I

  Chapter 256 254【The Discredited Datong Army】

  Fei Ruhe looked at the corpse on the ground with complicated emotions.

  Shen Youlong, who blocked him for two months in Longchuan County, committed suicide very simply. On the contrary, Shi Wangzheng, the deputy commander in chief, fled quickly after being defeated, and fled into the mountains and forests, making it difficult to search for him.

   "Look around again, don't miss a firecracker!"

  Fei Ruhe went back to clean the battlefield, looking at those firecrackers with his eyes shining.

   They are all good guns made in Foshan. Shen Youlong ordered them with his own money.

  Shen Youlong's main force was destroyed, and there was no suspense in East Guangdong.

  Fei Ruhe went back outside Heyuan County and threw Shen Youlong's body at the gate of the city. The guard was so frightened that he ran away with his servants that night.

  Huizhou Prefecture, one state and ten counties.

   Chaozhou Prefecture, eleven counties.

  The twenty-two cities, except Huizhou Fucheng, which is still resisting, are all waiting for Fei Ruhe to occupy. The magistrates, prefectures, county magistrates, and defenders all ran away, and local officials could not even recruit township bravery to defend the city.

  Because of two consecutive years of disasters in Guangdong and another three years of military disasters, even the gentry and wealthy families were unwilling to fight again.

  Fei Ruhe doesn't open for two months, and once he opens, he will be in the whole of eastern Guangdong.

   Especially in Chaozhou Prefecture, Fei Ruhe didn't even bother to occupy it. This guy directly led troops to Huizhou and surrounded the city tightly.

  …

  Guangzhou Prefecture, the suburb of Nanhai County.

  Many merchants gathered together, including the Guan family, the Huang family, the Deng family, the Feng family, the Xie family...not the Li family!

   Except for the Li family, everyone arrived three quarters of an hour earlier.

   "Are you ready?" Guan Jialun asked.

   Huang Scrophulariae said: "Foshan is ready, we will do it tonight."

   "The Guan family is in charge of Nanhai County," Guan Jialun asked, "Where is the Guangzhou city?"

  Feng Yucheng said: "Several families have joined forces, and more than 600 people have entered the city one after another. Including the domestic slaves in the city, and the Xiangyong guarding the city, it must be enough to take Guangzhou!"

  Feng Yucheng's brother is named Feng Yushun, who is the aide of the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi.

   At the critical moment, they don't care about the life and death of their relatives.

  Deng Yunqiu held the tea bowl and said: "I, the Deng family and the Xie family, promise to take down Xiangshan County. The lackeys of the Li family in Xiangshan County, if they can't escape this time, none of them will survive!"

   These Guangdong gentry and aristocrats want to resume trade as soon as possible, which is only one of the reasons.

   They also have a common enemy: the Li family!

  The current Minister of the Household Department is called Li Daiwen, a native of Foshan, Guangdong.

  The Li family originally belonged to ordinary merchants, and they were inconspicuous among a group of rich merchants. But in the Wanli Dynasty, Li Daiwen became the doctor of Wenxuan Division, and the Li clan quickly became arrogant.

  Li Chongwen, his younger brother, not only sold ironware to foreigners, but also sold Guangzhou rice to disaster-stricken Fujian.

  At that time, there was also a small disaster in Guangzhou, and there was not enough food. In order to make huge profits, Li Chongwen forcibly collected rice and shipped it to Fujian by sea, regardless of the life and death of the people in Guangzhou. This move sparked a civil uprising, and the citizens of Guangzhou killed Liang Guolun and three others, all of whom were lackeys of Li Chongwen.

  The case was handled by Yan Junyan, a minor official with a big name.

  When Yan Junyan was a pusher in Guangzhou, he dealt with a large number of smugglers. It's a pity that the Li family is too powerful, so he can only arrest Li Chongwen and punish him with a stick. At the same time, he requests to deprive Li Chongwen of his fame (Guozi Jiansheng).

   In desperation, Li Chongwen promoted Yan Junyan to Fujian through his clan brother Li Daiwen.

