Yue Xiang's declaration of disobedience caused a huge sensation in the Yue family, and after he left, Old Man Yue rolled his eyes angrily on the spot.

You must know that in this feudal era, the monarch is the heaven of the minister, the father is the heaven of the son, and the man is the layer of the woman, which is called the three outlines. Lao Tzu said that the son must obey unconditionally, even if it is ridiculous, even if you are asked to die, you have to go.

This is the so-called principle that the monarch and the minister have to die, and this is the code of conduct that has been cultivated by the deep-rooted school of Confucianism for thousands of years. If anyone violates this norm and dares to rebel against him, he is a so-called rebel and thief, and he will be reviled by everyone. But Yue Xiang didn't care about this.

Although he is considered a filial son, he does not regard this father-in-law as his own father.

Moreover, he received a socialist education since he was a child, and he had a contemptuous attitude towards all feudal ideological systems, and after living in modern society for decades, even his own father could not force him to do what he thought was wrong.

Even now back in antiquity.

After everyone rescued the old man Yue in a panic, the old man beat his chest, cried and scolded, claiming that he was going to report to the official to arrest this disobedient son, and some of the people persuaded and some agreed. Although Huang was not on the spot, he soon heard about his son's amazing behavior, and almost fainted, and wanted to go to the inner hall to intercede for his son, but was slapped by Yue Yuanwai.

The old man shouted that he wanted to go to the government office to complain, but he was stopped in the end. There is only one deputy general in Qinghe City, Zou Chuxian, who is still an illiterate Qiu Ba Lao. The only literate people in the yamen are a few clerks, but they don't care about anything. There was supposed to be a deputy general judge, but the position remained vacant. Xiucai meets soldiers, and it is unclear to be reasonable. I don't know if I can tell him if I can tell him clearly when I go to complain to this Zou Junmen.

Besides, I heard that it was this guy who picked up Yue Xiang to organize the family Ding militia and went to him to complain himself, but it wasn't to go to find a nail to touch. Now most of the Yue family's family members are recruited by Yue Xiang, although the nominal parents are still Yue's members, but basically if the two have a conflict, those family members will definitely listen to Yue Xiang.

After some discussion, it was decided to come up with a two-pronged approach. First, the elders of each clan immediately recalled their young people, and one-third of Yue Xiang's men were young descendants of the clan. Second, they cut off their salaries so that they could understand who was the one who paid them.

If you want to say that these two strategies of everyone are still feasible, how can you support more than 200 people by yourself without the support of your family? I'm afraid I won't be able to hold on for even two days, and Yue Xiang won't take people to his house to mess around.

Of course, the premise is that Yue Xiang regards this place as his home, and no one thinks about anything else about this. He doesn't call this home and still makes it his home there?

When Yue Xiang came to the Yamen, although it took some time, it was not a simple matter for hundreds of people to register and make records, and several bookstores were so busy that they were sweating profusely. Yue Xiang saw that his team was quite orderly, and he was quite satisfied. But then something else came to mind, and these people, though they were fierce and perhaps outstanding, had no formal training. It is unimaginable that they can resist the edge of the Eight Banners Army.

During the Battle of Sahuhu, the Ming army mobilized the elite combat troops on the front line of the whole country, such as Liu Ling and Jun Song, who were the most brilliant generals in the imperial court at that time, and they could be said to be the most experienced divisions.

Even they weren't opponents, let alone these untrained guys. Yue Xiang actually felt that even training might not be useful, but it was better than not training. He himself had fought as a soldier and knew the importance of training. Combat is about group cooperation, and no matter how strong an individual's ability is, if he doesn't know how to cooperate, he will only be sent to death on the battlefield.

But how do you train? He is not at all familiar with this kind of war in the age of cold weapons. Teach them to queue, shoot, crawl forward? The rifle hadn't been invented yet, and the musket was probably the same as the earthen cannon he had seen hunting. Now the army is practicing bows, swords, arrows, arrows, drums, and horns, all of which he does not understand.

Moreover, from the miserable achievements of the Ming army, it can be proved that these training methods have fallen behind and cannot withstand the attack of the Jurchen cavalry at all.

