Although Li Laiheng was young, he saw everyone's reaction and knew that he needed to be cautious, so he naturally would not accept He Zhen's bet. He Zhen, who was unable to transfer the losses, was in a bad mood and had no appetite at all. Seeing this, Yuan Zongdi next to him suggested discussing how to distribute the seizure of this battle in order to activate the atmosphere.

Sure enough, when he mentioned distributing spoils, He Zhen, who was already depressed, was immediately energetic and said his merits and hard work, while striving to fight for the Daning Army. His mood improved and his appetite became better. When he was about to divide his armor, weapons, and men, most of the food in front of He Zhen was empty.

More than a thousand captured women are valuable trophys.

Deng Ming and his group had twenty people, and He Zhen generously proposed to give Deng Ming fifty places, and he chose them first. The remaining ones were almost 1,000, and the generals from Kuidong distributed equally, and each of them was divided into two hundred people. After a long battle just now, everyone was a little tired. Generally speaking, the generals who broke into the camp were relatively united, and everyone had no objection to this allocation plan.

Liu Tichun thought for a while and suggested to He Zhen: "Some of these women are good-for-natured, some are good-for-no-family girls."

"Of course, all kinds of people score equally," He Zhen glared before Liu Tichun finished speaking, "It's fair to do this."

"Anyway, you're taking it to the camp, so why not sell all the girls in your hands to me." Liu Tichun said to He Zhen, and then made a similar request to Hao Yaoqi: "I want the girls you get too, and sell them to me. I can exchange them for food or silver."

"The grain is too heavy, I don't want it." He Zhen originally valued food and paid more attention to it than silver, but the harvest this time was too rich. He was already worried about how to transport the grain in his hand back to Daning as soon as possible, so he said that he only checked in cash: "How do you calculate the silver?"

"Twenty taels per person." Liu Tichun immediately reported a number.

Hao Yaoqi and He Zhen both expressed dissatisfaction with this number. In order to raise the price, Hao Yaoqi took the initiative to ask Yuan Zongdi: "Do you want to buy some?"

Yuan Zongdi did not let Hao Yaoqi get what he wanted. He also wanted to buy it, but he had no intention of increasing the price: "Twenty taels per person, I also have this price."

"You buy girls for your soldiers, and they are thirty or forty taels, and some are even fifty taels. Why do you buy them from us for twenty taels?" He Zhen said angrily: "If you are good and bullied, you just want to take advantage of kindness and honest people."

"That means to be a relative, not a girl." Yuan Zongdi corrected.

"Is there any difference?" He Zhen asked back: "Isn't it just to pay the money with one hand or the other?"

"That's different. The woman has parents and matchmakers. My son has kowtowed to her father-in-law and mother-in-law." Liu Tichun and Yuan Zongdi are now companions in the same trench.

"It's easy. These girls are my adopted daughters. Let the kids from your two families come to kowtow to me. I put my handprints on my wedding book. The price is 40 taels of silver for a girl." He Zhen reacted quickly: "I will press as much as I should press this kind of handprint!"

Liu Tichun shook his head and said, "You want this price, why don't I go to the innocent family? I have to ask you women of unknown origin."

"If you don't want to, don't want it. I don't want to sell it." He Zhen said angrily.

After a while, Yuan Zongdi dragged his long voice and asked, "How about twenty-five taels of silver?"

"No!" He Zhen immediately refused: "At least thirty-five taels."

"Fifty-two people will be fine, sell them to me." Deng Ming, who had not spoken, suddenly interrupted.

Everyone looked at Deng Ming together, and Deng Ming said with a smile: "The family has more than 200 people. For the sake of my purchase of so much face at one time, I will wipe it off for a fraction of it, and each company will be worth ten thousand taels of silver."

Deng Ming said to Liu Tichun, Hao Yaoqi and He Zhen: "You three owe me 10,000 taels, so you don't have to pay back my money." Then he said to Yuan Zongdi: "Didn't I still save some money from General Yuan? Take away 10,000 taels yourself and give General Li another 10,000 taels."

Liu Tichun asked tentatively: "What do the admiral want so many people to do? He wants to let them go back again?"

"Yes," Deng Ming replied in a natural tone: "These are all miserable people in troubled times. Let them go home. In the future, they will marry and have children and become mothers."

"This is not something we have plundered." Hao Yaoqi felt that Deng Ming's words seemed to be suspected of being blamed, so he hurriedly defended: "They were all snatched by the thief."

