stubborn thief

Plague is present.

The two camps moved to Tongguan, which made Liu Shizi of Xianyang even more irritable.

He wished he could pluck out his eyeballs and let a vulture fly them over Tongguan to stare at the situation there with his own eyes.

But the main force of the marshal's army moved eastward, and there were people in Xi'an who were more nervous than him.

This person is Chen Qiuyu who is hiding in the city.

Ever since Wei Qian'er occupied the outskirts of Xi'an, he was worried about whether there were more or less besieging troops outside the city.

There was no way around it. There were nearly three flag troops stationed in the city of Xi'an, and they couldn't get enough food for the winter. He hoped that Liu Chengzong would attack the city quickly. The longer the siege dragged on, the more detrimental it would be to the Ming army in the city.

However, Liu Chengzong's movements seemed to Chen Qiyu like sleepwalking.

One moment, a Xianyang banquet was held for the gentry of Xi'an Prefecture, the next moment, supplies were collected from various places, and the next moment, cannons were cast and medicine transported. In short, they were doing everything but not attacking the city.

The number of troops besieging the city was sometimes small, sometimes large, and sometimes small again.

First, Wei Qian'er occupied the countryside with a large camp.

Then several battalions came close to the city. The half-armored cavalry looked like well-trained soldiers and generals. However, after a while of garrisoning, five thousand troops were transferred to the east.

After two days, another five thousand were transferred to the east.

Not a single battle was fought, and the siege outside the city seemed to be about to be withdrawn. Although the trenches for the siege were still being dug, the number of people making cannons was reduced by 60%, let alone the besieging army.

Chen Qiyu didn't have many channels to communicate with the outside world. The situation in Xi'an and even Shaanxi was basically a matter of guessing.

His mind was about to explode, and he didn't understand what interesting things there were in the east?

There were ten thousand cavalrymen carrying cannons and even rocket cars. There were also small boats and sheepskin and cowhide rafts from the north and south of the Wei River transporting supplies.

Chen Qiyu's biggest guess is that the emperor sent another army to attack Tongguan.

To be honest, he was initially hesitant about this conjecture that flashed through his mind. It was not until Liu Chengzong sent someone to shout outside the city that there was a plague in the east that he was sure that the emperor must have sent more troops!

Who hasn’t seen the plague these days?

Even if you are really ignorant, you have heard about the plague.

Not to mention that Chen Qiyu is from Shanxi. Shanxi has complex terrain, is close to the outside of the Great Wall, and has severely damaged ecological environment. Even if the weather is good, there will basically be a plague in ten or twenty years.

After Wanli came to power, the grassroots level of the Ming Dynasty entered an era of anarchy. Water conservancy was in disrepair, deforestation and mining were indiscriminate, and the frequency of plagues increased sharply.

Specifically, during the forty-eight years of Wanli's reign, there were nineteen plagues in Shanxi.

When Chen Qiyu was twenty years old, diphtheria occurred in his hometown. In the Ming Dynasty, it was called laryngeal paralysis, and it was extremely contagious.

From September to February of the following year, eighty-nine out of ten households in Taiyuan City were infected with the disease, and sixty-seven out of ten people were infected. They would die within a day or two of being infected. Even the Jin people in the royal city were infected. The king is dead.

Therefore, he had a deep understanding of the plague and could easily conclude that the so-called plague must be Liu Chengzong's delaying strategy.

To put it simply, it is a lie.

Because in the face of the plague, the most normal approach is to take precautions.

To take precautions, it is better to disperse than to gather together, to avoid contact with relatives and friends, not to ask about illness, and not to hang oneself in death.

The military is undoubtedly the form of organization that humans value gathering most.

Without organization, there is no army.

In ancient times, most plagues were brought by the army.

Therefore, in fact, not only were the army unable to contain the plague, they were more vulnerable to the plague than ordinary people in the city.

For the people in the countryside, if there had not been wars and wars, and with the transportation environment and population mobility of this era, the plague would not have been so terrifying.

Even if there is really a plague in the east, what's the use of Liu Chengzong's two battalions rushing towards it.

