After seeing Kong Yintao leave angrily, Zhu Chunchen said with some puzzlement: "Even if this 100,000 taels of silver is a little small, we don't have to offend the Kong family in the Yansheng Mansion to death, right?" ”

Li Xianzhong put on an indifferent look and said: "It's just a dead man, why should Cheng Guogong be concerned?" ”

Zhu Chuncheng looked at Li Xianzhong with some surprise, and the Marquis of Ning Yuan in front of him seemed both familiar and unfamiliar.

Kong Yintao scolded angrily after leaving Dongchang: "This Li Xianzhong is too disrespectful, you can directly offer a price if you think the silver is less, who can fool you with the Liukou, if there are really more than 100,000 Liukou, Lao Tzu can still take 100,000 taels of silver to the north?" ”

However, these Liaodong soldiers are really difficult, and looking at this posture, they want to ruthlessly slash the wool of the Kong family.

Li Xianzhong also underestimated our Yansheng Mansion too much, and he must be called good-looking when the time comes!

Soon after, they entered Dongping Prefecture in Yanzhou from Dongchang Mansion, and suddenly several feather arrows shot at the Confucian family at the front.

Before they could react, the feather arrow was plunged deep into their throats. The family members looked ahead in amazement, and instinctively covered the wound with both hands, but to no avail, blood oozed from between their fingers, and finally fell down unwillingly.

Kong Yintao was not flustered, he said loudly: "Heroes of the White Lotus Sect, we are the people of the Kong family in Qufu. Is there some misunderstanding here? ”

A thief leader shouted: "The Confucian family in Qufu bullies men and women, and does many evils, and our guns are your Kong family." ”

Kong Yintao said: "It is said that there is a way to steal, you accepted the money of the Kong family, but in turn robbed the Kong family, this is a bit too unruly, right?" ”

I saw that the leader laughed and said: "This seat is the king of Hejian Yu Hongzhi, the king of the nine-rank lotus platform Xifan, the brothers went south to Yanzhou, and there is currently a shortage of money and food. The Kong family is rich and rivals the country, so it is nothing to you to fund a little money and food? ”

When Kong Yintao heard that these accents were indeed not from Yanzhou, he thought that he had actually met a rogue from Beizhili who went south, and he really went by the heart.

Seeing that there were thousands of thieves around, although he also had hundreds of guards from the Confucian Mansion around him, he was obviously not the opponent of this gang of outlaws.

He said: "Okay, today Kong Mou confessed, you take this silver, please let us go back." ”

Wang Xifan said: "As long as you put down the knives and guns in your hands, I guarantee that you are safe!" ”

Kong Yintao hesitated for a moment, but finally asked the family members to put down their weapons.

Unexpectedly, after those thieves confiscated the weapons of the Confucian family, they changed hands and killed them.

For a while, the wails continued, and soon hundreds of Confucian family members fell in a pool of blood.

At this time, Kong Yintao trembled with anger, and scolded angrily: "You thieves are not trustworthy. ”

Wang Xifan said with a smile: "You have scolded us for being thieves, have you ever seen a thief talk about integrity?" ”

Then he pointed a knife at a family member beside Kong Yintao and said, "You go back and tell that Yan Shenggong that the Kong family will prepare 1 million taels of silver and 500,000 stones of grain within three days." ”

"If the Kong family doesn't give it, this seat will lead the brothers to Qufu to ask for it in person, and then I'm afraid your Kong family will lose more than that."

Then he directly cut off one of Kong Yintao's ears and said, "Take this token back!" ”

That family Ding was already so frightened that he couldn't possess his body, and after picking up his ears, he hurriedly ran away, and then Wang Xifan asked Kong Yintao to be escorted down.

After that, Wang Xifan said respectfully to a "rogue" beside him: "Vice General Mao, the acting skills of his subordinates are not bad." ”

Mao Wenlong said: "Your intelligence department is really talented, you kid is ruthless enough." Honestly, did you often do ticket kidnapping before? ”

Originally, Mao Wenlong was going to play the role of the leader of the rogue himself, but unfortunately the accent of these people was wrong, so he asked the Intelligence Department to recommend someone.

One thousand of these "rogues" were the remnants of the previous White Lotus Sect, and the remaining two thousand were impersonated by the Liaodong Iron Cavalry and the Ping Yuwei.

