Zhao Shan remained silent, and Liu Fujin was as taciturn as usual. When asked, he said that he would listen to his brothers in everything. Jiang Xiong, Zhang Cong and others discussed for a long time, and they all felt that the only option was to send someone to ask General Tiansheng for help.
"Tian Sheng Island can still squeeze out some food to help us survive for a while, but now that Jingnan has replaced the new equipment, it is possible to mobilize the navy to rush into Dongting Lake at any time. We need to get food from Tian Sheng Island.
If we need food, Sun Yanzhou will transfer us to South Dongting Lake or East Dongting Lake to participate in the war, so there will be no excuses - Dongzhou Village suffered too many casualties in Hanchuan..." Jiang Ang sighed worriedly.
After much deliberation, I shouldn't have provoked the Chushan Army.
If he had more than a thousand strong men and horses in his hands now, even if he sneaked to the north of Jingzhou to find a few wealthy villages to fight the autumn breeze, life would not be so difficult.
Although Dongzhou Village has finally recruited 500 new men and horses, they don't have all the swords and guns, and there are not many pairs of armor. The dozen or so oar warships that he had worked hard to build before have also been lost. He really wants to destroy them.
When these people pull out horses, they may not be able to defeat the strong people in Jingbei villages, let alone follow Sun Yanzhou's command and fight fiercely with Jingnan officers and soldiers.
"It is only natural to take people's money to eliminate disasters for others. We only have a few hundred lives left to sell!" Jiang Xiong, Zhang Cong and others said.
Their thinking is still relatively simple. It is better to fight to the death or alive with the officers and soldiers than to be trapped in Dongzhou Village and starve to death.
"There is still some money in the village. Can we take it to Changlin Town to buy some food?" Zhao Shan asked insinuatingly.
"Alas, third brother, you don't know," Jiang Ang sighed, "In these years, I have done nothing wrong with Changlin Town and the surrounding villages. We can live in peace with each other. If the village lacks some food, salt and iron, we can get it from
Changlin Town secretly acquired the town. However, after the Dongjing Alliance Army became powerful, basically all the gentry and merchants in Changlin Town fled. The government blocked the water and land passage to Changlin Town from the north. Now only one person is left.
Two hundred dilapidated families. These families may still have some food in hand, but they can only make ends meet. We have money now and nowhere to buy food. We can't just go and rob the dilapidated households in Changlin Town and nearby villages, right?
"
"Even if you rob, you won't be able to dig out much food..." Zhang Cong, a son of a farmer near Changlin Town, said hurriedly.
After the Han River enters the boundaries of Yingzhou and Jingzhou, it mainly flows from northwest to southeast, and the left bank is blocked by the terrain of Jishan Mountain (Green Forest Mountain, Tianmen Mountain). Whenever there is a major flood, the Han River will basically break through from the right bank.
It breaks out of the embankment and flows freely into Jingzhou, seizing the Nanxiang River, Juzhang River and other streams and rivers, and flowing into the Jingjiang River from Bailu Lake, Hong Lake, Wazi Lake and other lakes and water holes.
This situation usually happens once every four to five years or every seven or eight years.
Frequent floods have caused Mianyang, Jianli, Hualing and Hanyang counties east of Jiangling County in Jingzhou to have sparse populations and local poverty.
To the north of Bailu Lake, there are dozens of villages including Changlin Town, but the population density is less than one-third that of Hanchuan and other places; and because of frequent floods, these villages are very poor.
After the merchants, gentry and landowners all fled, there really wasn't much left to fight in these places.
In addition, almost one-third of the villagers in Dongzhou Village, like Zhang Cong, came from these villages, and Jiang Ang could not bring himself to rob the poor people in these villages.
There is still a lot of silver in Dongzhou Village, and they dug out thousands of taels of silver from Mazhanjiang's house alone to frame him for embezzlement and lack of military resources. As the leader of Dongzhou Village, Jiang Ang divided the stolen goods every time the red goods were stolen.
It accounts for two to three thirds, and the private collection of grain silver is even more.
The key is to have money and food to buy in nearby villages.
"If we purchase grain from nearby villages at a high price, is it feasible for nearby villagers to take our money and go to Jingbei and other places to sell grain?" Zhao Shan asked.
"It was okay in the first two years, but in the past two years the government blockade has become more and more strict, and those who smuggled food, salt and iron were directly arrested and executed."
Because Zhao Shan and Liu Fujin joined their fellow villagers after they sneaked into Hanchuan, Jiang Ang thought that they did not understand many situations, so he patiently explained,
"In the middle of last year, various leaders decided to launch a large-scale attack on the counties on the north bank of the Jingjiang River. The main reason was that the government's blockade of Dongting Lake and the surrounding areas of the Jingjiang River was so severe that food, salt and iron could not be transported in from outside. So everyone thought of taking advantage of the opportunity to defend the north of the Jingjiang River.
Everything was planned well, but Hu Dangzhou was stuck to the east of the Han River and refused to withdraw, so he suffered such a disastrous defeat - this bitch is really not a thing...
…”
Although Jiang Ang had little hope of purchasing enough food from Changlin Town, Zhao Shan raised this issue and decided to take a few men ashore and take a trip to Changlin Town the next day.
