brothers, it should not be difficult to get together to make such a big move.

But some people complained bitterly: "There are people on the official road who go back and forth to check, and they can't take the bird to go, what is the matter?" ”

Master Jin said: "Bird guns are not helpful! If you put a shot, it's a burning stick, unless it's a Nanban bird with a knife, but do you have it? Even if there were, no one would use it. It's better to fight with knives and guns, there are so many of us, what are we afraid of!? ”

Another person said again: "Although there are few gray clothes, they can't gather for a while, but there are a large number of black clothes in the county office, and those people are probably no worse than red clothes." ”

"Black!? Sigh ......"

Master Jin's face was full of disdain: "The black clothes of the Southern Barbarians are the officials on our side, and it is enough to bully and bully the common people on weekdays, but against heroes like us, can the officials be used?" ”

Everyone nodded, this is very true, from ancient times to the present, I have never seen an official official who can withstand a big battle, many leaders themselves are from this line of work, and they sneer at the black clothes of the Southern Barbarians, and their confidence is another level.

Seeing that everyone's eyebrows were dancing and shouting, they were ready to make a blood alliance and hold a big event together, Tang Da suddenly remembered what happened to him, and exclaimed: "I have to see if there is a red vest in the city!" ”

There was a sudden silence in the room, and then Master Jin said again: "This brother is right, go and inquire first......

"Don't worry, the red vests seem to have received some order, and they are all scattered to the county."

A leader who had just come from Xiangling County explained the situation, and everyone was immediately relieved, it seems that not only Tang Da recognized the true face of the red vest.

There are no worries, a set of procedures come to power, in the incense and green smoke, Master Jin's words are like a hot stream, turning in everyone's hearts: "Help the Qing to destroy the British and protect the world together!" ”