Kong Yinzhi was still waiting for the Ming army to go south to relieve Qufu's predicament, and he didn't want to wait for the news that the Ming army was going south, but the news came that Kong Yintao was kidnapped and 100,000 taels of silver were robbed.

This made this Yan Shenggong furious, scolding Li Xianzhong for not knowing how to lift.

This White Lotus Sect is really unreliable, after receiving money from the Kong family, he actually started the trading of kidnapping tickets?

These turtles from Beizhili really regarded the Kong family as a wronged man, and they actually opened their mouths for 1 million taels of silver.

Not to mention a small role like Kong Yintao, even if he was kidnapped by the Liukou as the Holy Father of Yan, the Kong family would not have taken out so much money and food to ransom people.

The last thing the Kong family lacks is a direct heir.

In the 48th year of Wanli, his uncle Kong Shangxian passed away without an heir, and Kong Yinzhi was able to enter the great sect and succeed him as the Holy Duke of Yan.

Kong Yinzhi's ability to inherit the Yan Shenggong is purely shit luck, and he has only been a Yan Shenggong for less than two years, and he has not been able to fully integrate the resources of the Kong family.

There were a few respectable uncles in the clan who were actually opposed to him sending money and food to the rogues.

He knew what was at stake before he reluctantly persuaded them to agree to provide money and food to the White Lotus Sect.

But who knew that this Xu Hongru was not reliable at all, and he couldn't control his subordinates.

So he hurriedly sent someone to find Xu Hongru, the 100,000 taels of silver is estimated to be coming back, and he was eaten by this group of thieves, can he still expect them to spit it out?

However, Xu Hongru calls himself Emperor Fulie of Zhongxing, and the Kong family's silver can't be collected in vain, right?

Sure enough, Xu Hongru was also very angry after learning that Yu Hongzhi's subordinates had actually fled to Yanzhou and tied up the Kong family and swallowed 100,000 taels of silver.

Even their heads have already taken refuge in themselves, and this group of people has come to their own territory to meet them?

I heard that Yu Hongzhi's main force has been wiped out by the official army, and these people are estimated to be some "fish that have slipped through the net", and the number will not be too many.

He happened to take them in, and by the way, he could rob 100,000 taels of silver, and he could rescue the hostages and return the favor of the Kong family, of course he couldn't miss this kind of thing that killed three birds with one stone.

So he ordered his governor Wang Jinshan to lead 30,000 horses north to Dongpingzhou to subdue these Yu Hongzhi's men.

Although the number of White Lotus Sect members from all walks of life who have taken refuge in him has reached 300,000, and they have also captured several county seats, but now that there is a severe drought in Shandong, there is simply not enough food.

He still had to maintain a good relationship with the Kong family, if it weren't for the Kong family's continuous supply of food, I am afraid that his military spirit would have been unstable a long time ago.

Even if he can break through Qufu and snatch the Kong family's silver, if the Kong family breaks the jar and breaks it, he will directly set fire to the grain stored in Qufu's treasury, then he will want to cry without tears!

For him, food is far more important than silver at this stage.

The news of Liukou's departure from Yanzhou Mansion to the north soon reached Mao Wenlong.

This is also their established strategy, there are too many of these rogues, and there are lakes and mountains everywhere near Yanzhou. With the 6,000 cavalry of the Ming army, it is impossible to wipe them all out, so the only way to deceive them is to slowly eliminate them!

In the face of this wave of people sent to the door, they naturally will not let go.

The 30,000 members of the White Lotus sect traveled all the way north from Yanzhou Mansion and arrived a day later near the Dawen River in the south of Dongpingzhou.

Wang Jinshan knew that although there were 30,000 people under his command, most of them were a rabble that had been put together temporarily, and their combat effectiveness was not strong.

After all, everyone is from the White Lotus Sect, so he decided to salute first and then soldier, and send an envoy to persuade him to surrender first.

Soon, two messengers with the "Holy Decree" came to the camp of Wang Xifan and others.

Xu Hongru, a magic stick, can incite hundreds of thousands of people to follow him to rebel in a short period of time, and he is naturally very good at grasping people's hearts.

He didn't ask them to hand over the silver, but directly let Wang Xifan inherit Yu Hongzhi's King of Hejian.

And he also knew that Wang Xifan and the others didn't have much food around them, so they asked them to go to Yanzhou to help in the war and get food by the way.

If Wang Xifan was really a remnant of the White Lotus Sect, he would naturally not be able to refuse this temptation.

