"Do you just watch our hard-trained soldiers become bandits?" Chen Zhe reminded again that the embankment of a thousand miles was destroyed in an anthill, and maintaining military discipline is a very hard thing, and it needs to be done endlessly, and it is difficult to go back to this matter, and once it is relaxed, it will continue to deteriorate.

"Of course I won't." Xu Ping decided to go to Li Zicheng to see if he could help him with some supplies: "I'll go to King Chuang's place for a turn." ”

His subordinates were very suspicious of this, but even Xu Ping was at a loss, and of course his subordinates did not have any good ideas.

……

"Let's camp separately," Li Zicheng had already considered this issue long before Xu Ping came, and he also thought that it was not a good way to break into the camp and gather together: "Fortunately, there are not many new troops, Qin troops, and Chu armies left, at least they won't come to trouble us this winter." ”

Xu Ping smiled bitterly and didn't speak, if he hadn't beaten the Ming army around him so badly, this flood might not have happened.

"As for the robbery, I'm not going to sit idly by." Compared with Xu Ping's helplessness, Li Zicheng seemed much more relaxed, it was not the first time he had encountered this kind of problem in his fighting career, and there were no such good conditions for breaking into the camp before, this problem would be much more serious: "Asking for soldiers and people is written on our banner, and I can't let people in the world say that I, Li, is not trustworthy." ”

"Does the king have a way to raise food?" Hearing Li Zicheng's confident tone, Xu Ping was overjoyed.

"Nope." Li Zicheng replied very dryly: "How much baggage is there in Brother Xu's camp. ”

This answer made Xu Ping startled, he thought that the problem of military discipline was a matter of materials in the final analysis, but he still answered Li Zicheng's question truthfully, Li Zicheng groaned slightly, and then judged: "We can probably raise 50,000 or 60,000 people for the winter." ”

This figure is not much different from Xu Ping's estimate, but even if Li Zicheng sets the standard of living lower and gives the refugees less rations, this is still far from enough.

"It's not like I haven't encountered this kind of thing before, and when this is not the time, I will say, let the brothers go to do some part-time work." In many crisis moments in the past, Li Zicheng would let the troops be disbanded and try to solve the problems of life by himself.

It is a common thing in the countryside to work part-time for the winter, and even in peacetime, it is not uncommon for outsiders to ask the farmer to spend the winter and then do what they can as compensation. In the years of famine, fleeing and working part-time is the way most refugees survive, and there are many more people who follow the camp.

"Disband our army?" Xu Ping didn't expect Li Zicheng to make such a suggestion.

"Yes," Li Zicheng thought that Xu Ping was worried about the capacity of the people, and he was very confident in this, if hundreds of thousands of refugees hid in the camps, they would need to collect a large amount of grain and grass, and there would be a lot of loss and waste. But if these refugees are dispersed throughout the south and east of Henan, Li Zicheng feels that it is not a great refugee flow, at least it is much less than the refugees caused by the previous major droughts: "Brother Xu, you have been among the officers and soldiers for too long, and you don't know that although the people are living very hard, if there is really a little surplus food at home, they are very willing to help the strangers in distress. Who hasn't encountered a few disasters in their life? ”

Xu Ping admits that he does not know much about the peasants, and he has the impression that the peasants are very poor and patient, and when he trains the army, as long as the peasant soldiers are fed and drunk, they can bear the harshest training and enjoy it.

"And for almost two years, I haven't collected taxes in Henan." Except for Xu Ping's cards along the way, most of the Henan farmers were exempted from heavy taxes, and the budget-conscious farmers did not know that the camp would be defeated one day, and the government would come back, so they were cautious about saving, Li Zicheng estimated that most of the families would have a little surplus grain now, at least much stronger than before the camp controlled Henan.

