1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 682 Collusion inside and outside
The situation in the mining area is obviously much more serious than that in the west prison area. Because the terrain is too open, the police force with a limited number of people can't control the situation of the flames at the beginning of the riot. , gave up the mine side.When Lu Li led his people to this side, he could see from a long distance that the sheds outside the mine were in a mess. Almost all the buildings made of bamboo and wood were set on fire, and many places had been burned to ruins. , some mining machinery was also destroyed by mobs.

However, it may be that the situation of the previous confrontation outside the west prison area has been passed on, and there are no mobs in groups in the vigilante's field of vision.Lu Li didn't dare to be careless, so he slowed down the marching speed of the troops, maintaining the battle formation and advancing forward bit by bit.

Soon someone found the remains of the two dead policemen. Their heads had been smashed beyond recognition by blunt instruments and stones, and their identities could only be identified from the black uniforms on their bodies.Although there are no exact statistics yet, the number of police officers killed in this riot is obviously not a small number.Most of the people in charge of the daily order in the mining area are ordinary police officers. When the riot broke out, many people suffered fatal blows before they realized what happened.

After inspecting the remains, Lu Li didn't have any big reaction, but ordered with a blank face: "Anyone who sees a mob with a weapon can kill them without warning!"

As a proud Haihan soldier, Lu Li was deeply saddened by such a situation in the area he was responsible for, and it also aroused his anger for revenge—all heretics who challenged Haihan's authority must pay for it. Heavy price!

At this time, through the interrogation of the prisoners who were wounded at the gate of the west prison area, further news has been obtained: it is still a group of Li prisoners who took the lead in provoking trouble in the mining area, and almost all of these people were arrested in recent months The "new guy" who came in.This also coincides with the previous judgment of the military. It is true that someone planned this series of internal and external cooperation actions, and the rest is that the identity of the culprit has yet to be ascertained.

Lu Li believed that the people who planned all this would not stop at planning a riot and prison escape in the Shilu mining area, and would definitely take further actions, because even if all the thousands of prisoners escaped, there would be no first prison break within a radius of tens of miles. Two places can provide the supplies that so many people need.These people have only three choices next, one is to continue to attack the Shilu military camp and prison area to obtain the required supplies, but this seems to have exceeded their current capabilities; the other is to flee to Changhua County by the sea, but There are also troops from the Haihan militia stationed there, and the seaport is also under the control of Haihan. If you escape through the mountains and ridges, you may still die; the last way is to flee into the mountains to seek Li Tong's support, but With so many people, no Lidong could support them. If the Li prisoners who led the riot directed this uncontrollable torrent to their own Lidong, it would be almost tantamount to seeking their own death.

And to calm the situation, the Haihan militia must now seize the person who took the lead in the riot as soon as possible, and find out what happened.While commanding the team to move forward, Lu Li was also quickly thinking about how to catch a few people who knew the inside story, so as to obtain more detailed information.

At this juncture, several prisoners came out of their hiding place with their hands raised, shouting to the militia soldiers not to shoot.Lu Li saw that he knew the leader, so he quickly ordered the leader not to shoot, and asked the leader to come and answer.

"Company Commander Lu, I've waited for you! Please don't shoot me, military lords, we are all good people who keep their own place!" The man hurriedly came to Lu Li and knelt down to Lu Li. down.

"Li Maozai, get up and talk, what's going on?" Lu Li raised his hand slightly, signaling him to get down to business.

This person was Li Maozai, a son of the Li family who was captured by rogues in 1628 when he lured wolves into the house. After the Shilu project was launched in 1629, he was escorted to Changhua to participate in the road construction project. Because of his good performance, he was promoted to be the head of the prison, and he was in charge of several prisoner teams. It can also be regarded as the privileged class.After the railway was opened to traffic and the Shilu Iron Mine was officially mined, Li Maozai was assigned to the mining area as a production dispatcher. He usually had contact with the people in the management of the Shilu Mine Area, but he also knew Lu Li. Li led the soldiers to come out and recognize each other.

