"Shi Gong, don't worry too much, speaking of which, there has been a good thing recently."

Standing next to Shi Kefa is the nearest six-rank official, who can speak at this time, and his attitude is more casual, and even has a slight smile on his face, of course, his identity is Shi Kefa's staff.

This person's name is Ying Tingji, born in Jinshi, and has been a magistrate, because he has a deep knowledge in arithmetic and astronomy, and can infer things by numbers, Shi Kefa was impressed after meeting this person, but this person's attitude towards Shi Kefa has always been casual, and even a little ignorant and slightly frivolous in the eyes of outsiders.

Shi Kefa smiled reluctantly and said, "What did Mr. Ji say?" ”

"More than ten days ago, a strange thing happened in Jiangbei."

Ying Tingji said casually: "Xiaguan has a friend in Huai'an, and he wrote a letter a few days ago, saying that there are more than 1,000 pirates and bandits who have invaded Dahewei Yunti Pass......

"Is there such a thing?" Shi Kefa frowned, and there was a look of shock between his eyebrows.

If there was similar news in Luzhou, Shouzhou, and Fengyang, Shi Kefa would not take it seriously.

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the prototype of the four towns almost appeared, Huang Degong was stationed in Chuzhou, Hezhou, Liu Liangzuo was stationed in Fengyang, Shouzhou, Liu Zeqing was in Huai'an, Gao Jie arrived in Xuzhou shortly after, and the four towns were almost formed.

These four towns are all on the periphery of Nanjing, and the core of the screen is of course Nanjing.

There is Zuo Liangyu in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and what he resisted was of course the partial division of the army in Hubei.

Then the imperial court has a part of the Nanjing Jing battalion soldiers, Caojiang soldiers, in addition to Yangzhou has a few general soldiers, the strength is not strong, there are a few Zhejiang soldiers in command of tens of thousands of Zhejiang soldiers, plus Huguang, Yungui, Fujian have garrisons, Nanming's military strength is not weak.

But the key point is that Nanming takes Nanjing as the core, and there is a tight and strong defensive ring around it, compared with Chongzhen's situation in Beijing, the situation of Nanming is actually quite stable.

If there is also a large number of rogues in Jiangbei Dahewei, it will be another troublesome thing for Shi Kefa.

Shi Kefa said in a deep voice: "Dahewei Yunti Pass, is it the thousand-household house at the mouth of the Huai River?" ”

Ying Tingji said with a smile: "Shi Gong is really a strong scholar, and it is indeed there...... Don't worry, the bandits have been exterminated. ”

Shi Kefa really relaxed a little, and reluctantly smiled: "Over a thousand bandits, I'm afraid Wei is powerless, right?" Could it be that Liu Zeqing, the chief military officer, sent troops to suppress it? ”

"It's strange here." Ying Tingji is the best at fishing people's appetites, and he tells a small thing step by step to be suspenseful and thrilling, attracting attention, at this time, not only Shi Kefa's attention is attracted by him, but also those staff and officials in the hall are also looking at him.

"This time to suppress the thieves and quell the chaos, it is not the guest soldiers of Shandong Town, nor the Xuzhou battalion, and Huaiyang Road has no soldiers to send......" Ying Tingji's voice was elongated, and the beard on his chin also jumped and jumped, and his appearance was a little funny, but at this time, people were hung by his words, but no one paid attention to such details.

Ying Tingji only cared about showing off, annoying the staff Yan Ermei on the side, this person stepped forward, glared at Tingji and said: "You don't sell Guanzi again, be careful to pour your wine in your ears for a while!" ”

Among Shi Kefa's staff, there are quite a lot of Hanlin who were born as jinshi and officials selected from various places, as well as many famous celebrities in many places, and the most famous at this time is Yan Ermei, who is famous for his bold personality and good poetry. Generally speaking, the backbone of the Restoration Society is mainly Jiangnan and Zhejiang, Yan Ermei and a small number of Jiangbei celebrities can gain a foothold in the Restoration Society, and are quite valued and respected, and their own knowledge does not need to be discussed, and their character and ethics are naturally first-class and powerful.

It's just that this Yan Ermei's personality is a little impatient, and it is chivalrous to say that it sounds good, and it is a little reckless and irritable to say that it is difficult to hear, and he is tall and good at sword dancing, and his momentum is not inferior to that of a martial artist, not to mention a Jinshi civil official like Ying Tingji.

