Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 82 Confrontation
"Li Thief is turning back and heading southeast, but he is still a little far away from Haiyan. I suggest that we take advantage of the victory to capture Ganpu."

Zhang Mingzhen, who had just rushed back from Kanbei to participate in the battle of Xuyuan, pointed to the map and said, "Ganpu is very empty. There is only one battalion of traitors who surrendered captives. The number of soldiers is 35. The actual number of troops is only more than [-]. There are only about [-] people who can fight. But Ganpu is very rich, with [-] salt fields in Liangzhe, five in Jiaxing, and three in Haiyan County, among which Ganpu is the salt transportation center of Baolangchang in the west.”

"Hangzhou has two Zhejiang capitals to transfer salt envoys, Jiaxing, Songjiang, Ningshao, and Wentai set up four divisions, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jiaxing, and Wenzhou set up four batches of inspection offices. This Ganpu was originally Haining Weipu. Later, there was a salt department and a patrol salt envoy. The Baolang Salt Field here in Ganpu had a total of 21 salt groups, 140 kitchens, 720 people per kitchen, and an annual salt output of [-]. [-] catties, this is only the official figure, in fact, the private salt production in Ganpu is more than three times the official output.”

There are brine-dried salt fields everywhere along the coast of Haiyan, and the vast majority of the people are engaged in salt-dried related industries, or are engaged in underground salt smuggling.

A Ganpusuo, seemingly inconspicuous, is the distribution center of Haiyan's underground private salt, where there are a large number of salt warehouses and many private salt dealers, and the wealth is astonishing.

The Xu family just laid down is actually just a snake on the ground. The Xu family controls many salt fields, has many salt stoves, and participates in private salt production.

"We are now taking advantage of the victory to take Ganpu, which is better than the hundred Xuyuan we took. The salt and money we get are enough for our Zhejiang soldiers to feed for several years."

Zhu Yihai didn't think that just after Zhang Mingzhen was promoted from chief soldier to admiral, he drifted away and started talking big. Everyone knew how rich the salt merchants were. The Yangzhou salt merchants in Ming and Qing Dynasties were very rich.

When the salt government in the past dynasties was strong, private salt was the most profitable industry. Huang Chao, Wang Xianzhi, Wang Jian, Qian Liu and others in the late Tang Dynasty were all born in smuggling salt, and later became emperors and kings. Chen Youliang in the late Yuan Dynasty and others They all started from smuggling salt.

Those well-known private salt dealers must be the heroes of one party, who are ruthless and pay more money than brothers.

Of course, for the imperial court and the army, no matter how powerful the private salt dealers are, they will eventually be useless. After all, the national army is the most powerful violent institution, unless it is the end of the dynasty when the country collapses.

The admiral Zhang Mingzhen, chief officer of Zhejiang Military Affairs, obviously wanted to cheat. Zhang Mingzhen used to participate in some salt smuggling and selling when he was in Shipu, but it was nothing more than a minor incident.

"Will hitting Panpu now scare the snake?"

"My minister thinks that we should take down this Ganpu before Li Yuchun arrives, so that we can have a solid foothold, we can attack and retreat, and we can even use the city of Ganpu as an ambush Let's set up a net for Thief Li's prison city."

Zhang Mingyang also agreed with his brother's suggestion at this time.

They just won another battle, and everyone was very happy. Although this victory seemed insignificant, it was just defeating a group of rogues, but it was not easy to think about it. This was their first victory since they went north.

In particular, this victory indirectly proved that the strategy proposed by Lu Jianguo was feasible, and another point was that the battle last night was really well fought.

They defeated a mob and captured them all, more than 3000 people, but only half of the standard-bearer battalion and some village heroes were dispatched, and none of their soldiers were killed in battle, only a few people were slightly injured, and they were still in the dark. Be careful with sprained feet or bruises.

Such a victory is certainly something to be excited about.

Although Ganpu is a city with a garrison battalion, the defense is even more empty, but it is so rich here.

"Those salt merchants and private salt dealers should have raised a lot of thugs, right?" Zhu Yihai pointed out that the strongest force in Ganpu City is not the garrison that surrendered to the captives, but the private salt dealers. Criminal transactions must be supported by sufficient force.

Among the drug lord gangs in the Golden Triangle, Mexico, Brazil and other drug-infested places in later generations, which one is not strong in force?Even stronger than the local police force.

"Salt dealers are just a group of smugglers after all. Compared with the army, they are insignificant. They are like the underground mice, secretly doing some shady deeds in the dark corners. If they really want to fight openly, they will not fight." It's worth mentioning." Zhang Mingzhen said disdainfully.

At this time, in Jiangnan area, apart from Nanjing and Hangzhou where there were heavy Tartar troops stationed, other places were actually relatively weak, especially in the western Zhejiang area. His recruiting disciples went with him.

Then the envoy met Ma Shiying's brother-in-law Yang Wencong on the way. Although this great talent in the late Ming Dynasty was Ma Shiying's brother-in-law, he was very loyal and brave. A battalion of Guizhou soldiers was given to him.

When the Qing army crossed the river, Zheng Hongkui, the general of Zhenjiang, abandoned the river and fled, but Yang Wencong led his troops to fight several battles. It is a pity that he, the governor and supervisor of the army, did not actually have any actual military power, and the troops were all in the hands of various army leaders. The army leaders fled without a fight, and Yang Wencong finally had to fight and make progress, retreating all the way to the Changsu area.