"Back to Company Commander Lu, when I started work this morning, the villain felt that something was wrong. I saw that there were a lot of strange faces in a few teams, but they are not under the supervision of the villain, so it is not good to talk directly..." Li Maozai Start reporting immediately.

When Li Maozai started work in the morning, he noticed several unusual situations. One was that some unfamiliar faces appeared on the mining site, and the other was that the atmosphere of some teams was obviously not right.According to Li Maozai, it is similar to the situation when the rogues lurked in some counties in Guangdong and planned to cooperate with the outside world.

When it was time for lunch, someone came to greet Li Maozai, telling him to "play by ear" and be smarter.Although Li Maozai didn't know why, he already guessed that someone was planning to make trouble in the mining area.But before he could decide whether to report it immediately, other teams reported the news of someone missing.Li Maozai thought that these people were just trying to escape from prison, but he was relieved. He had been in the hard labor camp for three years, so he naturally knew what the rules were here. It is not difficult to escape, but the difficulty is after the escape How to keep yourself alive.More than 30 people escaped in one breath. Li Maozai thought that these people probably hadn't thought about how to survive in the surrounding mountains, and he was not optimistic that they could really escape the hunt.

Soon the police and members of the militia came to interrogate some prisoners and asked about the conditions and whereabouts of the escaped prisoners.Li Maozai also knew that the militia would go into the mountains to arrest them. After a few hours, the militia would bring back the heads of some of them and hang them on the gate of the prison area as a warning to others.

However, the situation this time seems to be a little different from the past. Not long after the fugitive hunting team left, several places in the No. [-] mine were simultaneously activated.The thugs used the mining tools in their hands to quickly kill several policemen guarding the construction site, and then started a series of riots.

Seeing some teams throwing themselves into the riots, Li Maozai finally understood why someone reminded him to "play by ear" at noon, and it seemed that this was the time he was referring to.Obviously, many prisoners thought this was an excellent opportunity to escape, and when they saw the police retreating, they all involuntarily joined the riot.

But Li Maozai had really felt the strength of the Haihan militia on the battlefield. He also knew that there were militiamen stationed in the Shilu mining area, and he was not in a hurry to join them. Instead, he restrained his subordinates so that they would not participate in the riot.Li Maozai could see very clearly that if this gang of mobs could do better than the well-armed and well-trained Haihan militia, then he would break the iron ore all over the mountains into small pieces and swallow them piece by piece.

Of course, he also considered the issue of his own escape, because in the face of such a large-scale riot, the Haihan people might execute many people afterwards, and if he wants to clean up his crimes, the most useful means is to provide some valuable things to the Haihan people. information, just like what he did after he was captured by the Haihan militia.

So Li Maozai also took advantage of the chaos and brought a few clever subordinates around to inquire about the news, because he was in charge of hundreds of people, and he was considered a respectable figure among the prisoners, so he really inquired about something in the end.

"Is the Ming Dynasty Jinyiwei involved in this matter?" Lu Li was a little shocked when he heard the news from Li Maozai.Of course, he knew exactly what the Ming Dynasty Jinyiwei was, but since the Liaoyuan operation last year, the Jinyiwei organization on Qiongzhou Island had been thoroughly cleaned up. He never expected that there would still be Jinyiwei stirring up trouble on the island today.

"It's absolutely true! Company Commander Lu, the source of the villain's news is definitely not a problem. At least three cell leaders who participated in the riot told me the same thing. To be rewarded by the imperial court...the villain is a person who knows the importance, how could he join them in the same evil..." After speaking, Li Maozai seized the opportunity to clean himself up again.

"Get to the point! What news do you have?" Lu Li had no choice but to interrupt him, "Do you know where the person in charge of the other party is now?"

Li Maozai quickly responded: "Yes, yes, the villain made a slip of the tongue... The villain heard that the person in charge did not enter the mining area, but went to meet him in the nearby mountains and forests. , occupy the Shilu mining area first, break the road, and fight against Haihan!"

