And Gujiazhuang itself, because the Gu family does private salt trading, the family is very rich, so it was built quite strongly, in addition to a solid wall, the wall also dug a trench outside, and the corners of the village are also built with watchtowers, which has a fairly strong defense.

In addition to buying and selling private salt, the Gu family also hoarded a lot of grain, hoarded goods and made a fortune, and even dug several large dungeons to detain the women he had taken from the surrounding prefectures and counties, and then in addition to being spoiled by himself and his subordinates, the women who were tired of playing would be transported by him to Nanzhili and sold to brothels as prostitutes.

When they took Gujiazhuang this time, dozens of young women were also recovered from the dungeon, and even some women from large families were also tied up by the Gu family.

After the selection, the women of several large families are all small-footed, and the sea wolf does not want such small-footed women, so he naturally sends someone to contact their family and ask them to take a sum of money, which is regarded as a reward, and bring the person back.

As for the remaining young women, Yu Xiaotian was not very kind, and ordered someone to take the time to comfort them, regulate their bodies, and when their bodies recovered, they would be transported to Fushansuo, loaded and transported back to Taiwan Island, to replenish the number of women on Taiwan Island.

This Gujiazhuang is simply a military station tailored for them, it is very suitable to be used as a military station, it is just near the official road, and it has a complete defense system, has a large number of housing, has a variety of warehouses, and dungeons, compared to building a temporary military station, it is much better, and more importantly, it can be put into use directly.

So this Gujiazhuang, even if it was put into use by Yu Xiaotian, became an important military station of Yu Jiajun's army in Jiaozhou, and after dealing with the matter here, Yu Jiajun immediately began to continue to drive north, heading towards Pingdu Prefecture.

Pingdu Prefecture is about a hundred miles away from Jiaozhou, and Yu Jiajun set off from Jiaozhou to Pingdu in only three days, and the average daily journey is about 60 miles.

More than 60 miles is not a long distance in later generations, but in the era of the Ming Dynasty, it is really not close, many farmers may not be able to go so far away in their lifetime, and the quality of road traffic in this era is only poor, which is unimaginable.

Even if it is an official road, it is not very wide, basically it is simply a stone to roll on the land, it becomes a road, and there is no drainage ditch on both sides of the road, over the years, there is very little government investment in maintenance, perennial vehicles and pedestrians walk on the official road, the official road is rolled lower, once it rains, it is muddy, or simply becomes a ditch.

Marching on such a road, and there are a lot of baggage vehicles in the army, even if the baggage battalion of the Yu family army uses a fairly good four-wheeled carriage in this era, but if you want to travel 100 miles a day, you can't do it at all, and at the end of the day, walking 60 miles is already the limit, otherwise, the cavalry infantry and baggage vehicles will be disjointed, and the guide will be difficult to take care of.

A day after they left Jiaozhou City, they began to appear in front of the team and on both flanks, sporadic unidentified riders began to observe the movements of Yu's army from afar.

Of course, the scouts and cavalry of the Yu family's army, once they find them, will immediately go to expel or chase them, but these sporadic riders often do not touch them, and immediately turn their horses and leave, and it becomes very difficult for the scouts to cut off the battlefield.

Yu Xiaotian didn't ask the scouts to cover the whereabouts of the army, so he swaggered towards Pingdu Prefecture.

In February, Pingdu Prefecture was conquered by the rebels and has become a rebel-controlled area, and after entering the territory of Pingdu Prefecture, a large number of corpses began to appear on both sides of the road.

Most of these corpses are the corpses of ordinary people, some of the corpses have begun to decay because of the gradually warmer weather, and some of the corpses are still relatively fresh, and it seems that they should not have been killed for a long time, basically they are all wounded by knives and guns, and some corpses are not injured, as if they were frozen and starved to death, which shows that the rebels have harmed the people of Pingdu Prefecture during this time, and they have killed many people.

Yu Xiaotian immediately ordered the officers and soldiers to collect these corpses along the way and bury them in pits, so as not to cause an epidemic of diseases when the weather turns hot.

After entering the territory of Pingdu Prefecture, I encountered many villages along the way, and among these villages, more than half of the villages have become a ruin, and the traces of the fire still exist, these villages were destroyed by the rebels, and the people in the villages were either killed or forcibly coerced, and most of them abandoned their homes and fled to join the ranks of the fleeing refugees.

Of course, there are also some village forts, built with a strong wall, with a strong ability to protect themselves, and have not been conquered by the rebels, but the people in these village forts have already become frightened birds, and when they see a large army coming over, they immediately close the gate of the wall, the gongs are sounding, and the figures on the wall are full of people, making a posture to defend.

