"Ah...!" Li Xiao hadn't slept soundly for several days, and his mouth opened like a hippopotamus.

The news about Luo Yangxing came from several governors in the south of the Yangtze River, headed by Ding Yuanjian, the governor of Jiangsu. Li Xiao knew this person. In the famous "Donglin Point General Record", it was this governor who was mentioned in the "Arrow Tiger" in the Earth Speed ​​Star.

Although he knew that he was a die-hard Donglin Party member, Sun Chengzong had to use him. Because this guy was entrenched in Jiangsu, all the salt merchants listened to him. Every year, the court could scrape a large sum of money from the salt merchants.

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In recent years, Li Xiao has expanded the army and carried out infrastructure construction. Without money, it is absolutely impossible. All the governors in the world can move, but this Jiangsu governor cannot. There are countless truths in the world, but what Li Xiao believes in the most now is

It’s hard to move without money.

Among other places, Changxing Island is a huge gold-swallowing beast. Every day, mountains of raw materials are unloaded at the Changxing Island pier, and then boxes of weapons and ammunition are shipped from Changxing Island to the sea. The shipyard in Lushun and the machinery manufacturing industry in Jinzhou

Factory, these are all paid for with a lot of money.

The Ming Empire is like a huge machine, and money is the lubricant of this machine. Without money, the machine of the Ming Empire will quickly generate friction and heat, and eventually be destroyed.

Li Xiao doesn't want to touch Ding Yuanjian, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Ding Yuanjian won't have other thoughts.

With Liu Liangzuo as the go-between, and Li Xiao's efforts in Jiangnan over the years to integrate officials and gentry into paying grain and serving as errands, he not only offended all the gentry in Jiangnan, but also offended the salt merchants and plutocrats in Jiangnan.

Many people are regretting that they did not risk their lives to support Nan Ming. Now that they have such an opportunity, how can they hold back. In a word, support Ding Yuanjian to kill Li Xiao and restore the privileges of the gentry in the past!

These four words "Imperial Grain and National Tax" are simply incompatible with the chaebols. Anyone who wants to collect my tax will have his head chopped off.

With the support of the plutocrats, Ding Yuanjian recruited more than 3,000 saltmen. The external rhetoric was to protect the salt fields and combat illegal salt trafficking. But in fact, Ding Yuanjian secretly hired many former Nanjing Forbidden Army members.

Officers. These people have been trained by the Liao army, and the saltmen trained by them can be called elites.

The Yanding were not a regular army, and their weapons were naturally shabby. The flintlock guns eliminated by the Liao army were all sold to them at high prices. Anyway, Jiangsu has money, and it will be useless if it is not slaughtered. But what Li Xiao never expected was that,

Salt merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have great skills. They actually obtained a batch of rifles firing customized ammunition through overseas channels. There are even more than twenty mortars with similar performance to the Liao army.

Each officer is also equipped with revolvers, hand grenades and other close combat weapons, and boxes of them are smuggled into the treasury.

Although artillery shells and bullets are imported, the Jiangnan chaebol are very wealthy. Yanding trains all day long, and his military level and quality are very good. At least, they are much better than those of Jiangnan garrison divisions.

When Cao Wenzhao's Fourth Division was stationed in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Ding Yuanjian did not dare to act openly and was timid in doing things. Cao Wenzhao was transferred to the northwest, and Ding Yuanjian immediately became arrogant. Yang Sichang could hardly move in the south of the Yangtze River because he secretly had

Ding Yuanjian is causing trouble.

If you have soldiers in your hands, your prestige will naturally be high. The governors of other places recommended Ding Yuanjian to be in charge, and Ding Yuanjian naturally took over everything. Because Liu Liangzuo had agreed, he would be the new bachelor of Jianji Palace after the matter was completed.

, the chief assistant of the imperial court.

With Sun Chengzong as a role model in front of him, Ding Yuanjian really wanted to catch up with this old man. Sun Chengzong was already old, but he, Ding Yuanjian, was only forty-eight years old this year.

Of course, there are also etiquette rules for local governors to visit Beijing.

The imperial court stipulates that when a local governor comes to Beijing, he can bring thirty servants with him, and fifty personal soldiers. In other words, including the governor, eighty-one people are the limit of this team.

If the team exceeds this size, the government along the way is obliged to intercept it. If the governor does not listen to the advice and insists on going his own way, the court will send troops to eliminate those who intend to rebel along the way.