Ying Tingji thought that he couldn't provoke Yan Ermei, this person did what he said, and then sold Guanzi, and he was not allowed to be drunk when he ate at noon, and he made a hand gesture to beg for mercy at the moment, and then said very brightly: "The bandits are from the south of Yancheng, the pirates are Qinshan Island pirates, and the attack is the 300th household Min Yuanqi Department of Yunti Pass, Min Yuanqi led the 100 households under his command, as well as the nearby hundreds of households, more than 400 people met the incoming bandits, defeated them in a battle, and beheaded nearly 1,000 people. Now I have received a private message, it is estimated that Huai'an Taizhou is still estimating and verifying, if it is true, I am afraid that the document of meritorious service will be sent to the ministry lord. ”

"Is that so?" Shi Kefa and many of his staff members had a look of surprise on their faces, this is also the first time that Min Yuanqi's name has been known by these top elites of the Ming Dynasty, if it is a well-known general, not to mention leading 400 people, it is more than 100 people to defeat more than 1,000 bandits, and even rogue bandits, the people here will not feel strange.

Even at this point, Li Zicheng, who is known as a million, is actually only a hundred thousand people, and the most capable of fighting is the tens of thousands of old battalion soldiers who follow Li Zicheng.

The rest of Ding Zhuang, who holds knives and guns, should have also trained and fought, but strictly speaking, they are still a rabble, have no toughness, and lack heavy equipment. When it comes to combat effectiveness, not to mention that compared with the top elites of the Ming Dynasty like Guan Ningbing, even the combat power of ordinary town soldiers is far above that of the rogues who are not old battalion soldiers.

The Ming army was repeatedly defeated, the generals had their own selfish intentions, the civilian officials lacked prestige, and the dispatch was ineffective, and they passed the buck to each other, which was the main reason.

After Sun Chuanting was released, the training was only a few months, and the equipment was not complete and was forced out of the customs, and the result was that the main force of Li Zicheng's troops won several battles, and later Chongzhen was so happy that he was forced to fight a decisive battle, Sun Chuanting was annihilated by Li Zicheng, and the last army loyal to the center of the Ming Dynasty was destroyed.

It is not uncommon for more than 100 cavalrymen of the Ming army to defeat ten times the number of rogues, but the people present are all old adults, and they are quite clear about the combat power of the Weisho Banner Army.

To put it mildly, the top combat power of the Ming Dynasty in this era must be the Jurchen Eight Banners, followed by the elite of the old battalion of the hundred battles brought out by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, and the top elite soldiers of the Ming army such as Guan Ning soldiers, and then the serious cavalry of the Northern Captives, and the elite of the small number of Ming generals and battalion soldiers are second, followed by ordinary rogues, and then down are the battalion cannon fodder of the Ming army's towns, and then down are the bandits and pirates of Xiangma, and the bottom is the Weisho Banner Army.

It can be said that the Weisho army has the name of a regular army, and it is really pulled out to fight, and a thousand banner troops against a thousand pirates and bandits are most likely to lose more than win.

This is the reason for everyone's surprise, it is not enough that the guards at the bottom of the battle force have won, if it is said that the more than 1,000 bandits have gathered one or two thousand guards from the thousand households, and they are defending their native relatives, it is just that the morale rises and the victory is won.

The 400 Banner Army took the initiative to invite the attack, and it was just enough to defeat the enemy in a battle, and there were nearly 1,000 beheadings?

Shi Kefa frowned and said: "Since they are afraid that it is true that they are the first to report the merits, I am afraid that there will be something good to kill." ”

"I'm writing to my best friend." Ying Tingji said: "Since the merit has been reported, the Huai'an Health Bureau, the local government and Huaiyang Dao must of course be inspected first, and we will see what Huaiyang Dao says." ”

Yan Ermei said with a smile: "If it is true, there is another hero who can lead troops in my Jiangbei area!" ”

Everyone here felt the same way, and Shi Kefa was thinking and considering it because of the affairs in the north and the deployment of Nanjing. For a great unified dynasty, the fall of Jingshi is almost equivalent to the death of the country, unless there is a way of luck against the sky, such as the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, the best situation for the fall of Jingshi is also to fall apart, and strong feudal forces appear in the locality, each supporting the clan, attacking each other, and finally the true destiny appears, and the world is unified again.

The situation of the Ming Dynasty is good in the two Beijing system, Beijing is finished, Nanjing still exists, if Nanjing has a righteous prince, all the problems have been solved.

Shi Kefa's current idea is to establish four feudatories, Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo to guard the area of Fengyang, Chuzhou and Zhou, defend the flank of Nanjing, Yangzhou in the north directly under Nanjing, and put some weaker foreign guest soldiers to garrison.

