The Jiangnan gentry united.

They were not stingy, and they contributed money and efforts one after another to form an "anti-Xu alliance" and gathered into an extremely powerful force.

In fact, for the gentry class, they are characterized by extreme selfishness and self-interest, and only have the interests of one person and one family in their eyes, whether it is a change of dynasty or a foreign invasion, they are unlikely to unite together, the country is dead, their own family is not dead, and the alien race has entered the Central Plains artifact, and they also need these Han gentry to manage the country, no matter how their personal and family interests will not suffer too serious losses.

But the enemy of Xujiazhuang is different.

Xujiazhuang was not only powerful, but also wantonly plundered and occupied land, and even grabbed their heads, seriously damaging their interests.

It also occupies and deprives them of their living space, the countryside with the vast land is a happy land that belongs to them for generations, and the land of the peasants can be arbitrarily occupied, and the descendants of the peasants will be their long-term workers and slaves in the future; The peasants' wives and daughters, their concubines and maids, can play with them when they want, and possess them if they want!

Now that these beautiful prospects are gone, Xujiazhuang suddenly broke into their happy land, bewitched the peasants who belonged to them, occupied the land that belonged to them, and raised a big stick, beating them gentry screaming and screaming, and even daring to draw a knife to kill.

The gentry were not only disgraced but also disgraced.

Their dreams and hopes, their way of living and traditions that they have continued for at least two thousand years, have also been completely stifled, and the monster of Xujiazhuang has deprived them of all their privileges.

And the most hateful thing is: Xujiazhuang doesn't need them.

Xujiazhuang had its own management system, and cultivated a large number of talents called 'primary school students' to manage the estate, and instead of these erudite and talented Confucians, he preferred to use children who were only in their teens, and did not consider them in the slightest for the gentry who were experienced in governing the country, and excluded them from the beginning.

This not only hurt the self-esteem of some of the Jiangnan gentry! It has pushed the contradictions between the two sides to a completely irreconcilable level.

This is the case with the so-called class contradictions.

So in order to eliminate the freak demon of Xujiazhuang, the gentry of Jiangnan were unprecedentedly united, and they really did the extent of destroying their homes and relieving the difficulties, moving out the silver hidden in the cellar of their homes, and moving out the old grain that had accumulated like mountains in the warehouses at home, and sending them to the hands of Xu Hongji, the Duke of Wei.

In just one or two months, more than 5 million taels of silver and 10 million stone of grain were raised—and this was only a part, and a large amount of money and grain was on the way.

The wealth of the gentry in Jiangnan can be seen.

As vested interests, the heritage and accumulation of the gentry in Jiangnan for more than 200 years are by no means comparable to Xujiazhuang, which has only been established for a few years.

With so much money and food, the next step is to recruit troops!

In this regard, the Nanjing Xungui Group, headed by Xu Hongji, acted very quickly and showed efficiency that was usually unimaginable.

First of all, in the name of the Nanjing Military Department and the Command of the Embassy, he issued one after another orders for the transfer of troops, and the officers and soldiers of Yangzhou Wei, Hezhou Wei, Gaoyou Wei, Huai'an Wei, Zhenhaiwei, Taicang Wei, Suzhou Wei, Jinshanwei, Songjiang Zhongqianhu, Chongmingsha Qianhu, Tongzhou Qianhu, Taizhou Qianhu, and other dozens of guards were brought together in Nanjing, although there have been many problems in the operation of the guard system so far, and the shortage and empty salary are serious, after the count, there are still more than 30,000 officers and soldiers in the guard post available. This amount is a real number, and it looks like it has some combat power.

With these more than 30,000 officers and soldiers of the guard post as the skeleton, and then erect the recruitment flag, and begin to recruit strong men, and this kind of middle and lower class people who can't eat enough and can't see hope are extremely large, as long as there is money and food, and then erect the recruitment flag, they are not afraid of not being able to recruit people.

Therefore, it only took half a month to recruit more than 70,000 strong men and form a 100,000-strong army, and this is a real number, and it is no problem to call it '300,000 troops' to the outside world.

But it was not enough, the Nanjing Xungui Group and the Jiangnan gentry all felt that if they wanted to eliminate Xujiazhuang, the 100,000 army was simply not enough.

We must continue to recruit talents, and we must do everything we can to continue to increase the number of the army.

So he spent 500,000 taels to hire 5,000 elite firearms troops from the Zheng family from Fujian.

The families, nurses, and clansmen of the families of the various gentry and nobles were all organized, and the number of people was as high as 30,000.

Then there are all kinds of bandits, pirates, river and ocean thieves, and criminals in prisons, etc., who also spend money to organize them into a criminal army of 10,000 people.

In the end, there are the green-skinned hooligans in the city, the street tiger thugs, the government officials, the officials, the idle patrol soldiers, etc., adding up to an army of 20,000 people.

In short, all kinds of methods were used, and all the available manpower was gathered, and even some of the descendants of the gentry and nobles joined the army.

180 thousand.

