"Does Wang Qinian know?"

"I'm just here to ask if you want to inform Wang Qinian."

"What do you think?"

"It doesn't seem necessary, let's deal with it after the fire battalion follows the adults south."

"Not bad." Zhao Slow-Xiong also felt that the current attitude of the battalions was ambiguous, since Zhendonghou handed over this matter to himself, it means that if anything goes wrong, Zhendonghou will not miss the old feelings, in this case, Zhao Slow-bear does not think that he has anything to hesitate, he flipped through the other lists for a while, and said without raising his head: "It will be handled as such." ”

"Yes." Although the relationship is very familiar, when it comes to formal orders, Zhao Wanxiong will give orders to Li Yunrui with a serious attitude of superiors to subordinates, and Li Yunrui will also be right.

After leaning over to take back this information, Li Yunrui patted the surface of the letter lightly and asked in a low voice, "Is it necessary to inform Lord Jin?" ”

Jin Qiude's chief of staff needs to know the most urgent military information, and Li Yunrui's hand is undoubtedly an important piece of information for judging the combat effectiveness of the army, even if the staff department does not know, Jin Qiude himself needs to know, at least to ensure that he will not send urgent military information to people who should not be sent, or let dangerous elements be responsible for conveying it.

Zhao Slowxiong crossed his hands and looked up at Li Yunrui: "There is no need for this for the time being." ”

"Yes."

"There is one more thing, which is to break into the camp," Li Yunrui said with some concern about the recent activities of the army.

Zhao Slow Xiongqi said: "You want you to tell me about this matter?" ”

"No, I'm worried about myself, and now there is no sign of military activity in northern Henan." Li Yunrui was worried that he would become a traitor in vain, and when the Ming court would not need to collapse, he would have to lead the Northern Expedition in person with the Marquis of Zhendong, if that was the case, it would be better to rebel directly in Beijing: "Li Zicheng and Xu Ping disbanded most of their troops, and now the remaining army is less than 30,000 people." ”

"Isn't 30,000 enough? Do you remember that after Li Chuang was defeated, he disbanded his troops and fled into the mountains, and there were only a dozen cavalry left around him, but when he came out of the mountain and raised his arms, tens of thousands of people rushed to join him. Zhao Slowxiong was quite confident in breaking into the camp, if the new army retreated, the imperial court's army in the north would lose its backbone: "Originally, I was a little worried that Yu Dong would make trouble for us, but didn't the lord say it, when the time comes, he will never go north to King Qin, let alone stop us." ”

……

In the New Year of the twenty-fourth year of Chongzhen, Xu Ping did not spend it in his own camp, but went to the manor of a gentleman in Henan Province as a guest.

"The villain dares to ask the general how he is doing." The master personally greeted him several miles out of the house, and bowed to Xu on the side of the road.

"Owner, please." After disbanding most of the army, Xu Ping only had 5,000 people left, this Spring Festival he was active in the front to win people's hearts, in front of this gentleman is an activist who served for the camp, he recruited more than 20 Xu Ping's subordinates to defend his home base, and also hired hundreds of refugees to help him work in the winter, and after the winter, he also sent people to Xu Ping's camp full of food.

Xu Ping jumped off the horse and walked side by side with his master, and the family members who followed the master to greet Xu Ping were all his subordinates, and these subordinates also greeted Xu Ping one after another.

There are still several miles away from the master's manor, and the fields on both sides of the road are all owned by this gentleman, when Xu Ping besieged Kaifeng, this gentleman basically remained neutral, guarding his own base, whether it was an officer or an officer or a camp passing by nearby, he would never attack or act as a guide, and Xu Ping's reward for these neutrals was to suspend Li Zicheng's order to raid the house, and strictly prohibit any subordinate from harassing them.

"Have there been bandits harassing the boss lately?"

"A month ago, some of the bandits claimed to be the subordinates of King Cao, and they went to the villain's tenants to ask for food and clothing," replied the gentleman cautiously, "and the villain asked the general's men to identify them." ”

"Oh." Xu Ping asked; "What are the consequences?"

"They recognized at a glance that the bandits were pretending, and the villain asked the family to drive the bandits away." The more than 20 Xu Ping's subordinates recruited by the gentry were all experienced in a hundred battles, and they took the master's other family members to beat those Luo Rucai's subordinates to the ground, but none of them were killed, and the wounded and captured were bandaged before they were released: "Later, a few bandits claimed to be Lao Huihui's subordinates, who came to the villain village to make trouble, and were also driven away by the villain. No bandits ever came. ”

Niu Jinxing and Xu Ping have reached a consensus on this issue, that is, regardless of the team, as long as they harass and support the gentry landlords who break into the camp, they will all be repulsed.

