Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 182 No One Understands Loyalty Better Than Me
Climbing up the county gate tower, Li Mu looked down into the distance through a telescope.

More than 10,000 soldiers were divided into several camps and stationed outside Shangcheng for battle formation and training. Two other camps were stationed in "Lijia Town" and Gushi County respectively.

At this moment, Li Mu could mobilize up to 16,000 soldiers, divided into five camps in the front, back, left, right and center.

The right camp and the rear camp had a total of 4,000 soldiers and horses, led by two lieutenant generals "airdropped" from the court.

Although these two men each took over their troops with hundreds of personal soldiers, the lower-level officers and soldiers in the two camps were all controlled by Li Mu, and the power to pay their salaries was also in Li Mu's hands.

The Front Army and the Left Army each commanded 3,000 men, while the Central Army Camp commanded 6,000. These 12,000 infantry and cavalry were directly under Li Mu's command, and included auxiliary arms such as artillery, baggage trains, and engineers.

As for the special forces company, it will not be included in the field army sequence for the time being, and will occasionally carry out special missions assigned by Li Mu...

After the war against the Qing Dynasty, some of Li Mu's 4,000 infantry and cavalry were lost, and it was a bit difficult to expand it to more than 10,000 people.

Fortunately, there are a large number of pre-trained militiamen in the mall, as well as the reorganized Yingshan Camp.

Li Mu selected the best from the best and transferred a total of 6,000 outstanding militiamen to strengthen the Black Flag Battalion. He also recruited 2,000 militiamen with clean backgrounds and strong physiques from grain households in southern Henan and northern Jiangsu.

But by this calculation, there are still 3,000 short of the 16,000 establishment.

Li Mu was planning to draw some more militia reserves to join the army when he suddenly received news that the "Smoothing Army" was begging for surrender.

Players who have been planning for months have established connections with each other.

The leader of the rebel army, Guo Zinu, heard that Li Mu was an undefeated general who had defeated bandits and killed Tartars, and that he treated his soldiers fairly and impartially with rewards and punishments, and that the people in the garrison areas lived and worked in peace and contentment.

Bandits and local thieves within a radius of dozens of miles fled upon hearing of General Li's reputation. Guo Zinu thought General Li was a man worth joining, so he led 3,000 miners to join him.

Miners are originally an excellent source of soldiers, not to mention that they are veterans who have fought in actual combat for a year. Li Mu decisively ordered them to be recruited.

As the deputy commander of the Central Army Commandery, Li Mu had the power to recruit and incorporate 3,000 "righteous soldiers" with just one word.

Even if someone disagrees, they can't do anything about Li Mu.

Of course, incorporating this "rebel army" does not mean allowing the other party to maintain its independence.

Li Mu arranged for cadres to accompany the middle and upper-level generals of the "rebel army" to visit Lijia Town and have fun as much as they wanted.

On the one hand, player instructors were sent to disperse the mining soldiers and arrange them to various camps for training.

When leaders such as Guo Zinu returned to the army, they found that the miners had already scattered among the Black Flag Army camps and established a stable new relationship.

The leaders were so happy that they did not want to leave their homeland, and the soldiers were deeply immersed in the military atmosphere of the Black Flag Camp, which was characterized by "sufficient food and pay", "clear rewards and punishments", and "equality among soldiers".

Guo Zinu could not help but sigh at General Li's skillful tactics. He had taken away his military power in just a few days.

Li Mu didn't know what the leaders of the "rebel army" thought of him, he only knew that the reorganization and expansion work consumed a lot of his energy.

Although the court only gave him a quota of 6,000 regular soldiers and used two lieutenant generals to restrain him, he could say that the large number of combat soldiers in excess of the quota were militia trained by him.

After all, the Beggar Army was causing chaos in central Henan. If he didn't train more militia, how could he stop the enemy's advance?
As for the militia, their combat effectiveness is stronger than that of ordinary battalion sentry soldiers.

