The negotiations between the officers of the General Banner and the villagers went very smoothly. After only a few words, the villagers agreed to arrange for the young wife, the eldest girl and the widow to meet the military households and hold a blind date for the young wife, the older girl and the widow in the village to have a blind date.

Li Guodong had been here before, and the villagers were very awe of the majestic Wuweibo at first, but later they found that this uncle was approachable and his soldiers were not as fierce as other Ming troops, so they no longer resisted those who were in the army. After all, the local villagers were harmed by the thief general and Zhang Xianzhong in turn. In their eyes, there was no difference between soldiers and bandits, and even soldiers were even more vicious than bandits.

After Li Guodong came to the village in person with a group of people who didn't take him at night, the villagers' impression of these soldiers completely changed. These elite people helped the villagers chop firewood and fetch water at night, and took out candy to give it to the children. The military doctor also prescribed medicine for the elderly who were bedridden. When did the people have seen such an army? Naturally, they agreed and were willing to accept Li Guodong's proposal, matched the villagers and the military households, demolished the village and rebuilt the military fort.

When Li Guodong left the village, many villagers even wanted to give their little girls to Li Guodong as maids. After all, the villagers knew that being maids for wealthy families would definitely be better than living in their own homes, and they might even get some monthly money back to subsidize their household income.

In the end, Li Guodong only accepted two girls who looked particularly poor in his family, and then gave them twenty taels of silver as a family, treating them as buying their daughter. The price of twenty taels of silver was very high in those days. In some places where the disaster occurred in the north, it was good that a living girl could exchange for two buns.

The other villagers' requests were rejected by Li Guodong. He said to the villagers: "Dear fellow villagers, please believe me, your good days are coming soon, there is really no need to sell your children. The young men under Benben's command are all good boys. If you marry them, you can live a good life."

The negotiations between the general flag officers and villagers ended, and a blind date began the next day.

The blind date meeting began. Based on the premise of Li Guodong's proposal: freedom of love and respecting the opinions of both men and women, the woman will first start to choose, find the person she has a crush on, and then the man will choose. Both of them have a crush on each other, so they are paired up to get married.

After a whole day of blind dates, Bai Zhengming and Tao Kairan were still bachelors. Tao Kairan took the initiative to be bachelors. He rejected several young wives who fell in love with him, the eldest girl, the young widows, because he could not let go of his wife and children who were kidnapped by Jiannu. As for Bai Zhengming, no woman fell in love with him at all, so he was left again, who was old and ugly.

Lin Miao, the officer of the General Banner, is the happiest. He is only in his early twenties and is handsome. He is also an officer of the General Banner. There are more than a dozen families who are willing to follow him. In the end, he chose a girl who looks sloppy and dirty but has a pair of bright eyes as his wife. He also took two girls as maids. He asked his new wife to take a bath and found that she was still a pretty girl. She was malnourished and pale and thin, and didn't look very good. If she had been well-behaved for a few years, she would be considered a little beauty.

Among the women, Cai did not find her husband. It was not that no one liked her, but that she was unwilling to choose. In the end, the eldest girl, the young wife and the young widow picked men, and she was the only one left. Bai Zhengming liked her, but she was rejected by her.

On the seventh day of the seventh month of the 16th year of Chongzhen, which is also called the Qiqiao Festival, the newly arrived military households within a radius of dozens of miles outside Wuchang City held a grand group wedding with local women and girls. Fifty-two military offices around them held a collective wedding at the same time. The scene was huge, and the Wuchang area was very lively. Starting from outside Wuchang City to the various villages below, there were gongs and drums, firecrackers roaring, and couples of newlyweds wore red and flowers, preparing to hold the wedding.

"Brothers, today is a happy day for the brothers under our command. Let's go down and have a walk." Early in the morning, Li Guodong called Han Dashan, Zhang Wei and other generals, as well as his own night-blocking, and arranged for everyone to attend the group wedding.

Almost every officer above the guerrilla general was assigned to a village to represent Li Guodong to attend the group wedding of his brothers. Li Guodong himself took the hammer and more than a dozen close-fitting elites to Chenjiawan, which is Tao Kairan and others' village.

In later generations, this village was no longer by the lake, but in this era, there were lakes outside the village.

Before Li Guodong and others entered the village, they heard the sound of gongs and drums and firecrackers from afar. Looking around, they saw that the village was covered with red and green, with lights and colorful decorations, and a lively scene.

"Brother!" The guards who were watching at the door saw Li Guodong and his group coming, and hurried forward to salute.

"Hahaha, today is a great day. I will come to your military office to have a free meal." Li Guodong said with a smile.

"Master, please come in and ask!" the guard bent down and said.

"You just stay here and keep watch. Although today is a happy day for all brothers, you cannot relax your vigilance. We must be careful. What if the thief general still offers a thief to attack. Can open and secret whistles be arranged?" Li Guodong asked.

"Your Majesty, all the arrangements have been made. If a thief attacks, we will send an alarm signal as soon as possible." The sentry replied.

"Good job!" Li Guodong nodded. In fact, he was not afraid of Zuo Liangyu or Zhang Xianzhong's sneak attack. Before the military fort was completed, Li Guodong's main army stayed in Wuchang City. His night-de-stop and light cavalry were spread out from all directions. Li Guodong's navy was alert on rivers and lakes. It can be said that the surrounding area of ​​Wuchang was very strict, and neither Zhang Xianzhong nor Zuo Liangyu had any chance to attack on a large scale.

The reason why they did not relax their vigilance was that they were worried that Zuo Liangyu or Zhang Xianzhong would send a small group of troops to smear as ordinary people to infiltrate in order to destroy. Although they knew that they were so capable, Li Guodong was always cautious in his work and would not leave any loopholes for others to catch.

As soon as Li Guodong and his group walked to the entrance of the village, they heard a sing in it: "Brother is here!"

The military households and local people who were busy preparing for the wedding banquet turned around and saw Li Guodong and his group coming over, and people knelt down and saluted.

"Everyone, get up. Today I am here for free for you. You don't have to see you." Li Guodong made a gesture of helping him and laughed.

"If you don't know, it's my honor to come to our village with a favorable face," Lin Miao hurriedly saluted, "Brother, the food here today is also prepared by you for your subordinates. When you come to eat your own food, how can you order free meals? But the chefs here are crude, and I'm afraid the dishes will not be attracted to your good eyes."

Li Guodong laughed: "What's the matter? When we were outside the border, we didn't even have a cook. It was Ben's own to roast lamb."

In the village, the military households and villagers were busy killing pigs and sheep, some were killing fish and scraping phosphorus, and some were washing vegetables and preparing ingredients. In fact, such weddings were no different from typical farm weddings. They were stewed in large pots and steamed vegetables in large steamers. After the food was prepared, they were put into a big bowl and served on the table. The pigs and sheep here were all sent to them by Li Guodong, and the grain flour and various seasonings were also bought by Li Guodong for silver. Only fish, shrimp and vegetables were harvested by local villagers themselves. For this grand wedding of the military households, Li Guodong paid tens of thousands of taels of silver to hold a group wedding for more than 10,000 people.
Chapter completed!