Slowly, the two of them walked to the courtyard of the gentry, and the gentry thanked Xu Ping again: "The general came to the cold house, and the family was full of glory." ”

Xu Ping could see that the master was still a little nervous, and the most eye-catching building in his wall was a huge barn, Xu Ping deliberately looked at the building full of grain for a while: "The master's grain needs to be saved, and this winter will be a long time away." After finishing speaking, Xu Ping looked at the gentleman and said bluntly; Rest assured, I will never touch a single grain of yours, except for those you voluntarily give me. ”

"What the general said is that the villain has become much easier this year." The gentry was obviously relieved, although Xu Ping's reputation was good, but the army was still robbing the rich and helping the poor two years ago, this history will inevitably make people uneasy: "In the past two years, the villain has recruited hundreds of family members to protect the courtyard to prevent bandits, but this year only a hundred have been recruited. ”

Sun Kewang will severely crack down on the grass bandits in Henan, and the bandits who are in rebellion will be eliminated if they do not surrender and break into the camp, which has reduced the pressure on the gentry in Henan to defend themselves a lot, and after the camp breaks into the camp and drives the officers and soldiers out of Henan, most of the sporadic grass bandits will go home to farm, and they will not eat big households everywhere if they have their own food to eat.

It was the people who fled to the gentry's house for shelter, seeing that Henan had become much more peaceful in the past two years, and many of them had left the dock fort of these landlords and returned to their homes to reclaim wasteland. Most of the people who left borrowed farm tools and seeds from this gentleman, and those who left last year gave him a large amount of grain this year.

In addition to collecting rent, the gentleman also said that if someone was unwilling to incur debts, he could use the wasteland they opened up to pay off the debt, and this year his land has increased by more than 20%. Those peasants who left early in the autumn sent large bags of grain, put on new clothes, and those who did not leave looked hot, and also borrowed money to say goodbye, if Henan can continue to be peaceful, next year the land and grain stocks of the gentry can be doubled.

"This year, when the youth is not accepted, I will help the master." Xu Ping had already told countless landlords about this, and after he sat down in the master's living room, he hurriedly mentioned it again without waiting for the tea to be delivered.

After hearing Xu Ping's words, he hurriedly stood up, patted his chest and promised: "Don't worry, the general, the villain is also from Henan, if the father is in trouble, how dare the villain not set up a porridge factory." ”

Speaking of this, the gentleman suddenly sighed, and there was an expression mixed with fear and sadness in his eyes: "The general doesn't know, before the general came, outside the villain's courtyard, hungry people rolled by all year round. ”

At that time, when the hungry people in Henan were moving, like locusts crossing the border, all the trees were stripped clean, and the people who dug up the roots of the grass cut the ground to the ground, leaving only black bare soil.

Some of those who did not have the strength to dig up the roots of the grass lay dead on the side of the road, while those who came later scraped off the bones of the corpses and ate them. At that time, the gentleman and the other people who were hiding in the castle saw the people roasting and eating human bones all over the mountains outside, and the smell of burnt human flesh lingered for months, only to feel as if they were in the hell of Shura, and one of the sons of the gentleman went crazy after witnessing the terrible situation for months.

"The villain's grandfather said that for more than 70 years, Henan has nine disasters in ten years, and there is no year that I haven't heard of a disaster," this year's gentry has been forty-five, since he was a child, the surrounding roads, all year round are continuous porridge factories: "But Henan is so big, there is always a place without disasters, before the death of the father, every year in response to the government's call to help the elderly, the villain is also the same after the family, Wanli, the apocalypse, the government relief is actually a show, a hundred refugees are in the gentry's porridge factory to spend the famine, In the winter, I worked part-time in the homes of villagers who had food, and when the weather was good, I went back to farming, and when I had food, I helped other disaster victims, and I have been doing this for decades. ”

"From now on, the son will succeed to the throne, won't it?"

"yes." The gentry sighed for a long time, Chongzhen urged to pay taxes in the first year, the middle-class homes were broken, and large-scale cannibalism began to appear in the second year: "Ten years, Yang Ge went to Henan to suppress bandits and verify the granary reserves of each county, at that time, the granaries of each county were already empty, and Yang Ge strictly ordered the counties to make up for the deficit within three months, and to double the storage for the army. ”

At that time, the officers and soldiers who suppressed bandits crossed the border often with a piece of paper: how many stone rice and how many stone beans should be sent to the barracks this afternoon, the county order was not enough to store them, and sometimes it was necessary to embezzle the taxes of the imperial court to make up for it, and then they would levy more taxes on the peasants.

