Li Yi was also cautious at the moment. Although he brought a sentry of troops to escort the money and food this time, there were only more than a hundred people. It would be bad if they encountered a large force of rebels.

At that moment, he looked around with vigilance, and suddenly smelled a foul smell. He looked towards the road and saw a mutilated corpse lying on the roadside, covered with maggots, and looked very disgusting.

Li Yi was also unbearable by the stench, so he accelerated his horse and ran forward. The horse's hooves stepped on the ground, and the bones were crushed to pieces. It was impossible to tell whether they were human bones.

After a while, Ma Siyuan was seen running back not far away. He shouted from a distance: "The rebels are coming, the rebels are coming."

Li Yi frowned when he heard this, and ordered to the sentry Yong Ding: "Train formation, check weapons, prepare for battle."

Yong Ding undergoes a lot of training every day and is a professional soldier. Under the leadership of each village commander, he stops the carriage and forms a circular formation. Then he puts on the armor on the carriage, checks the Thunder Gun, and wears the Wild Goose Feather Saber.

.

As soon as Ma Siyuan ran back, he immediately said: "Four miles away there are three thousand rebels and fifty horsemen wearing light armor. The rest are infantry without armor, under the guise of lighting lamps."

Li Yi nodded and said: "Leave the musketeers under your command, and I will lead twenty cavalry."

Ma Siyuan was slightly stunned, but he did not expect that Li Yi would actually hand over the command to him.

But he soon understood that the brigade commander was testing his ability. If he could command the battle well, he would definitely be reused in the future.

Ma Siyuan was excited and stood up nervously. He gave a military salute and said, "I will not let the brigade commander down."

Li Yi nodded, he really wanted to see how strong Ma Siyuan was.

Soon, three thousand rebels swarmed on the official road in the distance.

Unlike the officers and soldiers, they did not have a formation, and their weapons were in a mess. Rather than saying they were an army, they were more appropriately called bandits.

The carriages were connected end to end to form a carriage formation, while the brave men lined up outside the carriage formation, forming three columns, with more than thirty people in each column, forming a long horseshoe shape, aiming at the rebel army on the opposite side.

The bandits on the opposite side had obviously never seen the caravan defend themselves like this. Looking at the guards holding firearms, they all looked at each other and did not dare to move forward.

Soon, the fifty-horse army began to disperse, forcing the rebel infantry to start attacking.

The first to come out were a thousand refugees holding farm tools and wearing tattered cloth. Under the threat of the bandit infantry behind them, they rushed towards the Yongding formation in a chaotic manner.

Ma Siyuan's eyes were extremely cold, and when the refugees were only two hundred meters away from the formation, he ordered to shoot.

The commanders of each village shouted orders, and the brave men who stretched out from the front knelt down on one knee and raised the thunderbolts in their hands.

Yong Ding, who was standing behind them, also raised his thunderbolt and aimed it at the refugees rushing towards him.

"put……"

There was loud shouting, and the brave men pulled the triggers one after another.

Smoke filled the air, and dense projectiles instantly enveloped the refugees rushing towards them. The refugees at the front suddenly fell to the ground as if they were facing a transparent wall.

The refugees who were following behind were startled. Before they could recover, there was another round of shooting. Dozens of refugees were hit and fell to the ground wailing. They covered their bleeding wounds and struggled on the ground.

struggle.

At this moment, the brave men behind had already loaded the paper bullets, and under the command of the village commanders, they pulled the trigger again.

The huge roar and the wailing around them caused the refugees' already fragile nerves to collapse immediately, and they fled backwards one after another.

However, the infantrymen in charge of the formation drew their weapons and killed the first refugees who fled back, forcing the refugees to continue the attack.

The refugees were like mice in a desperate situation, trembling in the middle of the crowd of brave men and thieves.

Ma Siyuan turned his head and glanced at the brigade commander next to him, but Li Yi's expression was dull and showed no emotion at all.

After thinking for a while, Ma Siyuan raised his hand and said to the messenger beside him: "Go forward."

The voice of the order sounded, and the brave men stepped forward step by step to the beat of the captain's shout.

After marching fifty steps, Ma Siyuan gave the order to attack.

The thunderbolt was fired again, and the refugees screamed and fled to both sides. The rebel infantry behind did not stop them this time, but divided into two teams and rushed towards Yong Ding's formation from both sides.

The bandit leader on the opposite side was not a mediocre person. He quickly noticed the characteristics of Yongding's formation and did not attack Yongding's formation head-on.

However, Yongding took the village as a unit. When encountering this situation, the village commanders quickly ordered to target the formation of the bandit infantry approaching them and ordered an attack.

Because the number of people was too small and they were attacked from two sides by bandits, the casualties caused by this shooting were not large.

Seeing that the thieves were about to approach, Ma Siyuan couldn't help but show a trace of nervousness on his face.

When the thieves' infantry were only fifty steps closer, Ma Siyuan suddenly shouted: "Thunder in the Palm."

The brave men who had been waiting for a long time took out the palm mines on their waists, and then followed the command of the commander to light the match rope.

"throw……"

With a loud shout, dozens of palm mines drew a parabola in the air and landed accurately on the formation of the thieves' infantry.

The thieves and bandits had obviously never seen such a thing before, and they all looked down.

The palm thunder fell to the ground, the match rope ignited the gunpowder inside, a roar sounded, and dense shrapnel exploded like fireworks among the infantry. Dozens of thieves covered their faces and howled miserably before falling to the ground.

Another round of palm thunder came out, Yong Dingmen fired the last bullet in the thunderbolt, then inserted the gun sword and rushed towards the panicked bandits with a roar.

