A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 805 Torrent
After the meal, Kong San was still busy, sorting out the account books and reporting various affairs to Lao Hu.

He is in charge of the military training and logistics in the camp. There are many kinds of affairs, and he is always busy. However, Lao Hu is an orthodox illiterate, so even if he wants to do these meticulous tasks, he will be powerless.He is still a lazy person, not to mention weak, even if he is powerful, he doesn't bother to care.

Fortunately, with Kong San around, everything can be entrusted to him, and he can feel at ease. In this regard, he also learned from General Wang, and let his subordinates do all the work, which is called decentralization.

Listening to Kong San's announcement, Old Hu said solemnly: "Very good, you have done a good job, keep working hard."

Kong San raised his head and glanced at him lightly, Lao Hu immediately changed his color, nodded and bowed his head and said: "Master Kong has worked hard, those who are capable will work harder, ha ha."

Kong San also informed Lao Hu about some personnel matters. After these stages of observation, those who were recruited into the Xiaoyuan camp that day should be recruited and those who should be promoted should be promoted.

Those who don't deal with it should arrange some death missions to consume them. He has already made a list and waits for Lao Hu to make a decision.

Lao Hu waved his hands with a headache: "Okay, okay, Master Confucius will look at the arrangement."

He remembered something: "By the way, we have set up a few camps near our mountain patrol camp. The commanders of those camps are heroic, and we should make friends with them. The jade Buddha statues in our camp are very good. Master Confucius asked them to bring them. Lao Hu has nothing to do tonight, just go and visit some masters casually."

There are many friends and many paths, Lao Hu still likes to make friends very much, and although the military law of entering the camp says that one cannot pocket a piece of gold and the offender dies, there are many soldiers, especially soldiers from outside the camp, who hide gold and silver privately. Lao Hu also secretly hid some good things, and planned to return to Xuanfu Town to live a good life in the future.

Sometimes the old camp will reward some gold and silver. For example, today, although gold, silver, pearls and jade are worthless for entering the camp, it is not that there are people who like them, so Lao Hu is going to bring some jewelry to visit the general posts.

Kong San nodded, making friends with more generals would be beneficial for intelligence matters, especially for some disgruntled generals.

The average system is now implemented in the camp. Although the soldiers can overcome many difficulties with one heart and one mind, human nature is hard to change after all, especially for the former surrendered generals, who are quite dissatisfied with this system in private.

Although I'm suppressed now, I don't know when it will explode. This can be used.

After Lao Hu happily left, Kong San silently sorted out the papers in the tent, and deduced everything about the camp from the outside to the inside.He also wrote some seemingly ordinary booklets that are actually full of secret language. This kind of secret language requires relevant books to open the code, and it cannot be deciphered by ordinary people.

After a long time, Kong San put down his pen and ink, and pushed open the tent. It was dark outside, only a few torches could be faintly heard, and the sound of patrolling and drumming could be heard.

Looking at the dark night sky, Kong San quietly thought, in this dark camp, how many people are silently lurking like himself?
Looking at the night sky, Kong San couldn't help but miss his lovely wife and several children. He didn't know his mission, when would he be able to see them?

But Kong San firmly believed that he would wait until the general sent troops, everything would pass, and the night would be dawn.

……

At the fourth watch of the second day, the mountain patrolling camp listened to orders for food production, and at dawn, they set off with the army. On this day, the army arrived in Jiaxian County, and the patrolling mountain camp was ordered to attack the famous Linfeng village with the friend camp.

However, when Li Chuang came to Huguang, Linfeng Village was forced by the situation to admit the rule of Chuangying and set up a flag. Although the Chuang soldiers were still not allowed to enter, they were still under Li Chuang's rule.But after the main force of the Chuang army arrived in Huguang, Linfengzhai soon pulled down the Chuang flag again, expressing that he was still a citizen of Ming Dynasty.

But now seeing that the Chuangying camp is mighty and mighty, the soldiers and horses are spreading endlessly, after the discussion between the two major surnames in the village, they erected the Chuang flag, but they refused the Chuangying camp's order to ask them to hand over a thousand shi of military rations.

Li Zicheng was furious, and decided to show some color to the powerful gentry in the village. At the beginning, he ordered an outside battalion to attack, and two hundred old battalions to march.

However, this Linfeng village is very difficult to fight. The east of the village is high and the west is low, and the surrounding area includes five types of landforms: flat, sandy, mountain, hillock, and depression. , The north is the hills and the Beiru River, and the south is still the mountains. This kind of terrain makes people powerful and has nowhere to use it. The crowd tactics are very difficult to play.