Since the camp drove away the Henan magistrates of the Ming court, the same scene as in Shandong has appeared here, a large number of abandoned peasants began to return to their hometowns, and many bandits who had formed villages to protect themselves also left the cottages and went down to the mountains to cultivate. These peasants need to make great efforts to reclaim the land that has been barren for many years, and now that they have returned to their hometowns to start a new life, they also need to repair their houses, ancestral tombs, and ancestral halls, all of which require a large number of people. Li Zicheng decided that working part-time for the winter was a very good job: in the past, the government pumped heavy taxes, and a major drought was a government and a government to escape, and the peasants could survive it, but Li Zicheng felt that it was unreasonable, but now he can't: "Most of the farmers are worried that we won't be able to last a few years, God knows when the government will suddenly come back, and last winter, all villages in Henan were seriously short of manpower, just because everyone was busy working and wanted to save a little more before the government came back, and there were more people returning to their hometowns this year than last year, so Brother Xu didn't have to worry." ”

In fact, Xu Ping's biggest concern is not this, it sounds like Li Zicheng means that only a part of the soldiers and military refugees will be retained, and most of the troops who break into the camp will be disbanded, and the short-term work obviously needs to be strong, I am afraid that I can't blast out the lonely widows, Lao Tzu and Tongzi in this weather.

After hearing Xu Ping's question, Li Zicheng nodded: "Yes, what we want to raise is the old man's battalion, the boys' battalion and the women's battalion, and we will keep about 5,000 elite soldiers in our hands to ensure that the officers and soldiers dare not attack us easily." ”

Xu Ping understood that Li Zicheng wanted to hide the soldiers from the people, but the key problem was that if these soldiers were doing well, they would probably not come back. Henan is full of abandoned land, and the soldiers who were disbanded and assigned to work on a short-term basis are likely to find a piece of land without an owner and may stay to clear the land.

"What if the brothers don't come back?" Xu Ping finally asked this question, Li Zicheng only planned to leave a few thousand descendants, and such a small number of troops would not be able to resist the attack of the new army in the coming year—if the Marquis of Zhendong broke the contract, let alone directly attack the Beijing Division.

"How could it not come back?" Li Zicheng seems to think that Xu Ping's question is very stupid, he has been in the camp for many years, and what he lacks is well-trained soldiers, but he has never lacked manpower: "Two years ago, I didn't even have a few thousand people around me, only eighteen people, but as soon as I came out of the mountain and raised my arms and shouted, it would take a few days for thousands of people to come to me, not to mention those old brothers who were separated before." ”

"Da *** just said that Henan is full of ownerless land," after repeated killings by officers and soldiers and some other disasters, Henan's population has decreased a lot, and the weather has become more and more suitable for farming since last year, Xu Ping knows that many of his soldiers under him have begun to look forward to returning to their hometowns to farm: "If they don't go back, what will we do to fight with the officers and soldiers?" ”

"Brother Xu, relax," Li Zicheng laughed out loud after finally understanding Xu Ping's concern, he was very sure that this situation would never happen: "If the faint king can let the people live and work in peace and contentment, how can it cause chaos in the world?" According to Li Zicheng's experience, the government will always do its best to push any wavering elements back to the camp: "I remember that someone in the Ming court asked for another exemption from Henan's taxes for three years, right?" What did you say this time? ”

Xu Ping was speechless, this is the first time I don't know how many officials have suggested to Chongzhen that the taxes in Henan should be exempted, so as to compete with the camp for the hearts of the people, and in the eyes of these proposed officials, this is a very good deal: because Henan basically does not pay taxes to the Ming court, even if Emperor Chongzhen exempts Henan from taxes, it will not affect the income of the imperial court.

But Emperor Chongzhen still disagreed, because he was worried that the rebellion in Henan could go on within three years, and Emperor Chongzhen believed that as the Son of Heaven, he should not only care about the present, but also take a long-term view: if the rebellion in Henan did not last for three years, or if the rebellion in some parts of Henan was brought under control within three years, then he would lose money. In the previous siege relief operations, Emperor Chongzhen was also impatient to draw lots to select magistrates, and each time he was ready to resume taxation in Henan's prefectures and counties.

Thinking of this, Xu Ping nodded, a normal king, whether he really loves the people like a son or not, will at least have a little compassion to help those people who really can't survive; The thieves, even if they are reluctant to serve the people, will at least do something that pays lip service but does not actually decorate the façade; And Emperor Chongzhen has to wait for it, it seems that as long as the signboard of the Henan Governor Yamen is still there, he will be reluctant to give up the right to tax Henan - even if it is an illusion.