The God of Plague is not afraid of your iron horse, sword and gun.

Even if Chen Qiyu wanted to break his head, he could not figure out that all this was because Zhang Eryou, the commander of Tongguan Guard, used the plague to intimidate the marshal's army.

However, in the Marshal's Army, except for the general who cherishes his life, the rest from top to bottom are full of short-lived ghosts who are obsessed with everything. Not only do they not accept this trick, they even become fearful and pay back everything tenfold.

In the end, Liu Chengzong's passive skill as the orthodox Ming army during the Chongzhen period was triggered, and the gourd boy saved his grandfather.

This misjudgment of the situation made Chen Qiyu frantically want to contact the outside world, and he quickly took action.

On the second night after Zhang Tianlin led his army to leave Xi'an Fucheng, Xi'an City formed five hundred-man teams to go out of the city as ghost soldiers to cut down the camp.

There was also a suicide squad, which carried no letters or tokens, memorized all Chen Qiyu's requirements, took advantage of the chaos, rushed out of the siege camp, and sent messages to various states and counties.

That happened to be the time when the siege camp of the marshal's army was at its most relaxed. Liu Chengzong was still outside the city, but he was planning to leave for Xianyang the next day to collect supplies. Wang Wenxiu, who was in charge of the siege, listened to Liu Chengzong's talk about the siege for half the night in the marshal's tent. Key points, preparedness for the plague, that sort of thing.

When the Ming army's ghost soldiers came out of the city and started beating them up, Liu Chengzong and Wang Wenxiu didn't take it seriously, and even laughed a little in their hearts.

As for ghost soldiers, the marshal's army is very familiar with them. As long as they are prepared and can't catch them by surprise, they will die as many as they attack.

They even captured a few soldiers who were delivering messages for Chen Qiyu, but they did not have any tokens or letters with them. They just said that they could not stand the siege and took the opportunity to surrender, so they were assigned to serve as auxiliary soldiers under the Hundred Corps.

But someone still took advantage of the chaos and jumped into the Wei River, hiding in Tibet all the way, and delivered Chen Qiyu's message to its destination, Hancheng.

The magistrate of Hancheng County was named Zuo Maodi. He was a fierce man from Laiyang, Shandong Province, who came from a scholar-bureaucrat family.

The three generations of ancestors, father, uncles, and cousins ​​were all Jinshi, civil and military officials. My uncle was the governor of Dengzhou Guard, and my brother-in-law was a guerrilla general in Dengzhou.

In Shaanxi, everyone knows that he can play well.

In the second year of Chongzhen, Dong Dacheng, the leader of the Lotus Society in Laiyang, raised his troops and five thousand White Lotus followers besieged Laiyang City. Zuo Maodi, who was still a scholar at the time, went to the city to join the battle and fired artillery to meet the enemy. As a result, the artillery was of poor quality and exploded.

Zuo Maodi was injured and was bandaged hurriedly. He changed the cannon and fired again, killing a leader of the Lotus Society.

In the third year of Chongzhen's reign, he passed the provincial examination Yayuan, in the fourth year he passed the Jinshi examination, and in the fifth year he was awarded the title of Magistrate of Hancheng County in Shaanxi Province.

When Zuo Maodi arrived in Hancheng, the rogue bandits came before he could hand over official duties to his predecessor. So on the first day he took office, he began to collect grain and livestock, strengthen the walls and clear the fields, recruit troops, adjust wages, defend rivers, and defend the city.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen's reign, the bandits who were repulsed by his defense ran to the mountains to build a stronghold. Zuo Maodi thought that the bandits were in the mountains and the people would not dare to farm in the suburbs, so he organized the Eleven Minzhuang and led troops into the mountains to suppress them. They were driven out of Hancheng, across the Yellow River, and into Shanxi.

In the sixth year of Chongzhen, Zuo Maodi called on the wealthy gentry to donate money and grain to resume production. The bandits came again. He then supervised his troops and pursued them into the mountains for fifty miles. Finally, they won a battle on the river and defeated the remaining enemies.

