Chapter 135: No War in Lingnan (Part II)

Guangzhou, Fei'e Ling, stay for a long time

Located in the north of Guangzhou, Fei'e Ling is an important commanding height and transportation hub outside Guangzhou, controlling the main road north of Guangzhou. However, since the "Australians" occupied this place, it is convenient for Fei'e Ling to build a large number of buildings, halls and towers, and take the name of Changliuguan. As a result, the Fei'e Ridge in the north of Guangzhou City gradually has a new name of "Changliu Immortal Mountain".

In and around the city of Guangzhou, from the rich to the peddlers and pawns, almost everyone knows that this long-staying Taoist temple is a major sect created by Australians. Several Australian grandmasters who have been in charge for a long time are said to be highly powerful and omnipotent in heaven and earth. What's more, this sect is very prestigious in the court of the Australian people, and the disciples in it can all work for the government and eat the official family. Therefore, relying on the strong support of the Australian court, the Changliu Taoist Temple and its subordinate Changliu sect developed extremely rapidly after the change of ownership in Guangdong. In this short period of less than a year, in addition to this "Benshan" outside the city of Guangzhou, there are also dozens of "incense halls" in various counties of Guangdong, which are huge......

-- The main reason why the traversers wanted to come up with this long-stay faction was to solve the hidden dangers brought about by the previous "peaceful takeover" of Guangdong.

Compared with Major General Sun Yang's strategy of all the way to the south of the Yangtze River, who was completely ignored, because of the old leaders who had made great contributions to the party and the country, they are still on vacation in Sanya New Town on Hainan Island in this time and space, and because they are receiving Doraemon plane's 22nd century black technology props for treatment and recuperation. In order to ensure the absolute security of these veteran leaders in wartime, the resources and troops invested by the Allies in the Lingnan strategy can be called extravagant.

After the Allies used a series of super weapons such as giant airships, steel battleships and [random door] decapitation tactics, the whole of Guangdong was almost spread down. If a die-hard county official with an elm head is determined to defend the county seat against the enemy, then the attacker will also use some "fairy methods" - for example, using the [weather controller] obtained from Doraemon to first adjust the temperature of the county to minus 40 degrees Celsius and a heavy snowfall; After half a day, it will be adjusted to minus 40 degrees, so that there will be a flood in the city; After another half a day, it was adjusted back to minus 40 degrees, and there was another heavy snowfall...... After several rounds of back and forth, the soldiers and civilians in the city, who could no longer bear it, tied up the county magistrate and surrendered......

In general, in the first stage of the war to conquer Guangdong, due to the use of the tiger fighting the rabbit, the opponent's will to resist was completely crushed, the casualties of the allies themselves were only a few hundred, and the enemy killed by their own hands was less than 2,000, and the entire conquest process can be called bloodless.

But the problem is that there is too little blood shed, and it is not a simple good thing for the conqueror, but it will also bring a series of troubles.

-- After the completion of the initial occupation of the whole of Guangdong, the general policy of the Allied forces in the early years of their rule was to maintain stability over all else. Carry out various modernizations in major cities to absorb the idle labor force of society. In the countryside, they tried to be as quiet as possible, except for refusing to recognize the tax-free privileges of the Ming Dynasty gentry, demanding that the fields be cleared again, and apportioning "reasonable burdens" to various villages and towns, they did not sacrifice the big weapon of earth reform.

Because, for the Chinese League, which sits on the territory of tens of millions of square kilometers in Australia, South Africa, and North and South America, fertile fields are simply worthless, and precious metals such as gold and silver are not lacking for them. If land reform is carried out in Guangdong and the peasants are given land belonging to large landlords, it means that the peasants are once again firmly bound to a small plot of land in their hometowns, which will seriously weaken the mobility of the population and is not conducive to the recruitment and resettlement work of the relevant departments.

Moreover, unlike any previous conqueror, the army of the Traveler did not need to rely on the local taxes of Guangdong to support it, as long as this land could provide a steady stream of immigrants to the various union republics, then even the occupation authorities did not collect a penny of taxes, and the occupation army could live very well on the help of the various union republics...... Therefore, on the whole, after the change of ownership in Guangdong Province, the level of taxation has been greatly reduced, at least the agricultural tax has been reduced to only a fraction. Although the authorities concerned also know that such a large-scale tax reduction will only allow the landlords to take advantage of the opportunity to raise rents, and may not bring much benefit to the common people -- from ancient times to the present, the big landlords have always only passed on their burdens to the peasants, but they have never been willing to share the slightest benefit with the poor people. But since they have taken so many benefits, these landlords and gentry should at least settle down!

