Cui Hanlei never dreamed that her mother Liang really came to Liangzhou, when the mother and daughter met, the scene was naturally extremely warm, and when she learned that Cui Hanlei was pregnant, Liang cried with joy, she knew very well what it meant, once Cui Hanlei had children, her status would be completely consolidated.

Pity the hearts of parents all over the world, parents all want their children's lives to be happy.

Liang has never cared about political affairs, and strictly abides by many rules, so when Li Rupei accompanied her to eat, she insisted on not being at the table, and when she saw her daughter casually in front of Li Rupei, she complained a little.

Li Rupei also knows that Liang's understanding is already deep-rooted and cannot be changed.

After eating, Li Rupei informed Liang and Cui Hanlei that he was going to leave Liangzhou for a while, maybe in half a month to a month, Liang repeatedly said that Li Rupei would be busy with his own affairs, and Cui Hanlei was a little sad.

After Li Rupei left, Liang carefully inquired about a lot of information, and after learning about Li Rupei's many attitudes towards his daughter, he was very emotional, although many of her understandings were fixed, but her daughter could get such full attention and love, and she was very happy in her heart.

On the issue of Li Rupei's concubine, the Liang family was not polite, and learned that Li Rupei decided not to prepare to take a concubine during Cui Hanlei's pregnancy, the Liang family was a little unimpressed, especially about Cui Qiuyue becoming Li Rupei's Confucian, Liang believes that this matter must be decided as soon as possible, Li Rupei's identity is not ordinary, there must be a separate mansion in the future, and there are many people in the mansion, and there will be a short matter in the family, Cui Qiuyue can become Li Rupei's Confucian, that is, the side room, then Cui Hanlei's status will be more stable.

In the middle of the night, the Predators secretly set off.

The 50,000-strong army set out from the three directions of Bazhou, Liangzhou and Quanzhou, and was divided into the front army and the middle army.

Gao Chibang led the front army of 10,000 people. Starting from Bazhou, Li Rupei sat in the Chinese army, and Huang Biao led 40,000 soldiers from Liangzhou.

The route of the march had already been determined, and the army would meet in Quanzhou, and from Quanzhou it would directly enter Fangzhou and enter Xiangyang.

The march of 1,300 miles in three days was unclear for an army of 50,000.

As a battleground for soldiers, Xiangyang's defense is very solid. If you wait until Liu Ziheng is fully prepared, the attack of the Iron Blood Army will inevitably take a lot of time and pay huge sacrifices before you can capture Xiangyang, after all, Liu Ziheng was once the general of the Shence Army, and he is also quite familiar with military matters.

Therefore, secrecy and time are extremely important, and the iron-blooded army rushed to Xiangyang within three days and caught Liu Ziheng off guard. No matter how much preparation Liu Ziheng made, it was impossible to hold out for a long time without external support.

This is what Li Rupei values the most, that is. The speed of the march of the Predator Army must be very fast, and no matter what situation is encountered along the way, there is no delay in it.

It's a pity that the Iron Blooded Army is in the process of marching. I still encountered some unexpected things.

It is said that the autumn harvest season has just ended, and the people should live and work in peace and contentment, at least for a period of time to ensure that they have food. It's a pity that after the Predator Army entered Fangzhou, they saw a completely different situation.

There were many peasants with children and daughters on the official road, and most of these peasants were full of pathos on their faces, most of them were unclothed and had vegetables on their faces. When the army of the Iron Blood Army passed through the official road, the peasants all avoided it, but the eyes of the soldiers showed fear and hatred.

Li Rupei felt strange why such a thing happened during the autumn harvest season.

The marching speed of the iron-blooded army is very fast, there is no stop, the march of the 50,000-strong army cannot be completely secret, just after the army entered Fangzhou, Li Rupei was already thinking, Liu Ziheng may have known the actions of the iron-blooded army, and was making urgent preparations, but half a year ago, Liu Ziheng lost 10,000 tooth troops, which can be said to have suffered a heavy blow, so after the iron-blooded army occupied the whole state, there was no other action.

With the increase in the number of homeless people on the official road, Li Rupei couldn't help it, after all, after capturing Xiangyang, he also needed to spend his heart to govern here, and the most important thing was that the eyes of these homeless people looking at the soldiers of the iron-blooded army were chilling.

The army continued to move forward, and Li Rupei temporarily stopped and found a few homeless people to inquire about the situation.

Watching the homeless people gobble up the rice, Li Rupei shook his head secretly.

Huang Biao was a little anxious, after all, the main task of the Iron Blood Army was to attack Xiangyang, these displaced people were not the scope of the Iron Blood Army's concern, but Li Rupei needed to understand the situation, and he couldn't object, the key was that the speed of the Iron Blood Army's soldiers could not slow down, if Li Rupei delayed for too long, and broke away from the team, there must be danger, this is not a place controlled by the Iron Army, and accidents may occur at any time.

