"What? What did you say? ”

"Such a large group of people were actually slipped out by them, and you only found out when they ran six miles away? Yes? Fuck, how did you guys keep watch. ”

Early the next morning, Wang Wenyue was furious, and several scout captains lowered their heads, and Wang Wenyue sprayed a spit on his face.

"None of them spoke?" Wang Wenyue said angrily.

"Report to the brigade, it was the negligence of the subordinate and the detailed arrangement." The Scout Captain looked up and said loudly. Wang Wenyue yelled: "Give Lao Tzu twenty laps, no, thirty laps." ”

"Yes." The captain saluted, then turned and ran out.

The staff was more worried about the situation, and they suspected that the group of Japanese who had fled out of the castle last night was Tokugawa Iemitsu, and it was clear from the hiding of gold and silver that Tokugawa Iemitsu was ready to abandon Edo.

"According to our plan, after conquering Edo, we will capture Tokugawa Iemitsu and the top officials of the Tokugawa shogunate, force them to sign a treaty of trade, and pay us some small military expenses, but this plan will have to be changed back to the original plan." said the chief of staff.

"Change is change! As long as there is silver in Edo, it's okay to rob it. Wang Wenyue said depressedly that when they originally attacked Edo, they expected that Tokugawa Iemitsu might escape, but judging from all indications, Tokugawa Iemitsu did not run out of Edo, so they formulated a new battle plan.

If this plan can be successful, it will definitely be able to knock a lot of silver, Wang Wenyue dreams every day that he can get tens of millions of taels of silver to pay Zhao Yan!

According to the original battle plan, they first seized Edo, then raided the Kanto region, and then forced the Tokugawa shogunate to open the treaty ports in various parts of the country through various means.

The plan couldn't catch up with the changes, and it was ruthlessly shattered, how could Wang Wenyue not be depressed.

"Report to the brigade, twenty clippers have arrived in Yokohama, and 30,000 Xiangyong have been transported." Just then, a soldier entered the staff and reported.

"Okay, reinforcements have arrived." Wang Wenyue couldn't help but be overjoyed, and ordered: "Send two thousand cavalry over to protect it, so that these recruits will not be attacked by the Japanese on the road." ”

"Yes."

…… After the twenty clippers arrived in Yokohama, the onboard Xiang Yong landed without any hindrance.

Sanmango Yong walked up to this strange land with a spear, and his heart was surging, of course, there were some people who were not so surging, because they vomited a mess on the ship, and after arriving in Yokohama, they had to stay in the city to recuperate.

After a day of transportation, all the supplies on the ship were unloaded, but the docks at the Port of Yokohama were loaded with things overnight.

Yokohama is one of the few industrial cities in the city, and although the industrial level is low, there are still a lot of valuable things, and after a few days of inventory, more than 1.5 million taels worth of goods were grabbed.

The Japanese people in the city became hard laborers, and the Japanese people in Yokohama were treated specially, and they did not arrest them, but only looted the samurai and merchants, and temporarily transferred the young men in the city.

Of course, these Japanese people did not have anything to loot, and they did not have any oil and water on them, and the task of the cavalry battalion was mostly to capture the Japanese people.

70,000 Japanese slaves who had already been prepared, after the goods were loaded into the ship, were also stuffed into the cabin, which was no different from transporting piglets, and it was estimated that they would have to die in Shandong, but there was also a way, in the absence of ships, they could only be transported as piglets.

In the afternoon of the next day, twenty clippers sailed out of the port again and headed for Qingdao.

The 2,000 cavalry sent by the cavalry battalion also arrived in Yokohama at this time, and after two days of repairs, 30,000 villagers went to Edo early the next morning under the protection of the cavalry.

These 30,000 Xiangyong were organized into a reserve regiment, which was divided into ten battalions, one battalion of 3,000 people.

In two days, the reserve battalion came to Edo.

Wang Wenyue immediately ordered the reserve battalion to be stationed around Edo to rest and recuperate, and then Wang Wenyue was much more confident and began to formulate a plan to attack Edo.

…… On 22 July, the Honshu Mixed Brigade launched its final assault on Edo Castle, and the artillery battalion razed the Edo North Gate and Drum Tower at dawn.

Ten battalions of the reserve regiment rushed into the city one after another.

A reserve regiment in plate armor and armed with a spear fought fiercely with the Samurai in the city, and there were many Samurai in the city, who hid everywhere and often rushed out suddenly.

