"That's right!" Hearing Liu Cheng talk about Yang He, Yuan Han slapped his head and scolded: "Look at my pig brain, I forgot everything about business after pouring a few cups of cat urine." Lord Liu, congratulations on your promotion, Yang Zhijun rewarded you for your meritorious service in cleaning up the military cantonment and resettlement of displaced people in Dunzhou, and has already sent a document to the Ministry of War to promote you to the defense guerrilla in Yansui Town, and the official document of the Ministry of War will be distributed in a few days, and I will ask Lord Liu to take care of it in the future! Speaking of this, Yuan Han's face was already full of envy.

"Guerrilla?" Liu Cheng, who heard the good news, was a little stunned, according to the military system of the Ming Dynasty, guerrillas were sent, and they were generally awarded to military attachés of the third or fourth rank, and they had entered the sequence of senior generals, usually leading an army of about 1,000 to 3,000 people, or serving as a senior staff officer in the shogunate of civilian commanders such as governors, governors, and supervisors. A person like Liu Cheng, who has been in the army for just over a year and has been promoted to such a high-ranking official, is also an outlier in the Ming generation, and it is no wonder that Yuan Han is envious.

"I still dare to deceive you about such a thing?" Yuan Han thought that Liu Cheng didn't believe it: "It's not more than two months, but no less than a month, and the official document of the Ministry of War will come down, and that is a dignified fourth-grade military attaché." ”

"It seems that the situation in this Yang He is quite bad, otherwise I wouldn't have been promoted so happily, and this is also a bit of an idea to block other people's mouths." Liu Cheng thought to himself in his heart, it is said that if it is about the merits he has made along the way, it is not unqualified to be a guerrilla. But merit is one thing, promotion is another, if Yang He really treats Liu Cheng as his own person and cultivates him carefully, and is ready to rely on him as the pillar of the army, he will deliberately press Liu Cheng's official position, because since ancient times, the army has been a social group that attaches great importance to seniority, and the rapid promotion of outsiders like Liu Cheng will definitely cause the jealousy and hatred of other generals in the army, and Liu Cheng has no team, the faster he climbs, the worse he falls. And if Liu Cheng's official position is temporarily suppressed. The other generals have nothing to say, anyway, with his position as the right attendant of the military department, the governor of the trilateral military affairs of Shaanxi, and the documents for reporting to the military department are all written by him, is it not arbitrary to want to buckle the official hat on the head of his own henchman? There was only one reason why Yang He was so anxious to promote Liu Cheng's official position, the situation in the court and China was so tense that he urgently needed to use the results of Liu Cheng's resettlement of displaced people in Dunzhou to prove to Chongzhen the correctness of his policy of appeasement.

"It seems that I and this Yang He are really grasshoppers on the same thread now. If he falls, I'm afraid I won't be able to get out! Thinking of this, Liu Cheng's face showed a wry smile, deep in his heart he was not optimistic about the future of Yang He's appeasement policy, but in the face of the surging tide of the times, many times he could only go with the flow.

"Lord Liu, Lord Liu!" Yuan Han saw that Liu Cheng's face was suddenly happy and sad, but he seemed to be a little crazy, and he couldn't help but be a little scared. He didn't dare to shout loudly, for fear of losing his soul and harming Liu Cheng's life. After a while, Liu Chengcai smiled and said: "The army is so gracious, I was overjoyed in the next time, which made Lord Yuan laugh." ”

"Liu Guerrilla laughed, in front of you, how can you be worthy of the word 'adult'!" Yuan Han turned sideways. Let go of Liu Cheng's salute and say with a smile: "In the future, please take care of the guerrilla lords!" ”

"Well said. Say! Liu Cheng pretended not to care, and asked casually: "Yuan Dusi, what news is there from the governor these days?" ”

"Oh!" Yuan Han frowned and recalled for a while, and suddenly said: "It seems that Lord Sun Chengzong, the governor of Jiliao, sent troops to Liaodong and built a city on the Daling River. Speaking of this, he said with some excitement and some worry: "The imperial court is going to meet with the East Capture again." I don't know if I can win this time. ”

"What? Lord Sun wants to build a city on the Daling River? Liu Cheng's attention was immediately attracted by this news, and he asked Yuan Han a few more words, wanting to get some more detailed information, but Yuan Han only said that he heard it from the master of the Yang He Shogunate, and he could only be sure that the news was true. It is not known who led the troops, how many troops were sent, and when the construction of the city began. Liu Cheng knew that he couldn't get more detailed information from the other party, so he placed Yuan Han to rest first. After Yuan Han left, Liu Jianli was about to recruit Xu Xianming, and as soon as they met, he asked straightforwardly: "Do you have a trustworthy person in Lu Zhizhou's mansion?" ”

