"It seems that we are coming too fast, and the pressure on this city is not great enough!" Looking at the table of delicacies, Tom Wang couldn't help but sigh.

Yan Chujie shook his head and said: "That's not necessarily, the people in the government are not all wine bags and rice bags, the people in the office said that since the day of the siege, food control has been implemented in the city, and now the ordinary people in the city will definitely not be able to eat the food in front of us." ”

After the Haihan militia opened the east gate and entered the Qiongzhou capital, the government temporarily requisitioned a house in the city and handed it over to the militia as a command headquarters. After that, he also sent several cooks and transported several truckloads of ingredients to make a sumptuous banquet for the Haihan officers stationed there. However, probably for the sake of avoiding suspicion, several high-ranking local officials did not rush to visit except for a meeting with the person in charge of Haihan's side when they entered the city.

This reaction of the government was also expected by the military, although Haihan also had a certain influence in the northern area of Qiongzhou Island, but it was not so big that the government could take the initiative to tie up like Yazhou. Moreover, the Haihan militia is a private armed force, and it is a very taboo thing to enter the city and station, and if the government expresses too enthusiasm for this, it will seem unreasonable.

Although military control had been imposed in the city after the siege of the city, it was clear that the supply of materials in the city had not been greatly affected due to the short duration of the siege, and the militia had asked the government for food supplies for 4,000 people before entering the city, and they quickly received a positive answer.

"We have good food and drink here, I don't know what the situation is over there over there. They pushed all the way from Danzhou all the way, all of them were field battles, and they must have been tired enough these days. Tom Wang said as he ate.

"Qian Tiandun is not as miserable as you think!" Yan Chujie shook his head and said: "He doesn't have to walk by himself when he marches, even if he doesn't have a car, he has a horse to ride." I heard that after they besieged the city, they occupied a landlord's manor in the west as a command center. Do you think he can still eat and sleep outside? It's not just when he started, he is now also the commander of the theater, and he can command several thousand people under his command, so how can he suffer such hardships. ”

Tom Wang was stunned at first, and then said with a smile: "That's right, how are we living now, Qian Tiandun should be the same." ”

Similar to Yan Chujie, Wang Tom, Qian Tiandun's high-level officers, the standard of living is already quite superior in this era, there are orderly soldiers to serve them in food and clothing, and there are special carriages for them to ride when they go out. The traversers demanded a lot of details in their lives, and to be honest, their standard of living during the period when they were outside commanding operations was much higher than that of their contemporaries.

However, the good wine and food provided by the government could not buy this group of Haihan soldiers, and after feasting, Yan Chujie began to direct the next action.

According to the operational plan formulated by the General Staff, when the Haihan militia was stationed in the capital city of Qiongzhou, it announced the official start of the process of Haihan's reception of the northern region. In the request made to the government before the militia army entered the city, there were corresponding arrangements, and the three city gates and all the key areas and traffic nodes in the city were all manned by the militia army. And their task is to completely take control of the military control of the capital city of Qiongzhou tonight.

At eight o'clock in the evening, according to the scheduled time, the militia troops in various parts of the city began to mobilize at the same time, and in the name of "clearing out pirate spies", they demanded that all the guards immediately disarm and wait for the arrangement. The guards watched in amazement as the militia soldiers, who had just sat around for dinner, suddenly pointed their guns at themselves, completely unaware of what was going on. Only a handful of people realized the Mintuan's intentions and tried to resist, but they were immediately suppressed by the Mintuan on charges of "spies".

The leading party that had been planted in the guard army in advance began to lead the rhythm at this time: "The pirates came all the way from Danzhou, and the Fucheng side didn't even receive the warning, and sure enough, there was an internal response!" "What! There is a traitor in my dignified Ming guard army!" "Liu Erdan, Liu Erdan, I can't imagine that you are a guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes, and you actually betrayed the court!"

For two parties with a complete imbalance in the amount of information they have, the weaker party can easily be led astray by the information consciously disseminated by the other party. This is the case with the Guards, who lack knowledge of pirates, and as long as a few people take the rhythm in the middle, many blind followers will immediately join in. The forced disarmament of the Haihan militia did not cause a major conflict, and after the leaders of the resistance were suppressed, the rest of the people basically chose to obey.

