Chapter 220 Expropriation
So he panicked with Anzhi County. At the same time, he ordered people to go outside the city to gather the townships and villages to practice in the city to assist in defense. At the same time, he 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.
Although Tong'an County is a county, the number of troops stationed is not as large as Gaopu City. There are only more than 300 officers and soldiers stationed in Tong'an County. Even with the service of Tong'an County, there are only dozens of people who can get together, and there are only dozens of archers in total. It is almost impossible to defend Tong'an County.
Even if the surrounding townships and townships are recruited to assist in defense, they can't gather many people, because these townships are usually raised by large rich families. They are mainly responsible for protecting the villages and fortifications of each township and villages for joint defense between townships.
Now the sea wolves have come to invade. These squires are overwhelmed and have some manpower. They still have to keep their own fortresses to protect. How can they send their regimental villagers to the county to assist in defense!
So even if they send people to summon with Anzhi County, these squires will only ignore the strong and simply ignore them. Even for the sake of face and send some villagers to the county to assist in defense, they will only send some old and weak people to the city.
Therefore, after learning the news of the fall of Gaopu City, the officials and the gentry in Tong'an County suddenly panicked. Some rich gentry simply took their families at dawn and swarmed out of Tong'an County and fled to Quanzhou Prefecture to take shelter for a while.
Even if he did not escape, he was at a loss and ran to find the magistrate and asked the magistrate to make an idea what to do.
And this magistrate has already scared him. How can he come up with any ideas? So everyone gathered together to discuss, and finally came up with an idea, which was to let the rich people in the city pay money and recruit the young men in the city to defend the city. In addition, the domestic slaves of the gentry families were also taken out and sent to the city to assist in defense and solve the problem of manpower first.
In addition, rich families and businessmen have to pay some money to use as bounty and pay. First, give some money to the 300 defenders and servants in the city to mobilize their morale, and then offer another reward to kill a sea wolf thief and reward five taels of silver, so as to stimulate the officers and soldiers and villagers in the city to cheer up. Protect the county.
In this way, thousands of people were gathered together, and the city wall was guarded for the time being. In addition, the county was assigned to guard the east gate himself, and the inspection in the city sat at the west gate. As for the south gate, the county magistrate was in charge, and the north gate invited a prestigious gentry in the city to sit in the town.
In this way, at least the situation in the county was stabilized first, and there were some more patrol personnel on the wall, which made people feel more or less relieved.
However, even so, they are still uncertain, because they all know that there are 2,000 defenders stationed in Gaopu City, but under the attack of the sea wolf, they could not even hold on for two days, so they declared that they were defeated, and they put together more than a little more than 1,000 together with An County. Can the mob do better than Gaopu City?
Therefore, the only thing they hope for is that Quanzhou Prefecture can quickly send a large number of reinforcements to cooperate with the county, so that they can probably defend the county.
Sure enough, on the third day after the sea wolf conquered Gaopu City, it began to appear around Tong'an County. Outside Tong'an County, there are two rivers, Dongxi and Xixi. Tong'an County is located at the intersection of the two rivers. From the perspective of terrain, it forms a natural barrier to the county, making Tong'an County easy to defend. Attack.
If the sea wolf comes from the sea, no matter from which direction, it must cross the river before it can enter Tong'an County. In this regard, if the number of officers and soldiers is relatively sufficient and the combat effectiveness is relatively strong, it is possible to set up defenses along the river outside the city and block the sea wolf's soldiers and horses on the other side of the river, so that the sea wolf's people and horses cannot be threatened. Tong'an County.
Even if the sea wolf wants to sail the fleet into the west stream, it can't be. Because the depth of the west stream is limited, it can only take small boats, and the big boat cannot enter the west stream, so the sea wolf can only launch an attack on Tong'an County from land.
For this terrain, it is very beneficial to the defense of Tong'an County. Unfortunately, Tong'an County does not have enough troops to send the city to stop the sea wolves.
And the sea wolf did not seem to be in a hurry to attack Tong'an County. After they took Gaopu City, they first sent the main force to the Xixi estuary to land and launched a sweep around Tong'an County.
Yu Xiaotian made up his mind to eat Weitou Bay and use Weitou Bay as his distribution center for maritime trade in the future, but if he wants to gain a foothold in this area, the local forces in this area will likely cause him a lot of trouble in the future, so in this case, it is better to take advantage of these local forces now. After cleaning up, the sea wolf's army landed at the mouth of the Xixi River and began to sweep the area.
