The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 187 Cui Er Returns Home
The main force of Wu State, the 10th Division, entered the city too quickly. When a regiment responsible for arresting Duke E rushed into Duke E's mansion, Duke E was still feasting with his trusted subordinates.

Seeing a large group of soldiers rushing into the mansion and rushing to the door of the banquet hall, Duke E's instinctive reaction was to be furious:
"what happened?"

The steward of Duke E immediately stood up and shouted:
"How dare you! Which battalion are you from? What are you doing? Someone, capture them!"

Dozens of guards from the Duke of E's Mansion surrounding the hall immediately raised their guns.

What greeted them was a series of dense gunshots, and all the guards of the Duke of E around them fell to the ground.

The housekeeper of the Duke of E's mansion was so frightened that he ran away.

Most of the members of this regiment are from Hubei, which was a special arrangement made by the division commander.

Seeing that the butler seemed to want to run away, the captain simply raised his pistol and fired two shots, then watched the butler fall to the ground wailing at the door of the banquet hall.

The regiment commander led his soldiers into the banquet hall with guns drawn, and shouted to Duke E and his subordinates, whose anger had turned into astonishment:
"According to the order of the Ming Wu Wang, Duke E is doing evil and hindering the Northern Expedition. Capture them all and hand them over to the court for punishment. Anyone who resists will be shot on the spot!"

Duke E was stunned:

"King Wu's soldiers? King Wu's soldiers from Australia? How did you get here?!"

The head of the group ignored Duke E and waved to his subordinates:

"Get it for me!"

The surrounding soldiers immediately stepped forward and arrested everyone below the rank of Duke of E.

Duke E shouted angrily:

"What are you doing? I am a duke appointed by the imperial court! You are the King of Wu's men, what are you doing here? You are rebelling! Rebellion!"

The regiment commander and the surrounding soldiers wanted to stab him to death, but considering that this thing was still useful, they could only tie him up first.

Waiting for the order from the King of Wu or the court to deal with it:
"Your Highness the King of Wu is following the imperial decree of His Majesty the Emperor to lead the Northern Expedition. All nobles, officials and common people in the vassal states must cooperate as one. Anyone who disobeys or obstructs us can be executed first and reported later!"

The head of the group ordered to take over the Duke of E's Mansion, gather all the personnel under custody, and count and register the property of the Duke's Mansion.

After the 10th Division occupied Wuchang Prefecture and Eguogong Mansion, it issued an order in the name of the Wu occupation army to lift restrictions on the entry and exit of Hubei river ships.

Hubei civilian ships are allowed to enter and exit freely, civilians are allowed to leave freely, and merchant ships are allowed to bring in food and supplies.

The business classes in Wuchang, Hanyang and Huangzhou were overjoyed as they had finally gained their freedom.

The division commander also arranged a brigade, carrying the King of Wu's decree and the seal of the Duke of E's mansion, to escort the Duke of E and his main subordinates to take over other prefectures, states, and counties in Hubei.

Officials and garrisons from all over the country saw the King of Wu's decree and confirmed the identity of the captured Duke of E and the main officials of the Duke's Mansion.

Without much hesitation, they all announced that they were willing to accept the orders of the King of Wu and cooperate with him in his Northern Expedition.

Since the top-level foreign vassal like the Duke of E had been arrested, the ordinary civil and military officials under them did not dare to cause trouble.

What's more, officials from other prefectures, counties and cities were originally marginal personnel in the Duke of E's Mansion.

Many people are already dissatisfied with the current situation. Whether they are incorporated into the Wu State or directly under the jurisdiction of the central court in the future, it will be a better thing compared to the current situation.

At the same time, the Tenth Division also began to reorganize the officials and troops of the Duke of E's Mansion.

The chief officials and assistant officials of various departments of the Duke's Mansion, the chief officials and assistant officials of local prefectures, states, and counties, and all military officers from the rank of regiment commander to above were all temporarily detained for investigation and trial.

Officials in charge of specific affairs in the Duke's Mansion and local prefectures, states, and counties continued to maintain order in local government offices under the command of officers of the 10th Division's occupation forces.

For ordinary officers and soldiers, those who are not suitable or unwilling to continue serving in the army will have their weapons confiscated and be sent home.

Then he began to recruit Hubei civilians into the army, equipping them with the weapons of the Duke of E's original army, and using the funds accumulated by the Duke's Mansion as military pay.

Finally, two regiments were left behind to train and manage the two newly recruited divisions to occupy and maintain order in the various prefectures of Hubei.

