They were not stingy, they donated people, money and efforts to form an "anti-Xu alliance", which gathered into an extremely powerful force.
In fact, for the gentry class, they are characterized by being extremely selfish and self-interested. They only have the interests of one person and one family in their eyes. Whether it is a change of dynasty or a foreign invasion, they are unlikely to unite together. If the country dies, their own family will die.
As long as they are not dead, the aliens have taken possession of the Central Plains artifacts, and they need Han gentry to manage the country. No matter what, their personal and family interests will not suffer too serious losses.
But the enemy in Xujiazhuang is different.
Xujiazhuang was not only powerful, but also plundered and occupied land wantonly, even overtaking them, seriously damaging their interests.
What's more, they have occupied and deprived them of their living space. The originally vast countryside has been their paradise for generations. They can occupy farmers' land arbitrarily. The children and grandchildren of farmers will become their long-term workers and slaves in the future; the wives and daughters of farmers
, they are their concubines and maids, they can play with them if they want, and possess them if they want to!
Now these good prospects are gone. Xujiazhuang suddenly broke into their paradise, seduced the farmers who belonged to them, occupied their land, and even raised big sticks, beating them and the gentry until they screamed and screamed, and even dared to pull out
Knife kills.
The gentry were not only polite and disgraceful.
Their dreams and hopes, their way of living and traditions that had lasted for at least two thousand years, were completely strangled. The monster Xujiazhuang deprived them of all their privileges.
And the most hateful thing is: Xujiazhuang doesn't need them.
Xujiazhuang has its own management system and has trained a large number of talents called "primary school students" to manage the estate. Instead of using them as erudite and talented scholars, they would rather use children who are only in their teens, regardless of their rich experience in governing the country.
The gentry excluded them from the beginning.
This not only hurt the self-esteem of some Jiangnan gentry! It also pushed the contradiction between the two sides to a completely irreconcilable level.
This is what is called class conflict.
So in order to eliminate this weird monster in Xujiazhuang, the Jiangnan gentry united in an unprecedented way, and actually went to the extent of destroying the family and rescuing the family. They moved out the silver hidden in the cellar of their home, and removed the mountains of old grain accumulated in the home warehouse.
They were moved out and sent to the hands of Wei Guogong Xu Hongji one after another.
In just one or two months, more than 5 million taels of silver and 10 million shi of grain were raised—this is just part of it. There is still a large amount of money and grain that is in transit.
The wealth of the Jiangnan gentry is evident.
As vested interests, the Jiangnan gentry’s two hundred years of heritage and accumulation are by no means comparable to that of Xujiazhuang, which was established just a few years ago.
With so much money and food, the next step is to recruit troops!
In this regard, the Nanjing Xungui Group headed by Xu Hongji also acted very quickly and achieved an efficiency that is usually unimaginable.
First, in the name of the Nanjing Ministry of War and the Capital Commander's Department, troop deployment orders were issued one after another, including the Yangzhou Guard, Hezhou Guard, Gaoyou Guard, Huai'an Guard, Zhenhai Guard, Taicang Guard, Suzhou Guard, and Jinshan Guard.
Imperial officers and soldiers from dozens of guard posts such as Songjiang Zhongqianhu Post, Chongming Sha Qianhu Post, Tongzhou Qianhu Post, Taizhou Qianhu Post, etc., have gathered in Nanjing one after another. Although the guard system has been running, many problems have arisen.
, the shortage and empty pay were serious. After an inventory, there were still over 30,000 guards officers and soldiers available. This amount was a real number, and they seemed to have a certain combat effectiveness.
Using these more than 30,000 guards officers and soldiers as the skeleton, we then put up a recruitment flag and began to recruit strong men. There are very many people in the middle and lower classes who do not have enough to eat and have no hope. As long as they have money and food, they can then put up a recruitment flag.
, you are not afraid of not being able to recruit people.
Therefore, it only took half a month to recruit more than 70,000 strong men and form an army of 100,000 people. And this is a real number. It is no problem to call it a "three hundred thousand army".
But it was not enough. Both the Nanjing Xungui Group and the Jiangnan gentry felt that if they wanted to eliminate Xujiazhuang, a mere 100,000 troops would not be enough.
We have to continue to recruit talents, and we must do everything we can to continue to increase the number of people in the army.
So he spent 500,000 taels to hire 5,000 elite firearms troops from the Zheng family from Fujian.
The servants, guardians, and young people of the noble families of the gentry and nobles were also organized, with a number of up to 30,000.
Then there are various bandits, pirates, gangsters, and criminals in prisons. They also spent money to organize them into a criminal army of 10,000 people.
Finally, there are the green-skinned gangsters in the city, the street-cleaning tiger thugs, the government servants and subordinates who help patrol the soldiers, etc. In total, there is another army of 20,000 people.
In short, various methods were used to gather all available manpower, and even some descendants of gentry and nobles joined the army.
180,000.
Finally, at the end of May, the nobles and gentry of Jiangnan formed a super army of 180,000 people!
