"But, but I want good soldiers to come, and the ones you sent are tied up like zongzi, how can you fight?"

The officer sneered: "People's hearts are like iron, and military law is like a furnace." If you kill seven or eight, and then cripple thirty or fifty, the rest will naturally be good soldiers. When the emotions are ready, we have to feed it to your mouth. At this point, he whipped his whip and said to the soldiers behind him, "Leave the things behind, let's go!" After that, he didn't pay attention to Liu Cheng anymore, so he hit the horse and left, leaving a cloud of smoke and dust to choke Liu Cheng's face.

"How so!" Liu Cheng looked at the officer's departing back and muttered to himself. He asked Yang He for money two days ago according to Du Ruhu's suggestion, and the reply was very fast, but it was a little unexpected.

"Lord General, the Governor is really refreshing, and the armor sent is all of the best quality!" Du Gu on the side had a smile on his face, he had already seen several carts of ordnance sent by the officer just now, and he handed over a white wooden box: "Master, put this thing on the top, and say it's for you!" ”

Liu Cheng took the wooden box and opened it to see that it was the Turkish arquebus he saw that night, if it was other times, he would have been very happy, but now he was not happy at this time.

"No one is of any use if you just have armor!" Liu Cheng threw the wooden box in his hand to the ground, he knew very well the pressure behind Yang He's quick reply, if he couldn't make results in a short time, there would never be a good end.

"Don't worry, my lord, give me five days to see if I don't clean up their clothes, so that they don't dare to go left to right, and to the east and west." Du Gu patted his chest, Du Ruhu's addition brought him a deep sense of crisis, and he didn't want to lose the position of the "first person" next to Liu Cheng.

At this time, probably because the escorted soldiers were leaving, the suppressed cries and pleading of the crowd suddenly rang out. Seeing Liu Cheng's frowning brows, Du Gu hurriedly shouted, and with a dozen rebel soldiers who had just been released a few days ago, he waved his leather whip to meet him, and the curses and cries in the crowd suddenly became high-pitched.

"Brother Du, can you do this?" Liu Cheng looked at the chaotic crowd and asked Du Ruhu, who was checking the weapons on the side.

"Why not? As long as they are taken to a distant place, they can't help it, and the sheep follow the dogs and the grass and the wind, can they still run back alone? Du Ruhu replied nonchalantly while carefully inspecting the weapon. Seeing that several of his subordinates were accustomed to all this, Liu Cheng had to smile bitterly and follow Du Ruhu to check the weapon, he picked up a spear and weighed it twice, then picked up another one and weighed it, and asked strangely: "Brother Du, how can these two guns be different in length and weight, could it be that one of them is poorly done?" ”

"Oh!" Du Ruhu turned his head, looked at the two spears in Liu Cheng's hands and said with a smile: "Baihu, you don't understand, this long rod is made of bamboo poles, and the length is about two zhang to two zhang four; The short one is made of a hardwood pole of less than a zhang, the root of the gun is about a handful thick, the tip of the gun is also half an inch, and the barrel is heavy and hard; The former is commonly known as bamboo pole darts in the army, and the latter is called wooden pole guns. This bamboo pole dart gun is long and soft, the use of the foot is convenient, the arm is used to help the wrist, the wrist follows its arm, and the advance and retreat are rapid; And this wooden pole gun is basically more than ten pounds, if it is not for the strong arm strength of the person can not be used at all, even poke and beat when used, it can also be used as a stick. Therefore, when the formation is carried out with a bamboo pole dart with a swift and light foot, and a person with a burly body and strong arms holds a wooden pole gun, the bamboo pole dart is in front, and the wooden pole gun is in the back, first using the bamboo pole dart to disrupt the enemy's formation, and then using the wooden pole gun to break the enemy in close combat. That Du Ruhu while explaining, while using the weapons in his hands to demonstrate, he was born in the door, and he likes to make friends, at that time the widely spread Shi family marksmanship, Sha family marksmanship, Yang family marksmanship, Shaolin marksmanship have been involved, several soldiers in the martial arts also surrounded and cheered.