The main force led the three reorganized divisions of the old Eguogongfu Army and marched north from Xiangyang along the Han River.
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The Wu State's main force, the Seventh Division on the north bank of the Yellow River, cooperated with the Ninth Division on the south bank and the imperial court's Yangzhou troops to complete the Battle of Huai'an.

Then they turned north to join the Eighth Division and together they attacked Xuzhou, an important town in the Huaibei area.

The main reason for gathering the main forces of the two divisions was not because the Qing Dynasty had 10,000 troops stationed in Xuzhou, but because there was a Manchu city and tens of thousands of Eight Banners descendants here.

The Qing army's Xuzhou general had already learned the news that the war had officially begun on the southern front, so he was naturally on guard in advance.

However, he was not vigilant enough and did not realize that he was already at an absolute disadvantage and should adopt a defensive strategy. Instead, he was still considering waiting for the order to go to the front line.

Their strong mentality was still there, so they certainly would not use stones and mud bags to seal the city gate. As a result, it was directly blown open by the Northern Expedition Army.

The outer city of Xuzhou was quickly captured by the Northern Expedition Army, and then the siege of the inner city, that is, the entire city, began.

The battle in the inner city lasted for five days, and the two divisions of the Northern Expedition lost more than 300 people.

In total, more than 10,000 Manchu soldiers and armed immigrants were killed in the city, which was almost one-third of all the Eight Banners descendants in the city.

General Xuzhou of the Qing army always insisted on fighting, and in the end, the situation was similar to that of Jeju Island. The Han army flag rebelled, killed General Xuzhou and surrendered, and the battle finally ended.

After the Battle of Xuzhou ended, the 7th and 8th Divisions took a short rest and began to take over Yanzhou, Jining, Caozhou and other places north of Xuzhou.

It is called a takeover because most of the officials in the prefectures, states, and counties in these places surrendered immediately when they saw the army approaching under the banner of the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty's Northern Expedition Army's appearance here now just happens to be in line with the cognition and judgment of ordinary traditional officials of this era.

These officials learned about the Northern Expedition manifesto at the beginning of the year, and almost two months later received news of the outbreak of war in Haizhou, Huai'an and other places, and recently received news of the fall of Xuzhou.

Now that they saw the Ming army advancing to the local area, they naturally concluded that the south had already been occupied by the Ming army.

In their view, in just two months, the entire Huaibei region had been lost, the natural barrier of the Yellow River had been lost, and the armies in important cities such as Xuzhou had also been conquered.

This shows that the Qing Dynasty is doomed and the orthodox Ming Dynasty is about to return.

Why don't you surrender quickly?

Although they were unaware that the capital had been besieged, their assessment of the overall situation was still quite accurate.

In fact, western Shandong, the area north of Xuzhou, has always been a place of war.

The key point is that these places suffered heavy losses in disasters in the past few years, and there is no local defense force.

If the Qing court did not send special troops to garrison, they would surrender to anyone who came.

Although fighting broke out in a few places, it ended quickly with the cooperation of a large number of local people.

By mid-April, the 7th and 8th Divisions had basically taken over the area west of Mount Tai.

Then the two divisions stopped here temporarily and did not continue the attack.

Because the ammunition and supplies are basically used up, we have to wait here for a new batch of supplies to arrive.

It is also a good time to take advantage of this time for the army to rest and reorganize, and at the same time integrate and absorb some local forces.

Use the weapons of captured and captured soldiers to reorganize auxiliary troops.

Since the Seventh and Eighth Divisions have a large number of local people, it is a good opportunity to expand the army directly here.

Cui Er himself was from Heze County, Caozhou Prefecture, and was also assigned the task of occupying and maintaining order in Heze County.

Three days after entering the city and basically gaining control of the situation, Cui Er rode his bicycle to find his brother-in-law's shop.

Cui Er came back to the place he hadn't been to for more than three years, and instinctively worried that his sister and brother-in-law's family were gone.

My parents passed away long ago, and I haven't started a family yet. I only have my sister's family of four as relatives.

When I left three years ago, the situation in Heze was extremely serious. If anything happened to them...

However, when he arrived at the door, Cui Er saw a very familiar figure at the door of the shop: his brother-in-law was greeting customers.

Although he was obviously much thinner and older than three years ago, it was indeed his brother-in-law, Ke Da.

Cui Erba pushed his bicycle to the store entrance and waited for a few customers to leave before he greeted them with a smile:
"Brother! Busy!"

When Ke Da heard the voice, he was stunned, then looked up suddenly:

"Waiter! You're back! You're still alive, that's great, that's really great! Come in! I'm closing the store and I won't be working today."

Cui Er moved the bicycle into the store:
"Brother, are my sister and the children okay?"

