Jiang Guozhu's order to ask the local officials to find ways to ensure the city opened Pandora's magic box. After receiving this order, the prefectures and counties knew that Jiangning was no longer able to support them. A similar thing happened when Zheng Chenggong invaded the Yangtze River last time. At that time, Lang Tingzuo was not only unable to support the surrounding prefectures and counties, but instead transferred all their troops to Jiangning. As a result, the four prefectures and dozens of prefectures surrendered to Zhang Huangyan without any resistance at all.

This time, Jiang Guozhu did not want to repeat the scene that was half a year ago, so he tried to disperse his troops to station in various prefectures and cities, betting that Deng Ming was unwilling to disperse his troops. Unfortunately, Zhu Guozhi's own actions resulted in the loss of most of the mobile troops of the Jiangnan Green Camp. The situation was no different from that of Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Huangyan.

However, although the prefectures and counties collectively returned to the Qing court after Zheng Chenggong retreated, all the top leaders in the local area were dismissed. Now the Qing court is not at ease with such fence-skinned people. Now Deng Ming has met all the prefects and magistrates. They know that if they surrender clearly, they would be dismissed after the Ming army left. Many magistrates have been in ten years and finally passed the imperial examination and were both Jinshi. They have only taken office for less than a year due to the envious eyes of their hometown elders. How could they be willing to be dismissed from their posts and returned home?

Of course, if Deng Ming must force them to surrender, some magistrates may still be the same as their ex. Anyway, it is better to be dismissed than to lose their heads. Fortunately, Deng Ming did not have such a plan, and he did not want to repeat Zhang Huangyan's mistakes.

"The Qing court's policy was actually quite absurd. In order to block the road of escape from the officials, they stipulated that losing the city would be a death sentence, but if they surrendered, they would just be dismissed because they were unwilling to those officials who surrendered to us to resist to the end. In other words, the Qing court's idea was to do their best to protect the land and pardon those local officials who did not resist the attack of the Qing court." When Deng Ming's opponent talked about Beijing's pragmatic policy, he also sighed a lot: "When facing nothing,"

When the powerful enemy of the law resisted, the local officials of the Qing court generally had only two ways, resisted desperately, and finally committed suicide to find a cute official for their descendants; or simply surrendered, and then tried to save their lives. In response to the rigid policies of the Qing court, I think the current policy of our army is the most effective. The worst result of the local officials who reached a deal with our army is that they will be dismissed like those officials who surrendered anyway; and if they are lucky, they can even keep their official positions."

When Ren Tang followed Zhang Huangyan to Chizhou, Anqing and other places last time, he was also happy that the local officials were surrendering. At that time, he felt that the situation was very good and that the great cause of Zhongxing seemed to be completed without any effort. However, after experiencing the great ups and downs of the last time, Ren Tang has become much more mature. He no longer pursues local officials to change their banners, but instead firmly supports Deng Ming's strategy - this is of course also because of Deng Ming's influence: "As the admiral said, these people can surrender to us easily, and they can easily go back anyway. If they accept their surrender, we still need to appease the local government, and send officials to the local government to ensure that our laws can be implemented and the reputation of the court is not affected. If things change, these scattered officers and soldiers will be attacked by fencemen. Now our army has always gathered together, there is no such concern, and no city dares to provoke us."

The Ming army continued to advance along the Yangtze River, and the food and grass along the way were provided by the prefectures of the Qing court. Wherever the army went, local merchants welcomed each other, traded with the Ming army, bought the local specialties they brought, and sold local goods to the Ming army. Since appearing on the Yangtze River, the Ming army monopolized the trade of this golden waterway. Moreover, shipping has shrunk in the past six months, and prefectures and counties on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have suffered greatly. Not only is it difficult to see goods from other places, but there is no one to buy a large number of local products in their hands. For these gentry and powerful people in the area, the Ming army's fleet is an unprecedented caravan.