However, Xu Hongru obviously miscalculated, Wang Xifan said: "This seat is the personal disciple of the childless old mother, why do you have to obey Xu Hongru's orders, and someone will give this messenger to this seat and go directly to the camp?" ”

The messenger who was beaten soon cried to Wang Jinshan about his suffering.

When Wang Jinshan learned that there were only more than 1,000 people in their camp, he became even more confident. Since this Wang Xifan doesn't know what to do, he has no choice but to use him to sacrifice the flag!

So Wang Jinshan hurriedly beckoned the team to cross the river.

After more than two years of drought in Shandong, the water level of the Dawen River has been greatly reduced, and it is only more than 1 meter deep.

Soon these White Lotus disciples directly waded across the river.

Zhu Chunchen in the distance said: "At this time, this group of thieves is crossing the river, why doesn't Ning Yuanhou "cross the river and attack" it? ”

Li Xianzhong said with a smile: "With the combat strength of my Liaodong Iron Cavalry, there is no need to engage in this kind of sneak attack, and it will not be too late to fight when they come ashore!" ”

The 30,000 White Lotus Sect members here had just finished gathering, and before they had even walked out of Erlidi, they found that a large number of cavalry had appeared on the road ahead.

Before they could react, the Liaodong Iron Cavalry charged at them.

Wang Jinshan's subordinates still have a little will to fight for more than a thousand backbones of the White Lotus Sect, and the others are all rabble, where is the enemy of the Ming army?

In a short time they were driven to the river, but fortunately the river was not deep, and countless rebels rushed to the other side of the river.

However, at this time, the Pingyuwei was already waiting on the other side of the river.

Although the river was not deep, the rushing river slowed their progress, which gave Pingyuwei plenty of time to shoot.

"Bang, bang, bang"

With the launch of the Lu Mi gun, there were more and more rogues who fell into the river, and the water of the Dawen River was instantly dyed red.

Li Xianzhong sighed and said: "I should have brought the assault battalion to come, and the all-cold weapon cavalry can kill people much faster than the Pingyuwei." ”

Zhu Chunchen on the side was a little embarrassed, in the face of such a rogue coward, he was almost wiped out.

As the Ming army shouted: "Surrender or kill, this rabble quickly gave up resistance." ”

Mao Wenlong said: "Marquis of Qi Ningyuan, this time the last general personally killed the enemy governor Wang Jinshan. Half of the 30,000 thieves were beheaded and half captured. ”

Li Xianzhong said: "Vice General Mao went south this time to suppress the Kou in two battles and two victories, which can be described as a great contribution, it seems that the general army will not be able to run this time!" ”

Mao Wenlong said with a smile: "The last general is all cultivated by the Hou Ye, this Liaodong Iron Cavalry is really a strong army in the world, and it is really overkill to fight the Liukou." ”

Li Xianzhong said: "Next, I have to wronged you to pretend to be thieves and go to Qufu Kong's house to seize silver and grain." ”

At this time, Kong Yintao, who only had one ear left in the camp, was being tortured.

Wang Xifan scolded angrily: "Grandma, it seems that you are not treated well in the Kong family, and if you don't come to redeem people, you dare to invite Xu Hongru's people." ”

"Someone put a soldering iron on me!"

Kong Yintao is also a pampered son-in-law on weekdays, where can he be punished? He said in horror: "A good man spares his life, the Kong family will definitely not be able to take out 1 million taels of silver for a while." ”

Wang Xifan said: "Yan Shenggong Kong Yinzhi looks down on people, he sends food and silver to Xu Hongru, but he doesn't even think about it. ”

"You should know a lot about the situation of the Kong family in Qufu, where is their money and food?"

Faced with the red-burning soldering iron, Kong Yintao finally confessed that Kong Yinzhi sent two pieces of silver to Xu Hongru every day and grain, and also offered the Kong family several manors with more money and grain.

After getting Kong Yintao's confession, Zhu Chunchen said incredulously: "We actually got the evidence that the Kong family funded the thieves, and now the Holy Father of Yan is going to hemorrhage!" ”

Li Xianzhong said with a smile: "Don't worry, the Kong family has offended the White Lotus Sect now, so let the White Lotus Sect settle accounts with him first." ”

The Kong family has a lot of industries, but the main grain is stored in several large manors around Qufu.