The walls of Linfeng Village are still very tall and thick. The wall made of light red stone masonry is more than two feet high. Coupled with the surrounding water flow, it is even higher and deeper.There is also a tower on the wall of this village, and there are more than 800 crenels on it. In terms of protective hardware, it is more powerful than the original Jiaxian County.

There are mainly two surnames in the city, they are married to each other, they are of the same clan, they are very united, there is absolutely no saying that the door should be opened, rich families come to vote one after another, which increases their financial resources.

On the wall of Linfeng Village, there were even dozens of Frang machine guns, and a large number of bows, arrows, and blunderbusses, all of which were excellent weapons, so the outer battalion fought for a day without even touching the wall of the village, so it failed. return.

On the second day, the Shanzhai Battalion and two foreign battalions attacked Linfeng Village. More than [-] troops attacked at the same time. A few cannons helped out.

However, the terrain of Linfeng Village prevented them from deploying their forces, and the resistance inside the village was very tenacious. In the end, even women and children joined the battle, and the third battalion broke into the army with thousands of casualties.

Li Zicheng has nothing to do with this powerful village. Could it be that the entire army stays here just to fight an earthen village?Fortunately, the people sent by Linfeng Village to negotiate were willing to supply two hundred shi of food and grass to the army, and when they had a chance to enter the camp, they pushed the boat down the river and left the village depressed.

Afterwards, marching to harvest food was not a good memory for Chuangying. To the west of Jiaxian County, there were generally narrow and long river valleys. Except for some belonging to the Chuangying forces, the general county towns and state cities were completely ruined, and there were no residents left. .

With the choice of nearby mountains, forests and hills, all the remaining people in Pingchuan fled. It is a local powerful toubob, a large gentry family.

According to the terrain, their village is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and they are united internally and have sufficient financial resources. Like Linfeng Village, they are not easy to provoke, let alone fight.

In addition to attacking some small villages, there is basically nothing they can do about breaking into the camp, the most they can do is to threaten them with some food and grass.

These tyrants watched Chuangying pass by indifferently. They didn't care whether the Chuang flag or the imperial flag was erected on the wall of the village. For them, no matter which side came, they were invincible, and they would not Which side is allowed to enter their stronghold.

They are also sitting firmly on the Diaoyutai. After the troubled times, the prosperous times come, and the new dynasty comes. Everything starts from the beginning. To govern the region, which government can do without them?They are another big family that controls one side.

After rushing into the camp and sweeping away all the way, the small and weak villages suffered one after another, and the real powerful and powerful families remained standing.Seeing what happened to those weak and vulnerable people, it made them more united in the village, and the whole village fought to the last person, not just talking about it.

……

At the end of April, Li Zicheng's army was finally not far from Tongguan and approached the gate of Shan County. Like other places in Henan Province, the villages in this county were all empty, and there were only abandoned sites everywhere, and there were endless wormwood.

However, what surprised Li Chuang's army was that there were actually people living in the county, but after Li Zicheng's army went south to Huguang, Li Zhen, the new county magistrate, recruited people to farm and plow the fields near the city to make a living.

When Li Zi was founded, he ordered to attack the city. Shan County is half Outuo, with less than [-] residents and fewer young and strong. Attack the top of the city and open the gate.

The patrolling battalion was also deployed in the front line, but before it was Lao Hu's turn, he heard the cheers in front of him shaking the sky, and there were faint screams of panic in the city. There was a lot of crying, obviously the old battalion soldiers were killing inside.

Coming from Jiaxian County, the way to collect food was not smooth, and everyone in the camp was already full of anger. It seems that in this battle, the upper echelon of the camp deliberately indulged these sergeants, and they were about to be forced to Tongguan. mean.

Although Li Yan and other literati joined the camp and began to strictly enforce military discipline, there are also sayings that those who greet surrenders during the siege will not be killed. The Chinese staff and literati don't think there is anything wrong with such a regulation.

Amidst all the crying in the city, there was also a crowd of cheers: "The old magistrate has been caught."

When Lao Hu looked around, he saw dozens of old battalion soldiers pouring out of the gate of the city. They hurriedly dragged a middle-aged man in official uniform.

The official hat on the man's head was gone, and the official uniform on his body was also in disarray. His hands were tightly bound, and he was dragged by everyone all the way, unyielding, cursing all the way.

Then Lao Hu saw the big flag moving behind, followed by brave knights, one after another, and the flag bearers all held the white-tasseled black satin flag, which was the symbol of the standard battalion.Then there is a special big flag, the tassel of the flag seems to be made of horsehair, the flagpole and the tip of the flag seem to be made of silver, the silver light is shining, and it is extremely valuable, this is Lao Hu's idea.

Then he saw Li Chuang for the first time, a middle-aged man who looked like a man of color, with beards on his face, a white red-tasseled felt hat on his head, an old blue arrow suit and a cloak. Riding on an oolong colt with curly hair, the sword and gold-painted quiver at the waist are sometimes exposed when walking.

