Great time travel

125 Chapter [-]
The scenery of lakes and mountains of West Lake in Hangzhou is indeed so beautiful that it makes people linger and feel poetic... But if it is a snowy night, with one foot deep and one foot shallow, walking in the silent and desolate dark mountain forest Among them, the feeling may not be so wonderful.

And on this cold night when the heavy snow had just stopped, a group of ragged Ming officers and soldiers trekked hard through the dark forest on the shore of the West Lake.

——According to the "Ping Kun Strategy" formulated by the prefect of Hangzhou with reference to the Battle of Chibi, when Fuyang County sends out an arson fleet from the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, and goes straight to the bandit fleet with smooth sailing, Hangzhou City should also organize a fleet Soldiers and horses launch night raids simultaneously from land to achieve a surprise victory.

Originally, the route of this sneak attack was very simple, because Phoenix Villa is the site of the former Southern Song Dynasty Palace, and it is close to the urban area of ​​Hangzhou. As long as you leave the Fengshan Gate in the south of Hangzhou, there is a road leading to the main gate of Phoenix Villa on the opposite side. Wide avenue.

But the problem is that the magistrate Liu Mengqian and a group of literati who call themselves "knowledgeable soldiers" feel that the thieves also know this, and they will definitely send spies to watch Fengshan Gate. It is very likely that the raiding troops would be discovered as soon as they opened the city gate, and then they would run into the iron wall... So they dare not take the shortcut of Fengshan Gate, but ask the night raiding troops to go out of Wulin Gate and circle around the West Lake in a counterclockwise direction for half a circle. Launch an assault from the southwest of Phoenix Villa, that is, from the opposite direction of Hangzhou City, in order to surprise the thieves.

Well, let’s go out of the Wulin Gate. Anyway, not far from the Wulin Gate is the Bai Causeway, and after passing the Bai Causeway is the Gushan Mountain. At the southern end of Su Causeway is Leifeng Pagoda, and behind Leifeng Pagoda is Phoenix Mountain.But the problem is that this road is also impassable—since the bandits have set up guard posts under the Leifeng Pagoda since they took possession of the Phoenix Mountain Villa, they also use small boats to patrol the lake day and night, in case someone from the north crosses the lake to attack: Among them, the princes and shogunate troops of all parties like to send ninjas to do this kind of thing.

In this way, if the government and army send a large group of soldiers and horses to attack Phoenix Mountain through Bai Causeway and Su Causeway, they will be noticed as soon as they get on the causeway!
So, the magistrate discussed with several of his aides, and had to design an offensive route away from the West Lake on the map-but this would be troublesome. The West Lake in Hangzhou is really not too big. The circle is fifteen kilometers.However, since the night attack troops could not take the shortcut of "Bai Causeway-Gushan-Su Causeway", they even had to stay away from the lake to avoid being discovered by the lake patrol boats of the thieves.Then, these poor night raiders must first go to Baoshi Mountain (where Baochu Pagoda is located), then Lingyin Temple, and then climb Feilai Peak, Nanfeng Peak, Hupao Mountain, Yuhuang Mountain, Baguatian... After climbing so many mountains and hills and walking at least fifty miles of mountain roads, he could "surprise" into Phoenix Villa from behind.

——It really is "the upper part moves the mouth, the lower part breaks the leg" ah!There is nothing worse than this on paper!

Moreover, first, this is still a night road without street lights; second, the temperature at this time is seven or eight degrees below zero, and there has just been a heavy snowfall... and, due to widespread malnutrition, many Ming Dynasty Everyone has night blindness, but night raids cannot hold torches—so, this night raid troop with heavy responsibilities gradually scattered ducks during the endless trek in the dark...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The cold and bitingly silent snowy night, the gloomy wind passing through the woods, the snow falling from the branches from time to time...

In this frightening atmosphere like horror movies and ghost movies of later generations, Li Shanmin leaned on a rusty spear, relying on the faint moonlight through the trees from time to time, together with several of his colleagues in the snow-covered trekking hard in the mountains.

——Like his ancestors for generations, Li Shanmin is a hereditary military household in Hangzhou and a member of the military system of the Ming Empire.But like his ancestors, Li Shanmin has never received a decent military salary in half his life, and he has never participated in a decent drill in half his life.

However, at this time, he has to deal with the legendary "Australian Bandit" with sharp weapons and brutality!
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Weisuo military household system, which was the cornerstone of national defense, had almost collapsed.The farmland under the name of each guard was basically swallowed up by military officers or gentry. Some military households became serfs, and the rest of the military households did not even have land to grow, so they could only go to the city to work.

