Ningjiang Prefecture is a big city in the Great Zhou Dynasty, surrounded by mountains on three sides, surrounded by water on one side, it can be said that the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and Changchun Prefecture in the east together form the border defense front line of the Great Zhou. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

However, thousands of miles in Liaodong, how can the two military cities be able to defend it, and even Huanhe County, which is far behind this defense line, has been destroyed by the Jurchens, so you can imagine how sparse and weak the defense line composed of these two military cities is.

Of course, the unstable foundation caused by the rapid external expansion of the Great Zhou in recent years is of course the main reason, and another reason is that the army is too small, and the total number of border guards stationed in Liaodong is only 30,000.

The status of the army in the Great Zhou Dynasty is very special compared with other dynasties, although the Great Zhou also had conscription and conscription, but the regulations were very loose, and the more and more shrewd people learned various ways to evade military service, after all, in this era of business for the whole people, even the people who farmed the land felt that they were at a loss, how could they be willing to let their own labor do the more loss-making things like being soldiers. So it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit soldiers in the Great Zhou, but the court is full of care, and now Haiqing Heyan, even those big men are not happy to waste their national strength on military spending, and they also turn a blind eye to all kinds of civilian evasion of military service, and those young people who have escaped military service can often create more wealth for the country through business.

However, if a country wants to exercise political power, military power is also indispensable, and there should be defense forces, and overseas, all kinds of resources outside the Seychelles often need to be plundered by force, according to later generations, this is called the primitive accumulation of capital, so all kinds of mercenary agencies appeared, there are always some people with developed limbs but no business acumen, they have the choice is to sell their forces as commodities to these mercenary agencies, these mercenaries are very simple, whoever has money will work for whom, Moreover, the advanced weapons obtained from the employers were often able to oppress the foreign barbarians, and these bloody plunders accompanied by great profits greatly encouraged their bravery, so these mercenaries were sometimes better than the forbidden army.

Of course, in order to avoid someone plotting against the wrong and recruiting troops openly, the behavior and scale of these mercenaries are also subject to various restrictions, and the agreement with the employer must be reviewed by the official agency, so the threat to the Great Zhou regime is very low, after all, the Great Zhou has the real army, the Great Zhou forbidden army.

To put it bluntly, the mercenary is a mercenary armed force, and the state has a very poor control over it, although there are a lot of them, but in addition to developing barbarians, sometimes part-time dart masters are embarrassed and useful, and the real role of protecting the family and defending the country is the Great Zhou Forbidden Army.

No matter how heavy a dynasty is, as a feudal dynasty, the core force is indispensable, but the number of forbidden troops can be said to be very small, each of which is only 30,000. There were only four forbidden armies in the Great Zhou Dynasty, namely the Yulin Forbidden Army, the Annan Forbidden Army, the Anxi Forbidden Army, and the Weibian Forbidden Army. Each of the four forbidden armies defended one side and maintained the stability of the country. Compared to the millions of mercenaries, the number of forbidden troops is really small.

Although there are few people, these forbidden troops are all elite soldiers among elite soldiers, all of them are trained through inhuman training, and they are well-equipped, all of them come from the first research and development sequence of military factories, as for the so-called advanced weapons of those mercenaries, they are all eliminated by the forbidden army, so the combat power of such an army is amazing, far from being comparable to the mercenaries with low cohesion. The forbidden army is also the hope and belief of Xiong Ye and others. They firmly believe that as long as there is a forbidden army, the Jurchen barbarians are nothing more than chickens and dogs.

When Zhao Qing was talking to them, he was curious about the powerful border forbidden army, but he was noncommittal about Xiong Ye's blind admiration and self-confidence, he clearly knew the potential and terrifying of the Jurchen nation. The Jurchens are not ten thousand, and they are invincible, this is the evaluation of this nation that defeated the huge Liao State and the Northern Song Dynasty in history, as the only minority who won the Central Plains twice, Zhao Qing does not think that they will be local chickens and dogs, even if Shen Wansan brought gunpowder technology to this era in advance, Zhao Qing is not too optimistic about the Great Zhou military, especially after he found that the Jurchens also had firearms.

