Zhu Yuanzhang didn't rush to lead the team to * county, and he wouldn't fight a brainless battle. No one knows the importance of intelligence better than him, and it is an unbreakable truth that if you want to fight a war, you should reconnoiter first.

He left his army in a small ravine, and Wang Er also stayed, and with his temper, it was obviously not suitable to go to reconnaissance. And this time is the first time since the establishment of the cottage, it is the first time to go out to the mountains to collect food, and it is necessary to win the first battle, so he is not worried about letting others go to reconnoitre, it is better to go in person.

Zhu Yuanzhang only took Ma Xiaotian with him, both of them were wearing very ordinary coarse cloth and linen, took a little yellow mud and wiped it on their faces casually, and casually broke two branches as crutches, and walked towards Baishui.

Whitewater was not a prosperous place in the first place, but after the double blow of drought and peasant uprising, this poor place seemed even more dilapidated. Zhu Yuanzhang and Ma Xiaotian walked casually for a while, and they saw several destroyed villages, there was no one in these villages anymore, all the houses were empty, it seemed that they had been empty for more than a year, and the inside and outside of the houses looked gray.

When Zhu Yuanzhang rebelled, many important people in the righteous army came from Xigu Village, so this village was taken care of by the officers and soldiers once, and all the houses were burned down, but it didn't matter, the people in Xigu Village followed Zhu Yuanzhang into Huanglong Mountain, and it was nothing to burn some houses.

Ma Xiaotian was from Xigu Village, he sighed at the ashes of the village and didn't say anything.

Continuing to walk forward, what caught my eye was the burned and ruined Ma family compound, which was originally a rich family compound with more than 100 houses, but now only a large piece of ruins and tiles. The Jinshi pole in front of the Ma family's compound was inserted crookedly, and the position at the bottom of the pole was burned black, but fortunately, this Jinshi pole was made of stone, so it was not burned. It stood stubbornly and spoke of the glory of this family.

Ma Xiaotian couldn't help but be a little worried: "Brother Zhu, Baishui has become like this, can we still grab food?" ”

"Yes!" Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously: "Have you ever heard a poem?" Prosper...... The people are suffering and dying...... The people are bitter! ”

"I haven't heard of it, what do you mean?" Ma Xiaotian said strangely.

Zhu Yuanzhang spread his hands and said: "The meaning of this poem is that no matter how the rise and fall of the world changes, it is the common people who suffer. ”

"Oh, what does this have to do with whether we can grab the food or not?" Ma Xiaotian was puzzled.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled helplessly: "The people who suffer are the common people, but the squires and landlords are not ordinary people, and no matter how hard they are, they can't suffer enough." We went out of the mountains to grab grain, and we didn't intend to rob the common people, but the squires and landlords wanted to rob, so it won't be affected. ”

Ma Xiaotian: "......"

He was stunned for a long time, and squeezed out a few words from between his teeth: "Brother Zhu, I'...... I...... I don't want to be a common man in the future, I want to be a squire, a landlord, the bigger the better. ”

"Well, ambitious!" Zhu Yuanzhang patted him the shoulder: "This is also my goal!" ”

The two continued to walk towards the center of the white water.

Approaching the city, the situation finally improved a little, and the roads were finally inhabited, and the occasional vendor could be seen carrying a load of goods with his head down. In the middle of the avenue, there was a group of village warriors, walking in line with swords, guns, swords, halberds, and seemed to be patrolling.

Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but be a little curious, stopped a merchant and asked: "Please ask you something, our two brothers came from Chengcheng, and it was the first time they came to Baishui, why is there a village patrol in the middle of the road here?" ”

Baishui and Chengcheng are adjacent to each other, and the accents of the two places are very similar, Zhu Yuanzhang is not afraid of being found out if he lies like this.

The merchant rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's not that the rogue made trouble, last year there was a guy named Zhu Ba who rebelled, and later a guy named Chongguang Dao also followed him to make trouble." After the two of them finished fighting, Zhu Ba ran into the mountains, and the light path died, and a large group of rogues also followed Zhu Ba into the mountains, but there are still many small bands of rogues who often run around in the countryside. ”

"Don't the officers and soldiers care?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

"Officers and soldiers? Cut! The merchant sneered: "It's okay, a thousand households named Yang Hong took people into the mountains to encircle and suppress once, but they were beaten by Zhu Ba and their pants fell off, and they fled back to Xi'an Mansion in disgrace...... Thereupon...... The officers and soldiers didn't care anymore. ”

Hearing this, Ma Xiaotian quickly turned around, covered his mouth and held back a laugh, almost laughing out of tears.

Zhu Yuanzhang was very calm, this level of cold joke could not make his face change color, he saluted the merchant: "Thank you, brother." ”

"You're welcome!" The merchant carried his burden and wanted to go.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled: "What are you selling?" ”

The merchant lifted the burden, and saw that it was full of small things, embroidery needles, corduroy, buttons, and thread rolls...... It turned out to be a load of department stores. These things are available everywhere in the city, and they are not unusual, and the merchants' business is not very good, so they are in a bad spirit.

But Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes lit up, these things are very practical supplies for the cottage, and the cottage is just these things.

To say that there are some time-traveling novels, it is really outrageous, the protagonist wears to a barren mountain and a wild mountain, builds a cottage, and says that the supplies are not solved, so he first smelts steel, directly makes guns and cannons, trains and planes, and is exaggerated to death. Sometimes I really want to complain about them, you don't have any clothes to wear, how did you build an airplane?

"Ming'er, are you still here to sell things?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a smile: "I didn't bring any money today, if you come back tomorrow, I'll buy it from you." ”

When the merchant heard this, he quickly nodded and said, "Ming'er is still here!" ”

Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand and said: "I want a lot, you can bear a little more tomorrow, and then call all the friends you know who sell groceries to come, and I will buy them all." ”

"Okay, it's on me." The merchant was in high spirits, and he flew away with his burden.

Zhu Yuanzhang took Ma Xiaotian and continued to walk forward, and after a while, the county seat was in sight.

I saw that the city gate was also quite depressed, there were not many people in and out of the city, two listless veterans were stationed on both sides of the city gate, and there were a few pieces of paper on the stone wall outside the city gate, and a few people were watching around.

Zhu Yuanzhang walked over with Ma Xiaotian and stood there watching. The first one in the row is a notice, which reads, Baishui's new * county order so-and-so to go here, so that the people how to do it. To say that this white water is really fun, in just a few years, there have been several * county orders. First Chen Guanyu, then Gu Huaxiu, and now I don't know which unlucky child came. Anyway, the Ming Dynasty lacks everything, that is, there is no shortage of officials, and if you get one today, a new one will come to office tomorrow.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not set out to solve the problem of bloated bureaucracy, he set the rules when the founding of the People's Republic of China, in a county, there are actually only seven civil servants officially recognized by the imperial court, but even so, the county commanders still pay out of their own pockets to hire masters, and make many positions, making the official institutions still very bloated. To solve this problem, it's not that you can set up a few fewer officials, and the [***] of officialdom will break all the rules to a mess.

He is still considering how to solve this problem.

Behind the official's arrival notice, there are several sea fishing documents, that is, wanted notices, a large white paper, on which half of the portrait of a character is drawn, the lines are round, very young, but the face is painted like a splashed ink landscape, and it is impossible to recognize what it looks like. Ma Xiaotian followed Zhang Yingxian to read and write for a few days, and now he knows a few words, so he read them seriously.

"Sea Fishing Warrant...... If the offender is arrested, he will be rewarded with 100 taels of silver, and if he does not report it, he will be regarded as the same crime...... Baishui* County Xuan......"

After Ma Xiaotian finished reading this sea capture warrant, his face suddenly turned red, and he wanted to laugh, but there were guards at the city gate standing next to him, so he didn't dare to laugh, and he couldn't hold back his hard work.

Zhu Yuanzhang also cried and laughed: "This painting ...... It really doesn't look like it. ”

Ma Xiaotian turned his head to look at the side again, and saw several sea fishing warrants lined up, Wang Er, Ma Xiaotian, and Li Chujiu...... None of the leaders in the cottage ran away, all of them were painted in strange shapes, and Ma Xiaotian almost lost his breath with laughter.

"It's so much fun...... Occasionally, when I go out of the mountain, I encounter such a fun thing, and when I go back and tell it to my brothers, their stomachs will burst out with laughter. ”

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head: "The government...... Alas...... Knowing that we were in the cottage, he didn't dare to send troops to pay us, and posted a sea fishing warrant here like child's play, just to deal with the questions from above. ”

"Ma Xiaotian, let's go back!" Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and said: "There is nothing to scout, I will bring troops to grab food tomorrow." ”

"That's it?" Ma Xiaotianqi said: "Don't you need to reconnoiter how many officers and soldiers are stationed in the city?" ”

"What else is there to scout?" Zhu Yuanzhang sighed: "There are at most two hundred guards in the city, but I think there are only more than 100." The government didn't pay attention to our affairs at all, or rather, pretended not to see it...... What we have to deal with is not the government, but the village warrior team organized by the squires. ”

"Oh, I see."

Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously: "Tomorrow, let's not fight the city first, go around the city, beat the surrounding squires well, break all the township warriors, and then come to talk to the officials and lords in the city." This newly appointed county magistrate should be able to speak very well. ”

"Huh? The county lord is easy to talk to? Ma Xiaotian was surprised: "I have never seen a good talkative official." ”

"Well, that's because you didn't have any soldiers in your hands before!" Zhu Yuanzhang said lightly: "Take six hundred spears and point them at him, I believe he will speak very well." ”