An infantryman who had been shot in the chest by shrapnel just looked up when he saw a brave man in armor rushing towards him. The sharp gun sword in his hand stabbed into his chest mercilessly. When he pulled it out, it was already dead.

Full of blood.

More than a thousand thieves' infantry, after suffering nearly a hundred casualties, exploded and turned and fled.

Li Yi led the cavalry forward, looked at the 50-horse army that was suppressing the deserters, raised his tiger-tooth gun, leaned forward, accelerated his horse speed and rushed forward.

The twenty cavalrymen behind them followed one after another, and a group of people passed through the dense chaos without any hindrance. Li Yi rushed towards the fifty horsemen, swung the tiger-tooth gun in his hand, and instantly pierced the throat of the leader, and then dragged the horse weighing hundreds of kilograms.

The corpse smashed several cavalry soldiers away and broke through the formation.

The cavalry who followed them swung their sabers to kill the bandit horse army. The horse army suffered heavy losses for a while.

Li Yi threw the body to the horse army behind him and shouted: "Whoever surrenders will avoid death."

Upon hearing this, the cavalry troops dismounted and begged for surrender, and all the fleeing bandits around them also surrendered.

Order Yong Ding to kill the leader, then tie up the prisoners and go on the road together.

When we arrived outside Yan'an City, there were tattered tents everywhere. The refugees were huddled in the tents, too hungry to speak. The entire camp was lifeless, with only some refugee children playing and playing between the tents, and there was still some life.

When Juzi heard that Li Yi was coming, he quickly led Chen Hongyan, Zhuang Rou and others out.

Looking at the even thinner Juzi, Li Yi turned over and dismounted, cupped his fists and said, "Juzi, I'm here."

Seeing Li Yi, the boss was also very excited. He supported Li Yi and said: "I didn't go to Anxin to apologize for the civil unrest in the northwest. I really can't accept a courtesy."

Li Yi shook his head and said: "You don't have to worry about the tycoon. Fame and wealth are more than what you need. It is a righteous act for a tycoon to ask for orders for the people and provide relief to the victims. If you can exchange your official position for the life of a tycoon, it is really the most cost-effective business in the world."

Juzi was amused by Li Yi's words. He couldn't help but wipe the corners of his eyes and said, "You said that, which makes me feel a little better."

Li Yi smiled and said: "That's it, don't worry about it. It's just a big man. How is the northwest immigration going?"

Juzi said: "Although the people suffered from the disaster and were displaced, they were not willing to stay away from their hometowns. Instead, they wanted to survive the famine and come back to farm again. We called on the victims to go to the southwest, but unfortunately there were only a few people who responded. At present, only

Thousands of people were relocated to Huguang."

When Li Yi heard this, he understood that this was the result of homesickness.

However, land annexation in the northwest is serious, taxes are too heavy, disasters are constant, and it is impossible to live peacefully in a short period of time. If you move to Huguang and Guangdong and Guangxi to reclaim farmland, you can avoid heavy taxes and take advantage of the double-crop rice crop in the south.

High yield, feed more people.

The people were ignorant and would die in the northwest. The only way to survive was to leave their hometown and go to the south. Li Yi also found it doubly difficult.

At this time, Juzi looked at the carriage behind him and said: "The money and food came just in time. This place has been without food for three days. If there is still no food, I am afraid that everyone will go to the rebels to survive."

After hearing this, Li Yi suddenly had an idea and said: "Juzi, you said that the people are unwilling to move to the southwest, but I have a way to make them willing to go to Huguang."

Hearing this, Juzi asked: "What can we do?"

"The refugees are short of food. They will go wherever there is food. In this case, we are going all the way south, giving food as we go. If these refugees want not to starve to death, they will definitely follow. Even if they don't follow now, we can

Spread the word and tell them that we will continue to provide relief to the victims in Huguang, so that once the refugees cannot survive, they will go south."

Hearing Li Yi's method, Juzi frowned and said: "This will naturally work, but doesn't it violate trust?"

Li Yi hurriedly said: "We have told you this, and we must follow it. In this way, the victims will follow south and have a way to survive. We have not deceived others, how can we violate our trust? You, this is very special.

There is no need to worry too much about the extraordinary measures taken at this time."

Hearing this, Juzi said: "Even so, we have to pass through Xi'an when we go south. But Yang He framed us before and is now wanted. How can we pass through Xi'an smoothly and take the victims to Huguang?"

Li Yi heard the words and said with a smile: "This matter will naturally be left to me. Although I have resigned from office, I am still half an official. I am a former fourth-grade official. I am qualified to visit the governors of the three sides."

Hearing this, Juzi said: "Since you are confident, I will immediately release the news, gather the victims, and prepare to go south. And when you go to see Yang He, you must ask him to open the road so that the victims can go south and settle in Huguang."

Li Yi nodded and said: "The victims of the disaster cannot go south without order. Why don't you imitate An Xin's approach and organize the fellow villagers together, with families as units, ten families as one household, and a household head. Ten households constitute one village.

, set up village chiefs and clerks. Ten villages constitute a township, and set up a security chief to maintain public security, a township chief to manage practical matters, and a highly respected president. Only in this way can things be in order, and many accidents will not happen and many victims will not be harmed.

of vitality.”

Juzi quite agrees with Li Yi's approach.

He thought for a while and said: "It is self-contained and interconnected, which can save a lot of energy. I will start preparations now. You should hurry up and go to Xi'an."

Li Yi did not agree immediately, but looked up at Chen Hongyan.

Compared to before, Chen Hongyan has also lost a lot of weight. Apparently too many things have happened recently and she has been very hard-working.
To be continued...