Encountering Qian Qianyi and Duoduo's emissary going south, Yang Wencong directly led his troops to intercept and kill them halfway.

When Nanjing Duoduo heard the words, he was furious because of this. He followed Qian Qianyi's suggestion and sent Boluo to divide his troops to the south to suppress and plunder Jiangnan by force.

Boluo marched southward at a rapid pace. Along the way, all kinds of defeated soldiers who had withdrawn from Nanjing almost all fled, and the local defenders in Suzhou and Hangzhou even surrendered one after another.

Boluo arrived in Hangzhou almost without bloodshed along the way, and took down Lu Wang, who had just been imprisoned for five days.

It is also because of the rapid southward movement that although the Qing army stationed a large army in Hangzhou, in fact, there were not many soldiers in Changsu, Songjiahu and other places between Nanjing and Hangzhou. Basically, they were the Ming army who surrendered at that time. After being promoted, he was promoted and stayed in place.

For example, Chen Wu, who was beheaded by Zhu Yihai before, was originally a general of Hangjiahu. When the Qing army came, he surrendered immediately, and was appointed as the deputy commander in chief by Boluo.

As a result, this Chen Wu was also a talent. As soon as the former Boluo army left, he went to support Yiyang King and was named the general soldier. Then he worshiped as the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian and went south, but finally died in the hands of Zhu Yihai.

Historically, in June and July, the anti-Qing upsurge broke out in the Wuyue area. On the surface, it was caused by the shaving order, but in fact, it was because the Qing army was only concerned about going south to attack the newly established Lujian Kingdom in Hangzhou. However, there was not much suppression of the garrisons in various places, and there was not enough force to deter the localities. Many soldiers, gentry and officials in the south of the Yangtze River continued to resist the Qing Dynasty, so there was a big uprising triggered by the fuse of the hair-shaving order.

The Qing army later frantically suppressed the rebels in various places, causing more than a dozen massacres in the city.

So what Zhang Mingzhen said is correct. In fact, the Sanwu area from the southeast coast of the Yangtze River to the northeast coast of Hangzhou Bay is now in a special vacuum period.

The regular army of the Ming Dynasty was either defeated or surrendered in the previous King Qin of Nanjing, and fled, or the remaining second and third line troops who stayed behind surrendered directly.

Then the Qing army went directly to Hangzhou, without stationing troops along the way.

As a result, the localities were basically temporarily in a period of no one's control. Many of the false magistrates and counties appointed by the Tartars to surrender were originally low-ranking officials, or even small officials.For example, Hu Zhichen, the false county magistrate of Jiaxing County, when the Tatars passed by, he was just a quack who sold medicine in front of the Tianning Temple in the county. So he was directly awarded the magistrate of Xiushui County in Jiaxing Prefecture by the commander-in-chief.

A quack who sells counterfeit medicine suddenly became a county magistrate, but he has no foundation after all, and if he wants to carry out the order, he naturally has to borrow others, such as recruiting rogues, or even contacting some local big clans and chambers of commerce. , and even cooperate with some underground black forces.

But in this way, it will inevitably lead to chaos.

During this period of time, it was indeed a time when all places were in great chaos. With Daming at first, at least a superficial balance could be maintained. Now this balance has been broken, so all kinds of monsters and monsters have jumped out, and even some secret churches have begun From underground to public.

Take Ganpusuo City for example. On the surface, the former guard official who was promoted to garrison after surrendering to the Tartars was in power, but in fact the power was divided between several major families in Ganpu and the salt gangs.

Li Yuchun was going to Tongxiang to rob all the way, because of his big appetite and greed, he almost robbed all the way, grabbing wherever he went, so the road was delayed for some time, and he still hadn't arrived in Tongxiang for more than ten days.

When he was almost done robbing and was about to arrive in Tongxiang, at this time, the snowflakes of pleading letters from the puppet officials who had surrendered before were sent to him quickly.

At the beginning, there were only sporadic requests for help, and a remnant of the former Ming Dynasty appeared in a certain place under the banner of a volunteer camp in a certain place, but there were more and more letters like this.

There are more and more soldiers and horses in the volunteer camps in the letter.

Five hundred here, a thousand there.

In the end, those puppet officials could only hide in the county towns and towns, and dared not go out.

Anyway, in the end, their rescue letter was very desperate, saying that now these rebels have appeared outside the town, and they are trying to raid the city every night.

They urgently needed the rescue of Li Junmen's soldiers, and asked him to hurry up to suppress the rebels.

Li Yuchun originally wanted to rob Tongxiang before going. Anyway, it was just a little bit of rebellion. Even if they killed those officials, they had half a penny relationship with him, and the ones who died were not his own. It's better to arrange your own people.

But when Boluobeile, the newly appointed Governor Zhang Cunren, and Tian Xiong in Hangzhou all sent people to urge him to quell the chaos, he had no choice but to turn around and go south.

Of course, he still doesn't believe in the nonsense that there are volunteer camps for the remnants of the previous dynasty everywhere.

What a fool, where are there so many township volunteer camps.

(End of this chapter)