Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1188 Markets
Seeing everyone happily playing with the sharp weapon in their hands, Lu Zeyang secretly rejoiced: When you use it, you will know the pros and cons of this thing: it is easy to use, but it can’t make ammunition——This flash cap was once sold to a British smuggler. One tael of silver for the Taiping Army.

It's the end of the Ming Dynasty now, and the military leaders are not as rich as the Taiping Army, so it's okay to sell them for ten or twenty for one tael of silver.Lu Zeyang thought.

Lu Zeyang finally came out of the city after clapping his shoulders and holding his fists falsely, and his brothers flying around.Sun Yuanhua knew that he was the owner of Lu Zhuang and had made great contributions to Laizhou, so he specially invited him to come over, praised him a lot, and said that as long as he could use his strength, he would definitely ask for credit for them.Then the two talked about the specific joint contact in the future.Lu Zeyang also roughly talked with Sun Yuanhua about the situation he had mastered, especially when it came to the fact that the rebel army's future movements were likely to turn to Qixia and Pingdu.

Lu Zeyang was a little disappointed. He also felt that he had grasped a huge intelligence clue and was going to sell Sun Yuanhua a favor. He didn't expect that his intelligence grasp and analysis ability was not low.

Although Sun Yuanhua's own safety is still unpredictable, he still attaches great importance to firearms, and asked him to tell the owner of the deer that it would be best if he could transport more Australian bird guns.Except for Zhang Tao, there will be demands from troops coming to Lu from all over the country.This is a great deal to do.

Lu Zeyang agreed one by one.Early the next morning, Zhang Tao's men took over the defense of Nanguan Guanxiang. Lu Zeyang withdrew his men in a mighty way. When he left, the team swelled to 600 people, all of whom were captives and locals who were willing to follow. common people.Fan Twelve of Nanguan Guanxiang brand also took the whole family into a small car and followed without hesitation.

Lu Zeyang's troops passed through the rebel camp without any surprise. The rebel generals outside the Nanguan Pass had long been familiar with him. And to be an "officer and soldier", it is always right to have a good relationship with this Chief Lu Tuan.So when I saw them pass by, I saw them off with smiles on their faces.

Lu Zeyang led the team slowly towards Zhaoyuan.His team flew the big "Qi Mu" banner, and no one dared to provoke him on the ground of Dongsan Mansion.

Zhaoyuan is very close to Longkou Bay. Out of careful consideration, the Northward Detachment has only occupied a part of the coastal area of ​​Zhaoyuan and built several fortresses, forming a situation that echoes Qimu Island.

These so-called fortresses are large villages and towns surrounded by a trench surrounded by a few simple bastions or even artillery towers. He was afraid of the banner of "Qimu Island", and did not dare to gather a large number of people to attack—once such a thing happened, the revenge would come quickly and severely.After annihilating a group of rebels who tried to take action, no one dared to launch hostile actions against these fortresses flying the "Qimu" flag.

Zhaoyuan County is located in the west of Jiaodong Hills, with complex and fragmented terrain, interlaced distribution of hills and valleys.The terrain in the northeast is high and steep, mainly composed of granite and granite gneiss. The ridges are jagged, majestic and straight. The mountains extend from northeast to southwest, slanting through the county.The hills are below 400 meters above sea level, with gentle ups and downs, presenting a wavy denuded plain with shallow hills and wide valleys.This place has never been a prosperous place. In addition to rich mineral resources, the agricultural products are mainly fruits and miscellaneous grains-the main production area of ​​Longkou vermicelli is here, and vermicelli has always been the product of miscellaneous grains.Until the 21st century, the county with an area of ​​more than 1000 square kilometers had a population of only 56.

The population of this time and space is even sparser, and it is a barren and barren land.Therefore, the footprints of the rebels rarely involve this place.The damage here is relatively small.Zhu Mingxia and Lu Wenyuan also had this consideration in their decision to occupy Zhaoyuan—Qimu Island was too small as a base and could only transport refugees.And expanding the territory outside the island can easily make one's own goals larger.Qimu Island is only a few tens of miles away from Huang County, and it is very close to Dengzhou, an important coastal defense city, on the sea.Sustaining a strong base here is easily noticeable.It's better to stay in Zhaoyuan, a hilly area, to feel at ease, and there is gold in Zhaoyuan-of course, this development is a later story.

The place Lu Zeyang is going to is the Xinzhuang area in Zhaoyuan, which is backed by the Bohai Bay and echoes the Qimu Island in Longkou.The main fortress of the Northward Detachment in Zhaoyuan was built in Xinzhuang.With this main fort as the core, seven or eight branch fortresses spread out, controlling more than dozens of square kilometers of land.

