The wing that rushed to reinforce Chishang Province confronted the troops of the Taiping Army for two full hours.

However, after all, they still did not have the courage to attack and break through the blockade of the Taiping army and forcibly reinforce Chishang Fucheng.

After consulting Ling Jie's opinion, the commander of the Fourth Wing, who came to reinforce him, sighed and gave the order to return the same way, he suspected that the Taiping Army was sending more troops to cut off his back route, and then forcibly ate his own wing.

The civil and military forces of Chishang Mansion, who had only received the news for two days, had not yet calmed down from the previous joy, and then they were poured a basin of cold water on their heads by the bad news, and their bodies were cold. No one expected that the Taiping Army would react so quickly and intercept so decisively.

Without this predetermined thousand reinforcements, the fate of Ikegami Mansion seems to have been doomed.

However, the Taiping army was not carried away by the superiority, and went directly to attack Chishang with only 2,000 troops nearby, and it was undoubtedly self-defeating to dare to attack a big city with a moat. Under Chen Wu's order, they patiently turned back, rested in Kanggu County for two days, replenished the military rations that they had not brought due to the light army's movements, and brought some siege equipment before resuming the army.

Continue south to attack Puyuan!

It is located in Chishangfu Province and the southwesternmost part of Songjiang County, with the Bayan Mountains still stretching to the west and the border with Cheonnam-gun to the south.

The army attacked for three days in a row, and due to the presence of stone throwers, it put great pressure on the small city of Puyuan. After the city defense battalion suffered heavy casualties, the Puyuan County Commander, which could not receive any reinforcements, decided to surrender.

With Yuyang Mansion as an example in front, the pressure on the county order in Puyuan County is significantly less.

Dian Yong, who commanded the army, immediately appointed him as the county commander of Puyuan County in accordance with Chen Wu's previous orders, but all powers, money and food were taken over by the Taiping army.

After taking this place, the Taiping army's offensive slowed down suddenly.

Dian Yong'an's troops were stationed here, waiting for the connection with the black guards of the Kingdom of Oman. Of course, this is only one of the purposes, and the most important thing is the Taiping Army, which is overstretched, and it has reached the point of being unsustainable in a short period of time.

When they entered Songjiang County, their total elite combat strength was only more than 6,000 people. Now there are 1,000 in Daqing Pass, 1,000 in Yuyang Mansion, and Dian Yong has commanded 2,000 people on his side, and excluding the dead and wounded in several consecutive battles, the Taiping army really has no more troops. If it weren't for the surrender of some of the officers and soldiers, I am afraid that even these two thousand people would not be able to make up the two thousand.

They could only wait for the new recruits they were training to take shape and be armed with the aid of the Blackguards. With these 6,000 men joining the battle sequence, the Taiping offensive was able to continue.

On the Chishang Mansion side, it is not clear what the Taiping army is thinking, but since the thief army does not come to attack, they are happy to drag it out. On the contrary, on the side of Dengzhou, the general of the protector army, Gao Zhou, guessed the reason for the sudden slowdown of the Taiping army's offensive. But at this time, the Haikou who crossed the border from Ninghai County had also received the news of the Taiping Army's rebellion, and took the opportunity to increase the invasion of Wushan and Fengcheng, and the largest shareholder, Yihaikou, even had hundreds of people, and there was still an internal response in Songjiang Mansion!

There were not enough cavalry, and the officers and soldiers of Songjiang County really had no good way to deal with these hidden and erratic pirates. The sudden threat of becoming severe made the state of Gundam tired and anxious for a while. Even though he knew that now was a good opportunity to adjust, he could try to add some chaos to the Taiping Army, but he was dragged by the Haikou and couldn't get out of the way.

However, it is not only the Gundam state that has encountered similar trouble.

Although the shape of the empire in these years has not been reflected in the wealthy Songjiang County, it has been evident in the northland, where life is difficult. Yanyun County, which has the Song family in charge, is relatively good, and Yuanshan County, which is sandwiched between the counties, can be called one of the poorest and most chaotic counties in the empire, with horse bandits and robbers everywhere. Previously, there was a suppression by the officials and troops of Daqingguan, and the horse bandits did not dare to come over. But now, with Daqingguan falling into the hands of the Taiping army, these horse bandits and robbers all smell an opportunity.

In their eyes, the Taiping army is an anti-thief, although the anti-thief and the horse bandit may not be the same group, but they are even more wrong with the official army. Moreover, now that the Taiping army is busy capturing Songjiang, they don't have the time to play with them!

Based on this idea, from mid-April, horse bandits and robbers from all over Yuanshan County rushed over one after another.

After ten miles out of Daqing Pass, it entered Anqing County to the west and Donghai County to the east, which was almost two or three hundred miles away, and there were at least thirty horse bandits and thieves of different sizes!

In the beginning, they were cautious. Later, there were even horse bandits who tentatively rushed to a place two or three miles outside Daqing Pass. Because the horse team of the Taiping Army was all in the Daqing Pass, seeing that the Taiping Army seemed to ignore it, these horse bandits and robbers went crazy.

In just one week, the Taiping army in Daqingguan recorded a full forty-seven cases of robbery, and I don't know how many were not recorded. Since the convoys of the big chambers of commerce all have dozens or hundreds of guards, these horse bandits dare not move, and they are basically robbing pedestrians or small caravans.

