3 million catties

  In the Ming dynasty, Commander Liu Guoxuan led troops to attack Quanzhou, and all subordinate cities fell.

  The sea is clear, and the province of Fujian is shaken. The various relief troops retreated to defend Zhangzhou, and Guo Xuan proposed taking advantage of the emptiness to attack Quanzhou: Wu Shu divided his troops to retake Changtai, and Guo Xuan personally led the army to attack Tong'an. At that time, the commander-in-chief Ya Dali was transferring troops from Zhejiang to support Haicheng, but arrived at Tong'an just as Haicheng fell;

  When Wen Guoxuan arrived, he abandoned the city and retreated to Quanzhou. Guoxuan led a water and land attack on it. Zuo Huwei Jiangsheng attacked Nan'an and took it down. As a result, the defending generals of Hui'an, Anxi, Yongchun, Dehua and other counties all successively abandoned their cities and fled.

  "Min Hai Ji Yao"

  At the same time as Zheng Jun's successive victories in Minnan, Yang Xian led his 5,000 troops to raid Xinhu with reinforcements from Chen Heng and Chen Qiming. They took down Doumen and Jiangmen one after another. The garrison of Xinhu had only about 800 men, who were unable to resist the Zheng army's attack and could only close the gate and defend it to the death. However, Yang Xian conquered it within a day and then pointed directly at Fengcheng, causing shock in Guangdong Province.

  Shang Zhixin was on the front line of Dianbai, and when he heard that the rear was in a precarious situation, he was greatly shocked. He feared that Zheng's army would take advantage of the situation to attack Guangzhou, so he immediately retreated. As a result, he was caught by Zu Zeqing, who took the opportunity to launch a counterattack. After losing three thousand men from his rear guard, Shang Zhixin managed to escape back to Yangjiang.

  Zu Zeqing originally had no great ambitions, only wanting to occupy a region, so he was content with small wealth. When he saw Shang Jun's eastern withdrawal, he turned back and took over the prefectures of Gao and Lian, fulfilling his dream of becoming the King of Guangxi. Shang Zhi obtained an opportunity to catch his breath, and after slightly reorganizing his troops, he left behind 2,000 soldiers from the Tiying Department to defend Yangjiang, while he led his main force of 15,000 back to the provincial capital.

  At this time, Yang Xian besieged Shunde for three days without success, and then turned his entire army to Nanhai, approaching Foshan.

  Foshan was originally known as Foshan Township because of the three Buddha statues unearthed at Taipo Hill in the city. At the end of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Foshan, along with Hankou Town in Hubei, Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, and Zhuxian Town in Henan, was known as one of China's "Four Great Famous Towns" and, along with Beijing, Hankou, and Suzhou, as one of the "Four Great Gathering Places Under Heaven".

  However, Foshan, no matter how prosperous it is, is only a town-level unit. The walls are low and the militia is limited, which may not be a problem in defending against bandits, but it is fundamentally impossible to resist a well-trained army. Seeing Zheng's army coming with great momentum, the gentry and merchants of the town who were worried about the war disaster sent people out of the town to mediate, willing to pay 30,000 silver taels to ransom Zheng's army to bypass them.

  "Comforting the troops?" Yang Xian looked at several representatives of the people and the offerings of cattle, wine and food, and couldn't help but sneer. "You all have a good heart."

  Although Yang Xian's face was gloomy, the representatives of the scholars and common people still smiled and said: "The king's teacher is discussing the rebellion, and we small people should have offered him a meal."

  "Is that so?" Yang Xian dismounted and circled around the three men twice, then reached out to grab one of their golden whips, giving it a strong tug. The man let out a pained cry, but what made them even more terrified was Yang Xian's next words. "What is this? You're welcoming the king's army as Tartar slaves?" Yang Xian tossed aside the queue he had grasped and waved his hand. "Bring men to cut off their pig tails!"

  "Sir, no!" The hair was left but the head wasn't, several people were scared and kowtowed to Yang Xian. "Spare our lives, spare our lives!"

