It was getting late, and Li Guodong and his brothers found an inn and stayed in, and hired another boat to Gaojiayan the next day.

"The salt merchants here are all rich and powerful than the country! There are also many Huai merchants with luxury houses in Yangzhou. But Emperor Chongzhen's inner treasury can run away mice!" Li Guodong sighed.

"There are not only salt merchants in Huai'an and Yangzhou, but also Shanxi merchants." Han Dashan Road.

"Shan merchant? Can Fan Yongdou's power be here?" He Xing asked in disbelief.

"Fan Yongdou's power has really come here! Although he has no shops or residences in Huai'an and Yangzhou, there are other Shanxi merchants here who specialize in supplying grain and salt to the Eight Great Masters. Although Shanxi merchants in Huai'an and Yangzhou do not belong to the Eight Great Masters, they have various connections with Fan Yongdou." Li Guodong naturally knew how powerful Fan Yongdou's power was.

He Xing said angrily: "These Shanxi merchants who have harmed the country and the people should be killed!"

"The Shanxi merchants are not all traitors, there are also good ones. Some Shanxi merchants' goods are sold to the Rakshasa people. They drove camels to the Western Regions, entered the Western Regions, and arrived at the Ertzis River. Then the Rakshasa people's ships came to transport the goods away. The ones sold were silk and ceramics, which could be exchanged for a lot of silver."

"Rakshasa man? Who is it?" Han Dashan and He Xing didn't know what Rakshasa man was.

"It looks a bit like a red-haired ghost, but it is not a completely red-haired ghost. They are mixed blood of red-haired ghosts and Mongolians. Perhaps we will have the opportunity to see the Rakshasa people in the future, and they are as strong as bears. If we can hire a few to join the army, as long as we give him excellent armor and fight alone, even the white-armored soldiers of Jiannu can't beat the Rakshasa people."

It was late at night. Standing at the window on the second floor of the inn, looking out at the canal outside, I saw the lights on both sides of the river, and the boats with big red lanterns were passing by, melodious singing came from the boats. Huaian, known as the capital of the canal, could really find a feeling of Yangzhou and Nanjing.

A soldier selected from the caravan guards said, "Brother, I have been to the Qinhuai River with Manager Wang. The two sides of the Huaian Canal really feel like the Qinhuai River in Nanjing."

"I have never been there, but I heard that both sides of the Qinhuai River are scholars, and the place where this place and Yangzhou are all merchants."

"Scholar? Merchant? Humph! Those merchants are not scholars standing behind them? What's the difference?" This ordinary soldier, who was not a wise man, was quite enlightened.

"The Chinese civil servants in the court are honest and upright on the surface, but in fact, who are not hypocritical hypocrites? Those civil servants are all sinister and cruel and greedy! They just cut taxes for profiteers who have colluded with them, but they add taxes to the poor people! After two hundred years of raising scholars in the Ming Dynasty, they have raised such a group of wolves and hearts!"

"Brother, be careful," Han Dashan reminded.

"What am I afraid of? One day, we will kill all these corrupt officials sooner or later! If the court cannot tolerate us, we might as well just surrender to the rebels!"

The next morning, Li Guodong took his brothers and changed his clothes to the officers and soldiers, and hired three small boats to sail towards Gaojiayan.

Sailing along the river towards Gaojiayan, along the way, there are fertile land on both sides of the shore, but looking around, you can’t see a piece of farmland, overgrown with weeds and wild animals on both sides, and a large fertile field is deserted.

Han Dashan looked at the weeds growing well on both sides and asked in confusion: "Why is there no one to cultivate such fertile land?"

The boss of the boat sighed and said, "Farmers cannot afford to grow land. Although the farmland here is all good paddy fields and the land is fertile, the weather has been cold in recent years. The spring plowing season is pushed back year by year. The grain harvest is not good, and the government has to increase taxes. The farmers who cannot survive simply abandon their land and flee! Looking at the whole country, the land in Jiangnan is less affected by natural disasters. Where else is it that the other places are not barren land thousands of miles away?"

"I didn't expect this south to be like this." Han Dashan remembered that the south was a prosperous place. But he didn't know that due to the influence of the Little Ice Age, coupled with the harsh government of the imperial court, in the two Huaihe River areas, except for the ship workers with fixed income, the rest of the people were actually not much better than the north. Even the salt owners who boiled salt were exploited by the government, gentry and salt merchants, and their lives were not easy.

Otherwise, how could there be so many water bandits who call themselves the heroes of Liangshan in the Shuiwang area?

When the boat arrived at Gaojiayan, the group got off the boat. After paying the boat fare, Li Guodong and his brothers climbed up the dam, then walked along the lakeside, and walked for a whole day to Tawau in the west of the lake.

When I arrived at the shore of Tawau, I saw a city of hundreds of feet in a radius. It was surrounded by dirt cities made of soil. There were wooden fences above the dirt city, forming a female wall warhead. There was a city gate between the east and west of the dirt city. The city gate tower was also made of wooden. A wooden arrow tower stood above the city gate, and there were arrow towers on both sides. There were trenches outside the dirt city, which introduced the lake water and formed a moat.

Unfortunately, the fields outside the Tucheng are deserted, and the originally good farmland is covered with weeds.

"This Wang Quan is really. He doesn't farm so well, and he doesn't farm and let it be desolate." Han Dashan muttered.

"Maybe Brother Wang is in trouble. If it is not so good, can he not think of farming?" Li Guodong frowned slightly.

Seeing that it was Li Guodong's arrival, Wang Quan ordered the city gate to be opened.

When he walked into the city gate, he saw that there were a lot of cultivated land in the city, with small pieces of rice fields and vegetable fields. Seeing this posture, the first thing Li Guodong thought of was that it must be that the activities of bandits nearby were rampant, otherwise why would Wang Quan choose to farm in the city?

Wang Quan had already brought a few old friends to greet him: "Brother, why are you here in person?"

Li Guodong walked up and bowed and returned the gift: "Brother Wang Quan, I haven't seen each other for almost two years since I left last time! I asked you to form a new caravan, but there was no news. I thought you had gone wherever you went, but it turned out that I had come here."

"Brother, forgive me!" Wang Quan knelt down quickly, "Brother asked me to form a caravan, but I couldn't bear to see the people in trouble, so I took them in. However, I didn't have enough food and gold and silver, so I had to build a city and farm here. Unexpectedly, it delayed the major event of forming a caravan. If I wanted to punish me, I would never complain."

"Get up quickly!" Li Guodong stretched out his hand and helped Wang Quan up, "What are you guilty of helping the people? The court was controlled by corrupt officials, and the emperor could not even allocate the disaster relief funds. It was pitiful that the people were displaced and could only rebel and follow the thief, and ended up being in a different place. Let's help the people here and increase our strength. Brother, I had a long idea to build a camp in the south. After all, the land in the north cannot support more people, and the fertile land in the south still needs to grow more food."

"Thank you for your understanding, brother."

——
Chapter completed!