Li Xin had already returned to the Longtan military camp from the Changzhou Prefecture, and as Wang Youzhen, the governor of Changzhou, had wished, he had left behind the 1,000 Guards stranded in Jiangyin to help him defend against the attack of the Haikou. At the same time, he ordered the other Three Guards stranded in various prefectures and counties to assist the local government and defend against the possible arrival of pirates.

Suzhou Prefecture, which was attacked, also had a team of more than 1,000 people in Changshu. Unfortunately, the pirates attacked Taicang, which was also in Suzhou Prefecture. Hopefully, the next attack on the pirates will hit the muzzles of the Three Guards. After dealing with the affairs in the barracks, Li Xin went to Nanjing without stopping, because almost at the same time as he arrived at the Longtan barracks, Sun Jiao's messenger also arrived.

When Li Xin learned that his Three Guards had been authorized to stay in the capital, they could conduct various military operations in Nanzhili except for the city of Nanjing. He was not surprised at all by this, and it would be strange if the old diehards in Nanjing were still desperately restricting the Three Guards.

The main reason why Li Xin did not move to Nanjing, and rarely did, was that he did not want to provoke these old diehards too much, so as not to provoke them to become more hostile.

"The task is daunting! You only give me a real bottom, can you guarantee that from tomorrow onwards, the five prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River will no longer be plundered by the pirates? ”

Sun Jiao's face was stern, and his attitude was a little impatient. It's just that because of his weak body, he speaks with a bit of weakness. In fact, Li Xin had already thought about this point on the way to Nanjing, so he answered Sun Ji without hesitation.

"There are no absolutes in the world, if you can guarantee it categorically, this is unrealistic!" Hearing Li Xin's answer, Sun Jiao's face showed a little disappointment, but he heard Li Xin continue: "However, I can guarantee that the Three Guards will do their best to protect the people of the five provinces in Jiangnan from the raids of the pirates!" ”

This is an extremely practical sentence, and Sun Jiao's face turned a little relieved.

"With your words, I'm relieved! If there are any difficulties, even if they are raised, the old guys in Nanjing City are all easy to talk about! ”

The three words of good speech were strengthened by Sun Jiao, which naturally had another deep meaning. Li Xin said: "What difficulties can there be, no matter how fast the Haikou ship is, can it surpass the war horse?" As long as he is still in the waterway of the Yangtze River, he will not be able to escape the surveillance of the Three Guards for a moment! ”

It turned out that Li Xin specially dispatched scout rangers to track the whereabouts of the Haikou fleet along the south bank of the Yangtze River between Longtan and Songjiang Mansion, and no matter where he went, he could send the news to various places with a fast horse. With such a quick response, even if the pirates successfully landed, they would not be able to take advantage of it.

Sun Ji listened to Li Xin's method, and couldn't help but praise again and again, so that his heart finally settled down a little.

"You can also order the Yangtze River to prepare beacon fires, once there is a warning to burn beacon fires, it can be used as an aid for rapid response!"

Li Xin smiled, this kind of thing is the duty of the local health office, and he is naturally not good at acting on his behalf. Sun Ji was the governor of Nanzhili, nominally in charge of the military and political affairs of a province, and it was most appropriate for him to give orders. Immediately, Li Xin proposed the matter of preparing for the navy, and Sun Ji naturally gave his full support, but Zhu Yuncai, who was in charge of military equipment, had not yet been dispatched.

The implication is that Sun Ji will do his best to implement Zhu Yuncai's affairs, as the saying goes, the emperor is not a hungry soldier, how can there be a reason that he can not do it if he has someone else's promise? Speaking of which, the initiator of this matter is none other than Sun Jiao, he may be overconfident that day, so he responded in one bite, but Xiong Mingyu and Gao Hongtu all objected, and the matter had to be put on hold for the time being.

"I've been paying attention to Zhu Yuncai's affairs, but the opportunity is not ripe yet, wait first, it's soon!"

Sun Ji rarely said such ambiguous words, and Li Xin couldn't continue to ask him what he was waiting for. This waited for another bad news, and the messenger who returned from Fujian brought a handwritten letter from Zheng Zhilong, the general soldier of Fujian. Of course, he politely refused Nanjing's order, claiming that he had fought with Hongmao in Fujian, Liangguang and other places, and he really had no time to separate. Moreover, Zheng Zhilong also clearly pointed out which of the achievements of the Haikou under his banner were the Dutch occupying Taiwan.

He also claimed that these people are good at sea, but they are all soft-footed chickens on the road, as long as they defend properly, they will not let these red-haired fans from the Netherlands take advantage. After reading the handwritten letter, Gao Hongtu, the secretary of the Ministry of War, accused Zheng Zhilong of supporting the army and respecting himself, and not saving him when he saw death.

However, anger is anger, and the problem at hand must be solved, right? The so-called seeking others is better than seeking oneself, Sun Ji took the opportunity to put forward Li Xin's plan to form a navy, although Zheng Sanjun, the secretary of the Nanjing household department, agreed with this, but still shook his head like a merchant's drum.

