The guards and the escorts were resting in Suqian City for three days. The quiet and stable environment in the county government office was shaking on the boats. The escorts and boatmen talked and shouted were naturally different.

Chongzhen and Empress Zhou were both pampered people. They had never left the Forbidden City on weekdays, but now they flew south and traveled thousands of miles. Although they also received the most meticulous and thorough service from the entire fleet, they were inevitably unable to adapt. Empress Zhou also had a minor illness because of this. Fortunately, after a few days of rest, she was fine.

Now that he has entered the Southern Zhili Region, Zhou Shixian no longer has to hide too much. He can directly enter the county town and use the resources in the city to solve his own problems.

In fact, at this time, even if they wanted to hide their actions, they could not hide them at all. Not to mention that the extremely large team of boatmen that lasted forty miles away, even Zhou Shixian's fleet of escorts with only a thousand people was also very conspicuous.

Of course, they have already entered Nanzhili, and Zhou Shixian does not intend to continue to hide it. If he does not show the momentum he deserves, it will be doubtful.

But Zhou Shixian was not too arrogant, just to obtain the supplies and medicine needed by the army more conveniently. Moreover, there is another more important reason - it is difficult to sail the canal south of Suqian.

In fact, when I was in Xuzhou, Zhou Shixian found that the water level in the Xuzhou canal section was too low, and many sections of the canal were exposed with mud flats, and the situation to the south might be worse.

Zhou Shixian immediately sent someone to investigate, and soon found the culprit for the low water level of the canal - the local government.

Originally, when the capital was under the control of the Ming court, in order to maintain the canal through, the governments along the way would send people to maintain various canal sections at all times to prevent surrounding farmers from stealing water to irrigate the farmland and causing the canal to stop sailing. However, as various bad news came from the north, there was even news that the Shun Army would go down the canal.

Especially after Liu Zeqing led Shandong troops to the south, these rumors seemed to have been finally confirmed. Local governments hurriedly summoned local gentry to mobilize farmers to dig dikes and divert water to irrigate farmland.

Hopefully, we will stop the Shun army from moving south by destroying the canal.

I can only say that one of these officials in Southern Zhili is counted as one, and they are all incompetent waste.

If the Shun Army could be stopped in this way, would the capital be breached?

And the only thing that was happy with this stupid plan was the only farmers along the coast who had been suffering from the canal's water struggle.

Because of this, Zhou Shixian could only change land in Suqian, so he needed to send Zhu Maozhen to mobilize all the carriages and horses to protect the saint.

As long as you arrive in Huai'an City, everything will be safe. It will be basically foolproof to arrive in Nanjing safely through the Governor of the Grain Transport and Governor Huaiyanglu.

In the past few days, the messenger sent by Zhou Shixian to contact Lu Zhenfei has returned, but things have not gone very smoothly.

Lu Zhenfei, who had already received the news that the capital had fallen and the emperor and empress had died, was suspicious of the letters of the two messengers and asked them to send a minister who would come to see him in person. Otherwise, he would be dealt with as a fake bandit.

Zhou Shixian, who didn't know that Li Zicheng had spread the fake news, only thought that the other party was either delaying time and mobilizing troops, or for some reason, was too cautious.

But after finally discussing with Li Banghua and Ni Yuanlu, he decided to send Ni Yuanlu, who was recommended by himself. Although he and Lu Zhenfei were not candidates of the same year, they were about the same age and had met several times. It is naturally the most appropriate for him to inquire about the situation.

At the same time, Zhou Shixian also had a rough understanding of the situation of the Jinyiwei sent to Nanjing, Fengyang and other places to reconnaissance back to Fengyang and Nanjing.

Even the rumors spread by Li Zicheng, he finally learned about them.

This makes the situation a little subtle.

If someone wants them to become a fake emperor and empress, it will be easy to do it as long as you just put the hat of a thief and kill someone to silence them.

Moreover, the situation in Nanjing was similar to what he expected. Shi Kefa had already led his troops to set out to go north to serve the king, but after hearing all kinds of rumors, he retreated and eventually did nothing except arguing with the officials in Nanjing.

As for the troops near Fengyang, there have been signs of mobilization recently. The most important thing is that Lu Jiude, the Fengyang Supervisor who is loyal to King Fu, Zhou Shixian asked the Jinyiwei to inquire about it. He had already left Fengyang with dozens of cavalry and appeared in Huai'an City.

Outside Huai'an City, there are many troops stationed by Liu Zeqing's troops now. It is hard to say whether they are enemies or friends.

“How are those boatmen performing now?”

Zhou Shixian turned his head and looked at Zhu Maozhen who had just returned, and asked, "After the medical treatment, the problem of the epidemic should have been eliminated, right?"

"If you want to go back to the prince, these boatmen are already strong and strong. Now they are full and drink well. Although they have been wet with some rain, they are not seriously injured and have basically recovered."

Zhu Maozhen paused and continued, "However, three weak children died of illness, and one woman."

After hearing this, Zhou Shixian's expression remained unmoved, but he raised his eyebrows slightly: "It's good that the epidemic is controlled, and the affairs of those children must be properly handled. Each of their parents will be given ten taels of silver. When the time comes to Nanjing, they will be buried."