By the end of April, the caravan and the pedestrians had heard the rumors and rumors, and they had all learned to behave. Either take a detour to the Qingjiang waterway, or a group of people form a brigade in Daqing Pass, and then go out of the pass.

Seeing that the income plummeted, those horse bandits and robbers even began to rob people!

Many of them have trafficker channels that can sell those beautiful young women to Anqing, Qinghe, Wuhu, and even Zhongzhou!

However, as we entered early May, the news spread further, and more horse bandits arrived, and they found that there was really nothing to grab outside Daqing Pass.

Some horse bandits began to spontaneously connect and form an alliance, ready to make a move against the big chamber of commerce in Songjiang!

However, it is also a robbery, and what to rob in order to make a fortune quickly is also a university question. The bulk goods that came out of Songjiang were mainly raw silk, cotton cloth, and grain. These things are good and sell well, but they are too bulky to carry and handle. In contrast, some of the goods that Matsue sells all over the world are smaller in quantity, but they are more valuable and easier to sell.

For example, Yunjin!

The cloud brocade produced in Wushan Mansion is brilliant in color, exquisite in materials, gorgeous in brocade, and famous in the world. Because the Yunzhong Chamber of Commerce, which has mastered half of the output of Yunjin, intends to control the shipment volume and raise the value of Yunjin, which once gave this kind of silk fabric, which can be called a treasure, the name of "inch brocade and inch gold".

The gold here is not a gold coin in the ordinary sense, but a gold ingot of ten taels and one ingots in the inventory of the Imperial Bank.

The caravan of the Yunzhong Chamber of Commerce this time seems to have dozens of carriages, stretching more than a mile, but the large pile of cotton yarn transported in it, even if it is all added up and doubled, its value is not as good as Yunjin, which is firmly protected on the carriage in the center.

In order to transport this batch of goods, the Yunzhong Chamber of Commerce used eighty chamber of commerce armies, in addition to the horsemen and executioners.

These caravan escorts, trained on weekdays comparable to the regular army of the Empire. It doesn't seem to be wearing armor, but there is a layer of strong inner armor inside, and with the sword produced in Yanyun County, the combat effectiveness is no worse than that of an ordinary city defense battalion. Even those grooms, who travel from south to north all year round, can still use some kung fu, and can still use knives to cut people at critical moments. Since most of them are locals and are closely related to the interests of the Chamber of Commerce, their determination and morale to fight are also very high.

With such power, it stands to reason that it should be very safe. Ordinary horse bandits and robbers, without a few hundred people, could not threaten the armed forces of the Cloud Chamber of Commerce at all. After all, horse bandits and robbers also have to beg for a living, and if the target threat is too big to reach a certain level, they will not take the initiative to attack. Otherwise, after two or three times, the entire team of horse bandits will die!

Although there are many robbers outside Yuanshan County, none of them can exceed the scale of 100 people.

Because of this, Wu Hengshan, the person in charge of the Yunzhong Chamber of Commerce, only stopped at the Qingping set in Daqingguan for one night, and at noon on the second day, he directly passed through Daqingguan and entered Yuanshan County.

His mission this time was to lead the caravan westward into Anqing County and sell this batch of Yunjin to the great family of Anqing.

Out of confidence in his own force, Wu Hengshan is not worried about the safety after leaving the customs, but he is worried about Daqing Pass.

When the official army was there before, with the background of the Yunzhong Chamber of Commerce, the Daqingguan defenders naturally wanted to sell face. But now, Daqingguan has been seized by a group of thieves. Although they seemed to be very disciplined and had not heard of anyone blackmailing Ka for it, Wu Hengshan had not personally experienced it after all. After Daqingguan changed hands, this was the first time he led a team over, and there was a valuable cargo like Yunjin in the car, so he couldn't rest assured.

When the switch went out of the city and was routinely inspected, Wu Hengshan even tried to bribe the Taiping soldiers in an attempt to "make it convenient".

To his surprise, the Taiping soldiers refused with a cold face, and then began a strict search. When it came time to store the brocade box with cloud brocade, although the soldier was amazed, he did not make any attempt to take it for himself. After checking it again, it is confirmed that there are no suspicious and contraband, and it is directly released.

This made Wu Hengshan feel relieved, and at the same time, he couldn't help but secretly laugh at himself.

Of course, there was no lack of malicious speculation in his secrets: the soldiers who inspected it did not know the value of Yunjin at all.

Whether the Taiping soldiers knew it or not didn't matter to the Cloud Chamber of Commerce. But the eyeliner that the horse bandits planted in the pass, who specializes in this, is very familiar with the world-famous Yunjin. Last night, when the people of the Yunzhong Chamber of Commerce stayed overnight in Qingpingji, the eyeliner had already tested the tone of the gambler and knew a lot of news. After the switch, he rushed out of the customs before the convoy of the Cloud Chamber of Commerce and spread the news.

What Wu Hengshan didn't know was that eight horse bandits and robbers who were quite famous on the road, with a total of more than 60 horse teams and 200 robbers, chose to act together.

And the first object they started was the convoy of the Chamber of Commerce in the Clouds!