After sending a reply to Ye Mengxiong, Xiao Ruxun did not stop his pace of going north, but accelerated his speed and led the army to gallop towards Wuchang Mansion.

His next strategic goal was to take the three towns of Wuhan, and then follow the Yangtze River to Nanjing, meet with the Jianghai Department that had occupied Nanjing, and then go north, advance by land and water, all the way to Beijing, and take Shen Yiyi.

After taking Shen Chengyi, the world can be decided, which is very easy, just like Zhu Di's battle of martyrdom.

Wuchang Mansion is an important town in Huguang, and it is also the town that guards the throat of the Yangtze River, and taking Wuchang Mansion will open the way to the north to march into the Central Plains, if Xiao Ruxun is facing an extremely powerful northern enemy, then the existence of Wuchang Mansion is a very important base for the Northern Expedition.

But this is not the case at the moment, from Wuchang to Datong, this way is extremely weak and has no enemies, for Xiao Ruxun, the symbolic significance of taking Wuchang is a little greater than the actual significance.

When the army marched to Xianning, Xiao Ruxun received a letter from Xie He, saying that he had won the first battle in Yinxian County, Ningbo, and had successfully abolished several large local families that had resisted the Zhennan Army the most fiercely with the method that Xiao Ruxun had told him, and by the way, he had taken a village into his hands and gained their support.

The first peasant association was established, the first peasant organization was organized, and the first peasant households with no way out appeared.

As the progress unfolds, this place, where the landlords and gentry were strongest in previous years, will also become the most staunch supporter of the Zhennan Army, and can even become a second base no less than Burma.

Xiao Ruxun also thinks that the more fierce the resistance, the more stable it will be after it is pacified, and the higher the support rate, because the resistance has popped out and been destroyed, there is no more, only the support remains, then it is naturally stable, the support is naturally high, and it can naturally become the basic plate.

On the other hand, those places where resistance is not strong are not very useful because they need to be dealt with by gentle means.

But Xiao Ruxun is different this time, this time it is a land reform in the real sense, and it is necessary to start from the root, whether it is violent robbery or money redemption, it is necessary to start from the root, and the foundation on which the gentry and heroes rely to resist the authority of the central government no longer exists, and they will not be able to move.

They even need to rely on the protection of the central government to survive.

The more this time came, the more Xiao Ruxun felt how far-sighted and positive the mausoleum system of the Han Dynasty was.

Therefore, Xiao Ruxun did not wait for Xie He to ask more working group personnel to go to Ningbo to assist in the work, so he took the initiative to send two groups of working groups there, and hoped that Fujian would send two groups of working groups to carry out land reform in Fujian.

He did so for his own purposes.

In doing so, not only did he completely force the peasants to the opposite side of the powerful gentry, but also forced these members of the working group who presided over the land reform to the opposite side of the traditional gentry, which was one of Xiao Ruxun's goals.

These people are also scholars, and they are also Confucian children who read the Four Books and Five Classics, but because they did not pass the examination, they could not enter the group of powerful gentry, and they could only wander on the edge of society, and their situation was very embarrassing.

Upward, he was looked down upon by the Jinshi, feeling that he had no future, and down he was ridiculed by the peasants as nerds who were not diligent and did not distinguish between grains and grains, and laughed at them, grandpa did not love grandma and did not love, and the whole marginal group.

This group of people is well used, and the lethality is much greater than that of the peasants.

What's more convenient is that a considerable number of the 300,000 scholars are these people, who can be won over, included in Xiao Ruxun's team, and then seized power through land reform, and at the same time became traitors and traitors in the eyes of the traditional gentry, so they had to rely on Xiao Ruxun's force.

Through the experience of land reform, they have deepened their understanding of the people and the localities, and thus have the qualifications to become grassroots officials, and a few outstanding ones can go further to higher positions and even enter the central government.

The difference between these people and the Jinshi is the level of merit, for officials, they are actually the same, no one is born to be an official, and if you pass the Jinshi examination, you have to be a Jinshi to do an internship, and there are many people who are played by small officials in the local area.