Li Rupei's questioning was also very direct, asking what happened to the homeless people.

Li Rupei's answer was greatly surprised, it turned out that at the beginning of the autumn harvest season, all the prefectures and counties to which Shannan Dongdao belonged had increased their taxes, and the increase was not small.

Upon learning of this situation, Li Rupei was greatly surprised, because the tax of Shannan East Road was originally higher than that of Shannan West Road, accounting for about 50 percent of the income of cultivated land, and the amount of this tax was far higher than the tax stipulated by the imperial court.

When the tax has reached such a limit, the peasant households basically have no conditions for survival.

Moreover, there is another condition for the establishment of taxes, that is, the taxes are determined according to the harvest of the cultivated land, which means that the government does not care whether the farmers are affected by disasters or whether the harvest is poor, anyway, the taxes are so much.

Fangzhou's peasant households' harvest this year is not very good, the sudden increase in taxes, so that they were caught off guard, after all the harvested grain has been paid taxes, it is not even enough, which naturally leads to some objections, to the surprise of many peasant households, because there are some individual tax resistance in Fangzhou, Xiangyang actually sent a tooth army, screening and suppressing peasant households in most places, and all peasant households who cannot pay taxes in full will be ruthlessly killed.

After such a situation, some of the peasant households who owned land sold their land to the local gentry and wealthy families in desperation, and some peasant households with little land basically had no way to live, and the situation of those tenants was even worse.

It was at this time that a large number of displaced people appeared.

The local government did not allow the displaced people to enter the city, and if there were displaced people near the city, they would also encounter brutal repression, so the displaced people only dared to walk on the official road.

This is also the reason why the outcasts show fear and hatred when they see the Iron Blood.

However, the autumn of the Iron Blood Army did not commit any crimes, so that these homeless people still felt that the army they saw was different from the army they had seen before, and if the troops in front of them had seen them, they would have started to do it a long time ago.

After learning about these circumstances, Li Rupei fell into deep thought.

It is said that Liu Ziheng has not served as the envoy of Shannan Dongdao for a long time, and if he has not encountered any major things, it is impossible to increase taxes, and the increase in taxes this time is obviously unbearable for the peasant households, and it is a rare situation to use the tooth army to collect and pay taxes, which shows that Liu Ziheng also knows that the increase in taxes has caused a heavy burden on the peasant households, and the peasant households cannot bear it.

Knowing that he can't do it, this doesn't make sense, Liu Ziheng is not a stupid person, he should be aware of the consequences of doing this.

Could it be that Liu Ziheng is preparing to do something big, so he will be so ignorant and insist on going his own way.

Increasing taxes is nothing more than meeting the expenses of the government, followed by increasing the expenses of the army, or for recruiting sergeants, Liu Ziheng lost 10,000 tooth troops at the beginning of the year, do you want to increase taxes this time, and once again expand the number of tooth troops.

The Xiangyang Ya Army still has a certain combat effectiveness, and the number has reached 40,000, which is also because it expanded to 40,000 when it faced Huangchao, but after losing 10,000, there are still about 30,000.

It is getting closer and closer to Xiangyang, and the homeless people can no longer be seen on the official road, especially after entering the place under the jurisdiction of Xiangyang Mansion, the homeless people are basically invisible, Xiangyang is guarded by the Ya Army, and it is estimated that the homeless people are also very clear that they dare not enter the territory of Xiangyang, so as not to be directly killed by the Ya Army.

Li Rupei didn't have time to guess what Liu Ziheng wanted to do, but he knew very well that Liu Ziheng, who exploited the people, had a lot of grain and grass, and this kind of practice of ignoring the lives of the people made Liu Ziheng hold a lot of money and grain and grass in a short period of time.

When there were still fifty miles away from the city of Xiangyang, the army temporarily stopped marching.

The Iron Blood Army Brigade entered the Shannan East Road, and the news has spread in a small area in Fangzhou, it should be said that Liu Ziheng also knew the news, but the army did not encounter any obstacles along the way, nor did he see the resistance of the Xiangyang Tooth Army, which made Li Rupei even more strange, it is said that Liu Ziheng was a general of the Shence Army before, and he would not be so negligent.

I'm afraid that all this will not be known until after taking Xiangyang.

When the army of the Iron Blood Army arrived fifty miles outside Xiangyang City, it was already the evening of August 22.

Huang Biao made a suggestion at this time, the army can attack at night, and there has been no movement in Xiangyang, indicating that Liu Ziheng has not yet had time to make preparations, time is precious, and if he can launch an attack in the fastest time, he will be able to take Xiangyang as quickly as possible. (To be continued......)