national surname chiming

Chapter 255

"You are Yuan Shizhong? I have heard of it. You have been a thief for more than two years. Since you have traveled between Gui and Bo, you should have heard of the name of this general."

In the Yamen of Zhecheng County, when Huang Degong first met Yuan Shizhong, of course he would not put on the posture of a virtuous corporal, but had a tough face and spoke arrogantly.

This is also in line with his personality. He is a fierce and reckless warrior, and he is not good at thinking about people.

The ghost knows whether this Yuan Shizhong really surrendered; or because Zhecheng County was destroyed and the way back was cut off, he had no choice but to surrender for the time being; or it was purely a false surrender!
So when Yuan Shizhong first sent someone to contact him, Huang Degong didn't believe it at all, and even made a condition that if Yuan Shizhong wanted to surrender, he would personally bring a small team of relatives to Zhecheng County for talks.

Unexpectedly, Yuan Shizhong just hesitated for a while, and he still gritted his teeth. Sure enough, he only brought about 100 cavalry guards, and the remaining [-] bandit soldiers stayed in Luyi County without moving.

After showing such sincerity, Huang Degong was willing to see him, because of the scene just now.

In Huang Degong's view, among the many rogue chieftains who had surrendered before, few of them dared to come and be controlled by the officers and soldiers.Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and Luo Rucai repeatedly surrendered several times, all of which demanded to retain the establishment and demarcate the land for self-defense.

Yuan Shizhong was not afraid of being trapped and killed by the officers and soldiers, it seemed that he was a little sincere.

And Yuan Shizhong was under the low eaves at the moment, so of course he had to be more humble, even if he didn't think so in his heart, he had to pretend.Facing Huang Degong's arrogance, he was also careful:

"General Huang's prestige, the crime will not be unknown. Back then, the crime was in Puyang, and it was also driven by poverty. It was nothing more than a group of hungry people who could not eat enough. Because they couldn't bear to kill and slaughter the villagers of the county and the government to raise food, plus Puyang There was no danger to defend, so they fled south to Gui and Bo. For more than two years, all our battalions in Henan were also afraid of General Huang, so they dared not take a step into South Zhili, and did not dare to underestimate Fengyang."

Yuan Shizhong is also a man with a rough appearance and Kong Wu, but he speaks so cautiously and as politely as possible, which seems quite strange.

However, Huang Degong is very comfortable with this attitude. Although he doesn't read books, he still knows the basics of observation. After observing, he feels that Yuan Shizhong's surrender should be sincere, but those excuses to justify his previous crimes may not be believed. .

But believe it or not, none of that matters anymore.In the future, how to arrange and use it after Zhao'an is a matter for Shen Futai to worry about, he just cares that the other party is not in danger right now.

Huang Degong paused for a moment, and then ordered: "In this case, you first lead the cavalry under your command, follow me, and act together. As for the rest of your army, let a lieutenant general you trust lead them to go south to Ru Positive.

This general will give you a letter as a token. When you meet the defenders of General Liu Guoneng in Xinyang Prefecture, you should follow his arrangement and accept the arrangement.

General Liu is also a general who turned from darkness to light, and he will accept your surrender for the time being. You should be able to trust him, right?As long as you accept this condition, this general promises to recommend you a guerrilla post in front of Shen Futai.The rest depends on your future criminal performance. "

Huang Degong doesn't want to bring more than 1 people with him. On the one hand, it is difficult to control. If his army incorporates a new army with more troops than he currently has, what if they mutiny, the damage will be comparable to the frontal battlefield It is still troublesome to face more than 1 enemy troops.

Secondly, Huang Degong was surrounded by cavalry, and Yuan Shizhong stayed behind. If he wanted to act in unison, it would slow down his speed.

So the best choice is to divide and conquer, and let Yuan Shizhong follow with all the cavalry force, which can be controlled and keep hostages.

And Yuan Shizhong wanted to prevent himself from being betrayed by his subordinates, and the generals selected to lead the remaining troops south to join Liu Guoneng must also be absolute confidants.Otherwise, if something goes wrong, the selected department will lead the troops to vote for Li Zicheng or Yuan Zongdi again, and Yuan Shizhong will not be able to cry.

Yuan Shizhong felt bitter when he heard this strict request.

But he knew that it was the former thieves leaders who swindled and ruined the credit of the market, and he could only accept such a test if he wanted to surrender sincerely.

Fortunately, the receiver selected by Huang Degong is Liu Guoneng. This Liu Guoneng has also been a thief before, so it should be easier to understand each other.

He also quickly lowered his posture: "Thank you, General Huang, for your recommendation."

Then he said that there were not many cavalry in his troop, at most nearly a thousand, all of them could follow Huang Degong, and the remaining 1 could be taken to Ruyang by his younger brother.

