But since Sun Zhongxin had set up such a plan, how could he miss this good opportunity! After the three servants finished spreading the lime, they turned aside, and several soldiers behind them rushed in! Not only did these soldiers cover their mouths and noses with wet cloths, they also smeared vegetable oil on other parts of their faces. As long as you squint your eyes and rush in, the lime won't get into your eyes!
These soldiers directly used their shields to knock open the guards in front of the gate and then continued to rush forward. They slashed the arms of the two water bandits who were carrying long spears and stabbing them randomly with their swords! The water bandit screamed in pain, his spear fell to the ground, and he was immediately thrown to the ground!
The soldiers who followed them all had their own goals, and in the blink of an eye, all eight of them were captured! Then they searched the house and drove out a large number of women and children from the back room! At this point, the last trace of resistance in the entire village has been extinguished!
Sun Zhongxin stepped forward to look them over, pointed directly at the two men and said: "Put them down and wash them with vegetable oil. Block their mouths and don't allow them to say anything!"
The two people Sun Zhongxin was referring to were the two Jin Yiwei. You must know that the servants share weal and woe with the master of the family, so naturally they must be provided with good food and drink, and the food and clothing expenses must be first-class! Especially Liu Shouyou's family is rich. The food provided for his family was of high quality, so although the two of them were wearing casual clothes, compared with the people in the fishing village, they stood out from the crowd. Sun Zhongxin recognized them in the blink of an eye!
Although these two people were not directly hit by the lime, they were also hit! So I closed my eyes and breath, and never spoke. Now that they heard Sun Zhongxin say this, both of them felt that their identities had been exposed!
Thinking of this, the two of them wanted to tell their origins without any discussion, so that they could escape through their identities. But Sun Zhongxin's servants are also smart people. How could you possibly give them a chance to open their mouths! So as soon as they opened their mouths, each of them received a punch and a kick in the stomach, knocking back all the words they wanted to say! Then something was stuffed in their mouths, tied up tightly and dragged away.
By this time, the resistance in the village had completely stopped, and many villagers, women and children were escorted to gather outside the village. Upon seeing this, Sun Zhongxin immediately ordered a few officers and said: "You guys will lead people to search downstream along the river. You will definitely catch a lot of fish that have slipped through the net! In addition, we are going to the river to put out a signal. Tell Zuo Shen and them We’re done here, let’s meet him back!”
The rest of the matter was much simpler. Since all the villagers had been captured, the soldiers set up camp and directly selected houses to camp. By the way, take out the rice stored in the villagers' homes for cooking! There were even a large number of soldiers rummaging through the rooms they occupied. Those who had gained money shouted triumphantly, while those who found nothing were dejected. The entire camping process turned into a treasure hunt!
When the moon rose above the treetops, Zuo Liqiu and Zhang Tiefu arrived with a large number of prisoners and began to enjoy the dinner prepared by Sun Zhongxin. The whole battle is finally over!
But there seems to be a surprise for them! Shortly after dawn, several of Zuo Liqiu's servants rushed back with a middle-aged scholar and two followers. When they confirmed that this person was the salt merchant's aide, they were even more overjoyed. Now the credit was completely complete!
After Zuo Liqiu and the other two discussed, he selected a servant from each of the three men, and the three of them jointly led a group of soldiers to escort the five important prisoners and several water bandit leaders to Beijing. As long as they see Liu Haojia, they will naturally understand that the credit is shared by three people! This is a hint often said in official circles!
So before noon, a clipper set sail. Go straight downstream with the wind and the current! This ship will not go through the canal but directly out to sea. They will go to the naval camp near the sea outlet and the navy will escort them straight to Tianjin! This speed is the fastest and more concealed.
Also setting off at the same time was a fleet carrying salt. The targets of this fleet are only three cities, namely Wuxi, Yangzhou and Nanjing. Among them, Wuxi and Yangzhou were each allocated ten shipments of salt, and the remaining forty shipments were all sold in Nanjing. Read the book
From this point of view, Liu Haojia and the salt merchants basically thought of going together! That is to use massive amounts of salt to completely drive down the price of salt in cities along the Yangtze River! It spread from this and naturally drove the price of salt in Jiangnan to collapse!
Let’s not talk about the team transporting salt to Wuxi, but let’s talk about the team transporting salt to Yangzhou. Since the ships transporting salt are all river boats, their hulls are relatively large and cannot enter the canal at all. So they directly unloaded the salt and prepared it for land transportation. This means that they are about to face the salt owl on land!
In fact, the Salt Owls were already prepared to ambush them! Since the salt merchants had prejudged that they might sell salt in the big cities along the river, they deployed a team of salt lords each in the south and north of the Yangtze River. The cities they focused on were Wuxi and Yangzhou!
As for Nanjing, they knew that Liu Haojia would definitely send someone there, but there was nothing they could do! Because Nanjing is really not their territory, but Xu Guogong's territory! They really didn't dare to cause trouble under his nose!
Xu Guogong's group is a founding figure and has been in Nanjing for almost two hundred years! There is no one in the entire Jiangnan garrison who is not connected with Xu Guogong's mansion. It can be said that they are very powerful! So the salt merchants didn’t dare to move at all!
And another point is that Nanjing is the capital of the Ming Dynasty. To cause trouble here, you need to have the courage to rebel! Otherwise, anyone who causes trouble here will have to bear the blow of the entire state machine, because this is a provocation to all civil and military officials!
So they can't control things in Nanjing, but they must not let their salt enter the country from other places! So they had already gathered various salt lords and thugs waiting for them!
The large ship bound for Yangzhou could not enter the canal and stopped at the intersection of the canal and the Yangtze River. There is a small guard station here that guards the mouth of the canal, and a small town is formed here relying on the guard station. Since many ships have to be replaced by canoes here, this place is extremely prosperous, and it is also a mixed bag of good and bad people. All kinds of people exist, including spies from salt merchants!
But what bothered the spies was that after the ship stopped, a large amount of salt was transported directly to the guardhouse for storage! They didn't dare to take action now. Attacking the guard station was no different from rebelling, so they could only watch as they unloaded the salt and sailed away!
