In the early morning, the dilapidated courtyard was filled with laughter, and many men in military uniforms appeared at the gate of their dilapidated courtyard with smiles on their faces, and after saying goodbye to their families, they walked along the alleyway to the street.

Most of the military uniforms on their bodies are shabby, and some of them are still wearing straw sandals, if they are not wearing military uniforms, people who do not know will think that they are homeless people.

Although it has passed the first day and the weather is still cold, for the impoverished military families, no matter how cold the weather is, there is no money to buy decent clothes.

At the beginning of last year, when the northern captives were outside the city of Jiankang, the imperial court issued a large amount of money and silk before the war in order to boost morale, but for many ordinary soldiers, they had never seen a reward at all, and they had no chance of any money, food, cloth and silk.

After months of hard fighting, the Beiyu ran to Jiangbei, and the imperial court said that they would give rewards, and many soldiers also did not have a share, and the generals did not say that they would not send it, but always said that everything was to be rebuilt, and the government had to restore the people's livelihood, so everyone waited.

So everyone waited eagerly, every month, but the reward was always gone, the military salary was still withheld, arrears, in order to make a living, in order to save the emergency, everyone had to borrow usury, after borrowing the money, the interest rolled, and the rest of the life could not be repaid.

In order to repay the debts, the soldiers do not train in the barracks on weekdays but go out to work long and short, and this is the case for people and horses.

People went to do chores, and malnourished horses went to pull carts, and the days went by like this, and the promised reward was not delivered.

There is no money, food, cloth, and silk, and the military households have a bleak Yuan Day, and the official army is now fighting in Huainan, and more and more soldiers and horses are ordered to cross north to fight, which is a parting of life and death for the military households.

The strong laborers of each family are all soldiers, and they have to go to war, so who will work to earn money to pay back the profits owed?

Only the elderly, the weak, women and children.

And what if you go to the battlefield and die? When the strong labor is gone, the whole family collapses.

This problem is not only worried by military households, but also by ordinary people, many families have no money to hire people to serve on their behalf, so they can only borrow usury, or go to the temple to find the master to help in an emergency, but the debts owed must also be repaid, and once the relatives who have been requisitioned die on the battlefield, the family will be finished.

The officers and soldiers in Huainan reported frequently, all said that the situation is very good, and it is necessary to increase troops, increase troops and increase troops, after the people of Jiankang heard this, they were gloomy, and those military households who owed a lot of debts were even more so, and today, the turning point has come.

The generals said that the reward would be reissued today, and everyone should hurry to the barracks to assemble.

Therefore, the military households gathered in the fang, today is particularly lively, the soldiers carry the hope of their families, walking on the street, three or five groups of people talking and laughing rushed to the barracks, they are full of longing, thinking that they will take the reward for a while to hurry up to buy rice.

Eat your family before the debtor arrives.

The soldiers who arrived at the barracks one after another, lined up crookedly on the school ground, and I don't know how long it took, the drums sounded, which was the signal of assembly, and the soldiers tried to line up, watching several generals walk up the wooden platform.

At the beginning of the routine speech, the opening remarks were, of course, all the clichés of "the emperor's grace is mighty" and "killing the enemy to serve the country", and the soldiers had listened to it since their grandfather's generation I don't know how many times, and all of them listened patiently.

There were many more soldiers gathered today than in the past, but less than the number of soldiers on the books, but the soldiers were not surprised by this—they were just eating empty pay!

In a team of 1,000 people, there are actually 500 Amitabha Buddhas, and among these 500 people, there are at least 400 people who have set up long and short jobs to do chores, and the remaining 100 soldiers can barely be regarded as well-trained, but in fact, when it comes to the battlefield, there are only about a dozen soldiers who can charge in armor.

Can such an army fight?

Therefore, the generals rely on their own troops to fight wars, or they rely on recruitment, and it costs a lot of money and food to raise troops and recruit troops, and it is very difficult to rely on the generals' own financial resources alone, so it is not surprising to eat empty salaries and drink soldiers' blood to accumulate money.

It's nothing more than the difference between drinking more and drinking less.

The generals drank the blood of the soldiers, and the big officials changed their tricks to deduct military salaries and rewards, forcing the soldiers to borrow usury, and the big bosses behind these usury loans were basically these generals and officials.

Hearing the general who spoke mentioning the "Northern Expedition to the Central Plains", the following soldiers scolded in their hearts:

The bullshit Northern Expedition to the Central Plains, one or two just want to get rich!

If you can beat the Beiyu, the benefits are all yours, if you can't beat you, you will surrender and become a big official for the Beiyu, and then it will not be the bad luck of us who are soldiers!!

