Starting in Saarhu, it is a bit difficult to make a comeback.

Chapter 162: Li Xianzhong shouts to catch the thief, and Yan Shenggong’s face is ashen (please subscribe for monthly tickets)
After seeing Kong Yantao leave angrily, Zhu Chunchen said with some confusion: "Even if the 10 taels of silver are a little small, we don't have to go to death to offend the Kong family of Yanshenggong Mansion, right?"

Li Xianzhong pretended to be indifferent and said: "It's just a dead man, why should Duke Cheng be concerned about him?"

Zhu Chuncheng looked at Li Xianzhong in surprise. The Marquis Ningyuan in front of him seemed familiar yet unfamiliar.

After Kong Yintao left Dongchang, he cursed angrily: "This Li Xianzhong is so shameless. If you think the money is too little, you can just put up a price. Who are you trying to fool with rogue bandits? If there really are more than 10 rogue bandits, I can still bring [-]." Two silver coins going north?"

However, these Liaodong soldiers are really difficult to deal with. Looking at their posture, they want to take advantage of the Kong family.

Li Xianzhong also underestimated our Duke Yan Sheng's Mansion. We will make him look good when the time comes!
Not long after, they entered Dongping Prefecture from Dongchang Mansion, and suddenly several feather arrows shot at the servants of Kong Mansion in the front.

Before the servants could react, the arrow had already penetrated deeply into their throats.The servants looked ahead in shock, and instinctively covered the wounds with their hands, but to no avail. Blood seeped out from between their fingers, and they finally fell down unwillingly.

Kong Yantao did not panic. He said loudly: "Dear heroes of the White Lotus Sect, we are from the Kong family in Qufu. Is there any misunderstanding here?"

A bandit leader shouted: "The Kong family in Qufu bullies men and dominates women, and does many evil things. It is your Kong family that we will shoot."

Kong Yantao said: "It is said that thieves also have their ways. You took money from the Kong family, but then robbed the Kong family. Isn't this a bit disrespectful of the rules of the world?"

The leader laughed loudly and said: "I am Xifan, the ninth-grade lotus king under the throne of King Yu Hongzhi of Hejian. My brothers went south to Yanzhou and are currently short of money and food. The Kong family is so rich that it can rival the country. Is it nothing to you to support me with a little money and food?" "

When Kong Yantao heard that the accents of these people were indeed not from Yanzhou, he thought that he had encountered rogue bandits from north Zhili and went south. He really missed the mark.

He saw that there were thousands of thieves around him. Although he was surrounded by hundreds of guards from the Kong family, they were obviously no match for these desperadoes.

He said: "Forget it, today Kong admits his fault. You can take the money and please let us go back."

Wang Xifan said: "As long as you put down the swords and guns in your hands, I guarantee that you will be safe!"

Kong Yantao hesitated for a moment, and finally asked the servants to put down their weapons.

Unexpectedly, after the thieves confiscated the weapons of the servants of the Kong family, they turned around and killed them.

The wailing sounds continued for a while, and soon hundreds of servants of the Kong family fell into a pool of blood.

At this time, Kong Yantao was so angry that he was shaking all over and cursed angrily: "You thieves don't keep your word."

Wang Xifan said with a smile: "You have called us thieves. Have you ever seen thieves who are honest?"

Then he pointed a knife at a servant next to Kong Yantao and said, "Go back and tell Duke Yansheng that the Kong family should prepare 100 million taels of silver and 50 shi of grain within three days."

"If the Kong family doesn't give it, I will lead my brothers to Qufu to ask for it in person. I'm afraid your Kong family will lose more than that."

Then he directly cut off one of Kong Yintao's ears and said, "Take this token back!"

The servant was so frightened that he picked up his ears and ran away. After that, Wang Xifan had Kong Yintao detained.

Afterwards, Wang Xifan said respectfully to a "bandit" beside him: "Vice General Mao, your acting skills are not bad."

Mao Wenlong said: "Your intelligence department is indeed full of talents, and you are so ruthless. To be honest, have you often done kidnapping before?"

Originally, Mao Wenlong was going to play the role of the bandit leader himself, but unfortunately their accents were wrong, so he asked the Intelligence Department to recommend someone.

Among these "rogue bandits", 1000 were remnants of the previous White Lotus Sect, and the remaining 2000 were pretended to be Liaodong cavalry and Tongping guards.