Probably the only strategy that proved to be effective was Yuan Chonghuan's strategy of defending the city with cannons, after all, he won the battle with this strategy. If a stupid method proves to work, it is not a stupid method. But the cannon ...... Yue Xiang looked at the city in the distance, the appearance of those primitive iron cannons really made him unable to raise his confidence. That kind of thing is probably not as powerful as a grenade in a single shot.

What should be done? To counter the means of cavalry charge, Yue's army invented hoplites to cut off horses' legs. But no army in the current Ming army has such courage, and even in Chinese history, only the Yue family army has succeeded.

There is no need to consider the confrontation with cavalry, now there are about 1,000 horses in Qinghe City, half of them are coolie horses, and there are only more than 500 cavalry who can fight. Besides, the Jurchen broke a hundred and could be defeated by 10,000, when the Emperor Taiji surrounded the Daling River, he once made a bet with Zu Dashou, asking Zu Dashou to send out a thousand people, and the Qing army to send ten people to fight each other, the Qing army lost and retreated, and the Ming army lost to surrender, and Zu Dashou did not respond to the battle.

The combat effectiveness of the current Ming army is far inferior to that of the Guanning Iron Cavalry at that time, and it is estimated that it is even more in vain.

Thinking about it, it seems that there is only one way out of the city, and the walls of Qinghe City are about six or seven meters high, and they are made of adobe bricks on the outside and rammed earth in the middle. Yue Xiang still felt that it was too low and too strong. Maybe he is used to seeing the steel and concrete buildings with dozens of floors and then looking at these city walls is a bit of tofu scum, but when he understands that such a castle is already a strong city according to the current military standards of the Ming Dynasty, he didn't say anything more.

He finally understood why the Houjin soldiers were able to dig more than a dozen big holes in the city wall during the battle of Ningyuan, and he pondered about his own wall for a long time, thinking about why the tools could dig out a large hole in the brick wall several meters thick? Now I know that the brick wall at this time is not the same thing as the later one, and the brick wall at this time is similar to the earthen wall.

"Ziyi, you're late, you're the last one in the city." Yue Xiang was looking at the city wall in the distance**, and Zou Chuxian suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One of the advantages of this person is that he is approachable, and he does not put on an official show when he is with Yue Xiang. Yue Xiang hurriedly bowed down and saluted: "I don't know if the adults have arrived, I have missed the distance, forgive my sins." ”

Zou Chuxian was usually accompanied by a group of entourage, among which there were several Yue Xiang acquaintances, Zou Chuxian's deputy Zhang Min, and the fort guard Zhang Yuncheng and others, all of whom were acquaintances on weekdays.

Yue Xiang was about to salute one by one, Zou Chuxian waved his hand and said, "Now we are all people who take a boat, and this boat is Qinghe City." If you really need to work together to attack, you don't have to be so polite. "At this moment, the mountain rain is about to come, and the wind is full of buildings, Zou Chuxian is naturally trying his best to unite all the forces that can be united, whoever can bring him out, he will be polite to whom.

"Please rest assured, although Yue is not a talented person who has read the books of sages, he still understands the principle of serving the country loyally. It was only because it took some time to gather the manpower that it was late, and in the future, the adults had to drive despite the orders. ”

Yue Xiang naturally wanted to make a statement. Zou Chuxian was very happy, and after encouraging the court not to forget your courageous loyalty, and there will be a reward and other nonsense in the future, he led people into the yamen, leaving the castle official Zhang Yuncheng here to maintain order.

After about half an hour of commotion, Yue Xiang's team was finished, and Zhang Yuncheng asked him to bring the team back first to listen and then dispatch. Yue Xiang asked him that since these people have now become a volunteer militia approved by the government, I don't know when he will be able to send down the guards of the capital division, and who will be responsible for the food and salary of these people.

