Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 297
Fang Fang and Yang Liufeng hurriedly got up and cupped their hands and said, "Don't worry, Commander. If the fighter plane is delayed because of logistics, the Commander will cut off our heads."

Li Jingjing nodded and said: "I know you two are working hard now. My father-in-law is busy with the salt factory, and the logistical matters are all on the two of you. I can see everything you do. Daming Zhongxing, the credit book belongs to him. There are your names. In the future, the position of Minister of the Household Department will not be able to escape the two of you."

Yang Liufeng and Fang Fang were overjoyed, and bowed to Li Jingchang: "Thank you, Commander, for your kindness."

Li Jing waved his hand, then looked at Zhou Hengchen, Zhang Li and the others and said, "You guys work hard, which is my heart. Even if you can't get into the cabinet in the future, one party will not be able to escape from the position of a feudal official. Work hard!"

Stopping Zhou Hengchen and the others from getting up, Li Jing looked at Gao Qi and said, "You tell Zhou Huhu, Sun Meng, and Liu Hong to send me troops to station on the north bank of the Yellow River in Zhengzhou. Once the bandits cross the river, I will beat them hard. When the bandits retreat, order Sun Meng and Liu Hong to move eastward and block the passages from Henan and Shandong to Zhili."

Gao Qi knew that Li Jing was making arrangements for the future. The reason why Sun Meng and Liu Hong were stationed at the junction of Shandong and Henan was because they had the name of the army.

Wanting to understand this point, Gao Qi immediately embraced his command.

Li Jing then said to Zhuzi: "After Sun Meng entered the east, you led your troops out of Lu'an Mansion, joined Zhou Huhu, and stationed in the area of ​​Zhengzhou. The prefect of Kaifeng and the prefect of Zhengzhou and I are old acquaintances. If they send someone to ask, can you Tell them bluntly that this is my order."

Zhuzi smiled when he heard the words, knowing that the last time he went to Henan for disaster relief, these local officials were scared by Li Jing.

……

Li Jing's side frequently mobilized troops, and the pressure on the Henan rogue side suddenly increased.

Seeing that there was nowhere to go again, in the first month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the rogues took advantage of the Chinese New Year occasion for officers and soldiers to gather together for a meeting.

It should be said that the rogues have not had a leisurely year in the past two years. Every time the New Year comes, the officers and soldiers come to find fault, and the eighth year of Chongzhen was no exception.

It's not that the rogues don't want to celebrate the New Year, but the officers and soldiers are about to chop them up and make dumplings. How can they be in the mood for the New Year?It is still serious to study how to get out of the current predicament.

The place where the rogues met was called Xingyang, which was to the west of Zhengzhou, not far from the Yellow River, and opposite to Sun Meng and other troops.

In this meeting, basically all the bandit leaders participated, the famous ones and the unknown ones.It's hard to say exactly how many leaders there are, but there are 80 people anyway.

At the beginning of the meeting, Cao Cao Luo Rucai took the lead in speaking and began to explain the current situation.

But Luo Ru just said a few words before being kicked out.

You must know that although these rogue bandits have no culture, they have fought against the government and army for so many years, and they still have experience.

Let's not talk about the situation, let's study the countermeasures.

There are only two countermeasures: one is to surrender and the other is to escape.

Surrendering must be impossible. I have fooled the officers and soldiers twice, how could the officers and soldiers be fooled again?

The only option is to escape, flee to the mountains, Songshan Mountain is nearby, as long as they escape into the mountains, the officers and soldiers will have nothing to do.

Most of the leaders are in favor of this suggestion.

But some people disagree, because if they escape into the mountains, they will never have a good life in the future.What do so many people run into the mountains to eat?Do you live by gnawing bark?
Although most leaders think that no matter what they eat, as long as they can survive, if there are people who disagree, they still need to listen.

The person who raised the objection was Zhang Xianzhong.

Zhang Xianzhong: Born in the 34th year of Wanli, he is 29 years old this year. He is tall and burly. Because of his yellow complexion, he has a nickname called Huang Hu.

Zhang Xianzhong is quite interesting.

His background is quite complicated. Some say he was born as a farmer, some say he was born as a scholar, some say his family is a businessman, some say he is a descendant of a family, and some say he was a policeman. .

But no matter what kind of origin, his final outcome is the same: joining the army.

It was very difficult to serve as a soldier in the Ming Dynasty, because the court had no money and often owed wages, and it was common for them to owe wages for several months.

What's interesting is that Zhang Xianzhong's life was not difficult. He had food and drink all day long, and he still had savings.

What's more interesting is that Zhang Xianzhong was often blackmailed by others. For example, neighbors often borrowed money from him and refused to pay it back.

Zhang Xianzhong asked his neighbor for money, but the neighbor made it clear that he would not pay it back, and he had no choice.

This shows that Zhang Xianzhong's money came from a bad way (being robbed by a robber). He was afraid that his neighbor would report him, so he could only hold his nose and admit it if the neighbor didn't pay back the money.

How can I not get my shoes wet when I often walk by the river?Maybe it was because he had done too much work, Zhang Xianzhong was finally denounced, arrested and sentenced to death.

Zhang Xianzhong's luck was good. At this moment, a general soldier saw him, thought he was a talent, begged for him, and let him go.

The commander-in-chief's vision is indeed good, Zhang Xianzhong is indeed a talent, a talent for rebellion, the experience of this man's rebellion can be called a legend.

In the third year of Chongzhen, Wang Jiayin passed by his hometown, and he led a group of people to rebel with Wang Jiayin. After a year, Wang Jiayin died and he surrendered.

