The same day, which is also the sixth day of the first lunar month, is a different scene in the Central Plains.

The peasant army captured the important town of Xingyang in Henan.

The leaders of the peasant army of Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Lao Huihui, Luo Rucai, Ge Liyan, Zuo Jin Wang, Reincarnated King, Shooting the Collapsed Heaven, Hengtian Wang, Mixed 100,000, Guotianxing, Nine Dragons, and Shuntian King 13 and 72 battalions of the peasant army gathered in Xingyang to discuss how to resist the official army.

At this time, Hong Chengchou, the governor of the five provinces, was still waiting for the assembly of the imperial court's east, west, south, and north armies.

Li Zicheng said to the twelve leaders: "Brothers, now all the brothers of our thirteen families and seventy-two battalions are shrinking in such a small place as Xingyang, and it is not possible to go on like this.

The imperial court is now recruiting defenders from all over the country to come to encircle and suppress us, we can't be together anymore, if we are together again, we will let the officials and soldiers serve a pot if we can't do it.

I suggest that we divide our troops to break through the encirclement and jump out of the encirclement of the officers and troops. ”

Chuang Wang Gao Ying asked with a smile: "Brother Zicheng, how do you say we divide the art of war?" ”

Li Zicheng pointed to the map and said: "I suggest that the two divisions of Geli Eye and Zuo Jinwang break through to the west and south, attack Huguang and Sichuan, and repel the officers and soldiers in these two places."

Hengtian King, mixed 100,000 to break through to the west and repel the officers and soldiers in the direction of Shaanxi.

Luo Rucai, who crossed the sky and went north along the river, repelled the officers and soldiers in Shanxi.

King Chuang, Brother Zhang and I led the troops to the east, attacked Fengyang, and went to dig the ancestral grave of Zhu Chongba.

The rest of the people and others led the troops to move in Henan to make a response, what do the brothers think? ”

When the leaders of the thirteen families heard this, they all raised their hands in approval, and on the same day, the thirteen families began to order their troops and divide their troops.

Li Zicheng and Gao Ying, Zhang Xianzhong personally led the army and approached Fengyang, the central capital in the east.

.......

On the eighth day of the first lunar month, it is another good day with the sun shining.

In the Changli Academy east of Chuntai Mountain in Yichun, there are more than 60 children and talents.

There is only one thing that these scholars have gathered here today to discuss, and that is whether or not to take the recruitment examination of the anti-thief question.

The students in the academy are divided into two factions, one faction believes that Mo Wen has been diligent in government and loves the people since he occupied the Yuanzhou Mansion, and has not committed any crimes against the people, and he is actually an unborn master, and everyone should go to take the exam to follow the example of dogs and horses.

Most of these people are students from poor families, and most of their families make a living from farming.

On the other hand, the other faction believes that the thief Mo Wen is a heinous person, who killed officials and rebelled, looted the land and property of the squire landlords, and privately issued any policies to equalize the land, which seriously damaged the legitimate rights and interests of the squires and landlords.

Most of the people in this faction came from the squire and landlord class, and the land in their families was forced to hand over by the anti-thief Mo Wen, so they were extremely disgusted with the anti-thief Mo Wen.

The two rows of people quarreled in the academy, and they couldn't tell the winner for a while.

Everyone had no choice but to turn their attention to the new instructor Tian Tong, who had just arrived not long ago.

Tian Tongtong is a native of Yunnan, and he was only admitted to the Juren at the age of forty-five, and his official language is not very good on weekdays, and at this time the students are arguing in dialects, and he, a foreigner, cannot understand what they are arguing about.

Tian Tongtong felt that he was very unlucky, he couldn't get into the Jinshi at the age of nearly fifty, so he had no choice but to get a teaching from Yuanzhou Mansion through his relationship, thinking that he would go back to his hometown in Yunnan when he retired.

Who knew that he had just stepped into the territory of Yuanzhou Mansion with his front foot, and Tian Younian, the prefect of the back foot, was defeated by the thieves.

On his first day in office, he became a prisoner of the rebels.

But fortunately, the thief did not embarrass him, and still let him continue to teach in the academy, and also gave him silver and rice grain every month, and even gave him five catties of meat during the Chinese New Year.

Tian lived for fifty years together, and it was the first time in his life that he encountered a thief who gave him a fortune, and he stayed in Yuanzhou for a while and didn't want to leave.

At this time, seeing that the students were arguing, Tian Tong couldn't help but say: "Everyone, you don't have to quarrel like this, those who are willing to go can go to participate, and those who don't want to go can stay in the academy to study, why hurt the harmony of classmates for one thing?" ”

After Tian finished speaking, the children and talents present stopped talking, and directly dropped their sleeves and left.

There are about 30 talented children from poor families, and they organized a group to go to the examination shed in Yuanzhou Mansion.

As for the remaining twenty or thirty people, they packed up their things and prepared to go home, and they agreed that they would go to Nanchang, the provincial capital, tomorrow to preach the tyranny of the Mo thief, and write to the governor asking him to send troops to recruit the rebels.

In the examination shed of Yuanzhou Township, Mo Qian came here early today, because today is a very important day.

Recruitment notices have been posted for a while, and today is the date for the first day of recruitment.

Mo Qian attaches great importance to this recruitment, and he specially ordered that whether it is a child or a person, whether it is a literary or martial artist, as long as he has a skill, he can come to the interview.

The content of the interview is also varied, such as the question and strategy of learning literature, the examination of archery and martial arts for learning martial arts, and other specialties can also participate.

Mo Qian was full of confidence, thinking that he could at least lure out half of the scholars in Yuanzhou Mansion this time.

But after waiting for more than an hour, there was not even a figure at the entrance of the examination shed.