Zhang Yuncheng scratched his head and looked bitter: "Ziyi, it's okay to prevent this pass." When Qinghe's list is reported, it will probably take a month for the imperial court to approve it, in short, you will have a big seal. It's just that this armor and equipment and food and salary can only be prepared by yourself. I, the official of Wupinbao, still owe more than four months of salary and have not paid it, so where can I find food and salary for you? All the household goods that can be used in the arsenal have been moved to the city, and the officers and soldiers themselves are not enough, who can take care of you? ”

"What? Isn't our Qinghe's arsenal always known as having enough armor to support 10,000 people? Why aren't there enough people? "Yue Xiang Daqi, in fact, he didn't expect the government to pay his subordinates, but it would be too uninteresting to not even have weapons and equipment, isn't it obvious that they are cannon fodder.

"Hi...... You are not in the army, what is ...... here" Zhang Yuncheng pulled Yue Xiang aside and whispered: "Let me tell you the truth, in fact, those are all pretended." It is said that it can equip 10,000 people, but in fact, it can only be used by about sixty percent. The rest were useless furnishings in disrepair, and were placed in the arsenal in order to cope with the inspection of the superiors. It's just that the military department and the Governor's Office of the five armies can be evaluated every year when they come to evaluate their merits. ”

Saying that, seeing Yue Xiang's face full of surprise, Zhang Yuncheng himself was also embarrassed. "Of the fifty-six Wugang cars in my battalion, only ten can really run, and the rest are all broken and broken, barely put together, but their appearance is just whitewashed. You can't move at all, and if you do, you will collapse. As for the rusty and broken armor of the weapons, it is even more commonplace, and there are only these things in the city, where is there enough for you? ”

Yue Xiang was dumbfounded when he heard this, but at this time, Zhang Yuncheng had no reason to lie to him. He was stunned for a long time and suddenly laughed, he didn't expect that there was such a large pile of tattered garbage stored in the arsenal of Qinghe City, and the regular army of the dignified country was so rotten that it was really unreasonable not to lose the battle.

"I can't help it...... The arrears of the imperial court have not been paid for a long time, and the soldiers can't even eat enough, who still has the heart to care about these things. Zhang Yuncheng sighed and looked at Yue Xiang with a sad face.

It seemed that the situation was several times worse than expected, and a sense of powerlessness spread throughout the body. For such a team that lacks fighting spirit, low morale, and is seriously under-equipped, the legend that the Jurchens are invincible may not be unreasonable. Yue Xiang was silent for a moment and then asked his family to go back first, and then said to Zhang Yuncheng, "Can you let me go up to the city wall to have a look." ”

Zhang Yuncheng thought that Yue Xiang wanted to be familiar with the terrain, so he took him up to the city wall. I also secretly praised in my heart that after all, he was both civil and military, and he knew how to investigate the terrain in battle, and none of the dozen or so people in front of him had made this request.

The walls of Qinghe City are obviously not as strong and majestic as the Badaling Great Wall in Beijing, but this sense of historical realism is even more exciting.

It was the first time for Yue Xiang to stand on the real ancient city wall and look down, surrounded by soldiers wearing armor, and he couldn't help but feel awe when the atmosphere of slaughter was infected. This was a real castle, and he shuddered at the thought that perhaps in the near future the Jurchen cavalry would flood the Pingchuan outside the city like a frenzy, and slam the city walls under his feet again and again.

The width of the road road on the city wall is about three meters, and the female wall is a brick and stone structure, flat chest, and densely covered with cannon holes. Every dozen steps, there are piles of rolling logs and stones, and there are even large fortress defense equipment such as yaksha rings, wolf tooth beats, and iron fire beds. There was an enemy pillbox built on the horse face of the city wall, and some people were carrying bows, arrows, guns, stones and other things into it.

Outside the city, there are three moats, each of which is several meters wide, more than one zhang deep, and there are sheep and horse walls more than one person high along the inner edge, and the three-layer defense line is connected by a suspension bridge, and the soldiers or each guard their posts, or the traffic is endless, and there is no chaos.