Beside Li Chuang, there were many other generals who also rode horses. Lao Hu only recognized one Tian Jianxiu and one Li Guo, but he didn't know the others. They discuss matters, as long as Tang Ma notifies them.

There were also many literati riding the horses, and Lao Hu didn't know any of them. He just looked at Li Zicheng and thought: "All the people in the battalion have praised Li Chuangwang to the sky. Now it seems that there is no superpower."

Beside him, Kong San pays more attention to observing the people on that side, keeping them in mind.

Then the troops from the Biaoying camp passed by the patrolling camp and stopped not far ahead. Li Zhen of Nazhi County had been escorted to Li Chuang. The figure was so vague that Lao Hu couldn't see it clearly, but he still tried his best to probe.

At this moment, the county magistrate seemed to have scolded a lot, but Lao Hu could only hear one sentence clearly: "...thief, drive away the people's defenders, the county magistrate's ears, what is the purpose of killing?"

When Li Zicheng said something, the county magistrate was extremely staunch, and he just yelled at him. Seeing that Li Zicheng was furious, he ordered the county magistrate to take off his official uniform and hang him upside down on a nearby tree.Nazhixian was hanged on a tree, still yelling and screaming: "Emperor Gao has a spirit, I will sue God to kill the thief!"

Everyone around Li Chuang yelled at him. A literati whose clothes were very expensive, Lao Hu didn’t know who he was, but Kong San knew that that person was Niu Jinxing. Let's look after the Ming Dynasty again."

However, the county magistrate still yelled at him, making Niu Jinxing speechless and Li Chuang and everyone around him furious. He ordered Li Zhen's tongue to be cut off, and finally cut him into several dozen pieces.Unable to let go of his hatred, he ordered a search for Li Zhen's relatives, and heard that his mother, Qiao Shi, and his wife had already committed suicide, so he gave up with hatred.

Seeing the tragic death of the county magistrate, Lao Hu sighed in his heart: "Oh, good officials always have a bad death."

Lao Hu still has his own criteria for judging. In his opinion, those who recruit people to farm in troubled times and would rather die than surrender are naturally good officials. In the scene just now, if it were him, he would have surrendered long ago.

Kong San lowered his head and said silently in his heart: "Heroes are eternal."

……

The capture of Shan County also changed Chuangying's mind. Originally they planned to put the logistics and fodder in Luoyang, but looking at the terrain of Shan County, it seems that it is better to hoard food and fodder here.Moreover, Luoyang is quite far from Tongguan, more than 500 miles away, and it is only more than 200 miles from Shanxian County to Tongguan in the west.

At this time, Li Zicheng personally led the army, including 15 cavalry and [-] infantry, and threatened about [-] hungry people. Except for some sentry horses pushing to the front of Tongguan, the main force was still on the front line of Shan County.Some old battalions even supervised some foreign battalions and the hungry people to hunt food around, and the artillery and some chariots and horses fell behind.

In addition, there were more than [-] horses to monitor the movement in Kaifeng. By the way, they collected food in Kaifeng mansion and threatened the hungry people, and then transported them to Henan mansion from Hulao Pass and other places.

On April 25, Li Chuang's army marched westward again, and the torrent of people spread across the official roads and dirt roads.

To the west of Shanxian County, there are two counties, Lingbao and Yanxiang, both of which are located by the Yellow River. The county town also has people and county magistrates.However, after the destruction of Shanxian County, all officials and civilians fled. Along the way, they were killed by trespassers. Most of the people fled to the mountains, and only a few fled to Tongguan.

The densely packed army marched westward, like a torrent, and the mountain patrol camp was also a wave. But apart from the excitement of seeing the Yellow River for the first time, the rest of the march was so boring, especially when entering Shaanxi.

There are ravines and ravines everywhere, and fragmented earthen plains, earthen beams, and earthen ditches stand in all directions. Sometimes the distance between the two plains seems to be very short, but it is not easy to walk. What is close at hand, far away in the world.

Lao Hu is also a member who is extremely uncomfortable. He has long been used to the flatness of the North China Great Plain and the Henan Great Plain. After walking for a long time, this made him curse all the way.

Of course, for Li Zicheng and the generals of the old camp, they are used to the road in Shaanxi, and the closer they are to Tongguan, the more their hearts beat.Ah, my hometown, my hometown, I'm finally going to see you, and the longing for returning home is finally coming true.

By the way, what should I say when I meet an acquaintance?
The army headed west all the way, and finally, at the end of April and approaching May, the torrent of people came to Niutouyuan, not far ahead, which was the first pass of Tongguan, Jindou Pass.

(End of this chapter)