Regardless of whether it is a small amount of disarming, the steppe cavalry with firearms is the most terrifying. It is said that Genghis Khan used bows and arrows to defeat most of the Eurasian continent, but Zhao Qing clearly understood that the invincible cavalry was equipped with various powerful firearms created during the Song and Song dynasties, which was the reason why they were invincible and became the strongest army in ancient times.

I just don't know if the tragedy of the Two Song Dynasty will be repeated in Da Zhou, Shen Wansan has brought great wealth to this era, but he has also left great hidden dangers. Of course, Zhao Qing couldn't think about these for the time being, and they encountered a group of cavalry.

This group of cavalry was uniformly dressed in cyan iron armor, which was much better than the unpopular leather armor of the Jurchens, and Xiong Ye and the others were almost about to cheer.

Defend the border forbidden army!

It is less than ten miles away from Ningjiang Prefecture, and most of the main forces of the entire Weibian Forbidden Army are now gathered here, and they are about to clean up those barbarians who are in rebellion, and it is not surprising to encounter a group of forbidden army cavalry.

Unexpectedly, the group of cavalry was charging towards the group of homeless people where Zhao Qing was at this moment, all kinds of curses and shouts, and not far in front of the cavalry, a lone horse was frantically waving his horsewhip, trying to throw off the pursuers behind him.

When the fleeing man spotted the group of homeless people, he immediately rode his horse and rushed towards the homeless people, trying to use the group of homeless people to delay the pursuers.

"Phew! Get out of the way! Xiong Ye scolded, and hurriedly asked the homeless people behind him to get out of the way, so as not to be affected, and he picked up the scimitar, preparing to stop the daring rusher, who could be chased by the forbidden cavalry.

It's a pity that the man's riding skills are really exquisite, and as soon as he pulled the reins, the sturdy horse directly crossed the tall bear master, and knocked away a few homeless people behind him who also wanted to stop him, and then passed through the homeless people in the screams of women and children, and brought up a puff of smoke and dust to leave.

The cavalry of the forbidden army has more than a dozen horses, but they can't directly pass through the panicked group of homeless people, so they can only make a detour, so that the spy who is finally about to catch up will be separated again, and the horseman's riding skills are surprisingly good, and the bows and arrows of the forbidden army have been shot along the way and have not been able to hit once, and the fire gun with worse accuracy is simply unusable on the horse, which disturbs the horse and can't hit anyone. There is no way for them to stop that spy, if the detour is too big a gap, this spy will never be caught again, and if the information he stole is known to those barbarians, the consequences will be unimaginable.

The leading lieutenant is about to go crazy, how could it be so coincidental that a group of homeless people appeared here! Just when he was about to turn the horse's head and bypass these homeless people, he suddenly heard a loud noise, all the horses were frightened, struggling and neighing, the captain hurriedly calmed down the mount, turned around and scolded directly: "Who put the fire gun, is it greasy!" ”

The frightened neighing of the horses rose and fell, and at last they were calmed down by the cavalry, and one of them shouted in surprise: "Captain, that guy has fallen off his horse!" ”

The lieutenant was already desperate, and wanted to vent, but suddenly heard this, and hurriedly turned around, and sure enough, the spy actually fell from the horse more than a dozen steps after passing through the homeless, and was overjoyed, and hurriedly rode the horse over, and found that there was a big burnt hole in the back of the spy's head, mixed with black, white, and red, a mess, very disgusting, but in the eyes of the lieutenant, it was very wonderful. Although it is better to be alive than dead, it is a blessing to be able to catch this spy, and his fate is saved. He hurriedly searched for a bag from the spy and finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then heard the voices of his subordinates behind him.

"Captain, the firearm just now was not put by our people, but by people from this group of homeless people."