Looking at the grange in front of him, Mao Wenlong scolded: "This Kong Yintao is not well-intentioned, these granges are built like castles, and it is impossible for ordinary rogues to attack them!" ”

Although the grange in front of them is not large, with a circumference of only 2 miles, the wall is 4 meters high, there is a moat on the perimeter, and there is also a corner tower!

It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is a city, for many of the cities of Tartar are not as strong as this grange.

At this time, there are rogues everywhere outside, and this is a heavy place to store money and grain, and the village door is naturally closed.

According to Kong Yintao, these Confucian family members only recognize the token of the Holy Father of Yan or Kong Yinzhi himself, and no one else recognizes them, so he can't call the village door.

In this sense, there is only one way to attack?

If you want to attack these pretending thieves, you can't do it, you must let the Liaodong Iron Rider wearing iron armor get on it.

But who would believe all the rogues in iron armor?

Since it can't be installed, it is normal to bombard it directly with artillery if it is wrong, anyway, the thief Kou has brought Zhu Chunchen's Shenji Battalion to a nest before, and it is normal to have some artillery in his hand!

Fortunately, this time the Pingyuwei still carried some 6-pounder field Franc machine guns.

Soon the Kong's Grange was bombarded by the 6-pounder Fran cannon of the "thieves", and then Mao Wenlong commanded the thieves to rush up and directly capture the Grange.

However, in the battle, there were still more than ten "thieves" who were killed by the Kong family, and they were actually equipped with bird guns.

Mao Wenlong was furious, and finally ordered the slaughter of the village, slaughtering all the thousands of people in the village.

Li Xianzhong didn't blame Mao Wenlong after he found out, the Liaodong Iron Cavalry was his heart's meat, and he didn't die on the battlefield with dignity, but he was martyred in this way, which was really unacceptable to him.

Anyway, they are "rogues", and it is normal to be ferocious.

In just two days, the three largest granges of the Confucian family in the periphery of Qufu were all captured by the "thieves", and a total of 830,000 stone of grain and 30,000 taels of silver were captured.

During this period, Xu Hongru attempted to send troops to meet the Kong family, but was quickly repelled by the Ming army ambushed on the road.

Li Xianzhong said to Zhu Chunchen: "Chengguo Gong, you see that there is a great drought in Yanzhou, and the hungry people have risen up one after another, but the Confucian family in Qufu has hoarded so much grain. ”

Rao is a big corrupt official like Zhu Chunchen, and he was also stunned by this scene.

He said: "I heard that near Yanzhou now, 3 stones of grain can be exchanged for 2 acres of good fertile land, and the Kong family doesn't know how much land they have taken the opportunity to annex at a low price, so they forced these people to rise up!" ”

Then Li Xianzhong changed his words and said: "So we are doing the right thing for heaven, and Chengguo Gong must not have a burden in his heart." ”

"Illicit thieves, hidden firecrackers, annexation of land, the children of the Confucian family are doing mischief in this Yanzhou Mansion, to be honest, even if the Kong family is destroyed, it is not too much."

"Now Benhou is just letting them give a little 'blood', which is already considered compassion!"

At this time, the Confucian Mansion was already in chaos, and several heavily guarded strongholds on the periphery were attacked by thieves one after another, and the family members and villagers of the Confucian family in the village were all killed by the thieves, and many of them were the children of the Confucian family.

As the head of the family, Kong Yinzhi, the holy prince of Yan, was greatly questioned.

Kong Yinzhi's uncle, Kong Shangyu, said: "Since the thieves started the army for more than a month, my Kong family has spent hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and hundreds of thousands of stones of grain, and they actually got such a result? ”

Kong Yinzhi said: "You can't blame me for this, when the thief tied up Yintao and extorted 1 million taels of silver, everyone here unanimously decided not to give the silver, and now that the thief has retaliated, you only blame me alone, isn't it appropriate?" ”

Kong Shangyu also said without showing weakness: "Why don't you blame you for this, didn't you ask Yintao to bring 100,000 taels of silver to the north?" ”

"If you bring more silver and say that Li Xianzhong will send troops, why did you come to this point?"

Kong Yinzhi said: "This matter is quite strange, there are only a few thousand people from the river, and they actually defeated Xu Hongru's army of 30,000, and broke through several granges heavily defended by my Kong family, how is this possible?" ”

"Could it be that Li Xianzhong made the ghost?"