Kong Yinzhi was originally waiting for the Ming army to go south to relieve Qufu's predicament. Unexpectedly, he didn't want to wait for the news of the Ming army going south. However, news came that Kong Yintao had been kidnapped and 10 taels of silver had been robbed.

This made Yan Shenggong furious and scolded Li Xianzhong for not knowing how to praise him.

This White Lotus Sect is so unreliable. They took money from the Kong family and even started kidnapping?

This bunch of thugs from Northern Zhili really took the Kong family as their scapegoat, and they actually asked for 100 million taels of silver.

Let alone a small character like Kong Yantao, even if he, as Yan Shenggong, was kidnapped by bandits, the Kong family would not spend so much money and food to redeem him.

The most important thing the Kong family lacks is direct heirs.

In the 48th year of Wanli, his uncle Kong Shangxian passed away without heirs, so Kong Yinzhi was able to succeed the great clan and succeed him as Duke Yansheng.

Kong Yinzhi was able to succeed Yan Shenggong out of sheer luck, and it has only been less than two years since he became Yan Shenggong, and he has not been able to fully integrate the resources of the Kong family.

Several respected uncles in the clan were actually opposed to him sending money and food to the bandits.

He reluctantly persuaded them to agree to provide money and food to the White Lotus Sect because of his own interests.

But who knew that this Xu Hongru was not reliable at all and could not control his subordinates.

So he quickly sent someone to find Xu Hongru. The 10 taels of silver were probably not going to come back. They had been eaten by these thieves. How could he expect them to spit it out?
But Xu Hongru claimed to be Emperor Fulie of Zhongxing, so the money from the Kong family couldn't be in vain, right?

Sure enough, Xu Hongru was very angry when he learned that Yu Hongzhi's subordinates actually fled to Yanzhou and kidnapped the Kong family and swallowed 10 taels of silver.

Even their heads have surrendered to him, but these people didn't pay homage to him when they arrived on their own territory?
I heard that Yu Hongzhi's main force had been wiped out by the government troops. These people were probably just some "fish that slipped through the net" and there wouldn't be too many of them.

He just happened to recruit them, and he could also rob 10 taels of silver, and he could rescue the hostages and return a favor to the Kong family. Of course, he couldn't miss this kind of killing three birds with one stone.

So he ordered Wang Jinshan, the governor under his command, to lead 3 troops north to Dongping Prefecture to subdue these Yu Hongzhi's men.

Although the number of White Lotus sect members from all walks of life who have taken refuge in him has reached 30, and they have also captured several counties, there is a severe drought in Shandong and there is simply not enough food.

He also has to maintain a good relationship with the Kong family. If the Kong family did not continuously provide him with food, I am afraid that his military morale would have been unstable.

Even if he could conquer Qufu and rob the Confucius family of silver, if the Confucius family broke a jar and directly set fire to the grain stored in Qufu, then he would be ready to cry without tears!
For him, food is far more important than money at this stage.

The news that the bandits were heading north from Yanzhou Prefecture soon reached Mao Wenlong.

This is also their established strategy. There are too many rogue bandits, and there are lakes and mountains everywhere near Yanzhou.With the 6 cavalry of the Ming army, it is impossible to catch them all in one go, so the only way is to trick them out and slowly eliminate them!
Faced with this wave of heads coming to their door, they naturally would not let it go.

Thirty thousand members of the White Lotus sect went all the way north from Yanzhou Prefecture, and one day later arrived near the Dawen River in the south of Dongping Prefecture.

Wang Jinshan knew that although he had 3 people under his command, most of them were improvised mobs and their combat effectiveness was not strong.

After all, everyone is from the White Lotus Sect, so he decided to pay homage first and then send troops, and sent envoys first to persuade them to surrender.

Soon two envoys holding the "imperial edict" came to the camp of Wang Xifan and others.

Xu Hongru, a magic stick, was able to inspire hundreds of thousands of people to follow him in rebellion in a short period of time, so he was naturally very good at grasping people's hearts.

He did not ask them to hand over the silver, but directly let Wang Xifan inherit Yu Hongzhi's Hejian King.

Moreover, he also knew that Wang Xifan and others did not have much food around them, so he asked them to go to Yanzhou to help in the battle and collect food on the way.