What is even more gratifying is that the selling price of the Ming army is quite low, even a little lower than that of the merchants in peacetime, and the purchase price is also quite high. Many people think that Deng Ming deliberately gave benefits to local people for the purpose of winning people's hearts, but they only know one thing, not the second. The reason why merchants in the past tried their best to lower the purchase price and increase the selling price was because they had to pay high taxes along the way, and they had to endure the extortion of the yamen runners and soldiers of the Green Camp River patrol - this is even several times the official tax of the government. Therefore, if they do not sell high and low, the merchants have no profit at all. Deng Ming's "caravan" has hundreds of warships and nearly ten thousand soldiers. Not only does he refuse to pay various taxes from the Governor's Office in Liangjiang, no one dares to extort the "Deng's caravan".

Even if the cost of supporting soldiers was included, Deng Ming's cargo transportation cost was still only one-some of that of a regular businessman. Therefore, even if he gave preferential prices to the people along the way, his profit was much higher than that of a legal business group, not to mention that even the cost of raising a military force is now borne by the local governments of the Qing court.

When Deng Ming's fleet arrived at Taiping Prefecture, there were already dense crowds of people on the shore. After these eagerly watched the vanguard of the Ming Yangtze River Fleet, they cheered loudly. Deng Ming's actions in the upstream had spread across the river. The people around Taiping Prefecture began to gather on the shore a few days ago, bringing a large number of self-produced cotton cloth and silk. Soon the Ming army's subsequent cargo ships also arrived. After getting off the ship, the Ming army built some sheds on the shore, and while purchasing the people's goods, they sold candied dates, porcelain, and tea oil brought from the upstream.

In addition to the small landlords and people who went to the market, there were also some local gentry and powerful people. These big dealers would be invited by the Ming army to come back, serve tea, and then start bargaining against each other.

After the Ming army stayed in Taiping Prefecture for three days, there were endless people going to the market. In the end, there were crowds of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The prefect of Taiping Prefecture was jealous and sent some yamen runners to set up checkpoints on the official roads to collect the passing people's lijin. The tax collection behavior of Taiping Prefecture immediately reflected the price, but the Ming army realized this, and Mu Tan reported that a group of gentry wanted to see him.

After paying a visit to the Sichuan Admiral of the Ming Dynasty, these gentry complained to Deng Ming, saying that it was difficult to transport goods to the shore, but they were extorted by the greedy Qing army, and they lost all their money. What's even more terrifying is that according to these gentry, the Qing army that set up the checkpoints carefully interrogated the people passing by and inquired about the military deployment of the Ming army on the shore, which was obviously unpredictable. Some even claimed that the Qing army at those checkpoints tried to force them to carry tincture oil in the goods, or add poison to the goods sold to the Ming army... In short, these gentry hoped that Deng Ming would attack with iron fist and eliminate the Qing army along the way.

Although setting up checkpoints along the way may be beneficial to the clerk class of Taiping Prefecture, this force is actually not a monolithic. Some of the most powerful ones have the capital to do business with the Ming army, and they also hate this kind of checkpoint establishment behavior. After carefully weighing the power comparison between the two sides, Deng Ming found that the faction supporting free trade was obvious and he made a quick decision to send Zhou Kaihuang to lead two thousand soldiers to Taiping Prefecture to threaten the prefect.

Due to Deng Ming's reputation of keeping his trustworthyness and his peace in the first two days, Taiping Prefecture has relaxed its vigilance against the Ming army. Since yesterday, two city gates have been opened to facilitate the gentry in the city to trade with the Ming army. After seeing more than two thousand Ming troops driving to the city under armed force, the Taiping Prefecture Prefecture's prefecture was shocked and mistakenly thought that Deng Ming was going to break his promise. The prefect hurriedly ordered the city gate to close and personally led the guards to the city tower, preparing to resist or surrender according to the situation.

However, the Ming army stopped two miles away from the city. Then Zhou Kaihuang sent a team of envoys to send the Ming army's ultimatum to Taiping Prefecture. Deng Ming asked the Taiping Prefecture to withdraw all tax checkpoints within four hours and contact all restrictions on the official roads. Otherwise, Deng Ming would think that the Qing army in Taiping Prefecture was in a bad situation and was in a state of war with Taiping Prefecture.

After thinking about it for a while, the prefect of Taiping Prefecture suddenly realized and bit his back teeth and cursed: "These unruly people are holding the thief to be respectful!"

No matter how much hatred he felt in his heart, the prefect still accepted all the conditions on the ultimatum and withdrew all tax checkpoints with amazing efficiency.

