stubborn thief

Chapter 278 Sifang Monument

Chongzhen four years September 24th.

Under the majestic snow-capped mountains, the two rode their horses from the vast grassland to the south.

The leader of the team is 26 and seven years old, and his name is Mo Chengli.

He is from Haibao, Weizhen, Xining, and the locals are all frontier soldiers, and he is no exception. Among his distant relatives, there is an uncle named Mo Yujing, who is an officer of the Lutang Camp in Jingluwei, Gansu Province.

Mo Chengli had been a frontier soldier in Zhenhai Fort for several years. He originally wanted to change his fate to become a scholar and go to work for his uncle Mo Yujing, but during this period of time, the situation in Xining changed greatly.

The arrival of the lion army made everyone in the local area feel insecure. No matter how big the clan was, could it still be bigger than the chieftain?Even the chieftain bowed his head to the Qinghai comfort envoy under the temptation of real money. In Xiningwei's one-acre three-point land, what else can skip Liu Chengzong.

In order to protect the safety of the clan in the local area, Mo Chengli, who was admitted as a scholar, gave up his plan to join his uncle and defected to Liu Chengzu, the commander of the Xining Guard.

Liu Chengzu loves talent very much, especially this kind of young, powerful and educated scholar soldier. After staying with him for two months, he gave him a mission to send a letter to Liu Chengzong in Kangning Mansion. If Liu Chengzong needs it, Just stay around and help.

This journey is not easy, and Mo Chengli is accompanied by a guide named Du Mao.

Du Mao is an old scholar who failed to pass the Juren exam four times. He is a ruthless character who refuses to accept his fate. In his early years, he found that he did not have the fate to be a Juren. A lot of skins were all robbed by horse bandits on the way back, and they lost their bare buttocks, so they became teachers in Zhenhaiying.

The two of them rode two horses and two mules. They rode for twenty days on the road. They walked on the right road. They encountered lion soldiers who were driving stone piles along the road from south to north in the territory of Yushu Baihu.

The Lion Soldier said that it was ordered by the Generalissimo to start from Nangqian and lay down a square stone tablet along the road to the north. On the stone tablet they saw at that time, it was written 290 miles away from Nangqian to the north.

From Nangqian to the north, although the chieftains from all over the country were forced to leave, they still had their territories. Therefore, the lion soldiers asked the nobles from all over the place to ask for these four steles. When they went to this place, the nobles in the next place were ready to play the stele and put down the stele. Then the stonemason who carried it carved the lettering on the spot.

Because the road is uneven and twists and turns, the distance is measured by these lion soldiers on horseback. They carry a few wooden stakes and a few ropes [-] steps long, and lay them along the road. Knee-high boulders.

After walking ten miles, a waist-high stone pile is laid, and after a hundred miles, a stone pile as high as a person is laid.

According to the lion soldiers who completed this mission, these steles were set up to facilitate corvees, count money, and set up paving stations.

They have to drive the stone piles all the way to Juerwan, and then carve back from Juerwan side by side. The only difference is that from north to south, they look at the north side of the stone piles; It is the south side of the stone pile.

In the future, the direction and distance of the roads connecting the east and west sides will be engraved, so it is called the Grand Marshal Square Monument.

However, this job cannot be finished this year. The weather has turned cold and the ground is frozen. The progress is getting slower and slower. It may take two or three months to arrive at Jurwan in the spring of next year. It is expected to be completed in August next year.

But as long as this work is done, there will be no delay in setting up courier shops and post stations along the way.

Du Mao led Mo Chengli to Nangqian and everyone was dumbfounded. This place has changed too much. The Genbeng Temple, which was full of people in the past, has disappeared without a trace, leaving only the remains of a large pillar. He thought it was demolished by Liu Chengzong After asking, I found out that the army named Dunyue Duoji burned it.

Near the manor on the Zhaqu River, several large villages have formed, and in the middle of the large villages are wandering begging monks.

I asked the lion soldiers on duty, and they said that these monks came from other places to join King Nangqian, and their temples were destroyed in the war of King Baili.

But after the Genbang Temple was burned, due to the prophecy of the eminent monks who built the temple hundreds of years ago, the temple would not be rebuilt, and the surrounding temples were destroyed by the war, and they lost their livelihood.

To put it bluntly, monks with higher status would not and would not dare to defect to this place. Those people used to have property outside, accumulated a lot of wealth, and fled elsewhere long before the war came.

So the monks gathered in Nangqian are all poor people from poor families. They used to do odd jobs in the monastery to earn a living. Many of them lost their homes and had nowhere to go.

"They all flocked to Nangqian when they heard that the general was allocating land to slaves." The artillery stationed in Nangqian sat on a wooden box containing shells and looked at the monk begging in the distance with a complex expression: " But it’s not their turn to divide, so there’s no way to talk about it.”

