When the leaders received their answers, they immediately fell into an argument. Because the total number of Shen Yikui's subordinates has exceeded 10,000, even according to the actual combat strength, it is more than five or six thousand.

Such a large-scale combat force group cannot be easily brought out by even the general army of a town in the official army. On the book list of the deputy commanders or staff generals before the Ming Dynasty, the strength of their troops is ideally the 3,000 battalions under them.

However, the actual situation is that the deputy commander-in-chief or some relatively important staff general can have more than 1,000 soldiers on hand, even if it is a very effective unit. And like the Fubiao battalion soldiers under the Governor, many of them are actually this standard. Therefore, most of the leaders of the thieves were not satisfied with the official position offered by Yang He. (Note 1)

However, as the god of the big hand, he didn't have any objections. Shen Yikui just watched in silence as many of his leaders quarreled, because he thought that this official position was already the greatest sincerity of the imperial court.

After all, although there are quite a few people under Shen Yikui's hands, the ingredients inside are very complicated. Moreover, Shen Yikui was originally the one who took over his brother's position, and among the tens of thousands of people, his descendants were even less pitiful. Shen Yikui has worked hard during this time, and there are only nearly a thousand people under his command who can be regarded as his true descendants.

Some other smaller leaders, Sun Jiye, Huang Youcai and others, are the semi-descendants of Shen Yikui. They also added some leaders who were unruly, but still followed him for a long time, such as Ru Chengming, Lone Wolf, Ke Tianfei and others, and they were used together to restrain the Mixed Sky Monkey (Zhang Mengjin), Cai Xiaozi (Cai Zhongming), Liu Wu (Liu Daojiang), Liu Liu (Liu Daohai), Hao Lin'an and other leaders with relatively large strength.

And these big bosses who are thorns in the side of the gods are himself and his dead brother Shen Yiyuan, who use the necessary power to suppress many of the small leaders under him.

With such a chaotic composition of forces, God Yikui can't say what he is suffering about. Even if the imperial court really asked him to take a position, even if it was a guerrilla general or something, Shen Yikui did not have the confidence to let these complex thieves gather and successfully form the three thousand guerrillas under his command.

Judging from these circumstances, the garrison position issued by the imperial court is already a very realistic condition for Shen Yikui.

Therefore, Shen Yikui did not support his many dissenting leaders, he simply said: "Most of us came out to rebel because we committed crimes or had no food to survive, and now the court is willing to forgive our sins and give us money and food relief." I don't think there's anything to object to, so that's it. ”

Zhang Mengjin had already received the vaccination from his third brother Zhang Mengcheng, so he was not dissatisfied. And looking at the eyes of his third brother, there may be an unexpected joy, and he has nothing to say.

And Cai Xiaozi on the side, he actually didn't care so much about his official position before. As long as the imperial court can no longer want him and the people in their village, and do not infringe on their interests in Artemisia Peak, Cai Xiaozi can even not want an official position. A lot of the harvest from the robbery over the years has been saved, plus some methods of planting sweet potatoes and other crops taught to him by Zhang Mengcheng, there is no shortage of food in their mugwort peak village now, and they can live a stable life.

Many quarreling leaders saw that Shen Yikui, the man in charge, accepted this condition, and Zhang Mengjin and Cai Xiaozi, the two powerful big leaders, did not object, so they counted on several other more powerful leaders.

But Hao Lin'an didn't know what they were thinking, and they didn't plan to come out to talk and be the first bird, they just quietly remained silent and didn't speak.

Therefore, after the remaining small leaders saw that the group of people who spoke the most weightily here, they did not explicitly oppose the court's appeasement conditions, so they could only follow the decision of the big boss Shen Yikui. Although they are all a little dissatisfied in their hearts, their strength is limited after all, and no matter how much they oppose it, it will have no practical effect.

When the results of the discussion were reached by the people of Shen Yikui, the matter of appeasement was already on track. On the ninth day of the third month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, more than 60 big and small leaders, including Zhang Mengjin, Cai Xiaozi, Ru Chengming and Sun Jiye, came to Ningzhou. At the same time, he also returned the captured Jiang Yingchang, the magistrate of Heshui County, and presented a captured seal letter from Baoan County.

Yang He was very happy after receiving the thief's reply, and ordered Zhizhou to set up the Dragon Pavilion on the city tower on Sunday, let all the leaders kowtow to the Dragon Pavilion, and shouted long live before everyone began to enter the city. (Note 2)

After that, Yang He asked the leaders to hold the Dragon Pavilion and ordered his subordinates to guide them with yellow flags on both sides. One yellow flag reads Shengshou Wujiang, and on the other side is a peaceful elephant, and the team marches towards Yang He's office.

When the Dragon Pavilion was installed in the public office, Yang He took the civil and military officials, military and civilian fathers and elders, and performed the etiquette of five bows and three bows to the Dragon Pavilion. The students of the state school read the oracle, and all the leaders bowed their heads again. After the oracle was delivered, Yang He ordered the military attache to take his subordinates and escort all the leaders and Yang He to the Guandi Temple to burn incense and swear.