Qian Tiandun and Yan Chujie sat in the south and north of the city respectively, directing the operation that night. The armed clearance of the city gates and the main roads was relatively smooth, and there was no large-scale resistance from the guards, and the militia did not even fire a shot, so they were able to take the three city gates and the two avenues running through the city in the north, south and east and west.

But while cleaning up the yamen in the north of the city, the militia finally ran into some minor troubles and had to use force to defeat a group of Ming troops who tried to resist. When the officials who heard the gunshots tried to find out what had happened, they found that they had been placed under house arrest by the militia and could not even get out of their own yard.

The militia army did not stop all night, and the people in the city heard the footsteps of the militia army coming and going in the streets all night, and occasionally there were bursts of gunfire, and many people were cowered in the bed and were so frightened that they stayed awake all night, lest they would be rushed into their homes by the rebels outside the next moment.

The clean-up operation lasted until it was dark, and the red-eyed king Tom and Yan Chujie met in a restaurant in the middle of the city, had breakfast and reported the results of last night's operation by the way.

"Count yourself lucky, you have drawn to the south of the city, and these grandsons in the north of the city have been tossing all night!" Yan Chujie slowly supported his waist and said very angrily: "I arrested more than 200 people in one night, and the cells in the north of the city couldn't be stuffed, so I could only temporarily levy a courtyard and lock people up first." ”

Wang Tom smiled and said: "Don't be too troublesome, the troublesome matter of your army is still to come!" Last night, I took the time to look at the report sent by Qian Tiandun, and there are two or three hundred landlords of all sizes in the radius of the 100 or so miles around Fucheng alone, and when you go back and check the land, you will have to complain!"

"Who said it wasn't!" Yan Chujie, who has always been known for his perseverance and courage, also showed a look of embarrassment on his face: "At that time, there will definitely be a lot of disputes in land acquisition, and if something happens, our militia will have to come forward to suppress it, this errand is not easy to do...... Let's not talk about this for a while, now that the Fucheng side has basically controlled it, I think I can contact Qian Tiandun's side today and start to gradually transfer it to the control area. ”

Wang Tom nodded and said, "Then I'll contact him when I get back." What about arresting those local officials?"

Yan Chujie said: "According to the arrangement of the Executive Committee, all the staff at the grassroots level will be temporarily retained, and as for the senior officials with palm prints...... When I turn around, I will arrange for them to be escorted to the riverside and handed over to your people. ”

According to the plan in advance, after the control of the capital city of Qiongzhou was realized, the militia army was to gather all the high-ranking officials here first and secretly send them to Sanya for imprisonment, so as to prevent them from organizing some revolt on the spot. As for how long these people will be imprisoned, it depends on the progress of their ideological transformation and the general trend of the situation between Haihan and Daming.

The navy's combat mission can be regarded as coming to an end at this time, and although they will have to continue to maintain the blockade of the Qiongzhou Strait, the military believes that there is no possibility for Guangdong to send a large number of warships to Qiongzhou Island in a short period of time. However, Wang Tom planned to take advantage of this opportunity to hold a military exercise in the Qiongzhou Strait to properly practice the fleet's cooperative combat capability.

From October 20 to 23, a total of nearly 3,000 troops of the militia army were stationed inside and outside the city of Qiongzhou, and carried out many activities to "eliminate pirates and spies in the whole city", and more than 50 people were killed in these few days of purging - of course, there were no Haihan militia members, basically all of them were members of the Ming army who tried to resist.

Before the people in the city could quite understand the direction of the situation, dozens of high-ranking local officials had been secretly escorted out of the city, sent to a sailboat parked on the Nandu River, and then sent all the way to Sanya. And the control of the capital city of Qiongzhou completely changed hands, from the Ming Dynasty to the Haihan. After three days of lockdown, the people of the city were finally free to take to the streets to take a look at the notices posted by the Haihan militia.

