In the first month of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Kong Youde captured Dengzhou, and the 100,000 taels of silver in the city, plus more than 20 Hongyi cannons, and more than 300 Western cannons were all owned by the rebels. The powerful Kong Youde, self-proclaimed marshal, granted his subordinates official positions, and recruited rebels everywhere, and for a time the situation in Shandong deteriorated to the point of being out of control.

And Houjin, who won the battle of Daling River in the east, also regained his strength while keeping an eye on the changes in the domestic situation in the Ming Dynasty. Coupled with the rebellion that began to spread everywhere in the Ming Dynasty several years ago, the national power of the Ming Dynasty has declined to an extremely dangerous point.

Whether it is a loyal man of the Ming Dynasty or an ambitious enemy of the Ming Dynasty. They all already knew that if the situation continued to deteriorate, the Ming Dynasty's national glory would really come to an end.

In order to save the critical situation of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Chengchou, the governor of the three sides of Shaanxi, prepared a huge plan to suppress the thieves, and Wu Fu also asked for appropriation after learning that there was a shortage of 200,000 taels of military funds.

After receiving the report, Xiong Mingyu, the secretary of the Ministry of War, had a detailed discussion with the officials of the Ministry of Households, and believed that this plan was very feasible. Therefore, he asked Chongzhen for advice, and finally agreed to Wu Fu's exemption from the new salaries of Qingyang and Yan'an, and Hong Chengchou's proposal to stay in Xi'an and Fengxiang for 200,000 silver was also approved.

However, if you take a closer look at Xiong Mingyu and others, the saying that the thief "wants to win with soldiers, it is better to turn them into people" can't help but feel a little familiar. In addition, Xiong Mingyu asked Shaanxi's Fu Press to "try to recruit his elite as soldiers" to drive away and kill thieves. Moreover, the remaining thieves were "given a ticket to avoid death and sent back to the peasants" to resume production. (Note 1)

If these measures were to be told to Yang He, the governor of the three sides who had been imprisoned before, I don't know if he would sigh that there would be a successor. It's just that Emperor Chongzhen agreed to this somewhat familiar plan without saying anything. Therefore, those who are dissatisfied with Yang He's soothing policy can only keep silent as if it were the first time they have seen it.

Regardless of whether Hong Chengchou and the others were old wine in new bottles, this time the trilateral governor, who had enough combat power and money and food, began to prepare his plan to suppress thieves.

As for the original trilateral governor Yang He, because of Hong Chengchou's intercession, coupled with the outstanding performance of Yang He's persuasion of Zhang Mengjin and other subordinates, Yang He was somewhat relieved of his guilt, and at the same time, Yang Sichang expressed his willingness to be punished on behalf of his father several times. In the end, Emperor Chongzhen finally exempted Yang He from the death penalty and changed him to Yuanzhou, Jiangxi.

Returning to Shaanxi, Huang Youcai, Liu Wu, Ke Tianfei and others attacked Wan'an Town in Huan County, Qingyang Prefecture. Wang Zhenqi, the chief military officer of Gansu Town, and He Huchen, the chief military officer of Ningxia Town, led troops to rescue. And Dai Junen, who had a strong force at hand, also dispatched Zhang Mengjin to rescue with three hundred elite horsemen.

After a rapid march, Zhang Mengjin rushed to the battlefield with his troops. In this battle, Zhang Mengguang did not have the opportunity to kill any famous leaders with his line gun, but relied on the bird gun in his hand, and ended up with his old acquaintance Huang Youcai in the chaos of the army.

The other officers and soldiers who received support defeated the invading thieves in one go, and at the same time killed another bandit leader, Cui Dajin. (Note 2)

After the battle, Zhang Mengjin did not return to the garrison immediately. Instead, he was ordered to garrison Quziyi in the south of Huanxian with other officers and soldiers. The officers and soldiers planned to further clean up the nests of escaped thieves after collecting grain and grass.

Knowing that Tiejiao City would be attacked later, Zhang Mengjin sent a letter to Dai Junen asking for additional infantry. After receiving the news, Dai Junen thought that there was no threat under his current rule, so he agreed to send an additional 200 infantry to support.

