11-2o Guanshan Fit

Liu Ziguang met the main force of his Red Shirt Army near Mianchi County, and after joining the army, the army marched east to Luoyang, where he set up camp in this famous ancient city.

The local officials learned that the Marquis of Zhenwu had arrived, and immediately greeted them out of Shili, and the slave Yan said that he had prepared a mansion and wine in the city to wait for the general of Zhengxi, but Liu Ziguang ignored them at all, and beat them back with a few words casually, and the army camped outside the city, and the soldiers did not enter the city to harass, but only sent some men to buy fresh meat and vegetables in the city, and still paid according to the actual price, and never defaulted on credit, let alone forced to buy and rob.

The people originally saw the army crossing the border, one by one frightened, and were waiting for the family to hide from the strong wall and clear the wilderness, but they saw that this army did not commit any crimes, and they were puzzled, and when they inquired, they knew that it was the famous redshirt army who came, and immediately took the only egg white noodles at home to comfort the army, and by the way, asked if their son could eat food and become a soldier.

Liu Ziguang attaches great importance to the relationship between the military and the people, and the local operations are carried out in strict accordance with the standards of the Yuejia army, "freezing to death without demolishing houses, starving to death without taking prisoners", and those who harass the people are all beheaded without ambiguity.

When the Red Shirts captured the rich cities of Tianjin and Beijing, they did not plunder them, and now they have come to Luoyang City, which has been ravaged by bandits and is destitute, and they will not move any crooked thoughts, even if they are robbed, they may not be interested, because the salary and treatment of the Red Shirts are too generous. And this is one aspect of the Red Shirts' resounding name.

Now the people who actively participate in the Red Shirt Army are not only the children of Shandong Province, but also the young people of Hebei, Shanxi, Henan and even Jiangnan and Huguang are eager to enter the Red Shirt Army to eat food and become soldiers, and the salary is not good, and the salary of 30 taels of silver can be paid every month, which is simply more than the main book in the county, and the reputation is good, the saying that a good man is not a soldier and is not a soldier is not a nail is completely invalid here, if anyone has a son who wears a red robe, it is even more beautiful than winning the show, and the villagers come to congratulate him with eggs and pig's head liquor. Matchmakers in several nearby villages will also break the threshold. Not only the countrymen are like this, but even the showmen and lifters in the city are also like this, I heard that there are hundreds of young lifters in the capital, and they don't want the future of the jinshi in their hands, so they just become soldiers of the Red Shirt Army.

In short, the name of the Red Shirt Army was on fire in the Ming Dynasty, and the people of Luoyang would not miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and thousands of Zhuang people gathered at the gate of the Red Shirt Army, hoping that the recruitment flag could be erected in the camp, but they were disappointed in a few days, and the army did not have the intention of recruiting troops in Luoyang at all, they just stopped here.

During this time, Liu Ziguang and the generals have been busy formulating the battle plan, and a huge sand table model is placed in the commander's account, from Henan to Shaanxi, from Shaanxi to Shanxi, the terrain is clear at a glance, the mountains, rivers and plains are clear and very intuitive, and the staff officers are calculating around the sand table every day, revising the battle plan, and they are very busy.

The troops are not idle, the advanced class of the lecture hall is a mobile teaching, the classroom is set up in the barracks, the trainees and veterans live, train, march together, in addition to the commander's account as a service soldier, watching the officers busy with this and that, you can also learn something.

Ordinary soldiers are just running, carrying stone locks, aiming and shooting, or putting on protective gear to beat each other, and they are not allowed to go out of the camp to make trouble anyway.

After a few days, it seems that the commanders have made a plan, and the camp really erected a recruitment flag, and the men of the Zhuang households waiting outside immediately flocked to it, and on a cold day, they showed off their sturdy shoulders and chests, and said in their mouths: "We are all serious Zhuang people, and Yuan Inspector has not signed up for recruitment, so we are waiting to be Liu Dashuai's soldiers." ”

But the commander of the battalion said that this time it was not the Red Shirt Army soldiers who were recruited, but the people who had no combat missions, but the salary was as generous, and it could be locked up for ten taels a month! This is a large number in Henan, so the young men pouted one by one and looked unhappy, but they still nodded and said: "The people are the people, China!" ”

It doesn't matter if this opening is opened, more than 10,000 people were recruited in one day, all of them are honest and hard-working villagers, after the prefect of Luoyang heard the news of the recruitment of soldiers in the camp, he also brought more than a dozen relatives and children to find the Marquis of Zhenwu, hoping that the Hou Ye could open up the net so that his sons and daughters have the opportunity to serve the country, Liu Ziguang originally wanted to refuse without discrimination, but after thinking about it, the request of others was not too much, so he reluctantly accepted it, and let them go to the Zhendingfu Infantry Academy (the predecessor of Shijiazhuang 6th Military Academy) to study the junior class, After completing his studies, he officially entered the army.

The prefect of Luoyang is very happy, he understands that he entered the academy in order to be an officer in the future, and the dignified marquis takes care of his little prefect so much, which is really touching, Liu Ziguang's next request is that he naturally takes care of everything, that is, to establish a military station in Luoyang and transfer logistics materials, all of which must be done with the strong cooperation of the local government.