At that time, Yang He was in charge in Shaanxi. Yang He asked Zhu Youjian for some money to recruit the bandits, but Zhang Xianzhong surrendered because he was greedy for the money.

After more than half a year, Yang He had no money, and Zhang Xianzhong's money was also spent, so he continued to rebel.

In the future, as long as it is a major event, he will have his share.

The rogues fled from Shaanxi to Shanxi. There was him in the 36th Battalion, he was surrounded by Wang Pu in Henan, and he was surrounded by Chen Qiyu in Chexiang Gorge.

Basically, he has done what the bandit leaders have done but never done. The number of times he surrendered cannot be counted with one slap, and two slaps are barely enough.

Ordinarily, people like Zhang Xianzhong should be afraid of death, but it is strange that this time he was against both surrender and escape.

What's even more strange is that you said you won't surrender, and you said you won't run away, so you should have an idea of ​​what to do next, right?Sorry, Zhang Xianzhong has no idea.

Zhang Xianzhong didn't have an idea, but someone did.

This person is Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng was the same age as Zhang Xianzhong, and his appearance was very inconspicuous. It is said that his wife ran away because of his appearance.

Compared with Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng's resume is much simpler.

His family raises horses.

Raising horses in the Ming Dynasty was a good job, and the income was not low. Li Zicheng's family background was good, and he went to a private school when he was a child.

But the good times didn't last long, Li Zicheng's father died not long after, and his family had no income, so Li Zicheng dropped out of school.

After dropping out of school, in order to make ends meet, Li Zicheng worked for others. Because of his young age, the landlords bullied him, often making him work without paying him.

In desperation, Li Zicheng asked someone to find a relationship with the post station to become a postman.

Li Zicheng is a man of duty. In order to keep his job, he did a good job at the post station.

But in the second year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng's job was ruined.

Zhu Youjian followed Liu Mao's suggestion and abolished the post station, and Li Zicheng was driven home.

After Li Zicheng returned home, he planned to continue working for others, but due to the severe drought in Shaanxi in the past two years, he couldn't find a way to work.Seeing that there was no way out, at this moment, Wang Zuogui came to recruit people, and Li Zicheng went to work for Wang Zuogui.

Wang Zuogui was as famous as Wang Jiayin. At that time, there were thousands of people under him, divided into eight teams.

Li Zicheng had raised horses when he was a child, and served horses as a postman, so he knew horses better. In addition, Li Zicheng had studied for a few days when he was a child. Wang Zuogui thought Li Zicheng was good, so he made him the captain of the eighth team.

Later, Li Zicheng's nickname was Eight Team Chuang Jiang.

A year later, Wang Zuogui attacked Hancheng and met Hong Chengchou. After the battle, Wang Zuogui surrendered and was killed by Hong Chengchou. At that time, many of Wang Zuogui's subordinates followed him.

Another year later, Buzhanni also surrendered. Li Zicheng led his men to Gao Yingxiang, and then followed Gao Yingxiang to Shanxi.

In Shanxi, Gao Yingxiang met Cao Wenzhao, was kicked out and ran around, and finally met Li Jing again.

Under Li Jing's intimidation, Li Zicheng followed Gao Yingxiang to help Li Jing take down the five counties of Pingyang Prefecture. After that, Gao Yingxiang was driven to Qinshui County by Li Jing, and Li Zicheng led his troops back to Shaanxi to fight guerrillas with Hong Chengchou.

After a year of guerrilla fighting, Shaanxi couldn't stay any longer, so Li Zicheng had no choice but to go to Shanxi to join Gao Yingxiang.

At this time, there happened to be a plague in Shanxi. Li Jing saw the rogues running around everywhere, so he had to kill the rogues.

Li Zicheng and Gao Yingxiang judged the situation and fled into Taiyue Mountain to escape the catastrophe.

Later Li Jing led his troops to Datong, Li Zicheng and Gao Yingxiang took the opportunity to escape from Shanxi, and then mixed with Zhang Xianzhong and others, and were soon surrounded by the army. Gao Yingxiang and others bribed Wang Pu to feign surrender and escaped.

The carriage gorge was besieged, and the leaders of the rogue bandits resorted to tricks of surrender again, and narrowly escaped death again.

Like Zhang Xianzhong, since he joined the rebel team, Li Zicheng participated in most of the incidents. However, Li Zicheng did not surrender as many times as Zhang Xianzhong. Even if the boss surrendered, he would not surrender, but another boss followed.

The biggest difference between Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong is that Li Zicheng never surrendered when he should not surrender, and he was absolutely unambiguous when he should surrender.

This is not to say that Li Zicheng has more backbone than Zhang Xianzhong, both of them are heroes of a generation, and when it comes to shamelessness, they are almost the same.

Li Zicheng didn't surrender with the boss because he knew very well that the person his boss surrendered to was evil, and surrendering would not end well. To put it bluntly, Li Zicheng paid attention to understanding his opponent.

Since Li Zicheng's rebellion, there are two people who have dealt with the most officers and soldiers, one is Hong Chengchou, and the other is Cao Wenzhao.

These two people are people who will never give up until they achieve their goals, but this time these two people got together.

Li Zicheng knew that not only would he not be able to surrender this time, he would not even be able to enter the mountains.If he descends, he must die, and if he escapes into the mountains, his chances of surviving are probably not great.

The only way is to get out.

But you can't fight randomly when you fight out, you have to have a direction.

Li Zicheng quickly thought of a place, which was Fengyang, the central capital.

(End of this chapter)