Li Shanmin was such an unlucky military household who had to come to Hangzhou to work because he had no farmland to grow and no military pay.What's even more unfortunate is that even if he has been driven to the city to work, he has to pay tribute to the superior officer every month, otherwise he will be beaten to death... In this way, Li Shanmin's life is naturally easy It was very bitter, not to mention begging for a wife, she was on the verge of starving to death all the time!
But this is not the most tragic thing. What's even more tragic is that when the prefect made a plan to attack Phoenix Mountain at night, he couldn't find a reliable army that could carry out the plan—the same as Liaoxi, Xuanfu, and Datong. These border areas are different. Since the Japanese pirates were quelled in Zhejiang, there has been no fighting system of generals, guards, and recruits.In fact, all the officers and soldiers of the guards in Zhejiang have not trained, led or commanded real military operations for several generations.Military officers at all levels in Hangzhou have degenerated into the kind of rich landowners who sit on the ground and collect rent. Their so-called servants are nothing more than village heads who supervise the tenants’ farming. In terms of combat effectiveness, they cannot compare with the servants of the generals in western Liaoning... Therefore, The military officers at all levels responsible for implementing the plan are generally unwilling to let their cronies and servants die, and they are even less willing to personally experience the hail of guns and bullets from the thieves.

Therefore, Li Shanmin and other military households who worked in Hangzhou were all arrested. They managed to get together 200 people, known as "Eight Hundred Heroes" to the outside world, and then each was rewarded with a full meal, a bowl of bad wine, A tael of silver, a moldy old uniform, and some decayed and rusty spears, tinder grease for arson, and inferior blunderbuss that no one dared to use, and they were ordered to go out of the city with a mildewed military flag. Phoenix Mountain set fire and killed the enemy.

Obviously, such a garbage army with extremely poor ambition and quality and unwillingness, not to mention defeating the gangsters, is a problem whether they can reach their destination smoothly.Therefore, the military officers in the city had to send out a few trusted servants, and organized a vicious supervising team, let these fat and strong servants hold a big knife and a whip, "escort" this ticket who has never received military training The "regular army" hit the road...

It is a pity that these officers in Hangzhou who have zero actual combat experience still greatly underestimated the difficulty of marching in the heavy snow-there is at least half a meter of snow everywhere, and the temperature is minus seven or eight degrees Celsius. Now, these military households who were only wearing a half-worn single uniform and their feet were wrapped in rags and weeds were only a few miles out of the city, and before they reached Lingyin Temple, they had already started There has been a large area of ​​non-combat attrition.Many military households were walking on the road, suddenly fell to the ground without warning, and died soon after.

Just imagine, even in the 21st century, if those modern blue-collar workers wearing down jackets and warm boots are allowed to work in the field under heavy snow in winter, there will often be a bunch of unlucky eggs who suffer from frostbite after work is over.And now these Ming military households who have been starving all year round, whose physique is extremely weak, and who don't even have to wear a dog fur coat, will have no choice but to die when they encounter the same situation.

As a result, as soon as we reached Lingyin Temple, more than 50 guard soldiers disappeared during the march. It is not clear whether they fell behind and fled, or froze to death on the way, or stepped into the cover. The ponds and ditches covered with thin ice and snow, just drowned silently.

Even the members of the supervising team who were stronger and better kept warm couldn't bear it, so they found some dry firewood in the ruins of Lingyin Temple that had just been burned by the thieves, and poured it on the firewood originally reserved for it. Come to attack the clear oil and sulfur in Phoenix Mountain Villa, and set up a bonfire to keep warm...

But the poor Li Shanmin did not have such treatment. After a short respite, he had to embark on the long journey to Phoenix Villa again—those single military households who have no father or mother, can’t marry a wife and can’t have children. There is no need to ask for trouble. Some of the smarter guys among them began to flee continuously after they left the Wulin Gate in Hangzhou. The clever bachelor military households were also reminded by others, they left the team one after another and fled away quickly.

But although Li Shanmin is too poor to marry a wife and have children, his parents are still there, and he is being held hostage in Hangzhou right now. So, he, who was temporarily elected as the captain, formed a small team with a dozen other soldiers who were also burdened by their families. Together with the other three death squads, they continued to trek slowly towards the distant Phoenix Mountain.

——According to the plan formulated by the prefect Liu, the night raid team on the land should lurk in the woods of Phoenix Mountain in advance, and when the arson ship is launched and the river is on fire, they will attack the bandit camp at the same time.However, due to the difficulty of marching in the snow, when Li Shanmin finally led his small team to the vicinity of Phoenix Mountain from the west, it was already the afternoon of the second day, and half of the people on the way were frozen or injured. Lost their legs, they had to leave halfway to fend for themselves... As for the other three teams, their whereabouts were unknown, whether they lost their way in the snowy field, or they slid down the cliff and died in the line of duty.