The Red Shirts came from Hebei, and when crossing the Yellow River, they used the pontoon bridge built by the sailors, which were connected by dozens of flat-topped boats, and the boats belonged to the inland water division of the Red Shirts, which was a powerful transport force, and it was also a combat force, the Central Plains water network was vertical and horizontal, the Yellow River, the Yangtze River Grand Canal, and various lakes were all places where the sailors waved, these ships were different from sea boats, the draft was shallow, the width was narrow, and the sails could be used, and the steam engine propellers could also be used, and when necessary, they could also be tied up, and the long rope was pulled by a slender man.

Zhou Peigong's plan is to enter Shaanxi by waterway, north of Tongguan is the middle reaches of the Yellow River, high mountains and valleys, turbulent water, not to mention bridges, even by boats are impossible to cross, so Tongguan can become a natural hazard.

The Tanguts couldn't cross the Yellow River, so could the Red Shirts? The answer is of course yes, because the Red Shirts have powerful machine ships that can resist the forces of nature, and the army and baggage will take the machine boats upstream, from the Yellow River into the Wei River, and directly into Weinan and Chang'an, and will definitely be able to win by surprise and recover Guanzhong.

During this time, in addition to supervising the staff officers to formulate specific plans, Liu Ziguang's main energy was spent on fighting telegraph wars with the imperial court, what he wanted to fight for was the right to use the Western Regions Good News Fund, and it would cost a lot of money to fight a war, and it was not enough to use his own private money, but Yuan Chonghuan was also urging the military to pay by telegram, and the Western Army was no less than the Red Shirt Army.

As for the fact that the general of Zhengxi and the governor of the three sides of the military affairs have parted ways, Liu Ziguang and Yuan Chonghuan have a tacit understanding and did not mention it, they are just fighting for financial power, and there are people in the court who can help speak, and the opinion of the Donglin cabinet is that the financial power should be used by Yuan Inspector, and the rules of the military force cannot be broken, Song Yingxing, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, and some people from the six departments advocate that the financial power should be handed over to Liu Ziguang, because they are good at procuring ordnance and know what to buy. At the critical moment, Huang Xiaotian, the head of the household department, defected and helped Liu Ziguang speak, which eventually led to the introduction of a plan for the separation of financial power.

Looking at this final reply, Liu Ziguang really didn't know what to say, thirty percent of the silver, not only to give Huang Xiaotian a part of the kickback, but also to distribute a part of the "reasonable loss" in the process of transportation, there are very few in hand, if it is used in the general cold weapons army, it is enough, it is nothing more than two large pieces of military salary, grain and grass, but the owner who burns money like the Red Shirt Army can't even maintain the military salary for a few months, let alone buy expensive weapons and ammunition, it seems that he has to pay for this hole by himself.

Fighting is the most expensive thing in the world, but also the most profitable thing, Liu Ziguang is precisely the best at this person, looking at the sand table model, he fixed his eyes on the narrow Jinzhong Plain between Taihang Mountain and Luliang Mountain, this is a fat flowing oil place, Jin merchants are quite good at doing business, decades ago they did business outside the mouth, and Mongolians, Manchus have dealings, after the death of the Northern Ming Dynasty, Shanxi has been taken care of by the Qing court, industry, agriculture and commerce have been greatly developed, the degree of wealth is comparable to Jiangnan, Among them, the Dadexing ticket number is a huge amount of property, which echoes the sunrise in the south, and is between the best.

It is Liu Ziguang's strategy to keep Shanxi and not fight down, only in this way can we maintain the continuous use of troops in the north, and the Red Shirt Army will not be dismantled, and now it seems that the Manchu Qing Dynasty in exile is the time to be destroyed, this time by taking advantage of the opportunity for the troops to go out of the pass, along the way from Guanzhong to the north, along the Yuncheng, Linfen line to smash Taiyuan Mansion, this road is a narrow plain area, convenient for the Red Shirt Army to wave the advantage of firepower, seize Shanxi, a large amount of wealth and Jinzhong Plain human and material resources can be used as much as possible, it is really a good way to fight to feed the war.

After a month's rest in Luoyang, the main force of the river fleet was finally transferred, and twenty paddle wheels and hundreds of steam-powered paddle wheels and hundreds of boats that specialized in transporting supplies on the canal came to the surface of the Yellow River eighty miles north of Luoyang, where there was a large lake with open terrain, and 10,000 people had built wharves and barracks, and this would be the advance base of the Red Shirts in the future.

Along with this, there was also a battalion of sailors who were familiar with the 6th battle of Deng, a battalion of mercenaries from China Merchants Bureau, a battalion of mercenaries with green flat hats, and a Red Shirt Air Force. Soldiers, horses, vehicles, cannons, ammunition and supplies were calmly loaded onto the ship, the steamships had begun to light fires and warm their stoves, and the first wave of ships was ready to go out at any time.

At the same time, the Tongguan battalion finally waited for the silver of the imperial court, even the western army under the command of Yuan Inspector was inevitably deducted by the fate of layers of deductions, 500,000 taels of silver were allocated from the household department, and when they came to Tongguan, they lost 40,000 or 50,000 taels, and then the Governor retained a part of it as a mobile fund, and the generals and barracks officers at all levels ate some empty quotas, and there were very few in the hands of the soldiers, but finally there was silver in hand, and the morale of the soldiers was slightly encouraged, and the big camp stewed pork and stuffed liquor, and feasted for three days, The army finally drove out from the west gate of Tongguan and began the second western expedition.