Ding Yuanjian was not stupid! He knew that after crossing the river, starting from Henan, it would be Li Xiao's deep-rooted territory, and Hebei was even more powerful than Henan. If he really took three thousand saltmen all the way across the river, he would be defeated by the Liao army when he arrived in Hebei.

stop.

Although they were very confident in their men, they had never seen a battle formation. The Liao army was an army that truly fought with blood and fire. The officers of the former Nanjing Forbidden Army said that the Liao army was

He was a big boss, but in his heart he was very afraid of the Liao army's combat effectiveness.

Three thousand salt cadavers were broken up by Ding Yuanjian. They were disguised as traders' lackeys and marched towards the capital like three thousand ants. The guns and ammunition were all disguised as cargo and hidden in carts. As soon as they gathered in the suburbs of Beijing, they would immediately

Can be gathered into a fully armed army.

The abacus was good, but Ding Yuanjian overlooked one thing. Three thousand people are three thousand mouths, and it is impossible to keep it secret during this journey. The soldiers all like to take a few sips, and when the wine is in their ears,

He naturally speaks loudly and has no control over his mouth. Leaking secrets is inevitable, while keeping secrets is accidental.

Jin Yiwei finally played some role, after all, it has more than two hundred years of heritage. If he can't even find out this news, Luo Yangxing can go feed the pigs.

Li Xiao learned about the gathering point of Ding Yuanjian's salt men, Pangezhuang, Daxing County, Gyeonggi Province.

Naturally, a small Zhuangzi could not accommodate three thousand troops. But one advantage of Pangezhuang was that it was two or three miles away from the official road. Moreover, Zhuangzi was very small, so not many merchants would settle here on weekdays.

What's more important is that the people in charge of Pangezhuang are relatives of Liu Liangzuo's family. Everyone in the village is also a relative, and the saltmen are only stationed for a day or two, so they don't have to worry about leaking the news.

Ding Yuanjian had never led an army into a war, so he took it for granted that his military actions had been so smooth and silent. A man who was almost fifty years old spent all day reading the Four Books and Five Classics.

I haven't read much of the novel. In military terms, he is a complete idiot.

According to his idea, tomorrow he will take these soldiers and enter the city through Zhengyang Gate, which has been bought long ago. He will lead the soldiers all the way to the Forbidden City. As long as he kills Li Xiao and successfully takes out Emperor Zhu Yihai, everything will be settled.

The whole night, Ding Yuanjian was looking forward to a bright future. The chief assistant of the Jianji Palace Bachelor Cabinet, one person is less than ten thousand people. Counting from the day when the Ding family had a family tree, there has never been such a powerful person.

.

For being able to leave a glorious mark on the family tree, Ding Yuanjian believed that his achievements were comparable to those of Chong'er of the Jin Dynasty and Zhang Jianzhi of the Tang Dynasty.

The news that the nine gates of the capital were closed was not surprising to him. When the emperor died, martial law was the minimum thing to do. Having experienced the great campaigns of Emperor Wanli, Emperor Taichang, and Emperor Tianqi, Ding Yuanjian was rich in experience.

Liu Liangzuo had already bribed the guards at Zhengyang Gate, and during the martial law period, he could rush into Zhengyang Gate, which would also have a surprise effect.

The early salt collectors arrived yesterday, and the later ones also arrived in the evening. Except for a few people, more than 95% of the three thousand salt collectors have arrived. The salt collectors can be seen throughout Pangezhuang.

Figures, in Pangezhuang, they put on black salt clothes. The clothes and pants were black, and the hats were also black. A strip of white cloth was tied around the shoulders for identification.

The moon on the 15th day is sixteen round. Today's moon is really big and round. The silvery white moonlight shines on the earth, as if it has been covered with a bright blanket. Although it is a bit hazy, you can still see it within a hundred or ten steps.

The figures of the Qing Dynasty, especially those dressed in black, are even more obvious.

There were not enough houses, and the weather was a little hot, so the saltmen simply gathered around the yard to sleep. They gathered a pile of mugwort to smoke, so that the mosquitoes did not dare to come forward.

Ding Yuanjian was so excited that he barely slept a wink during the whole night. When the morning star rose, he saw a rapidly rising ball of light.

"Bang!" The ball of light exploded in the sky above Pangezhuang, and a dazzling firework appeared above the head.
Chapter completed!