Unfortunately, this has backfired. Even though the occupation authorities had offered so many benefits to buy off the old upper-class landlords and gentry in order to maintain a stable overall situation, the big landlords in the countryside of Guangdong still did not appreciate it, and on the contrary, they continued to riot -- one of the less important reasons was that although the Allies did not divide up their land, they were still recruiting immigrants and constantly luring the tenants to their advantage, which naturally harmed the interests of the big households. And the most fundamental reason is that this part of Guangdong has been peaceful for too long, so that a considerable number of the gentry who have no one in their eyes have been seriously rigid-minded and have completely failed to adapt to the rules of jungle survival in turbulent times. Not only did these people stubbornly refuse to admit that the fist is the greatest truth, but they naively thought that as long as they could write a single hand and eight strands, those lowly martial artists should obediently bow to them...... even delusional to extort money from Australians! The result was a group of demons dancing in the Guangdong countryside for a while.

Among these thorny landlords, some relied on their own Ming Dynasty fame, refused to pay any taxes, and even turned around to extort "Australians"; Some openly threatened the government with wild words, and even incited villagers to besiege the land measurement team and tax collection team of the new government. Some landlords and gentry even sent people to Guangxi to contact the Tusi of various ethnic groups, in a vain attempt to subvert the rule of the "Australians" in a vain attempt to cooperate with the outside world, but they never thought about how to deal with airships and ironclad ships...... There are even some careerists with bad brains, who have collected hundreds of old, weak, sick and disabled, and played the game of being the emperor!

Although the departments concerned have all tried such cases strictly and severely, they still cannot stand the landlords and gentry in Guangdong Province from rushing to death one after another...... At present, more than 10,000 people have been exiled to Africa to play survival games with Uncle Black, and thousands more have been exiled to the Pacific Island to be neighbors with cannibals, which has made the landlords and gentry in this area near Guangzhou settle down. And there are still undercurrents surging in eastern and northern Guangdong......

Compared with these landlords who are eager to die, the occupation authorities are more troubled by those Jianghu sects that are as slippery as loaches and as fierce as poisonous snakes. After ruling Guangdong for a few months, the occupying authorities finally understood why they had to recklessly wipe out all feudal guilds and ways when they founded New China -- these underground forces were intertwined in the cities and villages, well-informed, and had all kinds of ninth-rate methods of stealing chickens and dogs, which were so frightening that it was impossible to guard against them.

Although in terms of frontal armed confrontation, these gangsters are certainly not the opponents of the army, but when it comes to all kinds of tricks, it is really scratching people's heads, the allies have only entered Guangzhou for a few months, and the hideous big airship with a shark's mouth is still hanging above the heads of the citizens of Guangzhou! There are already people who are bribing the quartermasters of the Allied forces, listening to military intelligence or stealing all kinds of logistical supplies; There were also people who colluded inside and outside to sell spoiled and rotten food to the Allies, causing a large-scale outbreak of food poisoning in the army; He can even coerce the villagers to storm the barracks in a vain attempt to loot ordnance and cause chaos!

Therefore, immediately after the occupation of Guangdong, the departments concerned organized several strike-hard campaigns, and immediately arrested the beggars and those green skins who were idle in the city, and sent them to the most arduous frontiers of overseas frontiers to serve as coolies. However, limited to the scale of available manpower, it only basically cleaned up the gang elements in Guangzhou. And far from the Pearl River Delta, there is still chaos everywhere...... In the temples and Taoist temples of the merchants, the landlords in the countryside, and the gentry in the mountains, there are informants and patrons of these gang members everywhere, almost everywhere!

Although these riots did not upend the Allied rule in Guangdong, they could seriously disrupt the pace of various modernizations. What's even worse is that the foundation of many martial arts sects is outside Guangdong Province. No matter how hard they crack down in Guangdong, they can only hurt their skin.

In short, because for the time being, it was unable to come up with the three major schemes of "land reform," "socialist industrial and commercial public ownership and transformation," and "breaking feudal superstitions," and the occupying forces could only fight a long-term war of law and order in Guangdong. Due to the various limitations in the use of military and police forces, the departments concerned also ordered the formation of their own "patriotic associations" to fight poison -- thus the birth of the long-term retention faction.

To put it simply, the Changliu faction is a "new Taoism" established by relying on the Hainan Island crossing group, and the short-term goal is to deal with those martial arts sects that dare to be enemies of the "Australians" in the face of the local people in the newly occupied areas. At first, I don't know who had a big brain, and randomly named it a very vulgar name, called "Beidou God Fist", which caused a strong protest - how can you beat other people's bricks and sticks with your fists?

