The owner of the restaurant looked at a few Liao soldiers coldly, and the other people in the restaurant were coaxing, most of them were local accents in Dengzhou, and most of them were shouting words like rolling.

Chen Xin asked Zhou Shifa in a low voice, "How do you know that they are Liao soldiers?" ”

"My lord, most of the Liao soldiers only followed Master Sun to Dengzhou last year, and they were originally Dongjiang soldiers, and their clothes were different from those of Shuiying, Zhengbing, and Qibing."

Chen Xin nodded, and Zhou Shifa continued: "Originally, there were not many Liao soldiers in Dengzhou, and there were some recruited Liao soldiers in Shuicheng, and at present, most of these Dongjiang soldiers are in the pacesetter camp, the main barracks and the odd barracks, and most of them are Shandong soldiers and southern soldiers. ”

Recently, many soldiers from the standard battalion of the Wendeng battalion have fled, and the intelligence bureau first learned about the military strength of Dengzhou from these deserters, and has a good understanding of the composition of the soldiers in each battalion.

Several Liao soldiers were very embarrassed at the door, and one of them blushed and said, "Lao Tzu has silver, why don't you let us eat it." ”

A diner said loudly: "Bah, your silver is all our Dengzhou's silver, you Liao people can't beat the Tartars, come to rob the people of Dengzhou's jobs, and you are embarrassed to say that you have silver." ”

The Liao soldier defended: "We are not homeless, we were brought here by Master Kong, and we have our own military salaries......"

Several diners were not afraid of these soldiers at all, and continued to scold and scold: "Kong Youde is a fart, a few days ago, the young master of the Chen family chased the fugitive slaves, even in your standard camp, Kong Youde must not be honestly handed over." ”

Zhou Shifa whispered to Chen Xin: "My lord, the Tang family and the Chen family are both local clans, one is in the east of the city, the other is in the west of the city, there are many people, there are many officials in the family, and no one dares to provoke them locally." ”

Chen Xin doesn't want to provoke these big clans now, there are similar big clans in Wendeng, they are scattered in the local area, there are many people, ordinary people can only retreat in the face of them, and even the magistrate is mostly kind to persuade them. However, there are not many officials on Wendeng's side, and they are not too arrogant, and the Wendeng camp is even more crowded, so they and the Wendeng camp are irrational to each other, so how did Kong Youde come when he first came, and in the face of these local nobles, it is reasonable to retreat.

The shopkeeper waved his hand to several Liao soldiers and said: "Everyone, this is the Tang family's shop, the owner said that the Liao soldiers would not be allowed to come in for dinner, and besides, the guest officers inside do not want to live with you and others, so please go back." ”

The shopkeeper is still kind, and his speech is much more polite than those diners, and several Dongjiang soldiers finally have a step down, hateful to look at those diners, unwillingly turned around, and left in the midst of the coaxing of several tables of diners in the shop.

Song Wenxian shook his head and said: "The Liao people are really not welcome in Dengzhou, when they came over in the early years, the imperial court was weak, these Liao people had no life, they had to steal and rob everywhere, and they were regarded as the next three indiscriminate by the locals in Dengzhou, and some more honest Liao people worked hard nearby to make a living, they had low wages and no support, they were very easy to use, many shop owners quit the locals, and instead hired the Liao people, which had a lot of contradictions with the locals, and later there were people like Yang Guodong, openly robbing the fleeing Liao people, If he didn't pay the silver, he was sold to the gentry in Shandong as slaves. ”

Chen Xin smiled, these are the weak response of the imperial court, so that these Liao people just came out of the bitter sea and entered the fire pit, plus Mao Wenlong was killed by Yuan Chonghuan without authorization, the Liao people and Liao soldiers now hate Houjin, and they have no loyalty to the imperial court, Kong Youde and others can respond to Dengzhou because there is a turbulent soil here.

Chen Xin asked Zhou Shifa: "Have you mastered the military strength of Dengzhou?" ”

Zhou Shifa said to Chen Xin: "The total number of Dengzhou soldiers, odd soldiers, and pacesetters is more than 20,000, the Dongjiang River is about 20,000, plus our Wendeng camp is 3,000, the total number is more than 40,000, it is said that there should be about 20,000 near Dengzhou City, according to our verification among the deserters, the actual soldiers are less than 8,000, and they have eaten more than half of the empty salary." ”

At this time, Xiao Er came to serve the food, Chen Xin and the others stopped talking, and when the shopkeeper left, several people ate some wine and food. Chen Xin was not surprised at all by the strength of the troops in Dengzhou, half of the empty salary was not much, and the most of them were eighty percent of the empty salary, although Sun Yuanhua was more enterprising than ordinary officials, but he could not be a maverick in the officialdom, and he would not be an official for a long time.