"Yes, the prince consort." Zhu Maozhen replied with his fists.

Zhou Shixian recruited nearly 20,000 boatmen on the way south with some means. These boatmen were originally hard-working, strong and highly organized, which was the key to Zhou Shixian's training of a new army within one year in the future.

Nowadays, the north and south are blocked, the ship transport is blocked, and the Ming army is raging, so the life of the boatmen is very difficult. When they hear that there is a place to give them food, they all come over.

Of course, no one doubts, but these people who came basically had no choice, either starved to death and freeze to death, or brought their families toward this only hope.

But I was tired on the road and unfortunately encountered an outbreak of an epidemic. First, a weak child was unfortunately infected, and then transmitted to his parents, and then to the boatman team. Fortunately, I rushed to Suqian City before the raging, so the epidemic was able to be controlled by the medicine in the city.

"The situation has changed now. Xue Changfu and Zhang Hong, you will transfer all your troops and horses to the other two Qiang Generals for the time being."

Zhu Maozhen had already mobilized all the carriages and horses, but Xue Changfu and Zhang Hong's soldiers were still in the team of boatmen. They could only rush back in half a day after only 40 miles.

After Zhou Shixian planned to join the old army, he would use a thousand soldiers to protect the emperor and empress to continue to move south.

"The boatman is performing very well now, and there is no need for so many soldiers to suppress him. The situation outside Huai'an City is unknown, and the Shengjia needs more guards here. Zhu Maozhen, you also ask the boatman to speed up the marching speed. The distance between us cannot exceed thirty miles. If an accident occurs, don't worry about the boatman for the time being, come and rescue the car directly."

"Yes, the prince consort!"

Several generals who had just returned to Zhou Shixian bowed their fists at the same time and said in unison.

"Mr. Concubine, should you send the Jinyiwei directly to Nanjing and let the Nanjing Jingying come to welcome the emperor?" Wang Chaodong asked immediately:

"If Nanjing knew that the Holy Lord was here and sent out the welcome troops, perhaps those young people would not dare to act rashly. We will guard the Suqian City, and we are not afraid of him coming to attack the city."

"No, Suqian City cannot be defended."

Zhou Shixian shook his head directly: "This prince-in-law has been here in the city these days. Suqian City is a newly built earth city after the disaster in the old city decades ago. It is not strong at all. After decades of storms, due to the lack of maintenance, the city walls have collapsed in many places, and even been robbed. If we are trapped here, the rebels can easily break it. Moreover, we cannot continue to wait like this. The situation in Fengyang and Huaian is unclear now. Those who are ill-behaved must also be paying attention to the movements in Nanjing at this time. If Nanjing moves, they are very likely to plan to break the net to death."

"The prince-consort means that while notifying Nanjing to welcome the lord, we will continue to go south as planned?"

"Yes, that's the same thing. The more we make a big fuss, the less power those who are ill-behaved will be able to mobilize and gather. On the contrary, if we shrink, all those who want to compete for me will come. Even if we prove our innocence, it is difficult to say whether those people will make mistakes." Zhou Shixian continued to analyze.

This is not a simple question, especially when rumors are flying everywhere, and the truth is unknown. Everyone's choices will be constrained by various factors. Those military leaders are not driven by Lu Jiude, Ma Shiying, and Lu Zhenfei.

In other words, they are very smart and will never take action when they are uncertain.

But if those military leaders find out that they are wrong, it is impossible to ask them to confess their guilt and punish them. If they are wrong, they will be better choice for them.

After all, in this way, not only did the support of the emperor, even the emperor had the handle on them.

Moreover, there are already people who are deliberately spreading their team as Shunjun.

After such discussion, Zhou Shixian quickly determined all the matters for the next few days. Ni Yuanlu also set off immediately and went to Huai'an to meet Lu Zhenfei, and casually tested the other party's attitude.

Under the arrangement of Wang Chaodong, the Jinyiwei immediately went south and went to Nanjing to contact Shi Kefa.

After Zhou Shixian arranged these things, after all the generals and old ministers retreated, he sat in the seat for a while, reviewed it again, and confirmed that there were no omissions in the arrangements, he got up and walked out of the attic window. Unexpectedly, it started to rain again outside.

Then, he saw the drizzle of the drizzle. The two sisters Kunxing and Zhaoren just came back from shopping with Wang Chengen and a group of officials and women. The light green, lake green, light red and white dresses came into Zhou Shixian's eyes, like a beautiful scroll.

They came back from outside the government office and were now under the eaves of the government office dripping water, laughing and jokingly patting each other's shoulders on each other's shoulders.

After a few days in the city, Xiao Zhaoren finally realized his freedom of snacks. At this time, both hands were holding bags of pastries. She looked at the adults around her slap the rain, and wanted to take pictures, but she had no hands anymore, so she had to keep watching.

Then, she saw Zhou Shixian standing at the window looking at them, jumped up excitedly, her feet were like stances, her hands were holding snacks on her chest, and she shouted: "Ha, Shi..."

Before the word was shouted out, Xiao Zhaoren seemed to have realized something and suddenly stopped. However, when Princess Kunxing heard her scream, she looked in the direction Xiao Zhaoren was looking at, and saw Zhou Shixian standing at the window, smiling at her!
Chapter completed!