Chongzhen four years, August 27! Confucius's birthday!

On this day every year, the scholars from all over the country will gather at the Confucian Temple in various places to hold the "Confucius Ceremony", of course, the cities with the Confucian Temple are all prefecture-level cities, such as Chengcheng, a small city with the county as the unit, can not build the Confucian Temple, but the readers in the city still gathered together and came to the front of the county school.

But...... Today's ceremony is a little different from previous years, and the scholars who came to participate in the ceremony all had blue faces, weak steps, and all walked staggeringly.

The reason is very simple, because at this moment, outside Chengcheng, which is only separated by a wall, on the wilderness, an army formation composed of a thousand bandits has been set up, and Baishui Zhuba finally came to Chengcheng.

Since ancient times, the bandits have not come out of the mountains to attack the city has not been as easy as Zhu Ba, after he led the army out of Huanglong Mountain, through more than a dozen villages, through several towns, to the Chengcheng Gate, actually did not even fight a battle. None of the squires and landlords in the villages he passed along the way organized a village warrior army to confront him, so he led the thief army, swaggered, and walked here as if no one was around, and set up a military formation outside the city.

Since the news of the slaughter of the villages by the officers and soldiers spread, Chengcheng has almost fallen into a state of no political axe, and the people have been tormented by the great drought, and suddenly they heard such thrilling news, and their hearts were greatly shaken. And at this time, there was news that Chengcheng Zheng Yanfu's remnants of the party were desperately resurrected, and for a while, I don't know how many people wanted to go from thieves.

At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang only had a thousand people with him, and there were still a thousand people who were not around, and he didn't know where he had arranged them, and he didn't surround several gates of Chengcheng, but Chen Bing was outside the north city gate, looking at the city from afar.

Looking at it like this, although it didn't attack, it was enough to scare the people in the city.

"Brother Zhu, let's just stand here all the time, don't we attack the city?" Ma Xiaotian said with a little curiosity: "These days, we have broken down the fighting spirit of all the township warriors, and at the same time, we have also found out that the total number of officers and soldiers defending the city is less than two hundred, if you order the siege of the city, this city can be broken in less than an hour." ”

"That's right!" Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile: "The garrison of Chengcheng is less than two hundred, and the city wall is low, as long as you build a personal bridge, you can easily climb the city, such a small city, if we attack it with a thousand troops, we can attack it in an instant, but ...... I'm not thinking about how to capture Chengcheng, but how to get Chengcheng. ”

"Won't you get it if you take it?" Ma Xiaotian said strangely.

"Ha, how can it be so simple!" Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and said, "Xiaotian, how big is our cottage?" ”

"Hmm...... It's the size of one mountain, plus a few sub-villages, and it's just four hills. Ma Xiaotian said seriously.

"How big is Chengcheng?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

"This ...... Well, it's not so clear! Ma Xiaotian touched his head.

"I'll tell you!" Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously: "Chengcheng has a total of 16,000 hectares of land, and there are 800,000 mu of land available for cultivation, nearly 100 villages, and tens of thousands of people ......."

"Scared ......" Ma Xiaotian was startled: "There are 800,000 acres of land? That ...... "For a poor child like Ma Xiaotian, if there is ten acres of land in the family, it is considered a rich peasant, and those who have fifty acres of land are called masters, what is the concept of these 800,000 acres?" His head suddenly felt a little dizzy.

Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile: "If I hand over the 800,000 mu of land to you, can you manage it?" ”

"Scared! I can't care about it......" Ma Xiaotian quickly shook his head.

"Who do you think can handle it?" Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile.

"Hmm...... Brother Zhu, you must be able to manage it, and there are ...... The generalissimo should do the same...... Well, although I don't want to admit it, but Yang Hong ...... Oh, by the way, he's called Cold Wind now, and he should be able to manage it too. Ma Xiaotian said honestly.

"Is it enough to have just a few of them?" Zhu Yuanzhang continued to laugh.

"Hmm...... No, you still have to get the master, the master, the history, the officials, the fast catch, and the teachings...... "Ma Xiaotian doesn't know anything, he still knows what officials are in the county yamen: "If you want to manage a county well, there are really a lot of people." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang continued to smile and said: "I appointed you as the master, have you done it?" ”

"This ...... No, I just learned a few words from my sister-in-law, how can I do my master's work? "Ma Xiaotian is self-aware.

"Then tell me, who in our village can be the master? Who can call the shots? Who deserves the canonical history? Zhu Yuanzhang asked the question, and Ma Xiaotian was speechless, although everyone has learned some superficial words from his sister-in-law in recent years, but no one can do these jobs.

