On the side of the Jiangnan dirt road in autumn, more than a dozen riders walked down a slope.

He hadn't gone far, but it was about a mile and a half, and when he turned a small col like a screen, a village appeared in front of him.

It is not quite accurate to say that it is a village.

According to Zhu Di's opinion, it is more like a dock fort.

The so-called dock fort is a wartime civil self-defense organization form that has been handed down for thousands of years since the end of the Han Dynasty, with complete fortifications, and simple self-sufficient production can be realized internally.

"The Book of Jin: The Biography of Su Jun" records: In the Yongjia Rebellion, the people went into exile and gathered in Tun.

The establishment of the dock fort, to put it bluntly, is to deal with the chaos in the world, when the world is in turmoil, since the people have no political power to protect, they have to seek the protection of the rural self-defense organization, generally speaking, the establishment of the dock fort is the result of the people's spontaneous and voluntary choice at the beginning. Of course, after the organization is established, joining is voluntary, and it is difficult to say whether it is voluntary to leave.

Without further ado, when he got closer, Zhu Di carefully observed that there was a circle of earthen polders outside the village, and the young man in the countryside who was arrogant and powerful did not brag, yes, it was tall and thick, about two feet six or seven feet high, and four feet thick, all of which were made of gravel mixed with mud.

Of course, this kind of fortification is only in the eyes of this group of local tyrants who have never seen the world, and they feel very secure. In the eyes of Zhu Di, the world's number one general, it is far worse than the real fortified city.

The best person in the world at defending the city is Geng Bingwen, but no matter how strong the city fortress is, what is the use of facing Zhu Di? It's not like papier-mâché.

The young man in the village who was standing guard on the earthen polder saw that it was his own people who had returned, so he opened the door without asking, and the young man who saw it frowned.

"Zhang Erlang, are these your classmates?" The young man who opened the door asked with a smile holding a rake.

was called Zhang Erlang, raised the horsewhip and split his head.

"Smack!"

Qingzhuang subconsciously dodged, and the sackcloth on his shoulder was torn open by the whip, and the flesh inside instantly bloomed to the point that the flesh and blood were blurred.

"Idiot! If the enemy kidnaps me, will you open the door without asking? ”

Zhang Erlang was almost angry, and the beaten young man looked embarrassed, but he didn't dare to refute anything, as if Zhang Erlang's prestige in the village was not low.

Zhang Erlang turned his head from the horse, his expression became calm, and he just arched his hand and said.

"The guests smiled, now that the world is chaotic, we have to be careful."

Jin Youzi nodded, and several people dismounted and walked into the earthen polder, Jin Youzi also stretched out his hand and touched the dirt and gravel on the wall.

"How long has it been since the new repair?"

As soon as he saw that it was so new, he knew what was going on, but Zhang Erlang didn't hide it, and simply said: "When the Yan army crossed the river a few months ago, it was rumored all over the south of the Yangtze River. In short, we are not the only one who has this thing, it is just to protect ourselves when the war is in chaos. ”

"Then nothing has happened now, why don't you dismantle it?"

Facing Jin Youzi's nose and face, the horsewhip held in Zhang Erlang's hand was pinched and made a sound, and the fellow scholar hurriedly said: "Zhang Erlang, do you know, this is a court official from Jiangxi. When I returned to my hometown and passed by here, I didn't know a lot about the scenery in the south of the Yangtze River, so there were more problems. ”

Zhang Erlang glanced at Jin Youzi.

Imperial court officials?

After looking at it carefully, Jin Youzi does have the style of being an official.

Thin and tall, although the grade is not big, there is a pair of shelves between the demeanors.

A hint of gloom flashed between Zhang Erlang's eyebrows, and he immediately grinned and said, "I don't know if it's Shangguan coming, but it's the grass people who are rude." ”

"He who does not know is not guilty."

Jin Youzi really gasped, shook off his burden on the spot, changed into a green robe under the Tuweizi Gate, and then put on his official hat and walked in magnificently.

"Can you take the official to the village to have a look?"

Seeing this posture, Zhang Erlang was shocked and angry, glanced at his classmates, and barely suppressed his anger, obviously rampant in the countryside on weekdays, his temper was a little big, and the work of raising his anger was really not in place.