Xu Xianming said with a smile: "There are no trustworthy people, but if there is silver, there are a few people who will move." “

Hearing Xu Xianming's answer, Liu Cheng couldn't help laughing: "If that's the case, you go to Mr. Yu to get twenty taels of silver, go to Lu Zhizhou, report the palace, or the official documents that come and go, and give me a copy of the recent news about Sun Butang's dispatch to Liaodong and the construction of the Daling River, the sooner the better, I'm waiting for you here." “

"Yes, sir!" Although Xu Xianming didn't understand why Liu Cheng suddenly cared about the battle situation in Liaodong, thousands of miles away, he knew that it must have his own use, so he arched his hand towards Liu Cheng and went outside. Liu Cheng walked to the map by the wall, began to carefully examine the map of Liaodong, and muttered in his mouth: "God, God, don't let me guess." “

At the time of the second watch, Xu Xianming returned to the construction site, he handed Liu Cheng more than ten pieces of paper, which were densely copied with the imperial court's newspaper, and two private letters written to him by Lu Boqi in the same year, which mentioned some Liao affairs, and also copied them to Xu Xianming, it seems that the twenty taels of silver have a great effect on Lu Boqi's master. Liu Cheng walked to the oil lamp and began to read the transcripts carefully, probably because of the dim light, as the reading progressed, Liu Cheng's face became more and more gloomy, and finally he threw the few copies in his hand on the table, and sighed to the sky: "If you are really afraid of anything, it seems that the situation in Shaanxi is still out of control after all." “

"Why do you say that, sir!" Xu Xianming asked with some surprise: "Haven't you done a good job in Yanzhou these days, everyone has food to eat and work to do, how can it be out of control?" ”

Liu Cheng's mood at this time was extremely depressed, he was born and died since he crossed over, and he went deep into the peasant army alone as an internal response, and persuaded God Yikui to be cared for, and went to Dunzhou to fight wits and courage with these gentlemen to clean up the military camp and build water conservancy, if it wasn't for luck, I was afraid that the bones would be used to beat the drum, in addition to making a fortune for his own promotion, more to avoid the outbreak of the Northwest Civil Rebellion. I saw that I had already made a small achievement, but I didn't want to make the situation out of control because of the selfishness of those adults and gentlemen. At this time, when Xu Xianming asked, Liu Cheng replied indignantly: "Everyone has selfish intentions, and who will take care of state affairs!" ”

"My lord, you shouldn't be talking about Inspector Sun. Why is it said that he went out of Liaodong with selfish intentions? “

"The current situation in the northwest is the time when money and grain are needed, but Sun Gebu rashly sent troops to Liaodong, the imperial court was already short of money and grain, Liaodong was fighting, where can I take care of the northwest? Lord Sun is the cabinet of the Ming Dynasty, not just the cabinet of Liaodong. Speaking of this, Liu Cheng sighed and said: "It seems that we can only make plans early, but it's a pity that I have put this effort into Yanzhou." If you give it another year, it will definitely be a different weather! “

Early the next morning, all of Liu Cheng's subordinates were summoned to the government office, and they were surprised to see that Liu Cheng's eyes were bloodshot, obviously this man slept badly last night, just when everyone was speculating about what kept Liu Cheng awake all night. Liu Chengdao: "Du Ruhu, how many soldiers do you have trained now?" How much is there still a shortage of armor? “

Regarding Liu Cheng's sudden question, Du Ruhu was quite surprised. Because these days, although Liu Cheng has also inquired about the training of the sergeants from time to time, the manpower and material resources invested are very limited. The main energy was spent on building Pitang and fighting with the local gentry, and at this juncture, he suddenly asked how his soldiers were trained, could it be that he was going to attack the gentry? If so, he must stop this boss, who usually acts a little recklessly, and he doesn't want to become a thief again.

"There were a hundred and twenty skilled gunners, forty sword-bearers, and sixty archers. There were forty birds. When Du Ruhu said this, he secretly glanced at Liu Cheng's face before continuing: "However, weapons and armor are very lacking, there are only twenty-two bird guns, and there is also a shortage of medicine arrows. ”

"Hmm!" Liu Cheng nodded. He did not reprimand as Du Ruhu expected, but said very eagerly: "Later, you will go to Ding Zhuang, who repairs the canal, and you are selecting three hundred strong men, you will step up the training for me, it is now October, and you must give me the training before January next year." “

Du Ruhu was also infected by the eagerness in Liu Cheng's words, he swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and said in a low voice: "Yes, my lord, the last general will definitely do his best, but the lack of weapons and medicines——"

"You don't have to worry about this, I'll definitely make it up for you when the time comes!"