"So I'll pay this money to redeem them. Of course I know that these are the spoils won by the soldiers' hard battles." Deng Ming quickly defended himself, saying that he was not at all dissatisfied.

He said to Yuan Zongdi and Liu Tichun: "These girls' families may not be willing to let their daughter marry far away. Besides, they are indeed unknown. It's better to find some better marriages for the soldiers."

Then he said to He Zhen and Hao Yaoqi: "I don't object to the two generals who want to buy some advice for their children. As for these good women, let's put them back."

"Since the admiral said that, then do it." Yuan Zongdi was the first to respond: "As for money, it's..."

"It must be given." Deng Ming saw that Yuan Zongdi wanted to be rich, and immediately interrupted him: "This is all won back by the officers and soldiers. I did not send troops in this battle. How could I use the soldiers' things for nothing?"

"That's right, that's right, let's spend money to support soldiers, and we will follow the admiral to conquer the world in the future." He Zhen quickly agreed and said to Deng Ming: "Then, the general and the admiral will not owe each other."

"Yes, we don't owe each other." Deng Ming said with a smile.

"In fact, I can't give us so much money." Although Hao Yaoqi felt sorry for the money, he was still more honest and kinder than He Zhen, and hurriedly reminded: "Some people really advocate excellence, and many people are widows."

After being reminded by Hao Yaoqi, He Zhen was depressed. It seemed that the gambling debt of 10,000 taels of silver could not be completely offset.

"That's right, each person has fifty taels, I'll ask for them all." Deng Ming thanked Hao Yaoqi for his honesty, but he had already made up his mind to buy all the women.

"Even widows want it?" Hao Yaoqi asked in surprise: "Even if you really advocate good luck?"

"They probably don't want to leave their hometown. You can buy those who are willing to follow you with this money. Let these reluctant women be put back." Deng Ming did not intend to treat these women differently. Since they were all recruited by Hu Quancai, they would send them home safely.

...

After finishing the dinner to entertain Li Laiheng, Deng Ming returned to his camp and asked Li Xinghan if he would go to Hanyang first.

Deng Ming had already asked Liu Tichun and Yuan Zongdi for some soldiers and asked them to send these women back to Hanyang immediately. There were also several gentry prisoners from Wuchang who were accompanying him. They patted Deng Ming's chest and promised that they would let these women in distress get home safely. Deng Ming planned to send a few of his own people to go with him.

"I dare not let General He go and send him off, otherwise he would probably resell all these women again." Deng Ming said with a smile.

Li Xinghan is an upright person and is very suitable for performing such supervision tasks. Wu Baoping and Wu Yuewang also accompanied Li Xinghan. They didn't have to get close to Hanyang, but they could leave when they got nearby.

If Zhao Tianba was asked to go, Zhao Tianba would feel that such a small errand was not worth mentioning and was an insult to his extraordinary martial arts. Although Zhou Kaihuang was not as proud as Zhao Tianba, he would most likely have similar emotions.

Unexpectedly, even Li, Wu and Wu, who seemed to be hardworking, were somewhat resistant. They felt that escorting a group of women back home was not a great achievement, and it was a bit useless to let these famous warriors do this job. Moreover, Li Xinghan and the others thought that Deng Ming was really useless. Five thousand taels of silver was enough for two, and the cost of 3,000 soldiers in a year could also provide good equipment.

"Saving more than a thousand weak women is really impossible to compare with the great cause of Zhongxing." Deng Ming said in his heart that although he won the bet, it is easy to win but not easy to get the gambling debt. It is better to use it for substitution. He explained to everyone: "I remember the first lord said: Do not do good because it is small, and do not do evil because it is small."

Speaking of the kind Liu Bei, Li Xinghan and the Sichuan Army immediately felt awe-inspiring. They thanked Deng Ming: "What the admiral said is that he is confused by humility."

At the dinner, He Zhen and others proposed to give Deng Ming and his fifty women in advance. Since Deng Ming released all the prisoners and the women in Wuchang, he naturally could not treat the guards harshly, so he gave them 120 taels of silver each, which was considered as redeeming these women from them. Deng Ming smiled and said, "You can do it yourself. This money can be used to buy things, or you can save it back to Fengjie to ask for a wife."

"Admiral, are we going to go back to Fengjie?" Wu Yuewang asked. The Ming army is advancing all the way. Seeing that the Huguang Green Camp is already vulnerable, many people are interested in moving and intending to leave the Three Gorges and enter Hubei. He Zhen is already discussing with Hao Yaoqi about establishing a new base.

