I

  Chapter 350 348 [White Lotus Bandit]

  Stove households also need to farm!

   It's just that the land near the salt field will suffer from salinization to some extent.

  It is a bad thing and a good thing at the same time that they don't get much harvest from the land. The big landlords look down on this place, and the land annexation is not serious, so there are many self-cultivating farmers among the kitchen households.

  When the Salt Army surrendered, the Datong officials flocked away and distributed their fields according to the principle of proximity.

  All saline-alkali land belongs to Xiaxiatian, and one person can divide 20 mu. When farming, it is purely based on extensive planting and low harvest.

  The year-long war here has reduced the population of the counties, and the land is not very tight.

   Really can't get the land, so they migrate to the north.

  The further north you go, the less people there are!

  Those kitchen households will work part-time in the future, and working part-time in the salt factory is considered to subsidize their households. If you really don’t want to cook salt, and you don’t have enough land to eat, then go to the county town, or simply go to sea with the boat.

  Shanghai has been opened as a port. Due to the widespread distribution of land in the south, the wages of sea merchants recruiting sailors are very high.

  Especially the sand people in the Yangtze River Delta, even if their families were allocated land, they were willing to apply for the navy or sailors.

  Those sand people are not afraid of death one by one, and they are more fierce than the fishermen in Guangzhou.

  The Yangtze River empties into the sea, and the river rushes out of large and small sandbars. For example, Chongming Island is now three sandbars, and some areas have been reclaimed as farmland.

  Some people went to the sandbar to reclaim and cultivate land. The salinization was very serious. Their harvest was not high, and they had to take huge risks. They formed a group to fight against the government, and formed a group to prevent the big households from robbing the familiar land, and they could be transferred to water bandits at any time.

  These people are the sand people!

  Zhao Han's new Shanghai naval force is dominated by the Yangtze River sand people, and more than 80% have criminal records of water bandits.

  Anyway, the kitchen households are divided into fields, and they are registered as citizens, so they will not be too constrained by the salt factory if they gain personal freedom.

  The lease term of the salt factory land is 30 years, which is also the result of long-term negotiations.

  If the lease period is too short, the salt factory owner will only choose to make quick money and exploit the salt cookers crazily, let alone think about improving the salt-making process. Moreover, every time the rental license is replaced, it will attract crazy snatching, which will intensify corruption.

  The 30-year license is only a sharp sword held by the government, and most salt factories can renew their leases when they expire.

  The production, transportation and sales of table salt are completely separated from each other, and the merchants themselves will establish the relevant ecology.

  The Shanshan-Shaanxi Merchant Gang suffered heavy losses this time, and failed to obtain a single franchise license, so they almost withdrew from the stage of salt merchants. Who told them not to join Zhao Han in advance?

  Fei Ruhe's strategic goal is to occupy Huai'an, and then besiege the Yan army with Zhang Tieniu.

  Since the Salt Army has surrendered, change the combat objective.

  Zhang Tieniu's army dispersed to suppress the bandits, but many small salt troops were still resisting.

  Fei Ruhe crossed the Huaihe River and captured the entire Huai'an Mansion together, which is equivalent to capturing the entire northern Jiangsu area near the sea.

   There is no need to fight Huai'an Fucheng, this is Xu Ying's base camp!

   On the other hand, Li Zheng and Xiao Zongxian met fierce resistance along the way.

  …

   "Is this guy crazy? He doesn't want to surrender." Li Zheng was quite surprised.

  Xiao Zongxian said with a smile: "Others have 200,000 troops, we have only 7,500 regular soldiers, and less than 10,000 civilian husbands. Naturally, we will not surrender easily."

  They were talking about Gu Zongrui, an unknown character.

  The Cao army and Cao people along the Grand Canal revolted, and all rebels were wiped out, but Gu Zongrui continued to grow. And he still has a territory in Shandong, entrenched in Xuzhou and Yanzhou, and fought back and forth with Zuo Liangyu.

  He has 200,000 soldiers, claiming to be 800,000, and he is determined not to surrender to the Datong Army.

   On the contrary, the officers and soldiers guarding the Fengyang Imperial Mausoleum, numbering in the thousands, immediately surrendered when they saw the Datong Army.

   "Commander, Zhao Bandit's soldiers are here!"

   "Don't be afraid, fight with me!"

  Gu Zongrui not only dared to resist the Datong army, but also did not defend the city, directly leading more than 100,000 people out.

  These rebel troops are all wearing red scarves.

  Among them is a force of thousands of people, dressed in fancy dress. There are quite a few monks in the army, who are neither Buddha nor Dao, they are like Buddha and Dao, and they hold magical artifacts in their hands to pretend to be gods and ghosts.