When Huang Degong saw that he was done, a stone fell from his heart, so he simply set up a drink in the Zhecheng County Yamen to appease Yuan Shizhong, and asked him to transfer all the cavalry from Luyuan County as soon as possible.

……

Because of receiving the surrendered army, Huang Degong didn't immediately go to Shangqiu to trouble Yuan Zongdi, but stayed in Zhecheng for another half day, preparing to leave the next day.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to win people's hearts and make friends, he also took the opportunity to learn more about the deep-seated reasons for the opponent's surrender from Yuan Shizhong, plus the military deployment of the Chuangjun in Guide Mansion, including asking Yuan Shizhong to figure out why Yuan Zongdi hadn't withdrawn at this time Retreat to Chen County and seek to rendezvous with the main force of the Chuang army.

Of course, Yuan Shizhong answered all these questions one by one.

In the part of the motivation for surrender at the beginning, he was nothing more than emphasizing Li Zicheng's brutality in Henan again, favoring the people of Shaanxi, but letting the people of Henan be cannon fodder and robbing the local people.

Naturally, the Henan natives had some issues with Li Zicheng, and he also voted for Luo Rucai first, which made him even more unpopular.

When the wine was in full swing, he became bolder and hinted that Huang Degong shouldn't have killed Li Jiyu a few days ago. Li Jiyu is also a native of Henan. He had been a thief for less than three years.

If Huang Degong had been patient at the time, maybe Li Jiyu would have surrendered directly, but now he was directly killed by Huang Degong's sneak attack when he stole Chen county.

Regarding this point, of course Huang Degong would not regret it, so he said carelessly that swords have no eyes, and there is no way to make a surprise attack on the battlefield.

In order to appease him, the only thing he could say was that if Yuan Shizhong performed well, he would persuade Shen Futai and consider assigning the two or three thousand prisoners of the Li Jiyu Department who had been recruited by the officers and soldiers to Yuan Shizhong's leadership.

In addition, Huang Degong also had an in-depth understanding of the "contradictions between some Henan local bandit leaders and Li Zicheng" mentioned by Yuan Shizhong, and learned that the Henan local leaders were quite dissatisfied with Li Zicheng's random killings and looting, thinking that they had killed too many native folks.

This statement made Huang Degong a little surprised, but he didn't think it was wrong.He knew the talent of the thief, and after further questioning, he knew what was going on.

In the "Ming History" of later generations, Yuan Shizhong was written as "a more enlightened and benevolent image among the thieves", and he did not kill the people and did not rob. Make him a good guy.

After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Han officials hoped to create an aura of "the leaders of the peasant army who abandoned the dark and turned to the bright are good, and the leaders of the peasant army who harmed the Han people are the most vicious". Therefore, it is not surprising that there are filter bonuses.

But the problem has to be looked at from both sides. The real world is complicated. Whether it is Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong or Yuan Shizhong, they all have a bloodthirsty side and a cautious side.

It's just that the careful killing of the ancients was often only aimed at the folks in the village. The farther you are from your hometown, the less scruples you have, and the more you will trample on human life with brutal means.

The illiterates in the late Ming Dynasty rarely had any feelings for family and country, only their fathers and fellow villagers.

Even Li Zicheng, in Mizhi County, seldom killed his father and fellow villagers except his enemies.

But when he left Mizhi County, when he was short of food, he could start slaughtering.

If you leave Yan'an Mansion, you can slaughter [-]% of them.

Outside of Shaanxi Province, even half of them can be slaughtered.

When Zhang Xianzhong arrived in Sichuan, there was no need to set a bottom line.

The lower limit of the brutality of each Rogue Chieftain in different regions is very flexible.

A person cannot be simply characterized just because of his level of brutality in a particular location.

Yuan Shizhong and Li Jiyu did slaughter much less than Li Zicheng in Henan, and looted much less. This is an iron fact.

But the motives, later generations don't know, maybe they are from Henan, and this will also play a considerable role.

When it came to Yuan Shizhong specifically, he vowed that when he raised troops in his hometown in Puyang, he would only kill the enemies of the government and not harm the folks.But that year there were many disasters, and after killing the government and not paying taxes, it was still not enough to eat, so they had to be robbed.

What about eating?
The sky and the earth are as big as the bottom line of ethics, morals and laws is not as big as the survival instinct.

When the Malthusian trap came, the essence was that this piece of land could no longer support so many people, and half of them had to die.

The natural law on the prairie, the number of wolves and sheep has a growth and decline curve, can there be moral right or wrong?
Yuan Shizhong had no choice but to cross Jishui to the south to kill and plunder in Guide Mansion, so that at least he would not kill his fellow villagers in the same prefecture and county.

Beggar-thy-neighbor, killing outsiders, the level of softness suddenly dropped a step.

As for later generations saying that Li Zicheng "crowded the king and didn't pay the food"... Please, it was in March 16 years after Chongzhen in history, he had already won the Kaifeng mansion, and he started to do so after he had a sense of base area.

