"Resist, give it to Lao Tzu, who dares to take a step back and kill without mercy!"

Ma Sidi was dressed in heavy iron armor, wearing an eight-petal iron helmet, holding a long knife and standing on the city wall and shouting at the defenders at the head of the city, and surprisingly, there were several baskets behind him, which were stacked with a large number of copper plates, broken silver and even silver coins.

Next to the basket stood dozens of heavily armed men in iron armor, and a man who looked like an officer was also shouting with all his might: "Look at it, this is white silver." The governor and the horse have an order, whether it is to kill the hungry soldiers or the leader of the thieves in this battle, there will be a heavy reward, and the reward will be cashed on the spot and will never break the promise! ”

In the offensive and defensive battles of the past few days, the Liukou led by Li Zicheng put great pressure on the officers and soldiers defending the city in Hangzhou, and in seven days, the number of officers and soldiers defending the city and the number of young men and women killed and wounded had reached more than 5,000.

Such a casualty figure is not low, it stands to reason that the Jiangnan army after hundreds of years of peace, the low combat effectiveness is obvious to all, after suffering such a large casualty should have collapsed a long time ago, but surprisingly they not only did not collapse, even the city wall of Hangzhou Mansion is still firmly in the hands of officers and soldiers, the reason is that Ma Sidi came up with the reward system.

As the garrison officer of Hangzhou Mansion, Ma Sidi knows very well what kind of virtue his soldiers are, and it is a miracle that he can hold the city for three days if he really relies on these people to defend the city.

So he came up with a method, and after obtaining Pan Ruzhen's consent, he announced on the spot that whether it was the officers and soldiers defending the city, the young men who came to help, or the private soldiers "borrowed" from those salt merchants and maritime merchants, as long as they could kill a hungry soldier, they would be rewarded with two taels of silver, and if they could kill a dead soldier, they would be rewarded with five taels of silver, and the small leader would be twenty taels, and if the officers above the brigade level were at least two hundred taels.

In order to ensure the fairness of the silver reward, Ma Sidi also invited Pan Ruzhenhe's Fubiao battalion and his own family to jointly form a supervision team, which was not only responsible for killing deserters, but also responsible for observing and recording the results.

No matter who kills the thief, he can go to Ma Sidi to receive the reward on the same day, and Ma Sidi also gives him extraordinary pleasure without delay.

For the officers and soldiers who defend the city and the young man, it is nonsense to talk to them about loyalty and patriotism, only silver is true, and it is also a hard work, the difference between taking silver and not taking silver is definitely a heaven and a place.

Seeing that others were holding a lot of silver, not to mention the original city defenders and those private soldiers, even the young men who were originally just helping to carry things and transport the wounded began to take the initiative to kill the enemy, which shows that the ability of money has been a powerful force since ancient times.

However, with the continuous attacks of the rogues, the casualties of the defenders began to increase, and the difficulty of defending became more and more difficult.

Listening to the shouts from the city, Pan Ruzhen's face became solemn, and at this time, he looked down from the city gate, and the black oppressive people and horses seemed to be spread to the end of heaven and earth

A herald quickly ran to Ma Sidi and said loudly: "Report ...... The thieves have increased their troops to the Qiantang Gate and the Houchao Gate, and at present, no more than 10,000 thieves have gathered in these two gates, and Hou Qian always asked for reinforcements! ”

"Reinforcements, reinforcements, what is there to reinforce, haven't the thieves attacked yet?"

Ma Sidi scolded angrily: "You go back and tell Hou Xiong that if the thief attacks him, he will resist Lao Tzu, and if Qiantang Gate is good and Hou Chaomen loses Lao Tzu, he will cut off his head, do you understand?" ”

"Whoa!"

The herald was startled and ran away.

Ma Sidi, who was angry, went to the gate of the city and came to Pan Ruzhen's side to persuade: "Lord Governor, I think that the situation is still not optimistic, there are too many thieves, and the soldiers defending the city have not had a good rest for several days, why don't we recruit another group of young people?" ”

Pan Ruzhen pondered for a long time, and said slowly: "Yes, I don't know how many more people you want to recruit?" ”

"Of course, the more the merrier."

Ma Sidi blurted out that he knew that he had said nonsense, in terms of the population base of Hangzhou Prefecture, recruiting 18,000 young people is like playing, with the current situation, even if it is to recruit another 350,000 young people, but the biggest problem now is that they don't have so much silver at all.

Qingzhuang is different from regular officers and soldiers, the Ming law stipulates that if the government recruits young and strong, it will pay a settling-in allowance, generally speaking, the settling-in allowance for each young man is at least not less than ten taels, you really have to follow what Ma Sidi said, the more the better, and the same rogue to attack, they would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.

Moreover, the young men had never been trained, and the casualties on the battlefield were also amazing, and in these days of fighting, the casualties of the young men accounted for six or seven percent of the total casualties.

Unexpectedly, Pan Ruzhen thought seriously after listening to Ma Sidi's words, and said after a while: "Benfu has already ordered the recruitment of another 8,000 young men this morning, presumably I will be able to hand them over to you this evening, and Hangzhou Mansion must not lose them!" ”

"Xia Guan understands."

What else could Ma Sidi say, he could only agree.

Just when Ma Sidi was about to go down to the city gatehouse, there was a sudden roar in the distance, a projectile smashed heavily on the city wall, and the five-pound projectile smashed a table-sized battlement with strong kinetic energy, and the two young men hiding behind the battlement were smashed by the flying blue bricks and rubble, screaming and falling to the ground and wailing.

Immediately, the young man next to him stepped forward and carried the two injured companions down.

"What the hell is going on, how can a thief have artillery? Where did these guns come from? ”

Seeing that the city wall was actually bombarded, Ma Sidi, who was stunned, grabbed the clairvoyant mirror and looked at the place where the cannon sounded and remembered, and sure enough, he saw that more than a dozen artillery pieces were lined up, and dozens of gunners were busy manipulating the artillery, but these gunners were not very familiar with the guys in their hands, and their movements were also very rusty.

"Master Ma, can you tell me where you got these cannons from?" Pan Ruzhen, who is still calm these days, has also lost his temper, these days have been quite difficult to defend, and he can hold on to it by relying on a large amount of silver and the dozens of cannons on the city wall, but if even the thieves have artillery, how can this battle be fought?

"Although Xiaguan hasn't received the news yet, Xiaguan has reason to believe that these artillery pieces of the thieves must have been captured by them in the capture of Huizhou Mansion and Ningguo Mansion, and they don't know how to operate the artillery, otherwise they wouldn't have waited until now to take it out."

"Well, that makes sense."

Pan Ruzhen agreed with Ma Sidi's analysis.