  Yang Xian waved his hand, signaling the imperial guards to retreat, and sat down on a horse stool: "Spare your lives, you only think that the Tartars want to kill you, but it's not easy for this official's knife to be quick."

  Several people crouched there, not daring to lift their heads, but their bodies were still trembling, and even one of them had a faint trace of water on their lower body.

  Yang Xian disdainfully curled his lip: "Speak, what does this 'labor army' actually mean?"

  "The little people, the little people remember the adults' detour." A person on the left stuttered and said. "Although the adults' army has not committed any crimes, but...but Foshan Town is small and may be unable to provide for the military's food and fodder, all the townspeople are willing to offer 10,000 taels of silver, no, 20,000 taels." Despite being afraid, the merchant's instincts still made him try to haggle with Yang Xian. "Please let the army pass through without entering."

  "Twenty thousand taels." Yang Xian's gaze condensed, Zheng Jun's march towards Nanhai and Guangzhou was originally just a show of force, now with this unexpected joy it was naturally like adding flowers to brocade. However, he was also an old hand, how could he be deceived by the other side's seemingly generous words? "What a big handwriting, Foshan is famous for its wealth all over the world, how much have you contributed to the Northern Tartars in these years, haha, come on, order each town to speed up, before 5 pm must enter Foshan, at that time there will be no less than a few traitors who are willing to surrender, twenty thousand taels, even ten times twenty thousand taels is not impossible.

  ??”

  "Sir," the man in the middle hastened to say, Yang Xian's threat had almost hit their weak point. Once Zheng Jun entered the town, it was easy to imagine that it would be a disaster. Even if someone managed to escape, what if Zheng Jun was ruthless and destroyed Foshan? "Thirty thousand taels, no, fifty thousand taels, as long as the army doesn't enter the town, we can discuss any reward."

  "Oh? Changed your mind again?" Yang Xian stroked his beard. "50,000 taels, tsk, truly worthy of being one of the four great ones." But what Yang Xian wanted wasn't just silver. "This prefecture isn't a bandit lair, we've caught a few meat tickets and want ransom." This statement made the kneeling men exchange glances, unsure what kind of trick this old general Zheng was playing. In the end, it was Yang Xian himself who revealed his true intentions. "Actually, 30,000 taels would be enough to reward the entire army, however..." The three people's hearts sank, and then they heard Yang Xian say: "Foshan has always been famous for its iron smelting, by tomorrow sundown, the town must prepare 300,000 catties of fine iron, 30,000 taels of silver, and all necessary transportation vehicles to be sent to our military camp. If it's late, don't blame this official for unleashing a massacre."

  "Refined iron! 300,000 catties!" Upon hearing Yang Xian's reported number, the man on the left suddenly slumped to the ground. "Your Excellency, this number is really too large, and it's only for one day's worth of work. How can we possibly prepare enough in time? And then there's the transportation by cart and boat - coming and going, 100,000 taels won't be enough!"

  "Is thirty thousand catties of refined iron a lot?" Yang Xian stood up, kicking away the cushion with one foot, and said in a stern tone. "In the vicinity of Foshan, there are tens of thousands of households with furnaces, which can supply several thousand catties to the town every day. Even if there is some loss during transportation, how could a town of that size not have thirty thousand catties of inventory? Are you trying to deceive me because I'm old and ignorant?" Yang Xian drew his sword and pointed at the man on the right who had been silent all along. "If we don't have refined iron, we can count the finished products like iron locks, iron wires, iron anvils, iron pots, iron woks, iron bells, iron needles, iron plows, rakes, and sickles. Especially those big cannons that you, Shang Zhi, had cast."

  ??”

  It was already frightening enough to be pointed at by the cold and majestic treasure sword, but now that Yang Xian had revealed his true nature, this person didn't say a word and directly fainted. Looking at their companion's embarrassing appearance, the other two were also terrified, and could only repeatedly nod in agreement, afraid that if they didn't comply, they would anger Yang Xian and lose their own heads.

