Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 120 Pursuit

It was more than ten days later that the news of the uprising in Huzhou City reached Meng Jun. Meng Jun was extremely happy when reading the report written by Meng Bian. How could he recover the country if he relied on himself alone? A former book boy could now plan an uprising in a city.

Meng Jun slapped his thigh and said loudly, "Good, very good, very good." Then he immediately replied, asking him to keep up the good work. With a wave of his hand, he decided to allocate another 5,000 taels to Meng Bian for use in the Investigation Bureau.

When Liu Bang founded the Han Dynasty, most of his meritorious officials were from Pei County. When Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, all his generals were from Huaiyou. What does this show? It is not that all the talents gathered in one place, but that to establish a country, one county has enough talents. It's just that there are many good horses, but few good horse trainers.

At this time, Meng Bian was overjoyed. Although the treasury of Huzhou City was not rich, it had more than 60,000 taels of silver. The loyalty of the garrison camp in Huzhou City to the Qing Dynasty was not zero, but it was not high either. The royal flags on the city walls changed, but no Green Camp soldiers resisted. Meng Bian did not dare to be careless. He used Tao Zhenming's righteous army to guard the four gates. At the same time, he won over the surrendered soldiers and opened the treasury. He gave each of them three taels of silver. After spending several thousand taels of silver, the surrendered soldiers shouted for benevolence and righteousness. As for the officers, they were all temporarily placed under house arrest by Meng Bian.

"Sir, with so much money, shouldn't we expand the staff of our Intelligence Department?" Deputy Commander Wang Zhenxiang whispered to Meng Bian.

Wang Zhenxiang, a native of Lishui County, Nanjing, was a descendant of the Jinyiwei. After the fall of Jiangning, Wang Zhenxiang took advantage of the chaos to escape from Nanjing. By chance, he was picked by Meng Bian. Seeing that he was very familiar with the Jinyiwei's spy work, Meng Bian promoted him to deputy commander of the spy department.

Meng Bian thought about it, shook his head and said: "It's not appropriate. The governor is also very short of money now. How can we use it all? How about this, take out half first, and keep the remaining half in the silver vault."

Wang Zhenxiang hesitated and said, "Sir, although thirty thousand taels is not a small amount, it is still not enough if we want to spread spies all over Jiangnan."

"Well, let's do it step by step." Meng Bian said with a sigh, and then said: "These 30,000 taels will be used to support the four bureaus of the Intelligence Department, especially the Training Bureau. All spies must be trained before being transferred to the other three bureaus. Although we have used this money first, I still have to talk to the governor."

Wang Zhenxiang nodded and said, "Yes, sir. You and the governor are as close as brothers. The governor will certainly agree." Then Wang Zhenxiang thought of something and said, "Hey, sir, I have a plan that can make our exploratory department not short of money."

Meng Bian was stunned and said quickly: "Oh, tell me about it."

"Sir, although Huzhou City is not as wealthy as Suzhou and Hangzhou, it has been an important town for silk production since ancient times. The silk industry in Huzhou City is very developed, and its silk products are well-known. The silk merchants in Huzhou City have a lot of silver and money. Let's think of a way to get some money from them. This can make money much faster." Wang Zhenxiang said hurriedly.

Hearing this, Meng Bian nodded and said, "Yeah, that's right. The wealthy merchants over there have a lot of money buried in the ground. Let's think of a way to make these stingy people take out some money." After saying this, Meng Bian suddenly recalled the old story of the governor soliciting funds in Suzhou City. At that time, those gentry were forced to donate a lot of money. Now he doesn't have Yang En and his group of sour scholars around him. He can do whatever he wants. Isn't that just doing whatever he wants!

……

Not to mention Meng Bian's trouble in Huzhou City, Meng Jun was now leading his troops on the way to pursue Bolo. Bolo had already retreated to Taizhou. Bolo originally planned to retreat directly from Ningbo to Jinhua, but halfway he received reports from scouts that Jinhua Prefecture had been occupied by Meng's army. He had no choice but to retreat to Taizhou Prefecture first, and then retreat to Hengzhou via Lishui.

The morale of Bolo's retreating army was already low. Although Tulai's troops defeated Zhu Yihai, the long-term retreat also caused the morale of the Eight Banners soldiers to drop visibly. As for Li Chengdong's troops, they were even more unloved. From time to time, soldiers escaped from the camp at night, forcing Li Chengdong to send more personal guards and confidants to patrol the camp at night.

Although Meng Jun had been pursuing Bolo, he did not dare to go too deep due to the lack of cavalry. Although he seized a large number of horses, it would take time to train a cavalry capable of fighting on horseback.

The scout battalion led by Huang Cheng shouldered the most arduous task. They needed to keep going deep into the front to explore military intelligence and report it in a timely manner.

At the same time, Meng Jun knew that he could not rush forward. After each advance, Meng Jun would order the troops to stop and reorganize the formation. This would not only allow the soldiers to take a short break and recover their strength, but also prevent them from being suddenly attacked by the Eight Banners cavalry.

The march was boring, with the soldiers rushing on the road, setting up camp, breaking camp, and then rushing on the road again. The baggage soldiers pushed carts, carried bags, and supplies, and the entire army was like a long dragon, chasing all the way to the retreat route of Bolo. Sometimes the soldiers wished they could fight a battle as soon as possible, which would be more refreshing than the long journey.

When Bolo arrived in Taizhou, the Eight Banners soldiers were furious at the defeat and took out their anger on the innocent people in the city. Bolo allowed the Eight Banners to kill people wantonly. For two whole days, there were corpses everywhere. People had committed suicide by jumping into the river until the river dried up. A woman jumped into a well while being chased by the Eight Banners soldiers, but she was unharmed. It was not because the water in the well was too shallow, but because the well was already filled with corpses. The woman climbed out of the well like she was in a state of mental collapse, ran desperately towards the river, and plunged into the river...

When Meng Jun led his army to Taizhou, the scene before them shocked everyone beyond words. There were broken walls and ruins everywhere, and the streets were filled with corpses piled up like mountains. The blood stained the ground red, emitting a disgusting stench.

The screams of these innocent people seemed to still echo in the air. In the end, they even set the city on fire, and the fire devoured houses, shops and temples, turning this once prosperous city into ashes.

Meng Jun looked at this horrible scene, his heart was filled with anger. He clenched his fists and swore with gritted teeth that he would avenge the dead people. All the soldiers were furious, and Meng Jun left a small team to clean up the city and bury the bodies.

The army did not stop and chased after Bolo. All the soldiers had burning flames in their hearts, wishing to kill all these evil flag soldiers. The army of sympathy would surely win. Meng Jun only prayed that Bai Yongfu could block him in Dingyang County. Only by blocking this place, Meng Jun vowed to dismember Bolo into five pieces to relieve the hatred in his heart.