Finally, at the end of May, the nobles and gentry of Jiangnan pulled out a super army of 180,000 people!

And the number of 180,000 is a real number, there is not much falsification and adulteration, and it is no problem to declare the "500,000 army" to the outside world.

This is still a legion pulled out in just over two months, and in this ancient society, this kind of organizational efficiency, which can only be described as 'terrifying', has created a miracle.

But......

With these troops, if you want to take over more than 100 collective estates in Xujiazhuang, you have to "cut the grass and eradicate the roots, and never suffer in the future" to the millions of villagers in Xujiazhuang who have shaved their hair and are easy to obey, I am afraid that there will still be some insufficient troops, and they will suffer huge casualties - the fierceness of Xujiazhuang and Qingzhuang, the gentry in Jiangnan have long been taught, these Diao people who are said to eat hundreds of catties of meat a year, one can beat them ten, and the combat effectiveness can be compared with the Tartars outside the Guan, and they do not obey the king, do not talk about martial arts and etiquette, is not an ordinary good citizen under their rule, a few officials can easily let their family ruin and not easily rebel.

And the shaved people in Xujiazhuang who have eaten meat and have the strength, and they will no longer be obedient, if they want to completely suppress them, they must have an elite army of three or five hundred thousand.

However, after some discussion, the nobles and gentry of Jiangnan still decided to fight Xujiazhuang!

Although the 180,000 troops are a little insufficient to take the entire Xujiazhuang, can't they take down the entire Xujiazhuang by concentrating these forces and attacking a certain manor in Xujiazhuang?

"The collective manor of Xujiazhuang, there are as few as 10,000 villagers, as many as 30,000 people, only the population of Harbour City has reached 300,000, the so-called ten are encircled, our army of nearly 200,000 can't even take a manor with only 10,000 people, including the elderly, weak, women and children?"

"As long as we concentrate our forces and implement various strategies to break down Xujiazhuang, capture a collective manor every three days, kill all the young and strong, all the women will enter the Jiaofang Division, and divide the property and land, or reward the soldiers of the three armies, and allow them to plunder at will, in order to boost morale, so that the more we fight, the more courageous, the more smooth the fighting, the more we fight more and more smoothly, the more than 100 manor castles in Xujiazhuang, at most, can be uprooted, Xujiazhuang has become history, and Jiangnan has been restored to tranquility since then!"

"What a break!"

This set of strategies has been highly praised and recognized by the nobles and gentry, and has been unanimously adopted, and they have imagined:

"In front of the Jiangnan army of 200,000 people, no matter what manor, all of them will end up in powder!"

"This time, we can't be a woman's kindness anymore, it is because of the repeated forbearance of the others that Xujiazhuang has swelled to this point, brewing such a poisonous catastrophe, we should have joined forces a long time ago and thundered again."

"The sage education can no longer be used on the heads of these alienated people, I propose that the people of Xujiazhuang, who are over six years old, be killed! All the women are slaves and maids, and those with outstanding looks are filled into the Church Division, for us to play with and abuse, and whip them to our heart's content! ”

"I heard that Xu Yuan, the owner of the Xu family, has two concubines who are still good-looking, hahaha, if these two concubines can be captured, even if they are ugly girls, the old man will be whipped fiercely, and he will be angry with this evil breath!"

"It would be better if we could catch the thief Xu Yuan, we would not only have to kill him by 10,000 knives, but also abuse his concubine in front of him to vent the hatred in our hearts!"

"Not bad! A mere overseas wealthy businessman, unwilling to do business well, dared to pretend to be a saint of the ages, to dig our roots, to create our rebellion, I don't know if when Ling Chi cut the meat, he will be out of the feces and urine, crying father and crying mother's begging for mercy, the humble businessman is full of faces...... Hehe, the old man is looking forward to it! ”

……

June 10.

Outside the city of Yangzhou.

After thorough preparation.

The 'Jiangnan Army', which was established with the help of the gentry in Jiangnan, officially launched a military operation against Xujiazhuang.

The actual number of Jiangnan troops was 180,000, and they claimed to be '300,000', and the first target of the attack was the collective manor No. 72 in Xujiazhuang.

Because Manor No. 72 was built outside Yangzhou City, only more than ten miles away from Yangzhou City - this is simply stepping on the faces of the Jiangnan gentry, which is the most naked provocation.

So the Jiangnan army took this manor that was closest to them and the farthest away from Xujiazhuang's base camp Harbor City, which was the most suitable!

"Kill!"

"Their walls haven't been built yet, and they're still slanted, so we'll go up as soon as we rush them!"

"Kill all the men, all the women, and take all the treasures! The adults above said that if the knife is not sealed within three days, we can do whatever we want! ”

"Rush, money, food, treasures, women, don't rob me of anyone!"

“……”

The earth shook violently.

Countless people were fanatical and accelerated with various weapons in their hands.

If you look down from the perspective of the sky, you will find that a fortress with a circumference of no more than four or five miles is being besieged on all sides by nearly 200,000 people, like an army of zombies.