In any case, although the original plan to attack Phoenix Mountain Villa at night was definitely in vain, and the fire attack fleet on the river did not know how it was doing, but the people like me have gone through untold hardships and made so many sacrifices before leaving Here, no matter how you have to set a fire to go up...

With such thoughts in mind, Li Shanmin called everyone to find a sheltered space, and then took out the fire pockets, sulfur, clear oil, etc. they carried in their bags, spread them out on the ground, and carried out the final inspection before arson.But before he finished counting things, he heard a gunshot, and a companion next to him was beaten to the point of being brain-strewn, and fell silently into the snow, with red, white and white flowing into one piece.

Seeing this, Li Shanmin, who was on the battlefield for the first time in his life, was so frightened that his legs and feet went limp, and he collapsed on the ground. The other soldiers also rolled and crawled on the ground in fright.Before these guys could stand up, a group of soldiers with bright steel knives and strange patterns painted on their faces rushed over and surrounded them—although the Li soldiers of the mountain infantry company were shivering with cold hands and feet. Ma, generally some combat effectiveness has declined, but it is still easy to catch these Hangzhou military households who have climbed mountains and waded through water, and have been frozen to half their lives.

Looking at these legendary "Death Squads of Ming Dynasty", all of them huddled together like quails, begging for mercy, Captain Zhen Huan, who stayed up all night to search for these cowards, finally couldn't help but feel contemptuous He spat out, "...What a waste, far worse than the natives of Taiwan!"

Next, Captain Zhen Huan's Li Nationality Mountain Infantry Company found another small unit of the Ming Army that was also half-frozen to death on the Yuhuang Mountain a few miles away, wandering around the mountain like headless flies. When the Kun bandits came to kill them, they knelt down and begged to surrender. All the mountain infantry of the Li ethnic group suffered no casualties... Next, according to the confessions obtained by interrogating the captives, a group of Japanese security forces were ordered to step on the snow and pass through the Su Causeway, and went straight to the other side of the West Lake. The Lingyin Temple, which was in ruins, easily wiped out the Ding Du team of the Ming army who was still warming up here waiting for news at the cost of zero casualties after a short battle.

At this point, the night attack plan planned by the prefect’s government office in Hangzhou was completely bankrupt. A total of more than 200 night attack troops out of the city killed nine people and captured more than [-] people... As for the vast majority of the remaining Ming troops, where did they disappear? Where, only God knows...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The well-planned land and water attack completely went bankrupt, the Hangzhou Guard Army who went out of the city to attack "heavy losses", and the fire attack fleet with high hopes became a big joke... This series of heavy blows made people eagerly looking forward to the good news. Liu Mengqian, the magistrate, suddenly felt extremely disappointed.

In desperation, the magistrate Liu Mengqian immediately summoned those "vulgar warriors" whom he despises the most on weekdays, including the command envoys of the third rank and the generals of the fourth rank. Er'er scolded them fiercely, accusing them of not carrying out their "smart plan" carefully... Under normal circumstances, these senior military officers of the Ming Empire should feel very aggrieved by such a crime.But the situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty was obviously completely abnormal: on the one hand, it was because of the general environment of the nobles and the cheap, and on the other hand, it was because they had indeed lost the battle and had no confidence.Therefore, these military officers had no choice but to be scolded honestly, and let the magistrate vent his anger to his heart's content.

——In Jiangnan and the mainland at the end of Ming Dynasty, due to the lack of wars, the status of the military officer was unbelievably low. The commander of Zheng Sanpin beat, scolded and reprimanded at will...

It's a pity that these lowly military officers are honest, and it's a pity that their fighting skills have also been lost...

After scolding these stupid warriors who didn't care about fighting, and being so useless, the magistrate Liu Mengqian also calmed down slowly, and never wanted to go out of the city to fight the thieves for three hundred rounds, and use his merits to redeem himself The official position——Anyway, the provincial capital of Hangzhou has high walls and deep walls, and sufficient food and grass. It has not been breached since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. I think that as long as nothing goes wrong this time, the old rules will not be broken by mere thieves.

However, no matter whether this Hangzhou will be breached by the Kun bandits or not, even if the governor of Zhejiang has not yet returned from the expedition to Wenzhou and the governor of Zhejiang is temporarily vacant, even if he successfully defends the provincial capital, the Kun bandits will wreak havoc and lose their troops. I am afraid that the crime of losing land will still be on the head of my parents and officials-even if I want to hide it, it is impossible. In this city of Hangzhou, there is a Zhejiang inspector who has never dealt with me, and he is watching him every day. The prefect's yamen is wrong, ready to play impeachment at any time!Therefore, in the situation where the Kun bandits cannot be defeated, my first priority now should actually be to take advantage of the Kun bandits just outside the city to show off their power, and the big gentry in the city will dare to follow suit, and squeeze a little more money from them To supplement the eunuch's pocket.In order to avoid that in the future, if I am dismissed by the court and questioned, my family members can spend money to go to the big bosses in Beijing to do activities for me.

