Kitchen households also need to farm!

It's just that the land near the salt field will have salinization problems to some extent.

Their harvests from farming are not high, which is a bad thing, but also a good thing. Big landowners look down on this place, and land annexation is not serious, so there are many homesteaders among the kitchen households.

After the Salt Army surrendered, Datong officials swarmed away and allocated fields to them based on the principle of proximity.

All the saline-alkali land belongs to Xiaxiatian, and one person can divide it into twenty acres. When cultivating, it is purely based on planting extensively and harvesting little.

The year-long war here has reduced the population of each county, and the land is not very tight.

When they really couldn't get any land, they moved further north.

The further north you go, the sparsely populated you are!

Those kitchen households will work part-time in the future, and working in the salt factory will subsidize their families. If they really don't want to cook salt, and farming the land is not enough to eat, then they can go to the county town to work, or simply go to sea on a ship.

Shanghai has been opened as a port, and due to widespread land division in the south, maritime merchants can recruit sailors with high wages.

Especially the people in the Yangtze River Delta, even if their families are allocated land, they are still willing to be recruited into the navy or sailors.

Those sand people are less afraid of death than the others and more ferocious than the fishermen in Guangzhou.

At the mouth of the Yangtze River, the river has washed out sandbars of various sizes. For example, Chongming Island now has three sandbars, and some areas have been reclaimed as farmland.

Some people went to the sandbank to cultivate land, but the salinity was very serious. The harvests they cultivated were not high, and they had to take huge risks. They formed a group to fight against the government and prevent big families from snatching cultivated land, and they could change their jobs to become water bandits at any time.

These people are the sand people!

Zhao Han's newly built Shanghai naval force is mainly composed of Yangtze River sand people, and more than 80% of them have criminal records as water bandits.

Anyway, the Zao households were divided into fields and registered as civil servants. After gaining personal freedom, they would not be greatly restricted by the salt factory.

The salt factory land is leased for thirty years, which is also the result of long-term negotiations.

If the lease period is too short, the salt factory owner will only choose to make quick money and exploit the salt boiling workers, not to mention improving the salt production process. Moreover, every time the lease license is changed, it will lead to frantic robbery, which will intensify corruption.

.

The thirty-year license is just a sword held by the government. Most salt factories can renew their leases when they expire.

The production, transportation and sales of salt are completely separated, and businessmen themselves will establish related ecology.

The Shanshan-Shaanxi Merchant Gang suffered heavy losses this time. They didn't get a single franchise license and almost quit the salt merchant scene. Who told them not to join Zhao Han in advance?

Fei Ruhe's strategic goal is to capture Huai'an and then besiege the Yan Army with Zhang Tieniu.

Now that the Salt Army has surrendered, the combat objectives will be changed.

Zhang Tieniu's troops dispersed to suppress the bandits, but many small groups of salt troops were still resisting.

Fei Ruhe crossed the Huaihe River and captured the entire Huai'an Prefecture, which was equivalent to capturing the entire area near the sea in northern Jiangsu.

There is no need to fight in Huai'an Fucheng, this is Xu Ying's base camp!

On the other hand, Li Zheng and Xiao Zongxian encountered fiercer resistance along the way.

…

"Is this guy crazy? He doesn't want to surrender." Li Zheng was quite surprised.

Xiao Zongxian smiled and said: "Others have an army of 200,000, but we only have 7,500 regular soldiers and less than 10,000 civilians. Naturally, we are not willing to surrender easily."

They were talking about Gu Zongrui, a little-known figure.

The Cao army and Cao people uprising along the Grand Canal were wiped out. Only Gu Zongrui continued to grow stronger. He also had territory in Shandong, entrenched in Xuzhou and Yanzhou, and fought back and forth with Zuo Liangyu.

.

This guy has 200,000 troops, claiming to be 800,000, and he is determined not to surrender to the Datong Army.

On the other hand, there were thousands of officers and soldiers guarding the Fengyang Emperor's Mausoleum. When they saw the Datong Army, they immediately surrendered.

"Commander, Zhao Thief's soldiers are coming to kill you!"

"Don't be afraid, come with me to fight!"

Not only did Gu Zongrui dare to fight against the Datong army, but he did not defend the city and directly led more than 100,000 people to fight out.

These rebel troops all wore red scarves on their heads.

Among them was an army of thousands of people, all dressed up in fancy clothes. There were many monks in the army, who were neither Buddha nor Taoist, but looked like Buddhas and Taoists. They held magical instruments in their hands and pretended to be gods and ghosts.

Zheng Pan, the missionary officer next to Li Zheng, held up a telescope and exclaimed: "These are White Lotus believers!"

