The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 552 A favor from a meal

"Your Majesty, don't we still have Jiang Liu'er? That fierce tiger is worth dozens of men, so he'd be a better choice. And there's Li Zicheng from the Imperial Guards, who's said to be quite skilled. Last year, he single-handedly killed over a dozen Korean soldiers in Pyongyang."

"As the world around him becomes corrupted. Jiang Liu'er has been tainted by the corruptive spirit of the officialdom. I am very disappointed in him. Unless he can cleanse himself of this filth, he will be useless. As for Li Zicheng, the Imperial Master (Ke Zhen'e) said he was born with a rebellious streak and cannot lead a single force."

"Only Li Dingguo still has a pure heart."

Emperor Wuding put down his teacup and looked at his old subordinate in front of him with a calm expression.

Upon hearing that Li Dingguo was to be recruited to Yinzhou, Wang Zengbin, commander of the Seventh Corps, rushed from Shenyang to Sakhalin Island without stopping. He came to the central military tent and pleaded with the emperor, hoping that someone else could go to the other side of the ocean to take the risk.

"I know that Li Dingguo is your capable subordinate. Can't bear to part with him?"

Wang Zengbin looked embarrassed and didn't know what to say.

"This boy is a skilled fighter. I know he's not ordinary, otherwise why would I have chosen him? Yinzhou is a dangerous place, with enemies to the east and west. To the west are headhunting Indian tribes, and to the east are European bandits who enjoy scalping and drinking human blood. It's a true purgatory. Let Li Dingguo go to Yinzhou to train. If he survives, he'll become the Blade of the Empire in the future."

"But Your Majesty..."

The Emperor waved his hand:
"If you continue to persuade me, you can go in his place. I don't trust anyone else except you."

Wang Zengbin was speechless.

"How's the new recruits' training going? Are you responsible for negotiating with Zheng Chenggong? Have you received the ransom?"

Wang Zengbin replied: "We have recruited another 3,000 cavalrymen, and we estimate that we can keep 700 to 800 of them. As for Zheng Chenggong..."

Wang Zengbin hesitated to speak, his eyes flickering.

"I don't expect the deal to be successful. I'm just using the opportunity of paying the ransom to see Zheng's military equipment and learn to be more cautious."

Emperor Wuding adopted a delaying strategy towards the Zheng family. He neither broke up with them nor released Zheng Zhilong. Instead, he kept demanding a ransom from Fujian, just like an insatiable kidnapper.

Zheng Chenggong didn't care much about his father's life or death.

Seeing that the seller's market turned into a buyer's market, the kidnappers had to lower the ransom again and again, from the initial 2.5 million taels to 150,000 taels, which was even more ruthless than the bargaining of a certain Duoduo in later generations.

However, even if it was 150,000 taels, Zheng Chenggong was unwilling to give it.

"Wu Aheng is blockading Sakhalin Island, so he asked you to negotiate with Zheng Chenggong. After all, war horses run faster than people."

After Emperor Wuding said this, he fell into meditation.

The time traveler was not familiar with the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty. He only knew that Li Dingguo was very powerful. If it were not for Sun Kewang's final obstruction, the two of Li and Sun would probably have been able to recover half of the Ming Dynasty.

Since he traveled through time, he had met at least a thousand celebrities, if not eight hundred. Even Emperor Wanli, who had not attended court for decades, was able to meet Liu Zhaosun.

Therefore, when the name Li Dingguo came into his sight, Liu Zhaosun did not show excessive surprise. He asked Wang Zengbin to come closer and asked carefully what Li Dingguo had been doing during this period.

"Your Majesty, Captain Li is currently trapped in Fujian and I'm afraid he won't be able to return for a while."

Liu Zhaosun was surprised and asked, "What? If he's not in Liaodong, why did Sun Chuanting recommend him?"

