With grain and grass, the people's hearts are stable, and the streets and alleys can no longer see the panicked people and merchants. The urgency was to recruit temporary men to defend the city, so Lu Peng personally went out on horseback, shirtless, standing on a high platform, holding a big horn made of copper in his hand, and made a loud promise to the black and oppressive captives. "I promise you, as long as you sincerely fight for me, I will give you a military salary of 1,000 yuan every month, three meals a day, and please report your family's name, if you die here, I will give your pension to your family, and I promise to God that no matter where your family is, I will try my best to take your family to our Youzhou."

"Not only that, I will issue a land order to you now, according to the rules of our Youzhou Army, everyone will give you five acres of land now, these five acres of land are not subject to any taxes, and then according to our rules, you can rely on your own ability to contract land, and pay only one hundred catties of grain every year, and then there will be no more tax burden." Then Lu Peng exaggerated his hands to the sky: "How outrageous is this small tax?" ”

The captives below are already excited, how can there be so many good things in the world? However, everyone has no doubts about such a policy at all, because such a good thing is really common in Youzhou.

As a result, the captives were not much left, and outside the captive camp, a voice suddenly shouted loudly: "Lord Governor, if I join your team and participate in the defense of the city, can you also give me such favorable conditions?" ”

This is a commoner in Renqiu City, his family is poor, old and young, and he doesn't have two meals a day, and when he heard Lu Peng's promise, he immediately asked loudly.

Lu Peng turned around and said to the man who responded to him: "My policy is absolutely not divided between each other, as long as you join my army now, I will treat everyone equally, but I said it, now is different from the past, in the past you still had a few months of training time, and now you will immediately go to the city to participate in the war, maybe you go to the city today, and you will die tomorrow, you can't regret it." ”

The man strode out, knelt down and kowtowed to Lu Peng, and then said with a high-spirited hand: "The officials of the world don't treat us as human beings, all we can do is this rotten life, if the adults can keep their promises and exchange one of my lives for the peace and prosperity of my family, I will hand over this rotten life to you, please accept me." ”

The Han people are like this, the world is big, the family affection is the greatest, cutting meat and feeding the mother, this is definitely not a joke, this is the filial piety of the Han people from the bones, as long as they can enter the ancestors, as long as they can let their parents live, in this Han land, this kind of tragedy is staged every day for the death of the mother and the death of the mother for the child, but is this a tragedy? Not all, this is the foundation of the blood of the Han nation that has flowed for thousands of years.

Lu Peng hurriedly stepped forward, grabbed this man, and assured him seriously: "I swear to you in the name of my ancestors, if you don't die in battle, you will be my most loyal brother, if you die in battle, your parents will be my Lu Peng's parents, there is food in life, and there is burial in death." ”

The man immediately burst into tears, pulled a thin and rickety old woman behind him, and put his thin hand in Lu Peng's hand: "In this way, my life is yours." ”

There was such a person who took the lead, and all the people also heard Lu Peng's promise, so whether it was a prisoner or the people of Renqiu, they signed up to join the army. In the blink of an eye, an army of 20,000 was formed.

Of course, these new people, even a group of rabble can't describe them, but fortunately, this time Lu Peng still has more than a thousand soldiers from the Flying Tiger Battalion left. Lu Peng immediately promoted these wounded or uninjured to chiefs, centurions and thousands, and put those new soldiers, yes, can only be regarded as new soldiers, and they arranged for these veterans' subordinates to go to the city overnight for defense.

Of course, these recruits have not undergone any training, and it is absolutely impossible for them to kill the enemy in the field, but it is absolutely competent to let them stand on high walls and defend them with the help of the walls.

The most important thing is those veterans of the Flying Tiger Battalion, who are the most elite elites in the Lu family's army, not only have rich combat experience, but the most important thing is that they have a high fighting spirit and determination not to retreat.