After Ma Xiaotian was stunned for a long time, he said dejectedly: "It's over, we can't manage Chengcheng...... At most, you can only grab something here and go back, and it is impossible to take possession of it...... It takes some learned people to do these things. ”

When he said this, the corners of his mouth flattened and said, "Brother Zhu, don't tease me, tell me what you plan to do, right?" ”

"It's actually quite simple!" Zhu Yuanzhang pointed to the city and said: "Let the officials from this city listen to us and help us work, so that we can also manage this county well......"

"But those are corrupt officials...... It's because they don't manage it well that we will rebel......" Ma Xiaotian was anxious.

"That's right, they can't manage it well...... Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously: "But if you kill them all at the beginning and replace them with yourself, it will only be worse, so we have to let them manage it first, and then go to find people who can manage the county well, replace these officials in turn, and finally replace them all with people who manage well." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously: "If I order an attack now, the city can be broken quickly, but the jade and stones are burned wherever the soldiers are pointing, and these people who can manage things will also be killed or injured in the chaos, so we won't be able to take over Chengcheng well...... I'm setting up a formation now and not attacking, I'm mentally preparing them to join us! ”

"Mentally ready?" Ma Xiaotian was a little dazed.

"Forming a formation in front of the city like this, posing as if it might attack at any time, the courage of the defenders of the city will diminish with time, but the fear will increase with time! When they are too frightened to bear it, it is time for us to negotiate, and when the time comes, we can take over the city without bloodshed, and we can hold all those who can do learning in our hands. ”

"Won't they flee through other gates?" Ma Xiaotian is wonderful.

"The court officials have the responsibility to defend the land, and if they escape, they will die, and they will also affect their families and relatives. If you don't escape, you can still leave a good name in history when you die, so ...... No matter how timid the county officials are, they will not run away, and they will pray to God to spare their lives. Zhu Yuanzhang said lightly.

So that's the case, Ma Xiaotian suddenly realized, and then couldn't help but feel a little heartbroken, Zhu Bugling knows so much.

The thieves neither attacked the city, nor retreated, did not make noise, did not make noise, put in a neat formation, and kept staring at Chengcheng murderously, just staring at it from morning to noon, and the two hundred guards in the city had to accompany them to stand at the head of the city...... A great crowd of officials also stood on the head of the city.

At noon, the thieves outside the city did not line up, and suddenly buried the pot to make food...... Or even sit down on the ground to rest.

The guards in the city were in an uproar, and they also wanted to rest and eat together, but they were worried that this was a ploy of the thieves, so they had to continue to stick to the city wall, and in the afternoon, the thieves lined up again, and continued to pose under the city as if they were going to attack the city.

After such a fuss, the people in the city finally couldn't bear it!

The name of this Chengcheng magistrate is Xin Lancheng, Chinese New Year's Eve seven today, with a national character face, three long beards, and a good face, but being assigned to a poor and remote place like Chengcheng as an official shows that he has no backstage behind him, and his ability is not outstanding, so he will be kicked to this place. This person can't say how bold he is, watching the thieves outside the city make trouble like this for a while, and make trouble like that for a while, his tense nerves finally can't stand it anymore.

sat down at the head of the city and scolded: "Damn thief, attack if you want to, it's good to give a knife to a good time, but here you put on a siege posture and don't do it, is this going to play to death?" ”

He scolded twice, and came out with a head next to him, it turned out to be the Shaoxing master he hired, this master shook his head and said: "Lord County, according to the student's opinion, the thief put on this posture, he definitely doesn't want to attack the ......city directly."

"And what are they going to do?" Xin Lancheng said depressedly.

"It should ...... I want to negotiate terms with you. The master wiped a handful of sweat: "For example, if you want a few thousand taels of silver, dozens of pigs are willing to retire from the army or something, this kind of thing is not uncommon." ”

"Oh! Yes, there is also this possible surname. "Xin Lancheng is overjoyed, if people can not die, who wants to die? Since you can retreat the thief in this way, of course it is easy to talk about and discuss, but he is not stupid, and his head still knows how to turn in circles: "Why didn't the thief take the initiative to send someone to talk to us?" Do you have to let us guess? ”

The master's face was gloomy: "It seems that the conditions that the thief wants to mention are difficult to meet, so he scared us first, in short...... This catastrophe is sad......"

"In that case, please go out of the city and ask Zhu Ba what he wants to do!" Xinlan became enlightened.

The master came up with an idea to negotiate, but he didn't expect Xin Lancheng to push him out to negotiate as soon as he changed his mind, this is really shooting himself in the foot, but the meal ticket to support the family has to be received from Xin Lancheng's hand, and it won't work if he doesn't listen, so he had to say with a bitter face: "Then the student will go out of the city for a trip, if there is an accident...... The wife and children at home are old and young, and please take care of Dong Weng! ”