The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 68 The murderer pays with his life

Gaotaizi Mountain Village is ten miles southwest of Kaiyuan City.

Qinghe River meets Kouhe Village to the east, forming a wide alluvial plain. The river land rich in alluvial soil is quite fertile and is one of the better farmlands in Kaiyuan.

At this time, the long and cold Little Ice Age had not yet arrived. The Songliao Plain gradually warmed up in April of the lunar calendar, and it was the busy farming season.

In previous years, by March and April, the military and civilian households in the garrisons would start sowing and applying fertilizers in the fields and work hard.

However, this year is a little different. In April, there are few farmers busy working in the rice fields.

There were some Liao soldiers who looked like servants, who would ride their horses deep into the fields every now and then to drive away the people who were sowing and irrigating.

Last month, General Ma and several lieutenant generals returned from the battlefield of Sarhu. More than half of their servants and soldiers were killed or wounded, and Ma Lin's two sons were also killed by the Tartars. The shocked old general was in a daze and didn't care much about anything.

If Marin doesn't take care of things, there will naturally be someone willing to take care of them.

Seeing an opportunity, the Liaozhen army generals around Kaiyuan quickly seized most of the military lands under the names of several martyred generals and lieutenant generals.

Lieutenant General Ding sent people to rob several hundred acres of military farmland from the Kaiyuan Garrison. The Lieutenant General said that these fields were the property of Ningyuan Earl Li Rusong, and they had been encroached upon by the unruly people of Kaiyuan over the years. Now they must be taken back to give an explanation to the Li family.

Li Chengliang and Li Rusong have been dead for many years, and even Li Rubai has committed suicide. Li Ruzhen is the only one left in the Li family. I wonder if he will thank Lieutenant General Ding.

Commanders Ding Guozhen and Yang Qilong had no soldiers and no one to command them, so they naturally did not dare to provoke these Liaozhen soldiers. They could only stay away and swallow their anger.

Some time ago, all the households renting farmland near Gaotaizi Village were evicted.

It was said that General Ding would use these fertile fields to grow other crops. The tenants who had been driven out used to pay the general about 50% to 60% in rent each year, and the remaining 30% to 40% was enough for the whole family to have enough food and clothing. Now that this 30% to 40% of income was gone overnight, they would either starve to death or go outside the Fortress Wall to join the Tartars as bondservants.

On the eighth day of April, a group of servants came from the east of Gaotaizi Village. They rode on tall horses and stared fiercely at the rice fields in front of them where seedlings had just been planted.

A skinny old man was weeding in the field with a hunched back. His hunched upper body was almost parallel to the ground, like an ancient statue rooted in the land of Liaodong.

Fine beads of sweat rolled down the old farmer's cheeks, dripping into the rice field, splashing a small water droplet.

On the ridge of the field in front of the old farmer, some objects such as earthenware jars and bamboo baskets were neatly placed. The jars were filled with clear water, and the bamboo baskets were filled with a few steamed buns.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of horse hooves splashing water, and the old farmer looked around in horror.

Not far behind him, a burly soldier rode his horse across the ridge and came close to the old farmer.

Without dismounting, he whipped the jar to pieces, spilling the water all over the ground.
"You old fool! I told you not to plant rice last month, damn it! You're still flooding the fields! This field is for Lord Ding to raise war horses. How can you grow alfalfa if you're flooding it?!"

The old farmer stood in the paddy field in a daze, holding a bunch of dry grass in his muddy hands. His dry mouth moved a few times, but no one knew what he was saying.

Seeing that the old farmer was old and deaf, the head servant didn't waste any time talking to him. He waved his hand and shouted behind him:

"Everyone, get on your horses and trample the rice seedlings! Trample all the rice seedlings to death!"

The servants immediately rode forward, their horses crossed the ridges and trampled on the paddy fields full of green seedlings.

"Don't step on the seedlings, don't step on the seedlings!"

The old farmer shouted hoarsely. He was a farmer from Gaotaizi Village and a tenant of the general's military farm. He had been farming in Gaotaizi Village for decades.

The country people have been tending crops for decades, and their feelings for the land are incomprehensible to ordinary people. After the surrounding households were expelled, the old farmers still stubbornly returned here, returned to the land they were familiar with, and continued to farm with simple farm tools.

For these farmers who were born and died in the soil, land and crops are everything to them. The iron cavalry of the generals and the romantic life of the imperial censors and inspectors are too far away from them and are stories from another world.

The old farmer waved his thin arms, blocking the way of a servant's horse, and shouted in despair:

"Why should we grow alfalfa for livestock on such good fertile land? We have been growing rice for the general for many years, and his rent is much lower than that of other families..."