At this time, the big and small leaders all rushed up, and they carried Yang He's sedan chair together. The enthusiasm of the leaders almost frightened the surrounding officials and squires at first, but Yang He's indifference did not stop the enthusiastic behavior of the leaders, but they carried themselves to the Guandi Temple.

The people of the city were not afraid to see the legendary thief, and the governor was very kind. So they all flocked to the Guandi Temple and cheered loudly with the leaders.

The solemn oath ceremony was originally a festive ceremony, so it added a festive festivity. In this festive atmosphere, the big and small leaders behaved very happily and happily completed the oath ceremony.

It's just that many officials and village elders who are accustomed to the majestic ceremonies of the imperial court are more or less disdainful of these rude leaders of thieves, and at the same time they are dissatisfied with this ceremony. Because they thought that the hippie smiles of the leaders were a sign of ignoring the court and treating the governor as child's play.

Zhang Mengcheng felt that Yang He's pro-people appearance was very commendable, and among the leaders who originally came over, there were still many people who were a little resistant to the government, but now they are very useful. It seems that both ancient and modern times, ordinary people do not like contrived official ceremonies.

Now many of the bandit leaders in Heshui County have rushed over. Zhang Mengjin and Cai Xiaozi both left their deputies in Heshui in order to manage the people, and Shen Yikui, the palm of the plate, also continued to stay in Heshui County. After all, if even he came, if the imperial court served the leaders who came to Ningzhou, the thieves in Heshui County would definitely collapse.

After the ceremony, Zhang Mengcheng introduced his eldest brother and Cai Dwarf from Artemisia to Yang He. The two big leaders behaved very respectfully, and at the same time emphasized in front of Yang He that they would be loyal to the imperial court.

Yang He also knew the strength of these two big leaders, so he smiled and relieved the two of them. It's just that there is not so much time for the two sides to continue to communicate, and the remaining sixty or so leaders have also crowded around the governors of the three sides to lose their sincerity together, and the chaotic crowd quickly squeezed Zhang Mengcheng and the others away.

On March 16, Shen Yikui finally went to Ningzhou to visit Yang He in person. Yang He forgave all his sins after counting the eleven major sins of Shen Yikui. And after receiving Shen Yikui, Yang He sent his henchmen to Heshui County to check the actual number of Shen Yikui's subordinates. At the same time, he began to dismiss the starving people under Shen Yikui, and distributed stamps and money and food, so that these people could return to their hometowns to work in agriculture with peace of mind. (Note 3)

On March 29, Yang He finally went to Heshui County in person to place and dismiss all the remaining people. After inspecting the ruined city in Heshui County and pacifying the remaining residents of the city, Yang He set off again and rushed to Qingyang Mansion City again, and began to comfort the people of Qingyang Mansion who had been frightened all along.

Yang He told everyone in the city that all the thieves besieging Qingyang Mansion had been appeased. Everyone can continue to live their peaceful life in peace, there will be no more big thieves in Qingyang Mansion in the future, and the imperial court has controlled the situation.

Most of the residents of Qingyang Mansion cheered, but there were still many who expressed their concerns to Yang He, believing that the imperial court should eliminate all evil.

How the trilateral governor Yang He and these people talked afterwards is unknown to the leaders of Jinding Mountain. At this time, including the cottage master and the traverser Zhang Mengcheng, everyone was optimistic about their future life.

PS: Note 1: In fact, under the conditions of the battalion system, whether it is a regular soldier, a surprise soldier, a reinforcement, or a guerrilla, most of them are a battalion of 3,000 people. But theoretically, Da Ming conceived it like this, but in practice, it still has to compromise with reality, and more than 1,000 people barely make up a battalion of people. Then several battalions of more than 1,000 people were again grouped together to carry out the mission. However, the 3,001 battalion is not an absolute establishment, for example, Weng Wanda, who initially set up a pacesetter, is a battalion of 2,500 people. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Lu Xiangsheng was a battalion of 2,000 people, but he was more heroic with five battalions to form a 10,000-strong pacesetter. Of course, there are many other examples, so I won't go into them all.

Note 2: "Liukou Zhi" and "Pingkou Zhi" say that they are in Guyuan Castle Tower, and in "Chongzhen Record", it is recorded as "Guyuan Zhizhou Guori is stronger than the city tower and serves the throne", and there is a similar statement in "Guoyu". In fact, it is all wrong. "Yang He, the Governor of Shaanxi Trilateral, entitled Buxin Recruiting Surrender", records that Yang He had already moved to Ningzhou at that time, and it was the governor of Ningzhou who was strong on Sunday. "Huailing Liukou Always Record" also records Zhou Riqiang, and the statement of Guo Riqiang in "Chongzhen Record" is obviously wrong.

Note 3: According to the "Suikou Chronicles", it is recorded that there are "dozens of crimes", and the ten crimes are: one to break Ningsai, two to kill the general Chen Sanhuai, three to break Xin'an Fort, four to rob the willow stream, five to encircle Jingbian, six to break the security guard, seven to hook the border of the Westerners, eight to surround Qingyang, nine to break the water, ten to kill good people, and to insult women. It's just that this article is set to kill Du Wenhuan under the security city, so this article has to add a crime here, which is for eleven major crimes.