I have a cornucopia

Chapter 311: You are a beautiful woman, but you are a thief

When Yang Feng was brutally killing the gentry in Shanxi, Wu Sangui, the highest military and political leader in Shanxi, remained calm...

He doesn't care about the life and death of these gentry.

He brought an army of 50,000 and 300,000 direct subjects to Taiyuan, where they had food and drink and just watched a show.

His strategy was actually the wisest, because even if he divided his troops to defend, these gentry would still find ways to surrender to Yang Feng in the end. He was very clear about this. They had known each other for decades, so who didn't know who? They might even backstab the soldiers he had divided. Even if the gentry didn't dare to do so, the unruly people would. So if he divided his troops, they would be defeated one by one.

Moreover, his direct descendants are all in Taiyuan. Withdrawing them to Taiyuan can ensure internal stability and also concentrate the strongest forces for defense.

He had already stockpiled enough supplies in Taiyuan to last for at least two years.

Moreover, he had transformed Taiyuan into a fortress of iron and steel over the years. The already extremely solid city of Taiyuan had been equipped with a large number of turrets attached to the city walls, hundreds of red cannons of various tonnages, and a large number of imitation weapons such as the Ten Thousand Enemies. He also made as many Molotov cocktails as possible. Although gasoline was not available, Molotov cocktails with traditional fuel could be used. With these favorable conditions, he was confident enough to withstand Yang Feng's attack. As for the combat effectiveness of this evildoer, his servants were not weak either. The wolf pack tactics could also deal with Yang Feng, at least he and the servants themselves thought so.

He was also prepared for Yang Feng's proficiency in using summoned beasts.

He dug three circles of trenches outside the city of Taiyuan, all of which were filled with river water, and he also dug countless traps between the trenches.

He even learned how to use the anti-tank dragon fang without any instruction.

After all, Yang Feng's summoned beasts have long been thoroughly studied by all parties. These steel monsters are indeed powerful. After all, they can even tear down the city walls of Shenyang.

But it seems to be just a huge chariot, so you can treat it as a chariot. A chariot is definitely afraid of trenches, pits, and obstacles, but it is huge and powerful, so it needs wider and deeper trenches, larger and deeper traps, and larger and heavier obstacles.

A chevaux de frise or something like that certainly won't stop it, but a rock stuck under the car can.

So Wu Sangui asked stonemasons to make countless large stones more than half a person's height and then throw them outside the city of Taiyuan. This project is still in progress.

Taiyuan.

"He is trying to learn from Yan Laoxi!"

King Yang watched the spectacular scene outside Taiyuan City with great interest.

There are only large stones here, many of which are half buried in the ground because they have been here for several years.

These large stones, on two circles of stone belts separated by three circles of trenches, surround Taiyuan City like an asteroid belt surrounding a planet. Taiyuan City looks like a thorn ball because of the addition of too many triangular artillery batteries, and some of these triangular artillery batteries are cunningly designed to be lower than the city walls. In this way, they can easily become the main target, but even if the enemy occupies the artillery battery, it will be like committing suicide and becoming a target of the city walls and high artillery batteries, while those attacking the city walls and high artillery batteries can be easily hit by the artillery of the low artillery batteries.

After all, the elevation and depression angles of the artillery were very small at that time, and even if the cannon on the low turret was laid flat, it could be swept across the waist with shotgun shells.

At this time, there were still civilians outside the city dragging large stones on horse-drawn carts, increasing their number in the asteroid belt. Even modern tanks would not be able to get through with this defensive design.

He had reason to believe that there must be a lot of mines buried among these stones.

Wu Sangui's men were all genuine Ming Dynasty soldiers and should be very skilled in the use of landmines.

"If he had been so smart when resisting the Jianlu, why would he have ended up like this?"

King Yang said.

“Your Majesty, he is just too smart, so he would not risk his life for the court. But now he is risking his life for himself, so it is naturally different.”

Fu Shan said.

As for who Yan Laoxi is, there is no need to ask. After all, King Yang often speaks incomprehensible words and gives incomprehensible names.

At this time, the Northern Expedition Army was still in Qi County, because the Taigu gentry had decided to fight to the death.

After all, welcoming the imperial army means death, not welcoming the imperial army also means death, giving silver openly means death, giving silver secretly also means death, so no matter what we do, we will die, so why surrender? Fighting to the death at least gives us a glimmer of hope, but if we don't fight to the death, there is no hope at all, so of course we have to fight to the death. In short, the gentry of Taigu have been shouting that they will fight to the end for the Qing Dynasty, but in fact they are just shouting. While shouting for resistance, those gentry let their children and grandchildren flee with gold and silver.