  The missionary officer Zheng Pan next to Li Zheng held up a binoculars and exclaimed: "These are all members of the White Lotus Cult!"

  Xu Ying's news is obviously lagging behind, the Shandong Cao Army has merged with the White Lotus Sect. Xu Ying knew that there was a White Lotus Sect in Yanzhou, but she didn't know that the leader of the Cao Army joined the Sect and became the leader of the White Lotus Sect.

   Moreover, the two branches of the White Lotus Sect merged to integrate the teachings of Wuwei Sect and Wenxiang Sect.

  The leader of the thieves, Gu Zongrui, claimed to be the reincarnation of "Emperor Zhongxing Fulie", which was originally Xu Hongru's title. Xu Hongru had more than two million believers in Shandong. The rebellion failed in the second year of Tianqi, and his followers continued to rebel until the reign of Chongzhen.

  Another thief leader, Dong Zhanrong, claimed to be "Yanghuang Extreme Buddha" and came to the world.

  The two cooperated, with Gu Zongrui as the leader and Dong Zhanrong as the assistant, and they absorbed a large number of followers of Wuwei Sect and Wenxiang Sect.

  The bandit leaders under their command also have twelve heavens, twelve Buddhas, and twelve stars, a total of thirty-six leaders.

   There was originally a reincarnation of "Master Hunyuan", but because he wanted to seize power, he was sent back to the heaven to enjoy the blessings some time ago.

  Zhongxing Fulie Emperor Gu Zongrui, Yang Huangji Buddha Dong Zhanrong, each sitting in thirty-two sedan chairs, led an army of nearly 200,000 troops and set off.

  Before and after their sedan chairs, there were women throwing flower petals along the way, monks beating gongs and chanting mantras, and carrying dozens of flags, large and small.

  As for the soldiers of the White Lotus Sect, most of them were dressed in rags, with spears, waist knives, hoes, sticks, spears, shoulder poles... all kinds of weapons.

   "Stop!"

   "Get off the sedan chair!"

  The big sedan chair of the two people stopped, thousands of people around them stopped in chaos, and more than 100,000 people farther away were still marching.

   After tossing for a long time, the two wings of the army walked out for a mile, and the nearly 200,000 troops finally stopped.

  The magic sticks mixed in the army began to chant the incantation "Jiao Dashen", as if they were giving the soldiers invulnerability, and they were saying that death in battle would enter the world of bliss.

   Li Zheng watched with binoculars and said happily: "I haven't fought with the teaching soldiers yet, I should let General Fei come over."

  Fei Ruhe beat Mimi Cultists...

  Xiao Zongxian said: "Let the artillery prepare and fire at the two sedan chairs."

  Thirty-two carrying a big sedan chair, it is difficult not to attract attention, but it is still so obvious to be mixed in with more than 100,000 or 200,000 people.

   "Get up the sedan chair!"

  The two big sedan chairs were lifted up again, and the morale of the overwhelming white lotus disciples became even higher after praying to the gods.

   Or rather, Frenzy!

   But the formation of the army can only be described as a mess.

   "Boom boom boom!"

  Each division has 500 artillerymen, 20 people serve one cannon, and there are 25 field artillery in total.

  The artillery shells also have new tricks, firing ordinary ammunition at long distances, and firing chain bullets and shotgun shells at medium and short distances.

  The shells were fired, it was just a test shot.

  The two thieves' personal troops were hit by several cannonballs each, and the nearest shell passed by a few meters away from the sedan chair.

  The Chinese army immediately became confused.

   Zhongxing Fulie Emperor Gu Zongrui was taken aback, jumped out of the sedan chair quickly, drew his sword and shouted: "Master Hunyuan bless you! Kill!"

  Yanghuangji Buddha Dong Zhanrong also jumped out of the sedan chair, holding up the magic weapon and shouting: "I have cast a spell, and the enemy general will die tragically within three quarters of an hour! Kill me!"

"kill!"

   Nearly 200,000 people began to charge desperately.

  The distance between the two sides is three miles. With such a long distance, by the time they arrived, they must have been exhausted and out of breath.

   "Boom boom boom!"

   Twenty-five shells fell on the two Chinese troops again, plowing out more than a dozen passages that were **** and bloody.

  Some people fled in panic, and more people were still charging. It seemed that after death, they could really ascend to Paradise.

   "Boom boom boom!"

  Another round of shelling, this time using chain bombs.

  Two solid shells, connected by an iron chain. After exiting the chamber, the shells began to rotate at high speed, and this thing has become a range of damage.

  These believers rushed so fast that the next round of shelling was fired, and those who ran were within a hundred paces.

   "Boom boom boom!"

  This time it is a shotgun launch, killing a large area!