Chen Xin asked Zhou Shifa: "How many soldiers and horses are there in the standard camp?" ”

"There are less than 3,000 people including the auxiliary soldiers of the standard battalion company, and the elite of them is the Dongjiang soldiers, nearly half of the salary of Kong Youde and others needs to be filial piety to the officials, and when they get it, it is already short, and then they are greedy for ink, and Kong Youde himself has raised more than 300 Ding, all of whom can get full salaries, and the rest of the ordinary pacesetters can only get a few dollars of silver in a month, just enough to eat."

The diners around him were talking and laughing loudly, still talking about the Liao soldiers just now, and there was a lot of contempt between their words. Since Wendengying became famous in the first war last year, more than 20,000 Liao people went to Wendeng to defect, but there are still many Liao people near Dengzhou, and the civil contradictions have not been resolved much.

Chen Xin did not pay attention to the ordinary Liao soldiers of the standard battalion, he was concerned about the Hongyi artillery, there was no qualified Hongyi gunner and artillery knowledge, if Houjin explored it himself, the ability to attack the fortified positions would not make great progress, Xu Guangqi actively introduced artillery and Fran machine man, but he had repeatedly emphasized that the Hongyi artillery should not fall into the hands of Jiannu, especially the method of observation and control, he once said, "Artillery is my strength, do not share it with the enemy, such as the law of the Western big gun for the enemy, since then there is no other way to resist the thief can defeat the thief...... If it is not as good as the law, it is better to put it aside and use it later...... In case the incident is incorrigible, the heart of serving the country will be turned into the crime of misleading the country", but he was afraid of something, and the Dengzhou army, which he regarded as the hope of a strong army, actually rebelled, and finally took the Hongyi cannon, gunners, and artillery craftsmen to all invest in Houjin, and made Jiannu have the most powerful artillery of this era overnight, which is also one of the worst influences caused by Kong Youde in history.

Chen Xin said to Zhou Shifa: "Where were those Francophone people after they came? ”

"It is in the training standard camp, including Kong Youde's department, that Master Sun often personally drills artillery, and the standard camp is equipped with special firearms commanders, firearms garrisons, firearms 100 generals and other official positions, with a large number of two-wheeled vehicles, artillery carriages, more than 20 Hongyi cannons, and countless other firearms.

Chen Xin stared at the desktop and said to Zhou Shifa: "The Intelligence Bureau still has an important task, all the gunners who can make cannons and observe the method must be monitored, and there are at least two points around the barracks where the gunners are located. ”

Zhou Shifa hurriedly wrote it down again, Chen Xin held the teacup, and began to ponder in his heart, Chongzhen four years, the biggest battle is the Daling River, followed by the Dengzhou Change, he doesn't know the time of these two things, and he doesn't know how long it will last, the only thing that is certain is that the Battle of the Daling River is in front, and the Dengzhou Incident is in the back, for those gunners, he would rather kill them than let them have a chance to escape Houjin.

Chen Xin only hopes that it will be a little later, so that he can finish the work of making money first, now the construction of the Daling River has not yet begun, and I have not heard that anyone has put forward this opinion, Chen Xin himself has seen the location of the Daling River City on the map, which was built when Sun Chengzong last supervised the division, and was demolished by the Houjin soldiers after Gao Di gave up. Now that Sun Chengzong is out of the mountain again, it is estimated that he hopes to protect Jinzhou with the Daling River, in order to put pressure on Houjin and prevent Houjin from making a detour to enter the customs again. In Chen Xin's view, if the Ming army has a certain field force, there is no problem with this strategy, but it is not appropriate to take the current situation of the Ming army fleeing from the wind.

He turned his head to look at the book bridge over the river, and kept clicking his fingers on the table, calculating the troops he needed, including the peasants.

On the No. 3 Tunpu school field of Wendeng Battalion, the peasant soldiers were dispersed, and Brother Guan was left behind by Zhong Laosi, and he was scolded by a stinking head, accompanied by a beating of military sticks.

"Your mother, are you all so stupid in the Guan family, there are only a few horns, the difference is so big, you still have to be mistaken, more than 200 people don't know how to go, really go into battle, you heard the wrong movement, the military judge can kill you with one shot, if it weren't for the face of Emperor Guanmiao, Lao Tzu slashed you with a knife."

Zhong Laosi's saliva splashed, sprayed Brother Guan's face, and after a beating, he then asked the trumpeter to come over and blow the trumpet, so that the most stupid Brother Guan continued to be familiar, the trumpeter looked unhappy, holding a copper trumpet and blowing different horn sounds, and every time he blew Zhong Laosi, he explained it once, so he tossed for another quarter of an hour, and Brother Guan finally made progress, and Zhong Laosi let him go.

