The sun is like fire, the weather at the end of May is already very hot, and on the official road back from Qingpu, the choking yellow ash is rising, which makes people feel even more breathless.

Rong Lu rode on a green horse, on one side was a mercenary army composed of hundreds of Shanghai sea devils, and on the other side was more than 300 green battalion soldiers mobilized from Qingpu County.

Most of the green battalion soldiers in Qingpu County were transferred from Jiangbei to suppress the Qingpu anti-grain rebel army, last night's battle made the Qingpu rebel army suffer a lot of losses, and the leader Zhou Lichun and others were almost caught, which greatly improved the morale of these green battalion soldiers who were repeatedly defeated. Dressed in dirty uniforms, they proudly escorted more than 100 rebel prisoners captured last night, and finally raised their eyebrows.

But compared with the foreign soldiers, Rong Lu felt that it was too far behind. The mercenaries of foreign devils are very chaotic, because they are all volunteers, among them are adventurers who follow merchant ships to the East to pan for gold, there are also exiled thieves and robbers, as well as Indian Baotou soldiers, there are also black slaves in Manila, and even a few Arabs.

Rong Lu originally couldn't believe that such a multinational force would win, but after last night's battle, Rong Lu understood that the purpose of these mercenaries was very strong, they were to get rewards for killing the enemy in front of them. Rong Lu's price was one or two pieces of silver for each rebel he captured or killed, and with such a heavy reward, these mercenaries knew exactly what they should do. And those green battalion soldiers are nothing more than being paid to save their lives, and there is not the slightest sense of state in their views.

Thinking of this, Rong Lu couldn't help but smile mockingly, isn't what he did when he came to the south for himself? It has nothing to do with the country's social affairs and national righteousness, he is just for his own power.

"Hey, George, how many did you kill last night?" A British mercenary asked his companions, "I've killed five, and I'll get more than £120." ”

George, a thin Englishman beside him, grinned, "James, I'm about the same number, and this reward is a little higher than the reward we received for exterminating pirates in Guangdong." ”

Then James laughed and said, "This employer of ours is much more generous than the British government, and it is dangerous to exterminate pirates in the south, but each pirate can only get a reward of twenty pounds, and almost every bandit here can get twenty-five pounds, and it is not too dangerous, I plan to keep doing it and save five hundred pounds." ”

George shrugged his shoulders and said, "I also hope, but it's a pity that Lord Wenhan said that it is okay to exterminate the bandits near Shanghai, but it must not deal with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the west, what will affect the government's national policy." James, I hate those politicians who only know compromise, they don't know where to find such a lucrative job? ”

James patted him on the shoulder and smiled: "Forget it, as long as we stay in the East, there is a chance, I don't want to be sent back to China for making mistakes, or even sent to the Black Sea to stare at those bearded Russians." ”

The words of the two British mercenaries reached Rong Lu's ears, and he sneered, these British people have been entangled with the pirates of the Qing Dynasty since they began to trade with the Qing Dynasty, and the Royal Navy of the British Empire was far more in awe of the Qing pirates than the Great Qing Shui Division, which was a great irony. As early as June 1825, Britain, which could not bear the attack of pirates, passed the "Act to Encourage the Capture or Destruction of Pirate Ships", and the "price" of pirates was 20 pounds, whether they lived or died, and became a real "headhunting business". Therefore, Rong Lu gave the Shanghai Knife Club a price of 100 taels of silver per person, which is almost 25 pounds sterling when converted into pounds, so there are many foreign devils who are willing to do this job.

Rong Lu didn't care if Shanghai would be occupied by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom next, he knew that this time and space was not the same as the history he knew, so he could only do the task assigned to him by Su Shun, and he didn't want to take care of anything else, and he couldn't manage it.

When he returned to the north gate of Shanghai, Rong Lu was stunned by the bloody scene in front of him, thousands of headless corpses were densely hoarded in dozens of big pits, and there were constantly Qing troops pushing and shoving the chaotic parties tied in a row next to the big pits, and the executioners of the Qing army stepped forward, raised their knives and fell, cut off the heads of people neatly, and then pushed the corpses to the bottom of the pit with one kick, and then brought the next batch to come, and so on and so on.

"My God, what are these yellow people doing?" It was the George who spoke, and he couldn't help but retch a few times after he finished speaking: "James, are these people crazy?" ”

James didn't seem to care, and said lightly: "George, they are killing the rebels, but I didn't expect there to be so many." George, we're at a loss, we should have stayed in the city with Harry and the others last night, then I might catch or kill twenty of the bandits!" ”

Rong Lu didn't have time to listen to the two English patients talking, so he shouted angrily and ordered a guard behind him to rush over and call Cheng En, who had stayed in the city to suppress the thieves.

After a while, I saw Cheng En on the side of the torture platform riding a fast horse, he came to Rong Lu and turned over and dismounted, bowed and said, "Brother, are you back?" Hundreds of rebels were killed in the city, and more than 8,000 rebels were captured......"