The managers and militia commanders of these fortresses were soldiers from the northbound detachment.Zhu Mingxia felt that the regular armed forces sent to Zhaoyuan had been diluted too much. Although Zhaoyuan had thousands of bravery in its accounts, these bravery would not be of much use in case of emergencies, and reinforcements had to be mobilized from Longkou. Lv Zeyang's troops were transferred to Zhaoyuan - by the way, there was an old man in charge.

This place is now the reservoir of the Beishang Detachment. All refugees who cannot be evacuated during the summer break will be sent to the Zhaoyuan area for "hoarding" - since most ships have stopped sailing, there are currently only a few special transport boats Between Shandong and Jeju Island, refugees are transported on a small scale.These ships are well armed to protect themselves.

"I don't know if the fans in Zhaoyuan are delicious." Lu Yuan was riding on his horse, thinking about this question.

Huang Ande took Zhu Si and Cao Qing outside Huangxian City. Huang Ande and his brothers in the city all escaped after the fall of Dengzhou after hiding for a period of time.After staying on Qimu Island for half a month, he was incorporated into the reconnaissance team.

Huang Ande not only won a military medal, which means that he is one step closer to the rank of lieutenant.

In the first days, being a reconnaissance team was a matter of carrying the head on the waistband of the trousers, and reconnaissance on foot was extremely dangerous-almost all the rebels were rangers, and once they were found, they would die-the rebels saw suspicious men directly. Beheaded.Less risky horseback reconnaissance:.Their weapons are good, and their horses are well-bred, but the casualties of scouts in such a cat-and-mouse game are not small.One of Huang Ande's brothers was killed during the investigation - he died before he could see the beautiful scenery of Lingao that Huang Ande had bragged about.

With the development of the situation, after the tacit understanding of "not attacking each other" was established between the rebels and Lu Wenyuan, the actions of the scouts gradually became less dangerous.

But today they are not performing reconnaissance missions.It's for business.They all wore armbands as markers of safe passage.Huang County is now almost the stronghold of the rebels, and there are small groups of rebels on the roads. If there is no such agreed armband, they may be killed and captured on the road.

The so-called business is to obtain population by trading with the rebels - the rebels often take men, women and children from whole villages and villages. Except for some young adults who are used as cannon fodder, women and children are often reduced to commodities. Buying and selling among soldiers and generals.Not only in Huang County, but also in Dengzhou and Laizhou.

A few miles outside the city of Huang County has formed a considerable "bazaar".

This place used to be a big stockade, quite a bustling and prosperous place.Since the stockade was destroyed by the rebels, there are only many ruins left.Because there is a moat outside the stockade, the rebels used it as a human circle, and the captured people were directly sent here to be imprisoned, and then sold for a price.

Thousands of people were crammed into the ruins without a single tile.There is a well in the village, drinking water is barely enough, but the food depends entirely on the mood of the guards and their own supply. When it is good, you can throw in some dark, hard buns that don’t know what to make. When it was bad, they were not given anything to eat for several days.

Fortunately, maybe after ten days and a half months, they will be bought by someone for sexual pleasure or assigned to the young men's team as cannon fodder.Those who are unlucky can only suffer slowly in this living hell.

Thousands of people crowded together, exposed to the sun and rain, eating and drinking abnormally, and the epidemic immediately spread, especially after the third month of the lunar calendar, hundreds of corpses were dragged outside every day, but the rebels didn't care, because New refugees are being sent in a steady stream everywhere-there will never be a shortage of supplies.Some soldiers will get tired of playing with the women they bought, and then send them back here to sell and buy fresh "goods".

In addition to the population, a large amount of goods were plundered from looting. Although countless goods were obtained from plundering, soldiers were moving around and could not carry heavy belongings. They all wanted to exchange them for gold and silver jewelry and other soft things.Plenty of goodies are sold here at ridiculously cheap prices.

It was when Lu Wenyuan discovered such "markets" in Huangxian, Laizhou and other places that he came up with the idea of ​​doing business with the rebels.

And Kong Youde also discovered Lu Wenyuan's strong interest in population. The rebels were suffering from food shortages and urgently needed to supplement food.The deer farm owner seemed to have plenty of food—since he couldn't be robbed, doing business with him was a suitable choice.Therefore, someone was specially sent to propose: exchange population for food, the two sides hit it off immediately and reached a verbal agreement immediately.

According to this agreement, Lu Wenyuan sent several "family servants" to Huang County every week to "see the goods".The price for adult men and women is 5000 grams of grain, for young children, 2500 grams, and for the elderly, 1000 grams.This "grain" can be any grain or dried potato that has not been shelled, or it can be a "paper-wrapped grain brick".If the owner of the deer chooses "potatoes" as payment, the price will be doubled-after all, potatoes are fresh products, and there is a problem of moisture content.

The conditions were very harsh, but for Kong Youde, this was the top priority to solve the food problem. The army was unstable without food, and nothing could be done without food.If the captured refugees can be exchanged for food, it is equivalent to opening a new food source.

(End of this chapter)