That was probably the good example set by the soldiers of the Black Flag Battalion, which inspired the ordinary militia to be braver.

Speaking of the Beggars' Army causing trouble in central Henan, Li Mu was still wondering why capturing the city did not give him any additional destiny points. It couldn't be that the system was just like the imperial court, withholding or embezzling his military pay, right?

It was not until the expansion momentum of the Qihuo Army was weakened and they adopted the siege and attack tactics to surround Ruzhou, and the military order from General Yang was delivered to them, that the system's prompt sounded belatedly.

The reputation of the Qihuo Army is at its peak, and the Ming army officers are in a state of panic. As the mastermind behind the scenes, will you join them and let the Ming Dynasty burn, or continue on the path of "loyalty"? 70000 Mandate Points received.

Li Mu thought to himself that he was a die-hard fan of the Ming Dynasty!
Zhu Youjian treated him so "favorably" and also gave him an additional 180,000 taels of silver in the newly added training pay. How could he betray the "imperial grace" and rebel against the Ming Dynasty?

Of course, he would continue to be "loyal" to the Ming Dynasty, recruit more and stronger elite troops, eliminate more bandits and slaves, and reach the pinnacle of military merit...

General Yang’s military order was very simple.

Li Mu was required to lead his troops across the river and advance westward to recapture the four cities south of the Huai River within 15 days. If Li Mu was seriously injured and had not recovered, a brave general could be sent to take over the command.

The military order also revealed that the army would be divided into four groups: in addition to the Black Flag Battalion, there were three other groups: Luoyang, Kaifeng, and Xiangyang.

Although the military order did not specify the approximate strength of each force, it did mention the general direction of advance and destination, as well as the strategic goals to be achieved.

The commander claimed that Li Mu's journey was crucial.

The Black Flag Battalion was fearless and could even defeat the Eastern Tartars, while the main force of the rebel army was far away from southern Henan, leaving only a group of weak minions to defend the city.

If the Black Flag Battalion still cannot recover the lost territory, it means that the Black Flag Army’s confrontation with the rebel army for several months is false as rumored, and that they are actually secretly colluding with the rebel army.

Of course, Li Mu would not allow rumors to slander his "loyalty".

Isn’t it just to suppress the bandits? Suppress them!

Li Mu learned from the Lin brothers stationed in Kaifeng that the Kaifeng route would soon be gathering approximately 30,000 troops, not counting the militia trained by wealthy gentry. Excluding the militia and making a generous estimate of the enemy's strength, Li Mu estimated that the total number of troops in the three routes would be around 120,000 combat and auxiliary troops.

With such a large-scale government army pressing forward step by step, ordinary rebels would have had to immediately enter "escape mode" and jump out of the encirclement woven by heavy troops.

However, the Beggars' Army is not an ordinary volunteer army. Even if the player dies fighting bravely, they can be resurrected in the next second and then take a river boat to the front line. The replenishment speed is ten times faster than that of the elite government army.

However, as the head of the family, Li Mu also has to take good care of these noisy children to prevent them from getting into trouble.

So he took out 30,000 life points as a reserve, so that when the situation was bad, he could add them to the battle flags and distribute them to the front line of the Qihuo Army, enabling the Qihuo Army to be upgraded to "Invincible Natural Disaster" within a month.

Of course, if the Beggar Army did not rely on the resurrection ability, they could win by their own strength, and there would be no need to activate the destiny value of the battle flag.

Thirty thousand life points can summon more players and reserve more resurrection resources.

Apart from the 30,000 in reserve, Li Mu took out another 10,000 Life Points to exchange for resurrection reserves, and the remaining 30,000 Life Points were all bet on to summon players -

[1000 beginner players, kilograms of potassium nitrate, five early revolvers with rounds of ammunition each, kilograms of rice, baseball bats, bulletproof helmets]

A thousand beginner players would be fine, but if half of them were willing to join the beggar army, the latter would have a better chance of breaking the encirclement.