After Guan Zhiqing got permission, he rushed to Huanxian with two hundred infantry from Jinding Mountain. Among the accompanying troops, the four-wheeled carriages produced by Jinding Mountain to transport grain and artillery were particularly eye-catching.

As for the person who designed this kind of carriage with a steering device, it is Zhang Mengcheng, who has a lot of creativity in Jindingshan. At this time, he was supervising the township training in the cantonment under the rule of Jin Dingshan.

"Listen to the drums, everyone walks to the beat of the drums." Lao Liao grabbed a wooden stick in his hand and shouted to the more than 20 villagers under his command. After Lao Liao finished shouting, a foot soldier of Jin Dingshan beat the waist drum in his hand.

Although the rhythm of the drummers is very steady, the marching villagers still make mistakes from time to time. The angry old Liao could only scold and restart the queue practice again.

The villagers who trained these were all tunding from the subordinate cantonment points of Jinding Mountain. According to the rules established at the time of the division of land in Jinding Mountain, in the season when it is not a busy farming season, each reclamation point must summon its own men for military training, and the head of Jinding Mountain will conduct random inspections from time to time.

As for why everyone was not summoned to Jinding Mountain for unified training, it was because thousands of Jianding were gathered, and it was too ostentatious to say anything.

Because Jindingshan is deliberately low-key, coupled with the fact that Jindingshan is an important grain payer in Baoan County, and thieves have indeed been rampant in Shaanxi in recent years. Therefore, the magistrate of Baoan County did not react to the spontaneous behavior of the rural warriors under his rule.

Instead, he sent a servant to say to the villagers of Jinding Mountain, asking them to concentrate on practicing. If there are thieves in the county, I hope they can do their best to help.

"You guys don't seem to have practiced much here, not only the team can't walk in order, but those people can't even pull their bows just now. I don't think you, the tun chief, don't want to do it anymore, or do you want to pay more grain? Zhang Mengcheng was very dissatisfied with Tunding's training, so he directly expressed his dissatisfaction with the tun chief beside him.

This tun chief was a hungry man who took refuge in the cottage a few years ago, and he had seen Zhang Mengcheng kill unruly bandits. So I was very scared of Zhang Mengcheng's intimidation. Lian Lian said that he would supervise more, and their performance would definitely meet the requirements in the next review.

Regarding the words of the tun chief, Zhang Mengcheng did not say more. Instead, he turned his head to look at Ma Jinzhong, where spearman training was taking place. The training method is the same as that of the original infantry training in the cottage, but the results are much worse. Zhang Mengcheng felt a little unhappy, so he stepped forward and made a demonstration in person.

In fact, the leaders of Jinding Mountain did not expect to bring these real villagers to the battlefield. They just hope that these people can cooperate with the regular troops of the cottage and protect the surrounding reclamation area. As for the casualties of the regular troops of Jindingshan, most of them are now replenished by captured thieves.

After demonstrating the spear, Zhang Mengcheng showed his proud foot archery in front of a bunch of villagers. But these village warriors who have little knowledge have never been interested, thinking that these trainings are a waste of time. Zhang Mengcheng had to gather everyone and tell them the importance of training, while saying that he would come back again in the future. If everyone's performance is not up to standard, this year's rent will increase by 30%.

After receiving the actual intimidation, the 85 Jianding in this camp finally raised their spirits, and then under the beating and scolding of Lao Liao and other standing military personnel of Jindingshan, some people who cheated and played tricks also began to train seriously. After Zhang Mengcheng once again told the tun commander the importance of training, he rode on his horse and rushed to the next camp with more than ten Jindingshan cavalry.

"Master Xiucai, this Jinding Mountain is under the protection of our big boss, and there are dozens of our cavalry in normal times. Who dares to come to our territory to find it uncomfortable, why bother to test some villagers who have never seen blood in this big winter. "Lao Liao may have shouted a lot in the training just now, and now his voice is a little hoarse.

Zhang Mengcheng did not directly answer Lao Liao's question, but asked Ma Jinzhong on the side to express his thoughts. "Jinzhong, you've been busy for a while just now, and you can also talk about what you think in your heart."