Of course, running away is useless.

They didn't know that Taigu was surrounded by Northern Expedition cavalry.

Run? Where to run?
The observer on the hot air balloon above held a night vision telescope and used a walkie-talkie to command the cavalry below, intercepting and killing each group that came out. Occasionally, even King Yang's drone would conduct reconnaissance in the sky.

The gentry of Taigu were blessed, as they experienced the treatment on the Liangmao battlefield nearly six hundred years in advance.

All those who fled with gold, silver and jewels were eventually intercepted by King Yang's followers. The gold, silver and jewels became King Yang's, while their children and grandchildren...

They returned to the earth.

Therefore, King Yang, who was happily playing this game, was not in a hurry to attack Taigu, but strolled to Taiyuan to admire Wu Sangui's defense.

Moreover, the anti-traitor teams of the Northern Expedition Army have already split up and headed to Xiaoyi, which was just occupied by Li Guo, and Fenyang, which was occupied by Wang Yongqiang, to carry out anti-traitor operations, or to instruct the two families on how to string together the gentry in these places in the same way. Li Guo was the one who conquered them, while Wang Yongqiang took advantage of the fact that the gentry in Fenyang did not know that Yang Feng was playing the role of the piercing prince, and deceived these guys into welcoming the king's division. After all, he was born in the official army and had some friendship with these gentry. After the two families joined forces, they had to continue to move north. Wenshui and Jiaocheng were waiting for them, and the subsequent reinforcements, Dang Shousu, had already arrived in Pingyang and would soon enter Shanxi. Behind him were Zhang Nai, Ta Tianbao and other generals.

Both of them were originally stationed in Hanzhong to guard against Zhang Xianzhong, but after Li Zicheng's death, they surrendered to the empress. The two sides had in fact become friendly forces, so after the Qing army attacked, Niu Jinxing transferred them back.

Not only them, but also Ma Shiyao and Liu Xiyao in Longyou have retreated...

Niu Jinxing took the opportunity to abandon these places that were useless to their group, and then concentrate back on Guanzhong, which could be said to be their base.

Hanzhong was originally controlled by Ma Qian and other surrendered government troops, and Longyou was also controlled by Sun Shoufa and other surrendered government troops. Li Zicheng transferred them to the southern battlefield and let his own people take over the defense, hoping to gradually remove the control from their hands. But that was the inevitable choice of Li Zicheng as a de facto monarch, but now he is dead, and their group has submitted to the empress, so there is no need for such a thing. Even if these vassal towns need to be dealt with in the future, it will be the empress's business.

Li Zicheng's subordinates don't need to worry about it.

In this case, why bother yourself with trouble? Just withdraw all these and control the Guanzhong base, and prevent the court from destroying the bridge after crossing the river.

Besides, the territories of these direct generals are all in Guanzhong, which are all barracks divided by Li Zicheng according to the camp system. They lead soldiers from their own camps. There is no need for them to fight for the court in these places that have nothing to do with them.

It would be great if we could go to Shanxi together to raid the homes of the Shanxi merchants.

"You are a beautiful lady, but you are a thief!"

King Yang sighed.

Then they turned around and left. Of course, now they were just a few foreign Confucian scholars trying to escape to Taiyuan.

But now Wu Sangui has banned refugees from entering the city, especially Confucian scholars like these. Not only can they not provide help, but they will also waste his food and even have a lot of bad habits. So now at the bridgehead leading to Taiyuan, the defenders prohibit these poor scholars from passing.

So many refugees have gathered here at this moment, most of them are poor scholars with a golden rat tail who are full of the desire to serve the new dynasty. One of the great advantages of our Qing Dynasty is that we have already opened the imperial examination. In fact, we opened the special examination in the second year after arriving in the capital. So compared with the South, which has not yet restored the imperial examination, and Li Zicheng, which has also not restored the imperial examination, our Qing Dynasty is really good, and the poor scholars naturally know which one is better. And because we in our Qing Dynasty must shave our heads and change our clothes to participate in the imperial examination, they all wear golden rat tails. After all, it is worth it to show loyalty to our Qing Dynasty at this price, and then exchange it for an official position and a beating in court.

Isn’t this the ultimate dream of poor scholars? As long as they can sit in the court and be beaten with a stick, shaving their heads and changing their clothes means nothing.

And they are also most afraid of the Northern Expedition Army.