He still thought that even if he could buy a few hundred stones of food in Changlin Town to meet the emergency, it would be enough.
Zhao Shan was still not familiar enough with Dongzhou Village and the situation near Changlin Town, so Jiang Ang also specially brought him with him - Zhao Shan left the training of the Centurion Team to the taciturn Liu Fujin.
Obviously he is much better than Jiang Xiong, Zhang Cong and others, and Jiang Ang is also happy to have Zhao Shan accompany him to make suggestions.
The officers and soldiers were huddled in Hualing and other cities, controlling the key pass at Jinkou. Changlin Town, which was only three or four miles away from Dongzhou Village, could be said to be the outskirts of Dongzhou Village.
At the same time, there were also lame Lao Jin and other informants watching the activities in Changlin Town - so Jiang Ang, Zhao Shan and others did not deliberately dress up. A few of them just changed into casual clothes and walked directly into the depressed, long dirt road and streets.
There are not many pedestrians in Changlin Town.
The town is closed, and few shops are still open to welcome customers. Even if Dongzhou Village has not committed any crime against Changlin Zhenqiu, the uprising of the Dongjing Allied Army has entered its fourth year. Anyone with a little wealth dares to
To establish a foothold near the Dongjing Alliance Army's lair without escaping far away?
Everyone sat down in Lame Lao Jin's cake shop, each took a hot cake that had just come out of the oven, ate it slowly with hot water, and silently looked at the desolate long street.
"How much iron material does Lao Zhaotou still have? There are a number of weapons in the village that need to be repaired?" Jiang Ang asked the lame Lao Jin who was pretending to be waiting for business.
Now Dongzhou Village has more than a hundred swords and guns that are still intact, all of which are still held by the original men and horses of Ma Zhanjiang. There are only some broken swords and broken halberds left in the warehouse.
If they could find iron materials in Changlin Town, these broken knives and broken halberds could barely be used after being repaired.
"It's strange to say that Old Man Zhao sold his blacksmith shop a few days ago. I heard that he sold it for a good price and moved his family to Hualing City overnight!" Lame Old Jin said.
The people working in the blacksmith shop are two strangers. I can’t find any clues. I suspect they are the same as the people in the house on Xisi Lane. Mr. Boss, you can no longer come to Changlin Town at will. The officers and soldiers are very likely to
We are already on the lookout, and we will take action on the island in the near future. We must be prepared in the village..."
"Let's go to the blacksmith shop, but I want to see who is so holy. I dare to bury nails directly in Changlin Town. Do you really think that Dongzhou Village is full of blind people and useless?" Jiang Ang said to Zhao Shan.
As long as a large number of officers and soldiers armed with bows and crossbows did not come to attack him, Jiang Ang would not be afraid of dozens of elite warriors.
He thought that the government dared to put a nail directly in Changlin Town. No matter whether the officers and soldiers would attack Dongzhou Village in the near future, he would first pull out this blatant nail.
Arranging four people to go to the back alley to block the door, Jiang Ang and Zhao Shan led a few of their men and walked directly into the blacksmith shop, which was less than a hundred steps away from the cake shop.
In the blacksmith shop, an elderly blacksmith who was nearly fifty years old was taking out a red-hot iron bar from the furnace with iron tongs, placed it on the anvil, and gently tapped the corner of the anvil with a small hammer.
Guide a young blacksmith in his early twenties to use a sledgehammer to continuously forge iron bars - there is also a younger apprentice in the shop, standing next to the bellows to take a breath.
Jiang Ang held the knife in front of his chest, leaned against the door frame, and slowly looked at the two men standing on both sides of the anvil.
It was cold in early spring, but the stove was burning in the shop to melt the iron and it was steaming.
The young man wields a sledgehammer and forges iron bars. He wears only a short coat, with two thick arms exposed, and his muscles are strong. He is definitely a practitioner - blacksmithing is hard work, and the blacksmith's body is probably not weak, but
Jiang Ang could still see the subtle difference between the muscles trained by blacksmithing and the muscles trained by martial arts at a glance.
The older man's clothes were slightly thicker, but his dark, skinny and stern cheeks were as sharp as a chisel. When Jiang Ang and the others walked to the door, his eyes were as sharp as a razor blade.
Jiang Ang laughed and said: "You two are very good at blacksmithing. I have been to Changlin Town several times before, but I haven't seen you two. I dare to ask, who is Gao, who is so careless?
Are you coming to Changlin Town to deceive me that all Dongzhou Village is blind?"
"We can't talk about Gao's surname. Xiao Ke's surname is Jiang Mingping. We don't dare to bully Mr. Jiang!" Seeing the young man stop to take precautions, Jiang Ping glanced at the young man and said, "Don't stop - Mr. Jiang is not like that.
There is nothing to be afraid of when a gangster kills a whole family without being reasonable..."
Jiang Ang almost laughed angrily, and stood at the door with his knife in his hand, wanting to see what kind of medicine was sold in the gourd named Jiang, but he saw that the iron bar gradually took shape, but it turned out to be a long-ridged blade...
