Chapter 186: Between the Government and the Opposition

In the first month of the tenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led the army to defeat the Ming army again in Baoji, and Sun Chuanting stuck to Xi'an and refused to come out.

These news had not yet reached the ears of the people of the world through the Di Bao and Tang Bao, but the soldiers and civilians of Shandong knew that the imperial court had gathered a large army in Dengzhou and went to sea to prepare to aid Korea, which was besieged by the Jurchen Tatars. In the previous wars between the Ming Dynasty and the Dongyu Jurchen, North Korea helped a lot because of harassment in the rear.

Although these battles were lost, it is not known whether the war would have been worse if it had not been for the vassal state of Korea dragging the Dongju Jurchen behind.

Moreover, North Korea is a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, if something happens to the vassal country and the country is not saved, it will make the subjects of the world chill, even for this gesture, the Ming court, which has been on the defensive against the Jurchens since the early years of Chongzhen, still sent its own soldiers and horses to the sea to rescue.

Of course, they didn't know that at this time, North Korea had already surrendered to the Eastern Jurchens, and the Jurchen Tartars had no worries about the Ming offensive.

At the beginning of February, the Yanding men of the Jiaozhou battalion officially became the regular army under the command of the general of the Laizhou Prefecture, and although they were reluctant, some veterans were drawn out to learn the use of axes and guns, and cotton armor, chain mail, ring-arm iron armor and shields began to be distributed.

Now Li Meng is between Laizhou Mansion and Dengzhou Mansion, about 800 horses, 600 cavalry trained by the former cavalry Yanding, Xiangma and official cavalry, in the cavalry head Zhang Lin and several cavalry leaders of the year took them to train, and now Tang Er is the commander of the cavalry battalion, but everyone sees that he is already regarded according to the level of the garrison.

At present, Wang Hai is Li Meng's personal guard captain, with the title of Qian, leading 300 people, Ma Gang guarding Weixian, actually stationed in Changle, responsible for the Qingzhou area, for the garrison, leading 2,000 foot soldiers. Zhao Neng was the capital of the Pingdu battalion, taking into account the Chengye County of Laizhou and the Laiyang area of Dengzhou, and led a thousand foot soldiers. Chen Liu garrisoned the Jiaozhou battalion, led a thousand foot soldiers, and stationed at the Lingshan Guard, Lingshan and Jimo Salt Field.

Li Meng led a total of 3,500 pro-soldiers, horse teams, and old battalion soldiers, although Wang Hai and Tang Er were at the level of Qianzong, but in the officialdom and military circles, there was this rule, that is, the cronies around the leader had a higher status than those guarding outside. Wang Hai didn't feel how wronged he was.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the original young and strong children from Laizhou, Dengzhou, and Qingzhou are no longer used as baggage soldiers, and the outstanding people among them are added to the army, and the rest are going to various places to replace the work of the former salt dings, but there is a principle, that is, the locals cannot be local salt dings, so that these local forces behind the local tyrants and gentry monitor and balance each other.

The cavalry battalion led by Tang Er was often stationed in Jiaozhou, which was often 300 men and horses, and most of the rest of the time was spent in Dongchangfu, Qingzhou, Laizhou, and Dengzhou, where there were private salt strongholds, escorting salt wagons and inspecting salt roads. There are also a lot of bandits in Shandong, who can always suffer from large and small battles, which can be regarded as actual combat training.

However, the significance of this actual combat training is not very great, just imagine the armored, well-trained, well-equipped cavalry, and it is still 400 people, such a team once swept away nearly 4,000 people under Liu Zeqing in Dongchang Mansion by raiding in ten days, not to mention these thieves.

Originally, Liu Zeqing was in trouble, and Li Meng shrank his troops for reorganization and training after serving as a general, and the local powerful gentry were a little ready to move, and the well-organized private salt sales system that was rectified by Li Meng and the Jiaozhou battalion system was like a cornucopia, and outsiders felt that as long as they could go deeper, they could make a lot of money.

Li Meng's cavalry camp traveled back and forth between the prefectures, counties, and towns, and the resting places were naturally in these strongholds for selling illicit salt-the Zhuangzi and mansions of those powerful people, seeing these elite cavalry in armor, the kind of well-trained style, and the cold and silent temperament, some rumors of the Jiaozhou battalion were re-clarified in the minds of these people, and the only dissent and stupidity were also gone.

It is not difficult to build the axe gun, especially Li Meng still has a set of looks in his hand, Guo Dong does not even need to affect the progress of making the firecracker, the apprentices can supply more than 2,000 people to use, the firecracker has relatively high requirements for iron, and the quality is strictly controlled, and the output has never gone up.