However, the battle went very well, and the shogunate samurai fell to the spear of the Shogunate one by one. These village warriors have been trained for many years, and there is no problem in serving as pikemen, whether it is stabbing or platooning, with such cooperation, and excellent plate armor protection, they are invincible in the city, and gradually annihilate the samurai in the city before dusk, divide the remaining shogunate samurai into small remnants of the castle, and eliminate these remnants of small groups of samurai, as long as the village warriors cooperate with the search can solve the problem.

Wang Wenyue was very satisfied with the combat effectiveness of these townsmen, who were wearing plate armor and were most suitable for such street fighting, while his mixed brigade was too unsuitable for street fighting.

And the Tokugawa shogunate's Honmaru has also been captured, and the Honmaru is where the shogun lived, which is equivalent to the imperial palace.

As soon as he entered the city, Wang Wenyue, under the leadership of Kawano Fool Saburo, went to find the gold and silver hidden by the shogunate.

When Wang Wenyue ordered someone to dig up the cover on the dry well, the white silver was indeed exposed underneath, Wang Wenyue couldn't help but be overjoyed, and hurriedly asked people to get the gold and silver treasures in the dry well.

The dry well was very big, and I didn't know how much was in it, anyway, Wang Wenyue stood there and watched for half an hour, and the silver in it hadn't been moved yet.

"Speed up and take stock." Wang Wenyue said to the people on the side, "It's best to get the report in a while." ”

"Yes, Brigade."

As a result, the gold and silver treasures were counted in the middle of the night, a total of five million taels of silver, plus 300,000 taels of gold, as well as other precious stones, jade, pearls, agate, and other things, and it was not clear how much they were worth, and few in the army knew how to estimate these things. But it seems that there should still be two or three million taels.

Now Wang Wenyue was comfortable, and finally lived up to the establishment of the mixed brigade given by Zhao Yan, and successfully grabbed 10 million taels of silver.

In this way, the military expenses for this operation will be in hand, and it is estimated that there is still half of the surplus.

Since the conquest of Edo, Wang Wenyue issued a night curfew, and at the same time sent men and horses to seal the city gates and patrol the streets at the same time.

For the next three days, Wang Wenyue had been clearing the city of recalcitrant resistance.

On the fourth day, Wang Wenyue ordered the sacking of Edo.

Groups of soldiers rushed into the homes of the widows like wolves and searched for all the valuable things.

However, the wealth of Edo was beyond Wang Wenyue's imagination.

Although there are not many products, the industry is not developed compared to the Ming Dynasty, and cities with such populations are more common, but the amount of silver is very large.

Although last year's trade reduced the amount of silver in the market by one-third, it is not that there is a shortage of silver in the city, but that a lot of silver has not been put into circulation.

As the most prosperous city of Edo and at the same time the political center of the city, it has the most powerful people here, and naturally the most silver.

As long as it is a random warrior's house, dozens of taels of silver can be found, and some even have tens of thousands of taels, so much silver makes Wang Wenyue staggered.

Revolt began to appear in Edo Castle because of the looting of the Ming army, but it was only a futile resistance, and in the end they were defeated one by one, and one by one the Japanese were escorted out of the city, tied with ropes, and driven to Yokohama.

The follow-up ship also arrived five days after the scissors arrived, and was waiting in Yokohama to transport the Japanese slaves.

Wang Wenyue is in Yokohama, and it can be said that he can grab everything. People also robbed money, and after seven or eight days of tossing, a team of Japanese people were sent to Yokohama by him, and Edo became a dead city.

After sweeping back and forth two or three times, and confirming that Edo was completely free of Japanese people, Wang Wenyue stopped and laid out a follow-up attack plan.

His goal is to completely swallow up the rich Guangdong Plain, and the money and people here will all be snatched back to Shandong, so as to solve Shandong's financial and labor shortages this year.

As for the goods seized in Edo, they were piled up in a heap, and they could not be counted for a while, and the exact number was not known, but there were no less than a dozen warehouses, and the amount of gold, silver, and copper exchanged for silver alone was more than 10 million taels.

At the same time, there were more than 300,000 Japanese people in Edo, and except for the old people who stayed in Edo and left them some food to survive, the other 234,000 people were sent to Yokohama.

…… Speaking of the situation in the Central Plains, since Zhao Yan exterminated Gao Yingxiang, thieves from other departments have come to vote, and by July, more than 80 people have been netted, all of whom have been sent to Shandong for resettlement.

Liu Guoneng also took a thousand backbones and joined the co-suppression, and at the same time, the rest of the departments surrendered to the thief and led some people to follow Zhao Yan to assist in the suppression.

These bandit leaders and backbones are the objects that Zhao Yan is very worried about. The reason why Hong Chengchou killed and surrendered at the beginning was because he was afraid that these people would rebel. According to the way the thieves fight, as long as the backbone is still there, it will not hurt the muscles and bones.

