Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 840 Southern Theater ([-])

On August 1650, 8, Dinghai County, sunny, southeast wind four.

The wharf, which took more than [-] local people to build in several months, has been completely completed. So far, large ships on the east coast between Dengzhou and Ningbo can directly call at the port, and there is no need to go back and forth by small boats. The transportation efficiency has greatly increased , which made Wei Boqiu, who has been rectifying the economy in Ningbo, extremely satisfied.Of course, Wei Boqiu is no longer here. He went to the foot of the mountain in the south. Currently Dinghai County is hosted by a student he brought from the mainland, a French youth named Yu Guo.

These days, Wei Boqiu and Huang Yi, who lives in Yin County, have a tacit understanding, and basically they don't come to point fingers within the other's sphere of influence.Huang Yi was in charge of foreign trade matters. She took a group of people to buy tea, raw silk, rice and other urgent supplies all day long. Determined to continue fighting; as for Wei Boqiu, he recently arrived in Fenghua County with some troops from the Third Division going south, and then rectified the local tea-making industry.

Fenghua County is located in the south of the Ningshao Plain, surrounded by the Tiantai Mountains and the Siming Mountains. Except for a few narrow mountain trails leading to Taizhou and Shaoxing in the south, most of the other places are isolated by high mountains. A paradise-like place.Dynasties changed in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and wars and fighting continued, but Fenghua County suffered much less military disasters than other places, as evidenced by the county’s current population of more than 1650—the population in Zhejiang has dropped sharply In 6, the county could still maintain a population of more than [-], which is really not easy. You must know that Fushan County, which was called "prosperous" under the rule of Dengzhou Dongan people, only had a population of more than [-]. Incomparable!

There are resources, special products, a large population, and dangerous terrain. This is the reason why Wei Boqiu followed the army to Fenghua County.This is a proper rear area. The fertile plains are full of water systems, which can be used to grow food; the hilly areas on the edge of the plains are actually quite rich, not to mention the bamboo forests all over the mountains and plains, which is a treasure; in addition, the hilly areas are densely covered with tea gardens It is even a big gold mine for people in the east coast. According to the data in 1649, the total domestic tea consumption market in the east coast has exceeded 40 yuan last year, which means that an average person spends two yuan on the purchase of tea. This is an astonishing number!It is also a very potential number!It is believed that with the increasing population on the east coast and the increase in the disposable income of ordinary people, the tea market has the potential to continue to expand.

"Have all the tea merchants in this county come under control?" Sitting in the bamboo forest of the mountain house, Wei Boqiu asked his student Li Kaduo while sipping Quhao tea, a tribute from the Song Dynasty. A young man of Portuguese descent, he has learned various knowledge from Wei Boqiu since he was a child, and was one of the business backbones of Mei's agency back then.

"It's all under control. There are thirteen families in total. The arrests were carried out by Battalion Commander Sun and his troops. They have been colluding with the Qing Dynasty for a year. The evidence is convincing. They can't escape!" Li Kaduo immediately stood at attention and reported to Wei Boqiu. "Since around Qingming this year, these tea merchants have been smuggling tea through mountain trails to Taizhou, Shaoxing and Jinhua, which are still under the control of the Manchus, as well as various information about our army. One of the reasons why Erhalang and Chen Tai were able to give up the fruits of victory in the Guangdong and Jiangxi battlefields and quickly return to aid was one of the reasons. The information about the entry and exit of our army is really not low, so all the information will be dealt with in accordance with the law!"

"Well, all the members of the family are publicly beheaded, and all the women and children are allocated to the Black Water Coal Mine. In addition, the two leading tea merchants must be praised heavily, and everyone in the county and even neighboring counties must know that they are our grand masters. Loyal friends on the East Coast. Well, I will leave it to them to be the chairman and vice president of the Stability Maintenance Association, and let them handle the purchase of tea." Wei Boqiu listened to the students' report and said indifferently, with gestures The fate of hundreds of thousands of people was decided.

"A lowly position is an order!" Battalion Commander Sun of the Third Division of the Xinjian Army, who was also standing aside, stood at attention and agreed.Battalion Commander Sun was a member of the division commander Sun Shouzheng's clan. He had a battalion of five hundred soldiers under his command, all of whom were well-equipped and armored. Among them, there were even a hundred musketeers equipped with East Coast muskets.With them coming to Fenghua County to suppress them, bandits and bandits in ordinary places are really not enough to see, they can be wiped out in a snap of the fingers.In fact, he is a member of the servant army system. Although Wei Boqiu has the title of deputy commander, he almost never cares about military affairs, so he doesn't have to obey Wei Boqiu's orders in everything.But who made this guy want to flatter others, so he followed Wei Boqiu's orders in every way, and was extremely obedient.