In the seventh year of Chongzhen's reign, the bandits came again. He continued to fight in uniform and pursued the victory for 120 miles.

In other words, Ming court generals such as Zuo Liangyu, Deng Qi, and Tang Jiuzhou generally did not dare to go into the mountainous areas to chase down the poor bandits when faced with rogue bandits entering the mountains. When they occasionally entered the mountains, they lost more than they won.

And Zuo Maodi can be like a god of war in Hancheng, on the one hand, he is really capable. On the other hand, on the first day he arrived in Hancheng, he led people to fight against the enemy before handing over official duties, which made him gain unparalleled popularity among the people in Hancheng.

Only with the strong support of the gentry and the brave people obeying orders did they achieve a more powerful cause than many officers and soldiers.

There are four major families in Hancheng: Su, Niu, Xue and Zhang.

The Su family and the Niu family are merchants. The former is a descendant of Su Wu. He ran a pawnshop in his early years and later opened the 'Hehesu' silk and satin shop in Suzhou. The business was booming. Once the war started, tens of thousands of taels of silver were donated to the city.

The latter ran a bank and burned IOUs one by one when the war started.

The ancestors of the Zhang family can be traced back to Zhang Liang, the Marquis of Liuzhou, who ran two Yellow River ferries and a timber business. He had hundreds of rafts and boats, and he used a lot of energy to transport troops quickly and maneuver when suppressing bandits.

As for the Xue family, they were the descendants of Xue Rengui, a family of officials. They had a bit of a disagreement with Zuo Maodi, but they didn't hold anything back.

With money and strength, it was all thanks to the unity of the people that Hancheng, whose city walls were not even covered with bricks, was able to defend every offensive in the past three years.

Earlier, the captain of the Marshal's Mansion went to Hancheng on orders from Liu Chengzong, and Zuo Maodi gave them a Hongmen Banquet at the Suwu Temple outside the city.

He is soft-spoken and hard-hearted, and he says all good things, but his meaning is very obvious. Surrender? No need to talk.

The captain of the Marshal's Mansion went back to call for help, and called Milayin who was stationed in Yaozhou. As soon as the earth city was surrounded, Wei Qian'er discovered the plague.

Milayin reported to the Chinese army. Liu Chengzong evaluated the situation in Hancheng and could not take care of such a small city for the time being. He simply asked Milayin to withdraw from the siege and collect supplies to prepare for the plague.

However, Liu Shishi still wrote a letter to Zuo Maodi.

To be honest, Zuo Maodi was in the yamen in Hancheng. When he heard that Liu Chengzong had written to him, he guessed that he wanted to persuade him to surrender.

At that time, a bunch of curse words popped into his head.

He is a Jinshi, he has read many books, his brain works very fast, and he is very good at swearing.

I just opened the letter and read it, well... Zuo Maodi's mood was a bit complicated.

The Generalissimo never treats others as outsiders when writing letters. He opens his mouth to praise him for his good work in the past few years.

Secondly, he was reminded to clear out the land and survey the population. Both the population and the land should be clarified. Not only should production be restored, but also locust extermination and water conservancy construction should be built.

Then he urged him to continue to train troops and prepare for bandits to prevent the bandits and bandits brought about by the war from disrupting public order. At the same time, he was also urged to guard against the plague in Shanxi and continue to protect the country and the people.

Finally, here comes the weirdest part.

Marshal Liu announced that because of your good work as the magistrate of Hancheng County in Zuomaodi, Hancheng will be exempted from taxes for one year, and the gentry and people who guard the city will be rewarded. If you keep up your efforts, you will be rewarded by the officials for your outstanding achievements.

After Zuo Maodi read the letter, his head was buzzing.

Forget the curse words in his mind, he doesn't even know how to reply.

He thought that there was something seriously wrong with the commander-in-chief's self-perception. He actually urged himself to train troops and prepare for the invaders. Who were the invaders?

And why did he skip the step of attacking Hancheng and unilaterally declare exemption from the tax as a ruler?

Very serious.

