"Yes, sir!" Liu Zongmin responded angrily, knelt down and kowtowed, thanked him and retreated. Liu Cheng and his party set out on the way home, and on the way, Min Min suddenly smiled and said, "Why did you say those words to that blacksmith?" It seems that he is particularly valued by him. “

"Value him?" Liu Cheng said with a smile: "I don't particularly value this person, it's just that the chaos in Shaanxi today can't be calmed down by killing people alone." Everyone is the people of the Ming Dynasty, you kill me, I kill you, when is it a head? “

"You Han people just have a lot of twists and turns in your stomach!" A disdainful smile appeared on Min Min's face: "On our grassland, if you convince everyone who is not convinced, it will naturally be too peaceful?" “

"It's not that simple!" Liu Cheng shook his head and smiled: "Genghis Khan defeated you Mongols back then, but what happened later? Your ancestors weren't convinced, were they? ”

Min Min was dumbfounded, the Erut people to whom she belonged originated from the upper reaches of the Yenisei River in today's Central Asia, and were called "the people of the forest" after Genghis Khan's conquest, and they were married to the Golden Family for generations, and had the special status of "looking down on the kings", but when Ming Taizu overthrew the rule of the Yuan Dynasty in the fifteenth century, the Golden Family was in danger. Instead of sending troops to support the Northern Yuan Golden Family lineage, which had the status of "Mongol co-lord", the Erluts took the opportunity of their bitter battle with the Ming army to annex their subordinates and increase their strength. In the 300-year history of the Ming Dynasty, the most ferocious enemies of the princes of Eastern Mongolia of the Golden Family lineage were not the Ming Dynasty, but these former in-laws. As the direct bloodline of the Great Khan of Erut, Min Min naturally knows this history well. She bit her lip and thought for a while, "What do you think it should be?" “

"Legislating and imparting justice, so that the strong shall not be oppressed by the weak, and the many shall not be oppressed, and the hungry shall be fed, and the needy shall rest." Liu Cheng said in a deep voice: "Since ancient times, the strong have no constant strength, and the weak cannot be always weak. “

Heard Liu Cheng say this. Min Min sneered: "Liu Cheng, are you talking in your sleep?" If it is according to what you said, how could Emperor Zhu have done it? ”

"The Son of Heaven of the Kai Dynasty has known the suffering of the people, and he can still do a few points, as for now!" Speaking of this, Liu Cheng's voice suddenly became very soft, so that only Min Min could hear it clearly: "Since ancient times, how can there be an immortal country, if the life expectancy is reached, it will be in vain." After saying that, Liu Cheng ignored Min Min's surprised eyes. The horse marched forward.

"How long have you got?" Min Min repeated Liu Cheng's words, his eyes full of excitement.

In the whole summer of Chongzhen's five years, Liu Chengcheng was like a busy worker bee, almost crazy busy. In addition to commanding the troops under his jurisdiction to suppress the endless civil uprisings and thieves in the defense area, Liu Cheng had more things to deal with: training the army; construction of pontoon bridges; the construction of beacon towers and wharves along the Yellow River on the Shaanxi side; the construction of a larger-scale hydraulic forging factory, textile factory, and arsenal in Chaoyi; In addition to building warships to patrol the hundreds of miles of the Yellow River, in addition to preventing thieves from Shaanxi from escaping to Shanxi, Liu Cheng's fleet also had an inconvenient purpose to say - the commanders on the warships were given secret orders: to drive every ferry boat they encountered back to the other side, and if there was cargo on it, half of it would be confiscated, and inform the other party in order to prevent the thieves from mixing in it. All business travelers between Shaanxi and Shanxi had to pass through the pontoon bridge at Pujindu. Liu Cheng did this for two purposes: 1. He could levy 3% of the money and ferry money on future business travelers; 2 It made Chaoyi the largest treaty port and transportation hub between the two provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi, and there was only one purpose for doing so, that is, money.