At the entrance of the government office, a group of people were looking at the notice posted on the wall, and a scholar stood at the front, shaking his head and reading: "...... In order to quell the bandits, the jurisdiction of the public security of the capital city of Qiongzhou is temporarily managed by the Haihan People's League, and all civil affairs are undertaken by the Provisional Management Committee of the capital city......"

Someone in the crowd shouted, "What kind of yamen is this temporary management committee? Why haven't you heard of it before?"

Someone explained in a low voice: "This management committee is a yamen created by the Haihan people, and their ports and wharves are all managed by this yamen, and they have great power!"

Someone else asked: "Then is this city now in charge of the Ming Dynasty, or is it the Haihan Dynasty?"

When this question was asked, no one answered. Although it was written on this notice that the new yamen of the Haihan people was temporarily in charge of local government affairs, the big seal stamped underneath was still the prefect of Qiongzhou, and no one dared to speak out on this issue -- a few days ago, many people were arrested in the city, and who knows how many of them were real spies, and how many were because they said the wrong thing.

However, the questioner obviously did not intend to stop there, and when he saw that no one around answered, he said to himself: "In the place managed by the Haihan people, everyone has no worries about food and clothing, and there is no need to worry about pirates coming, I think it is much better than Daming in charge! If this place is taken over by Haihan, it will not be a bad thing!"

This kind of person who leads the rhythm in the crowd of onlookers can be found in almost every posting point. The Executive Committee attached great importance to post-occupation propaganda and held several preparatory meetings for this purpose, and selected competent personnel from various departments to work together. The request of the Executive Committee was to make the people's perception of Haihan more positive within a short period of time after the occupation of the northern region. In particular, with regard to the replacement of the Ming Dynasty by Haihan and the implementation of administrative authority in the northern region, the Executive Committee hoped that the people would be able to accept the reality in the calmest way possible.

Naturally, this matter is not easy to carry out, so Haihan must install a large number of mouthpieces among the people, and use these people disguised as ordinary people to speak out and influence the people around them. No one in the Executive Committee dares to pack a ticket for how effective this relatively primitive trolls can achieve, but this is undoubtedly one of the best means to influence public opinion, and the cost is extremely low, and there is no technical threshold for operation.

Within three or five days, the local people probably didn't realize that the disappearance of the Ming government meant this, but after a long time, they would definitely gradually perceive the changes in the environment, after all, the various social rules formulated by Haihan were still obviously different from those of the Ming Dynasty. If people can be made aware of the fact that control and power have changed hands as soon as possible, then it may be easier for them to face the social changes that follow.

On the evening of the 23rd, Yan Chujie, on behalf of the Haihan Executive Committee, hosted a banquet for some gentry in the city. Although this is not a Hongmen banquet, Yan Chujie did arrange this occasion with the intention of ringing the alarm bell for these people.

After three rounds of drinking, Yan Chujie stood up and gently tapped the side of the bowl with chopsticks, and the banquet immediately quieted down.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this time the pirates invaded Qiongzhou Island, and even several cities such as Danzhou, Lingao, Chengmai, Dingbei, and Wenchang, and the entire northern part of Qiongzhou Island is left with such a place as Qiongzhou Mansion City that is still intact. Originally, there were some things that should not have been said by me, but the matter has developed to the point where I have had to stand up and say a few words!" Yan Chujie looked around at everyone and said in a deep voice: "There have been rumors of thousands of pirates attacking Qiongzhou Island a few months ago, what has the local government done? In addition to letting the naval fleet of Qiongzhou Fucheng, which has no combat effectiveness, deliver food, what other meaningful things have it done? Danzhou didn't even carry it for a day, and the other counties all surrendered without a fight, what is the government doing? What are the Ming officials and troops doing? If you can't protect the people under your rule, then what's the point of having to spend money on such an official government and army?"

Yan Chujie's words were extremely serious, and none of the people at the few tables here dared to talk. People have money and soldiers in their hands, even if they talk about a few words about the government, no one can do anything to him. But these people here are all ordinary people, and if the wrong thing gets out, they will definitely be held accountable.

Yan Chujie continued: "If it weren't for my Haihan automatically asking Ying to fight, then this Qiongzhou Mansion City must have been lost a long time ago!"