As long as they are there, they can drive the will to fight of those strong men who are assigned to them. Of course, Lu Peng also quietly instructed them that when the battle was urgent, they had the right to kill those who were cowardly and retreating. Inducement and coercion must be grasped with both hands, and both hands must be firm, which is the foundation for achieving the strategic goal.

Why didn't Zhao Yun's 20,000 cavalry go to the city? Letting the cavalry do the work of defending the city wall is definitely overkill, not to mention, Lu Peng has the 20,000 most elite cavalry in his hands, and it will be of great use in the future.

Then there is the problem of collecting the equipment to defend the city overnight.

In the back of the depths of Renqiu, the garrison is still a lazy guy, here, there is almost no reserve of equipment to defend the city, there are not many bows and arrows, there are even fewer arrow clusters, the knives and guns are all captured by Zhao Yun at the beginning, and there are almost no rolling wood and thunder stones, and it is indeed a very dangerous thing to use such equipment to resist the attack of hundreds of thousands of enemies.

So Lu Peng decided to immediately demolish the house and collect materials.

In this Renqiu, magnificent and huge mansions abound, but those are the residences of the gentry and wealthy families of Renqiu, at this time, during the war, demolishing their mansions is equivalent to erecting enemies for themselves, the gentry and wealthy families here are not as good as Youzhou, the armed families of the wealthy families here are still there, once Lu Peng demolishes their houses, it will definitely be desperate with Lu Peng, at this delicate time, the backyard must not catch fire, and must be tolerated and appeased.

Then the rest will be left to tear down the people's. However, at this time, the people of Renqiu were newly attached and the people's hearts were stable, and this could not be implemented unless it was absolutely necessary, so Lu Peng could only order to demolish the current gorgeous garrison mansion and all the official offices of Renqiu Mansion, and transport the wood, bricks, tiles and stones here to the city as garrison equipment.

With an order, groups of strong men were urgently mobilized and began to dismantle and move.

At this time, there was a chaos outside the gate of Renqiu Garrison Mansion, Lu Peng was shocked, and when he ran out, he saw countless people blocking in front of the garrison Mansion.

Lu Peng hurriedly walked in a few steps and helped him up, and asked suspiciously: "Old man, is there anything wrong?" ”

The old man stood up and said to Lu Peng: "Lord Zhou Mu, with your arrival, our people in Renqiu have hope of living, you are our benefactor, the great savior, and for the sake of our lowly people, you would rather be under siege than abandon us, and also take out a small amount of military food to help us, so that our people are all grateful to Dade, people's hearts are long, how can we forget such kindness?" Today, in order to collect the equipment for defending the city, the governor would rather demolish his own garrison and official office than demolish our house, how can we bear it? ”

Lu Peng said sincerely: "I, Lu Peng, swore that I would return the people to a rich and unoppressed world in my life, this is what I should do." ”

The old man burst into tears and said, "My lord, we all have hearts, and we know who is good to us. Whoever is good to us, of course, we have to follow, no, everyone knows that there is a lack of materials to defend the city, and everyone elects us people and asks for the demolition of our houses. ”

Lu Peng immediately shook his hand: "No, no, in this winter, if there is no house to live in, everyone will freeze to death, don't do it." ”

The old man smiled bitterly: "The house was demolished, but it was frozen, but the city was broken, and those beast soldiers entered the city, where would we still have a way to live?" Then he turned and pointed to him: "Look, our neighbors have already done it." ”

Lu Peng looked in the direction of the old man's finger, and in the distance, there were already patches of dust rising, and there were already groups of people, carrying the purlins of their houses, carrying the stones of the foundations of the houses towards the city, and there was also the sound of houses collapsing in the distance.

Lu Peng was moved, he was really moved by the simplicity of the people, by the trust of the people, and deeply gave these people a gift: "Lu Peng is grateful for the support of his fathers and elders, and I now promise that for those who defend the city, no matter what happened before, after the war, I will build a new brick house for you on the original site." ”

As a result, the Renqiu shantytown reconstruction project was officially launched, without forced demolition, no nail households, and in the future, a new Renqiu city will appear in this Hebei land.