"Shangguan, come with me."

Under the leadership of Zhang Erlang, Zhu Di and others walked around this relatively large village.

Generally speaking, the situation of the village is not as bad as Zhu Di imagined, not to mention that it is like the Peach Blossom Spring, "the land is flat, the houses are like that, there are fertile fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry and bamboo", and it can be regarded as dozens of acres of dry land scattered into small pieces of land enclosed in the back of the village and connected to the small hill, every household does not have poultry, but chickens are still uncommon.

There is a col in front of the village, and behind it there is the remnant of a hill and a small river. Or maybe a little more appropriately called a creek, the kind that adults leap over. In short, it is a treasure of feng shui.

In addition to the main gate in front of the earthen polder, there is also a small gate against the hill, and there is a dirt road in front of the door, although it is tightly closed, but there must be a road behind the door leading to the mountain.

"Who is this woman?"

Jin Youzi saw a woman from a family being driven into the corral like a dog by a man, her hair scattered and shivering.

Zhang Erlang glanced at it and replied casually: "I did something wrong." ”

Jin Youzi opened his mouth to ask, but immediately thought of something and stopped his mouth.

The autumn sun sinks early, no longer than the summer days a while ago, and the cicada chirping that I have long been accustomed to in my ears has disappeared without a trace unconsciously.

The villagers in the village who have long been out of the village, the village chief. Or in the house of the owner of the dock fort, several people were arranged to rest.

The steamed buns and water were put aside, and no one moved a sip when there was no heat.

Tong Xin led several guards to set up defenses, and the big horned bow in his hand was already in a state of ready to be fired.

Zhu Di and Jin Youzi sat cross-legged on the couch, Zhu Di took a sip of the cold water in his cowhide water bag, and took out a sesame biscuit from his arms, which was already a little white with moisture, stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it.

"Your Majesty entered the tiger's den alone with a daughter's body, and he didn't seem to be flustered at all." Jin Youzi held the cake in one hand, opened the sesame seeds in the other, and said while eating.

"Bullshit tiger's den, this is also a tiger's den, so what is the big account of the Northern Yuan? What is Daning City? Zhu Di said vaguely, "When I was still a young man, not long after I was in Beiping, I led a large army to the north, went deep into Mobei for thousands of miles to smash the nest of the Northern Yuan, attacked on a snowy night, led the troops to surround the big tent of the Northern Yuan, and recruited countless captains, prime ministers, and prefects of the Northern Yuan. Not to mention the time of Jingjing, Beiping was surrounded by Li Jinglong's 600,000 troops, and I had no way to retreat, and I forcibly took King Ning's soldiers and horses for 2,000 miles. ”

Jin Youzi nodded, this is also true.

Zhu Di is a ruthless person, he has done too many daring things in his life, and it is really nothing at the moment.

Seeing Jin Youzi eat a mouthful of sesame seeds, Zhu Di looked at Tong Xin and smiled: "Don't panic, Commander Tong will make Bao Ling walk out with all his beards and tails." ”

"Is it because the Hai Dongqing sent by Commander Tong went out to report the news?" Jin Youzi asked.

Tong Xin spoke in a dull voice.

"Notify the nearby Zhongyi Guard, just in case."

"That's?" Jin Youzi was surprised for a while.

Zhu Di pointed to the horned bow in Tong Xin's hand and said, "Do you see this bow?" ”

Jin Youzi nodded, and Zhu Difu said again: "Commander Tong's bow technique is unparalleled in the world!" ”

"When Jing was in trouble, once the southern army was in decline, so he wanted to make a last fight, and there were two brave Tartar officers with elite armor who rode to me here and rushed to me without dying, that is really a thousand troops and horses fighting together, and Commander Tong made an envoy on such a chaotic battlefield, separated by dozens of steps, one arrow at a time, and shot the eyeballs of the two Tartar officials' crotch horses. Do you know any concepts? ”

Jin Youzi was shocked.