"To the west of us is a nest of thieves like Dongchuan and Xichuan, and outside the military fort in the north is Dazi's territory, and now other thieves in the field are also making a lot of trouble, if someone from several directions comes to attack at the same time. We don't necessarily have enough manpower, so it's always good to have more people who can be used in this troubled world, anyway, it's not in the busy season of farming. Although what Ma Jinzhong said was a cliché, this safe idea was always correct.

Zhang Mengcheng agreed with Ma Jinzhong's words, and at the same time made some additions: "Our Jindingshan has been here for so long, in addition to the strength of our men, the most important thing is that our brothers obey the command. Nowadays, these cantonments around the cottage are far away from the cottage for more than ten to twenty miles, and without the usual influence of the leader of the cottage, it is inevitable that there will be their own independent ideas. I have brought you here from time to time to remind them of who has the final say in the land and to whom their food will be delivered. ”

I heard that Zhang Mengcheng inspected the surrounding camps from time to time, also to maintain the influence of the cottage. Lao Liao and Ma Jinzhong both nodded with some understanding.

Lao Liao also continued to ask: "Those dolls who have reached the age of tun are all taken back to the cottage by the people in the village to study, are they being taken hostage?" ”

After Zhang Mengcheng took up his post in the northern military fort, he insisted on calling the children scattered in the surrounding cantonments back to study in the cottages, and he did have some ideas of using children to control the cantonments.

But this is not entirely the case, Zhang Mengcheng educates so many children. At the same time, it is also to reserve more talents to prepare for possible crises in the future. After all, when the Qing army entered the customs more than ten years later, Shaanxi would definitely suffer a lot of military disasters, and at that time, these children were all grown up, and it was convenient to command.

However, these words could not be said in detail with Lao Liao and others, and Zhang Mengcheng could only simply say that this was indeed the case. Lao Liao learned that he had guessed correctly, and he was very happy, and put forward several suggestions for control one after another, and Ma Jinzhong also said some of his thoughts. Some of these suggestions are normal, while others are absurd.

For example, they said that they would lock the children in the cottage dormitory all the time, and they could not let the students go home every few days. Some say that teaching these children to read and read is already a great kindness. They should be allowed to bring their own meals, and the cottage should not be allowed to bear this expense.

Others said that those children could not be taught the ability to dance with knives and sticks, and in the future, these children would grow up and bite the village.

For these suggestions, Zhang Mengcheng just smiled and did not say anything. When Ma Jinzhong and Lao Liao saw that Master Xiucai didn't speak, they knew that the leader had his own ideas. So they stopped admonishing and followed Zhang Mengcheng to another cantonment for inspection.

The villagers in this camp, because the tun chief supervised seriously, and the villagers were also quite conscious, so Zhang Mengcheng was more satisfied with his performance. After a brief encouragement, Zhang Mengcheng led people to the next camp.

In the days that followed, Zhang Mengcheng continued to inspect the training at various cantonment sites. And the eldest brother Zhang Mengjin in Huanxian County finally entered the thieves of Tiejiao City together with other officials and soldiers.

PS: Note 1: For detailed content, you can read the record in the first month of the fifth year of Chongzhen in the "Chongzhen Long Edition". In fact, Yang He and Hong Chengchou have quite a lot of similarities in their policies. It's just that in the details of the operation, Hong Chengchou can refer to Yang He's previous failures and avoid many pitfalls. And Yang He was a little unlucky, because of various circumstances, he had no choice but to fall in the end.

Note 2: In the "Chongzhen Long Edition", in Wu Fu's recital in March of the fifth year, there is also a record of Huang Youcai's "plan to go south". However, the record time in this is also relatively vague, and there is also a record of "the elite soldiers gathered in Ningsai to beg for thieves". This is completely a copy of Wu Fu's "Chai An Shuji" volume 9 "The border thieves are rampant and sparse", "always because the elite soldiers gather in Ningsai to beg for thieves". This is fundamentally the matter of Huang Youcai's four years of Chongzhen still in Ningsai. Therefore, this book excludes this record, and in the same volume of Wu Fu's record of "Correcting the Generals and Defeating the Enemy", there is also a record of Huang Youcai being killed in the first month. Therefore, this article adopts the statement that Chongzhen killed Huang Youcai in the first month of the fifth year.