"You old fool, you thought Marin could protect you. He's dead! Go to the underground and give it to him! I'll let you sow!"

The servant drove the horse under his crotch and rushed towards the old farmer, knocking the old man's thin body away effortlessly.

The old farmer fell into the field, covered in mud, unable to struggle, and was already dying. The head servant looked at the old farmer with hatred and said angrily to the people around him:

"Leave this old man alone. Let him die in the fields. Let the tenants around here see what happens when they go against Lord Ding! Let's see if they dare to come and plant again."

After saying this, he ordered the servants to continue trampling the seedlings. The war horses became particularly excited when they entered the paddy fields. These beasts snorted as they walked, splashing water around them, and the newly grown rice seedlings were soon trampled away by them.

"Let's go! Let's go over there and see if there's still rice growing there! Let's grab a few women and bring them back!"

After the head servant said this, he rode his horse towards the east, and several servants followed behind him, laughing all the way.

Several villagers from Gaotaizi Village stared blankly at the scene before them. When they saw the servants approaching them, they were so scared that they scattered and fled quickly.

"Hahaha, a bunch of untouchables!"

The head servant's laughter stopped abruptly, and a group of horsemen suddenly caught up with him. There were about fifty or sixty of them, all wearing mandarin duck-shaped battle jackets, holding lances and carrying firearms. The leader was staring at him intently, holding a huge musket in one hand, and a woman was standing next to him.

The head of the servants saw that this man had come with ill intentions, but he relied on being the confidant of Lieutenant General Ding, and the Kaiyuan commander had to give him some respect when he saw him, so he did not take these Ming troops seriously.

"Who are you birdmen? What do you want to do?"

Liu Zhaosun Ce rode forward, threw the bird gun to the deputy battalion commander Li Yuchen, raised his lance and pointed it at the group of servants, angrily saying:

"Anyone who tramples the Miao people on horseback will be beheaded! Anyone who harms the people will be beheaded! All of you will die today!"

Seeing Liu Zhaosun like this, the head servant thought he was a leader like a captain, and wanted to take the opportunity to extort a few taels of silver from him. He could not help but say angrily:

"You want to blackmail me?! I was a military candidate in the 37th year of the Wanli reign, chosen by the Emperor!"

Liu Zhaosun said coldly:

"The Emperor is so wise and powerful, how could he choose a beast like you to be a juren?"

After saying this, he thrust out the lance in his hand. The head servant reacted and quickly raised his knife to block it, but he felt his palm go numb and his body was knocked away by the lance. He fell to the ground and howled in pain.

The Miao Dao whizzed past.

The servants around were frightened by the scene before them. It was not until Liu Zhaosun chopped off the servant's head that they screamed and fled in all directions.

Liu Zhaosun waved his hand, and the cavalry battalion behind him rode their horses to catch up. He turned and looked at the fleeing civilians around him, and shouted:
"I am Liu Zhaosun, the Lieutenant General of Kaiyuan. I came to Kaiyuan to protect you. Debts must be repaid, and murder must be punished. This is only natural! I have come here today to take back General Ma's land!"

"Those of you who were previously General Ma's tenants, register at the Kaiyuan Military Preparations Office within three days. I will have your land redistributed to you!"

Liu Zhaosun dismounted, took over the huge banjiu gun, and gently compacted the gunpowder and lead bullets with a spear.

In front, a fierce servant under Ding Bi's command injured a new recruit in the cavalry battalion. Looking at the five or six cavalrymen chasing him, he rode his horse and was about to escape.

His face was full of fear, and he just wanted to escape back to Tieling as soon as possible, tell Zhi Dingbi what happened today, and ask the lieutenant general to avenge his brothers.

Jin Yuji handed over a four-foot-long pitchfork. Liu Zhaosun placed the gun on the pitchfork, opened the fuse cap of the musket, put his shoulder against the butt of the gun, aimed at the sight, calmly aimed at the back of the servant dozens of steps away, and pulled the trigger with his right hand.

"boom!"

The turtledove bird gun weighing more than ten pounds made a deafening noise.

A thick white smoke suddenly spurted out from the priming pot and the muzzle of the gun. In the white smoke, there was a tongue of fire more than three feet long, which was as dazzling as fireworks in the daytime and meteors in the dark night.

A lead bullet weighing one ounce and six cents was shot out angrily, about to tear apart any living thing in its path.

The servants were like frightened birds, galloping on their horses on the dirt road.

"Sir, did you miss?"

Liu Zhaosun put away his pitchfork and dove-footed gun, and smiled faintly at Jin Yuji who was standing beside him:
"Let the lead fly for a while,"

(End of this chapter)