Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Chapter 180: Clan annihilation or forbearance

After dealing with the young and strong captives, Chen Gu led everyone into the government office.

The government office was the site of the final battle. Although the Tang and Jiang families surrendered quickly, the government office still suffered some damage. However, it was generally intact, mainly because the logistics battalion did not use fire attack, but only relied on detonators and rifles to make the other side surrender.

"How many people have we arrested together, including the Tang and Jiang families and the officials from Zizhou?" Chen Gu asked first after entering the lobby of the government office.

Several generals looked at each other, and You Sanlang said, "There are nearly 10,000 people in the Tang and Jiang mansions, and nearly 1,000 people in the government office. More than 80% are the elderly, women and children, and less than 20% are young and strong. Many of them died on the city wall, and some died again after retreating to the government office!"

Chen Gu thought for a moment and said, "Drive them all out of the city first, let the young men build bamboo houses to live in, and the strong women will be responsible for cooking and washing for our army, and supply them with 30,000 kilograms of food every day.

As for the specific details, let Bai Wencheng and others handle it, but these people are not allowed to serve as officials no matter what.

How much was seized?" Chen Gu asked.

"A lot!" This time, Xing Honghai responded first: "I checked the arsenal. There are a lot of sulfur, saltpeter, and lead bullets stored in it. It is enough for our army to use for a long time. In addition, there are also a lot of swords, spears, halberds, cloth armor, and armor."

Chen Gu nodded and said, "When the young and strong tenants come back, we will arm them with the things in the arsenal. We need these people to help us rule Zizhou. What about the other warehouses?"

Feng Yuanqiao said excitedly: "I explored the granary. The grain inside was piled up like a mountain. There are at least a million dan. The exact amount, uh, I didn't count it carefully!"

One load of grain weighs one hundred kilograms, which means one hundred million kilograms of grain. In fact, it is not a lot. After all, there are more than 100,000 people in Zizhou City, and so many tenants have been mobilized in. Each person only has three or four hundred kilograms of grain.

Zizhou is well prepared to hold on for a long time!
But now all of this has benefited Chen Gu. With these grains, Chen Gu's army no longer has to worry about food shortages, and there is no need to transport grain from Luzhou.

Before Chen Jue could ask, Jiang Zhenghai said, "I checked the treasury. There were hundreds of boxes of copper coins inside, but they were not valuable, probably only tens of thousands of taels of silver. There was also a small box of silver, totaling only more than two thousand taels."

The imperial treasury certainly had little money, and Chen Ju originally had little hope for the treasury. The bulk of the money was in the private vaults of the two mansions.

We have to wait until the two families are driven out before we can search them, because there are many elderly, weak, women and children inside, so we can only surround them but not attack.

However, it would take some effort to search for it. After all, the gold and silver are not large in size and are likely to be hidden in a covert place. Even if we can find out the hiding place through interrogation, it may not be all of it.

Chen Gu was too lazy to torture him, and let Sanlang and Lanluhu look for him first. Originally, everyone was born in the mountain village, and although they had never done any robbery, they had actually imagined the scene of house raiding countless times in their minds, and this time was a good opportunity for everyone to try their hand.

Bai Wencheng and others quickly entered the city and arrived at the government office. Chen Gu completely handed over the government affairs to them, and personally led the army to the gate of the Tang family mansion.

Chen Gu nodded to the roadblock.

The roadblock immediately stepped forward and shouted at the top of his voice: "Listen, people from the Tang family, go out slowly in groups of one family, and then gather outside the city. Open the gate quickly and come out, otherwise I will set fire to you in a moment!" There was a burst of noise inside.

Then the door slowly opened, and an old man came out tremblingly, supported by several young men. The old man had a bitter look on his face. After looking at the situation outside the door, he walked down the steps tremblingly and knelt down in front of Chen Gu with a plop.

"I am an old man who is ignorant and has offended the Heavenly Army. I deserve death. I dare to ask the leader to spare the lives of all the women and children of the Tang family. In my next life, I will repay the leader for his kindness!"

"If I had known this earlier, why would I have done it in the first place?" Chen Gu sighed and said, "My Huaxia army never kills innocent people. As long as they cooperate, our army usually only takes a small amount of what they need. The Qi family in Luzhou surrendered in time, and I let them leave. You should all know these things.

Unfortunately, it is too late to regret now. But as I said before, our army never kills innocent people indiscriminately, and will never kill the elderly, the weak, women and children at will. Since you have surrendered, we will naturally give you a way to live.

You can be exempted from the death penalty, but you still have to pay the penalty for living. Not punishing is not enough to deter disobedience. You can each take two sets of clothes and leave the city, and build a bamboo house to live in. Your Tang family will be supplied with 15,000 kilograms of food every day.

Afterwards, the government will allocate land to you, or assign you a job. Of course, you will no longer have the comfortable life you had before, but as long as you are willing to work, you should have no problem surviving.

I advise you that you'd better behave yourself for the time being, otherwise your clan may be wiped out. Just wait patiently. If it is me, Chen Gu, who finally seizes the world, then everything will be over for you, the Tang family of Zizhou. Just be law-abiding and live your hard life.

If the world is still ruled by the Qing Dynasty in the end, then your Tang family in Zizhou may still have a chance to turn things around. How will the world turn out in the end? Until the dust settles, who knows what the final trend will be?"

Chen Gu's words gave the old man peace of mind. At least he would not die for the time being. As long as he was alive, there was hope. Although the Tang family had no power to resist Chen Gu, Chen Gu still did not have the upper hand in front of the court.

Therefore, the Tang family is not completely without any chance.

The two families in Zizhou wanted to defend the city, but they had no choice, because there were more than a dozen sons in each family serving as officials in Beijing. If the two families surrendered without a fight, their sons who were officials would definitely be implicated.

In addition, Fu Cha Mingliang had already sent out troops, and the two families were powerful themselves, so they thought they had a chance to hold out until Fu Cha Mingliang entered Sichuan to rescue. However, who knew that they could not hold out for even a day and the city was broken.

As a result, the two surnames were in danger of being exterminated. Now that Chen Jue did not kill them for the time being, it was already the best outcome. Think about how many big families were massacred when Zhang Xianzhong and the Qing army entered Sichuan, resulting in nine out of ten households in Sichuan being left empty.

If the imperial court can achieve the final victory, with the help of their sons who are officials in their families, it should not be difficult for the two families to restore their original strength by then relying on the battle to defend the city.

Therefore, being able to survive at this time is a very good result. There is always hope, right?

Later, Chen Gu of the Jiang family said the same thing, and both families cooperated and moved out of the city. Chen Gu also kept his promise and supplied them with food as soon as possible.

(End of this chapter)