  "Scram," Yang Xian put his sword back. "If the goods are not delivered by sunset tomorrow, we will attack the town at dawn the day after tomorrow, and no one will be spared!"

  Several of the civilian representatives rolled and crawled away, and the deputy general on the side asked in confusion: "General, why do we still need to give them two days? The new meeting has also fallen, and this small town is short-walled. We can take it down in one or two rounds. At that time, we can have whatever we want, isn't it better than grinding our teeth with them?"

  "Shang Zhixin quickly rushed back." Yang Xian's gaze was fixed on the west. "Our troops are only a third of his, so we can save as much as possible." Yang Xian added. "Besides, taking the city is easy, and plundering some silver is not difficult either, but collecting iron materials and transporting them out would be troublesome. With the cooperation of the townspeople, it will naturally go much faster."

  The deputy general was still somewhat perplexed: "General, these 300,000 catties of iron materials will occupy a lot of space on the ship. When Lou Shiping brought them over, the ship was already fully loaded. What if...

  "If we were to be surrounded by the great army of Shang Zhixin, even if our army wins the battle, the casualties would not be worth just taking down this small town of Foshan. It's better to just take the silver and leave."

  "There are so many new immigrants in Taiwan, and the demand for ironware is overwhelming. How can we meet it with just 100,000 catties of production per month?" Yang Xian used to be a government official, and these numbers were naturally stored in his mind. "Fabrics are easy to come by, but ironware is hard to get even with silver; if it weren't for the tight deadline this time, I wouldn't have asked for 300,000 catties from you." As he spoke, Yang Xian patted the vice general's shoulder. "To avoid missing the deadline, go and collect a few more long dragons; if all else fails, send someone to cut down trees and make wooden rafts. When the time comes, we'll sail downstream and see if Shang Zhi Xin has the guts to chase us to the coast."

  ???”

  Three envoys escaped back to report, and Foshan immediately panicked. Facing Zheng's army, which was invincible in Guangdong Province, the wealthy merchants and local officials of Foshan Town had no courage to fight at all. After a night of argument, the town's businessmen finally accepted Yang Xian's ultimatum. From the next morning on, a steady stream of transportation teams began to transport iron materials to the town's dock in large quantities. Due to the tight deadline, there was no time to weigh them one by one, and they were afraid that Zheng's army would make an issue out of the quantity. Therefore, each merchant could only calculate generously, and as a result, the amount of iron delivered outside the town far exceeded Yang Xian's requirement of 10%.

  The accumulated ironware was transported by hundreds of small boats hidden by the townspeople and collected by Zheng's army from Zhou Bian Village, along the dense river channels of the Pearl River, southward for two days, and entered the sea at Jinwan, successfully arriving at Zheng's warship. More than 300,000 catties of ironware were transported in three trips, and it wasn't until the third day after Zheng's army withdrew that Shi Zhenshen's troops slowly recovered Xinhui County and Jiangmen, and even Dumen didn't dare to enter until the main force of Zheng's army had withdrawn.

  Although Shi Zhongxin did not want to confront Zheng Jun, Yang Xian had no intention of stopping. After transporting iron materials from Dongning to the soldiers' ships and returning to Qiongzhou for three days of recuperation, he led his troops ashore at Xuwen and marched northward, pressing on towards Leizhou. The defenders of Leizhou fled in fear, and thus Zheng Jun's forces came into contact with Zu Zeqing's troops under the banner of Zhou Jun.

  Although Zu Zeqing was angry with Zheng Jun for competing with him for territory, due to Zheng Jun's strong combat power and the possibility of Shang Zhixin's troops returning, in order to leave a way out, he personally visited Yang Xian. The two sides agreed to take the Zhangchuan Patrol Office as the boundary, with the north belonging to Zu's department and the south belonging to Zheng Jun's army. At the same time, Zu's army provided oxen, iron tools, sugar cane, and rice to Ming Zheng's side at a low price, and Zheng's army would send troops to assist when Shang's or Qing's armies came to attack.

  ??