222 Sweep

(It's not easy to write a book, every word is the author's hard work, I hope you can support more, please collect and subscribe.)

The people living here have long envied the people of Yongcheng County.

They had long hoped that the White Dragon Army could come over and drive away these landlords and old wealth, so that they could also own their own land.

And because they received so much grain from the White Dragon Army, those local people welcomed the White Dragon Army even more.

When Wei Hong organized people to transport the seized money, food and materials back to White Snake Village, all those people came out with carts.

They have shown that they have collected so much food from the White Dragon Army, how can they do something!

With the help of these people, Wei Hong only needs to send a few soldiers to follow these people, and he can easily send this batch of money, food and materials back to White Snake Village, saving him a lot of troops.

Soon, several other sweeping armies also followed Wei Hong's behavior. 、

Before, Li Zixiao was not interested at all in whether to fight the county seat of Yongcheng County. 、

Because Yongcheng County is a symbol, it doesn't do much good to the White Dragon Army to lay it down.

After all, the county seat represents a symbol of the authority of the imperial court, and its presence means that the imperial court has not lost this place.

Even in essence, even the land outside the county is controlled by the White Dragon Army.

As long as the county seat of Yongcheng County is still within the control of the imperial court, it will not attract too much attention from the imperial court.

The other rebels did not understand this, and they always thought that attacking the state capital or the county seat would make them very famous.

It is also possible to obtain a lot of wealth and food, which is not the case.

Once they attack the next state capital and county, then they will become a thorn in the side of the official, a thorn in the flesh, and will inevitably invite the official mad retaliation.

This point has not only been reflected in this era, but even later generations have learned a profound lesson.

At this point, Li Zixiao probably understands better than anyone in this world that one city and one pool are not important to him.

And the basis for the survival of him and his White Dragon Army is in the countryside.

Although the handicraft industry in the Ming Dynasty was already very developed in this era, the peasants still accounted for the absolute majority among all kinds of industries.

What's more, in this era, rich people like to buy land, and a large number of peasants' land is swallowed.

As a result, the vast majority of the peasants have become their tenants and have to be exploited by them.

The peasants' desire for land is probably hard for ordinary people to imagine.

Only by gaining the hearts of these peasants can the White Dragon Army have the possibility of survival.

Therefore, Li Zixiao followed the strategy of the later Taizu at the beginning and occupied most of the territory of Yongcheng County, but he did not go to the county seat of Yongcheng County.

His fundamental goal was to be in the countryside, and since he wanted to expand his power, his greatest enemies were the landlords who now controlled a large amount of land.

Therefore, after he led his troops to defeat the official army this time, he immediately began to sweep towards the surrounding county capitals without stopping.

The first target is to directly point to the Zhuang Bao of the major landlords and old fortunes in the surrounding states and counties adjacent to Yongcheng County.

And at this time, the main reason why Li Zixiao absolutely won Yongcheng County was because he needed fame at this time.

That's right, it's fame, but it's notoriety, he wants to let the court know about his existence, show the strength of the White Dragon Army, and bargain better for them when they accept the court's recruitment.

This may be what the ancients said, 'Murder and arson are recruited', Li Zixiao is just going to embark on this road at this time.

So as soon as he started, Li Zixiao didn't plan to show mercy, and directly pulled out all the nearly 1,000 people who stayed in the cottage and went straight to Yongcheng County.

He wanted to take Yongcheng County in person, and by the way, settle their grievances with the Cai and Liu families.

The other generals of the White Dragon Army were all sent out by Li Ziquan and began to frantically sweep up the old wealth of those landlords.

At this time, the strong White Dragon Army, all of them are veterans who have seen blood, and with sharp weapons such as birds and artillery, they can be said to be able to capture the general Zhuangbao.

The main direction of Zhou Dazhu, Wei Hong, Luo Chao and others is to go south to Suzhou in Fengyang Prefecture.

Liu Chong, Qi Wei and Li Tianba in the north were responsible for sweeping the territory of Xiayi County in the north, and soon the landlords and old fortunes in the two counties were ready to suffer.

Fengyang Mansion had been attacked by the rebel army before, which had affected Suzhou to some extent, so the local families had learned a lesson.

One by one, they did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to build tall village walls for their own villages.

And they made the young men of their tenants their farms, and hired some skilled men as their households, so as to protect their farms.