Wang Bingzhong and Cao Guoqi, who were in charge of the invigilator, stood at the door all morning, and when they saw no one, their faces suddenly became a little ugly.

"Lord, no one came, could it be that no one saw the notice we posted?" Cao Guoqi asked curiously.

Mo Qian waved his hand and said, "It's not the problem of the notice, it's that the hearts of those scholars are still in the Ming Dynasty, and it seems that I, the thief, are still not popular with them!" ”

Cao Guoqi looked at it and hurriedly said: "Don't be discouraged, and now the Ming Dynasty is just a lingering breath, less than three years, the Ming Dynasty will be on the verge of collapse, according to the humble opinion, we might as well rectify the soldiers and horses first, wait for the spring to blitz Ji'an Linjiang two prefectures, after occupying these two places, quickly Tuntian training, after the autumn harvest to attack Ruizhou, occupy Gao'an, Shanggao and other places, so next year can be Nanchang Jiujiang. ”

"What I said coincides with me, and I have this intention."

As soon as the words fell, more than 30 students suddenly walked at the door of the examination shed.

More than 30 people saw Mo Qian standing at the door of the examination shed at a glance.

"Mo Qian, why are you here? Are you here to take the test too? A showman stepped forward and took Mo Qian's hand, and was very happy.

Mo Qian fixed his eyes and looked at it, the person in front of him looked a little familiar, and after thinking about it carefully, it turned out to be Su He, a talented talent in the same courtyard as him.

Behind him are his brothers Su Yin, Su Ji, and former classmates.

When everyone saw Mo Qian standing at the door of the examination booth, they all thought that he was also here to take the exam.

But when a soldier saluted Mo Qian, everyone felt that something was wrong.

Su He asked cautiously: "Mo Qian, could that anti-king Mo ask be you?" ”

Mo Qian smiled and nodded.

At this moment, everyone suddenly exploded, and they didn't expect that they hadn't seen each other for a few months, and their former classmates had actually become the king of anti-thieves.

"Oh, who did I say, who can actually come up with such a high trick as Juntian Ce, it turned out to be you kid, I knew that sooner or later, one day, Mo Qian will definitely be able to achieve great things."

Su Hehao praised Mo Qian.

Although Mo Qian was happy on his face, he didn't think so in his heart, in his memory, he was not a powerful person at school, at best he could only be regarded as a middle school student.

However, he is quite harmonious with some classmates who were born in poor families, because everyone's family conditions are not good, so they can talk about it relatively well.

"Brother Su, are you here to take the exam?"

Su He said with a smile: "Of course, I only saw the notice you posted at the gate of the city in the third year of junior high school, no, today the three of us brothers came together, Mo Qian, you are now the king, how about it, our three brothers want to serve under you, do you think there are any positions that can be appropriately arranged for us?" ”

Mo Qian thought for a while and said: "A few brothers, there are particularly suitable locations at present, several towns around Fucheng are lacking mayors, if a few brothers are willing, they can go to the town to serve as the mayor first, if they can govern a town well, they can be promoted to the magistrate when they turn back." ”

"Mayor Mare? What kind of official is this? Everyone asked curiously.

"It is the highest governor of a town, like the magistrate of a county."

Everyone understood in seconds, but soon fell into deep thought.

They are all scholars, and if they take the official career, they will also be county first-level officials at the beginning, but now Mo Qian actually asked them to go to the first level of the town, which can't help but make everyone feel a little embarrassed.

Mo Qian didn't seem to be in a high mood when he saw them one by one, and couldn't help asking, "Why, do your colleagues dislike that their official positions are too small?" ”

The crowd was silent.

"Colleagues, we have been classmates for several years, and I will not hide it from you, in my territory in the future, if you want to be an official, you have to start from the grassroots level, the town mayor and township mayor are the lowest-level officials, only the officials who have experienced training at the grassroots level can be promoted to the county governor, the prefect, and even the governor's senior officials, and want to start from the county governor in one step, I'm sorry, I don't welcome it!"

The thirty or so students immediately understood that it was impossible to be a high-ranking official, only the lowest-level official.

Su He thought for a while, and was the first to stand up and say: "I am willing to be the mayor of a town, if we and other people who are studying, if we can't even govern a township, how can we know the county side?" ”

Mo Qian clapped his hands and praised: "Brother Su said well, I will appoint you as the mayor of Wentang Town!" ”

Mo Qian's recruitment activities still achieved certain results, and the mayors of the ten towns around Yuanzhou Mansion were all recruited from this group of scholars.

Mo Qian has strict requirements for them to take office, that is, after they go down to the locality, they must participate in farm work, spring plowing and autumn harvest must be there, and they must know how much land they produce, they must know the suffering of the people, and they must be responsible for tax work.

In addition, it is strictly forbidden to embezzle and bribe, even if it is only one tael of silver and one stone of grain, it must be immediately dismissed and investigated.

If you can't accept it, you will go to prison, and if you can't accept it, you will go.

In the end, less than one-third of the more than 30 people chose to be willing to serve as the mayor of the town, and the rest felt that what the official did was boring, so they turned around and left.

For the remaining ten people, Mo Qian gave each of them a letter of appointment, and sent ten soldiers as the security force of the town mayor to be responsible for the security and security work of the jurisdiction.

Three days later, these ten people took up their posts in each town, and Mo Qian personally sent them to the city gate to show his attention.

Everything is gradually moving in a good direction.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival, in Fengyang, the central capital thousands of miles away, the singing and dancing in the city are leveled.

The maids are like clouds, and the sheng songs are deearing.

Fengyang Left-behind Department is Zhu Guoxiang, and Chen Hongzu and Chen Qizhong of Qianhu are drinking and watching singing and dancing performances.