"After the autumn harvest, sometimes the county can relevy three autumn grains in a month, and if you don't obey the order, the county will be regarded as disobedient and send officers and soldiers to fight." A relative of this gentleman was unlucky, and when the county could not hand over the grain, he directly told the bandit army urging the army to resist the imperial court, and a team of border troops transferred from Qin immediately set out to break his manor, and the whole family suffered; "So the villain just wants to open a porridge factory, but he is also powerless."

Xu Ping knew that things were not as simple as this gentleman said, compared to the peasants who had no ability to resist, the living environment of these gentry was much better, with the endless war, the landlords were more and more separated from the imperial court, and began to form regimental training, training the family Ding to build Wu Fort, and the disaster prevention was only a name later, in fact, it was to resist the grain by force.

When Xu Ping attacked and opened the seal, the governor of Henan ordered the landlord to send a regiment to train and assist in the defense of the army. However, he did not go to the county to assist in the defense, but took advantage of Xu Ping's onslaught to repair the Wu Fort and store food.

When Xu Ping surrounded Kaifeng, the land of Henan has been covered with different sizes of earth enclosures, these days Xu Ping saw a strong small fortress, can not help but secretly congratulate himself that he had heard the good words of Qingzhi did not leave a bad reputation, and later and Sun Kewang treated the scholars well so that they were willing to cooperate with the camp, otherwise these many landlord compounds, one by one to pull out really do not know when to fight, let alone do not know how much to pay.

"The general is a subordinate of King Chuang, right?" The gentleman suddenly asked about something that was known to a person, and from the look of his attentive eyes, it was not a casual question.

"yes."

"The villain dares to ask the general, will King Chuang still hold the imperial examination this spring?"

"Yes." Xu Ping felt a little strange in his heart, last year Li Zicheng held the imperial examination, almost no scholars came to participate, and some scholars who were forced by Li Zicheng to participate also wrote articles to scold him, Niu Jinxing was very sad about this, but Niu Jinxing suffered from the lack of literati who were willing to help him manage government affairs, so he had to try to run the imperial examination again after the beginning of spring. Niu Jinxing also asked Xu Ping to find a way to help him publicize it, to see if he could tempt some scholars to join Li Zicheng's camp.

"I see," Jin Shen's face showed joy, he quickly stood up and bowed to Xu Ping, pointed to a young man behind him and said: "The villain, this unsuccessful dog, wants to try his skills, but Luoyang is not familiar with the people, I don't know if the general is willing to give the villain a piece of paper." ”

"It's easy." Xu Ping immediately asked the master to take the paper and ink, and after asking the name of the other party's son, Long Feifeng wrote a letter of introduction for him, many of the scholars who can read and write are from the family of the landlord and the gentry, once they voluntarily participate in the imperial examination of the camp and accept Li Zicheng's appointment, then their family is tied to the chariot of the camp, such as the gentleman in front of him, if he has a son who is an official in the camp, then he will not want to break off the relationship with the camp again.

The gentleman happily put Xu Ping's letter away, and his son bowed to Xu Ping and thanked him.

After the guest and host sat down again, Xu Ping asked with a smile: "Isn't the host afraid of the court's blame?" ”

"The general is the eldest disciple of Huang Hou, and the defeated officers and soldiers have long been famous all over the world," and now the master is not taboo: "The villain didn't dare to let the dog go to the test before, because he was worried that the Ming court would ask for the crime, but the general did not lose the land, and if he thought that the officers and soldiers would come again, the general would never abandon his father and old man in Henan, right?" ”

"Of course not, not only will I not abandon you, but on the contrary, I will go straight to the Jingshi and ask the guilty king."

"The villain congratulates the general on his victory." After complimenting the gentleman, he hurriedly flattered Xu Ping and said: "The general doesn't know that the villain is not the only one who intends to participate in the big competition this time. ”

The gentry reported a list of names, all of which were his relatives and friends, and many Henan gentry watched Xu Ping's actions, faintly having a new dynasty atmosphere, while looking at the Ming Court, it seems that it has reached the point of exhaustion; In the first battle of Shandong, this general Xu was helpless even to his master, Zhendonghou, so that the imperial court wanted to do such a sensational thing as digging a river. Although the camp has withdrawn from Kaifeng now, it seems that the vitality is still there, so who else can control them?

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