Yue Xiang saw this and had a little bottom in his heart, the Ming Dynasty's city defense tactics basically inherited the Song Dynasty, and during the two Song Dynasty periods, because the northern nomads moved south, the infantry-based army of the Song Dynasty often suffered losses in the field battle, and the strategy was on the defensive. Therefore, the tactical development of defending the city can be called the pinnacle. The Ming Dynasty city defenders regarded it as a classic is the "Record of Defending the City" written by the Southern Song Dynasty Chen Gui, which pays attention to the tactics of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness layer by layer to contain the advantage of the attacker.

Therefore, once a city is determined to defend it, the complexity and scale of the defense line built are often staggering.

However, no matter how strong the defense line is, it needs people to defend it, and who knows how long these three lines of defense can last when they really fight? But on the surface, apart from feeling that the city wall was not high enough and not thick enough, he couldn't say anything else. He looked into the distance, Qinghe City was surrounded by mountains, and there was only one road to the east.

Yue Xiang thought for a while, pointed down and said, "Little brother has something unknown, why did he place all the artillery outside the city?" ”

"This is the practice of battalion warfare, and the two armies clash with firearms first, so the guns are all on the outermost part to facilitate the release."

"If the captives come, they must first break through the Raven Pass, and if they run to the city, how can they deal with the enemy? Is it to go out of the city to fight, or to stay behind closed doors? ”

In those years, all the generals who had been guarding the northern border fortress for a long time more or less knew some methods of dealing with the nomadic cavalry, not to mention that after Qi Jiguang took office, his "Actual Record of Military Training" became the standard course for the training of officers and soldiers in the nine-sided towns along the Great Wall. The official answer to Yue Xiang's question should be: rely on the city to go out of the city to fight. Defend yourself in a chariot formation to cope with the onslaught of the opposing cavalry, then make full use of the firepower advantage to crush the enemy position, and finally the cavalry attack, and the infantry cover the kill.

But with the current situation in Qinghe City, these things are obviously unrealistic. So the answer is obvious, positional defensive warfare.

But Zhang Yuncheng felt that Yue Xiang seemed to have something to say.

"Ziyi thinks he should take the field battle or stick to it?"

"Out of the city to fight, how are our Qinghe soldiers better than Zhang Zhenshuai's elite in Liaodong? Moreover, our army has always liked to form a formation with firearms and guns in battle. In this peaceful place, if the thief rider comes to breathe, he can rush to the front, and I can only have time to fire the cannon and shoot it without being able to continue, once the thief rider is trapped, the soldiers are often crushed, and these fire guns and iron cannons are sent to the thieves in vain. In the past, Qi Shaobao's training was to train elite soldiers first, and only the elite soldiers could be sharp weapons. Now I can't call the Qinghe weapon profitable, and the soldiers are not fine, so I am so rigid, hi ......" Yue Xiang shook his head.

In exchange for such an unceremonious accusation from others, Zhang Yuncheng would have rewarded him with a whip and thrown him into prison. But Yue Xiang's reputation has always been loud, and now he is the leader of hundreds of people, so he naturally has to be treated differently.

"What Ziyi said is very true, but this routine is an old trick that has been passed down from generation to generation by the soldiers of our border towns outside the Saiwai. This set has been used for 100 years in the war with the Mongolian Tatars, and now I don't know where to start if I want to change it. Zhang Yuncheng was very impressed with Yue Xiang's opinion, but no one knew how to change this traditional thing.

"The Eight Banners of Jianzhou are not comparable to the Mongol Tatars...... Yue Xiang knew in his heart that the Eight Banners Army was the most lethal field cavalry unit on the earth in this era, how could the declining Mongols be compared to them.

"What is Ziyi's opinion? Don't hide it. ”

"I don't have any high opinions, I only know that firearms are offensive and defensive weapons, and if the Jianzhou rebels come to attack, the only thing we can rely on is firearms and guns. These things must be placed out of the reach of the traitors, and we can fire at will. ”

Zhang Yuncheng understood a little, "Ziyi is talking ......"

"The rebels are armed with fast arrows, and they are at the forefront of field warfare, and it is not their forte. Evacuate the artillery outside the city, move all into the city and place them on the top of the city, rely on the city wall, use artillery, attack the enemy's shortcomings with their own strengths, clear the walls, and wait for reinforcements. ”