"What?" The captain looked at this group of homeless people with an unkind face, especially after finding that Xiong Ye and the other two homeless people were actually wearing the leather armor of the Jurchen cavalry, his brows immediately stood up, and he scolded angrily, "Who are you? Could it be that he is also a Jurchen spy. "Inserting spies among the outcasts is the usual method of those barbarians.

"Master Jun, don't get me wrong, we are refugees from Huanhe County, Huanhe County was attacked by the Jurchens, and we had to come to Ningjiang Prefecture as a last resort!" Xiong Ye hurriedly shook his head, not realizing the misunderstanding caused by what he was wearing.

"Humph!" The lieutenant snorted angrily and said, "Which guy just set off the firecracker, come it out for me!" "He knows too much about firecrackers to hear him wrong. And, besides the firecracker, what else could cause such a wound?

In the crowd, a strangely dressed young man walked out, holding a firearm in both hands, and said with a smile: "This captain, I was the one who set the firecracker. Please don't get me wrong, we are really outcasts, as for this firearm and these three sets of leather armor, we killed three Jurchen cavalrymen and captured them, if you don't believe us, we can provide a complete ultimatum to prove our identity. ”

The young man's unflustered brows stretched a little, and he took the firearm that Zhao Qing was holding, and said, "This firecracker is the most advanced configuration of my Great Zhou Forbidden Army, how can it be captured from the Jurchens?" You'd better recruit from the truth. ”

A dozen cavalry had slowly dispersed, surrounding the group of displaced people.

"I don't know why the Jurchens have them, but they were indeed seized from them." Zhao said lightly.

Chen Xiong and the others finally found out what the problem was, and quickly took off the leather armor on their bodies, knelt on the ground and begged for mercy: "Master Jun, what this Zhao Gongzi said is right, we really captured it from the Jurchens!" "If the misunderstanding can't be resolved, I'm afraid that their group of displaced people will not be accepted by Ningjiang Prefecture, and it will be a disaster at that time.

The expression on the captain's face gradually changed to a sneer, he was accustomed to seeing cunning barbarians, and since the spy incident, he had made up his mind that he would not trust any outcasts again, and would rather kill the wrong ones. Just as he raised his hand to give the order for slaughter, the crowd of displaced people moved out of the way, and a trembling old man walked out with the help of a little girl.

"Cao Zilin, you don't look like a spy in the old man." Shu Kun looked at the captain on the horse expressionlessly, and said in an old-fashioned manner.

"Master Chen!" Cao Zilin almost fell off his horse in horror after recognizing the person, but he still dismounted, walked up to Shu Kun quite respectfully and saluted, his face was quite strange.

The surrounding cavalry also looked strange and withdrew their weapons one after another.

Zhao Qing and the others finally breathed a sigh of relief, especially Chen Xiong and them, their ancestor had been a lecturer in Bianjing for decades before, and only returned to the clan after retiring, so after hearing the invincible captain call out Master Chen, they understood that this captain was also a disciple of the old ancestor. The misunderstanding was resolved, and there was really a treasure in the family. Zhao Qing was also very happy, if he hadn't saved the old man, he would have suffered today.

"Master Chen, why are you here?" After Cao Zilin finished greeting, he asked curiously. This statement Kun is his enlightenment lecturer, which is equivalent to the existence of the principal of the primary school, although he definitely doesn't like it, but the awe that is shot with a bamboo whip is really engraved in his bones, and he will never forget it for a lifetime, so at first glance when he saw the terrible Master Chen, Cao Zilin forgot that he was now a tall captain.

Seeing that the captain who was usually not angry and mighty was now so fearful, the surrounding cavalry couldn't hold back their laughter.

"Well, it's hard to put into words." Shu Kun's face was gloomy, "These are my clansmen, who have suffered a lot, and I ask the captain to be accommodating and accept us into the city." The old spirit of the previous is gone, and only the appearance of a decadent old man remains.

"Master's words are serious!" Cao Zilin bowed to the ground, "How can the disciples of the master's clan sit idly by. ”

Then he got up and got on his horse and shouted at the other cavalrymen: "Escort the master into the city!" ”