Chapter 137

"Huating."

"The Xu Family."

Lin Dao tapped his fingers. "I have to go take a look, see if your family really has four hundred thousand mu of land."

"I heard the entire Xu Family Hui belongs to your family."

"I need to properly ask you all, by what right do you have this much land."

His previous marching plan was to sweep eastward all the way to Huating County.

Then turn south to sweep through, heading straight for Yiwu to recruit Yiwu Soldiers.

But plans cannot keep up with changes.

The Wild Boar Skins have come.

Lin Dao's attitude toward the Ming Army and the wandering bandits was generally the same.

Just fight them.

The guilty are executed, the innocent are absorbed.

But the Wild Boar Skins are different; facing these butchers, a Transmigrator has only one choice.

Exterminate them completely!

Upon learning at this time that the Wild Boar Skins were continuously moving south, and the distance between them was also continuously closing.

Lin Dao abandoned his original plan, and his intention to turn north and fight the Wild Boar Skins first grew ever stronger.

Rationally speaking.

Since he had rebelled, echoing the Wild Boar Skins and Li Zicheng, together kicking down this dilapidated house of the Great Ming, was the best choice.

But a Transmigrator does not need this rationality.

Because he clearly knew just what heinous deeds these butchers had done.

What Lin Dao worried about was that Jiangnan was not yet settled, yet he would lead his great army northward a thousand li to wage war against the Wild Boar Skins.

Strategically, it would definitely be a blunder.

Moreover, the troops under his command were basically all new recruits.

Their combat power, compared to those Wild Boar Skins who slaughtered year-round, had a large gap.

This is a tactical deficiency.

"Never mind!"

Lin Dao slapped the table. "Fight first, talk later."

Next came the preparatory work before sending out troops.

Letting the soldiers eat their fill, drink their fill, nurture their bodies, and train them strictly was the most important matter.

"Great Commander."

On this day, a personal guard came to report: "Salt Household Foremen have gathered outside the city, crying injustice and requesting an audience with the Great Commander."

"Salt Households? What business could they have seeking me?"

Lin Dao indeed had the intention to move against the Salt Merchants.

But not now.

Could the Salt Households have come to pour out their grievances to him?

A group of Salt Household Foremen, upon seeing Lin Dao, knelt and kowtowed, addressing him as Great King.

In these times, wandering bandits all liked to style themselves King, like the Great West King, the Chuang King.

Seeing a wandering bandit, calling him Great King was certainly no mistake.

Lin Dao's eyelid twitched.

He was a Sit-on-the-Ground Household operator, not a wandering bandit.

He also couldn't be bothered to explain. "Speak then, what matter do you seek me for?"

"Great King."

The Salt Households, weather-beaten by sea winds and sun year-round, had dark, wrinkled skin.

Looking at them, each one seemed like a little old man; one couldn't tell their actual ages.

"We have come to beg the Great King to allow us to enter the Righteous Army, to serve the Great King."

Lin Dao truly hadn't expected they had actually come to enlist. "Have you thought this through?"

"What I'm doing here is rebellion."

The foremen all expressed their stance in succession: "That's exactly why we want to rebel!"

The lives of the Ming Dynasty's Salt Households were extremely miserable.

In truth, anyone at the bottom rung had a life that was not miserable.

These Salt Households suffered official exploitation from the Salt Fields year-round.

Day after day they toiled hard boiling salt, yet the income they earned wasn't even enough to support their families.

To avoid starving to death, they had no choice but to secretly boil private salt and sell it.

The Great Ming's salt was basically all private salt.

But selling private salt, this kind of thing, only Powerful Figures had the qualifications to do.

Ordinary people selling private salt were called Salt Smugglers, private salt dealers.

Once caught, it was immediate beheading.

The Salt Households' days were lived even worse than the dogs in the Salt Merchants' homes.

This time someone came to Yangzhou to deliver salt and learned the Canal Gang had been destroyed.

Large batches of Canal Workers had joined the Righteous Army, their food, drink, and expenses extremely abundant, the whole family perked up; one person could support the whole family.