Next, the relevant departments held a name collection activity internally, and a series of unimaginative strange names such as Jingwumen, Qionghua faction, Wanhua Valley, Tiance Mansion, Zangjian Villa, Tianxia Society, and Money Gang emerged. In the end, the head of the new Taoist sect who still couldn't stand it, Thief Quanzi, borrowed from the setting sect in a Xianxia TV series, and named this new sect as the Changliu Sect in the name of the Changliu Xianshan in "The Classic of Mountains and Seas".

Then, in order to highlight the "Australian characteristics" of the Changliu faction and distinguish it from the local martial arts sect of the Ming Dynasty, the weapons used by the disciples of the Changliu faction are also unique, which are three-edged military thorns and Western thin stabbing swords! The former's lethality has been tested for a long time on the modern battlefield. And the Western thin stabbing sword that looks like a toy, in fact, it also has a good record in combat - it must be known that the earliest name of this thing is called the armor-piercing sword, which is a street fighting weapon developed from the aristocratic duel, completely giving up the function of chopping and chopping, and developing the function of killing a blow to the extreme, the extremely thin sword body, which is not only light and easy to carry, but also can easily penetrate the human torso, causing serious organ bleeding and infection in the body cavity, which is basically a dead end in ancient times.

Of course, this kind of weapon is indeed of limited use when the armies are fighting, but it is definitely a sharp weapon in the midst of a brawl - if this thing is really flashy and lacks actual combat value, how can Western gentlemen wear it into the twentieth century?

Even in the street fighting battlefields of the East, the lethality of this thing is not bad - compared to Western swords, which rely entirely on stabbing as a means of killing, traditional Chinese swords still retain some slashing and blocking moves, so the blade cannot be built too long, at least not to the ground when swinging, and the blade is not as long as Western swords. In this way, when the local "heroes" in Guangzhou hold traditional Chinese swords, when they fight against the disciples of the Changliu School holding Western swords on the street, before the Chinese sword stabs the opponent, their side is likely to have been poked into the liver by the Western sword! This is a fatal wound!

Although in the East, there are also some two-handed swords and Miao knives that can be built very long, but after all, they are not something that ordinary people can play with.

And more importantly, this Western sword is a compulsory course for the aristocracy that has been passed down in the West for centuries, and it is also an international competition, so it has a very complete set of training courses in modern times, which can be directly transferred and applied - it is better than the moves that have been fooled out with martial arts novels!

In addition, compared with traditional Chinese swords, this Western sword has the advantage that it can be more easily hidden in umbrellas and crutches - the umbrella sword specially made by the disciples of the Changliu sect for covert tasks has a blade about one meter long and weighs about one kilogram. Usually hidden in the handle of the umbrella, use it freely, and pull out is a Western sword - the design of this hidden weapon has actually existed since ancient times, but such a design has high requirements for forging the steel of the sword body, and the right material is rare, and most people are reluctant to use it to hide their heads and tails even if they occasionally get good steel.

However, for the traverser with the super productivity of modern industry, this little trouble is not a problem at all, using ordinary spring steel for high-temperature modulation, and then quenching the tip of the sword to obtain the finished Western sword, its elasticity and hardness are excellent, and the cost is not expensive, so this kind of umbrella sword is a person in the Changliu faction, even the most inferior miscellaneous disciples, after a few months of entry, can also get an umbrella sword or crutch sword to defend themselves.

Although after watching the training of the disciples of the Changliu faction, many traversers muttered that it felt very awkward to let a group of Ming Dynasty people with combed hair and shoke and fight with people on the land of China with Western swords, but the Taoist leader of the Thief Quanzi said that this was normal - according to the description in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", this Changliu Mountain was originally a Western immortal mountain, and it is natural that Western martial arts should be taught......

Of course, since the goal of this sect is to assist the occupying forces in slaughtering the Ming martial arts, it naturally cannot solve the problem by relying only on cold weapons, so most of the inner disciples who have passed the audit are still armed with revolvers or double-barreled shotguns, and even some of the inner disciples have also received training from sappers in blasting explosives packs, ready to be used in sneak attacks to break down the tall walls of temples, Taoist temples and mansions in various places.

At present, this sect is still in the initial stage, and there are many people within the Huameng who are not very optimistic about its future and denounce it as a deviant. But in the future, this long-staying faction really carried forward, known as the terminator of martial arts, killing the heads of famous ancient temples and famous mountains everywhere......

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When Xu Xiake and his clan brother Xu Zhongzhao took a carriage to Changliuguan to settle down, they saw a new disciple who had just been recruited by the Changliu faction, with sandbags tied to his legs and a blue cloth robe, running sweaty from the side of the road, Li Fugui, a former short-term worker who had just passed the assessment in the morning. It was also among them, and there were a few outer disciples behind them, blowing whistles and waving whips, urging and supervising them not to be lazy.

And in the martial arts arena not far away, there are also many disciples of the Changliu School who are sweating and sweating with dumbbells to press the horizontal bar, fencing with each other and fighting with hand-to-hand.