When Kong Yinzhi said this, everyone in the Kong family also reacted, this matter is really incredible, although they have no evidence. But if you want to say that it has nothing to do with Li Xianzhong, they really can't find anyone else.

Kong Yinzhi said angrily: "My father-in-law will impeach this guy in a letter, and I must seek justice for my Kong family!" ”

The scheming Kong Shangyu said: "This matter must not be impeached, even if it is not now." ”

"We have no evidence at all, Ningyuan Marquis Li Xianzhong has a heavy army in his hands, and he has a close relationship with Wei Gelding, it is impossible to bring him down based on speculation."

"Second, his army is close to Qufu, if these things are really done by him looking for someone to pretend to be a thief, in case you provoke him, he simply doesn't do anything, and directly pretends to be a thief and slaughters our Kong family, who do we talk to?"

Kong Yinzhi also understood that what Kong Shangyu said was not wrong, and said indignantly: "It seems that at present, the only way to stabilize Li Xianzhong is to stabilize him first, and slowly find a chance to clean him up!" ”

Just when several people were discussing, Jia Ding suddenly came to report, saying that Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Chengguo, was visiting.

Zhu Chunchen said: "Marquis Ning Yuan heard that several granges of the Kong family in Qufu were attacked by thieves, and he was specially sent to come down to offer condolences. ”

It's good that he didn't say this, but as soon as he said this, the people of the Kong family were even more angry, you Li Xianzhong killed the people of my Kong family, shot the food of my Kong family, and actually sent people to run over to disgust my Kong family.

Kong Yinzhi said: "Marquis Ningyuan's army arrived in Dongchang ten days ago, Qufu is a stone's throw away, why didn't you come for reinforcements?" ”

Zhu Chunchen said: "If it weren't for the fact that Marquis Ning Yuan didn't try his best to save him, there were really many thieves in Yanzhou, and a few days ago, our army was besieged by tens of thousands of thieves on the way south.

"Our army fought bloodily to barely break out of the encirclement and captured 30,000 thieves, but the thieves are very strong, and our army will not be able to reach Qufu for the time being."

"Now our army is stationed in Yanzhou and has advanced to Dongpingzhou."

The word "shameless" has reached Kong Yinzhi's mouth, but he still didn't scold it in the end, Li Xianzhong is really good at pretending, obviously he designed to eat Xu Hongru's 30,000 people, but he lied that he was besieged by hundreds of thousands of rogues.

Kong Yinzhi said: "The next person came to report that it was the thieves who besieged my Kong Family Grange and actually used a large number of artillery. Now that the capital city of Yanzhou has not been captured by the enemy, my father wants to know, where did the thieves' artillery come from?

Zhu Chunchen said: "I blame me for this, my father's Shenji battalion was besieged by hundreds of thousands of thieves in Niutou Mountain in Hejian Province, and was finally outnumbered, resulting in the fall of the battalion. ”

Kong Yinzhi even got angry, and said in his heart: You are really good, you actually took the game ahead of time, and let the thieves justifiably capture my Kong family's grange with artillery.

Zhu Chunchen saw Kong Yinzhi's angry appearance, and said with a smile: "Marquis Ning Yuan also has something unclear, so he specially asked this prince to ask Yan Shenggong." ”

So he took out Kong Yintao's confession and handed it to Kong Yinzhi.

Kong Yinzhi's face immediately changed when he saw it.

Zhu Chunchen said sharply: "This is the confession that my army seized from the thieves, Ningyuan Hou Tuobengong asked Yan Shenggong, what is the intention of your Kong family to privately fund the thieves?" ”

"Why did Kong Yintao let us go south to support Qufu on the front foot, and we were besieged by hundreds of thousands of thieves on the back foot?"

At this time, Kong Yinzhi was already so angry that he was smoking, and Li Xianzhong, the thief, was really playing tricks when he shouted to catch the thief.

He said: "This is not Kong Yintao's handwriting, it must have been forged by someone with ulterior motives." ”

Zhu Chunchen said: "By the way, Kong Yintao is in our army's camp at this moment, and he has confessed to this matter, but Yan Shenggong still wants to deny it?" ”

In fact, Kong Yinzhi had already recognized Kong Yintao's handwriting, he just had a little illusion, hoping that Kong Yintao did not fall into Li Xianzhong's hands.

Now his face was like ashes, and he said lightly: "What does Ning Yuanhou want, might as well have something to say?" ”

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(End of chapter)