But all the wealthy and big families have more or less organized such armed forces.

There are dozens of people, and there are also hundreds of people, and they can basically cope with an ordinary pole of robbing homes and houses with their strength.

In addition to defending against the bandits, they also guarded against the routs.

In these years, there is an old saying, called 'bandits are like combs, soldiers are like grates, and officials are shaved', and sometimes the soldiers are worse than the bandits.

But they only have that bit of strength, and they can't afford to make much waves.

At this time, after they really faced the well-trained and well-equipped White Dragon Army, these civilian local armed forces were not the opponents of the White Dragon Army.

After the White Dragon Army has been operating in the local area for half a year, its good reputation has already spread all over the local area.

The vast majority of the people around Yongcheng County know that the White Dragon Army is very different from the ordinary pole of robbing houses.

When an ordinary pole raids a village, it doesn't just target the rich people, they only need to take the fort, but it doesn't matter if you have money or not.

Burn, kill, and loot wherever they pass, and even the poorest people will be looted.

As for the officers and soldiers, not to mention, the soldiers are like grates, and they are more ruthless than those who are bandits.

So in the past, even if it was for their own lives, ordinary people would help the rich people to guard the village and not let the pole attack it, because that was also to protect their own safety.

But in the past few months, what the White Dragon Army has done is very different from those previous poles.

The White Dragon Army never harmed the ordinary poor people, but treated the people well everywhere, with no food to eat, no clothes to wear.

What made the people even more grateful to the White Dragon Army was that they even gave the people the land to plant.

It's not like those landlords and old money, who knock on the bones and suck the marrow, squeezing their blood and sweat.

This practice has long been recognized by the common people within the jurisdiction of the White Dragon Army.

Soon, the people in the surrounding states and counties near Yongcheng County also heard the news.

Since the White Dragon Army will not harm them poor people, these poor peasants will have no interest in giving their masters their lives anymore.

After Wei Hong and others invaded the territory of Suzhou, their actions were quickly supported by the local people.

Because every time they captured a fort of the landlord's old wealth, they would distribute grain to the local people, and burn the title deeds of the landlord's old wealth in public.

And promised them that soon the White Dragon Army would send someone over and preside over their division of the land in the hands of those landlords and old wealth.

After understanding the style of the White Dragon Army, these landlords and tenants of Zhuangzi, who would be stupid to give their lives to those landlords and old wealth.

It was often the White Dragon Army that surrounded Zhuangzi, and as soon as the cannon was fired, the Zhuangzi Zhuangzi immediately scattered as birds and beasts and ran away.

The White Dragon Army attacked the landlords' forts, and rarely met with fierce resistance, as long as the limited resistance on the village walls was suppressed with bird guns.

Then, let those who follow the military poles from all walks of life rest assured and bold, pushing the crash car to hit the village gate.

No matter how strong the Zhuang people are, they can't withstand the impact of a heavy crash, and they will soon be knocked away from the outside by the White Dragon Army and rushed into the village.

As for after entering the village, those villagers in the Zhuangzi are not the opponents of the White Dragon Army, and they will soon be cleaned up and take the entire Zhuangzi.

There was even such a situation, after the White Dragon Army surrounded a Zhuangzi, it just started shouting at the people inside to abandon their weapons and surrender.

Some of the bold tenants in the village tied up the big households in the village by themselves, opened the door of the village to welcome them, and handed the big households over to the White Dragon Army for disposal.

Then these bold tenants happily received a batch of grain from the White Dragon Army, waiting for the White Dragon Army to give them land.

After all, the big families have been riding on their heads for a long time, and once these tenants who have been oppressed for a long time have a chance to take revenge, they will not miss the old.

Sometimes some ruthless tenants simply killed the landlords in the Zhuangzi without waiting for them to be tied up and sent out of the Zhuangzi.

And once these tenants go crazy, they even spoil the women of rich families, and do such things, the common people who are out of control will be even more crazy.

So much so that sometimes after capturing a Zhuangzi, the White Dragon Army would enter the village to suppress it, so as not to harm innocent people.

In this way, the overall progress of the White Dragon Army is very fast.

Sometimes within two or three days, two Zhuangzi can be captured in a row, and in just ten days, more than a dozen Zhuangzi were defeated within more than 30 miles south of Yongcheng to Suzhou.