"The last general obeys!" was blocked in his throat by Liu Cheng's unspoken half of the sentence, Du Ruhu didn't dare to say more, so he had to accept the order respectfully. Liu Cheng turned his gaze to Tang Muyao, who was sitting at the end, and shouted, "Tang Muyao! It was the first time for the young blacksmith to attend a similar meeting, and he did not dare to make a sound, but he shrunk his neck and hid behind, when he suddenly heard his name being called, and was startled, and hurriedly jumped up from the stool, knelt on the ground and answered: "The villain is here!" “

"Get up and speak!"

"Yes, sir!" Tang Muyao stood up hesitantly and looked up at Liu Cheng above.

"You also heard what happened just now, Du Qian always said that there is a lot of shortage of weapons and armor, and you have to make up for it quickly."

"Your Excellency!" Without waiting for Tang Muyao to speak, Yu He on the side grabbed the conversation: "You said in front of Lu Zhizhou and Ma Juren that the ditch must be dug before the spring next year, and you can't miss the agricultural time. ”

Liu Cheng nodded silently, Yu He didn't say something, the main reason why Liu Cheng was able to gain a firm foothold in Dunzhou and open up such a big situation was to obtain the support of Lu Boqi and a part of the local gentry led by Ma Ziyi, and Lu Boqi and the Jinzhou gentry supported Liu Cheng not for the sake of worrying about the country, but to use Liu Cheng's displaced people to build water conservancy projects to turn the dry land in their hands that depended on the sky for food into water irrigated land for drought and flood protection. If it is said that in the previous incident, Liu Cheng sent a blacksmith to do some private work for himself while ensuring the construction of Pitang, and it was still within the tolerable range to fight about 20 birds, then if the spring sowing of the gentry's fields was delayed in the next few critical months because of Liu Cheng's large armament, it would undoubtedly be beyond the scope of tolerance. As long as the gentry cut off the food supplied to Liu Cheng, Liu Cheng and his little lone army would be overwhelmed by the hungry homeless.

"Tang Muyao, if you guarantee to repair all kinds of tools, how many blacksmiths can be dispatched?"

"Tell your lord, the master blacksmith can draw three or four, and the apprentices are quite a lot, and they can draw more than thirty."

"So little?" Liu Cheng's face showed a look of disappointment, after personally experiencing the production environment of the blacksmith shop in the Ming Dynasty, Liu Chengcheng understood why blacksmiths are synonymous with high-tech talents in various computer games, and they must constantly wield more than a dozen catties of hammers around the scorching furnace to forge the iron into the desired shape, and complete the carburizing and other processes, which have extremely high requirements for the physical fitness of the craftsman. At this level of skill, relying on three or four blacksmiths to make the weapons and armor needed by hundreds of people is by no means something that can be done in just two or three months, and it is necessary to find another way.

The meeting was held here, Liu Cheng was also a little excited, so he had to order Du Ruhu to step up the training of recruits, don't slack off because there is no weapon, and wait until everyone disperses, he stood by the window alone, looked at the crowd of ants outside, and sighed in a deep voice: "When the world and the earth are all working together, the heroes are not free, could it be that the fortune is no longer on the side of the Ming Dynasty?" “

At night, Liu Cheng slept very unsteadily in bed, and dreamed for a while that the peasant army had revived, he was defeated and captured, and Shen Yikui wanted to dig out his heart and cut his dead brother alive; After a while, they dreamed that the canal could not be built, Lu Boqi and Ma Ziyi wrote to the court that they were arrogant and domineering, oppressed the good, and they were stripped of their official robes, and they were about to be beheaded when they overwhelmed the school field; After a while, I dreamed that my parents stretched out their hands to me with tears in their eyes, lamenting that they were old and childless, and that there was no one under their knees; In the end, all this disappeared, and in its place was a death knell, as if knocking on Liu Cheng's heart. In this way, Liu Cheng tossed and turned on the bed, muttering to himself, and suddenly fell off the bed, only to wake up from his dream.

"It turns out that it's all a dream!" Liu Cheng wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and was about to get up and pour himself a glass of cold water to suppress the shock, but the door was pushed open, and a person rushed in with a knife. Liu Cheng fixed his eyes, but it was guarding Wang Xingguo. It turned out that since Liu Cheng was assassinated by He Renlong, he took Wang Xingguo with him, followed him during the day, and slept outside the door at night. (To be continued.) )