Scolding and scolding, but everyone is looking forward to it, because the general said that today's reward will be reissued, so there will be money, food or cloth hair, and the soldiers are looking forward to it, just waiting for the end of the speech, and everyone lined up to receive the reward.

However, when he finished speaking, another general continued to speak, and this time, it was murderous: Some soldiers forcibly bought and sold, stole chickens and dogs, picked quarrels and provoked trouble, and even killed people and sold people, ruining the reputation of the government, and this black sheep must be eliminated.

Many bitter masters went to the government to complain, and now after a preliminary investigation, it is determined that those black sheep are among the crowd on the school field today, and after a while, the bitter masters will come up to identify them.

As soon as these words came out, the soldiers were stunned, although everyone's family was poor, and there were indeed cases of unclean hands and feet, but it was forced to make a living, and they had to steal chickens and dogs and take them home to satisfy their hunger, and that's all.

As for 'killing people and selling goods' and 'abducting and trafficking in human beings', who has ever done this kind of lack of morality? Even if there is, it's just an exception!

After the general finished speaking, he clapped his hands and asked the bitter masters to come up and recognize the people, and the soldiers held their heads high at first, waiting to prove their innocence, but when they saw clearly who they were up, there was an uproar.

Those are all the minions of usury creditors, who are fierce and vicious in debt collection on weekdays, but now they claim to be the shopkeeper, the merchant, and the bitter master who has lost his children!

The atmosphere at the scene became weird, and the soldiers who were originally full of joy and waiting for a reward now vaguely felt that things were not what they thought, and sure enough, the next speech made everyone stunned.

The general asked the 'black sheep' to stand up by himself, everyone saved trouble, and didn't want to burden his comrades, because if you don't give the bitter masters an explanation today, then don't want to reward anyone.

This is clearly to be relied upon!

The soldiers present thought so, the crowd was excited, and some people questioned loudly, but they were 'recognized' by a 'bitter master' on the stage: "It's him, it's him, it's him who robbed me of my usual money!" ”

When the general heard this, he was furious, and immediately said loudly: "Scum, come on, take him down!" ”

Several of the soldiers rushed into the crowd like wolves, restrained the soldier, drank back the other soldiers who tried to stop him, dragged the man out, and tied him up, and the 'bitter master' looked at the soldier who was struggling to cry out for grievances, and smiled unabashedly.

Dare to owe money and not pay it back? Lao Tzu wants to ruin your family to make an example!

The other sufferers began to identify the murderers with tears in their eyes, and one by one the soldiers were tied up, and the atmosphere of the scene began to change, and many soldiers were red and clenched their fists.

The noise gradually stopped, and with it came a silence, a terrible silence.

In a barracks next to the school grounds, Shi Wenqing, the internal supervisor who was ordered to supervise the redistribution of rewards, listened to the movement of the school field, laughed a few times, and the general standing on the side asked with some trepidation: "Hub, if it goes on like this, in case something happens..."

Under the hub, it is the honorific title of the civil and military officials to the envoys of the Son of Heaven, Shi Wenqing is a confidant of the official family, and he has the emperor's order, so the generals naturally dare not slack off, but they have led the troops for many years, and they know that there must be a limit to everything, so they are worried that the soldiers will be forced to mutiny...

"Mutiny?" Shi Wenqing laughed, his smile was very bright, he wanted to make a mutiny today, kill another group of people to establish his authority, and as a matter of course, make up for the shortfall of the reward he swallowed, and then take a credit for "quelling the mutiny" by the way.

Therefore, the soldiers he brought were in the name of maintaining order, and quietly surrounded the school grounds.

In order to keep it secret, Shi Wenqing only revealed this decision to a few major generals in the barracks beforehand, and this general only knew the truth of the matter at this time, and was shocked, but he didn't dare to say anything.

Shi Wenqing had already calculated that the official army relied on the recruited courage (recruitment) to fight, and the weak military soldiers were only worthy of being slaves, and it was appropriate to kill a small group of Liwei, and he was not afraid of affecting the war of Wang Shi in Huainan.

And many of these soldiers do not know what to do, and they dare not repay the debt, so he must kill the chicken and monkey, so that all those who owe money and do not pay it back know what the fate of going against the creditor is.

He is the supervisor of the army, and today the supervising generals give the soldiers a supplementary reward, and by the way, they find out those soldiers and ruffians who plague the people, and as a result, these soldiers take the opportunity to make trouble, don't they just want to suppress the mutiny?

Now the soldiers on the school field are all bare-handed, without armor and shields, what is there to be afraid of!

Thinking of this, Shi Wenqing opened his mouth and said: "Order, let the archers prepare, they will make trouble in a while, and they will all be killed!" ”