Ke Da had seen bicycles before. These kinds of goods sold among the public would always end up in northern cities.

As Ke Da closed and locked the shop, he explained what had happened:
"It's okay, fortunately... I can only say that it's fortunate that we settled the accounts at that time, and fortunately you took your eldest nephew away, and we barely managed to survive that winter..."

Ke Da closed the door and took Cui Er to the backyard, while asking about Cui Er's situation:

"What's wrong with you? Are you serving as a soldier for the Ming Dynasty? And you made money? You even got a bicycle? Where have you been all these years? Where's your eldest nephew?"

Cui Er knew that his brother-in-law was worried about his son, so even though he asked a series of questions, he chose to let him know that he was safe first:
"My eldest nephew is now far away in Australia, working as a manager in the factory of His Royal Highness Prince Wu of the Ming Dynasty. He earns several silver dollars a month and is provided with food and accommodation. He is now white and fat."

Ke Da was immediately relieved:

"Okay, okay, okay, I hope everyone is safe. It would be great if everyone is safe..."

Ke Da led Cui Er into the backyard and met his wife, son, and daughter. When Ke Da's wife saw her brother, she grabbed his arm and cried and laughed for a while, and finally said that she was lucky and that it was great that everyone was alive.

Then Sister Cui started cooking, and Sister Cui Er stood at the kitchen door and briefly told them about her experiences over the years.

Mr. and Mrs. Ke were amazed when they heard this.

"So the Ming Dynasty really does provide meals? It turns out Australia is thousands of miles away. I thought it was just outside."

"You've made a lot of progress. You've become an officer. You should start a family soon. You're already in your twenties."

Cui Er was still quite proud:
"Back then, the general of the Ming Dynasty said that I was born to be an officer, and now it just so happens that His Royal Highness Prince Wu of the Ming Dynasty is expanding his army to the north.

"I have to accomplish great things, drive the Qing invaders out of the Central Plains, and recover the old capital of the Ming Dynasty before I can think about starting a family.

"The key is, I have to at least be a regiment commander, and then I can have dignity when I start a family. Being a company commander is nothing.

“Although it looks like the same rank as the county magistrate, the low-ranking military officer is worthless, and I am a company commander in charge of a hundred people.

"At least you have to be the head of a group of 1,000 people to be treated like a county magistrate."

Sister Cui laughed when she heard this:

"You are pretending to be so great, and you have the same rank as the county magistrate, and you only have over a hundred people...

"You have brought honor to your family now, so the important thing is to pass on the family line as soon as possible."

Ke Da said happily:
"With you here, I won't have to worry about being in trouble with the officers from the government office anymore. I'll have to rely on you to take care of my brother from now on.

"Besides, what is the current situation of Daming? Daming will not leave after it comes, right?

"The Ming Dynasty shouldn't care about our business, right?"

Cui Er smiled and comforted his brother-in-law:

"Don't worry, big brother. The Ming Dynasty won't make it difficult for people to do business. Businessmen in the Ming Dynasty can also take the imperial examination directly.

"When the situation is stable in the future, let my eldest nephew give it a try. It's better to be a civil servant. It's so impressive to be a county magistrate."

Cui Er chatted with his brother-in-law and sister for a while, and when he saw his little nephew and niece peeking around, he suddenly thought of something.

He opened the basket on the side of his bicycle, took out two cans of luncheon meat, gave them to his nephew and niece to taste, and showed them to his sister and brother-in-law.

Ke Da also tasted it and said with some doubt:

"It smells so good and has a meaty taste. What kind of meat filling is this? And it's packed in an iron shell. This thing must be expensive, right?"

Cui Er boasted proudly and said:

“It’s not expensive, because it’s not all meat. It’s made with meat filling, flour and seasonings. It costs about fifty yuan per pound.

“But this is the marching rations for our Ming Wu soldiers, so it is distributed for free.

"The most important thing is that it can be stored for three years without being spoiled if the lid is not opened."

Ke Da took a breath of cold air:
"Fifty coins is not expensive? In a normal year, you can buy three kilograms of rice. Three kilograms of rice is enough for you to eat for a day.

"You soldiers, can you eat this freely? The key is that you are dreaming of not breaking it for three years!"

Cui Er smiled and said:
"Compared to meat, it's certainly not expensive. One pound of pure pork can buy three pounds of this canned food.

"Of course we don't only eat this, our normal staple food is still rice and noodles, but we have at least one box every day.

"When it's inconvenient to cook, or when there's no place to get food for a long time, I'll just use canned food as my staple food."

"All of our soldiers came out with large quantities of these cans, otherwise we wouldn't be able to fight so fast."

