Daming pirates

So the magistrate of Tong'an immediately panicked and ordered people to rush outside the city to summon the township warriors from each township and village to practice in the city to assist in the defense. He also ordered the garrison in the city to quickly strengthen the defense. At the same time, he also sent people to Quanzhou Prefecture to ask for help at night.

Although Tong'an County is a county town, the number of troops stationed in Tong'an County is not as large as that of Gaopu City. There are only more than 300 officers and soldiers garrisoned in Tong'an County. Even if Tong'an County's police officers are included, there are only a few dozen people who can be gathered together, and there are only a few dozen people in total.

With dozens of archers, it is almost impossible to defend Tong'an County.

Even if they recruit all the regiments and warriors from the surrounding townships into the city to assist in the defense, they will not be able to recruit many people, because these regiments and warriors from each township are usually supported by wealthy families. They are mainly responsible for the defense.

Protect the village forts in each township and conduct joint defense among each township and village.

Nowadays, the sea wolves are attacking in large numbers. These country gentlemen have too much time to take care of themselves. They have few manpower and they still have to protect their own fortress. How can they be willing to send their regiment training warriors to the county town to help defend!

Therefore, even if the magistrate Tong'an sends people to call for help, these country squires will only obey in disguise, and the strong ones will simply ignore them. Even if they send some country warriors to the county to assist in defense for the sake of face, they will only send some old and weak people.

In the city, it's just a matter of doing nothing.

Therefore, after hearing the news of the fall of Gaopu City, the officials and gentry in Tong'an County immediately panicked. Some wealthy gentry simply took their families and swarmed out at dawn.

Tong'an County, fled to Quanzhou Prefecture for a while.

Even those who did not escape were still panic-stricken and at a loss what to do, and they all ran to the magistrate to ask him for an idea on what to do.

And the county magistrate was so frightened that he had no idea. So everyone got together to discuss, and finally came up with an idea, which was to let the rich people in the city pay for the recruitment.

The young men in the city went up to the city to defend the city. In addition, the servants and servants of the gentry families were also brought out and sent to the city to assist in the defense, so as to solve the manpower problem first.

In addition, rich people and businessmen have to give some money to use as bounties and salaries. First, give some money to the three hundred defenders and officers in the city to mobilize their morale, and then offer another reward for killing one of them.

Sea Wolf's thieves were rewarded with five taels of silver, in order to stimulate the officers and soldiers in the city and the country warriors to boost their morale and defend the county.

In this way, thousands of people were cobbled together, and the city wall was temporarily guarded. In addition, the county magistrate assigned some people. He personally guarded the east gate, and the city's patrol patrol was stationed at the west gate. As for the south gate,

The county magistrate was in charge, and a famous gentry from the city was invited to take charge of the north gate.

In this way, the situation in the county town was stabilized first, and there were some more patrol personnel on the city wall, which made people feel more at ease.

But even so, they still had no idea, because they all knew that Gaopu City was garrisoned by two thousand defenders, but under the Sea Wolf's attack, they could not hold on for even two days.

It was announced that they had been conquered, and the little more than a thousand people they had cobbled together with An County City could do better than Gaopu City?

Therefore, their only hope is that Quanzhou Prefecture can quickly send a large number of reinforcements to Tong'an County to assist in the defense. In this case, they can probably defend the county.

Sure enough, on the third day after Sea Wolf captured Gaopu City, they began to appear around Tong'an County. There are two rivers, Dongxi and Xixi, outside Tong'an County, and Tong'an County is at the intersection of the two rivers.

, in terms of terrain, it forms a natural barrier to the county, making Tongan County easy to defend and difficult to attack.

If the Sea Wolf comes from the sea, it must cross the river no matter which direction it comes from before it can advance to Tong'an County. For this, if the number of officers and soldiers is relatively sufficient and their combat effectiveness is relatively strong, they can set up along the river outside the city.

For defense, blocking the Sea Wolf's troops on the other side of the river will prevent the Sea Wolf's troops from threatening Tong'an County.

Even if Sea Wolf wants to sail the fleet into Xixi, it will not work. Because the water depth of Xixi is limited, only small boats can be used, and large ships cannot sail into Xixi. Therefore, Sea Wolf can only launch an attack on Tong'an County from land.

This terrain is very beneficial to the defense of Tong'an County. Unfortunately, Tong'an County does not have enough troops to send out the city to block Sea Wolf's troops.

The Sea Wolf didn't seem to be in a hurry to attack Tong'an County. After they captured Gaopu City, they first transported the main infantry to the Xixi River mouth and landed there, and launched a sweep of the area around Tong'an County.

Yu Xiaotian made up his mind to occupy Weitou Bay and use Weitou Bay as a distribution center for his maritime trade in the future. However, if he wants to gain a foothold in this area, the local forces in this area will likely cause him trouble in the future.

It would be less troublesome, so in this case, it is better to clean up these local forces now. So after Sea Wolf's army landed at the mouth of the Xixi River, they began a sweep of this area.