Brother Guan made a military salute and left, and kept rubbing his shoulders and arms along the way, although he was terrified every time he came to the school, for fear that he would not be embarrassed if he did not do well, but the silver of five yuan a month made him only persevere, after the death of the Guandi Temple, their family got the pension of the Guandi Temple thirty taels, and also the military salary and killing rewards of the Emperor Temple, a total of more than sixty taels of silver, but after all, the biggest economic pillar is missing, the eldest brother Guan is the eldest of the four brothers and sisters, he used the money to build a brick house, so that the family can live in, used up nearly thirty taels of silver, and there was not much left, and then he had to help his younger brother save the bride price and buy a dowry for his sister, and he didn't even have time to consider his own family affairs, so the five cents of silver per month was very important to him. Especially now that the land has been divided, they are not allowed to go out to work at will, and there are not many ways to make money.

He walked to the intersection of Tunpu, where there was a corpse and a human head, and the trunk of the tree also posted this person's crime, Guan eldest brother was illiterate, but he heard the tun chief say that this person was Jiannu's fine work, and he had been beheaded to show the public, and the tun chief held a special meeting to speak, asking everyone to pay attention to those suspicious people at any time.

Brother Guan raised his eyes and saw that the man's hair had been shaved into tartar pigtails before being beheaded, which was said to make him unable to recognize his ancestor, and Brother Guan took a light sip at the corpse.

After he walked into Tunpu, the environment inside made him feel a little more relaxed, Tunpu is an ordinary cross street structure, there are some alleys on both sides of the street, which are also straight, basically each A is an alley, there are tile houses and grass houses inside, the street is very tidy, the bluestone slabs are paved on it, and the ditch is built next to the road to avoid waterlogging, and there is no other place where there is feces and garbage everywhere, which benefits from the strict punishment of the instructor and the tun chief, because the civil affairs and military departments also assess them with neatness, Guan Dadi walked through the street and found out the waist card and silver, go to the comprehensive store to buy grain.

There was a long queue in front of the grain store, most of them were peasants and soldiers who came to buy grain after training, and everyone consciously lined up, not because they were high, but because the instructors and the tun chief's sticks were taught, and now queuing has become their living habit.

When it was his turn, the female clerk was already tired enough, and her face was impatient, and Brother Guan said carefully: "I will take the ...... for three days."

The woman looked at his waist card, looked at him and interrupted angrily: "This month's harvest is together, how can it be like your three days and two days, more than 500 households are like you, how much work do you have to add, we have a lot of things to do here, you take the rest of February together, March and April are also once received, in May you have collected your own grain, you can no longer receive rations." ”

Brother Guan was honest, and agreed with a smile, and the female clerk wrote off all their February rations in the booklet, and after weighing a large bag of grain with another clerk, she put it on the counter.

Brother Guan carried the food and walked back to his home, his home is a brick house, and there are only about a dozen households in Tongjia, most of them have children in the army or workshops. However, when he remembered that it was his brother's life in exchange, he felt a little sad in his heart.

After pushing the door open and going in, my sister happened to be feeding the chickens in the yard, and hurriedly came over to pick up the food, the yellow dog at home came up to rub his feet affectionately, Brother Guan happily touched the dog, his mother came out of the kitchen, and came up to check Brother Guan's face.

His mother looked at it and said, "Well, it's good today, I didn't get slapped." ”

The little sister was eating and laughing beside her, and the eldest brother Guan blocked his fucking hand, entered the main house by himself, and carved a knife on the threshold with a firewood knife, which had already carved a few knife marks, and he used this method to keep accounts and see how much military salary he had taken.

His mother came over and said stupidly: "What, someone came to propose marriage to your sister today, I didn't fancy it, it was a new family of broken households, and the next life was a tiger's brain, but the family was a little worse, and they still lived in a shack, maybe they were counting on our little sister's dowry." ”

Brother Guan sat on the threshold with his head bored, and didn't answer, his mother continued: "I thought, the Yang family next door married a daughter-in-law, and the dowry given by the people said that there were more than ten taels, the daughter-in-law's father was from the workshop, and the daughter-in-law did not suffer at home, the Yang family's aunt never said anything serious, and the dowry we gave to the little sister should not be less, and your brother, that is, a matter of one or two years, I didn't let him go to the field, let him go to the literacy class, and later enter the workshop, enter the store as an account room, your brother is smarter than you and the second brother, and they have entered the account room class, and they will count, How can you paddle like you? Let's save more silver, don't be so stupid, didn't the second brother also fight from Tunhu to the war barracks, where the monthly salary is more. ”

After his mother finished nagging, he rubbed his mouth with his waist, and went back to the kitchen, Brother Guan got up and closed the door, fell on the bed, and the place where he was beaten was still faintly painful, he looked at the roof and muttered: "Yinzi, brother, sister, when will Mom think of telling me a daughter-in-law." (To be continued.)