After learning that his request was met with perfect satisfaction, Deng Ming immediately ordered the soldiers to announce the good news to the people of Taiping Prefecture who were rushing to the market. For a moment, the crowd was excited, and I wonder who raised his arms first and shouted: "Long live!"

Suddenly, countless people responded on the shore, and a large number of people shouted excitedly: "Long live the Ming Dynasty, long live, long live!"

Deng Ming smiled and listened to the thunderous cheers for a while, then turned to the guards beside him and said, "No matter what, it is wrong not to pay taxes. We still have to consider the feelings of the Taiping Government Office."

While ordering Zhou Kaiyuan to withdraw the camp, Deng Ming sent another envoy to Taiping Prefecture and proposed a tax payment proposal to Taiping Prefecture: that is, the Taiping Prefecture Yamen sent a group of clerks to the Ming army to verify the Ming army's transaction books. The Ming army would pay a certain proportion of taxes to the Taiping Prefecture Yamen based on the transaction volume: "I know it is difficult to account for this, so I might as well tell the Taiping Prefecture that I can give this money to them privately, part of it is to the prefect himself, and part of it is to compensate the officials of the yamen. I will not care about how to allocate it."

While staying in Taiping Prefecture, Deng Ming was still waiting for news from Zhoushan. He did not forget that the purpose of this trip was to threaten the canal transportation and to attack the merchant group in Huizhou. Now Jiang Guozhu is concentrating his efforts on Nanjing and Yangzhou front line. Deng Ming is not sure about the strength of the other side's navy. He feels that it is still a bit insufficient to threaten Yangzhou with the existing power in his hands.

"I wonder where Zhang Shangshu went?" Deng Ming, Ren Tang, Mu Tan, Zhou Kaihuang and others repeatedly discussed, feeling that if Zhoushan did not cooperate, and if he wanted to go deep into both sides of the canal with his own strength alone, the risk would be too great.

...

Chongming Island.

Li Tianyuan and his companions walked quietly on the shore. Last night, more than a hundred people from their group secretly took a fastboat to the island. Several vanguards swam and found that they were very lucky that there were no Qing army posts around the place where they went ashore. After the vanguards made the owl cry, Li Tianyuan and the others paddled silently and carefully completed the landing.

Zhang Huangyan's order to these Ming troops was very clear. After slandering, he found the camp site of the Susong Navy, and then tried to create chaos. It would be best to ignite the Susong Navy's warships, then find a place to hide, and wait for the arrival of the Zhoushan brigade. This is undoubtedly a very dangerous job. The possibility of a sneak attack of this 100-man small force is not high. Even if it succeeds, the main force of the Ming army can not persist. However, if they succeed, the main force of the Ming army can reduce a lot of losses; if they fail completely, the Zhoushan army will have to fight the Susong Navy openly - this will definitely lead to huge losses and casualties.

Although I was lucky enough to find an unmanned place to complete the landing, Li Tianyuan felt that their good luck seemed to have been exhausted. They rushed to the site of Susong Navy when they came to Chongming last time, but they were empty. Although there was a water camp there, there was no warship, only a small number of ferries, and there seemed to be few Qing soldiers garrisoning. Li Tianyuan did not disturb them but quietly retreated. Then Li Tianyuan and the others began to circle around the island shore, but they kept finding it from late at night that it was about to dawn, but they still couldn't find the shadow of a boat.

"Oh, oh." Li Tianyuan kept calling out bad luck in his heart. As a great hero who captured the Governor of Liangjiang alive, he was appointed as the person in charge of this raid. Before Li Tianyuan set out, he knew that this was a life-and-death operation. Even if he successfully attacked the Susong Naval Clan, he had almost no hope of survival. But Li Tianyuan did not think too much about himself. What he cared about was how to burn an enemy ship before his sacrifice so that the brothers in the main force could have less casualties. Li Tianyuan asked himself that he had experience in attacking the Susong Naval Clan. He had once sneaked into Deng Ming under the city of Nanjing.

Li Tianyuan thought he had also learned the tactical essence of Admiral Deng's name, which was to launch an attack while the enemy was sleeping or eating. But now that night was about to pass and the enemy was about to wake up, Li Tianyuan still couldn't find the location of Susong Naval Commander's water camp.