Moreover, the number 180,000 is a real number, there is not much fraud and watering, and it is no problem to claim to the outside world that "an army of 500,000".
This was an army that was raised in just over two months. In this ancient society, this kind of organizational efficiency can only be described as 'horrifying', and it created a miracle.
but……
With these forces, if we want to capture the more than 100 collective estates in Xujiazhuang and "eliminate the roots and eliminate future troubles" from the millions of villagers in Xujiazhuang who have already shaved their heads and changed into uniforms, I am afraid there will still be some insufficient troops.
And they will suffer huge casualties - the ferocity of Xujiazhuang's servants and young men has long been experienced by the Jiangnan gentry. These unruly people, who are said to eat hundreds of kilograms of meat a year, can beat ten of them one by one, and their fighting power is impressive.
Compared with the Tatars outside the customs, they do not obey the king's rule and do not respect martial ethics and etiquette. They are not ordinary good people under their rule. A few government servants can easily destroy their families and people, and they will not rebel easily.
As for the shaved-headed and unruly people in Xujiazhuang, who had become stronger after eating meat and could no longer live their lives submissively, an elite army of three to five million people was needed to completely suppress them.
However, after some further discussions, the Jiangnan nobles and gentry decided to attack Xujiazhuang!
Although the 180,000 troops are somewhat insufficient and cannot take down the entire Xujiazhuang, if these troops are concentrated to attack a certain manor in Xujiazhuang, wouldn't it still be impossible to take down the whole?
"The collective estates in Xujiazhuang have as few as 10,000 villagers and as many as 30,000 people. Only the population of Harbor City has reached 300,000. In the so-called ten sieges, our nearly 200,000 troops can't even have one with only 10,000 people.
Can’t we take over people’s estates, including the old, weak, women and children?”
"As long as we concentrate our forces and implement a strategy to defeat Xujiazhuang, we will capture a collective estate every three days, kill all the young men and women, and join all the women in the Jiaofangsi. The property and land will be divided among them, or we will reward the soldiers of the three armies and allow them to
Looting at will to boost morale, the more we fight, the more courageous and smooth we become, the more than a hundred manors and castles in Xujiazhuang can be eradicated in just one year at most, Xujiazhuang will be reduced to history, and peace will be restored to Jiangnan!"
"Defeat them all!"
This strategy was highly praised and recognized by the noble gentry and unanimously approved, and they all thought about it:
"In front of the Jiangnan army of 200,000 people, no matter what the manor is, it will all turn into powder!"
"We must not be merciful this time. It is precisely because of my repeated forbearance that Xujiazhuang has expanded to this point and brewed such a cancerous disaster. We should have united long ago and taken action again."
"The teachings of the saints can no longer be used on the heads of these alienated people. I propose that all the men in Xujiazhuang who are over six years old be killed! All the women will be slaves and maids, and those with outstanding appearance will be brought into the teaching office for me.
Wait for the molestation and abuse, then whip him as much as you want!"
"I heard that Xu Yuan, the owner of the Xu family village, has two concubines with good looks. Hahaha, if we can capture these two concubines, even if they are ugly, I will whip them hard. Say this.
Bad temper!"
"It would be better if we could catch Xu Yuan, the leader of the thief. Not only will we have him executed ten thousand times, but we will also torture his concubines in person to vent our hatred!"
"That's right! A wealthy overseas businessman doesn't want to do business well. He dares to pretend to be an eternal saint and wants to dig out the roots of us and start our rebellion. I wonder if he will urinate and cry when Ling Chi cuts the flesh.
My father is calling my mother to beg for mercy, and the appearance of the humble businessman is revealed... Haha, I am looking forward to it very much!"
…
June 10th.
Outside Yangzhou City.
After sufficient preparation.
The "Jiangnan Army" established by the Jiangnan gentry with money and effort officially launched a military operation against Xujiazhuang.
The actual number of the Jiangnan army was 180,000, and it was claimed to be "300,000". The first target of the attack was Xujiazhuang's collective estate No. 72.
Because Manor No. 72 was built just outside Yangzhou City, only a mere ten miles away from Yangzhou City - this was like stepping on the faces of the Jiangnan gentry, and it was the most naked provocation.
Therefore, it was most suitable for Jiangnan's army to attack the manor that was closest to them and farthest from Xujiazhuang's base camp, Harbor City!
"Kill!"
"Their city wall hasn't been built yet, and it's still slanted. We rushed up as soon as we could!"
"Kill all the men, kill all the women, and steal all the treasures! The adults above said that if the sword is not sealed within three days, we can do whatever we want!"
"Come on, don't steal money, food, treasure, or women from me!"
"..."
The ground shook violently.
Countless people were running and accelerating with fanatical expressions and holding various weapons.
If you look down from a high-altitude perspective, you will find a bastion with a circumference of only four or five miles. It is being besieged from all sides by nearly 200,000 people, like an army of zombies. But judging from the dense number of people, this
The small bastion with unfinished walls seemed impossible to withstand and was about to fall in an instant.