The news from Xu Ying was obviously lagging behind. The Shandong Cao Army had merged with the White Lotus Sect. Xu Ying knew that there was a White Lotus Sect in Yanzhou, but she did not know the leader of the Cao Army. He actually joined the religion and became the leader of the White Lotus Sect.

Moreover, the two branches of the White Lotus Sect merged to integrate the teachings of the Wuwei Sect and the Wenxiang Sect.

The leader of the bandits, Gu Zongrui, claimed to be the reincarnation of "Emperor Zhongxing Fulie", which was originally the title of Xu Hongru. Xu Hongru had more than two million followers in Shandong. The rebellion failed in the second year of Tianqi, and his tribe continued to rebel until the Chongzhen period.

Another bandit leader, Dong Zhanrong, called himself "Yanghuangji Buddha" came to the world.

The two men cooperated, with Gu Zongrui as the leader and Dong Zhanrong as the assistant, and attracted a large number of followers of the Wuwei Sect and the Wenxiang Sect.

The thieves under their command include twelve heavens, twelve Buddhas, and twelve stars, a total of thirty-six leaders.

There was originally a reincarnation of the "Ancestor Hunyuan", but because he wanted to seize power, he was sent back to heaven to enjoy his blessings some time ago.

Gu Zongrui, Emperor Fulie of Zhongxing, and Dong Zhanrong, Emperor Yangji, each sat in thirty-two sedan chairs and set off with an army of nearly 200,000 people.

Before and after their sedan chair, there were women throwing flower petals all the way, monks beating gongs and chanting mantras, and carrying dozens of flags, large and small.

As for the White Lotus soldiers, most of them were dressed in rags and had all kinds of weapons including spears, swords, hoes, clubs, spears, and shoulder poles.

"Stop!"

"Get off the sedan!"

The sedan chair of the two men stopped, thousands of people around them stopped in confusion, and more than 100,000 people further away were still marching.

After struggling for a long time, the two armies walked a mile away, and the nearly 200,000 troops finally stopped.

The magic sticks mixed in the army began to chant incantations and dance with gods, as if they were giving the soldiers invulnerability, and they were also saying that if they died in battle, they would enter the paradise world.

Li Zheng watched with a telescope and was very happy: "I haven't fought with the training soldiers yet. I should ask General Fei to come over."

Fei Ruhe had beaten an esoteric cultist...

Xiao Zongxian said: "Let the artillery prepare and fire at the two sedans."

It is difficult for Thirty-Two to carry a large sedan chair without attracting attention, even among hundreds of thousands of people, it is still so obvious.

"Get up the sedan!"

The two sedans were lifted up again, and the overwhelming number of White Lotus believers became more morale after praying to God.

In other words, fanaticism!

But the formation of the army can only be described as a complete mess.

"Boom boom boom boom!"

Each division has 500 artillerymen, 20 men serving each gun, and a total of 25 field guns.

The artillery shells also have new tricks, firing ordinary ammunition at long distances, and firing chain shells and shotgun shells at short and medium distances.

The shells fired were just test shots.

The soldiers of the two bandit leaders were each hit by several cannons. The nearest cannonball passed a few meters away from the sedan.

The Chinese army immediately became confused.

Gu Zongrui, the Fulie Emperor of Zhongxing, was startled. He quickly jumped out of the sedan chair, drew his sword and shouted: "Bless me, Patriarch Hunyuan! Kill me!"

Yanghuangji Buddha Dong Zhanrong also jumped out of the sedan chair, holding up a magical weapon and shouting: "I have cast a spell, and the enemy general will die tragically within three-quarters of an hour! Kill him!"

"kill!"

Nearly two hundred thousand people began to charge desperately.

The two sides were three miles apart. Such a long distance, by the time they reached it, they were probably out of breath from exhaustion.

"Boom boom boom boom!"

Twenty-five rounds of artillery shells once again fell on the two Chinese troops, plowing through more than a dozen passages that were bloody and bloody.

Some people fled in fear, while more people were still charging, as if they could really reach paradise after death.

"Boom boom boom boom!"

Another round of shelling, this time using chain rounds.

Two solid cannonballs were connected by an iron chain. After coming out of the chamber, the cannonballs began to rotate at high speed, and this thing had become a range of damage.

These believers rushed so fast that the next round of artillery fire was fired, and those who ran very fast were already within a hundred paces.

"Boom boom boom boom!"

This time it was shotgun fire, killing a large area!

Countless believers screamed and fell to the ground. Zhongxing Fulie Emperor Gu Zongrui also had his arm scratched while hiding among the crowd.

Seeing his soldiers scattered and collapsing, he reluctantly shouted in pain: "Kill the thieves and demons, and achieve bliss!"
To be continued...