"Even if the faint monarch suddenly changed his sex, he suddenly woke up to the fact that the people of Henan should be relieved," when Xu Ping was about to leave, Li Zicheng patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Take us incognito." ”

"Incognito?" Xu Ping glanced at Li Zicheng suspiciously, the one-eyed man in front of him already had the ambition to establish a new dynasty, would he go incognito?

"What else could I do? In the final analysis, the faint monarch is also the Son of Heaven, the emperor, we are thieves, if everyone in the world can live and work in peace and contentment, who will not help the officers and soldiers catch thieves? Li Zicheng is very open-minded, and he also knows very well that if the court is politically clear, there will be no chance to break into the camp, and even he himself will not ***: "Besides, don't I want to make the people live a good life?" If the faint king can make everyone live a good life, then what are we trying to do? Isn't he Mingjun then? ”

……

After returning to the battalion, Xu Ping and his subordinates discussed Li Zicheng's solution, and many of the officers around Xu Ping were from the teaching team, and they were very skeptical that this method of disbanding the army was suicide.

"If you want to kill yourself, you might as well wipe your neck, it will be faster."

This was Chen Zhe's assessment of the disbandment of the army, but since he could not come up with any feasible plan, Xu Ping decided to use the dead horse as a live horse doctor, and he ordered the staff officers to prepare a list of personnel to be kept: keep all the officers, non-commissioned officers and veterans to stay in the battalion as much as possible, and ordinary soldiers to do a good job and try to make them return to the army after the spring or harvest. As for the military family, of course, they have to stay in the camp, Chen Zhe called it "hostage", Xu Ping didn't like this word very much, but he had to admit that he also had a little truth.

During this time, Xu Ping had been busy directing his subordinates to collect the refugees, and the guards had already reported that some rescue boats under the banner of the Ming Court had come to the Yellow Flood Area, and these rescue boats announced to the nearby people that they had come to salvage the corpses and provide relief. Nearby ships are being requisitioned. Long before these Ming court fleets arrived, some wealthy gentlemen in the vicinity had already spontaneously donated money to buy ships to carry out this kind of aftermath work. When Mingting's fleet arrived, he collected these spontaneous rescue fleets together. This information made the officers who broke into the camp feel a little nervous, they felt that there was a Ming court fleet operating near the camp, which was a threat after all, and someone immediately suggested that Xu Ping send troops to expel him.

But Xu Ping categorically rejected this suggestion, and said to his subordinates: "The purpose of this fleet of the Ming court is to salvage the dead people, so that they can be buried in the ground, not buried in the belly of a fish. This kind of good deed was supposed to be done by our army, but now that we are too busy to do it, how can we interfere with others to do such a thing? ”

"Since it is a good deed, we should not allow officers and soldiers to do it." This was Zhou Dongtian's view, and at present, the camp and the Ming court were fiercely competing for the hearts and minds of the people, and Staff Officer Zhou felt that the officers and men could not be given the opportunity to show goodwill to the people in the area controlled by the camp.

But Xu Ping still objected: "You killed 1,000 enemies and lost 800 yourself." "In the future, if the corpses are decomposing and the plague is rampant, the people in the vicinity will remember that it was the camp that broke into the camp to stop the Ming Court from doing so.

Therefore, Xu Ping strictly forbade his subordinates to disturb these Ming court ships, let alone rob them of the relief food they were carrying on the ships.

But despite Xu Ping's repeated orders, in the end what he didn't want to see happened, some of the soldiers whose families were killed in the water, after seeing the flag on the Ming court's boat, finally couldn't hold back and attacked them. Today, when Xu Ping got the news, those who attacked the civilian army ships had already returned to the camp with their captives. Xu Ping, who was furious, ordered these violators of the military order to be arrested immediately, and these officers who led the attack were brought to Xu Ping and still unyielding.

As soon as Xu Ping opened his mouth and shouted angrily, the officer met Xu Ping's gaze and said, "My lord, please listen to what the captives have to say first, and then it's not too late to reproach the lowly position." ”

With a wave of the officer's hand, several soldiers who broke into the camp brought over the Ming soldiers they had captured. The head of the captured Ming army was obviously a eunuch, and when he saw Xu Pingping, this person trembled, and without waiting for Xu Ping to ask, he hurriedly defended: "King, this is not a villain's business, this is the emperor's will." ”

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