Therefore, under the impetus of the guiding ideology of "quickly make money", Liu Zhifu quickly launched a vigorous and large-scale compulsory fundraising activity among the wealthy businessmen and gentry in the whole city of Hangzhou in the name of fighting against the tyrants. The most stingy big family, facing the smiling faces of a bunch of petty officials, had to pinch his nose and take out hundreds of taels of silver... Finally, after all the statistics, he raised a full 12 taels of silver in just one day!

Although so much silver was squeezed out in one breath, it was really a surprise.However, Zhifu Liu is an elegant and wise person, and his thinking is relatively comprehensive. From the very beginning, he has considered the troubles of this approach-in order to prevent any big family from being overwhelmed by excessive taxation, and in a fit of anger, they voted for thieves. , wrote the article "Records of Atrocities in Kun Song Dynasty" with great effort, and had it widely copied and distributed.

Aiming at those gentry with wealth in their families, "Kun Song Atrocities Record" focuses on the digging of the ancestral graves of the wealthy families outside Hangzhou, the burning of the ancestral halls, the confiscation of their property, the distribution of land to lowly mud legs, and the killing of the whole family. The horrific scene of being hanged on a tree...thus successfully aroused their righteous indignation-these people soon clamored "swear to live and die with the provincial capital, and never let the thieves step into the city of Hangzhou"!No more complaints about donations.

As for those poor Confucian scholars who have had their last meal but still have a reputation like a child born scholar, according to past experience, they need to be taken care of especially—these people are usually tired of their fame, although they have A person with a status but no wealth, yet living a very unsatisfactory life, yet having some knowledge, trying to "acquire literary and martial arts and sell them to the emperor's family" every day, sharpening his head and wanting to climb up, is naturally a potential dangerous element.

Right now, this Australian gangster is rampaging outside the city of Hangzhou, and he seems to be quite vulgar and uneducated. He probably doesn't look like a scholar. If he goes to join them now, he might be able to find a good future—I'm afraid right now Among the poor and sour talents in the city of Hangzhou, there are already a few daring and reckless people who are eager to try, wanting to secretly collude with these murderous thieves. Advancement rank: Obviously, if they were allowed to succeed, the consequences would be unimaginable.

In this regard, Liu Zhifu played a set of exquisite compound punches: first, he made a lot of nonsense in "The Record of Atrocities in the Kun Song Dynasty": "The sorcery of the Kun thief hurts the peace of the world, and it needs to be cultivated with literary spirit, but the Kun thief has always been Vulgar, so every time the spell is sacrificed to the scholars and Confucian scholars", the blood sacrifice scene of the barbarians is to tell these poor scholars to stop daydreaming, even if you go to cast robbers, you will be treated as human sacrifices and tied to the altar for thousands of years. Cut to death!
Of course, it is estimated that many people will not believe this, so Liu Zhifu continued to cut the grass and roots, and announced that he would "educate the people to destroy the evil art of thieves", and according to the government's file list, each of these poor scholars was given a tael of silver. Settlement expenses, they were expropriated to guard the city as a strong people.Some people don't follow?If you don't follow, you will pay a fine of ten taels of silver for immunity!And those who can't pay the fine money and refuse to obey are all considered thieves!All expulsion of charges is not discussed!

After such a set of carrots and sticks, all the gentlemen in Hangzhou were tossed together, or they were silent... Liu Mengqian, the magistrate, was quite proud of this achievement, and showed off to his cronies, saying, "... I learned from history books , the most important task of defending the city is to stabilize people's hearts. During the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty in the past, there was a loyal minister Zhang patrolling Suiyang, and the number of troops defending the city was less than one-twentieth of the thieves who attacked the city. Suiyang was not a famous city. It is an important town, but it was able to defend until the people in the city were almost eaten up before the rebels took it. From this, it can be seen that the most important thing is that the city must be stable. It will become stronger—as long as the city is united, why should we be afraid of foreign thieves?"

In this regard, those Qingke and staff members were naturally full of flattery, and did not even mention the compliments to the "unparalleled" magistrate.

However, although the magistrate Liu can show his skills repeatedly and teach a group of gentlemen to be submissive, he can't stop the thieves from outside the city from pressing on every step of the way. The sound of the rumbling cannon instantly shook the entire Hangzhou...