Liu Zeqing can become a vassal to guard Huai'an, but although Xuzhou in the north has Xuzhou Road, and there are several battalions of soldiers and horses stationed there, everyone knows that the Suining camp and the Tongshan camp are all empty shelves, saying that there are more than 1,000 people, and I am afraid that they will have to eat the empty salary of 900 people, and most of the rest are old, weak, sick and useless.

Yan Ermei said: "If this matter is true, this Min Yuanqi is a material that can be made." Brother Ying, did your friend's letter mention the origin of this Min Yuanqi's family? ”

"Dahe Wei Min's family, Brother Yan should know if you think about it."

"I remember." Yan Ermei said with a smile: "Cheng Gong, a person who stays warm, once wrote an elegy for a conductor of the Min family, and I want to come to the poem that saved Min Gonghuhou, which was written by the ancestors of Min Yuanqi?" ”

Ying Tingji picked his thumb and said with a smile: "Brother Yan is worthy of being a poet, and he is also well-read and memorable, that's right, it is written about this Min family, who has been retired with the country for more than 200 years, and is only in his twenties this year, which is the age to be able to do a career." To be honest, when I heard about it, I was amazed and rejoiced. ”

The meaning of these words is quite obvious, and Ying Tingji obviously does not shy away from anything, he should have taken the advantage and spoke for Min Yuanqi.

Listening to Ying Tingji's words, Shi Kefa's face showed a thoughtful expression, and then he shook his head and sighed.

If this Min Yuanqi came out a few years earlier, or even a year earlier, he would also be able to cultivate money and food resources with heart, and one year would be enough for Min Yuanqi to master thousands of soldiers and horses, so that a fierce general who can fight, and unite some battalion generals, can almost stand alone, but now it is a little late.

"Let's not talk about it for a while, it's a good thing that there are strong generals in Jiangbei, and I'll talk about it when the serious merit report documents arrive." Shi Kefa has been criticized in many major decisions, but people are extremely smart, young people, young scholars, young scholars, and famous young scholars, and now they have gone through local officials and other official positions to take charge of the center, and they are extremely smart in terms of being an official, and he smiled and said: "There is no major event in Jiangbei, and the beheading of nearly a thousand levels is a good thing that can boost morale, and the magistrate is afraid that he will ask the people of the Min family to send the head to Nanjing, if the test is correct, give this Min Yuanqi a future, and it depends on himself how to do it." ”

"Shi Gong is right." Ying Tingji took advantage of the benefits to do things, and now that he has successfully completed the task, he will not have much to do, and he will respond with a smile.

Even if this matter is revealed, whether it is Shi Kefa or Yan Ermei, or Ying Tingji and the rest of the staff, they all subconsciously regard Min Yuanqi's personal strength as very high, and the number of the 400 banner army as low.

It's no wonder that these military attachés, the Ming battalion and the guard army really can't be mentioned, and in the usual cognition, there are brave generals who can raise the spirit of the battalion, and brave generals leading troops and mediocre generals leading troops are two results.

Under the long-term tradition, a good general like Qi Jiguang who is both civil and military is an outlier, and more is a martial madman like Juniper who is full of scars and rushes to the forefront of the war.

Now there are several generals in the south, only Huang Degong has the strongest personal force, and his fighting style is also the most brave, the result is that Huang Bu is indeed the strongest in the towns, Liu Liangzuo and Liu Zeqing and others are far from their opponents, Zuo Liangyu seems to have many soldiers and horses, and his power is huge, but in fact, his combat power may not be stronger than Huang Degong.

Because the elite led by Zuo Liangyu was wiped out in the first battle of Zhuxian Town, only a few remnants remained, after fleeing to Huguang, Zuo Liangyu carried a large number of people into the camp, and gradually recovered his strength, on the surface, there were many more troops than before, but even if he was a civilian official who was good at leading troops, he knew in his heart that Zuo Liangyu's strength had not yet recovered...... This is indeed the case, Zuo Liangyu later raised troops on the side of the Qing army under the instigation of the Lin Party in the east (- the fastest release), but was defeated by Huang Degong's troops before reaching Nanjing, when the Qing army was about to cross the river, and the two towns of Nanming were still fighting to death......

In the perception of civilian officials, the courage of military generals determines everything, and there are reasons for this, and it cannot be completely said to be wrong.

It's just that here in Min Yuanqi, it is obvious that this perception is completely wrong.