"Of course I have to go back." Deng Ming did not think that the Qing Dynasty could collapse as soon as it was pushed.

After all, in his original history, the Anti-Qing Alliance would collapse within a few years. Although history has changed because of Deng Ming, the situation where the enemy is strong and we are weak cannot be reversed in the short term.

Moreover, Deng Ming had some thoughts not mentioned to the guards, that is, he was obsessed with opening up a base of his own. Although Deng Ming met all the anti-Qing soldiers and horses that he had encountered now respected him, as long as he had no strength, there were some things that Deng Ming wanted to change and could not change, and he could not do what he wanted to do. Just like the women of Wuchang captured by the Ming army, people of this era thought they had the right to be right, and if Deng Ming wanted to release them, they needed to pay a reasonable price to exchange. If he had no base, Deng Ming would not dare to say that he could win every bet.

...

As another group of gentry returned to Wuchang and Hanyang, Hunan Governor Zhang Changgeng felt the danger approaching step by step. Although there are still many troops in Wuchang now, the soldiers are quite afraid of Deng Ming and believe that King Shaofu is invincible. Moreover, after Deng Ming released his captives twice, these soldiers were not too worried about the treatment of the surrender of Queen Shaofu, and would not fight to the death.

As for the Hunan soldiers brought back by Zhang Changgeng, under the firm request of the gentry in Wuchang and Hanyang, all of them are now stationed outside the city. These foreign troops have no intention of fighting for Wuchang at all. In addition, like the local soldiers, they firmly believe that King Shaofu would treat the prisoners preferentially and also give one or two taels of silver to severance.

Zhang Changgeng even heard the report from his generals that many soldiers were secretly discussing: If you surrender once, you will get one tael of silver. If you can surrender a few times a month, wouldn’t it be more than the military pay? After you come back, you will continue to join the army and continue to surrender next time. Just hand over the armor and weapons sent by the court. These soldiers also exchanged experiences with each other. If you surrender, you must try to be captured by King Shaofu. Don’t fall into the hands of He Zhen, otherwise the hard-earned money you have earned will be snatched away by He Pai.

Compared with the visiting soldiers, the local Wuchang soldiers were relatively calm. They all said that before going to war, they left all the money and better clothes to their wives at home. Even if they encountered He Pai, they would not suffer much loss. Once they handed over the sword and gun, they would take the severance payment from Shaofu King and then go home.

The soldiers who followed Zhang Changgeng to Wuchang were already complaining publicly, yelling that they would have surrendered to Deng Ming if they had known this would be better than before, and they would have surrendered to one tael of silver. They forced Zhang Changgeng to give each of them some silver.

Seeing that the morale of the army is like this, Zhang Changgeng has no choice but to do anything.

As for Wuchang and Hanyang gentry, there is not much resistance to Shaofu King. The words that Deng Ming said when he released the gentry were widely circulated. Now many gentry privately claim to be the ones who informed the people, and the righteous men who pleaded for all the scholars in Wuchang and Hanyang. Seeing that affair with a traitor and dared to admit the crime of betraying military affairs, Zhang Changgen knew that the gentry was mostly unreliable. He even speculated that when these gentry informed Deng Ming of his military affairs in the future, they might not use anonymous letters. Generally, when defending the city, especially in the prefectures and provincial capitals like Wuchang and Hanyang, the military power of the gentry in the city should not be underestimated. However, when fighting in the future, the gentry would really send out servants to participate in the war. Zhang Changgen did not dare to say whether they would help him defend the city or help Shaofu King open the city gate.

Now the soldiers and scholars all believe that even if they surrender later, the Shaofu King might not attack them. Compared with the obviously harder-to-talk Qing government in Beijing, now people would rather offend the easy-to-talk Shaofu King than rush to flee.

After the woman who was abducted by Hu Quancai returned to Wuchang, of course, her biological mother was not to mention her seven aunts and eight aunts cried together, and people traveling around the streets were talking, which was equivalent to automatically promoting Deng Ming.

What made Zhang Changgeng angry most was that those who were released were many times more influential than those of good women. After returning, these women also cried with the madam and sisters. Then in social occasions in Wuchang and Hanyang, from poetry meetings of literati to chambers of commerce, and women who usually gathered with relatives and friends, accompanied by wine and sang songs without exception, scolded Hu Quancai and praised Deng Ming's kindness. It is said that there were three Deng Ming's personal guards in the Ming army who sent these women back. The singers of Wuchang composed new songs for them, saying that these three people looked like Pan An and were as brave as Zilong, and each had the courage of thousands of men. Li Xinghan, Wu Yuewang and Wu Baoping were well-known in Wuchang within a few days.

