During the Little Ice Age, the Great Ming Dynasty suffered constant natural disasters. The rise of the Later Jin outside the pass was aroused, and the Liao salary was forced to be paid. However, the tax was not added to the Jiangnan, which was richest in the world, but was added to the people of the north. Even in the north, not everyone could collect taxes. A gentry with fame could be exempted from taxes. First-rank civil servants could be exempted from taxes, one thousand acres of taxes, one thousand acres of taxes above the Jinshi, four hundred acres of taxes, and eighty acres of scholars.

The land under the name of officials and gentry cannot be collected, so taxes can only be added to the people.

Officials and gentry were exempted from taxes, and they kept saying what was the so-called ancestral system. In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang had no right to exempt officials and gentry from taxes. When the Ming Dynasty was formulated, only corvee labor was allowed, and it was absolutely impossible to exempt money and food.

The tax exemption of gentry in the Ming Dynasty was obtained by civil servants working together to get it from generation to generation. Including, just like the civil servants of the Northern Song Dynasty fooling the emperor and not killing civil servants in their dynasty, they fooled the emperor and said that this was the Ming Dynasty's ancestor system, and they took it seriously in the end. Although there was actually no such thing at all, they could not resist their mouths and could not help but make the emperor confused and didn't know what his ancestors had done.

This tax-free system was formulated by civil servants in the late Wanli period. The civil servants worked together to force Emperor Wanli to dare not go to court. Of course, those civil servants formulated the system to a point that was so good to them that they were exaggerated.

Taxes are added to the poor people, so naturally there are hunger everywhere, and there are many bandits and bandits everywhere.

If Wang Quan hopes to destroy these bandits and make a fortune, it would be a big mistake. Li Guodong can choose to destroy the horse thieves outside the pass to make a fortune, because those horse thieves robbed the merchants that go to the east and west, so there are naturally gold and silver. But who can the bandits in the pass to rob the enemy? Who can they rob the big farmers? Those big families have built cities and a large number of guards inside. Wouldn't they seek death to rob them? Snatch merchants? Most merchants would rather spend some money to handle some connections and go to the canal transportation. However, small merchants who have no money to rob the canal transportation would not have much money.

Therefore, these bandits basically robbed ordinary people, and the people were so poor that they were just trying to rob some food to fill their stomachs.

Wang Quan's caravan had a total of 467 people, including 163 crossbowmen and 150 crossbowmen recruited by the people. Wang Quan himself and his old friends were also archers; 150 sword players and 153 spearmen. A caravan of such a large scale is not something ordinary bandits dare to make a decision.

The more than 450 newly recruited civilians in the caravan guards were all infantry, but the caravan actually had cavalry. Wang Quan himself was a cavalry archer, and his twelve men were all cavalry.

"We are about to enter Henan. There is no peace here. All brothers are cheering up! Maybe the war will be coming soon!" Wang Quan shouted in his voice.

The twelve mates in the caravan were all sent out, treated as whistle riders, wandering around and exploring the way.

"Horse thief! A horse thief is here!" Zhao Peng, who was sent to explore the way, came back, rode his horse and shouted all the way.

Wang Quan stepped forward and asked in a deep voice: "How many people have come? Have you seen clearly?"

Zhao Peng replied: "There are thirty horse thieves who go back to the shopkeeper, and hundreds of horse thieves, and there are probably six or seven hundred people. It should not exceed one thousand. Most of the thieves hold hoes and sticks, some hold knives or spears, and some carry bows and arrows, and at least forty or fifty people carry bows and bows and bows and fifty people carry bows and bows and bows and.”

Wu Biao's position was close to Wang Quan. He heard the numbers reported by Zhao Peng and gasped. The people behind him also felt a little scared.

After all, the enemy is large and we are few, and the opponent's troops are likely to double that of ours!

The Central Plains terrain north of the Yellow River is flat, and they are all large plains with flat horses. Under this terrain, it is especially suitable for cavalry combat. Wang Quan added himself to his hands, and there were only thirteen cavalry; but there were thirty cavalry horses! Even those hiking bandits had more people than him, and there were many archers.

The Ming Dynasty horse politics was promoted by the Ming government to "people's herdsmanship" for horses, and implemented it in northern Zhili, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and other places. The number of horse breeders was set to be subject to horse foals. If it was not enough, horse breeders would have to compensate them. Therefore, many horse breeders broke their families and were forced to take the path of becoming horse thieves.

The old cavalry of Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, Liu Guoneng, and Ma Shouying were almost all from horse thieves, and both the people and horses came from the original horse raising households. The horse raising households who broke the family became horse thieves and later followed the leaders of these peasant uprisings.

However, these horse breeders from Northern Zhili have not been absorbed by Li Zicheng and others, but are scattered everywhere.

Wang Quan had only more than 450 people in his hands, but his opponents had at least six or seven hundred people, and perhaps more than nine hundred people! The people who knew the number of enemies were so scared that they were trembling all over.

Although the number of horse thieves was much higher than that of the caravan guards, the leaders of the horse thieves were obviously a smart person. They did not directly block the road and shouted "I opened this mountain, I planted this tree, I want to walk from this road and leave to buy wealth." They did not rush in, but observed the movements of the caravan from afar.

After a while, the horse thief also sent a brave man to act as a scout and approached the caravan. He observed the movements of the caravan from afar a hundred steps away. When he saw that the caravan had more than a hundred large carts, numerous supplies, cattle, sheep, fur and other valuable goods, the horse thief who acted as a scout lit up his eyes.

"The boss! We haven't opened for a long time! The people nearby are so poor that they can't get rid of the blame! We didn't grab a few grains of rice after robbing them, so we could only grab a few people to eat white meat. But the white meat was eaten every day and I vomited. This caravan is so good, there are many cattle, sheep, mules, and they are all good things!" After the scout came back, he reported to their boss.

"Haha! The big fat sheep came! We have more than 800 people, and they seem to have only about 400 people. What are we afraid of?" The horse thief leader laughed.

Not long after, a burly man with a tall and big horse with a bearded face came out of the thief and shouted loudly to Wang Quan: "Listen to the caravan in front! Our boss is kind and kind! Give you three choices! The first is to join us and go with us! The second is to go your own, but all the supplies and materials are left! The third way is to say no, then we will kill you all!"

Wang Quan said nothing and looked at the large group of horse thieves behind the grass. From a distance, he saw thirty horse thieves riding tall horses, standing in groups of bandits with sticks and hoes in their hands. Behind were a row of elite horse thieves holding knives and shields, and at the end, there were spearmen holding spears.
Chapter completed!