nanming man

Chapter 384 Taking down Yiling
The next morning, the gates of Yiling City were opened wide, and Wei Wujun had already taken control of the city. Gao Yihuan, surrounded by his generals, entered Yiling City.

Last night, Sun Kewang slipped away overnight. Because he was afraid of being discovered by Gao Yihuan, he did not destroy Yiling City. However, when Gao Yihuan entered the street, the city was still deserted. There was a murmur.

Like Jingzhou, Yiling City didn't have many residents, but Gao Yihuan still sent people to put up a list to calm the people, ordered the warehouses to be sealed up, and captured the remaining Western troops in the city.

Now that Yiling is in hand, it only needs to garrison a small number of elite troops to guard against the western army coming out of Sichuan. The Wei army in Jingzhou only needs to guard against the Ming army in Wuchang and Hunan, and Gao Yihuan does not need to leave too many troops.

Now Gao Yihuan has an army of 3, 7 are used to guard against the Western and Ming armies, and the remaining [-] can be used to deal with the Qing army's southward movement.

With this [-] army, Gao Yihuan felt that although the strength was still far inferior to the Qing army, it was no worse than Wu Sangui.

Although Sun Kewang was gone, Gao Yihuan was very satisfied with taking Yiling Prefecture.

At this time, he entered the city on horseback, and a cavalry galloped over and reported loudly, "Commander, General Zhao found the place where the Western Army hid silver!"

"Where is it?" Gao Yihuan frowned, and his heart skipped a beat.

"In a big pond in the east city!"

Gao Yihuan heard the words, immediately turned his horse's head, and ran towards the east city with the cavalry.

Not long after, the crowd came to a pond with a size of more than 20 mu. They saw many soldiers of the Wei army jumping into the water, swimming in the middle of the pond, drilling into the water from time to time, and then tied the sunken boxes with ropes. The soldiers struggled to pull up.

Gao Yihuan looked towards the shore, and saw that ten salvaged boxes had been sent to the shore, and they were full of silver.

This made Gao Yihuan very happy. He never thought that Sun Kewang was able to seize a sum in Yiling after stealing 100 million taels of Sun Kewang in Jingzhou. Sun Kewang is really a good hand at making money.

At this time, Zhao Zhuzi, who was directing the salvage, walked over with his arms hanging, and said with a smile, "Master!"

Gao Yi laughed and pointed at the silver box, "How did you find this out?"

"There were a few deserters from the Western Army who were sneaking by the pond, and were captured by the last general's men. After interrogating them, I didn't expect to learn from them that Sun Kewang had sunk the silver into the center of the pond." Zhao said. Zhu Zi excitedly said.

"How much silver did you sink?" Gao Yihuan was very interested, "Where are the captured soldiers?"

"These deserters from the Western Army probably participated in Chen Yin, and then slipped away while the Western Army was retreating, trying to get some silver quietly, but they were too impatient." Zhao Zhuzi replied: "After the humble officer catches them, they will give them to you." Brother Xuanyiwei, it is said that the three killed two, and the other was also disabled. However, according to the interrogation, there are probably more than 20 taels."

More than 20 taels, enough for him to cover 10 horses for a month.

Gao Yihuan couldn't help laughing, "Haha~ It seems that Sun Kewang is very ruthless in accumulating money!"

At present, Gao Yihuan was very interested in watching the soldiers salvage, until someone came to report that a lot of grain was found in the grain depot, Gao Yihuan rode away and went to the grain depot to check.

Later, Gao Yihuan found a lot of property in Sun Kewang's home.

Among them are not only gold, silver and jade wares, but also many utensils, antiques, treasures, and even rare books, paintings and calligraphy of the previous generation, which are of immeasurable value.

Most of these items were obtained by the Western Army from confiscating several palaces. Zhang Xianzhong brought them to Yiling when he entered Sichuan. In the end, the road was difficult, so he left these cultural relics, including some gold and silver, in Yiling.

Later, Sun Kewang transported a batch of silver to Jingzhou, but these things have been in Yiling.

Gao Yihuan was at Sun Kewang's residence, commanding his subordinates to load the cars and take good care of them. He came to the government office at noon to deal with many aftermath matters.

At this time, a soldier reported at the door: "Marshal, some village elders have come to see you."

Gao Yihuan frowned slightly, he didn't really want to see these squires.

When taking down Jingzhou, Gao Yihuan's identity was still Weihou of Dashun, and Wei Wujun was also a part of the Shun army. The squires in Jingzhou only thought that it was a thief from the west for a thief from the Shun, so they continued to swallow their anger, not daring to think anything wrong.

However, after Gao Yihuan accepted Zhao'an, the originally cautious gentry became bolder and began to make demands on Gao Yihuan, hoping to return the assets that Sun Kewang had embezzled from them, abolish the current tax law, and follow the Ming Dynasty's laws again.

This made Gao Yihuan feel vigilant. For him, the gentry is just a tool, used to maintain the rule, and can give certain benefits, but he must be content and not too greedy.

If, instead of maintaining their rule, they became a malignant tumor, he must eradicate them.

Gao Yihuan could probably guess that these people came to him to say something. He didn't want to see him at first, but he nodded in the end, "Let them wait in the lobby. I'll be here soon."

At this time, several country gentry and landlords were led to the lobby.They are all big and prominent families in Yiling Prefecture, and Sun Kewang was not very polite to them. Not only were they forced to pay a large amount of money, food and salaries, their family wealth was almost emptied, and Sun Kewang even interfered with collecting rent for their own land. , the days can be said to be quite bitter.

It's all right now, when Daming's army came back, these country gentlemen who had been hiding, immediately formed a return mission.

At this time, there were more than a dozen people sitting in the hall, and most of the big households from the four miles and eight townships of Yiling, as well as prominent figures, all came to the county government office.

Before Gao Yihuan arrived, the few of them were sitting and talking in low voices, discussing how to get their things back.

Everyone was talking in twos and threes, and the hall was full of chaos. An old man suddenly stood up, coughed, and stretched out his hand to press down to make everyone quiet.

This old man's name is Chen Zhonglian. He used to be an official in the imperial court, and he returned home with a seven-rank censor for nearly ten years.

Because he was born as an admonisher, although he resigned, there are many old friends among his colleagues. Local officials dare not offend him.

Because of this status, he can be said to be the leader of the gentry in Yiling and even Jingzhou.

At this time, when everyone saw that Chen Zhonglian was about to speak, everyone fell silent, and he said slowly: "I just heard that the officers and soldiers found a lot of silver in the big lotus pond in the East City. However, the handsome Gao who entered the city is said to be not a good person, so we don't want this money, it's all a reward for the army!"

"In this world, soldiers are like bandits. Old Chen is right. We don't want the money! But the houses, shops, and fields in the city must be returned to us!" Everyone nodded.

Chen Zhonglian smiled and said: "That's right, this is the focus of our visit today. As long as the family business is there, the money is gone, and you can earn it back. If the food is gone, you can charge more rent. In a few years, everyone will be able to recover again." Vigorous."

As he said that, he glanced at everyone, and said: "This handsome man is also a bandit, you guys should pay attention to what you say, if you don't, just keep your mouth shut and let the old man talk to him!"

Chen Zhonglian didn't know Gao Yihuan very well. After he resigned, he didn't care much about world affairs, and only cared about his own one-third of an acre of land.

Although Gao Yihuan is very powerful now, in Chen Zhonglian's eyes, he is just a rogue after all, and he probably has no culture, so he is full of confidence.

(Thanks to the boss who doesn’t need a perfect 10000 tip in life, to become the protector of this book, thanks to the boss for his support.)
(End of this chapter)