"The household department has no money to buy ships, even if they have the heart, they can't do it!" He spread his hands out and acted helplessly.

What Sun Ji was waiting for was Zheng Sanjun's words, "The Marquis of Zhenyu only needs to be an official and a half-poster, but the household department is not allowed to contribute to ......"

The eyes of several old ministers in the government hall lit up, and it would be better if the ministry did not pay for it. They all knew that what Li Xin had in his hand now was silver.

"Don't say one official and half a position, even if you have two or three positions, as long as you can protect the safety of Nanjing's waterways!"

In this way, Zhu Yuncai's promotion was completely finalized, and Li Xin became the only life-saving straw for the officials in Nanjing. Who let the King of Jiangxi Huai rebel, and Wei Guogong personally sat in the Taiping Mansion to be responsible for quelling the rebellion? If the safety of the Yangtze River waterway is not guaranteed, if the Wei army cuts off food, the consequences will be unimaginable.

With these considerations, Sun Jie's demands were basically promised smoothly.

Colonel Wallace was extremely depressed, since he snatched a vote in Taicang County, Suzhou Prefecture, he chose his target several times, and the Ming people were waiting on the shore. With the shadow of the previous encounters, Wallace put away his pride and began to be cautious, plundering and burning all merchant ships that passed through the Yangtze River to transport supplies. One of his goals was to completely reduce the waterway of the Yangtze River in the south of Zhili.

As for the landing and plundering, Wallace gave up as soon as he found that there were Ming people on the shore who were waiting for him, so he chose three or four targets on the south bank of the river in a row, and the Ming people were always one step ahead of them, just like all his intentions.

As a last resort, Wallace invited another annoying general, and asked this person to analyze why Akito's internal defense was different from the intelligence. And He Bin has not been idle in the past few days, he arrested some local gentry and ordinary people, and after some interrogation, he learned that Jiangnan was a person named Li Xin who was presiding over the defense. And it is said that this person's status in the Ming Dynasty is not low, and he is a marquis.

The Ming Dynasty officials have always been generous, and the first and second rank officials are everywhere, but the knights, especially the marquis and the dukes, are extremely cautious.

This is just the opposite of the previous Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty was extremely generous, almost as long as the important ministers who entered the Zaizhi class, they could not avoid the title of a national duke, and even more after the death of the prime minister, he would be posthumously crowned as the king. And the prime minister is only a good person to perform the power of the prime minister in the post of governor of the government. After the restructuring of Yuanfeng, he set up the servant of the Zhongshu Sect as the deputy prime minister, and it was only the third product.

He Bin didn't know these stories, but he also knew that the knighthood of the Ming Dynasty was valuable, either because of the ancestors' merits, or because of the real swords and guns. There is a person named Li Xin who has never heard of Yin Gong before before to be knighted, so this person probably belongs to the latter. It is not surprising, then, that in land warfare, Wallace suffered repeated losses. He couldn't tell what kind of psychology he had, and he actually boasted about Li Xin in front of Wallace.

After hearing this, Wallace thought very solemnly for a while, and decided not to touch the hard nail of Li Xin, so he asked if there was a rich city like Taicang in Jiangbei. To tell the truth, after the capture of Taicang, the impression of the small cities of Fujian and Guangzhou, China, which had completely changed his impression of being small and cramped, made him realize that the wealth of the Eastern Empire was beyond imagination.

He Bin crooked his shirt rang for a long time before answering Wallace's question seriously.

"I'm afraid there is only the Jiangdu of Yangzhou Mansion!"

Wallace was intrigued, and it was said that the city's prosperity had led a king to die here rather than return to the northern capital, and he was a little tempted. The headache is that although the city is located on the edge of an artificially dug waterway, it is inaccessible to sea boats. Jiangdu was more than 20 miles from the riverbank, and if he went on foot, his soldiers would have exhausted most of their bodies on the march.

"Why don't you take a small boat into the canal waterway at night to attack Jiangdu?"

He Bin blurted out that it was too risky, and Wallace couldn't help but hesitate!

With Li Xin's protection, no other county suffered the tragedy of Taicang. Among them, the most severe loss is still the Taicang Shen family, which can be called a rich and rival country, a large number of family assets have been looted, and the daughters of their families have been forced because of their handsome appearance. rape, and even the daughter-in-law of the old man of the Shen family was kidnapped by Haikou...... The miserable state of his family is unbearable to witness. The old man who was sick in bed finally became ill because of this and passed away!

These are just trivial episodes for the important ministers of the Nanjing Political Affairs Hall, and the businessmen despise the laws of the government because of their wealth, and these retributions are also the way of heaven. They are optimistic about this. What makes them even more satisfied is that since Sun Jiao took charge of the defense of Nanzhili, the five prefectures of Yingtian, Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Suzhou, and Songjiang, which have the heaviest wealth, have not been plundered, and they don't know what this Li messenger has done.

Only a few days later, the bad news came again, Haikou went north to break the Jiangdu, Zhang Fangyan, the governor of Zhejiang, was defeated and went to Gaoyou, and the life and death of Wu Zhen, the prefect of Yangzhou, were unknown......