The people are all people, but all people have all kinds of thoughts, the so-called same rice to raise a hundred kinds of people, so it is not an exaggeration to say that a hundred people have a hundred hearts, but on the issue of participating in the "Ming Army", most of the young people in Luo Dingcheng have collectively reached a consensus, that is, this soldier can not be.

Why can't it be?

The answer is simple - I'm afraid!

Since the first year of Yongli, Luoding City has been stationed in no less than ten groups of soldiers and horses, including Li Dingguo's army, as well as the army of other Southern Ming generals, and more soldiers and horses who were first the Ming army and then the Qing army, such as the former Southern Ming Luoding General Soldier Xu Anguo; Of course, the Qing army from the north is also indispensable, such as the Kong Guoliang who was beheaded by Zhou Shixiang is the soldiers and horses from Jiangxi in the north.

There are soldiers and horses stationed in the city, so it is natural that Raff will join the army. It doesn't mean that as soon as you enter, you should be a regular soldier with a knife and a gun, but you must start with the master.

In the army, the master is called well, saying that he is an auxiliary soldier, but the people don't know which one is that this auxiliary soldier is a strong man. Only when you have been with the army for a long time, and the companions who came in with you died almost the same, or you were lucky enough to come back with a beheading, or if there was a serious shortage of regular soldiers, can your auxiliary soldiers have a chance to turn into regular soldiers. At that time, it can be regarded as a real soldier and paid, otherwise, he will be a coolie cannon fodder, and he will have no place to bury his lord when he dies.

There is a folk proverb that calls ten masters a soldier, which is the bitterness of being an auxiliary soldier, and only one out of ten auxiliary soldiers can become a regular soldier.

Counting up before and after, there are thousands of young people in Luoding City who were captured by the army to be masters, and those soldiers and horses said it well when they arrested people, they wanted to expand their strength to protect the territory and the people, but in the end, those military masters who often talked about protecting the territory and the people abandoned Luoding City and ran away when the enemy came over!

You know, all the young and strong are the pillars of the family, which is not the old and the young, your army said to pull people away, what should the old and young women and children do in this family?

Some of the kinder ones can give the pen and silver to settle down before leaving, and the unkind ones can directly take the whip and chase with knives and guns. If you can't pull away the whip, you can directly drag it out and cut off your head, and there are hundreds of young people who have been cut off under the gap in the east city wall!

In the past few years, the Ming and Qing dynasties have been fighting back and forth in Guangdong, and the men in the family have no news, I don't know whether they are dead or alive, and the old and weak women and children who have no pillars are either working hard at home, or they will help the old and the young to flee, but even so, it will not last many days, and the final outcome is to sell children and daughters, or insert a straw mark to sell themselves, otherwise, how to live?

In troubled times, people are not as good as dogs!

In any place, once there is a large loss of men, especially young and strong men who are the main labor force, the impact on the economy and people's livelihood of that place is absolutely fatal. Sometimes, ten, twenty, or even forty or fifty years will not allow the place to repeat its former prosperity.

Luoding Prefecture was originally a new Zhili Prefecture during the Wanli period, the territory is mountainous, the economy is backward compared with other parts of Guangdong, and the population is not much, where can it withstand the large loss of this young and strong.

Not to mention the far, the nearest one, the Zhao family, which owns the most land, once had hundreds of tenant farmers planting his family's land, but now there are only about a dozen left, which shows the great impact of the loss of young and strong population on the local people's livelihood.

In addition, the Qing army had the habit of slaughtering and washing the newly occupied Ming Dynasty territory, firstly, they hoped to obtain money and food resources in this way, and secondly, they also wanted to shock the rest of the places through this tragic means and did not dare to resist anymore.

After one incident, the total population of Luoding has dropped from more than 170,000 in the first year of Yongli to more than 3,000 today, even if those who fled to other places or hid in the mountains and forests are added, the total number will not exceed 10,000.

In the past, the city of Luodingzhou, which governed two counties and directly led one state, is now just a larger town.

There have been bloody lessons in the past few years, and now where are the young people in the city willing to be the "cannon fodder" of General Hu of the Ming Army, that is, the young man who has been affected by the disaster at home gritted his teeth and wanted to take these two taels of silver, and he would be hugged by his wife and children.

As long as there are men in the family, they can always survive if they eat bran and eat vegetables, and go out to escape from the famine to get food, but if there is no man, the day will fall!

Look at the white-haired father and mother, look at the wife with a vegetable-looking face, and then touch the skinny child, where does this young man dare to take the two taels of silver.

There is always hope when people live. When people die, what are you talking about?

This soldier can't deserve it, and he can't take this silver!

The more than 30 young men recruited by Zhao Sihai are this kind of people, except for a few who have a blood feud with the Qing army, and the rest are bachelors who have no wives and children.

They can also see through, this day can not go on, it is better to fight in the army, maybe they can become a regular soldier from the master, and if they fight well, they can still be promoted to a personal soldier by the main general, how can they be an officer in the future, compared to the current situation, it is much stronger.

All in all, the reason why Zhao Sihai couldn't recruit people was that Qingzhuang refused to give up his relatives to die in the army, which was also the same as the essence of Zhou Shixiang's fear of leaving his homeland. Of course, the Ming army has been repeatedly defeated and retreated in recent years, and the situation in the Southern Ming Dynasty is not optimistic, which has also affected the enthusiasm of the people to join the army to a certain extent.

In order to solve the concerns of the young and strong, the only way to do this is to take the method of all the people to become soldiers, as long as the young and strong and their families are all included in the army, and adopt the kind of coercion method similar to that of Li Zicheng and even the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in later generations, can the people be integrated into the system in the shortest possible time, so that the upper and lower levels can be united, and then gain greater strength.

Zhou Shixiang didn't think much about it, and immediately called someone to gather all the people affected by the disaster, and he wanted to recruit troops in person.

After the fire the night before, Song Xianggong demarcated the area of the east city wall for the affected people to live temporarily, and provided some food through the big households in the city, and most of the affected people are still staying here because they have nowhere to go.

After hearing the sound of the gong, the victims were summoned to the city gates, either willingly or reluctantly.

Zhou Shixiang asked Peng Dazhu to move a table of eight immortals, and stood on the table to start his recruitment speech to the confused people.

His opening sentence is very simple, just a short sentence, "Do you want everyone to have food, everyone to have clothes to wear, and everyone to have meat to eat!" ”