Late Ming Dynasty: Conquering the world starting from riding and cutting

The fifth day of May in the third year of Chongzhen. Weizhou led the army back to Jinping County.

Walking at the front of the team were the guards headed by Tian Shengyuan. As the team officer, he rode in the middle of the team. This team of guards acted as scouts for the entire army, choosing the path for the team, detecting the enemy's situation, and taking precautions. .

Entering May, the weather gradually started to get a little hot. After marching for a long distance, everyone was covered with sweat on their heads and bodies, and their faces were red from the sun. In order to replenish water, the soldiers in the army kept picking up the kettle and pouring water into their mouths to cool down.

The scouts at the front of the march looked back towards the direction from which the team came, and saw a dense mass of human heads, mixed in with the team of carriages and horses, making it appear bustling and lively.

Riding his horse in the middle of the team, closely followed by the trumpet commander and the guards, Weizhou felt as if he had immediately stopped in front of him and stared at him, but he didn't feel like this when he was studying in the past.

Hengdao immediately, the general will take the lead!

After this trip, not only did I sell all the goods of the "Qin and Han Company", including salt, cotton cloth, swords, guns, swords and halberds, in exchange for a lot of gold and silver, I also bought them as goods from various places at discounted prices, or from Solving it in the bandit's lair will gain nearly 30,000 more people anyway.

Nowadays, there is a wave of anti-grain and anti-tax movements everywhere in Lingnan. The first to start, the most energetic and brave people in the anti-tax and anti-food activities are often the gangster proletarians. Once these people invade the besieged villages and villages, where will they be able to survive? polite?

Money, food, women, livestock, and clothes were all swept away, and they enjoyed themselves to their heart's content. What is left behind is ruins and thousands or tens of thousands of homeless people.

These homeless people either become new blood in the anti-food and tax resistance teams, or they continue to wander and become refugees between states and counties. All in all, they are all factors causing social instability.

There are even worse cases: those who were plundered by bandits under the banner of anti-grain. Young women were used to solve physical problems, the old and the weak became the targets of torture, and the young and strong became the next victims. The cannon fodder of the battle. Their skills have improved rapidly in the past few months of wandering.

Weizhou had seen this situation several times, and he had always been rescued when he encountered blind bandits blocking his way.

When these rescued people learned that these powerful and brave men came from the legendary Keelung and did not need to be mobilized, they naturally joined the marching team, and more and more of them joined.

This is how these 30,000 people came!

Looking at the innocent people in the team who were talking and laughing, cheerful from time to time, and regaining the courage and hope to live, I then thought about the scene when they were admitted that day. They were all in rags, and their clothes were in tatters. The sack can barely be used to cover the body.

Some women and children have become completely numb to the concept of clothes. They only have a few pieces of cloth covering their vital parts, leaving large parts of their bodies exposed.

The word shame has no concept of the thinking public at all for them. There was only numbness, indifference, or a lifeless look in their eyes.

After accepting them, Weizhou immediately clenched his fist secretly and swore: "It is his duty to guard them!"

"Sir!" Zhou Di, the camp officer, rode his horse onto the head of Weizhou's horse, and the two of them rode side by side.

"My subordinates have just checked that among the more than 30,000 people, there are about 10,000 young men. Didn't the Lord order us to recruit soldiers on the spot before departure? This is what I thought. When we return to Jinping County, we will send these people to We will go to the big island to recuperate for a while, and then board the ship to transport the old and the weak back to Keelung, while the young and strong will be detained and some people will be picked out to enrich our team. "

"I know, just do it!"

"No! I dare to issue a military order. As long as you give me three months, or at most half a year, these young men will be a strong army again!"

"Okay! I'll give you three months to train five thousand soldiers for me. I can't afford more, hahaha!"

The two chatted and laughed for a while, and then entered Jinping County in a blink of an eye.

"Sir! Captain Tian, ​​who is serving as the scout, asked for instructions on how we should march? Should we go around the county seat and cross the Shawan River to go south?"

"Then tell Captain Tian to cross the river and go south, don't take a detour!"

After crossing the Shawan River on horseback, Weizhou felt keenly that something was not right in the atmosphere, and an indescribable strange feeling filled his heart.

"Go tell Tian Shengyuan quickly and tell him to be careful!" Weizhou stood up on horseback. Weizhou still believed in this sixth sense.

A Shawan River seems to separate two worlds.

To the north of Shawan River, a farmer who was busy watering and weeding the fields saw a horse team passing by. He immediately led his oxen and ran quickly to the surrounding village without looking back, leaving behind a few pairs of pairs along the way. Hakkas wear straw sandals and wide-brimmed black hats and like to wear bamboo hats.

On the south side of the river, it is a different scene. There are almost no farmers or women busy with summer plowing in the fields. This season is not as busy as autumn, but it is not so leisurely for farmers either.

If you don't farm in the summer, you will suffer hardships during the autumn harvest. Wheatworms in the fields will bite most of the roots and ears in the rice fields.

As Tian Shengyuan's small cavalry entered, flags were raised on the fortresses along the way, and the sound of loud gongs was suddenly sounded to announce something.

As the sound of gongs came, countless young men from the surrounding villages rushed up to the wall of the village with swords and guns in hand, watching the arrival of this group of uninvited guests with hatred.

"No, no!"

Tian Shengyuan hurriedly called the two armor commanders around him to assign tasks to each of them.

"Someone must be trying to harm us! Take your people to the beach and find a way to cross the sea to the big island. There is our military camp there. Ask them to send a boat to the beach to meet us! The gunboat must come!"

The commander took the order and rode away with his men.

"You, hurry up and report to Mr. Weizhou and ask him to supervise the team and cross the river quickly to pass through the siege area. Otherwise, things may change if you wait too long!"

........

When Liu Wendou and Kong Yijie, the guests of honor, were enjoying Zhejiang Mingqian tea in their mansion, a piece of bad news spread like wildfire!

The moment he received the document from the local policeman, County Magistrate Liu almost peed his pants.

"How many people must have died?!"

Seeing Liu Wendou's body shaking like an autumn leaf in the wind and rain, Master Kong Yijie knew that something big must have happened!

This is not the first time Kong Yijie has experienced what happened in the letter.

In this area of ​​Lingnan, it is quite normal for locals to fight with each other. They often contact each other's villages, make friends, and bring relatives and clans together. Hundreds or thousands of people are often dispatched.

Once the old production tools such as hoes, hatchets, and sickles are turned into weapons for fighting, their lethality is also amazing. The damage caused is not small, and dozens of people have to be killed or injured every time.

Of course, it is nothing compared to the big battles in Lingxi that often involve tens of thousands of people!