Li Guodong spent a night in Tawau Castle and spent a good night with Liu Rushi, who had not seen for more than half a year. Long separation is better than a newlywed marriage. Needless to say, it is easy to meet river crabs.

The next morning, Li Guodong said goodbye to his concubine and followed Shi Fu to the south of the Yangtze River.

Li Guodong and his group did not stay in the bustling Nanjing City for a long time. They just hurried to Yixing. The purpose of going to Yixing was to visit Lu Xiangsheng, who was cut off his official position by Emperor Chongzhen on the pretext of filial piety.

Since Lu Xiangsheng was removed from his post by the court, his Tianxiong Army had no source of military pay because he had no source of military pay and had to be disbanded and sent to the wastelands that Lu Xiangsheng brought his men to cultivate. However, Li Guodong took the opportunity to recruit Tianxiong Army and incorporated them into his own army.

In addition to Li Guodong's own 21,000 Jinyang Army and the 20,000 Tianxiong Army recruited, and Wang Quan's 30,000 Huai Army, Li Guodong also sent some of the incorporated refugees to the uninhabited land in Shandong, handed over the land to them to farm, and then selected a group of strong men to serve as soldiers. In fact, Li Guodong had more than 100,000 troops. With the auxiliary soldiers and the civilians who could mobilize, Li Guodong could actually mobilize an army of 300,000 people at hand! Not to mention the Ming Dynasty, defeating the Qing army was no problem. But he hid his troops, especially the soldiers allocated to Shandong.

People selected from refugees farm in Shandong, farming and training, and also building castles in the slack season. When the Qing army entered the pass five years later, they would find that there were castles everywhere on Qilu, and the Qing army could not move at least in Jiaodong.

Controlling Jiaodong is of great significance. Those castles seemed to be blocked by the Qing army in Jiaodong, but behind them were the sea, materials and reinforcements could be supported by sea at any time; once the castle could not be supported, they could withdraw their troops by sea.

Li Guodong didn't need to come forward in person to arrange these things, just let his generals do it.

Li Guodong arrived at the hometown of Lu Xiangsheng in Yixing. Lu Xiangsheng had already learned about Li Guodong's arrival, so he asked his younger brother Lu Xiangguan to pick up Li Guodong.

"Brother, Wu Weibo is here." Walking into the gate of Lu's mansion, Lu Xiangguan reported to his brother.

"Let him come in." Lu Xiangsheng's old voice came from inside.

Li Guodong walked into the hall, bowed to Lu Xiangsheng, who was sitting on the chair of the Grand Master in the middle, and gave a big gift: "I will go to Fujian, pass by Jiangnan, and come along the way to visit Mr. Lu."

"General Li!" Lu Xiangsheng rebuked angrily, "I am no longer appointing an official in the court, but a scammer who is idle at home! The court is about to send troops to suppress the thieves. Why don't you go back to Shanxi to prepare, but come to the Jiangnan Flower World?"

Li Guodong replied: "Mr. Lu, the imperial court is short of money, so Your Majesty can only sell the items in the palace to pay military salaries. The court general sent Yang Ge Lao to suppress the thieves. As the last general saw, he could only suppress the thieves, and the more he tried to suppress the thieves, the more he could suppress the thieves. If Mr. Yang Ge Lao was in the general direction, he was still a little smart. But if he wanted him to lead troops to fight, he was really not as good as you. And Mr. Sun had been imprisoned by the court. This time, Yang Ge Lao sent troops to suppress the thieves, it seemed that there was a lot of danger. Therefore, he went to Jiangnan to prepare for the future. If one day, Jiannu would enter the pass again, he would probably be forced to hunt south."

"All nonsense!" Lu Xiangsheng said angrily, "The capital city is solid, how can Jiannu conquer the city? Besides, the bandits can stop my Ming Dynasty King's Army? Although Yang Wen is weak and not good at commanding, it is still no problem to deal with bandits."

"What the last general is worried about is that the court lacks silver and pays, and officers and soldiers are prone to rebel! Besides, Zuo Liangyu, his army cannot fight against the bandits, but it is a good player to harm the people! The civil strife in the Ming Dynasty will continue, so sooner or later, we will give Jiannu an opportunity to take advantage of it."

"I believe that the Ming Dynasty can survive this disaster!" Lu Xiangsheng said firmly, "Okay, Guodong's virtuous nephew, since you are here, let's sit down and talk about the past."

Li Guodong sat down, and Lu Xiangsheng asked someone to bring tea. The two chatted about some family matters at first, and then Lu Xiangsheng sighed: "I don't know when I will serve the court again. Now the Ming Dynasty is in trouble with internal and external troubles, but I can only have free time at home. I am really unwilling to give up!"

"Don't worry, as long as you train your village soldiers at home, you will be able to serve the court one day," said Li Guodong.

"I believe your words."

Li Guodong said again: "Supervisor Lu, the last general is planning to go to Changshu and visit Mr. Qian. I hope the supervisor can recommend it."

"What's wrong with visiting Mr. Qian?"

"Mr. Qian is a big boss of Donglin, so he naturally wants to visit him. The general under the command of the army is considered half of the Donglin Party, right? If Mr. Qian can be his subordinates as disciples, that would be great." Li Guodong said with a smile. He planned to protect Chongzhen from going south in the future and fight against the Donglin Party.

Lu Xiangsheng sighed: "My nephew is intent, but unfortunately you are not a scholar. The Donglin Party cannot accept you, and Mr. Qian cannot accept you as a disciple."

"It doesn't matter whether Mr. Qian will accept the disciples as his disciples. As long as the general comes to visit, he can meet Mr. Qian."

"Since that's the case, I'll put my face down and accompany you." Lu Xiangsheng finally gave up and agreed.

Not far from Yixing to Changshu, Li Guodong followed Lu Xiangsheng to set off the next morning, riding a fast horse, and arrived in Changshu in the afternoon of the same day.

After meeting Qian Qianyi, Lu Xiangsheng said it was indeed correct. When Lu Xiangsheng mentioned that Li Guodong wanted to give Qian Qianyi a disciple, Qian Qianyi naturally refused, but he still gave Lu Xiangsheng face and recognized Li Guodong as his friend.

Li Guodong felt secretly amused: The water is too cold, I am really sorry, I snatched your Liu Rushi away.

It is much easier to win over and exploit Donglin Party bosses like Qian Qianyi than to deal with other hypocrites who are upright but have thieves and prostitutes in their stomachs. Qian Qianyi's water is too cool and his scalp is itchy. This is the behavior of a real villain. Li Guodong would rather deal with a real villain than a hypocrite.

It is actually very simple to win over Qian Qianyi at that time. As long as he leads his army to escort Emperor Chongzhen to Jiangnan, he doesn’t need to put a knife on Qian Qianyi’s neck. As long as he sees his powerful force and threatens a few words, people like Qian Qianyi will be brought over immediately.

With Qian Qianyi, the signboard of the Donglin Party boss, it will be much easier to use it to deal with other Donglin Party who are unwilling to surrender.

"I have heard of Guodong's deeds in fighting against Jiannu for a long time. When I see him today, I am indeed a hero!" Qian Qianyi naturally knew about Li Guodong's deeds, so he praised him a few words.

"Thank you Mr. Qian for your praise. Li defeated Jiannu, which was pure luck."
Chapter completed!