The news transmitted back to the salt fields, and the salt households went mad wanting to join the righteous army.

So what if it's rebellion, in this era there are rebels everywhere.

Servants and peasants rose up in revolt across Jiangnan one after another, and the canal workers and salt households have done it too.

As long as they can issue pay and grain, rebellion is rebellion!

Hearing everyone's tearful complaints, Lin Dao nodded his head.

"It seems I thought wrong."

He only now understood, the salt workers are the enforcers raised by the salt merchants.

They have the salt merchants raising them, so their days pass naturally not bad.

Different from the salt households.

But the bottom-level salt households, those boiling salt by the sea under wind and sun, their days are extremely miserable.

Especially in an era of soaring grain prices, the salt they painstakingly boil isn't enough to buy grain to feed the whole family.

As for the question, since they're near the sea, why not fish for food~

Seafood protein is high, but it lacks fat and carbohydrates.

When the belly lacks oil, long-term heavy consumption not only cannot effectively replenish energy, but instead accelerates the body's energy consumption, thereby leading to death.

Eating too much seafood gives a feeling of a belly stuffed full, yet the body still suffers the agony of hunger.

Now seeing the chance to draw pay and receive grain, even if it's rebellion they're willing to do it.

No way, too hungry.

"Since it's like this."

Lin Dao carefully considered "Salt households levy three thousand men."

True bandits, they take however many people there are, seizing men, women, old, and young alike.

Besides swelling their momentum, they can also serve as reserve food.

Lin Dao is different, he occupies one place and must guard one place.

The troops he recruits are all regular soldiers, their families get land tax-free, and they themselves draw full pay.

In quality and quantity, they must be strictly controlled.

The salt households were first overjoyed, then begged, hoping the Great King would take more people.

Just give a mouthful to eat and it's fine.

"This also exists."

Lin Dao smiled and said "Also recruiting auxiliary soldiers."

"Just eat and drink, no military pay."

"Want to become regular, must take one enemy head."

His recruitment requirements for regular soldiers are extremely strict, at least tens of thousands of salt households, yet only three thousand men recruited.

This is still because he needs to win over these salt households.

According to Lin Dao's actual conception, regular soldiers all come from auxiliary soldiers, those who take heads on the battlefield can become regular.

Along the way recruiting regular soldiers in various places, including canal workers and salt households, the main value is the entire group behind them.

Lin Dao stayed in Yangzhou City for nearly a month.

The newly recruited troops need to undergo training and drilling.

These new soldiers who can't even tell left from right, if they go to the battlefield without training, that's going to their deaths.

Although there's strict training every day, the kind that exhausts you until your calves cramp.

But the Great Commander's installation fee, or say life-buying money, is genuinely issued for real.

Their lives are very fulfilling.

Train by day, study by night.

And in the camp, they actually get to eat three meals a day.

Morning feed porridge eat your fill, noon mess kits packed full of grain, plus a can of meat.

This is meat ah, meat with large amounts of oil, spices added, how many people never eat it in a lifetime.

Evening basins of mashed potatoes eat freely, eat as much as you can.

Even when attending night school, an extra can of honey water is issued.

Heavy oil, heavy salt, added sugar, hormone-laced feed.

One month later, the soldiers visibly fattened by a circle.

Lin Dao supplemented their equipment.

Even auxiliary soldiers could get a set of stamped armor.

Regular soldiers even more updated to brigandine full of armor leaves.

Lin Dao also brought all the firelocks produced by Yonghe Spacetime.

Handed to the bodyguards by his side, day and night nonstop continuous practice.

Northern news continuously transmitted, the Wild Boar Skins entering the pass, successively captured Bazhou, Hejian and other places, straight striking Shandong.

Lin Dao understood, the time to send troops had arrived.

Before sending troops, he again apportioned the salt merchants, ordering them to produce one thousand salt workers.

The salt merchants were dissatisfied, still wanted to play tricks, but Lin Dao had long since dispatched men to forcibly conscript them.

