In late July, Xu Shiliu took a 600-material medium-sized blessed ship belonging to Xu Shiyang, heading south along the coasts of Qi and Su provinces, and bypassed Chongming Island in early August, and flowed upstream from the Qiantang River mouth to arrive in Hangzhou.

At this time, Hangzhou was the seat of the Great Zhou court that moved south, and was called Lin'an Xingzai on the official side.

Originally, Hangzhou had a population of about 300,000. With the migration of the imperial court to the south, Lin'an Travel has rapidly expanded in its population over the past decade. Now the population has exceeded 1.3 million. It is called the world's largest city that has no idea about this era, no doubt about it.

After landing, Xu Shiliu and other officers of the fleet hired two carriages and acted separately.

The fleet needed to sell the invaluable goods of Qisheng and exchange them for food and salt; Xu Shiliu brought his father's letters to visit several teachers and friends from Xu Muhe one by one according to the address.

The carriage headed straight to Lin'an City along the wide road, and it was still a long way to enter the city, but at this time Xu Shiliu could no longer tell whether the street in front of him was inside or outside the city.

The bustling streets, rows of buildings, silk shirts, and red pedestrians all show the peerless prosperity of the world's largest city.

The scene in front of him is indeed very shocking for Xu Shiliu, who was born in the southwest countryside of Qi Province. However, he is not in the mood to appreciate it now. For him, although Lin'an City is good, it is not a place to settle down.

At least not now.

If he wants to have a place in Lin'an in the future, he must run for the upcoming war and shout for every point of power that can be used for his brother who is thousands of miles away from the north.

"Start the action." Xu Shiliu sat in the carriage, looked at the bustling street scene outside, and said to herself: "First, go and visit Mr. Wen first."

Strictly speaking, he should be the spiritual leader of the warlord of the Great Zhou Dynasty. Although he has retired now, he still has a certain influence on the court. Moreover, the Wen family has a great career, with thousands of hectares of fertile land, thousands of mulberry forests, and hundreds of shops in Jiangnan. His economic strength is enough to attract the attention of the world.

If he could get his support, it would not only mean that the entire Zhou Dynasty's main war faction was supporting the Xu family, but even if Mr. Wen had a little money and food leaked in his fingers, it would be enough for the hundreds of soldiers of the third brother to eat and drink.

...

In August, the sorghum in the fields began to be harvested, and the date of the Tartars' departure south was approaching.

Perhaps because of the danger, refugees in the Central Plains began a new round of large-scale flow.

Starting from the third day of August, soldiers of Dingyuan Camp intercepted many refugees fleeing to the eastern part of Qi Province in the west. At the beginning, they were only a small group of more than 100 people. Within a few days, hundreds or even thousands of refugees began to appear.

Xu Shiyang ordered Dingyuan Camp to suspend training and began to arm the enemy.

At the beginning, the small refugees were fine, and basically no one dared to resist. Xu Shiyang placed them in two forts 151 and 152 respectively. By August 15, he had gathered thousands of men, women, young and old.

But the situation became a little different after August 16th, just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, a large army of refugees with a total of tens of thousands appeared near Fei County. The owners of Fei County dared not intercept them and allowed them to continue to move eastward. During this period, a Douyin Fortress was accidentally captured by refugees.

Wherever the refugees passed, all the unharvested food was eaten and touched, and even the straw was pulled away by the refugees. Many forts lost more than half a year of harvest. Seeing the refugees rolling eastward like locusts, leaving only bare land, and they were in tears.

At this time, the head of the Xu family convened all the fortress owners to meet again to discuss ways to deal with refugees. However, Xu Shiyang refused to attend the meeting. On August 22, he led the Dingyuan Camp alone to launch an attack on the increasingly large army of refugees.

The battle process was very boring, the refugees lacked reasonable organization, and there was no even a guard post at night, and they were crowded together in chaos. The outer side was the weak-powered elderly and some half-grown children who had lost their parents, while the inner side was a relatively strong refugee.

Most of the food obtained by refugee groups fell into the hands of these strong men, and the elderly and weak outside could not even drink some soup, and became weaker.

Xu Shiyang's Dingyuan Camp has been full and warm in the past year. He eats fish or meat every few days. Not only is he strong, but his nutrition is much more abundant than that of the refugees.

Under the leadership of non-commissioned officers at all levels, the troops adopted the tactics of dealing with the Tartars last year and attacked the migrant army at night.

Dingyuan Camp carried 10 wooden cannons for fire support, but they were useless in actual combat. The selection soldiers kept touching the refugee camp, and the old and weak outside could not notice it. They just curled up next to the fire, roasting things that were unknown, waiting to fill their stomachs.

It was not until the selection soldiers rushed to the front and began to slash and kill, and the old and weak refugees screamed like they woke up from a dream, trying to move closer to the core.

The strong refugees were awakened in batches, but they could only see a terrified crowd rushing over, and they couldn't even figure out what happened.

Some people were trampled to death by panicked refugees, and more people followed the crowd and began to flee together.

Someone shouted: "The Tartars are here! Run away quickly!"

Some people also shouted: "The bandits are here! Run away quickly!"

No one knew exactly who was coming. In the chaos, refugees who lacked unified command directly bombed the camp and completely collapsed.

...

Xu Shiliu took his father's letter and waited outside Wen's house for a long time.

There were endless people visiting Mr. Wen, but most of them were directly blocked by the housekeeper of the Wen family like Xu Shiliu.

The butler announced loudly: "Mr. Wen has gone to watch the tide! Come again in a few days! Don't block the door and make people upset!"

Xu Shiliu went up and handed the butler a handful of copper coins. Unexpectedly, the old man asked someone to throw him out, and the copper coins almost hit Xu Shiliu's face.

"Where did the old hat come from?" The butler snorted coldly: "I don't even look at who this is! Get out!"

Although Xu Shiliu was thrown out, he really understood the housekeeper's behavior. He felt that such a person who did not love money was worthy of being a disciple of Wen Xianggong, the spiritual leader of the war faction.

On the contrary, he himself used this stinking thing to defile others' nobleness, which is really shameful.

Xu Shiliu was about to come forward to explain again, but saw a chubby rich man handing the butler a small wooden box.

The butler opened a gap and looked at it. Standing at Xu Shiliu's angle, he could see silver light flashing in the gap.

Such a box can be at least 100 taels?

"Adults are very clear. The young man was very happy to know that Mr. Wen was going to open academy." The rich man nodded and bowed and said with a flattering smile: "My little blessing is not good, and he cannot listen to Mr. Wen's teachings with his own ears, but the villain also knew that Mr. Wen wanted to do a great thing that benefits the country and the people, so he was willing to offer five thousand stags of copper coins and one thousand pieces of silk to support the school."

"Well..., what do you want?" The butler handed the box containing silver to the servant behind him and asked the rich man with his head raised.

"I just want the dog to enter the academy and study..."

The rich man bowed to the end.

"Go home and wait for news."
Chapter completed!