Before that, there was no grounded consciousness at all (even if you want to have this kind of consciousness, you can't stand firm, because you can't beat the officers and soldiers), how could it be possible to be non-violent.

Since ancient times, thieves are more brutal than thieves, this is the iron law.

Sitting thieves need bases, and they can't slaughter bases and things that belong to them.If there is no basis for awareness, killing is not killing one's own people, why not kill.

Huang Degong roughly figured out the reason why Yuan Shizhong was not so brutal in the local area, and he couldn't understand the essence of Li Zicheng's brutality, the core of the contradiction, and he was a little more confident in reusing these Henan local thieves and thieves.

As for these considerations and the retelling of the confession, he will of course ask his staff to write them into the letters to Shen Futai and Liu Guoneng in the future, so that they can understand more when accepting people, and reduce the conflicts in the running-in process. risk.

After thinking about this, it seems that the small group of rogue generals in Henan who voted for Luo Rucai before and were used as cannon fodder by Li Zicheng, and at the same time were dissatisfied with Li Zicheng's massacre of their fellow villagers, all fell apart. possibility.

This piece of information is very important, and it will have a considerable impact on the subsequent decisive battle with Li Zicheng.If it is used well, even if it doesn't attract more people, it can at least deepen Li Zicheng's internal suspicions.

He was even more afraid to use Henan people to fight Shen Shuren, for fear of partial rebellion.

……

After thoroughly understanding the relevant situation, the last part of value that Huang Degong tried to extract from Yuan Shizhong was Chuangjun's recent military deployment information.

After all, Yuan Shizhong has just arrived, so he must know a lot of secrets from the friendly army.

After Huang Degong asked about some surrounding elements, he focused on one key point: "Yuan Guerrilla, you said that Yuan Zongdi was sent by the intruders to Guide Mansion for food. two days,

Li Zicheng should have sent the news that Shen Futai arrived in Chen County and Yuan Zongdi needed to concentrate his troops to Chen County to participate in the decisive battle. Why is Yuan Zongdi still besieging the city under the city of Shangqiu?Could it be that he wants to betray Li Zicheng? "

To this question, Yuan Shizhong really wanted to take the opportunity to express his loyalty and give a detailed answer, but he was not capable enough, and he couldn't tell a profound truth, so he could only speculate:

"The last general is not very clear about this, but before the final return, he also received the last piece of information from the intruder's messenger, which said that all the generals in Guide Mansion should go all out to assist in the battle against Shangqiu. .

There is intelligence that King Lu, King Sifu, and King Sizhao who fled from Huaiqing, Weihui and other places two months ago may all be in Shangqiu City.Ask Yuan Zongdi to try to kill the above-mentioned kings, and then give Shen Shuren the crime of falling into the vassal. "

Huang Degong was shocked when he heard the words: "What? King Lu, King Fu, and King Zhao are actually in Shangqiu City? Why don't I know? The court has never heard of it. How could Li Zicheng find out?"

Yuan Shizhong also couldn't explain: "This point is not clear to the general. The general can only tell what the intruder conveyed. General Huang didn't believe it. The messenger of the intruder was tied up by the general and sent along with him. Huang The general can personally torture and interrogate."

Huang Degong's thoughts turned, and several motives had already flashed through: no matter whether King Fu and Lu were in Shangqiu City or not, he had already planned to hold Yuan Zongdi back.Therefore, no matter whether the kings are present or not, it does not affect their decision-making.

If it is, then the credit for rescuing Shangqiu will be even greater, and it will also save Shen Shuren from being convicted, which will serve multiple purposes.So in any case, Shangqiu's rescue is a decision.

The effect of finding out the truth is nothing more than strengthening one's decision-making and determination.

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PS: There are two updates today, and there will be a second update before [-] pm, so the number of words in the first update does not need to be too many.

I also feel that this chapter did not advance the plot very much, and I am really embarrassed to stop after only four to five thousand words in a day.However, a new character hastily and forcibly appeared at the end of the last chapter, so I still have to flashback the cause and effect.

In addition, it is impossible to explain or analyze some, lest Li Zicheng fans and Zhang Xianzhong fans say that I am the leader of the black peasant army.Because as long as it is written that "a certain peasant army leader is not as brutal as Li Zicheng", even if it is a historical fact, such remarks will definitely come out.

Let’s have a bowl of water. I didn’t say that the leaders of the peasant army who surrendered to the imperial court had higher morals than those who didn’t. I think it’s just that the ancient illiterates left their hometowns, and the level of brutality would increase.

You can also assume that if Yuan Shizhong went to Shaanxi, he would kill people more ruthlessly than when Li Zicheng came to Henan.But didn't Yuan Shizhong fail to go to Shaanxi all his life, so this hypothesis cannot be verified.

(End of this chapter)