However, Mo Li was not too worried, one was that he was not Yang He, there were tens of thousands of elite soldiers under him, Chongzhen did not dare to move himself easily, which had been confirmed in Da Linghe. Bayi Middle School [ ?. Second, since Lu Hanzhang was able to discuss with himself like this, it means that he should not have any thoughts that are unfavorable to him, otherwise he can directly report to the court, and why do he need to come and talk so much nonsense with himself?

"Father-in-law Lu, the last general didn't think so much for a while, and I hope that my father-in-law will be more forgiving." Mo Li said in a sincere tone: "The last general just thinks that if these homeless people are allowed to fend for themselves, then they will definitely rebel repeatedly, we can suppress this side, but we can't take care of that side!" And the nature of the thieves is to wander around, if we can't extinguish them all at once, they will run to other places, the Ming Dynasty is so vast, how can we finish it? ”

Lu Hanzhang was silent. In fact, how could he not know that most of the thieves' rebellion was because they didn't eat? But the imperial court also has the difficulties of the imperial court, the Ming Dynasty has been affected everywhere in recent years, and there are many moths in the government at all levels, and there is not much food in the granary. If there are more monks and less porridge, how many refugees can be saved?

"Moreover, the last general has just promised that Hui Dengxiang will never kill his subordinates, so they are willing to surrender, otherwise we can kill them all, but can we really feel at ease? After all, they were all once the people of the Ming Dynasty! If we go back on our word and kill the prisoners now, it will also cause great resistance to our future conquest and suppression, and it will also greatly reduce our prestige in the army, what does my father-in-law think? ”

Lu Hanzhang nodded silently and said: "These are all known to our family, and since they have surrendered, it is naturally not appropriate to kill again, otherwise it will be against the peace of heaven, but it seems that the general should not recruit them into the army, but should be placed by the government!" ”

Mo Li shook his head and said: "My father-in-law doesn't know, if these thieves are handed over to the government for disposal, one is that the government prison will not be able to hold so many prisoners, and the other is that the general will recruit them into the army to not only strengthen the strength of the bandit team, but also they are quite familiar with other thieves, which is a great help to us, and at the same time, it can avoid the government from being embarrassed to deal with them." ”

Lu Hanzhang was stunned for a while, and finally nodded and said with a wry smile: "General Mo, what you said doesn't seem to be unreasonable, so this time it's up to the general's opinion, but we hope that the general will think about it carefully next time, after all, the Holy Heavenly Authority is not allowed to be disobeyed!" ”

"Thank you father-in-law for reminding me, the last general has written it down!" Mo Li arched his hand and said.

The next thing is to deal with the prisoners, Mo Li ordered the people to select the strong ones to be incorporated into the new Liao army, and the old and weak people were arranged by the government to do some labor, such as building roads and canals.

For those old and weak thieves who have been eliminated, they don't want to fight on the battlefield and fight with their lives, but now someone arranges things for them to do, so they naturally can't ask for it.

After noon, Mo Li received a report that Wang Jiayin's army of thieves had already marched to Meiyuan Town, which was about 20 miles away from Xinyang City.

There are two big mountains in Xinyang, one is Tongbai Mountain in the north, and the other is Dabie Mountain in the south.

After learning that Wang Jiayin led his troops south, Mo Li decided to take the initiative to attack and strive to exterminate Wang Jiayin's troops halfway.

Cao Bianjiao took the initiative to ask Ying and said: "General, Wang Jiayin's child is in Meiyuan Town, and the last general is willing to lead his troops as the vanguard and take it down!" ”

"Good! Then this battle will be handed over to Xiao Cao! Moli nodded.

Cao Bianjiao led Bai Zhicheng, Xiao Yang, Li Guo, Ba Laodao and other generals and 10,000 troops to Meiyuan to attack Wang Jiayin's thieves, Du Geng and Zhou Yuji, Su Hansheng, Tang Botao and Yang Shouli, Luo Dashan and others who surrendered to the New Liao Army in Laixi led 10,000 horses to Zaoyang, which was occupied by the thief He Yilong.

After solving the thieves in Zaoyang, he returned to Tongbai and attacked Wang Jiayin and other thieves in Tongbai.

Mo Li, Guan Feng, Ma Jinzhong and others stayed in Xinyang City to take command, and at the same time reorganized the Huideng Xiang Department.

Meiyuan Town is located in the remaining veins of Tongbai Mountain, the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

At the pass at the east end of Meiyuan Town, there is an open field, looking from the mountain, this open area is now like a forest, military tents are everywhere, stretching for six or seven miles, seeing the beginning and not the end. Coupled with the noise of people and horses, the heavens and the earth seem to be boiling.

This is the military camp of Liu Xiyao, a subordinate of Wang Jiayin.

After learning that the imperial army had entered Xinyang City, Wang Jiayin and the generals discussed and decided to return to Tongbai, preparing to gather several other bandits to fight against Xinyang's official army. Wang Jiayin expected that the official army would definitely enter Tongbai north, so he left Liu Xiyao to lead his troops to block in Meiyuan Town, taking advantage of the favorable conditions of the terrain to block the officers and soldiers.

