Chapter 83, the Xuanfu infighting

Xuanfu Town, Huailong Road East Road, Baoan Prefecture, barren river beach outside Shunxiang Fort

The bloody sunset hung diagonally on the hilltop, casting the twilight onto the battlefield that had just quieted down—the latest—hundreds of ragged and tattered court soldiers, and a few well-dressed generals, all entangled in their stomachs. The corpses of men and horses were intertwined, and there were ruined swords and spears, torn flags and war drums. Flocks of wild dogs searched for food in the carcass, and from time to time they tore each other apart over disputes over the uneven distribution of the spoils.

This is the most common scene on the battlefield - corpses strewn everywhere, rotten, horrific and desolate.

And what makes people feel even more sad is that the soldiers who fell here are all in the establishment of the Ming court.

-- This is not a dispute between the two countries, not even a counterinsurgency, but a tragic internal strife between the officials and troops of the imperial court.

The commander of Shunxiang Fort (the defensive officer), the traverser Wang Dou, with a few cavalry soldiers, silently inspected this bleak battlefield, and at the same time turned back and instructed his subordinates to organize a group of people to come and clean up the battlefield and bury the corpses in case of the outbreak of the plague - it was already a hot day.

Speaking of which, how did the current chaotic battle of cannibalism between the border armies of the Ming Dynasty start?

In short, silver is eye-catching!

-- Although relying on insight beyond the times and perseverance, Wang Dou succeeded in building an elite Shunxiang army, which could not only entrench itself in the fortress, but also defeat the Jurchen Tartars head-on in the field, as his greatest capital to survive in the troubled times. But no matter how strong and warlike an army is, it must have enough food and clothing to fight...... However, his Shunxiang army was not the Guanning army in western Liaoning, and it was obvious that the imperial court would not have issued so much military expenditure—on the contrary, as a hereditary military household, Wang Dou's Shunxiang army not only had to be self-reliant, but even had to pay all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes to the higher authorities upside down—and usually only when the war was about to be fought, could they get some relief from above.

Faced with the dilemma of making ends meet, Wang Dou also racked his brains to think of many methods, such as repairing water conservancy, digging fish ponds, expanding land and reclamation, etc., but unfortunately in the raging natural disasters and endless wars, this qiē attempt failed-it is difficult for people in peacetime to imagine the horror of troubled times. The so-called suffering of war in troubled times, it is a blink of an eye, and corpses are all over the field. In the Xuanfu during the Chongzhen period, there were thieves in the suburbs, and there were groups of scoundrels in the county, and there was no place to live. In the case of unguaranteed safety, it is very dangerous to make a living if you want to do anything, and you will be robbed at every turn.

In the end, in order to solve the increasingly strict financial crisis of Shunxiang Fort, Wang Dou had to sacrifice a trick and use his memories from later generations to develop the Xiangguang Silver Mine and Shangjinggou Silver Mine in Zhuolu County, Xuanfu Baoan Prefecture, with a total reserve of nearly 300 tons.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, these places in Baoan Prefecture were still deserted, and the underground silver mines were naturally unknown to anyone, so Wang Dou successfully encircled the two barren lands, and after some hard exploration, he finally began to mine silver in the autumn of the fourth year of Chongzhen.

But mining silver is only the beginning, and the next problem that Wang Dou and the Shunxiang army need to face is how to manage to keep this life-saving source of wealth under the covetousness of enemies from all walks of life and the ingenuity of those powerful officials and eunuchs above.

In this regard, Wang Dou is not unprepared, and has already done a good job of bribing officials and dredging relations.

But he never expected that several of his opponents in Xuanfu Town, even at the feet of the Son of Heaven, would be so reckless!

(At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Datong Town was located in today's Shanxi, and Xuanfu Town was the boundary of today's Hebei.) The eastern half of Xuanfu Town, which has entered the scope of today's Beijing Municipality, is close to Beijing, and looks like a rural place, but in fact, it is closer to Beijing than Tianjin. ）

-- The rest of the military leaders in Xuanfu Town, first with Shunxiang Fort because of the merit and have always had a grudge, and then red Wang Dou's latest silver mine cornucopia, and finally in the official face can not compete with Wang Dou, who spends a lot of silver, so in accordance with the unspoken rules of the late Ming Dynasty, they started to use force to solve the problem -- these military leaders poured all their soldiers and horses, and recruited several bandits and bandits as cannon fodder, in addition, they did not know what way to go, and also brought a general from Datong Town in the west to help, and pieced together more than 20,000 people. claimed to be a hundred thousand people, and killed them violently.

Caught off guard, due to the disparity in numbers, a small number of mine guards stationed outside by the Shunxiang army were defeated, so they had to abandon two silver mines and smelted silver ingots, wrapped the surviving miners, and fled back to Shunxiang Fort for dozens of miles overnight. Next, several border troops who came to rob the silver mine somehow quickly broke out into flames, killing each other all over the silver mine and bleeding like rivers.