In my heart, the size of the army under Liu Cheng at this time was still far from the goal of "hundreds of thousands of armored ships" in his mind: six clippers. There were only four hundred including the oarsmen; four hundred cavalry; 1,800 troops; In addition, there are 180 people guarding the newly built six beacon towers and wharves along the river, which is less than 3,000 people, which is all the existing armed forces in Liu Cheng's hands. But in order to maintain this miniature army, more than 6,000 taels of silver had to be paid every month just for military salaries, not including rations, horse feed, and clothing for winter and summer. Now Liu Cheng finally understands why there is a proverb in the West: "The greatest luxury of a king is to go to war." ”

As the general of the left battalion of Yansui Town in the Ming Dynasty. The army under Liu Cheng and even the economic division of the imperial court should be said to be a matter of civilian officials such as military preparation, governor, and governor, but in the Ming Dynasty, "should" will always be "should". The empire was already anxious about the war situation in Liaodong, and it really couldn't take out too many resources to support the counterinsurgency war in the northwest, and these few resources were basically left in Hong Chengchou's hands. It's not that the newly appointed Governor Hong is particularly ruthless in making money, but that the amount issued by the imperial court is extremely limited and insufficient, so Hong Chengchou formulated a strategy because of his ugliness: the limited military salary will be given priority to the standard battalion directly under the governor and the elite selected from the two towns of Yansui and Gansu, and they undertake the task of pursuing, intercepting and other mobile battles with the thieves, while the armies of the other departments only need to guard their own defense areas, and of course they will only get a symbolic little military salary, which cannot be said to be unfair.

Thanks to this phenomenon of general arrears, Liu Cheng can finally let go of his hands and feet for the first time since the crossing, after all, no matter how outrageous he is, he only extorts supplies from the local government, collects money from business travelers, hoards Juqi by the way, buys at a low price, and mutinies at other military towns in three days, openly robs the town, and kills good people and risking merit. Although Hong Chengchou also received various impeachment and attack documents against Liu Cheng in three days, these righteous indignant attacks were soon drowned in more and more fierce rhetorical documents to impeach other other in other military towns. Besides, Hong Chengchou has no energy to rectify military discipline at this time, after all, suppressing thieves is the first priority, and he knows very well that if he can't calm down the chaos in Shaanxi before next autumn, I'm afraid that Yang He's today will be his tomorrow.

As a result, Liu Cheng was given many valuable opportunities to accumulate valuable military experience in these peasant armies with very weak combat effectiveness. No matter how much useful knowledge he gained from the Internet in later generations, war is a very practical art. There is no book that tells the distance between the ranks of the pikemen and the ranks of the gunslingers? How much gunpowder should a bird gun reload? Should the team leader stand in the middle or on the sides of the ranks? Should you form a dense horizontal formation in the face of a numerically superior enemy force or a checkerboard formation, and form a column of reserves to launch a counterattack through the gaps in the ranks? When should cavalry reserves be put into service? How fast can you march to maintain your physical strength without delaying your planes? How to organize and train supply detachments so that the soldiers on the march can be fed? Even the best military historians could not record these things in their writings, and with the exception of a very few true geniuses, the vast majority of the soldiers had exchanged their blood for these valuable experiences, and fortunately Liu Cheng had learned from a group of peasant armies armed with wooden sticks and bamboo guns and without a piece of armor, not from the Later Jin Army, the Ming Army, the Dutch colonizers, and the Russians. Compared to the former, the latter requires much higher tuition fees.

When the summer of Chongzhen's fifth year ended, and the farmers watched with great ambition at the crops that were about to ripen in their fields, Liu Cheng was also richly rewarded—he received about 190 taels of silver a day just for the amount of gold levied on the caravans who traveled through the pontoon bridge, and this income continued to grow. In addition, he was able to make a large amount of money by selling cloth, leather, ironware, medicinal herbs, and other goods to the merchants, and a market town with a radius of three or four miles was formed near the pontoon bridge, and Liu became the name of Jinkou, which was quite remarkable in seventeenth-century China. The prescient Liu Cheng had already purchased nearby land in advance. He then divided the land into small plots and sold or leased them to merchants who wanted to build inns, warehouses, and shops near the ferry. And the management of this market town was handed over to Zhao Youcai, which was a reward for his previous betrayal.

Of course, the biggest gain for Liu Cheng is the army in his hands, the salary paid on time, excellent weapons and armor, and strict training, these are all necessary materials for casting elite soldiers, but these are not enough, continuous victory is the root of all this, even if it is a victory for the thieves. All the soldiers in ancient and modern times, both Chinese and foreign, are the most realistic, and are only willing to follow generals who can bring them victory. Because the war itself is the most realistic - the winner will have everything, and the loser will have nothing.