Sister Cui also tried two cans of food and was very surprised:
"Isn't your prince too rich? Do you really give this to all soldiers? And not just officials like you?"

Cui Er was immediately proud again:

"That's just the beginning. When we were training in the capital, the soldiers had meat every day, and the officers had meat for every meal.

"It's inconvenient to cook when we're marching outside, so they brought us canned food."

Mr. and Mrs. Ke were amazed when they heard this and were very curious about the Ming Dynasty and Prince Wu of the Ming Dynasty.

"This prince gives you soldiers such good food, you must work hard for him.

“No wonder you guys came so quickly. I heard you were clamoring to come over after the Chinese New Year, and now you’ve arrived in Shandong in just a few months.

"I'm afraid we won't be able to reach Beijing by the end of the year?"

Cui Er immediately became even more proud:

“Actually right now… hehe, military information cannot be leaked.

“You just need to know that the Qing Dynasty is like a rabbit with a short tail that cannot grow long.

“It’s hard to say whether we can make it through this year.”

Cui Er wanted to show off that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wu might have already arrived in Beijing, but he couldn't say this to ordinary people, so he forced himself to hold it back.

Then he changed the topic and began to ask about the situation in Heze and Caozhou.

After Cui Er left, Caozhou went through the most difficult winter. In the second year, when there was a shortage of food, a large-scale famine occurred.

However, the rainfall in the second year was relatively normal, so Caozhou harvested a crop of wheat and a crop of corn in the autumn, and the price of grain gradually came down.

Fortunately, there was no major epidemic in Heze County, and the Ke family sent Cui Er and Ke Sidi away, which greatly reduced their expenses.

I spent all my savings and barely got through that most difficult spring.

Now that the family is reunited, Cui Er has confirmed that his sister, brother-in-law and their families are all alive and well, and Mr. and Mrs. Ke have also confirmed that their younger brother and eldest son are safe.

The family members were completely relaxed, so they were in the mood to discuss other miscellaneous matters.

The whole family also has some hope for their future life.

Cui Er had a meal at his brother-in-law's house and rode his bicycle to the county government office in the afternoon.

The head of the group, Cui Er, asked the prefect of Caozhou and the magistrate of Heze to summon the officials, gentry, merchants, and wealthy families of Caozhou Prefecture.

Right in the lobby of the county government office, Cui Er was called out by the head of the group to speak, reminding and warning these people to cooperate with the action.

Cui Er was just an idler on the streets of Heze County, almost an unemployed vagrant or even a street urchin.

Several businessmen at the scene had some impression of him because they had asked him to do odd jobs in the past, so they told the people around them about it.

The local upper-class people at the scene soon found out Cui Er's background, and most of them looked at him with disgust.

Everyone instinctively thought, what does a street urchin know, why would he let something like this teach him a lesson?

Cui Er also understood his own identity and what he should do, so he used the local customs of Heze to remind these people:
"Many of my comrades and I are from Caozhou, or even Heze County.

"I am Cui Er, and I am from the streets of Heze County. Many of you here should be familiar with me.

"The same is true in reverse. I know which family is doing what business, which family has money, and which family has food. I, Cui Er, can say that I know everything."

After Cui Er uttered these three simple sentences, the expressions of the local celebrities at the scene suddenly fell.

The disgust just now disappeared without a trace, and turned into an indescribable solemnity and melancholy.

Only someone like Cui Er, who comes from a street background, can clearly know which family has money and food.

In the future, when he represents the Ming Dynasty to collect grain and military expenses from me, I won't be able to deceive him, so I really can't underestimate him.

Seeing that everyone was serious, Cui Er continued to instruct and educate them:
“At the same time, why did my comrades and I leave our hometown Caozhou and travel all the way to Ming Dynasty and Australia to serve as soldiers for His Royal Highness the King of Wu?

"I think you all know what's going on, and the Ming Dynasty will not allow such a thing to happen again.

"You all want to keep your property and your status in Ming Dynasty.

"You must show your sincerity and prove to the Ming Dynasty that you are all good merchants and good gentry of the Ming Dynasty.

“Cooperate with the Northern Expedition Command to maintain market and social stability.

"While operating normally and making profits, we must also spontaneously maintain the prestige of the court, maintain the stability of the world, and ensure the survival of the people.

"We can no longer stockpile goods without limit and raise prices without limit. Those are all bad businessmen and bad gentry.

“They are all targets of the Northern Expedition Army. Their assets will be confiscated and they will be imprisoned and punished.

"Do you understand?"

A group of merchants and gentry all had bitter faces and responded intermittently:
"Understood--"

(End of this chapter)