The geographical location of Tong'an County is very suitable for sea trade. In addition, it is adjacent to Yuegang. It has benefited greatly in recent years. Local wealthy people are mostly engaged in sea trade, and many people have made a fortune. Although Tong'an County is not a big place,

, but there are quite a few wealthy people here.

After some wealthy families got rich, they bought a large amount of land outside the city, and then built their villages and forts to protect themselves. Therefore, the population in Tong'an County was quite dense, and the forts and forts were close to each other.

Many of these forts are protected by tuanlianxiangyong, and the local armed forces are very strong. Pirates have repeatedly invaded Yuegang, but they generally can't get much bargains here because of the differences between these villages in Tong'an.

With joint protection and joint defense, if something happens to one village, the neighboring villages will send people to support it, so it is difficult for a small group of pirates to achieve much success in this area.

But this time, the Sea Wolves are not a small group of pirates. Their strength is absolutely unmatched by ordinary pirates, especially their ability to attack difficult targets, which is beyond the reach of ordinary pirates.

Moreover, for the Sea Wolf Army's activities in Tong'an County, although ammunition and supplies need to be transported from Tamsui City by the navy, food supplies still have to be provided on the spot.

Before attacking Tong'an County, both Li Dazui and Meng Fei believed that it was necessary to uproot some large villages around Tong'an County, supply food on the spot, and also eliminate some large local households. In the future, these large households would form a gang in the province.

Become an enemy of the sea wolf.

So based on the confessions of the local leading party, they selected seven large villages from the local area as their targets. These seven large villages were the residences of some wealthy local gentry.

Moreover, these seven squires also have a bad reputation in the local area. Relying on their wealth and power, they often do evil in the local area. Even the government has no way to deal with them.

As long as they are eliminated, it will basically wipe out the local forces around Tong'an County. As for other smaller villages, there is no way they can unite to become enemies of Sea Wolf.

When the local villages saw the Sea Wolf Army's majestic appearance outside their village fort, every one of them was so frightened that they fell into silence and could not even think of becoming enemies with them.

As soon as many village forts saw Sea Wolf's soldiers and horses, they quickly organized pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks in the village, and also prepared drinks and dozens or hundreds of taels of silver. They hurriedly sent them out of the village forts and placed them outside the village as gifts.

sea ​​wolf.

Li Dazui and the others were not polite about this and took everything in their pockets. However, they did not dare to collect this kind of harvest easily privately. After all was registered by the council members who accompanied the army, all the money that could be directly used was allocated to the army on the spot.

For items that are used in the center, such as silver coins, wine, or extra pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, etc., people will be sent to transport them back to the Zhongzuo Station in small boats and be stored in the warehouse for unified processing.

In addition, Sea Wolf sent personnel to go out to various villages to preach, asking them to provide a certain amount of money to Sea Wolf every year. In fact, it is to collect protection fees and pay them on time. Sea Wolf will not harass them in the future and protect their vested interests.

The benefit is actually to bring the local area into the management scope of Sea Wolf in the future, forming Sea Wolf's sphere of influence.

Naturally, these villages did not dare to refuse to agree, and repeatedly stated that there was no problem. After all, the requirements put forward by Hailang were not too harsh. Each village generally paid one hundred and eighty taels of silver per year, and the most paid was a few hundred taels of silver, which was very short.

Obviously, Sea Wolf understands their situation very well. Such coercion is not too much. It can be tolerated by every township and village, and it is also acceptable to pay for peace.

In addition, people in these villages also secretly have their own little calculations. They think that although Sea Wolf makes such a request, they may not necessarily have to pay it every year, because now it seems that Sea Wolf is arrogant, but once the army comes,

, can the sea wolf still stay in this area for a lifetime?

As long as the official army arrives, these sea wolves will leave sooner or later. Once they leave, the money will naturally no longer be paid. If you agree now, there is no loss. If the sea wolves don't leave, then you will pay the money.

Just hand it over.

In addition, after Sea Wolf came ashore, he asked some village forts to provide some civilian men for them to use to help Sea Wolf transport supplies. The villages did not dare not agree to this request, so they took out the young men of some single-family households in the village.

Come out and send them to help Sea Wolf.

Such a request is not too much. After the pirates landed, it was already good if they did not burn, kill, and loot. Now the Sea Wolf just asks them to provide some labor, which is really not a big deal. Anyway, in every village, everyone

There are some outsiders who have no foundation or relatives in the village, so they can naturally be abandoned. Therefore, whether they are willing or not, they can only be sent out by the villages to work as laborers for Sea Wolf.

But after these people were sent to Sea Wolf, they discovered that things were not as bad as they thought. Although Sea Wolf was a pirate in name, he behaved very well and was not bad to people like them. He had plenty of food to eat.

They were not asked to bring their own food, and each of them was given dozens of large sums of money as a reward every day.

(Wow! Thank you so much for the reward, Brother Zhi Xian Xin Xin, and by the way, I also want to thank my brother Hu Luhu Lu for the reward! I will keep your support in mind and won’t say anything else. Next month, I will still stick to two chapters a day.

Update! Never break a promise!)