If Wang Xifan was really a remnant of the White Lotus Sect, he would naturally not be able to refuse this temptation.

However, Xu Hongru obviously made a wrong calculation. Wang Xifan said: "I am the direct disciple of Wu Sheng Lao Mu. Why should I obey Xu Hongru's orders and send this messenger to me directly to leave the camp?"

The envoy who had been beaten quickly cried to Wang Jinshan about his experience.

When Wang Jinshan learned that there were only more than a thousand people in their camp, he became more confident.Since this Wang Xifan doesn't know good from evil, he has no choice but to use him as a sacrifice to the flag!
So Wang Jinshan quickly called for the team to cross the river.

Shandong has been experiencing a severe drought for more than two years, and the water level of the Dawen River has been greatly reduced, only more than 1 meter deep.

Soon these White Lotus cultists waded directly across the river.

Zhu Chunchen in the distance said: "These bandits are crossing the river at this time. Why doesn't Marquis Ningyuan attack them after crossing halfway?"

Li Xianzhong said with a smile: "With the combat power of our Liaodong cavalry, we don't need to carry out such a sneak attack. We can wait until they get ashore before attacking them!"

The [-] White Lotus cultists here had just assembled, and before they had gone two miles away, they discovered a large number of cavalry on the road ahead.

Before they could react, the Liaodong cavalry charged towards them.

Wang Jinshan's men only have a thousand or so backbone members of the White Lotus Sect who still have some fighting will. The rest are just a mob. How can they be the unified enemy of the Ming army?
After a while, they were driven to the river. Fortunately, the river was not deep, and countless rebels rushed to the other side of the river.

However, at this time, the Pinglu Guards were already waiting on the other side of the river.

Although the river is not deep, the rapid river still makes their progress slow, and this also gives the Pinglu Guards ample shooting time.

"Bang, bang, bang"

As the Rumi gun was fired, rogue bandits continued to fall into the river, and the water of the Dawen River was instantly dyed red.

Li Xianzhong sighed: "If I had known earlier, I should have brought the assault battalion. The cold-armed cavalry can kill people much faster than the plain guards."

Zhu Chunchen on the side was a little embarrassed. Facing such a rogue bandit, he was almost beaten to the point of annihilation.

As the Ming army shouted: "Surrender without killing, this ragtag group of people quickly gave up resistance."

Mao Wenlong said: "I have informed Marquis Ningyuan that this time I personally killed the enemy's commander-in-chief Wang Jinshan. Half of the [-] bandits were killed and half were captured." Li Xianzhong said: "Vice General Mao went south to suppress the bandits in two battles. Victory can be said to be the greatest achievement, it seems that the commander-in-chief cannot escape this time!"

Mao Wenlong said with a smile: "The last general was cultivated by the Marquis. This Liaodong cavalry is really the strongest army in the world. It is really overqualified for fighting the rogue bandits."

Li Xianzhong said: "Next, I have to ask you to pretend to be thieves and go to Qufu to seize silver and grain from the Kong family."

At this time, Kong Yantao, who had only one ear left in the camp, was being tortured.

Wang Xifan cursed angrily: "Grandma, it seems that you are not welcome in the Kong family. It's okay if you don't come to redeem people, but you dare to recruit Xu Hongru's people."

"Someone put a soldering iron on me!"

Kong Yantao was usually a pampered young master, so how could he bear the punishment?He said in horror: "Hero, spare your life. The Kong family will definitely not be able to get back the 100 million taels of silver in a short while."

Wang Xifan said: "Kong Yinzhi, the Duke of Yansheng, looked down on others. He sent food and money to Xu Hongru, but he didn't like me."

"You should know the situation of the Kong family in Qufu very well. Where is their money and food?"

Facing the red-hot iron, Kong Yintao finally confessed to Kong Yinzhi's daily delivery of two pieces of silver and grain to Xu Hongru. In addition, he also provided several manors of the Kong family with relatively large amounts of money and grain.

After getting Kong Yintao's confession, Zhu Chunchen said in disbelief: "We actually got evidence that the Kong family funded the bandits. Now Yan Shenggong is going to bleed heavily!"

Li Xianzhong said with a smile: "Don't worry, now that the Kong family has offended the White Lotus Sect, let the White Lotus Sect settle the accounts with him first."

The Kong family has many industries, but the main grain is stored in several large manors around Qufu.