This Liu Xiyao, Chongzhen followed Wang Zuo in the early years to hang up and resist the oppression of the government. Later, after Wang Zuohang surrendered to the officers and soldiers, he and Li Zicheng each led people to work alone, and continued to do the business of robbing homes and houses, and in recent years, they have been following Wang Ziyong, Wang Jiayin and others to act together, but they have also quickly developed their own forces, and now Liu Xiyao's subordinates have also gathered more than 6,000 people.

These more than 6,000 people, although more than half of them are displaced victims recruited since they went south to Huguang, and basically have no combat effectiveness, but the terrain of Meiyuan Town is dangerous, and there is only one mountain road that can be passed, and no matter how many troops there are, it cannot be spread out, so Liu Xiyao does not say that he is guarding with 6,000 thieves with knives and guns, but he is stopping here with 6,000 pigs, and Cao Bianjiao's officers and troops are afraid that they will not be able to get along for a while.

The place chosen by Liu Xiyao is indeed a good place to fight and block. I saw that the green hills on both sides were opposite, thorns were everywhere, and strange rocks were craggy, and it was difficult for ordinary people to climb. What's more, Liu Xiyao also arranged more than a dozen artillery pieces at the pass, and the two sides were full of archers and firecrackers, waiting for the battle.

Cao Bianjiao led the army to the pass of Meiyuan Town, saw that Liu Xiyao's thieves were defending according to the danger, and the defense was tight, and he suddenly felt bad, and tried to attack several times, but were repelled by the thieves.

Mo Li heard that Cao Bianjiao's attack failed, but his expression was very calm, at least he didn't show joy or anger, but just said lightly: "I know, let Xiao Cao pay attention to the thieves, don't force the attack at will, so as not to lose the army." ”

Since all the way to the south, all industries are depressed everywhere, and the people are struggling, it is the land of Huguang, which has always been the granary of the world, and now under the catastrophe and famine for several years, coupled with the exploitation of the government at all levels, the life of the people is also not good.

After Wang Jiayin, Wang Ziyong and other thieves went south, they were like locusts crossing the border, ten rooms and nine empty, how many refugees were in the wilderness, and the blood stained the earth? The thieves showed their swiftness, and that was because they said that the young men they met were all caught and put into the ranks, otherwise they would be stabbed. The common people could not escape, and could not survive, so they had to join the thieves, and in turn went with others to rob the other people.

The result of such a vicious circle is that the team of thieves is getting bigger and bigger, and the composition is becoming more and more complex, and it really responds to that sentence, the forest is big, there are all kinds of birds, and the team of thieves is now three religions and nine streams, and all kinds of people are waiting for different people, including refugees, disaster victims, thieves and bandits, green forest robbers, and the surrendered Ming army.

The nature of the team has also completely changed, and it is completely a group of rabble, robbing and killing unscrupulously.

At the beginning, Wang Jiayin and others gathered people to revolt in order to resist the persecution of the government and to survive, and the peasant army at that time was still somewhat disciplined, generally only fighting with officers and soldiers, only robbing the rich of the government, and not plundering the people. But as the number of people in the team increased and the composition became more and more complex, Wang Jiayin began to be unable to control the people below.

Because there are more people, there is more food consumption, and sometimes you can't fight with the officials and soldiers, why don't you rob so many people to eat? And once it is robbed, the situation is not easy to control anymore, and the subordinates who have tasted the sweetness of looting will become out of control, robbing the government, the rich, and the common people, and even women and children will not let go of them when they are crazy.

Wang Jiayin began to want to control and restrain the behavior of his subordinates, but no one of the subordinates who had gone crazy was willing to stop, and even some people began to disobey him. Fuck it! Anyway, if you don't rob it, you can't live.

Since Mo Li led the army into the Xinyang territory, he has seen countless refugees stumbling and fleeing for their lives on the side of the road from time to time.

Huguang is a land, the north is more plain, the water and soil are fertile, suitable for planting rice and other food crops in a large area, and the south is mostly mountainous, and you can also grow miscellaneous grains, if you can manage Huguang well, at least six tenths of the population of the Ming Dynasty can be fed, so there will not be many people who rebel, as long as they can live, who is willing to risk being killed to rebel.

However, he is only a general officer of the army, and he only has the power to command his subordinates to conquer and kill the enemy, but does not have the power to administer the people.

There is a choice, that is, to take office and become the governor or governor of Huguang, so that he can have the right to speak on the military and political affairs of Huguang.

Chongzhen is extremely distrustful of himself, and he is a military general, or a disobedient general, how can Chongzhen hand over Huguang, the granary of the world, to himself? Moreover, the Ming Dynasty suppressed the military with literature, and the governor and governor were generally filled by civilian officials, and there was no precedent for the promotion of military generals to governors.

Mo Li's desire to become the governor or governor of Huguang is completely impossible.

But Moli was already in desperate need of the power of the governor of Huguang to pave the way for the next step. If we can't gain more power to develop production and national strength, then millions of people will die of hunger and famine, and then the country will be full of thieves, rivers will be broken, and internal strife will continue, and how will we continue to resist the iron hooves of the ambitious Houjin Eight Banners?

It is difficult to return to the Ming Dynasty, and it is time to break and stand up.

Mo Li was waiting for an opportunity.