Naturally, two tea merchants cannot form a stability maintenance association, and some local rich families with long history must join in, otherwise it will not work at all.It's a pity that Liu Haiyang's cruel methods of mopping up landlords in Ningbo Mansion offended many people half a year ago, so they had a very bad impression of the people on the east coast, and tried every means to evade the invitation to join the Stability Maintenance Association to maintain local order.After I couldn't push it, I sent my family to send some beef, sheep and rice noodles over, just like sending beggars away!

However, Wei Boqiu, who was short of troops, had no good solution, he could only write down this account secretly, and wait for the East Bank army to withdraw from Shaoxing Mansion, and then calmly mobilize troops to dig out these anti-East Bank groups in one fell swoop.At that time, not only the gentry in Fenghua County will have to clean up, but even those who have just been nominally conquered by the people of the East Bank (Battalion Commander Sun led a parade with [-] soldiers. Prefecture), Xiangshan County, Ninghai County, and Changguowei, which are still largely autonomous, will also be liquidated one by one.Damn, he obediently obeyed our orders and shied away from our orders, and flirted with Manqing secretly, thinking we were blind?Sooner or later, send them to the Blackwater Coal Mine to dig coal one by one!

Wei Boqiu thought to himself that this day is not far away.Since Liu Haiyang led the army west of Yuyao in mid-April, it has been four months.During this period, the east bank army composed of more than 4 soldiers defeated the Qing army of more than 2 led by Zhang Jie, the commander-in-chief of Ningbo, Tian Xiong, the admiral of Zhejiang, and Gu Shan'e Zhenjinli, and captured most of the states of Shaoxing Prefecture. County, and finally defeated Xiaoshan County in late May, driving the Qing army out of Shaoxing Mansion completely.

After winning this staged victory, Liu Haiyang ordered to temporarily rein in his troops, and instead searched for the wealth and population of the eight counties in Shaoxing Prefecture.After all, their purpose is not to destroy the green battalion and regiment training armed forces temporarily recruited by the Qing army-they can't be killed-their purpose is to weaken the war potential of the Qing army, attack the prestige of the Qing army, and at the same time strengthen their own strength.Therefore, based on this kind of thinking, the army on the east bank who went abroad began to carry out a massive relocation operation in Shaoxing Prefecture: cotton, looms, weavers, tea, tea farmers, sericulture workers, silk reelers, doctors, Storytellers, low-level scholars, handicraftsmen and other skilled people and their families were forcibly relocated to Ningbo Prefecture.

In the end, they even brought ordinary landless farmers and tenants to Ningbo.Liu Haiyang asked the military and government personnel who stayed behind to allocate land for these people around Yin County. The rules followed the "Household Law" of the East Bank. A piece of land can be redeemed by his personal contribution.This kind of policy greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the new Shaoxing tenants. They were landless tenants who worked and farmed for others all their lives, but they may not be able to earn an acre of land when they are old.Now there is such a good thing, five years later, you can buy an acre of good paddy field for a few taels of silver, is this a dream?

Of course they were not dreaming. In fact, this was specially arranged by the people on the east coast, and it was also a move for them to break the local social structure and completely grasp the place.These foreign Shaoxing tenants have no relatives in the local area, so they can only instinctively rely on the people from the east bank who sent them here.In addition, the land they cultivated was originally taken by the people on the east bank from the puppet official family in Yin County, and now it is distributed to them. If you want to keep your own land in the future, what else can you do besides fighting with the people from the east coast?

These immigrants who had allocated land around Yinxian County, together with the retired servant soldiers who allocated land, constituted the basic board for the people on the east coast to divide and control Yinxian County.With the increasing power of the people on the east coast and the increasing number of soldiers in the subdivision, it is usually a matter of time before Yin County is completely digested and the iron barrels are run.Do you want these tenants who have been suffering for a lifetime, and retired soldiers to spit out the land they have eaten?Dream on, I will fight with you!

This kind of behavior of the people on the east bank naturally aroused the extreme hatred of the landlord class.Therefore, from June onwards, the entire territory of Shaoxing Prefecture has been in constant rebellion. Landlords and gentry have joined forces everywhere, and then organized armed regiments with clan forces as the core, and began to fight guerrillas with the army on the east coast. This undoubtedly greatly delayed Liu Haiyang, Liu Guochang and others. The pace of the army's westward march.

And after clearing out these provocative landlords, the Hangzhou government sent a large number of Qing army reinforcements, the number of which should be more than 7. Liu Haiyang suddenly realized that the best time to attack Hangzhou had passed.Coupled with the fact that thousands of Manchurian Eight Banners under Chen Tai's troops rushed back from Fujian and killed more than [-] men under Yuan Bao's troops in the Shun Army (Yuan Bao was wounded and fled back), and the soldiers of all the plundered troops were generally The fighting spirit was not high, so Liu Haiyang had no choice but to order the various ministries to retreat alternately. In mid-July, the whole army withdrew through the tunnel, and the battle of the western expedition to Shaoxing and Hangzhou was ended in stages.

(End of this chapter)