Zuo Maodi was so serious that when he read the letter, he also had a huge self-perception bias. He could not say a word, so he could only hand the letter to the four gentry of Hancheng with question marks for circulation.

Everyone looked at each other in shock, feeling extremely mentally polluted by the Generalissimo's crazy words.

Some people accepted Liu Chengzong's setting in a daze.

There are also people, such as a descendant of the Xue family named Xue Xing, who is very resourceful, but he is born with hemianopia, impaired vision, and has a strabismus in one eye, so his appearance is very deviant.

At this time, I saw words that were even weirder than his appearance. I was inspired to have a rebellious gene on the spot. I raised my arms and shouted: "Zuo parents! Whatever Thief Liu asks us to do, we have to confront him! We must not fulfill his wish!"

This is the strangest part of Liu Chengzong's letter.

This letter contains the most correct words from beginning to end. Even the most picky person cannot find out what Liu Chengzong said wrong.

Only, Liu Chengzong’s identity was wrong.

For Zuo Maodi, everything he said was right, so why not listen?

Of course Liu Shizi is not an arrogant maniac like a clown, he just has his own set of war logic.

He really regards Hancheng as his own.

Because the persuasion to surrender has already begun.

Things have priorities. Hancheng is not a battleground like Tongguan. It will not benefit him to waste manpower and material resources to forcibly attack such a city where everyone is united and create hatred between the soldiers and the people.

Liu Chengzong was very reasonable. Zuo Maodi could govern the place well and protect the people, so he had no reason to conquer Hancheng.

This was mainly because the benefits of attacking Hancheng were not great enough. On the other hand, Zuo Maodi did not attack the captain and captain he sent, and it was not to the point of incompatibility.

On the other hand, the most important thing for the Marshal's Mansion right now is to stop the plague and prevent it from spreading in Shaanxi, and the second is to capture the city of Xi'an.

As long as Xi'an Fucheng is occupied, a small town like this that cannot be divided independently will subtly shift from confrontation to cooperation.

The tax is exempted this year and can be taxed next year.

The tax will be exempted next year and can be taxed the year after.

If you don't conscript the next year, the court will transfer you away. If you can't be replaced by someone else, this city will still be mine.

If you, Zuo Maodi, were a super loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty and a dignified Jinshi, you would have been at odds with the seventh-rank official of Hancheng County Magistrate for the rest of your life, and Liu Chengzong wouldn't care.

At worst, when Lord Chongzhen dies, Hancheng will be renamed Ming Dynasty, and he will be granted the title of Prime Minister of Ming Dynasty. The two clans will be regarded as national treasures, and they will be allowed to use the clothes and banners of their motherland.

Not only did he have a good talk, Liu Chengzong missed his motherland, but he could also come to the Hancheng Museum to see the remnants of the previous dynasty.

However, Liu Shizi never expected that his casual move would really make Zuo Maodi shaken when faced with Chen Qiyu's letter calling for him to raise troops.

Chen Qiyu's envoy came to see Zuo Maodi, the county magistrate, with the clear purpose of asking Zuo Maodi to call on the fifteen counties in Weibei to raise troops and take advantage of Liu Chengzong's eastward fighting to relieve the siege of Xi'an.

Zuo Maodi felt very ridiculous.

The Ming Dynasty's heavily armed group was completely defeated in Guanzhong. We, Hancheng's 11th Road Minzhuang Standing Army, had 600 people. Counting the volunteers recruited during the winter months and strong men from the countryside, we could not even form a battalion.

It is already very difficult to protect the country and the people. You want me to take the initiative to send troops to fight with Liu Chengzong in the field?

He thought, Governor Chen doesn’t take me personally either!

The four wealthy families in Hancheng also scorned Chen Qiyu's messengers.

What's the difference between this and the Nine-Headed Insect asking Ben Bo'erba to get rid of Tang Monk and his disciples?

This directly led to a surge in their favorable impression of Liu Shizi.

The same Xue Xing with squinting eyes shook his head and sighed: "Marshal Liu does not know himself and his enemies; Governor Chen knows himself but does not know his enemies. Shaanxi...is in danger!" (End of Chapter)