"Don't worry." Zhu Di clapped his hands after eating the sesame baked cakes, "There are a few people who block the front for Commander Tong, don't say that this group of people in the village may not even have a pair of cowhide armor, even if they have armor, it is useless, Commander Tong made this pair of horn bows with heavy arrows, and the wild boar and black bear within thirty steps were killed by one arrow, not to mention that the human Commander Tong could not shoot a tube of arrows, and those who could fight would die." ”

Hearing this, Jin Youzi was relieved, now that the security issue has been guaranteed, he has the leisure to talk about something else.

"Your Majesty, the minister walked around and looked down, although that Zhang Erlang always separated us intentionally or unintentionally, and did not let the villagers contact us, but the minister always felt that the people in this village were not necessarily from the village."

"Tell me." Zhu Di was noncommittal.

"The pen system of livestock is different, the chickens, ducks and dogs are not the same, and there are several dogs, not to see us bark, but to see that Zhang Erlang came over to call, obviously not familiar with him The most important thing is that the dozens of acres in the village near the back mountain, some of them are newly cultivated, it must not be that they did not want to reclaim before, but that they are not enough to plant the land in the village." Jin Youzi analyzed.

Probably thinking that the evidence may not be enough, or maybe it was just thought, Jin Youzi said again: "The woman we saw in the livestock pen before didn't look like a local, she should have been forcibly married. ”

"Makes sense, what do you think is going on?" Zhu Di asked.

"Outcasts."

Jin Youzi said simply: "The ruling power of the Dock Fort, even if it is the Dock Fort that has just been established, will definitely not be in the hands of outsiders, it must be dominated by the local heroes. Maybe with the passage of time, there will be a leader of the homeless people who will merge with the dock lord elected by the locals, but it must not be now, after all, looking at the freshness of the soil polder, it is estimated that Zhang Erlang's words are not fake, it should be before and after His Majesty crossed the river, the Jiangnan Committee panicked the people, and built a dock fort to defend themselves. ”

Zhu Di nodded, this matter is really not an exception, along the way, the more east and south, the more common it is.

As for Dangtu and other places next to Nanjing City, there are none, maybe it's not that they don't want to repair, but the Yan army crossed the river too fast, and they didn't have time to repair it at all.

The Susongjiahu Prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River are relatively wealthy, and it is not an incomprehensible phenomenon for the people to build a dock fort to defend themselves in the face of a possible military disaster.

It's just that Zhang Erlang, who is a local tyrant, and he hides his ghostly thoughts, is really a little alarming.

"Then why do these homeless people seem to be quite convinced by Zhang Erlang?"

"Your Majesty." Jin Youzi folded his fingers and analyzed, "Although the Wubao under the command of Haoqiang is composed of clans and townships, it actually has a certain degree of cooperation, whether the displaced people who have migrated from other places are originally Haoqiang or ordinary villagers, in the short term in the face of the loss of land and the hardships of production and life, it must be necessary to cooperate and help each other or unite with each other to the outside world, so we showed confidence in Zhang Erlang." ”

"Even though the clan and township organizations have a residual cooperative nature, since they are under the command of the local tyrants and heroes, this powerful will inevitably use this newly established dock organization to serve themselves, and the most common thing is to establish a master-slave relationship."

Jin Youzi explained in detail: "The dock lord and the castle lord were the emperor of the soil on the land they were encamped in, and they often recruited displaced people, who were placed on the land for production and paid rent for service. In the sphere of influence of the dock lord and the castle lord, the power to distribute land is in the hands of the dock lord and the castle lord, and whether a certain piece of land is on the fish scale book of the Ming Dynasty is actually not very relevant to them. ”

"These dock forts in Jiangnan."

Zhu Di got up from the couch and paced around the room.

"I'm going to sweep it all out this time, and I'll leave no one behind."

Jin Youzi also got off the bed, bowed down and said, "What Your Majesty said is very true. ”

Zhu Di frowned slightly, turned his head and asked, "Then you say, what happened to the * village that we listened to on the road from those scholars?" In this dock fort, it doesn't look like it has that ability, could it be that bandits did it? But how could ordinary bandits calmly do such a thing in the cracks of so many armies? ”

Jin Youzi pondered for a moment and replied: "Maybe the matter of * village is nothing, after all, we haven't seen it with our own eyes, and the four scholars haven't seen it with our own eyes, and the source is nothing more than Zhang Erlang's words. It is also possible that Zhang Erlang deliberately made it up to coax them out of some ulterior secret in order to prevent these people from moving forward. ”

Zhu Di nodded and agreed with Jin Youzi's statement.