   As a result, Yan Junyan offended Xiong Wencan again in Fujian, and was sent by Xiong Wencan to appease Zheng Zhilong. This move was not well-intentioned, hoping that Zheng Zhilong would kill Yan Junyan, but Yan Junyan succeeded in recruiting.

  Xiong Wencan was overjoyed immediately, and no longer hated Yan Junyan for offending him, and immediately put the credit on himself to repay the credit to the court.

  After Yan Junyan was transferred from Guangzhou, no one could control Li Chongwen, and he had to intervene in any product, which was tantamount to causing public outrage. Because which one smuggled which product was agreed with each other, the Li family did not follow the rules at all.

  Li Chongwen not only did not follow the rules, but also wanted to set the rules himself. He colluded with the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and almost monopolized the export of ironware in Foshan Town. Who dares to bypass Li's family to sell ironware, there is Li Daiwen in the court, and the governor in Guangdong, with the cooperation of internal and external, he will directly be convicted of treason.

  The ironware and grain trade has been completely controlled by the Li family, and a large number of merchants can only rely on the Li family.

   Today, they are still planning to control the export of porcelain and silk!

  Everyone waited and waited, but Li Chongwen just didn't show up, probably because he didn't dare to come to the appointment.

   "If this person doesn't come, the strategy of capturing the thief first is no longer feasible. Don't wait any longer, Foshan Town will do it immediately!" Guan Jialun ordered.

  …

  Foshan.

   "Master, it's too bad, all the big families in the town have been killed!" The house slave ran into the house in horror.

  Li Chongwen held a firecracker, and said with a ferocious expression: "What are you shouting about? Come and kill as many as you want!"

  In the mansion of the Li family, there were actually two hundred firecrackers, hundreds of guards with knives, and even forged more than ten sets of armor. This guy felt that something was wrong, so he gathered all his personal armed forces at home, and they were usually scattered all over the place.

  The forces attacking the Li family also had firecrackers, and even brought in six Franc cannons.

   Is this weird?

   It is not surprising, because Foshan is the center of iron smelting in Lingnan, and it is also the firearms casting base in the south. The governor of Guangdong and Guangxi had to come to Foshan to buy firearms.

   "Bang bang bang!"

   Gunshots rang out, killing sounds everywhere.

   "Boom boom boom!"

  Six French cannons blasted wildly at the wall of Li's courtyard.

  Most of these attackers are merchants attached to the Li family, and they have long been looking forward to the day when they leave the Li family. It's a pity that Li Daiwen's official position is getting higher and higher, and now he is the secretary of the household department. They can only rely on Zhao Han to turn things around.

  If Zhao Han doesn't send troops to attack Guangdong, these people won't dare to resist the Li family!

  Once they rebel against the Li family, they will completely offend the Minister of the Household Department, and they can only loyally support Zhao Han in the future.

   After a bombardment, the courtyard wall finally collapsed.

"kill!"

   There are not only armed forces of various ethnic groups, but also many gangsters rushing in with all kinds of weapons.

   "Boom!"

  The twenty or so people who ran to the front rushed into the courtyard and were directly blown up. The Li family used barrels to pack ten thousand enemies.

   "Run!"

  The gangsters fled in panic.

  The merchant surnamed Deng roared: "Whoever captures the Li family's house will be rewarded with a hundred taels of silver! Whoever captures the Li family's house will be rewarded with a hundred taels of silver!"

   Shouting several times in a row, quickly stopped the collapse, and the gangsters went back boldly.

  The firecrackers on both sides did not shoot in formation, probably untrained. They all stood behind the obstacle, passed through the gap in the courtyard wall, aimed at each other and fired sniper shots indiscriminately.

   They fought for half an hour, not to mention killing anyone, and no one was injured by the gun.

   It was a lively scene.

   "Kill!"

  In the other direction of Li's house, merchants of the Xie family led the people over the wall and entered.

  These people were recruited from the sea. He is both a farmer and a fisherman, and his real occupation is a "smuggler".