Wang Zengbin muttered, "Old Sun said he was Su Wu reincarnated. I believe he will come back."

~~~~~~
Thirty miles east of Shenyang, after passing Qixing Mountain, the rolling hills disappear and a vast wasteland appears. The Seventh Corps (Cavalry Regiment) of the Great Qi Empire is stationed in this wasteland.

In the past two years, there have been constant wars between the north and the south of Da Qi, and the empire's most elite cavalry have been running around like fire captains.

The Seventh Corps sometimes galloped over the Great Wall and appeared in the snow-capped northern fortress, and sometimes drank from the Yangtze River and entered the territory of the Southern Ming Hongguang court.

After eight consecutive years of rapid military expansion, the Seventh Corps has a total strength of more than 20,000, half of whom are elite cavalry, and the remaining more than 10,000 auxiliary soldiers and grooms can be used as reserve cavalry. The Seventh Corps also has its own artillery battalion and engineering battalion. The complete configuration of arms makes up for the disadvantage of cavalry's poor defense of cities.

Overall, the strength of the Seventh Corps is at the upper level among all the corps. Many recruits are honored to be able to join the cavalry regiment when they join the army, but it is not easy to stay in the cavalry regiment.

The recruitment standards of the Seventh Corps are stricter than those of the other ten corps (except the Navy), and are said to be comparable to those of the Imperial Guard - of course, this should be an exaggeration - the cavalry instructors have certain requirements for the recruits' size, weight, and even the voice of their voices.

Regarding the last point, a popular saying in the army is that a rider with an unpleasant accent is likely to scare the horse during battle...
Although some of the statements sound nonsense, it is an indisputable fact that cavalrymen are paid well.

Taking ordinary cavalry as an example, they can receive five taels of silver notes every month, which is twice as much as ordinary combat soldiers.

Furthermore, when cavalrymen returned home from military service and met girls in the garrison, they would be looked upon with respect as long as they revealed their identities. Of course, risks and rewards always coexisted. As a mobile force, the Seventh Corps was constantly on combat readiness, either engaged in combat or on its way to the battlefield.

Not to mention the distant past, since the fourth year of Taichu, the cavalry corps has launched more than 30 attacks, and the cavalry under Wang Zengbin's command can be seen on all fronts in the southeast, northwest, northeast and southwest of Da Qi.

Due to frequent wars, the infantry was stretched thin, and some tasks originally done by the navy (such as going to Fujian to blackmail Zheng Chenggong) were also handed over to the cavalry. At that time, Wu Aheng led the main force of the fleet to clear out the Rakshasas around Sakhalin Island.

In the first month of the fourth year of Taichu, Zheng Chenggong, the general of Fujian and the prince's tutor, decisively rejected the kidnappers who came from thousands of miles away to collect the debt. Not only did he not pay the ransom (Zheng Zhilong was still under house arrest in Da Qi), he also killed all the men brought by Li Dingguo.

At the Xiamen General's Mansion, the pirate leader pointed at the young Li Dingguo and shouted loudly.

Whether Zheng Zhilong is dead or alive in Liaodong has nothing to do with the Zheng family, because this despicable villain who betrayed the Ming Dynasty has been removed from the Zheng family genealogy and is no longer one of them.

"Seize the horses and remove the armor! Give them a good beating and send them back! Go back and tell Liu Zhaosun to give up this idea and stop sending people to die! Also, if any merchant ships from Qi dare to come to Fujian or Zhejiang to do business, we will rob them every time we see them!"

The servants rushed forward and beat Li Dingguo with punches and kicks until he fell to the ground unable to move, and then they left satisfied.

~~~~
This man, with a relaxed appearance, holding a sword and wearing a tattered uniform, still looks like a soldier even though he is barefoot.

He walked slowly.

In Fujian, no one was waiting for him, and the same was true in Jiangxi.

If his parents still remembered him, they might think he was still alive, or they might think he was dead, because there was no news that he was still alive.

He remembered that his parents had died many years ago.

It was a sunny day, it hadn't rained, the jungle was full of flowers, and the birds were singing non-stop.

Li Dingguo wiped the blood off his face, put away his sword, and dressed in tattered clothes, looking more like a beggar. He walked north, begging along the way, passed Gexian Mountain, and entered Jiangxi Province.

The weather was cold, the moon was dim, and a pine forest and sandy land appeared under the moonlight.

Li Dingguo walked for a long time on the rugged mountain road with a knife in his waist. At dawn, he hid in the shadow of several trees.

Two bandit-like men came over and tried to rob him. Even though he repeatedly shouted that he had no money and was a poor man, the bandits refused to give up.

In desperation, Li Dingguo had to kill one of them with a knife.

Although Li Dingguo had never been on the battlefield, he had seen many deaths as a refugee begging for food. Furthermore, he had heard thrilling murder stories from veterans in the Imperial Guard and the Cavalry Regiment. Therefore, he wasn't afraid of killing someone for the first time; on the contrary, he felt a bit excited.

The unfortunate bandit was dragged to the middle of the mountain road, and Li Dingguo took out all the silver and money from the dead man.

The surviving robber followed Li Dingguo for five miles in the pine forest. When Li Dingguo walked, he walked, and when Li Dingguo stopped, he stopped.

Later, the man could no longer hold on. He leaned on a broken knife, panting and cursing in Hakka:

"Hold the south path, the dense firewood, and get out of the thieves' home!"

Li Dingguo also cursed back in Shaanxi Yulin dialect:

"Idiot! Idiot! Coward! Get out!"

The bandit was angry and anxious, and ran away muttering.

It was noon when we arrived at Pingrao Prefecture.

He wandered around the market for a long time, hungry and thirsty, unable to speak the language, covered in blood, and afraid to go into a store to buy food.

Finally, he managed to eat two bowls of rice, three fried sardines, and drink half a bowl of wine - that was a reward from a rich girl who mistook Li Dingguo for a beggar. He insisted on asking her name, and the girl only said Yin.

After nightfall, he crawled under a carriage next to the inn and fell asleep wrapped in a tattered cloak.

He slept soundly and dreamed that he had returned to the capital in the first year of the Wuding reign, where Li Dingguo, who was less than ten years old, was fighting a fierce battle with bandits.

Fires were burning on the city walls, corpses were everywhere, and the Qi army that had died from the plague stretched as far as the eye could see.

This time, Wu Youke did not die, and Qi was not defeated. Li Dingguo rushed to the front of the team, protecting his benefactors Shen Lian and Wei Zhao, and broke out of Yongding Gate. The bandits were defeated, and the heads of Li Xianzhong and other bandit leaders were hung high on the Wumen Tower, waiting for the Emperor of Qi to review.

(End of this chapter)