The day before sending troops, Lin Dao issued pay.

All regular soldiers received full pay, silver plus grain plus cloth and salt.

This scene, let the spectating auxiliary soldiers see red eyes, hate not to be able to go into battle right now and charge and kill, chop a head and become regular.

"You were all chosen by me."

Lin Dao instructed the few young personal guards before him, "I hold great expectations for you."

"This time garrisoning Yangzhou, you must be vigilant against those salt merchants."

"Remember, you must absolutely not fall for their sugar-coated cannonballs."

This is trust, and also a test.

Those who pass the test will naturally rise a step higher in the future.

Those who fall, that is because their own ability and character are insufficient, unfit for great responsibility.

The opportunity was given but they failed to seize it; that is their own choice.

Seized from the Canal Transport Gang, hundreds upon thousands of vessels, packed with personnel, headed north along the Grand Canal.

Vast and mighty, they spread across the river surface like a long dragon.

On both banks were even more auxiliary soldiers, dense and countless, stretching beyond sight.

The first stop heading north was Gaoyouzhou.

When the great army passed by, inside the city it was wind sounds and crane cries, the city gates tightly shut.

Atop the city tower were all urgently conscripted elite men, their expressions all fearful in the extreme.

Lin Dao did not attack the city, merely dispatched men to demand silver, pigs, and sheep.

These things, the common people do not have; only the local gentry can provide them.

Having obtained the silver, pigs, and sheep, the great army still rested overnight in Gaoyouzhou.

One really wants to know, the officials and gentry inside the city, seeing tens of thousands of bandits spending the night outside the city walls, just what kind of panic filled their hearts.

The great army continued north, passed Baoying, and arrived at Huai'an Prefecture.

This is the Supreme Commander of Canal Transport's garrison, but Shi Kefa has already led troops northward to aid the emperor, and who knows where he is at this moment.

The feeble city defense, the garrison troops simply dared not leave the city.

Again did not attack the city, but captured the Salt Permit Pass on the Grand Canal.

The Grand Canal is the great transport artery connecting north and south; merchants and goods traveling south and north come and go in an endless stream.

Setting up a tax office here to collect transit fees became an important source of tax revenue for the Imperial Court.

Inside the three-courtyard tax office, Lin Dao flipped through the thick tax revenue ledgers.

"How come these are all taxes from peddlers and common laborers?"

Lin Dao asked the eunuch in charge of tax collection, "On this Grand Canal, are there no large merchant caravans?"

When raiding the meritorious nobles and civil and military officials of Jinling, those with some strength all had their own merchant caravans running everywhere, and fleets on the Grand Canal were also not few.

"Replying to the Great King."

The trembling eunuch, forehead touching the ground, "Those with background connections dare not be taxed, and also, many merchant ships fly the official flag, cannot be taxed."

"That is bullying the soft and fearing the hard."

Lin Dao shook his head, "You are responsible for collecting taxes; is there any embezzlement?"

"No, no, this slave maid is loyal to the Emperor... uh—"

The eunuch suddenly remembered, this isn't someone come to audit the accounts, this is a rebel.

Expressing loyalty to the Emperor would instead backfire.

Lin Dao shook his head, "Drag him away for torture; if he coughs up the embezzled funds, reward him with an intact corpse."

"All personnel at this tax pass, investigate them all."

The Great Ming's tax officials and tax clerks, there is not one who does not embezzle.

The Imperial Court collects one extra qian of silver, by the time it reaches them, it starts at one tael at minimum!

Why do so many commoners go bankrupt?

All originate from these ferocious, evil tax clerks.

Hundreds of li away in Linqing, wailing and screams are unceasing, like hell on earth.

On horseback, Abatai glanced at the corpses covering the ground, and yawned.

"Hurry up; kill those who should be killed, capture those who should be captured, rob what should be robbed."

"Only allowed to eat for one night; tomorrow march to Yanzhou, don't let that whatever Prince escape!"

(End of Chapter)