Liu Cheng was looking at it with relish, but there was a sound of shouting and scolding and quarreling behind him, Liu Cheng looked back, it turned out that one person secretly untied the rope on his hand and neck at some point, pushed away the people around him and fled, but he didn't want the nooses on the necks of those people to be connected together, he pushed down six or seven people, and all of a sudden the necks of the people next to him were also tightened, and there were seventeen or eighteen people who fainted and scolded and cried all of a sudden, and the field was suddenly in chaos.

"Toto'er, shoot that guy, don't let him run!" Du Gu shouted loudly, and the detachment next to him didn't take a sound, and he was about to shoot at the man's vest with a bow and arrow, but a deep hand next to him pushed him on the shoulder, and the arrow immediately missed. He turned his head and was about to scold, but the swear words came to his mouth and were withdrawn, but it turned out that it was Liu Cheng who pushed people. Liu Cheng broke off an arrow and handed it to Totobuhua.

"The dead cannot be resurrected, shoot him in the vest!"

With a sigh of relief, he pulled the horn bow of the ox into a full moon, and an arrow hit the vest. The man screamed and threw himself to the ground, when several people stepped forward and held him down, tied him up like a dumpling, and dragged him up. Du Gu rushed forward, slapped you twice and scolded: "If you dare to escape, bring a pressure stick, Lao Tzu will abolish your two legs first." ”

"Wait! Untie him! Liu Chengdao.

"Yes!" Du Gu answered, and the soldiers let go of the man. I saw that the man had long feet and big hands, and his appearance was lofty, but his face was yellow and waxy, his cheeks were lower, and there were a few bruises on his face.

"What's your name and why are you running?"

The man glanced at Liu Cheng, and replied angrily: "My surname is Wang Mingyu, and there is a blind old lady at home, I can't starve to death without me?" “

"And are there any other people in your family?"

Wang Yu showed a wry smile on his face: "My father died a few years ago, and who is willing to marry a farmer like me, there are only me and my mother." ”

"Then why did you get caught here?"

"I have two acres of thin land in my family, and I sold it to the landlord in the east of the village in the first two years, but I don't want to collude with the master of the yamen, although the field is in his name, but the tax grain is in my name, a few days ago, the people in the yamen said that I owe the court taxes, so I was detained in the yamen, and then I came here."

"It's a trick to get rid of food storage!" Du Gu on the side explained in a low voice: "The car and boat shop is a foot tooth, and if you are not guilty, you should be killed, and the hearts of the people in the yamen are black!" ”

Those who were kidnapped saw that Liu Cheng not only did not punish Wang Yu who escaped and was arrested, but patiently inquired about his family background, and surrounded him, kneeling down and kowtowing to Liu Cheng, while crying and telling about his experience, begging Liu Cheng to release them and go home. Du Gu on the side saw it, and was about to disperse these people with his soldiers. Seeing this, Liu Cheng had an idea, motioned for Du Gu to step aside, stood on a boulder, and said in a loud voice: "You talk together, I can't hear anything clearly, why don't you all calm down, how about I point to which one and then speak?" ”

It took a while for everyone to calm down, Liu Cheng pointed to a person casually, and the man stammered, he was in a similar situation to Wang Yu, the difference was that this was owed the landlord's rent, and the defendant went to the yamen and put him in a cell. Liu Cheng smiled: "It's not that I can't let you go back, but if you go back, you still can't pay the landlord's rent, or will you be arrested?" Is it worse to be paid as a soldier than to feed fleas in a prison cell? ”

Everyone laughed, Liu Cheng ordered a few more casually, and as one person told his story, the tense and hostile atmosphere in the courtyard gradually dissolved. Liu Cheng secretly wrote down what happened to everyone, and he found that most of the people were arrested more or less because they could not pay the new Liao salary, and this new tax was mainly used for the war between Liaodong and Houjin, when the main route for the Ming Dynasty to send supplies to the Liaodong front was from Dengzhou and Laizhou on the Shandong Peninsula, crossing the sea to Niangnianggong at the end of the Liaodong Peninsula, and then arriving in Guangning and Liaoyang by land, during which the freight reached as much as one or two taels of silver per stone of grain. At that time, the Ming Dynasty's army in Liaodong was no less than 100,000 people, and according to the calculation of three and a half stone and a half rations a year for one person, the amount spent on transporting army rations alone reached 50,000 taels of silver per Chinese New Year's Eve. In order to raise military spending, starting from the 46th year of Wanli (1618), the Ming government imposed a temporary levy of 9 cents of silver per mu of land on all fields in the country. On the surface, this tax increase is quite fair, but in fact, there is a huge economic difference between the South and the North.