Before he could finish speaking, Rong Lu turned over and dismounted, rushed forward angrily, grabbed Chengen's collar and shouted angrily, "How did I explain to you? Only ask the first offender, and those who are coerced should not be killed as long as they are willing to submit to the court! How did you kill so many people?! ”

Cheng En's face was a little pale, he didn't expect Rong Lu to be so angry, and then he was also angry, pushed Rong Lu's hand away, and shouted: "It was Su Song Taidao Wu Jianzhang who ordered all the thieves he seized to be killed, what are you yelling at me?!" ”

Rong Lu snorted slightly, still angry: "You are also the sticky rod of this mission, we have the holy decree given by Lord Sushun, you want to listen to Wu Jianzhang?!" ”

Cheng En was also angry, and shouted angrily: "Are you crazy?!" Lord Wu is right, there are more than 8,000 of these thieves, we only have a few hundred officers and soldiers, and the rest are foreigners' soldiers. ”

Rong Lu was stunned for a while, unable to answer for a while, Cheng En gasped and said angrily: "Are you willing to kill me?" If there were no foreign soldiers, the hundreds of opium-smoking soldiers under Wu Jianzhang were afraid that they would run away when they saw these bandits, and there were only a dozen of us, how would you let us complete the things that Lord Su Shun explained? Besides, we have to detain and feed these more than 8,000 people, where can we find so many cells and food?! ”

Rong Lu's tense face relaxed slightly, Cheng En sighed and said: "Brother Rong, you and I are both Manchurians, if these Han people occupy Shanghai, the first one to die is our Manchurians, and I don't want to die so many people, but they want to oppose us and the imperial court, so we can't help but kill." ”

Rong Lu said lightly: "Do you think that killing people can make them not rebel?" ”

Cheng En spat out thick phlegm and said viciously: "There are still tens of thousands of long-haired thieves waiting to kill us in Suzhou and Hangzhou, I don't know so many twists and turns, I only know that killing one more is less dangerous." ”

While he was talking, several Qing court officials rushed over from the viewing platform, the first one was a sharp-beaked monkey cheek, a four-grade civil official costume, and the smile on his face made Rong Lu feel disgusted, this is Su Song Taidao Wu Jianzhang, who is known as selling chicken in Guangdong, and he is followed by Yuan Zude, the magistrate of Shanghai, and other Shanghai county officials.

Wu Jianzhang came to Rong Lu's side, and hurriedly bowed his hand to make amends for the gift and smiled: "Lord Rong has returned victoriously, congratulations." ”

Rong Lu looked down on Wu Jianzhang very much, the smell of philistine on his body was too strong, and he snorted at the moment: "Wu Daotai, these thieves were ordered to be executed by you?" ”

Wu Jianzhang nodded and said with a smile: "Lord Rong, these thieves are unrepentant, and they have found a lot of weapons and illegal things in the house where they are hiding, and they even bought a lot of red cloth, preparing to follow the example of the long-haired thieves who cover their heads with red scarves to fight against the chaos. ”

Rong Lu said lightly: "Lord Wu, if you kill so many people, you are not afraid of the criticism of the imperial historian?" And most of them seem to be your fellow villagers, don't they have the slightest love for incense? ”

Wu Jianzhang's face changed greatly when he heard this, originally Rong Lu was just angry and wanted to be sarcastic, but in Wu Jianzhang's ears, it sounded like a change of taste, many of these thieves are Cantonese, and many of them are still working in their own yamen, now that the East Window incident has happened, he does not hesitate to kill so many people, if some imperial historians in the capital are impeached indiscriminately, so that the court thinks that he is also involved in the Guangdong gang's conspiracy to rebel, and he does not hesitate to kill people after the incident, it will definitely attract the suspicion of the imperial court, and the loss of official affairs is small. The Nine Clans of Zhulian can play big. And Rong Lu and these people are all guards in the Forbidden City, the youngest official is also a third-class guard, and any one of them is also a military attache of the capital and garrison, they are either Manchurian nobles, and behind the most unfortunate are also inextricably linked with the Manchurian nobles in the DPRK and China.

Last night began to take people, Wu Jianzhang didn't expect that there were so many anti-thieves hidden in his yamen, and they were all fellow villagers who were very close to him on weekdays, after interrogating a few, Wu Jianzhang knew that these people had already rebelled, for fear that these man-made things would involve him, and his staff master came up with an idea, that is, to kill a hundred people, kill all the thieves to show loyalty to the court, so Wu Jianzhang instigated Chengen to order the execution of the captured thieves, but he didn't expect Rong Lu to still refuse to let go of himself, and said in a cautious whisper: "Lord Rong." This time, all of you came south to work hard, for the lower officials to appease the place, the lower officials are grateful, and later each adult will have a generous gift to talk about expressing their hearts, I just hope that after you return to Beijing, you will have a few more good words. ”

Rong Lu's eyes widened, and before he could recover his senses, Cheng En immediately smiled and said: "Lord Wu's loyalty can be shown to the sun and the moon, and I know it, but if this generous gift is heavier, the loyalty of the adult will naturally be higher." ”

Wu Jianzhang immediately understood and nodded with a smile: "This is nature, this is nature, and I guarantee that you are satisfied." ”

Rong Lu didn't speak again, and after Cheng En and Wu Jianzhang praised each other for a few words, Wu Jianzhang went back first to prepare a generous gift.

After Wu Jianzhang left, Cheng En patted Rong Lu on the shoulder with a smile and said: "Brother Rong, it turns out that you are singing this drama, and it scared me, but this old man Wu is stupid, and he should knock on a stroke, but next time you want to act and knock on the bamboo, the prophet will talk to me, I don't know, I think you are really crying out for these untouchable thieves." ”

Rong Lu was speechless, he could only shake his head and smile bitterly, and go back to the city alone, he didn't want to see anything now, he didn't want to hear anything, and he didn't want to care about anything.