"Why can't you say it?" Mo Chengli crossed his arms and asked, "I heard in Xining that the commander-in-chief wants to turn slaves into civilians, and they suffer from hard labor in the temple, so they are no different from slaves, right? "

The artilleryman shook his head and looked at the soldier who spoke to him: "The commander-in-chief likes slaves, not monks, talented people, and trash."

Mo Chengli understood, the artilleryman spoke quite philosophically.

Useful slaves, useful monks, and useless slaves can all benefit from the Marshal.

These monks are very unfortunate, and at the same time they have two traits that the Marshal doesn't like.

Mo Feili sighed. In the farmland not far away, crowds of slaves followed the officials to divide the ownership of the land. Yang Dingrui stood in the line with an interpreter, shouting a few words from time to time, Sometimes it will be exchanged for cheers, and sometimes it will be exchanged for silence.

To be precise, these people are no longer slaves, they are soldiers who followed Basang to the east, even if they just walked from one territory to another, it greatly expanded their experience.

Especially after conquering aristocratic manors and ascending the three-story buildings that the aristocrats never let them see in the past, they all had desires after seeing those rare and rare treasures they had never seen or heard before.

With the help of the soldiers' great enthusiasm for the division of land, Yang Dingrui was able to publicize the laws and regulations he established among them.

Yang Dingrui's regulations were originally written very lengthy, with 380 laws and regulations, and more than 4000 words were written at the beginning of a single chapter, describing Liu Chengzong's immeasurable merits in expelling the powerful and punishing the people.

After the inspection of Baizha Saltworks, it was changed to Article 490. Many nobles gathered in Nangqian, and everyone agreed to implement it. Fortunately, at this time, Liu Chengzong asked him to ask the attitude of the slaves.

There was no response at all, the slaves couldn't understand, even with a translator, it was difficult to understand, so he used a "stupid" method, stood with Chen Shifo among the slaves and read the regulations, depending on the slave's response attitude, to decide Removal, retention, and modification of legal provisions.

For Yang Dingrui, there is enough time and opportunity to amend this legal provision, whether it is to distribute land or distribute food.

Among the seven counties in Kangning Prefecture, other places are doing well, but Nangqian County has experienced a long war, and this year's fields have basically failed. In those places where there are no nobles, the government needs to gather refugees and open porridge factories and tsampa shop.

Although the Lions don’t have much food reserves, there are not many refugees here, and they are very food-saving. A person only needs to prepare two tsampa a day, and they can survive the winter while satisfying the happiness index.

This amount of food is twice that of when they were under the nobles in the past, and it is basically equivalent to half of a soldier's breakfast in the Lion Army.

It's not that Liu Chengzong didn't want them to eat better. The tsampa he handed out was not bad with a little ghee, a little salt and sugar added.

At the beginning, Liu Chengzong asked people to add cooked minced meat to it. As a result, hundreds of refugees had stomach problems at the same time, and even one person who was already sick, died of stomach problems.

The occurrence of this incident made Liu Chengzong feel guilty, and it also greatly impacted his thoughts.

At first he thought that serfs were people of low status, but later he believed that serfs had the same status as livestock.

Later, he realized that yaks can eat grass and bask in the sun, horses can eat salt bricks, dogs can enter the house and eat meat, but serfs can't, they can only work hard day and night.

Nothing can be taken away but shadows, nothing can be left behind but footprints.

When Mo Chengli and Du Mao arrived at Zhaqu Manor, they waited for a long time until dark before seeing the excited Liu Chengzong and Chengyun returning hand in hand.

The two of them went to watch Huang Shengxiao's camp exercises, and inspected Huang Shengxiao's new cannon by the way.

As early as when he was stationed in Nangsuoqian Mo Palace, Liu Chengzong was afraid that Huang Shengxiao would be too busy, so he arranged for him to collect copper materials to cast lion cannons, but the casting technology was not good enough, and the cast cannons were not suitable for use.

Later, Huang Shengxiao led local craftsmen to forge a six-rod, three-foot short-barreled blunderbuss... He actually made it on the scale of a hundred rods, but the skills of the blacksmiths here are too difficult to describe.

Served by the slave owner's whip, even forging an iron spearhead could deflect it, let alone Huang Shengxiao didn't have a whip.

The coiled pipe welding process is so simple that it can't be simpler. It becomes very complicated here, and the craftsmen who need it can do it. When pipes are made, pipes are made, and forging welding is forged welding. There is no problem in the steps. Crooked.

On the contrary, the craftsmen are very skilled in processing small copper and iron parts such as gun machines and faucet rods, and can make very good precision parts.