-- Although on the surface the Changliu sect was a decadent and backward "feudal sect," in fact it adopted a regular militarized training method, and all the newly promoted and outer disciples had to run 3,000 meters every morning, followed by 500 push-ups, 500 leg lifts, and 500 frog jumps...... Plus cultural lessons. Although it is just an old skill of the sports school in later generations, if it is replaced by the ordinary martial arts sect in this year, ordinary disciples may not have so much food calorie and protein intake to maintain such a high-intensity physical exercise. Thanks to the "Australians" who have a lot of money, three meals and meat are all fishy, these poor young men, who have been in a state of semi-starvation for a long time, can squander the calories of their youth so freely.

According to the arrangement made by the first "Immortal Venerable" of the Changliu Sect after referring to the Xianxia novel, after three months of training, these new disciples will hold an internal competition, and the miscellaneous disciples and outer disciples will be divided according to their grades. The former was then assigned to various incense halls to do some chores, while the latter continued to study various street fighting skills, and later acted as the main thug, and accumulated seniority in battles until he was promoted to an inner disciple......

-- On the official salary slip issued by the Huameng, the miscellaneous disciples of the Changliu faction are temporary workers, the outer disciples are contract workers, the inner disciples are the establishment of public institutions, and the elders and hall masters above are the inspectors and so on, and they are entered into the civil service establishment.

“…… Hey, brother, as the saying goes, the poor are rich and the martial arts, look at this Taoist temple has recruited so many strong men and half-sized men, and they work diligently every day. If it is an ordinary poor child who has difficulty eating three meals, after such practice, I am afraid that he will vomit blood, but these people have no face and yellow muscles. And if you let them run like this every day, I really don't know how many pairs of shoes Australians will have to lose......" Xu Zhongzhao touched his beard and muttered.

“…… Brother Zhong Zhao, although Australians act extravagantly, they are actually very shrewd! Where can there be so many idlers for nothing? ”

As a traveler who has traveled all over the country and knows the disadvantages of the world, Xu Xiake can see the meaning behind this at a glance, "...... I can't see that in three months, the wharf vendors, car and ship shops in Guangdong Province will all be watched by Australians! ”

Next, the two brothers of the Xu family went to meet the "Immortal Zun" who was the presiding officer, and the other party also enthusiastically arranged for them to stay in the house, and prepared a banquet to catch the wind and wash the dust. However, when Xu Xiake talked about returning to his hometown in the north, the thief Quanzi was embarrassed:

“…… The two of them didn't know that Huguang was now in a big war, and the road was not quiet. If you are going to go north to Huguang through Shaoguan, and then go east to Jiangnan along the Yangtze River, I am afraid that you will be detained by the Ming officials and soldiers halfway......"

“…… What the? Could it be that the Ao-Song Dynasty court was so impatient and was already preparing for the Northern Expedition? When Xu Xiake heard this, he couldn't help but be surprised.

“…… Definitely! Definitely! Our army does not have the heart of the Northern Expedition to Huguang at the moment, which is caused by the infighting of the Ming royal family! ”

In response to Xu Xiake's surprise question, Thief Quanzi waved his hand again and again and explained, "...... According to the report, Chongzhen Tianzi, who had escaped from Beijing and traveled to the north, had left Luoyang at the beginning of this month and went south to Wuchang to station, and now he is recruiting troops in Huguang Province, and at the same time issued an order to seal the river, detain all ships on the river, and prepare to transport troops to attack the Yonghe Emperor's court in Liudu (Nanjing). After hearing the news, the Nanjing Imperial Court also gave up the important town of Yangzhou, and transferred all the soldiers and horses that were originally entangled with the Wenxiang Sect in Jiangbei to the west and southern Anhui, and it seemed that it was determined to fight to the death with the Son of Chongzhen on the river......"

Speaking of this, looking at the shocked expressions on the faces of the Xu family brothers, Thief Quanzi smiled again and suddenly changed his words, "...... Of course, the two of them don't have to worry. Even if you can't go by land, there is still a sea route to go! It just so happened that Poor Dao was about to send his disciples to take a warship to Zhejiang to set up an incense hall, and it was just right to bring the two of them to go together. Mr. Zhao Yinggong from Hangzhou has also admired His Excellency Xu Xiake for a long time, and he must definitely welcome him......"

――Xu Xiake and Xu Zhongzhao immediately looked at each other and smiled bitterly...... Although they have already had the intention of surrendering, after all, they still have a hand, just in case something happens. But now, if you take the Australian warship to your hometown in Jiangnan...... This thief ship will never come down again!

Alas, it may be considered that you have made up your mind in advance!

“…… In that case, I have to worry about it......"