After looking at the farm in front of him, Mao Wenlong cursed: "This Kong Yuntao has no good intentions. These farms are built like castles. It is impossible for ordinary bandits to attack them!"

Although the farm in front of them was not big, with a circumference of only 2 miles, the walls were 4 meters high, there was a moat on the outside, and there were turrets!
It is not an exaggeration to say that this is a city. Many cities in the Tartars are not as strong as this farm.

At this time, there are rogue bandits everywhere outside, and this is an important place for storing money and food. Naturally, the village gate is closed.

According to Kong Yintao, these servants of the Kong Mansion only recognized the token of Shenggong Yan or Kong Yinzhi himself, but not anyone else, so he could not open the village gate.

According to this idea, the only way is to attack by force?

If we want to attack these fake bandits by force, we must let the Liaodong cavalry wearing iron armor mount.

But who would believe all the bandits wearing iron armor?

Since I can't pretend anymore, I made a mistake and directly bombarded with artillery. Anyway, the bandits previously attacked Zhu Chunchen's Shenji Battalion one by one, so it is normal to have some artillery on hand!

Fortunately, this time the Pinglu Guards still carried some 6-pound field Franco machine guns.

Soon the Kong family's farm was blown down by the 6-pound Fran machine artillery of the "thieves" and the city wall was destroyed. Then Mao Wenlong commanded the thieves to swarm up and directly capture the farm.

However, during the battle, more than ten "thieves" were killed by the Kong family's servants, and they were actually equipped with blunderbuss.

Mao Wenlong was furious and finally ordered the massacre of the village, killing all the thousands of people in the village.

Li Xianzhong did not blame Mao Wenlong when he found out. The Liaodong Cavalry was his heart and soul. It was really hard for him to accept that he did not die in an upright manner on the battlefield, but died for his country in this way.

They are "roving bandits" anyway, so it is normal for them to be cruel.

In just two days, the three largest farms of the Kong family outside Qufu were all captured by "thieves", and a total of 83 shi of grain and 3 taels of silver were captured.

During this period, Xu Hongru tried to send troops to meet the Kong family, but they were quickly repelled by the Ming army ambushing on the road.

Li Xianzhong said to Zhu Chunchen: "Gong Chengguo, you see there is a severe drought in Yanzhou and the hungry people are revolting, but the Kong family in Qufu has hoarded so much food."

Even a corrupt official like Zhu Chunchen was stunned by this scene.

He said: "I heard that nowadays near Yanzhou, 3 shi of grain can be exchanged for 2 acres of good farmland. I don't know how much land the Kong family took advantage of and annexed at a low price, which forced these people to rise up!"

Then Li Xianzhong changed the topic and said: "So we are doing justice for heaven. Duke Cheng Guo must not feel burdened."

"Fornicating with bandits, hiding guns, and annexing land, the children of the Kong family are doing whatever they want in Yanzhou Prefecture. To be honest, even if the Kong family is wiped out, it is not an exaggeration."

"Now I just let them shed a little blood, which is already considered a mercy!"

At this time, the Kong family was already in chaos. Several heavily guarded strongholds on the outside were captured by bandits one after another. All the servants and villagers of the Kong family in the village were killed by bandits, and many of them were children of the Kong family. .

As the head of the family, Yanshenggong Kong Yinzhi was even more questioned.

Kong Yinzhi's uncle Kong Shangyu said: "Since the bandits started their army for more than a month, my Kong family has spent hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and hundreds of thousands of stones of grain. How can we get such a result?"

Kong Yinzhi said: "You can't blame me alone for this. When the thieves kidnapped Yintao and extorted 100 million taels of silver, everyone here unanimously decided not to give the money. Now that the thieves have taken revenge, you only blame me. Isn’t this appropriate for being alone?”

Kong Shangyu said without any sign of weakness: "Why don't you blame me for this? Were you the one who asked Yantao to take 10 taels of silver north?"

"If you had brought more money and persuaded Li Xianzhong to send troops, how could we have reached this point today?"

Kong Yinzhi said: "This matter is quite strange. Those rogue bandits from the river, only a few thousand people, actually defeated Xu Hongru's [-] army, and also broke through several farms defended by my Kong family. How is this possible? ?”

"Is it Li Xianzhong's fault?"

