Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Chapter 169 The Great Escape
The evacuation of the Qi family directly led to the evacuation of all the major clans in Luzhou. After seeing that Chen Gu kept his promise and did not attack the Qi family, even the officials in Luzhou city ran away.

There was no way but to run away, he really couldn't win. Chen Gu's previous battle record was already appalling, and this time the battle with the imperial elite outside the city of Luzhou further proved Chen Gu's strength.

Now that even the Qi family has run away, why are they still staying?
Chen the Executor did not even spare the small landlords. If these officials and big landlords stayed, their fate would be even worse. It was rare that the Qi family was willing to give up their property in exchange for a way of survival, allowing them to escape through this way. If they did not run away, they would probably have no chance.

These people wanted to escape, and Chen Gu did not stop them at all. After all, no matter what you do, you must be clear about your purpose.

Chen Gu's goal was to distribute land equally, win over the people, and cultivate his own base. Killing people and confiscating property were just means.

Since we can achieve our goal more easily, why do we have to fight and kill?
There are only about 200 to 300 million people in the country now. It seems like a lot on the surface, but compared with the more than one billion people in later generations, it is not a lot at all.

In the absence of exploitation by corrupt officials, the existing land is sufficient to feed so many people, and population is productivity. Moreover, industrialization will gradually take place in the future. Even if it is semi-industrialization, it will require a large number of people to leave agriculture and go to work in factories and mines.

So, it would be good if we could kill fewer people.

After the Qi family left, Chen Gu immediately led his troops to occupy the Qi family. Most of the gold, silver, silk and other valuables were taken away by the Qi family, and the cattle and horses were not spared. However, they could not take away a large amount of food, pigs, sheep, and wood.

They couldn't take away things like houses and furniture. Compared to taking them by force, this kind of occupation after negotiation was actually a very cost-effective deal for both parties.

The Qi family will not lose any lives and can take away the most valuable things, and Chen Gu will also be able to obtain a complete Qijia Village and the much-needed food, meat and other supplies.

Afterwards, Chen Gu left the obstacle to guard Qijiazhuang, and went to take over Luzhou City in person. At the same time, he sent people to bring back Bai Wencheng and others, preparing to issue a notice to reassure the people and then announce the equal distribution of land.

Of course, the first thing is to recruit sufficient staff for each department.

Upon learning that Chen Gu had captured Qijiazhuang, officials at all levels in Luzhou City fled on a large scale. After Luzhou City was also captured by Chen Gu, Bai Wencheng and others rushed back to Luzhou City as soon as possible.

Even Zheng Ming hurried back. When he saw Chen Gu, he said hastily: "Leader, you are a little too hasty. We are extremely short of manpower now. Taking over Luzhou City too quickly will easily cause large-scale chaos!"

"It was an accident. Who knew that the evacuation of the Qi family would lead to the escape of officials in Luzhou City? Let's do this." Chen Ju looked at the people of the ten major clans in Jiangjin County and said, "You should write a letter back to Jiangjin immediately and ask Jiangjin County to send some support personnel.

At the same time, an announcement was issued to publicly recruit scholars. As long as one could find ten neighbors to act as guarantors and prove that the person was a good person, he could apply to various departments. After passing the assessment, he could become an official!

What do you think? "

Everyone nodded. This was an emergency measure. As for whether the applicants were qualified, they could observe them later.

In fact, ordinary people are not much different from sheep in some aspects. Being managed by someone and being managed by no one are two completely different states. Even a court where corruption is rampant is actually better than having no management at all.

In particular, human desires must not be indulged. If the strong are allowed to prey on the weak, many cruel things will definitely happen. In order to appease the people, Chen even split the army into groups of ten and dispatched them to various places to maintain public order. If there were acts of smashing, stealing walls, bullying, etc., they could be directly treated as thugs and killed without mercy according to the situation at the time.

Zheng Ming also immediately dispatched people from the watershed to various villages and towns to maintain basic stability.

For this purpose, Chen Gu specially distributed to each person in the watershed a piece of white cloth with the seal of the prefect of Luzhou on it. This was considered a certificate. With this white cloth certificate, he could mobilize soldiers to help suppress the rioters.

After the officials of the Qi family and Luzhou city escaped, the core members and high-ranking officials took the gold and silver and left by boat first. However, since there were too many of them, nearly a thousand people, most of them had to go down the river by land.

In fact, there were not many ships in Luzhou at that time. Before Chen Gu came, all the ships went to the upper reaches of Tuojiang River and hid.

The large families who fled afterwards had no boats to take. Fortunately, Chen Gu did not send anyone to pursue them, so they boldly used ox-horse carts to pull their belongings and followed the Qi family to flee.

The total number of people was actually two to three thousand, and the team was marching in a mighty manner along the way. However, after only walking for half a day, they actually met Lao Piao and Yunhua and others who were returning to Luzhou with their troops.

Lao Piao was also surprised to see so many people traveling in a mighty procession with ox-drawn and horse-drawn carts.

Two days ago, Lao Piao was responsible for leading the team to Hejiang to intercept the imperial navy in the Chishui River. After rushing, he first met Zhou Shi who led the archery battalion and Jiang Zhenghai who led the spear battalion halfway.

Then he asked the two to turn around and go back to Hejiang, while he led the main battalion and Yunhua's special company and rushed all the way. Finally, he intercepted the imperial navy in the Chishui River.

But compared to the narrow Naxi River, the Chishui River is not only wider, but also has a longer navigable basin. The imperial navy also has more strategic depth. If they can't defeat the enemy, won't they just run away?
The Chishui River has a navigable waterway of nearly a hundred miles, making it impossible for Lao Piao to stop the imperial navy.

Of course, if they really fought to the death, they would definitely be able to wipe out the two or three hundred naval forces in the Chishui River, but in doing so, their own losses would certainly be huge. After all, although the Chishui River navy was not the main force and did not have red cannons, they still had quite a few small cannons weighing over a hundred pounds.

Lao Piao had no choice but to dig trenches and build a camp at the river mouth and set up camp there, hoping to wait for the Green Camp Army and Yuanbao to join forces.

Yuanbao's mission is to take snipers to chase the navy's two flying dragon ships.

Originally, Chen Gu's guess was that no matter whether the two flying dragon ships of the navy entered the Tuojiang River and went upstream to Fushun County and then to Changlong, or went down the river to Yongchuan and then to Chongqing, they would definitely need to dock to rest and replenish some supplies first.

After all, the two Flying Dragon ships were warships and could not carry too many daily necessities. And with more than a hundred Eight Banners soldiers suddenly appearing, there would definitely not be enough food and fodder.

Who would have thought that they didn't even consider the issue of food and fodder, or maybe they were really scared of Chen Gu's attack, the two Flying Dragon boats actually went downstream without stopping.

This made Yuanbao want to vomit blood. He chased him as far as Hejiang but still hadn't caught up. He could see that the distance between the two sides was getting closer, but he just couldn't catch up.

(End of this chapter)