And the White Dragon Army captured a lot from these Zhuangzi.

These big families are basically every household, and they all have a lot of stored grain and gold, silver, yellow and white things, so that the White Dragon Army has accumulated a lot of money, grain and materials in a short period of time.

In the territory of Xiayi County in the north, Qi Wei and Liu Chong's actions were also very smooth, and without officers and soldiers to fight, relying only on those landlords and old wealth, they could not stop the advance of the White Dragon Army.

But things weren't as smooth sailing as they might have been.

Half a month later, when Zhou Dazhu led his troops to attack a Caojiazhuang north of Suzhou, he encountered unusually fierce resistance.

No matter how the generals under Zhou Dazhu shouted at the village to promote the policy of the White Dragon Army, but the people in Caojiazhuang were not moved at all.

In the end, Zhou Dazhu had to lead his troops to take a strong attack.

But I didn't expect that the people in Caojiazhuang resisted extremely fiercely, and the equipment of Caojiazhuang Zhuangding was also quite good.

There were no less than seventy or eighty pairs of hard bows alone, as well as twenty or thirty hard crossbows, not to mention all kinds of swords, guns, swords, halberds, etc., and there were also quite enough gray stone rolling wood, boiling water and boiling oil, and even two old artillery.

As soon as the White Dragon Army attacked, they used these things to smash their heads and faces.

So much so that Zhou Dazhu and those who fought with him were frustrated several times in the attack of the two poles, but they lost a lot of men and horses.

The walled wall built by Caojiazhuang is also very strong, and even attracts the water of the Huhe River, and a moat is dug outside the village wall, forming a moat.

Zhou Dazhu led his troops to attack for two consecutive days and were repeatedly frustrated, unable to take down this Caojiazhuang, so they had no choice but to ask for help from several other White Dragon Army.

Soon, as Wei Hong and Luo Chao brought people over, there were more than 1,000 White Dragon troops gathered outside Caojiazhuang, and with those poles, there were more than 2,000 horses.

If it is replaced by the Zhuang Fort of other landlords and old wealth, seeing so many white dragon troops gathered outside the village, it is estimated that before the fight, it should be chaotic inside.

At this time, even Zhou Dazhu was full of confidence again, thinking that with their strength at this time, it should be easy to capture Caojiazhuang.

As a result, Zhou Dazhu was slapped in the face.

After the three of them converged, they re-launched a tentative attack on Caojiazhuang, and the resistance in Caojiazhuang not only did not decrease, but became stronger.

After losing seven or eight men, the White Dragon Army still chose to retreat, and at this time they realized that this Caojiazhuang was not like the ordinary landlord Lao Cai Zhuangzi they had met before, it was a difficult bone to gnaw.

Zhou Dazhu and the others looked at the situation in Caojiazhuang, and they couldn't help but have a little headache.

Li Zixiao and their orders were that all the landlords and forts north of Suzhou County must be cleared within a month, and their sweep would also stop at the front line of Suzhou County.

This means that they can't lose too many soldiers and horses, otherwise there will be a lot of forts behind them, and they will not be able to deal with them.

Therefore, after the White Dragon Army lost more than a dozen generals, Wei Hong and the others decisively stopped the attack.

They were determined to study why this Caojiazhuang was so difficult to gnaw.

The peasants and people of other Zhuangbao, when they heard that the White Dragon Army was coming, all secretly cooperated, and they would not make trouble at the worst, and would not work hard for the landlord and old wealth to guard the village.

Without those tenants guarding the village for the landlord's old wealth, it would not take much effort for the White Dragon Army to break through a fort.

But this Caojiazhuang is an exception, which makes Wei Hong and others realize that something is wrong, there must be a reason.

So they immediately sent people to find a few local people in the surrounding area and asked them about the situation in Caojiazhuang.

After asking like this, I knew why Caojiazhuang resisted so fiercely.

This Caojiazhuang was indeed built by a landlord surnamed Cao, and the people in the middle of the village are basically all relatives of the landlord of the Cao family.

There are not many tenants in Caojiazhuang, and they are basically people from their Cao family.

This is a Zhuangbao where the Cao family surnamed Wang lived, and the Cao family has always been very united and xenophobic.

They didn't even give face to the government, and it was normal for them to resist so strongly in the face of the White Dragon Army.