Until now, the Jiaozhou battalion has only 800 guns, and Li Meng has a special headache is saltpeter gunpowder, although the Nanjing arsenal has sent two ships, but after several shooting trainings, it is almost consumed, Guo Dong once carefully gave Li Meng a suggestion, saying that the shooting method of the guns is taught, and then shoot when the battlefield is due, so isn't it saving ammunition?

Many people felt that this proposal was very right and agreed with it, but Li Meng did not hesitate to deny it, and the soldiers who had not been shot live went to the battlefield, wasn't that going to die? This is a must-have in recruit training.

However, although the training was barely maintained, each musketeer had a maximum of three rounds of ammunition during the battle, and Li Meng could only transfer some of the people with the most combat experience to the category of musketeers, who in addition to muskets, also had to carry hand-to-hand combat swords and axes, and appeared at any time as a hand-to-hand combat unit.

Therefore, the salary of the firecrackers is thirty percent higher than that of the spearmen and cavalry, but no one has any opinions, and the most technically difficult to operate the weapon is the firecracker, and the one closest to the enemy is also the firecracker.

After all, Guo Dong is just a craftsman, and it is a little difficult to get to this point now, Li Meng originally wanted to make cannons, but there was no process foundation here at all, and even gunpowder was not satisfied, so he had to do it.

Speaking of which, the Huang Ping brought back in Nanjing was originally at the level of a thousand households, and to put it mildly, among the officers and soldiers of the entire Jiaozhou battalion, he was the one with the highest status. However, Li Meng did not give him any position as the commander of the party, but only gave him the identity of a personal guard, serving as the commander of the personal guard team led by Wang Hai.

The training, establishment and even weapons of the Jiaozhou battalion are different from those of the Ming official army, and if you want to really integrate into this group, you have to learn a lot.

Huang Ping didn't have any complaints, he was an outsider, although he also stayed in Jiaozhou for a period of time to monitor Li Meng, but the real understanding of this army is just a few skins, and when he really entered it, he found that there were a lot of unheard of things in it, Huang Ping, who had the heart to do something, was like a poor man who entered the treasure house, and he felt that there was not enough time to study and understand every day, and he was a generation of officers who grew up in the core army of the Ming Dynasty, and his understanding and knowledge of this kind of thing was naturally much higher than that of Zhao Neng. Even Ma Gang couldn't be so profound.

Under the auspices of Li Meng, the following officers Ma Gang, Zhao Neng, Chen Liu and Wang Hai, the cavalry battalion was divided into two teams, and the troops led by several people took turns to conduct martial arts exercises in Jiaozhou.

Five days after going to sea, the ships that rescued the DPRK came back in disgrace, and the news came from the fishing boats at sea that the DPRK had fallen......

However, the general army of Denglai is actually very relaxed, going to sea to fight is extremely risky, not to mention the same Tartar fight with those beasts, in fact, if it is a month or two months, they will be even happier, because in February, near Xi'an, Shaanxi Governor Sun Chuanting and the general soldiers Cao Bianjiao and Li Zicheng were defeated after seven days of fierce battle, and Zhang Xianzhong's troops near Anqing were also defeated by Zuo Liangyu, and Zuo Liangyu also shot Zhang Xianzhong, if it wasn't for a wall Sun Kewang rescued, I'm afraid he would have been hacked to death by Zuo Liangyu, it seems, again" Taiping is hopeful".

To say that the bureaucracy's delay is really superb, but now it is not the general army reprimanding the capital division, but the general army attacking the generals and arranging the troops as bandits, these two people are in the west and the east, and they have nearly 10,000 soldiers under their commands, and no one can afford to offend, and all the imperial court and the yamen of the governor of Shandong can do is to adjust.

Liu Zeqing's play to the court was quite intense, saying that his more than 4,000 soldiers and horses were cut down and defeated, a good soldier, when Pingkong Youde rebelled, he never sacrificed his life for the country, who would have thought that he would die at the hands of his comrades, Li Meng's ambition as a thief, the court should be severely punished, and he had the heart of a meritorious soldier.

This is a direct display of their own merits to blackmail the imperial court, this method is extremely useful for the commander of the army, the famous Qingliu Liu Zongzhou impeached Liu Zeqing for greed and contempt, and when he harmed the station, the chief soldier Liu Zeqing directly refuted it, and the rhetoric was fierce, and the court could only mediate in the end.

However, this time is different, Li Meng's notoriety of occupying the people's daughters in Nanjing City (not to say that they are people's girls) has been spread to the Beijing division by the Jiangnan literati, but the Donglin Party in the Beijing division is silent in the imperial court, or it is understated, only those who have no official positions shout loudly.

As soon as Liu Zeqing criticized Li Meng's recital, the military department first pressed it in his hands for a few days, and then quietly sent it to the cabinet.