The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Chapter 40: People are divided, the mantis stalks the cicada

The red lady is also tempted.

But since she was a child, she has traveled around the world with juggling troupes. Over the past ten years, she has met many people like Zhang Dezhao and knows what their virtues are.

In order to make money, they can collect grain and raise the price of grain dozens of times, and watch many villagers starving to death. Why do they still care about a mere oath?

"Bah!" She spat, glared at Zhang Dezhao and said: "You are so heartless, how can I believe your nonsense?!"

When the rest of the people heard what the Red Lady said, most of them came to their senses - they couldn't believe Zhang Dezhao's words.

Seeing that the red lady was not tempted, Zhang Dezhao was very anxious and asked: "Then what does the heroine want? Tell me, as long as the Zhang family can do it, I will definitely do it!"

He was really afraid of death and wanted to live.

After all, in the past few years, the Zhang family had spent less than [-]% of the money they had earned by selling grain during the great famine.

The red lady ignored Zhang Dezhao because she heard the sound of horse hooves coming from outside the house...
Liu Sheng also heard the sound of horse hooves. He turned around and saw dozens of bandits riding mules and horses rushing into the town. A little further away, a large group of bandits were running over.

Some townspeople who originally dared to watch the excitement outside were suddenly frightened and fled in panic.

Businesses on the street quickly locked their doors and windows.

However, the bandits came straight to the Zhang family and did not break into other wealthy homes or shops for a while.

Liu Sheng turned around and continued to stare at the stage.

He had expected the arrival of the bandits, but in comparison, he was more surprised by the bandit leader known as the "Red Lady".

There were stories about red ladies in the late Ming Dynasty novels he had read before traveling through time, but most of them appeared together with Li Yan, the Chuangshun military advisor, and she was Li Yan's concubine.

There is no record of the Red Lady in the official history. It is only mentioned in some unofficial histories and notes that the Red Lady seems to have been a rope artist. Unable to be oppressed by the government, she started a righteous cause in Jigong Mountain in Xinyang Prefecture (south of Queshan County).

Later, for some reason, she met Li Yan in Qixian County, Kaifeng Prefecture, and eventually she took Li Yan to join the cause of justice and became Li Yan's concubine.

Li Yan then pulled the Red Lady's peasant army into Li Zicheng's command.

If the relevant unofficial history notes are true, it is very likely that the matchmaker in the 13th year of Chongzhen's reign was not long after her righteous deeds.

However, Liu Sheng did not easily develop a favorable impression of the Red Lady because she was a historical figure he knew - the historical truth is mostly buried in the dust, and it is difficult for future generations to distinguish the true from the false.

So it’s hard to say whether the female gangster Red Lady is good or evil.

After all, there are some notorious female gangsters in history.

But what the red lady did next made Liu Sheng look at her with admiration.

She first asked the team from outside the town to join Zhang's house, and then took Zhang Dezhao and Zhang Debiao hostage and threatened the archers of the Inspection Department to throw away their weapons and take off their cloth armor.

There are not many people in the Red Lady.

There were thirty or forty people riding mules and horses, mostly capable and young men, holding knives and guns, some carrying bows, and wearing leather or cloth armor. They were obviously the elite of her team.

There were more than 200 bandits who came over later, and most of them were young and strong, but most of them looked thin and no better than the young and strong among the refugees.Moreover, a few of them looked like teenagers, and there were even twenty or thirty women wearing man buns.

Only half of these people were armed with serious swords and guns, and most of the rest were armed with long-handled agricultural tools such as hoes, iron rakes, and drill poles. The twenty or thirty women were even armed with bamboo spears.

There were one or two hundred archers from the inspection department gathered at Zhang's house. After they threw away their weapons, cloth armor, and shields, the bandits holding farm tools under the Red Lady immediately went to change their equipment happily.

The twenty or thirty women seemed to want to change their equipment, but the red lady only had dozens of short knives selected for them, and she still let them hold the bamboo spears that were about ten feet long.

Then the red lady asked Zhang Dezhao where the grain was stored.

Zhang Dezhao and Zhang Debiao were both greedy for life and afraid of death, and they were also afraid of pain. The two of them did it before the red lady used any means.

After asking, the red lady immediately summoned several of her subordinates to give instructions one by one.

She said to the middle-aged man who was pretending to be a juggler together: "Uncle Yan, you lead 100 people and let the Zhang family steward lead the way to load the grain from the warehouse into the truck.

Ask the Zhang family to find more large carts. Each cart should not contain too much food, preferably no more than five dan. "

"Understood!" The middle-aged man responded and went to "step" to order someone.

The red lady then said to the woman who was leading the twenty or thirty women: "Sister-in-law Lai, you are leading the female team to trick the Zhang family on the stage. If anyone disobeys, we will kill them. Don't be soft-hearted!"