  Daming’s smuggling trade, the overall links are as follows: inland manufacturers—inland shippers—coastal receivers—coastal fishermen—sea merchants and pirates from various countries.

  The smuggling center of Guangdong is Xiangshan County (Zhongshan and Macao). Coastal fishermen use fishing boats to transfer goods from Guangzhou to Xiangshan. It can be said that fishermen in Guangzhou, Nanhai, and Xiangshan have regarded smuggling as a profession, and if smuggling is banned, they will lose their source of income.

  If Zhao Han occupies this place, he must solve the livelihood problem of the fishermen, otherwise, if he directly cracks down on smuggling, all these coastal fishermen will rebel.

  During the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the sea ban was strict, why did it stipulate that people were not allowed to live in the sea? Because the seaside people are all smugglers!

   "Bang bang bang!"

   Another burst of random gunshots rang out, and several civilians were killed on the spot.

   In a panic, the people who climbed over the wall and entered the hospital ran away in fright. The merchants of the Xie family brought their slaves and shouted: "Kill a Li family member, and reward him with a tael of silver!"

  Although these people were afraid, they still ran around the garden under the reward.

  They did not dare to face the firecrackers, but they dared to enter the residential area and attack the old, weak, women and children inside.

  For a while, there were screams in the inner courtyard of the Li family.

  Many domestic servants with firecrackers panicked, and they also had family members, so they all rushed to help.

"kill!"

  Another courtyard wall, someone broke in again, and the situation of the battle was instantly settled.

   They killed until midnight, not letting go of any living creature, including the maidservant of the Li family.

  These merchants have endured the Li family for more than ten years!

  At the same time, there were merchants leading people to rob the Li family's properties.

  Also took domestic slaves, gangsters (thugs), aid (fisherman smugglers), crutches (human traffickers), and began to attack Guangzhou, Xiangshan, and South China Sea from the city.

  These mixed "rebels" immediately burned, killed and looted after occupying the city, and only the big households who participated in the uprising were not affected.

  Coastal areas not only have many gangsters and smugglers, but also specialize in the "crutch" business.

  Most of the time, they belong to the sea intermediary, lending money to the poor to go to sea by boat. These poor people went to Nanyang to pay off their debts by working part-time. There are also some crutches who directly kidnap and traffic people, sell women and young adults to Nanyang, or sell them to red-haired ghosts in Macau.

  In one day, the city of Guangzhou and Xiangshan County all changed, and the flag of Datong was planted on the tower.

  Because those guys robbed too hard and even insulted women, the suffering people in the city looked at the Datong military flag with resentment in their eyes!

  The people in the two cities don't know what the Great Harmony is all about, they only know that the bad guys are with Zhao Han.

  The merchants in the two cities sent messengers to the north to ask Zhang Tieniu to arrive as soon as possible.

   Lu Qian, the commander-in-chief stationed in Yingde, heard that the two cities of Guangzhou had been lost, and was so frightened that he ran to the western part of Guangdong overnight, otherwise he would be made dumplings again.

  At the same time, the defenders of Huizhou Fucheng also killed the generals and surrendered directly.

  Fei Ruhe occupied Guangzhou effortlessly, and then his face was as black as the bottom of a pot. The people here regard the officers and soldiers of Datong as intruders, and some scholars even make up nursery rhymes, singing that Zhao Tianwang is a man-eating devil king.

   "Military Academy, the scholar who posted and exposed posts indiscriminately has been caught!"

   "Bring it in!"

  A scholar was brought before Fei Ruhe. He was arrested for posting big-character posters.

  Fei Ruhe asked: "Why did you expose the post and spread rumors?"

   "Bah!"

  The scholar spat on Fei Ruhe's face: "You burn, kill, **** and loot, you will be punished by God sooner or later!"

   (There were a lot of mistakes and omissions in the chapter in the afternoon, Lao Wang’s brain was dizzy, and he uploaded it before modifying it, and it has been re-edited. Sorry.)

  (end of this chapter)