"What other places are suitable for naval marching?" After another pounce, Li Tianyuan stood by the empty bay in a daze, and his companions looked at him at a loss. Li Tianyuan tried hard to recall the Chongming Island map that Zhang Huangyan explained to him: "There should be no suitable place, right? Other places are cliffs, and there is actually no escape from wind here. If it weren't for the absence of other places, I wouldn't have come here to take a look."

Since they could not attack while the enemy was sleeping, Li Tianyuan had to modify the plan and planned to launch a surprise attack while they were having breakfast. However, the problem still exists, that is, where is the enemy's navy?

The powerful Susong Navy has always been the most terrifying enemy of the Zhoushan Army. Over the years, countless brothers have died in the battle with the Susong Navy. Even though the city of Nanjing has wiped out once, the pressure it brought to Li Tianyuan and the Zhoushan Army is still lingering. He gritted his teeth. Li Tianyuan and his companions acted quickly again despite the fatigue of running around all night and continued to work hard to find the trace of the Qing Dynasty Yangtze Fleet.

It was still bright, but the Ming army still did not find the target, and there was no night that could hide its traces. Li Tianyuan looked solemn, realizing that the operation had been declared a failure. Once the Qing army discovered it, the more than 100 Ming army vanguards landed on the landing would be wiped out and died meaninglessly.

"We have to fight to the death." Li Tianyuan came up with the last plan, which was to attack the old camp of Susong Navy. According to previous reconnaissance, there were only a few ferries there, and the Qing army obviously did not take it seriously, so there were not many defenders: "We took advantage of their meal to launch an attack. After capturing the camp, I would hold on to it and attract the attention of the enemy." Li Tianyuan planned to torture the Qing Dynasty's Yangtze River Navy from the prisoners. When he attracted the attention of the Qing army, he distributed half of his hands to attack the port: "At this time, the Tartars would definitely be prepared and it would not be possible to burn their warships, but we can disrupt their deployment so that they could not prepare in time, and not have enough time to go out to the sea, and make a formation to meet Zhang Shangshu and Admiral Ma's main force."

Everyone knew that this action was undoubtedly suicide, but every Zhoushan soldier nodded solemnly and agreed to Li Tianyuan's plan without hesitation.

He led his subordinates to the "abandoned" Susong Naval Camp. Li Tianyuan quietly pulled out the long knife on his waist and finally looked east. He knew that there were tens of thousands of Zhoushan brothers hidden behind the sea level. Zhang Shangshu was anxiously waiting for his signal.

"Shangshu Zhang, you must expel the Tartars and restore the Shenzhou." Li Tianyuan finished his silent prayer in his heart, without any hesitation, shouted: "Kill!" Then he flew up and rushed towards the Chongming Island Water Camp first.

"Kill!" Hundreds of Ming soldiers followed closely behind Li Tianyuan and rushed forward bravely.

The water camp's vigilance was even worse by Li Tianyuan. The Ming army climbed over the wall without any resistance and rushed into the camp that seemed to be empty. Li Tianyuan kept breaking into the Zhongjun camp and saw several green camp soldiers stuffed with food in their mouths.

After seeing a large group of enemies holding bright steel knives and red flags coming over, the green camp soldiers who were eating without any hesitation, threw away the spoon and rice bucket in their hands, and squatted on the ground with their heads in their arms.

After asking about the prisoners, Li Tianyuan realized that there were not many people on Chongming Island. Not only were there only a dozen Green Camp soldiers in the Shui Camp, but there were only a hundred people in the fortress on the island.

Liang Huafeng's subordinates were all promoted. When he rushed to various places to take office, every officer of the departed Susong Naval Division took away his old subordinates. Without Susong Naval Division and without the family of officers and soldiers, how could Chongming Island need heavy troops to guard? After Deng Ming advanced east along the Yangtze River, Nanjing, who was struggling to transfer the last hundreds of armored soldiers from Chongming Island. Now, the only ones guarding the water camp and fortress are only newly recruited auxiliary soldiers, and many talents have been to Chongming Island for a month.

After asking for details, Li Tianyuan breathed a sigh of vigor and lit a fire with his companions.

A ray of smoke rushed straight into the sky, and the Ming army on the island headed side by side to the east, looking towards the place where the sea and sky were connected.
Chapter completed!