Yu Xiaotian sent people to shout outside these villages, informing them of their identities, so that the villagers did not need to panic, and learned that this army was an official army transferred by the imperial court to quell the rebellion, and the people in the village breathed a sigh of relief, but they still refused to open the door to meet Yu Jiajun, at most, a small amount of wine and money and food were sent out from the village, and at most they sent a pig, a sheep, or a few chickens, which was considered to be for the use of the labor army.

Yu Xiaotian didn't bother to talk nonsense with them, so he asked people to inquire about the situation of the rebels, and then continued to drive towards Pingdu Prefecture.

At present, the rebel general stationed in Pingdu Prefecture is a rebel general named Li Fujie, this person is said to be Li Jiucheng's former personal soldiers, but he received a righteous son, not very old, about twenty or thirty years old, murderous, commanded about two thousand rebel troops, most of them are some stragglers who surrendered, the main force is about three or four hundred people of the old Dongjiang Army, stationed in the city of Pingdu Prefecture.

After the Yujia army entered the territory of Pingdu Prefecture, Li Fujie learned of their news, and immediately sent about a thousand rebels out of Pingdu City and rushed to the direction where the Yu family army came, blocking the way for the Yu family army to advance.

On May 20, a cavalry company of the leading general of the Yujia army was intercepted by the rebels, and a skirmish occurred between the two sides.

Yu Xiaotian ordered the army to stop, sent an infantry battalion to crush the rebels, and ordered a cavalry company to follow and pursue the defeated rebels.

The battalion was ordered to march lightly and quickly to the rebels' position, followed by a cavalry company that flanked them, protecting them and escorting them to the rebels' position.

The rebels lined up, trying to block the way of the Yu family's army, and the two sides didn't talk much nonsense, when even if they opened the posture and started fighting, the rebels didn't expect that the Yu family's army was so capable of fighting, and the firepower was so fierce, before they rushed to the front of the Yu family's army, they heard a shocking, dense sound of firecrackers like popping beans.

When the rebels were beaten all over the place, and as soon as they saw each other, the whole army was defeated, leaving behind two or three hundred corpses, and fled back in the direction of Pingdu City.

The cavalry company was ordered to immediately begin a pursuit, and all of them were routed and scattered, including the rebel generals who led the enemy troops, who were also killed on the spot, chopped off their heads, and sent back to the front of the army to resume their lives.

This is the first frontal battle with the rebels after the Yujia army entered the territory of Laizhou, of course, it ended in the complete victory of the Yujia army, this battle killed more than 570 rebels, captured more than 300 rebels, and the rest were all defeated by the cavalry of the Yujia army, and there were not many rebels who fled back to Pingdu City at all.

Yu Xiaotian laughed and ordered to clean up the battlefield, since he is now the Ming army, then he must work in the way of the Ming army, cut off the heads of those rebels, treat them with salt or lime, load them on the cart, and peel off the captured armor and load it on the cart, which will be used as evidence of the test in the future, as for the headless corpse on the spot, let the prisoners dig a deep pit and bury it, at the end of the day, the battlefield will be cleaned up, if it weren't for the blood stains left all over the ground, no one would dare to believe that there was a fierce battle just now, Killed hundreds of people.

After this confrontation, Yu Xiaotian has a bottom in his heart, although the rebels have been very arrogant recently and almost invincible, but it also depends on what kind of opponent they are opposing, when they meet his Yu family's army, these rebels are also at the level of five scum at all, and they cannot pose any substantial threat to them at all, so Yu Xiaotian is completely relieved.

Fighting in this kind of hilly and plain area at the moment, unless the rebels come with tens of thousands of horses, it may cause them some pressure, if the same number of rebels, in front of his Yu family's army, can only be beaten, and they don't even have the strength to fight back, after all, the weapons and equipment and tactics used by his Yu family's army now are far more than the Ming army in this era, and it is not easy to defeat this battle.

Li Fujie, who was in Pingdu, was shocked when he learned the report of the rebels who fled back from defeat, knowing that he had encountered a hard stubble this time, he didn't expect that this group of officers and soldiers from Fujian could really fight, and they were so powerful, and the more than 1,000 soldiers and horses he sent were actually wiped out by others in one face, so he no longer dared to send people out of the city to stop Yu's army in the field.

So he hurriedly ordered his subordinates to close the gate of Pingdu City, and while sending people to rush to the city of Laizhou, he asked Kong Youde for help, and at the same time reorganized the soldiers and prepared to defend Pingdu City, relying on the relatively strong wall of Pingdu City, to block these Fujian officers and soldiers under Pingdu City.