Because in the Empress's edict, the civilians in the Qing Dynasty were innocent, or those who did not receive the salary of the Ming Dynasty had no obligation to die for the Ming Dynasty, but those who received the salary of the Ming Dynasty, no matter how, including those who were exempted from taxation in the imperial examinations and from corvée, were all considered to receive the salary of the Ming Dynasty. After all, tax exemption was equivalent to a gift from the Ming Emperor, and those who were on government stipends were even more so, all of them were paid by the Ming Dynasty and had the obligation to be loyal to the Ming Dynasty.

Anyone who surrenders to the Qing Dynasty is committing a crime.

However, they can be dealt with according to the crime at their discretion. After all, the prefect, county magistrate and minor clerk cannot be treated the same. But as long as someone shaves his head and changes his clothes, his entire clan can only be exterminated.

After all, this is not just a betrayal of the emperor, but also a betrayal of ancestors, which is disloyalty and unfilial.

"Wu Sangui, you traitor, you are disloyal, you are unfilial, you are unjust, you are unjust, you are unkind, you are disloyal, unfilial, unkind, and unjust traitor!"

A poor scholar who had just been beaten by the defenders because he had no money to cross the bridge was howling towards the city of Taiyuan in a state of collapse.

"Well, although what he said was right, but with the money rat's tail on his head, he still scolded Old Wu so confidently, isn't it a bit too much?"

Yang Feng said.

Fu Shan also looked embarrassed.

After all, he was ashamed that the Confucian scholars in his hometown were of such character. However, he was also glad that he had these people, especially since he had brought many Confucian scholars from Shanxi who refused to shave their heads and change their clothes to the south in recent years. Otherwise, the cultural heritage of Shanxi would have been destroyed this time.

Of course, several soldiers came over and beat the poor scholar violently.

Amid his screams, King Yang quietly left.

Taigu.

To be precise, it was the liberated Taigu.

"You dogs, you eat my food, you drink my water, how dare you...

An old villager who was being dragged by the mob was struggling and howling on the ground.

There was no need for Yang Feng to attack here at all. Before the Northern Expedition Army arrived, the young and strong militia in the city mutinied, tied up local officials and gentry, opened the city gates and came out to welcome the royal army. After all, in the current situation, who would follow these gentry to resist?

As he was howling, a young man rushed up and slapped him in the face.

The local wise man was completely stunned.

"Eat your food, drink your food? I ran around for you last year and earned tens of thousands of taels of silver, but you only paid me a few dozen taels of silver. Is this what you call eating your food, drink your food? I earned money for you with my blood and sweat, and I don't owe you anything. But you still owe me my hard-earned money. Today I want to take back what I deserve."

The young man, with the anger of a working dog, kicked him in the chest again.

The old fellow was obviously broken.

"You bastard, if I didn't give you a job, you wouldn't even have food to eat!"

His lips trembled as he growled.

"Then why don't you tell me? If you hadn't traded with the Jianlu in the past and sold them grain, you wouldn't have your wealth today? Working for me? That's because you can't find anyone else willing to work for you. If you're caught by the imperial court, I'll kill you."

The young man sneered.

"His Royal Highness Prince Qi has arrived!"

Shouts rang out amid the chaos in the street, and everyone stopped and looked at King Yang as he entered the city.

It was just that the tractor could not get in, so King Yang changed his vehicle, which had become an ordinary off-road vehicle with a sunroof, so King Yang showed his upper body through the sunroof, surrounded by cavalry guards, and still wore the dragon robe of a vassal king...

The vassal kings of different surnames would of course wear dragon robes.

However, in reality, there is almost no difference between them and the princes of the royal family. They are all dragon robes, but one has a dragon and the other has a python. But if you don't look closely, you can't tell them apart. This is the current revised system. As for the county prince's robe, it is the same as the imperial family county prince's, with a dragon instead of a python, but the crown is the same, with the same number of tassels and emblems. After all, there are already many kings of different surnames now, so there must be a distinction. The crown can only be worn a few times in a lifetime, but the daily clothes must be distinguished.

"what happened?"

King Yang shouted.

The young man immediately stepped forward and knelt down.

"Your Majesty, I am willing to turn myself in to you and report that this old villain has been colluding with the Jianlu since the Wanli Dynasty. He has been smuggling grain to the Jianlu every year despite the imperial ban. I have been employed by him since the Chongzhen Dynasty to run trade with the Jianlu in Liaodong.

After the Jianlu entered the pass, he was named the Imperial Merchant, specializing in purchasing for the Jianlu. "

He said.

"The first person to accuse you of being innocent, the second person to accomplice will be fined. Tell Governor Fu everything you know, and drag this old man outside to string him up!"

King Yang shouted.

This situation is common and there is no need to waste his time.

Then his car moved straight forward.

The attendant driving the car was wearing white gloves and continued to drive forward in the carnival-like Taigu City...

(End of this chapter)