Zhao Yan led an army of 60,000 and marched in three ways.

Qin Zhiyuan led 8,000 cavalry and was responsible for cutting off Zhang Xianzhong's road into Sichuan and back to Shaanxi, while Zhao Yan led two infantry battalions to attack head-on.

As for the 30,000 horseless Yingzhou villagers, they were organized into 10 battalions, and under the leadership of the officers of the front-line troops, they cleared and appeased thieves from all over Huguang, and recruited homeless and poor people along the way.

In the territory of Huguang, only Zhang Xianzhong is left with a large thief at this moment, and if this thief is solved, Zhao Yan can enter Shaanxi and directly smash the hotbed of thieves.

Zhang Xianzhong had previously invaded Xiangxi, this place is an area inhabited by ethnic minorities, there are a large number of Tusi, ethnic minorities through the Tusi and the government exploitation, has long been impoverished, Zhang Xianzhong arrived, immediately formed a trend of burning the plain, the number of people has skyrocketed again and again, it has skyrocketed to more than 400,000 people, but the supply has suffered a serious problem, although the displaced people in Xiangxi are easy to move, but the food is not so easy to find.

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong drilled out of Xiangxi again, and at this time it happened that Hong Chengchou was dismissed, and more than 100,000 officers and troops in Huguang were not commanded, and they were limited to a chaotic defensive state, and Zhang Xianzhong was connected to three counties.

Hearing that Zhao Yan came to suppress it, in the face of the approaching Shandong army, Zhang Xianzhong did not mess up at all, but went his own way and was unscrupulous in Huguang.

All because Xiong Wencan has arrived in Huguang at this moment, Zhang Xianzhong is convinced that Zhao Yan, the official army of Toucheng, will not end well, because Zhao Yan is different from other official troops, the Shandong army is too strong, and it is not easy to fool.

And Xiong Wencan is very much to his taste, even if it is like Xiong Wencan, he has no problem when he wants.

…… When Zhao Yan marched all the way to Jingzhou, he suddenly met Hong Chengchou and his party on the official road, Hong Chengchou's face was no longer frustrated at the moment, but he behaved calmly, and Zhao Yan's army passed side by side, and the two sides did not say hello, as if they ignored each other.

Hong Chengchou looked at the Shandong soldiers and horses marching on the official road in the official sedan chair, and was secretly surprised in his heart after reading it, there were only a few thousand people before, and there was not much of a concept, but tens of thousands of elite soldiers and horses, no military attaché soldiers and horses in the Ming Dynasty could compete with it.

At the same time, it also gave Hong Chengchou a bottom in his heart, and he predicted in his heart that Emperor Chongzhen would inevitably be used against him again, it was just a matter of timing.

As long as you operate in the capital and wait for the right time to come, you will naturally be able to put on the official hat again, because Zhao Yan's soldiers and horses are so powerful, Emperor Chongzhen is obviously afraid, no wonder when the two sides clashed before, Zhao Yan was slapped in the face, the more Hong Chengchou thought about it, the more he was like this, and his heart was even more calm. The only thing that is uncertain is Yang Sichang's attitude towards him, as the main suppressor who had a left-sided opinion with Yang He, he never imagined that Yang He and his son would jump into the court and become Chongzhen's most trusted minister.

Qin Zhiyuan waved his army south, directly bypassing most of Zhang Xianzhong's men and horses, and directly blocked behind Zhang Xianzhong's tail, and Zhao Yan also traveled in a hurry, and it only took five days to reach Changsha.

Zhang Xianzhong, who was preparing to attack Changsha, never imagined that Zhao Yan would come so quickly, he was originally fearless, and planned to grab a handful and run away, and then wait for the limelight to pass, Zhang Xianzhong, who was planning again, suddenly panicked and hurriedly sent a messenger to send a letter to Zhao Yan.

The envoy entered Zhao Yan's camp tent, knelt down very obediently and said to Zhao Yan: "The grass people have seen the general. ”

"Zhang Xianzhong asked you to come, what do you want to say?" Zhao Yan asked the messenger.

"The king of my family said that we are already going to appease the governor of Xiong, and we will not work hard for the general." The messenger replied.

"Oh! The king of your family wants to touch Xiong Wencan? Zhao Yan touched his mustache and looked excited.

The messenger replied, "Yes." ”

"How does the official know if it's true or not, if you want to be cared for, it's generally the same to the official, you go back and tell Zhang Xianzhong that the official is limited to him to come within two days to caress him, and then the official doesn't say anything about the appeasement, and he should send troops to suppress him." Zhao Yan suddenly threatened in a deep voice, and then without waiting for the messenger to speak, he directly asked his own soldiers to take him out.