The impact of this tax hike on farmers in the north and south is completely different. Taking the four counties of southern Jiangsu in Nanzhili as an example, the local area can grow two seasons of grain a year, with an average annual yield of as much as five to six stones.

Moreover, due to the developed cotton textile industry, silk weaving industry, and handicraft industry, local farmers can easily get several times the monetary income of traditional agriculture, and the additional levy per mu only reduces their living standards; After paying the national tax and the landlord's rent, there were only four buckets left, and even if all the grain prices were sold at that time, it would not be enough to pay the additional Liao salary, which had actually pressed a considerable part of the northwest peasants below the death line, and in this case, the large-scale popular uprising in the northwest that began at the end of the apocalypse could be said to be inevitable.

"Dugu!" Liu Cheng took out about a handful of silver from his arms, which was already the only property he had on his body except for the bag of golden sand, and he hesitated for a moment and gave it all to Du Gu: "You go and exchange these silver for copper coins!" ”

"Great!" Du Gu answered and went out, and after about half an hour, he came back with a heavy package, and there was a whooshing sound inside: "It's all here, master, why are you changing it for copper coins, it's heavy and troublesome!" ”

Liu Cheng ignored Du Gu, at this time most people had already said about it, and he pointed out more than a dozen people who were arrested for doing small business or who were forcibly tied up by passing by according to his memory. When the dozen or so people saw that they had been ordered, they thought that something unlucky had happened to them, so they stepped back one after another, shouting in their mouths: "It's not me, it's me!" The crowd was in turmoil.

Liu Cheng was made angry and amused by their actions, and said loudly: "You don't want to let you go home?" Then stay! “

"Let us go home?" When those people heard this, they hurriedly rushed out again, with a look of disbelief on their faces.

"Not bad." Liu Cheng smiled and motioned to Du Gu to put the package aside: "I originally wanted to put everyone back, but they either owed taxes to the imperial court or owed rent to the landlords. A dozen of you are fine, so go back and live a good life! “

Only then did the dozen or so people believe that Liu Cheng was really letting them go, and they knelt down and thanked them for their kindness, and the eyes of the people next to them were hot, and a few of them also wanted to change their words but saw the fierce soldiers on both sides, and the words retracted when they reached their mouths.

"But you can't go back in vain!" Liu Cheng's words made the hearts of these dozen people cool down again, thinking that the smiling officer was asking them for some benefits, which was also a common thing at that time, and several people were already thinking about how much blood would come out of their stomachs this time.

Liu Cheng patted the package full of copper coins and said with a smile: "It is said that these people who stay always have to pay some settling-in expenses, but I can't let them go home, so I bother you to make a few more trips to send this money to their homes, which is not much." Liu Cheng silently calculated: "Each person will only have two hundred texts." ”

The dozen or so people couldn't help but be overjoyed when they heard this, and they couldn't stop agreeing, Liu Cheng said: "You first report your address and name, if anyone dares to hack this money, I will trouble you!" ”

But when it was really implemented, Liu Cheng found a big problem - none of his more than 20 subordinates could write and calculate, and he was illiterate, even Du Ruhu, a senior military attache who was a senior military attache who was a general and a third grade, could write 100 words, and if the arithmetic exceeded two digits, he would be blind, Liu Cheng himself could write and calculate, but he couldn't master such a difficult writing tool as a brush. Just when Liu Cheng was at a loss, a voice came from the crowd who was allowed to leave: "Adult, villain can write accounts!" ”

Liu Cheng looked up and down, and the deepest impression that the other party gave him was that he was thin, a gray straight dress was worn on his body, as if there was nothing under his clothes, his cheeks were sunken, but his eyes were very bright. Liu Cheng nodded, and asked his subordinates to put the pen, ink, paper, and inkstone away. The man sat down and registered the names and addresses of those who stayed behind, Liu Cheng noticed that although his handwriting was not pretty, it was very upright, and although the speed of his recording was not very fast, there was almost no pause. And judging from Liu Cheng's supervision, there was no mistake, and Liu Cheng knew very well how precious all this was in a society where more than 95 percent of them were illiterate.