Tsuguchi Town.

"Mr. Zhao, this is the place covered by General Liu's military flag?" A lama dressed in red and wearing a yellow monk's hat looked at the scene in amazement. The road in front of me was at least twice as wide as the usual official road, but it was still crowded with carriages and pedestrians, and the air was filled with the smell of dirt, horses, and sweat, and the screams of people mingled with the neighing of cattle.

"This-" The surprise on Zhao Wende's face was no less than that of the questioner: "It should be here, right!" “

The lama looked at the scene in front of him with great interest. He asked, "It's so lively!" It is the great lama of the Mani Society who is summoned by Zhunger to preach the scriptures in April every year, and it is like this when the merchants and travelers on the grassland gather, isn't it a special day today? ”

"Probably not!" Zhao Wende shook his head: I crossed the Yellow River from here a few years ago. But at that time, it was just a deserted ferry, where was there such a scene? ”

"Really?" The lama looked at the scene in front of him with great interest, and said with a smile: "If this is the case, it is interesting, it seems that the poor monk did not come in vain this time, your General Liu must be an interesting person." ”

While the two were talking, a Mongolian knight behind him shouted in a rough voice: "Master Chesang, these Han people are so rude, and the master won't give way when he travels, why don't we come forward and drive them away and open the way for you?" ”

"No!" Lama Chesang said solemnly: "As the saying goes, when we come to the land of the Han people, we naturally have to follow the rules of the Han people, how can there be a reason to bully others?" Since you are my attaché, you must be careful, or you will go back to the grassland yourself! ”

As soon as the Chesang Lama finished speaking, all the Mongolian knights nodded yes one after another, and the one who spoke just now was even more silent. Zhao Wende couldn't help but secretly marvel at the sidelines, this group of Mongolian knights accompanying him were basically noble children, and they were unruly on weekdays, and they didn't expect this lama to reprimand a few words casually, so they bowed their heads one by one.

"Mr. Zhao, it's not a solution for me to wait here to spend it, why don't you go and inform General Liu first?"

"Okay, then please wait here for a while!" Zhao Wende answered, and then beat the horse and went first. Lama Chesang smiled slightly, then dismounted and closed his eyes to meditate without mentioning it, and the Mongolian knights accompanying him did not dare to disturb, and stood beside them.

It turned out that this lama known as Guru Chesang was the fourth **** Lobsang of Tibet at that time? Chokyi Gyaltsen's personal disciple, this Lobsang ? Chokyi Gyaltsen is one of the most important figures in Tibetan history, and he is more of a diplomat and statesman than a monk. At that time, most of Tibet was under the rule of Phuntsok Namgyal, known as the "Tsangpa Khan", who was a secular nobleman but a great believer in the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism, and even sent two expeditions against Bhutan, which was different from his beliefs. In 1617, the monks of Sera Monastery co-opted the Khalkha Mongols (that is, Mobei Mongolia) who believed in the Gelug sect in an attempt to overthrow the Zangba Khan, but the Gelug coalition was defeated by the Zangba Khan. In retaliation, Tsangpa Khan's army swept through the famous Sera and Drepung monasteries, slaughtering the Gelugpa monks in the monasteries, and the survivors had to flee to the northern regions where Tsangpa Khan's power was weak. In the face of an unfavorable situation, Rousanne? Chokyi Gyaltsen had no choice but to gather strength and send his disciples to the Gelugpa Mongol tribes to liaise and look for an opportunity to overthrow the joint regime of the Tsangpa Khan and the Karma Kagyu sect and establish the rule of the Gelug sect. And this lama of Guru Chesang is Lobsan? One of Chokyi Gyaltsen's close disciples was not only proficient in Buddhism, but also a scholar, and the Mongols at the time embraced Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhism, and Batur Khan's Dzungar tribe was no exception. The Great Khans generally supported Gelugpa monks as ministers, and figures such as the Chesang Lama, Batur naturally held him very highly. A few months ago, Batur Khan won a resounding victory in a conflict with the Kazakhs, and Liu Cheng's provision of firearms played a crucial role in this, which undoubtedly raised Liu Cheng's status in Batur Khan's mind. As the first output of the Haba River copper mine was to be shipped to the Central Plains, Batur Khan sent someone to escort him with him, so as to strengthen his alliance with Liu Cheng. (To be continued.) )