The messenger didn't accomplish anything, so he was dared to go out. After going back, he truthfully told Zhang Xianzhong what Zhao Yan said.

Zhang Xianzhong scolded after listening to it: "His mother's Zhao Killing Star really doesn't give him a way to live." ”

"King, Zhao Killing Star let us go to him within the two of us, how can we not survive." A backbone on the side asked suspiciously.

"Can't Lao Tzu scold casually?" Zhang Xianzhong's words almost choked the man to death.

At this moment, a thief came running to announce and said, "King, Zhao Killing Star has sent a messenger here. ”

"Zhao Killxing's messenger? Please come in and have a look. Zhang Xianzhong is interested, since Zhao Killing is going to talk, this trend is still good, if the conditions are okay, it doesn't hurt to touch Zhao Killing.

Soon, I saw a literati dressed as a scholar walking in, this literati looked arrogant, and when he saw Zhang Xianzhong, he immediately shouted: "The court officials are here, and you still don't kneel and kowtow." ”

"Presumptuous." Zhang Xianzhong was furious and pulled out his saber to slash. But the messenger was not afraid at all, and sneered: "You dare to be so arrogant this time, the general has already commanded the soldiers and horses, and I really don't know whether to live or die." ”

"You...... You ......" Zhang Xianzhong was stimulated to the point of blood surged, but the saber in his hand did not dare to swing down, and suddenly Zhang Xianzhong was full of excitement and thought of some possibility.

Previously, Zhao Killing and Hong Chengchou made a big fuss about the matter, this time he raised Xiong Wencan, Zhao Killing Star must not be easy to kill, if he was forced, he just scolded Hong Chengchou on the "Daming Newspaper", and as a result, he did similar behavior, wouldn't he slap himself in the face.

But if he cut down this messenger, Zhao Shuxing would have an excuse.

"Zhang Xianzhong, since you have already been caressed, you still don't kneel down and bow, why don't you want my general to use a gun to let you bow?" The messenger was full of authority.

"What is your position?" Zhang Xianzhong asked suddenly.

"This officer is the general, sit down and the deputy chief of staff Zhang Zhi." The messenger replied that this person was the deputy chief of staff of the thief camp who recommended himself to Zhao Yan and personally sent the envoy.

There is only one person who dares to be so arrogant in the thief camp, Zhang Zhi.

"Deputy Chief of Staff? Hey! Governor Xiong also allowed the official to return to the post of deputy commander-in-chief! Why didn't you kneel when you saw this official? Zhang Xianzhong asked rhetorically.

"This official is an envoy, that is, on behalf of my general, it is really a foreign man, don't you know that all officials have to kneel and pass on the rules of eunuchs?" Zhang Zhi snorted coldly.

"I don't want to talk to you about this, let's talk about it! What should Zhao Killxing do? Zhang Xianzhong suddenly said scoundrelly.

"Hey, the general sent me to ask, are you fighting or surrendering?" Zhang Zhi said with a smile, "If you fight, you will be destroyed within three days, and if you surrender, you will hand over all the looted gold and silver, and let you be a general." ”

"Your appetite is too great! Besides, this official is now an official of the imperial court. Zhang Xianzhong took a bite to Xiong Wencan, and claimed to be the official.

"There are countless ways for the general to kill you, just pretend not to know." Zhang Zhi smiled contemptuously, Zhang Xianzhong couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart, thinking of the various thieves who died at the hands of Zhao Yan.

Just when he was at a loss and was about to say yes, Zhang Zhi suddenly said: "But my general doesn't look down on you pus, you can touch whoever you like, my general doesn't care, as long as you hand over the 500,000 people to my general, my general can let you go to Xiong Wencan to caress you." ”

"If Zhao Yan repents, won't we die unjustly." Zhang Xianzhong snorted coldly.

"My Shandong army is strong and strong, so how can I use any tricks to deal with you and other pus. My general can't bear the death and injury of the people, if you are obsessed, our Shandong army can use guns to share with you. Zhang Zhi said coldly.

Zhang Xianzhong was silent for a while, his arrogance was finally suppressed, and he said to Zhang Zhi: "Let me think about it." ”

…… Zhang Zhi returned to the camp and told Zhao Yan about the situation, and Zhao Yan nodded with satisfaction. He was not interested in appeasing Zhang Xianzhong.

If Liu Guoneng still has room for reform, then Zhang Xianzhong has fallen and reversed in history, and it is really difficult to grasp, and he has no ability that Zhao Yan can look at, so he threw it to Xiong Wencan for a headache, he only needs the population.

(To be continued)