It took Huang Shengxiao a long time to understand the reason...Because of the language barrier, the craftsmen still maintained their long-standing habit of working as servants, making weapons that can be used as long as they don't need to spend too much effort, since they are still used by slaves.

As for those small accessories, craftsmen think they are jewelry needed by nobles. If they don't pay attention to it, they may be punished, so they keep improving.

After figuring out the reason, Huang Shengxiao had enough confidence to lead craftsmen to build muskets, but he wanted to try to make guns again, but this time he failed completely. Irvine is also in more than a little trouble.

Let alone here, even if the ready-made gun is placed next to it, there is no way to make it exactly the same.

But casting cannons is different. Huang Shengxiao was able to cast cannons from the very beginning, but he couldn't cast lion cannons.

The manufacturing process of the lion cannon is no different from other cannons, but the requirements on the size rules are extremely strict. Huang Shengxiao doesn't know the modulus, so he can only order the craftsmen to make exactly the same ones.

This is difficult for craftsmen.

Because the lion cannon is a bit big, although the lion cannon is small in size among the artillery that Liu Chengzong has seen, it is a bit big for the level of casting here.

The more experienced craftsmen are those objects that are about the same size as the Buddhas commonly used by nobles.

Later, based on the craftsmen's experience in casting small objects, Huang Shengxiao used his brains to design a Hongyi-style Pearl Cannon that weighed [-] catties and hit nine taels of iron bullets, using the Lion Cannon as a model and shrinking it year-on-year.

He believes that this kind of gun is suitable for the offense and defense of the narrow mountain fort in Kangning Prefecture. Soldiers can carry it on the mountain, and can also be used as a defensive device in the mountain road or in the mountain fort.

Huang Shengxiao didn't dare to cast more, and only cast 24 guns to replace the unusable wooden cannons for the [-] troops stationed at Nangsuo Qianmo Palace and the Zhaqu River.

Liu Chengzong thinks this gun is very good, and the name is simple.

There is no need for big lions and small lions, this thing is a lynx grandson, a bobcat cannon.

From these cannons, Liu Chengzong saw that Huang Shengxiao still wanted to fight.

The lion cannons transported up the mountain fortress are enough to defend the city. Just lock the small platform of Qianmo Palace. The four lion cannons can be fired alternately to prevent the heavenly soldiers and generals from coming up. The best use of this cannon is not to defend the fort. And the advantage is to attack the mountain.

However, there is no battle to fight here, unless they are frustrated in entering Tibet, they may need a little help from the rear to pull out a line of defense.

In the war to enter Tibet, Liu Chengzong didn't plan to make a big effort... He made a big effort, even if he didn't want to pay back, his subordinates still need to pay back, so can you spit out what you eat in the lion's stomach?
At that time, if you want a territory again, you may have to go to India to find it.

Of course, this is not a bad thing. It is good to say that it is really good to go to India. The key point is that Liu Chengzong may not be able to come out in this life after entering Tibet. It is very difficult for the Lion Army to resist the temptation of becoming a slave owner in Kham. They are far away from Shaanxi. further and further.

But Mo Chengli's arrival and his brother's letter brought Liu Chengzong's mood back to Shaanxi.

Liu Chengzu sent two letters, a short letter about Mo Chengli's situation, and another long letter explaining the recent changes in Xiningwei.

To be precise, what is mentioned in the long letter is the policy change of the imperial court.

At the beginning of Emperor Chongzhen's ascension to the throne, in view of Wei Zhongxian's affairs, he withdrew all the guarding officials. , the admiral supervised the military administration of the Beijing camp and supervised the military pay of all sides.

Xining is also under surveillance.

Liu Chengzu said in the letter that when he sent this letter, the imperial court's order had been issued, and an eunuch surnamed Zhang set off from the capital to Xining to monitor the tea horses.

Holding the letter, Liu Chengzong calculated the route in his mind. It would take about 22 days to travel from the capital to Xining. Because the road facilities are perfect, it is even a few days faster than Mo Chengli to Nangqian.

It's late, the eunuch Zhang should have arrived in Xining by now, and according to the personality of the elder brother, he probably wouldn't do something like robbing and killing the envoy halfway.

Liu Chengzong asked Mo Chengli and Mo Chengli to find a place to sit down first, and wrote a letter by himself. Not only did he send it to his brother, he also wrote a letter to Li Wanqing, Liu Guoneng and others, reminding them to pay attention to safety and defense.

In addition, he asked his elder brother to send someone to tell the eunuch to come to Nangqian to see him.

He took a deep breath, tilted his head and scratched his neck. He never expected that after Cao Huachun, there would still be eunuchs who would dare to come to Xining?
　good morning!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)