After all, judging from Zhu Di's military experience, Zhongyiwei was born from the three guards of Yanshan, all of whom were the elite of a hundred battles fought in the Northern Expedition and Jingjing, and can be called the strongest army of the Ming Dynasty at this time.

Therefore, there is a high probability that the matter of the * village is nothing.

Then the question comes to something that is almost taken for granted.

Why did Zhang Erlang lie to his classmates and not let them move on?

Why?

Not far away, in the cellar of the owner of the dock fort.

"Why did you bring the official here?!"

The cellar, which had only lit a few oil lamps, was dim and damp, and an old man covered his mouth and coughed while reprimanding Zhang Erlang.

"I'm not going to bring it."

Zhang Erlang said helplessly: "I wanted to scare off that group of classmates, but when I asked, I just prevaricated and listened to the rumors. But those people had to come along, and they had knives in their hands at that time, how dare I say anything? Is there any other way to do it than to bring it back and make plans? ”

The old man knew that there was nothing wrong with what Zhang Erlang said, and whoever would deal with it was like this, but he was irritable, and he coughed more and more.

In the end, he just stomped his feet and sighed.

"—the gentry is mistaken!"

Zhang Erlang also smiled bitterly: "Daddy, now that the thing has been done, what should I do?" Do you really want to kill officials and rebel? With the little volunteers gathered by Zhou Shibo, how can they withstand the thousands of troops and horses of the Yan army? ”

The old man was silent, he looked old, now he was less than fifty, he was used to being majestic in the township, and it was natural that he had his own ideas, and he was not old and confused.

The old man opened his mouth and said, "Those outcasts, won't they betray us and go to the officials to inform?" ”

"That's what I'm worried about, too."

Seeing that there is a possibility that the matter will be exposed, once it is revealed, this is the big crime of the Zhujiu clan, how can Zhang Erlang not worry?

Zhang Erlang said with some frustration: "The homeless people seek refuge with us for nothing more than two reasons. ”

"One is because the Yan army crossed the river a few months ago, and at that time, it was rumored that the Yan army wanted to dye the Yangtze River red, which was the result of the people in the south of the Yangtze River, so there were so many farmers who were already in danger.

"The second is because the conscription of the Jianwen Dynasty was heavy, and the people were afraid of conscription as they were afraid of the evil tiger in the mountains, but who knows, alas!"

Zhang Erlang sighed heavily, and the old man said directly.

"Who knew that the imperial court came to a 'booth into the mu'?"

Zhang Erlang nodded heavily.

"I don't know who came up with the method of 'apportionment into acres', it's just a desperate plan!"

The old man coughed again and again, smiled bitterly and nodded.

For them, the small heroes formed by clans in these places, the service into the mu is a desperate plan!

If the big clans scattered in a few villages were fine, they could take turns to organize young and middle-aged people to serve in the past, but now there is no problem in not serving the forced labor, and it would be good to continue to cultivate the land.

But this kind of small clan with one village and one surname, many homeless and foreigners, and even locals, are willing to take refuge in the land as invisible tenant farmers, isn't it essentially a fear of forced labor?

It's good now.

Conscription has been canceled!

Without the oppression of conscription, why don't these people cultivate their own land and become tenant farmers for you?

So without the displaced laborers and tenant farmers who offer land, the little local tyrants have lost their personal control and property management rights over these people, so why should they be powerful in the township?

At best, they are just rich peasants with a little more land.

Zhang Erlang sighed: "The stall is in the mu, this is our roots!" ”

"It's not all." The old man was stunned and said, "This round has been roughly implemented in the south of the Yangtze River, and the people's hearts will inevitably belong to the new emperor. The big thing you Zhou Shibo is going to do, I'm afraid it will really be blown away like the autumn wind sweeping away the leaves. ”

"The trend of the times, the will of the people, Emperor Jianwen, can't come back."

(End of chapter)