This time, before Li Mu summons players, a new "volunteer application" section has been added.

The focus of each profession and even the legions in each major war zone are all chosen by the player before entering the game.

After all players have loaded, a thousand people have made their choices.

Seven hundred people joined the Beggar Army, two hundred people joined the Southern Henan Cadre Corps, fifty people stayed in their hometown to engage in production and construction, and fifty people wanted to be free men.

Li Mu was surprised that 20% of the players were willing to be cadres.

In this way, the four cities in southern Henan under the rule of the Qihuo Army can also be filled with player cadres, and the extra ordinary people can be transferred to Runing or even the newly occupied areas in central Henan.

After everything was settled, Li Mu called a cadre player and said, "Go and convey this official letter from Commander Yang to the Qihuo Army."

……

A camp built by tens of thousands of soldiers and horses under Ruzhou City surrounded the city.

The main force of the Qihuo Army besieged the city, with 2,000 players, 2,000 cavalry, 6,000 auxiliary soldiers of the former official army, and 40,000 new and old militiamen.

Other auxiliary troops and newly formed militia stayed in central Henan to defend the city, while the remaining players spread out to conduct guerrilla warfare in the surrounding areas, maintaining food supply routes while gathering military intelligence.

The gray-white command tent is located at the back of the camp, and dozens of prestigious "marshals" gather inside the tent.

"Another seven hundred new players are joining us. They'll be at the front lines in central Henan in seven days at most. Our Western Theater Command will soon have a second legion! The second legion is the 'Beiwei Army,' so what should we name our third legion?"

Huang Chao's cheeks flushed as if he was drunk, and countless handsome legion names flashed through his mind.

"That's not the point. Look, Yang Sichang is gathering four heavy troops to encircle and suppress us."

"Sula", who committed suicide by slashing his throat immediately after the Lunan auction ended, was also in the Qihuo Army tent at this time.

He took out two paper documents and placed them on the table. He turned his head to look at the unfolded map of the Central Plains and picked up a dozen war chess pieces and placed them in the corresponding positions.

Seeing dozens of generals "fighting" for two paper reports, Su La immediately added, "There are also detailed information offline, in the Beggar Army group..."

"Roger that!"

As soon as the dozens of generals finished speaking, they stood there like robots without power, lying flat on the ground, taking a nap on the table, or collapsing on the ground after being hit hard.

A moment later, the generals regained consciousness, and 'Sword Grass' suddenly burst into laughter, "Hahahaha... Yang Sichang deployed four armies to encircle and suppress the enemy, but one of them turned out to be our own people, and one of them was even undercover. We've exposed their underwear before the army even set out. Isn't this asking for trouble?"

"Are there any brothers in the undercover group in the direction of Luoyang and Xiangyang?" "Xia Ya" stroked his chin and stared at the map in a daze.

"Yes, but the government army camp is heavily guarded, so we can't find out the exact number of soldiers. The official documents also give exaggerated estimates, saying that the four armies total 300,000."

"Liu Guanzhang" looked at the military chess pieces and marching routes laid out one by one on the map.

"Three hundred thousand more. He'd be lucky to have an army of 110,000 or 20,000." Huang Chao sneered. "If divided among three armies, each would have at most 30,000 or 40,000 combat and auxiliary troops."

"Don't forget, the intelligence reports say that all those gentry who escaped have given away their wealth to train local militias and are ready to fight us to the death."

"Let them practice until they're done, and then we'll just kill them all at once!"

"Dividing the troops and attacking simultaneously is a large-scale tactic. The advantage is that it relieves supply pressure and allows the enemy to focus on one thing and lose sight of the other. The disadvantage is that communication and coordination are poor, making it easy for the enemy to defeat them piecemeal."

"Then how do we fight next?" said Huang Chao.

After finishing the chess game, Sula raised her head, a smug smile on her lips. "Do you remember the Battle of Sarhu at the end of the Wanli reign?"

(End of this chapter)