When Kong Yinzhi said this, everyone in the Kong family also realized that this fact was unbelievable, although they had no evidence.But if you want to say that it has nothing to do with Li Xianzhong, they really can't find anyone else.

Kong Yinzhi said angrily: "I will write a letter to impeach this guy right now. I must seek justice for my Kong family!"

The wily Kong Shangyu said: "This matter must not be done. Even if we want to impeach, it is not now."

"First of all, we have no evidence at all. Ningyuan Marquis Li Xianzhong has a large number of troops and has close contacts with Wei Gong. It is impossible to overthrow him by just guessing."

"Secondly, his army is very close to Qufu. If he really found someone to pretend to be a bandit to do these things, if you angered him, he would just stop doing it and directly pretend to be a bandit to attack our Kong family. They were also slaughtered, who should we ask to reason with?"

Kong Yinzhi also understood that what Kong Shangyu said was correct, and said angrily: "It seems that the only way to stabilize Li Xianzhong now is to stabilize him first, and then slowly find opportunities to deal with him!"

While several people were discussing endlessly, the servant suddenly came to report that Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Chengguo, was visiting.

Zhu Chunchen said: "Marquis Ningyuan heard that several farms belonging to the Kong family in Qufu were attacked by bandits, so he specially sent me to express condolences."

It's okay if he didn't say this, but when he said this, everyone in the Kong family became even more angry. You, Li Xianzhong, killed my Kong family members and shot my Kong family's food, and you actually sent people to come here. It's disgusting. I am from the Kong family.

Kong Yinzhi said: "Ning Yuanhou's army arrived in Dongchang ten days ago. It is very close to Qufu. Why haven't reinforcements arrived yet?"

Zhu Chunchen said: "It's not because Marquis Ningyuan didn't try his best to save us. It's because there are so many bandits in Yanzhou. A few days ago, our army was besieged by hundreds of thousands of rogue bandits on its way south.

"My army fought hard and fought bloody battles to break out of the siege, capturing and killing 3 bandits. However, the bandits are so powerful that our army cannot reach Qufu yet."

"Now our army has been stationed in Yanzhou and has advanced to Dongpingzhou."

The word "shameless" has come to Kong Yinzhi's lips, but he still did not curse him in the end. Li Xianzhong is really good at pretending. It was clearly his plan to eat Xu Hongru's 3 people, but he lied about encountering hundreds of thousands of people. The siege of rogue bandits.

Kong Yinzhi said: "My servants came to report that the bandits who besieged my Kong family farm actually used a large number of artillery. Now that the city of Yanzhou has not been captured by the enemy, I would like to know where the bandits' artillery came from. ?

Zhu Chunchen said: "I blame you for this. My Shenji Battalion was besieged by hundreds of thousands of bandits in Niutou Mountain in Hejian Prefecture. In the end, it was outnumbered, causing the camp to fall. Presumably, the artillery in their hands was captured by my Shenji Battalion. "

Kong Yinzhi was so angry that he thought to himself: You are so good, you actually stopped the situation early and allowed the bandits to capture my Kong family's farm with artillery.

Zhu Chunchen saw Kong Yinzhi's furious look and said with a smile: "Marquis Ningyuan also has something unclear, so I specifically asked me to ask Duke Yansheng."

So he took out Kong Yintao's confession and handed it to Kong Yinzhi.

Kong Yinzhi's face changed immediately after seeing it.

Zhu Chunchen said sternly: "This is the confession our army captured from the bandits. Marquis Ningyuan asked me to ask Duke Yan Sheng, what is the intention of your Kong family in privately funding the bandits?"

"Why did Kong Yantao ask us to go south to support Qufu, but we were besieged by hundreds of thousands of bandits on the back?"

At this time, Kong Yinzhi was already so angry that Li Xianzhong, the thief, was just fooling around by calling him "catching a thief."

He said: "This is not Kong Yantao's handwriting. It must have been forged by someone with ulterior motives."

Zhu Chunchen said: "By the way, Kong Yantao is in our army camp at the moment. He has confessed to this matter. Does Yan Shenggong still want to deny it?"

In fact, Kong Yinzhi had long recognized Kong Yintao's handwriting. He just held on to the phantom, hoping that Kong Yintao would not fall into the hands of Li Xianzhong.

Now his face was ashen, and he said calmly: "What do Marquis Ning Yuan want, why don't you just say it?"

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(End of this chapter)