Dominate the Country

ps: Second update, please collect and recommend!!

Five days passed peacefully, yes, five days.

Five days without any movement from the government, five days enough for the "Chen family" in Tumenji to completely retreat into the mountains, five days enough for all Lushan people to know that the Chen family "looted" Tumenji before retreating into Funiushan, and a large number of Tumenji people fled their homeland, even the Huang family, a relative of the Chen family, was no exception.

The Huang family now openly occupied the Chen family's mansion in the county town, under the euphemism of "compensation". Most of their food and silver in Tumenji were taken away by the Chen family, and the old man Huang also went to the county government to beat the drum of injustice, praying that the county magistrate could bring the Chen family to justice.

The Huang family, the Li family and the Gao family, who were pitted by the Chen family, are now the three most active families jumping to "attack" the Chen family.

Anyone with a discerning eye knows what these three families are doing, but Chang Rui has to appease these three law-abiding gentry for the sake of face. This is the rule. No matter whether the Huang, Li, and Gao families still have a little connection with the Chen family in secret, they have broken up on the surface. Then Chang Rui can no longer make a fuss about their kinship with the Chen family. Otherwise, if these three families make trouble again, Wang Jun probably can't cover it up.

In five days, Tumen Market was more lively than the Spring Festival. The Chen family bought salt, sugar, spices, cloth, cotton, etc. in large quantities. I don't know how many families in the surrounding ten miles and eight villages pushed and carried small carts and shoulder poles to Tumen Market, and exchanged their own cloth, cotton, salt, sugar, or grain and vegetable oil for ironware, iron materials, and silver.

The Gao family used these five days to pull away at least 100,000 kilograms of good iron. The Huang family took over the situation of the Chen family in Xiang County. The latter's iron reserves can only support it until mid-September at most, which is only one month left. This is also the little bit of reserves that the Chen family has accumulated after the huge increase in iron production in the second half of the year. There is also a part of it in Xiaonangou, and the batch that Gao family took away is it.

The situation in Xiang County can be regarded as compensation from the Chen family to the Huang family. The Huang family should not be able to hold on until mid-September. Those people on the stage are not fools. After finding that the source of iron materials has been cut off and that the military force that the Chen family relied on to intimidate Xiang County has disappeared and returned, there will definitely be a rebound. How much benefit the Huang family can get depends on their own means.

Five days is enough for some absentees who don't want to be bandits to settle accounts and leave. These people are old employees of the Chen family, and they are all mountain people from the villages around Tumenji. They have no knowledge of the Chen family's smelting technology, but they are just trying to work hard in the mines. So they belong to the range that can be "released". However, those craftsmen who have direct contact with the Chen family's smelting and ironware manufacturing technology, don't even think about leaving.

On the sixth day, the militia of Baofeng County began to gather, and on the seventh day, the militia that went to Lushan for the first time entered the land of Lushan County. In the afternoon, Chen Ming, who was still staying in Tumenji, received the news.

Chen Ming knew that the excitement of Tumenji should end.

On the eighth day, the militia of Jia County also entered Baofeng. Then the state capital, and finally the troops of Yiyang County also arrived in Lushan. The time was approaching the end of August.

The weather was getting colder and colder. In another month, it would snow in Lushan. Unless the climate this year is different from previous years.

Wang Jun, Li Zhao and even Chang Rui all hoped to wipe out the Chen family within a month. So when the militia of Yiyang County arrived, Li Zhao, who came to Lushan in person, integrated the team. The number of militias gathered in Ruzhou exceeded 800. They rushed to Tumenji aggressively.

Chen Ming was in the bushes on the other side of Yinma River, looking at the marching team on the other side with a monocular telescope. It was not that he looked down on the 800 people in front of him, but that these 800 people were really not worthy of him looking up to. The loose formation, the noisy march, and the crude and unsightly weapons!

Chen Ming believed that he only needed to bring out eight or ten two-jin cannons and fire at the team, and then the backbone team wearing breastplates would take advantage of the situation and rush forward. If they couldn't catch Li Zhao, the bastard, they could capture three to five hundred prisoners.

"This bunch of bastards also want to cause trouble for our Chen family. If it weren't for preventing a big mess, they would have been easily dealt with!" Chen Erbao was beside Chen Ming, holding a monocular telescope in his hand, looking at the militia on the other side of the river and sneering. When will these militias really be able to stop things? These people are good except for being obedient, but they are far worse than private salt dealers in fighting.

"Let's go back. With this kind of team, we can't take down Fenghuangtai."

The straight-line distance between Xiaonangou and Tumenji is more than 20 miles, and the specific distance is estimated to be not X2, but X1.5. In the political map of the entire Lushan County, Xiaonangou is already the westernmost of the county boundary. Although the traffic on both sides has been vigorously developed by the Chen family, it can't be said to be "convenient". As long as the mountain road is too narrow.

There are mountains on both sides, and a Yinma River in the middle that is sometimes wide and sometimes short. Its tributaries have cut a lot of cracks on both sides of the main river, and a lot of sand and gravel have been washed into the Yinma River.

The Yinma River widens a little bit from Funiu Mountain to the east. The entire river width in the lower reaches is more than 15 meters, but it is greatly reduced in the middle and upper reaches. The real river main channel there is at most three meters wide, and the rest is covered by large and small stones. During the dry season in winter, the extra river channel naturally forms a series of puddles or even small pools because of the sudden shrinkage of the water surface and the unevenness of the water. During the flood season in summer, the gurgling mountain streams can completely cover the entire river channel.

With the financial, material and human resources of the Chen family in the past, it was impossible to regulate the Yinma River. They could only build small bridges one after another at the confluence of mountain streams, some wooden bridges and some stone bridges. This situation continued until last year, when the Chen family launched a wave of regulation activities - all wooden bridges were renovated or replaced with stone bridges.

And since the early summer of this year, the Chen family has been in Fenghuangtai - a place where three streams converge into the Yinma River.

The magic and ingenuity of nature have made a high ground protrude from the center of the Yinma River, and before the rise of the Chen family, two tall sycamore trees grew on that small high ground, so the place was called Fenghuangtai. It is also because the three streams converge into the Yinma River, and from a distance, it looks like a long feather.

The Chen family built a checkpoint on the north bank of Fenghuangtai, using earth cement fired in their own earth kiln. There were no steel bars, but iron bars, stones and 50-jin bricks. The Chen family built a decent stockade on the north bank of Fenghuangtai in less than a month. The Chen family said it was a sentry checkpoint for the local soldiers.

As for the high ground in the middle of Yinma River, the two sycamore trees were washed down by a once-in-a-century flood 20 years ago. The Chen family used gunpowder to flatten the high ground without hesitation. As for the narrow strip of land on the left bank of Yinma River, the Chen family didn't care at all. It was a dead end. Less than a mile ahead was the surface of Yinma River, where the mountains led to a flat lake.

The Yinma River upstream flowed down along the southern mountain wall. Going up, there was no such thing as a "south bank" of Yinma River. It can be said that Fenghuangtai is a node of Yinma River. After passing Fenghuangtai, the alluvial plain of Yinma River becomes larger and larger until Tumenji, and then there are fertile fields.

The outpost was named Fenghuangtai by the Chen family. There are no two-jin cannons in it, but there are a batch of tiger squat cannons that look like wooden earth cannons.