Sister-in-law Lai nodded, "I know."

She then said to the big man who was leading the riders: "Brother Yang, take someone to tie up those archers to prevent them from causing trouble later." The big man nodded, and led the elite bandits to the people who were blocked in the courtyard. More than 100 archers pressed forward.

Some of the archers were so scared that they stayed where they were and surrendered; but some of the archers either climbed over the wall or went to other courtyards in an attempt to escape.

The big man named Yang will lead people to chase him when he sees him.

The red lady quickly shouted to stop, "Brother Yang, don't chase! Those people just ran away. It's important for us to keep an eye on this compound!"

The big man surnamed Yang stabbed the archer in front of him to death with one shot, then called the others to come back and tied up the remaining archers who did not dare to escape.

In fact, there were more than 200 archers in the Minggang Inspection Department, but after learning that Zhang Dezhao and Zhang Debiao had been kidnapped by bandits, less than [-] archers came to rescue them.Now there are dozens of people who have escaped, and only about a hundred people have been tied up by the bandits.

Finally, the matchmaker said to a lean man: "Brother Wen, take dozens of people to the Zhangjia Silver Cellar to get some gold and silver, and then go to the town's carriage and horse shop to buy all the carriages and horses.

After that, he went to the drug store to spend money to urge them to buy a hundred medicinal materials for treating typhoid fever, and by the way, they also bought medicine for treating typhoid fever and medicine for treating summer heat.

Then go to the cloth store to buy cloth, buy as much linen as possible, and load two or three carts each of thick cotton and silk.

Finally, I went to the blacksmith shop in the town and bought swords, farm tools and other weapons that could be used! "

Fourth Brother Wen said nothing, nodded and left to find dozens of loyal and honest "foot soldiers".

The big man surnamed Yang couldn't help but said: "Why should the boss go to such trouble? Few of the shopkeepers and shopkeepers are good people. Besides, we have all rebelled and become thieves. Wouldn't it be convenient to just grab whatever we want?"

The red lady said: "It's convenient to rob, but they won't resist? If they resist, it will waste time. How many manpower do we have to deal with them?"

The big man named Yang frowned and said, "You have to listen to me and bring all the people here. Where will there be a shortage of people?"

"Yang Heqing!" The red lady glared at the big man named Yang and called him by his first name, "Can we restrain so many people? You still want to do it like the time in Xingji, destroying the entire Minggang and killing many innocent people Are you happy?!"

Yang Heqing was silent for a while.

But looking at his expression, it was obvious that he was still dissatisfied.

Liu Sheng hid on the roof and couldn't help but shake his head when he saw this scene.

The red lady's team is still facing many crises internally, and some of her subordinates are already not on the same page as her.Even if you are lucky enough to survive today, trouble will inevitably occur in the future.

However, Liu Sheng felt that if the Red Lady had no other preparations but greedily wanted to take away a lot of food, cloth and other materials from Minggang Town, she would be seeking death.

Although Liu Xicai's team, Liu Sheng, had only seen a few dozen people outside the Refugee Valley, he could tell that there was something unusual. After all, they were bandits who had been surrendered by the government, and their combat effectiveness should not be bad.

In the Ming Dynasty, the general who recruited soldiers was restricted to having 440 soldiers under his command, but this regulation certainly could not be applied to the late Ming Dynasty.Therefore, Liu Xicai may only have two or three hundred people under his command, but he may also have thousands of people.

If there were two hundred soldiers like those from outside the Refugee Valley, it would be difficult for Red Lady's team to leave.

Seeing this, Liu Sheng was about to go back, but found someone on the other side of the yard standing on the roof to peek at the Red Lady and others.

'Are they just ordinary thieves who want to fish in troubled waters, or are they people from third-party forces? '

With this thought in his mind, Liu Sheng sneaked over, preparing to find out the details of this person.

The man watched for a while, then quietly got off the roof, left the Zhang family mansion, and got into the alley of the nearby buildings.

The alleyways in Minggang Town were not complicated, and Liu Sheng could easily follow this man.

After not following him very far, he saw this man entering the large house behind Fan's Bank.

'It's actually Fan Yongcheng's person? '

Liu Sheng was a little surprised.

Then he noticed that there was a group of people patrolling outside the Fan family's mansion, looking heavily guarded.

Liu Sheng took a look and intuitively told him that this team was more effective than the archers of the Inspection Department.

But the more heavily guarded the Fan family became, the more he wanted to peep.

So I found a two-story building a little further away, climbed to the roof, and took out a telescope to observe the Fan family mansion.

After seeing clearly what was going on inside, Liu Sheng couldn't help but shrink his pupils.

There are hundreds of officers and soldiers hiding in this Fan family mansion!
　Thanks to [Book Friends 2021***6907] for the 200 starting point reward!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)