The geographical location of Tong'an County is very suitable for sea-to-sea trade. In addition, it is adjacent to the Moon Harbor. Over the years, many local rich people have done sea-to-sea trade, and many people have made a fortune. Although Tong'an County is not big, there are quite a lot of rich people here.
After some large families became rich, they bought a large amount of land outside the city, and then built their Zhuangbao to protect themselves. Therefore, the area of Tong'an County is quite densely populated, and the fortress is even more neighboring.
Among these fortresses, many of the fortresses are protected by regimentally and township bravely. The local armed forces are very strong. Pirates repeatedly violate the Moon Harbor, but they generally don't get much cheaply here. It is because of the joint protection between these villages in the Tong'an area. If a village has something to do, the neighboring villages will send people to support them, so that there is a small sea. Thieves are difficult to achieve many results in this area.
But this time, the sea wolf is not a small pirate. Their strength is absolutely beyond the reach of ordinary pirates, especially their ability to attack, let alone ordinary pirates.
And the Seawolf Army's activities in Tong'an County this time, although ammunition and materials need to be transported by the navy from Danshui City, food supplies still need to be solved on the spot.
Before attacking Tong'an County, Li Dazui and Meng Fei believed that it was necessary to remove some large villages around Tong'an County, supply food on the spot, and also kill some large local households. In the future, these large households in the province will be the enemy of sea wolves.
So according to the confession of the local *, they chose seven large villages from the local area as their target, all of which are the homes of some rich gentry in the local area.
And these seven squires are also notorious in the local area. Relying on their wealth and power, they usually do evil in the local area, and even the government can't do anything about them.
As long as they are eliminated, it is equivalent to basically cleaning up the local forces around Tong'an County. As for other smaller villages, they are unable to unite against sea wolves at all.
When the local village saw the sea wolf's army appear majestically outside their village fort, they were scared to death, and there was no idea of being an enemy of them.
As soon as many village castles saw the sea wolves' soldiers and horses, they quickly organized pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks in the village, and prepared drinks and hundreds of dollars of silver. They hurriedly sent out the village castle and put them outside the village for the sea wolves.
Li Dazui and others are not polite about this and put them all in their pockets, but they do not dare to collect this harvest easily. After all of them are registered by the council members who accompany the army, they can be directly allocated to the army for use, such as silver and wine or extra things as pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks. Send someone to transport it back to the center of the left by boat and put it into the warehouse for unified processing.
In addition, the sea wolf sent personnel to shout outside the villages, so that they should provide a certain amount of silver to the sea wolf every year in the future. In fact, it is to collect protection fees and pay it on time. In the future, the sea wolf will not disturb them and protect their vested interests. In fact, it is to incorporate the local area into the management model of the sea wolf in the future. Within the enclosure, the sea wolf's sphere of influence is formed.
Naturally, these villages dare not refuse to agree. Lian Lian said that there was no problem. After all, the requirements put forward by the sea wolf are not too harsh. Each village generally pays 180 taels of silver every year, and the most is hundreds of taels of silver. Obviously, the sea wolf knows their situation very well. Such persecution is not too much. All villages in the countryside can afford it, and it is acceptable to pay for a safe place.
In addition, these rural people also secretly have their own small calculations. They think that although the sea wolf makes such a request, they may not have to pay it every year, because now they see the sea wolf arrogant, but once the officers and army come, the sea wolf can still stay in this area for a lifetime?
As long as the army arrives, these sea wolves will still leave sooner or later. As soon as they leave, they naturally don't have to pay the money. Now they agree first, and there is no loss. If the sea wolves don't leave, they will just pay it at that time.
In addition, after landing, the sea wolf asked some village castles to send some people for them to call and help the sea wolf deliver supplies. The villages did not dare to refuse this request, so they pulled out the young men of some single families in the village and sent them to help the sea wolf.
Such a requirement is also not too much. After the pirates landed, it is good not to burn*. Now the sea wolf only requires them to do some labor, which is really not a big deal. Anyway, there are some outsiders in each village. These outsiders have no foundation or relatives in the village. Naturally, It can be abandoned, so whether they like it or not, they can only be sent out by the villages to work for the sea wolf.
But after these people were sent to the sea wolf, they found that things were not as bad as they thought. Although the sea wolf is nominally a pirate, they are very regular and not bad for them. They are full of food and don't want them to bring their own food and send them to everyone every day. Dozens of big money as a reward for them.
(Wow! Thank you for the reward of the sharp-hearted brother, and by the way, I also want to thank the old brother for the reward of snoring! I remember your support and don't say anything. I will still update two chapters a day next month! Never break your promise!)