Suddenly, Zhang Changgeng received a report from the provoy that Zhong Xiang's Ming army had already rushed south towards Hanyang. The vanguard was Kui Dong Ming general Li Laiheng, and Deng Ming was also in the army. (According to Li Laiheng's proposal, the Ming army was actually trying to capture the surrounding food and grass.)

Zhang Changgeng only informed this news to a small number of people, including his subordinates, civil and military officials of the Governor's Office and some reliable staff. The notice was strictly kept confidential, but the news spread throughout Wuchang City overnight.

Yesterday, the detective sent another confirmation news. Zhang Changgeng narrowed the scope of the notice and reiterated that even his family was not allowed to inform him. Unexpectedly, it would soon spread throughout Wuchang City again.

Last night, Zhang Changgeng specially arranged a poetry meeting and invited many Wuchang scholars to take this opportunity to calm people's hearts. However, the invited gentry all fell ill and refused to the invitation of the governor of Hunan. In the end, only half of the invited people were invited. The slim song girl who came out with a pipa looked only fifteen or sixteen years old. She knew that the person sitting in the middle was the chief official of the Qing court, so she didn't dare to sing the popular tune in recent days. She sang a new lyric about "Water Margin", praising Yan Xiaoyi, who was so romantic and pityful, took the risk to escort a group of Tokyo singers who were kidnapped by the treacherous minister Gao Qiu home.

Zhang Changgeng listened for a moment - this is not Yan Qing, it is obviously the traitor Li Xinghan. Don’t think that after putting on makeup and changing your name, I will not recognize you. But looking at the other people present, they all shook their heads and listened with relish, and there were even applauses.

"Governor Hu said that Deng Ming is a thief who is insidious and cunning, and he is really right." After the poetry meeting, Zhang Changgeng thought hatefully. Almost everyone in Wuchang thought Deng Ming was good in his heart, and Zhang Changgeng felt that he would never get the same reputation for his lifetime.

Although the situation was dangerous, Zhang Changgeng still wanted to defend Wuchang. Now he had the same concerns as Hu Quancai, worried that if he gave up Wuchang, the court would vent his anger on him. After all, Hu Quancai was dead. In order to cover up, Zhang Changgeng had to report to the court how Hu Quancai bravely fought with the assassin and was unfortunately killed.

If you can defend Wuchang, you will definitely not be able to escape a great achievement. In this way, Zhang Changgeng not only does not have to worry about the court holding him accountable for the death of the governor, but also can naturally sit on the throne of the governor of Huguang. It is precisely because of these considerations that Zhang Changgeng was unable to linger in Wuchang, and did his best to win over the gentry and appease the morale of the army, hoping that the Ming army would go home so that he could defend the city by chance.

Now that the Ming army is really fighting, Zhang Changgeng was frowning. He gritted his teeth several times and wanted to abandon Wuchang and leave, but he really couldn't bear to give up this credit - maybe the Ming army could not enter the city.

Just as Zhang Changgeng was hesitating, the guard reported to Mr. Zhou Pei to ask for a meeting.

"Please quickly."

As a series of prophecies came true, the fame of Zhou's talented man is now becoming more and more famous in Wuchang. Although Zhang Changgeng left the gentry behind when he fled Zhongxiang, after returning, Zhou Peigong did not say bad things about the governor. Today's dinner came as promised, and he also praised Zhang Changgeng during the meal.

Zhang Changgeng secretly doubted whether the other party would slander him or not, but when he heard that Zhou Peigong was visiting, the governor of Hunan was still very excited, hoping that the other party could live up to the name of a talented man and come up with good ways to help him get out of the predicament.

After the guest and the host were settled, Zhang Changgeng first chatted with Zhou Peigong for a long time. Although the other party was just a juren, Zhang Changgeng's words were very polite. It took a long time to get back to the topic: "Now the thief is coming straight to Wuchang, and I am worried. Can you have a good idea to teach me?"

"It is for this. The students have a plan to ensure that Deng Ming retreats by himself. Wuchang is as safe as Mount Tai. Adults can make extraordinary achievements!" Zhou Peigong smiled slightly, as if he had known that Zhang Changgeng would have such a question. He stood up confidently and said something, which made Zhang Changgeng scratch his head and couldn't help but feel happy.

It is: Don’t say that just a few words are better than a million soldiers!

If you want to know what happens next, please listen to the next breakdown.
Chapter completed!