In the end, the foreign strong dragon actually overpowered the ground snake, and the general of Datong Town finally had the last laugh in this infighting. So, while happily counting the blood-stained silver, he picked up five thousand soldiers and horses, turned around and rushed straight to Shunxiang Fort, ready to cut the grass and eradicate the roots in one go...... As a result, on a barren river beach not far from Shunxiang Fort, he met head-on with 1,200 Shunxiang troops led by Wang Dou.

Then, not surprisingly, the Shunxiang Army, which seemed to be outnumbered, won an overwhelming victory in the field.

-- By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the military system of the imperial court had long been corrupted, and officers at all levels were greedy for the salaries of the soldiers under their command, and used the country's wealth to support the elite of their cronies. The strength of the general's family not only reflects the strength of every military attaché, but also is the guarantee for any military attache to save the enemy and make meritorious contributions. However, the elite of the family is the elite, and its cost is more than ten times better than that of ordinary military households to recruit soldiers, and the salaries and food of a family member will be scraped out of the heads of a dozen or even dozens of soldiers in the military household guards.

Therefore, the officers and soldiers of Datong Town, who came to attack Shunxiang Fort this time, had 5,000 troops on the surface, and only more than 100 horsemen and more than 500 recruiters were able to fight, and the rest were either people and strong men who were coerced along the way to do work, or military households who were driven to make up the numbers, which was not much different from that of the 5,000 invading enemies -- that is to say, among the 5,000 enemies, only more than 600 people could really fight, and because of the long journey, they were already very tired.

And the 1,200 Shunxiang troops brought out by Wang Dou, a traverser, are all real soldiers, even if their personal martial arts are not as good as those families, but when they fight in formation, they may not be much worse, it is equivalent to fighting one with two. In addition, the Shunxiang Army, which was not only fighting on its own, but also had high morale and artillery pushed out of the fort to help the battle, in fact had an absolute advantage in all aspects.

So, after a short and fierce battle, the Datong town counselor was wounded by a shotgun, and led the family to flee in a hurry, and then the whole army collapsed and surrendered like a cloud -- at the end of the Ming Dynasty, except for the generals who dared to die fearlessly, the other ordinary soldiers were the first to save their lives, this was not that they were cowardly, but that there was no hope for the ordinary soldiers of the Ming army to live. The family is a military attache and a private soldier, usually does not hesitate to pay salaries, kills and wounds in battle formations and gives generous rewards, and shares weal and woe with the chief officer, so he is very combative, and ordinary soldiers are cannon fodder in the eyes of military generals, not to mention that the imperial court often arrears food and salary, that is, it is paid in full, and most of them must fall into the hands of military attachés, and then become the "military expenses" to support the family. Ordinary soldiers died in vain if they rushed to kill on the battlefield, and even if they were lucky enough to make meritorious contributions, they had to share the profits to their families, so why bother to fight for their own lives and cheapen others in vain?

What's more, this is not an explicit order of the imperial court to send troops to fight, but a private fight between generals...... Who wants to be stupid and desperate?

In this way, a battle ended in a hurry, leaving only corpses and messes, and thousands of pestilence-brained prisoners of war.

But for the party Wang Dou, all kinds of troubles have just begun - the two silver mines are still occupied by others, and the final disposition of this border army infighting God knows what the result will be: don't think that you are a victim and you will be fine, there are many things that reverse black and white in the officialdom!

What's even worse is that although there is no income from the silver mine, the filial piety of the bulls, ghosts, snakes and gods above cannot be reduced at all, but in order to win the lawsuit, they have to give several times more money. It's really breathless to think about - it's better to simply pull the flag and turn it back!

Considering that the outcome of this pen and ink lawsuit is a little unpredictable, and there is also the possibility of being beaten by each of them, Wang Dou finally couldn't help but bow his head and seriously assessed the possibility of pulling the flag to rebel, but in the end he still felt that the success rate was too low - Xuanfu is too close to Beijing, and Baoan Prefecture is even closer to Shuntianfu, where Jingshi is located.

Just when Wang Dou was so contemplative, a middle-aged steward in a coarse cloth robe rushed over from the road on a donkey. Wang Dou looked back and asked casually, "...... Coming back? Did you buy any food? There have been so many mouths in the fort lately, and there is not enough food to eat! ”

“…… I bought it back, but there was only 100 stone of coarse grain, and the grain merchant said that Shandong Wenxiangjiao made trouble and cut off the Cao Yun, so the price of grain will rise again......"

The middle-aged steward gasped and replied, "...... In addition, Xuanhua Mansion also sent this. ”

Wang Dou took the newspaper curiously, and was stunned, "...... Shaanxi Liukou broke through Taiyuan, and Xu Dingchen, the governor of Shanxi, committed suicide? The Ministry of War ordered Xuanfu and Datong two towns to transfer troops to quell the chaos? Isn't that counting on me to send troops? It's insane! Those bastards just had a melee with us, and so many people died, who is who and who is not has yet to be judged! What idiot would stupidly send troops at this time, and then let people raid the nest? ”

He shook his head and sighed, rolling up the newspaper and stuffing it into his clothes, "...... Hey, Liaodong was defeated, Shandong rebelled, Shanxi lost the provincial capital, and Xuanfu is still fighting its own people...... This Ming is really going to be finished......" - 34659 + d80ok0bo + 18456864 - >