Not to mention those who don't go up to the exam, they don't have any political experience, and the difference between them and the poor Xiucai is that one is rich and the other is poor.

Xiao Ruxun asked the poor talents to operate the land reform, which is to observe the government, that is, to practice, and it is a more direct and thorough internship, a direct transformation or even a brain-changing internship, after the internship is successful, they are also skilled grassroots bureaucrats.

Xiao Ruxun didn't know if any of them had seen their intentions, at least for now, Xie He, the first person among them, didn't see that he had already paid this vote to Xiao Ruxun.

They should still be immersed in the intoxication of the power they first held, and use this power more and more strongly to force the gentry and nobles, forming an increasingly fierce confrontation situation, so that they too will be firmly tied to the chariot, and there will be no possibility of getting out of the chariot again.

Xiao Ruxun wants to use this land reform action to cultivate a civil service that can be trusted in the future, which is different from the civil service team of the traditional gentry.

Naturally, the traditional gentry will not be killed, a considerable part will survive, and after the landless, they will inevitably be accepted if they have mastered knowledge, and even some wise people will be included in the ruling group.

In the future, this can also cause division and antagonism within the civilian bureaucracy, forming a struggle between the old and new factions of civil officials, which will help suppress the civilian forces, and even help dismantle the situation in which Confucianism is the dominant one.

Xiao Ruxun has never believed in the discipline of literati, and he will never repeat the mistakes made by the former Song Dynasty and Daming, this time, no matter what, he must uproot this status quo.

While all this was in full swing, on October 10, Xiao Ruxun led his army to arrive in Zhifang Town, which was only half a day's journey from Wuchang Mansion.

Probably because of Ye Mengxiong's arrangement, since receiving the letter, Xiao Ruxun has not encountered any resistance, and any city has honestly opened the city gate, Xiao Ruxun also restrained military discipline and did not allow the army to come randomly, sent people into the city to appease the people, issued a document on the Northern Expedition, and then continued to go north.

After arriving at the town of Zhifang, Xiao Ruxun ordered the army to stop advancing, search for ships on the spot, and then cut down wood and build ships, preparing to go down the river to Nanjing.

At this place, there should be no longer a need to fight, since Ye Mengxiong has put on a posture, then he must talk about it, if the ownership of the three towns of Wuchang can be solved through negotiation, it is naturally better than using troops to fight.

So Xiao Ruxun sent someone to Wuchang Mansion to deliver the news to Ye Mengxiong.

Soon, Ye Mengxiong sent back the news.

Tomorrow, Ye Mengxiong will personally arrive in Zhifang Town to meet Xiao Ruxun, let Xiao Ruxun find a quiet place, he wants to have a good chat with Xiao Ruxun without anyone disturbing him.

Xiao Ruxun shared the news with the generals and staff, and everyone reacted differently.

"Dashuai, can this Ye Mengxiong really be believed? Could he have had other plans? ”

Zhao Hu knew a little about Xiao Ruxun's past, but he didn't know anything about Ye Mengxiong.

Xiao Ruxun said: "Ye Gong is a literati I respect, in the past few years, he has given me a lot of help, he is my friend, even if others don't believe it, I can't help but believe Ye Gong." ”

Yuan Huang nodded while stroking his beard.

"Ye Mengxiong Gong is trustworthy, don't say anything else, but when it comes to his identity as the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, if he is on our side, we will be more stable in our moral position, and when the time comes, we will better fight back against the moral condemnation that Shang Shen has always been able to carry out on us."

Zhao Hu pursed his lips disdainfully.

"These bird civil officials know that they are shooting guns with guns in their mouths, and they are about to do it with real knives and real guns, all of them are turtles with shrunken heads, and if you want me to say, no matter what moral condemnation he has, he will directly bombard the past, and the world will be quiet!"

Xiao Ruxun shook his head and smiled bitterly.

"You, have you won too many battles and are full of guns? There are always things that can't be solved with guns! ”

Zhao Hu pursed his lips and didn't speak again.