"So that's how it is..." Lu Li seemed to have thought of why the person behind the scenes had to spend so much time to instigate such a riot in the Shilu Iron Mine, which is not a shit. The other party probably didn't focus on anything special here. Resources, and more importantly, focus on these thousands of prisoners who have conflicts of interest with Haihan!

Li Maozai continued: "Earlier, these people went to attack the west prison area. After suffering a loss, they retreated to the west. The villain guessed that they might be planning to kidnap the prisoners of the No. [-] mine pit, and then make other plans!"

"Mine Pit No. [-]?" There was a sneer at the corner of Lu Li's mouth, but he didn't give any further explanation.

Usually, thousands of people will work in the No. [-] Mine, but today, in order to welcome the arrival of the business visiting group, the No. [-] Mine temporarily canceled the production tasks in the morning, because both Qiao Zhiya and Gu Kai hoped to guarantee the guests during the visit in the afternoon. We see the scene of labor in full swing, rather than a large area of ​​tired coolies stumbling around.The gang of troublemakers obviously didn't know about this temporary change. They wanted to gather another group of people from the No. [-] mine pit, and it seemed that they were going to be in vain.

Taking a step back, even if the No. [-] mine allowed them to coerce some prisoners, it still wouldn't help.The person who planned this incident probably did not expect Haihan's response to this incident, and at the same time overestimated the willingness of the prisoners to participate in the riot.According to Li Maozai, in fact, only three out of ten prisoners actually participated in the riot, and more than half of them chose to wait and see like him.

Most of the people who participated in the riots were serious criminals who could not be released, and these people were only a small number of prisoners. Those prisoners whose sentences were originally only one or two years or even shorter, or who were originally charged with very light crimes, naturally did not want to take risks. Take the risk to regain freedom by participating in riots.There are even people like Li Maozai who know how powerful they are, who were not optimistic about the organizers of the riot from the very beginning, and were unwilling to step into this muddy pit.

Take Li Maozai himself as an example. He has served more than three years in prison, and with the reduction of sentence by points, the remaining sentence is less than one year. Running away at this time is asking for trouble.What else can he do as a person who has no land or property, has been in prison, and has been expelled from the clan?Follow this gang of thugs and become bandits?He had already tried it three years ago, and it was not even as good as being a prison leader in a hard labor camp now.Besides, with his current contacts and reputation in the hard labor camp, he can apply to stay as a prison guard after serving his sentence. Maybe he will be able to apply for naturalization in a year or two, and then he will be settled under the rule of the Haihan people. , can be regarded as a way out.

Besides, even if you escape, where can you escape?The outside world is no longer in the hands of Ming Dynasty. In recent months, officials from Ming Dynasty have been organized to visit the hard labor camp in Shilu. Some clues can be seen from the increase in the identity of prisoners in the half-year hard labor camp—this Qiongzhou Island may have changed its surname to Haihan, and Daming seems to have acquiesced to this.

Instead of making trouble, he might as well take this opportunity to make more reports and report those prisoners who participated in the riots, so that he might be able to earn some more points for himself to reduce his sentence. Isn't this more secure than a risky escape?

The people who organized this incident obviously couldn't figure out the psychology of people like Li Maozai. As a result, there were not as many people involved in the incident as planned.There were more than 2000 prisoner miners in the No. 700 mine, and only [-] people participated in it. Most of the others were like Li Maozai. They first found a place to avoid the limelight. .

Of course, Lu Li didn't dare to be careless, and ordered his men to search all the captives who voluntarily surrendered, and asked Li Maozai to pick out a few reliable men to identify people and single out those thugs who tried to fish in troubled waters.

Lu Li didn't forget to send people to rush back to the barracks, and to inform Gu Kai who was still worried about the information he knew.Gu Kai, who received the news, was naturally overjoyed, and quickly informed many guests that the riots outside had subsided, and then used the radio to contact Qiao Zhiya who was on the way to withdraw the troops, and told him the news he knew.

(End of this chapter)