  Countless believers fell to the ground screaming, and Zhongxing Fulie Emperor Gu Zongrui, who was hiding in the crowd, was also scratched on his arm.

  Seeing his own soldiers scattered and collapsing in all directions, he cried out in pain, "Kill the thief, and reach bliss!"

   But the momentum of the collapse was still unstoppable, Gu Zongrui could only ignore those personal soldiers, and ran to the team next door to continue charging.

   There are nearly 200,000 people, and there is no organization at all.

  They can hardly understand the flag order, and they just rush forward when fighting. This caused a miraculous phenomenon, Gu Zongrui's commander-in-chief fell down, and several units of the central army were disintegrating, but the troops on the two wings did not notice it, and continued to charge in a formation that was more dispersed than cavalry.

   With such an outrageous religious army, it is easy to beat the master to death with random punches.

   "Circle array!"

   Li Zheng shouted when he saw this.

  Nearly 10,000 civil servants, civilian and artillery units shrank in the center, and 4,000 melee soldiers were outside, forming a circle with the help of grain transport vehicles.

   Two thousand gunfire soldiers lined up in front.

   "Fire the gun!"

  In this case, dare not shoot in bursts, and shoot all the two thousand firecrackers.

  After shooting, the firecrackers rushed back to the formation, and temporarily converted into spearmen with bayonets, hiding behind rattan players and waiting for an opportunity to stab.

  The volley of gunfire just now caused several troops to collapse.

  At this moment, about 20,000 to 30,000 enemy troops have fled, and the remaining 100,000 or so are still charging, surrounding the circle of the Datong Army.

   There is a bird for a large number of people.

  On the periphery of the Datong Army's circular formation, there are many grain transport vehicles and luggage. Even if they can cross these baggage, there are still long wolf traps blocking them. Even if you can break through the wolf trap, there are still long spear formations. Even if they rushed through the long spear array, there were still shields and waist knives from the rattan players, and the bayonets from the firecrackers.

  As for those religious bandits, there are at most five or six thousand who can really fight, and the remaining more than 100,000 are all blocked by their own people.

  The religious bandits rushing to the front finally climbed over the obstacles of the baggage, and were smashed into a sieve by wolves and spears in a blink of an eye. Many people woke up from the frenzy, turned around and fled in fright, but were blocked by the friendly troops behind.

  The religious bandits who were blocked on the periphery could only sleepwalk on the battlefield because they were unable to fight. They rushed for three miles, and their bodies were weak. Many people sat down directly from exhaustion, and even collapsed because they lost their enthusiasm.

  Until now, the Datong Army has not suffered any casualties, because no religious bandit can break through the spear array.

   It's a pity that the Datong Army doesn't have enough cavalry, if it is equipped with a cavalry. Killing from outside at this moment can immediately collapse the entire army of more than 100,000 enemies.

  The corpses around the circular array piled up more and more, even filling up the obstacles.

  But the Datong Army fought more and more easily, because the religious bandits who fought had collapsed and were fleeing in the opposite direction. More religious bandits squeezed in, the religious bandits inside and outside, their own people crowded their own people, which had already caused a stampede, and there were not many people fighting at all.

  Xiao Zongxian said: "Unload the bayonet, load the ammunition, hide behind the shield and shoot in salvo!"

   "Bang bang bang bang!"

  Two thousand firecrackers were fired at the target only a few meters apart, and almost a circle of people fell down.

  The pressure from the outside squeezed in, squeezing the bandits inside, and thousands of bandits were trampled to death by their own people. However, everything inside collapsed, and the screamers wanted to escape, but the bandits outside didn't know it.

   In the crowd, the religious bandits who had calmed down after running for three miles were all exhausted and huddled there unconsciously.

  Many people didn't even know where the Datong Army was because there were heads in all directions.

  Gu Zongrui and Dong Zhanrong, the two leaders, the emperor and the Buddha, were also squeezed into the crowd and could not move.

  Dong Zhanrong shouted: "I am Yanghuang Extreme Buddha, don't squeeze anymore. Alas... ah!"

  Yanghuangji Buddha accidentally fell to the ground, probably due to insufficient Buddhist practice, and was trampled to death by his followers.

  Finally, the bandits on the outermost perimeter felt bad, and more and more people fled in panic.

   During the escape, there was another stampede, and Gu Zongrui tripped over in a daze. This Emperor Zhongxing Fulie also followed in the footsteps of Yanghuangji Buddha, leaving countless footprints on his body.

   "Dud beep beep da da beep~~~~~~"

  The charge horn sounded, Datong soldiers attacked, and even civilian husbands rushed out to help capture the prisoners.

   "Ouch!"

  A Datong soldier stepped on the corpse and accidentally sprained his foot, becoming the only wounded of our side in the whole battle.

  (end of this chapter)