Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 234 Yang Menglong's Story of Suppressing Bandits 3
When the soldiers saw that the refugees were commotion again, they became angry. They swung the sticks in their hands and cursed angrily, asking them to maintain order.After being together for so long, the refugees seem to have figured out the tempers of these soldiers, and know that they may look fierce on the surface, but in fact, as long as you don't run away, attack them, or deliberately cause riots, they will not make things difficult for you. They are easy to talk to. So, they all shouted: "Master, please share the food quickly, we are all very hungry!"

Yang Menglong shouted: "It's time for dinner. Hurry up and line up to get the meal! Women, children, old people, and sick patients come to my side, and middle-aged men go to the other side. Hurry up... who the hell, go back to your team!" Go, talk about you! Are you going back? If you don’t go back, I’ll have someone throw you back!” He shouted, and the queue in front of him immediately lengthened.Everyone knows that what he cooks here is fragrant and soft rice and thick broth. This is a good thing that they can't eat during the Chinese New Year. It is many times better than those cooked in other large pots. Yes, a lot of men also shamelessly lined up here.But Yang Menglong didn't give them any face at all, and immediately asked them to return to the original team, and announced: If they jump in the line again, they won't be given anything to eat!Only then did the gang of dishonest guys calm down.

The soldiers moved quickly and distributed the food.Children, the elderly, women and the sick each received a bowl of rice and a ladle of broth, while the young and middle-aged each received a bowl of thin paste made from fried rice, bread, dried meat and wild vegetables. These refugees were all very hungry. Not afraid of being burned, he raised his head and poured it down his throat. As a result, he was so hot that his whole body twitched. Even so, he couldn't bear to spit it out, but stretched his neck to swallow it hard.Looking at their appalling eating habits, Yang Menglong shook his head speechlessly. He had always thought that his eating habits were bad enough, but compared with them, he was so gentle!
Han Peng looked at the group of devouring refugees and smiled bitterly: "How should I write this good news? Just say that on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year, the Wuyang Guards annihilated nearly a thousand rogue bandits in Yangjia Town, with zero self-loss and zero casualties of the rogue bandits?" "

Yang Menglong shrugged and said, "Write it as you wish. By the way, where are the troops?"

Han Peng said: "It's more than ten miles away from here and thirty miles away from the county seat."

Yang Menglong asked: "How is the physical strength and morale of the troops?"

Han Peng said: "I have plenty of physical strength and high morale."

Yang Menglong clapped his fists and said, "Great! We cook at the fourth watch, break out the camp at the fifth watch, and march to the county town by force! I have checked everything out. The main force of the rogues has gone to the city. There are more than 7000 people. Kill this main force, and those scattered in various towns will be easy to deal with!"

Han Peng said: "I have no doubt that we will wipe out these [-] bandits in the first battle, but the problem is that Mr. Fang doesn't seem to be happy to see us have a quick victory!"

Yang Menglong was very surprised: "Is there such a thing?"

Han Peng lowered his voice and said, "Master Fang would rather see Wuyang Guard stay in Nanyang than go to Liaoxi to die!"

Yang Menglong curled his lips: "Don't listen to him, I have the final say on the war! The fourth watch makes meals, the fifth watch pulls out the camp, and arrives at the county town at noon. If we're lucky, we can hold a celebration party in the county town in the afternoon!"

Han Peng pointed to a few young men who had finished eating the contents of the bowl and were licking the bowl in circles: "What are you going to do with them?"

Yang Menglong waved his hand: "Everyone will be enrolled in the military, let them join the Wuyang Guard! Hehe, after this battle is over, our Wuyang Guard may have another [-] military households!"

Han Peng said: "But this requires a lot of food. Do we have so much food to feed them?"

Yang Menglong said: "No problem, at worst we will sell tens of thousands of stone less potato noodles and save them for them to eat. So much potato noodles will be enough for them to last until the winter potatoes are harvested!"

It seemed that this guy had already made a plan, so Han Peng didn't say anything more. Under his repeated insistence, Yang Menglong left dozens of people to watch the refugees, while he brought his scouts and Han Peng back to the base camp.

When he returned to the camp, the soldiers who had been waiting for his return all night welcomed their general's triumphant return with loud cheers.Yang Menglong created another miracle. He captured an enemy ten times more than himself with just a few dozen people, and there were no casualties. How many people in the past and present have been able to achieve such a miraculous achievement?Yang Menglong was so proud that he frequently responded to the cheers of the soldiers with his hands raised, and said loudly: "The fighting ability of the bandits is very poor, we can defeat ten of them at once! Now their main force is concentrated in the county town, we make food in the fourth watch, and in the fifth watch We set out to camp, rushed to the county seat at noon, and wiped them out, a great achievement was accomplished!"

The soldiers cheered wildly: "Go to the county seat, make a contribution! Hit the county seat, make a contribution!" The roar of nearly 2000 people was really deafening, and the frightened crows and sparrows flapped their wings in terror and fled the forest.

Wu Yong was talking with Fang Yizhi by candlelight at night, and the cheers came loudly, which was naturally heard clearly.Wu Yong said with a smile: "Seven days and a long journey of five hundred miles, you can still maintain such strong fighting spirit and high morale. Such a strong army is really rare. Master Fang, congratulations to your Nanyang Mansion for producing such an elite soldier, Your Majesty! After learning about it, Longyan will definitely be delighted!"

Fang Yizhi forced a smile, but he wanted to cry in his heart, he really wanted to throw this damn overseer into the mountains to feed the wolves.Wu Yong is really tenacious enough. When the army went out, he took a few Jinyiwei to follow the army. Fang Yizhi tried his best to get rid of him, but there was no way to get rid of him for half a day. , Not long after the army set up camp, he followed up again. He is really a competent and good supervisor.Being too competent is not a good thing, Yang Menglong is too competent, he will definitely wipe out the bandits, and Wu Yong is too competent, if this dead eunuch tells what he saw and heard truthfully, Wuyang Weiqiang If the reputation of the army reaches the king, then Nanyang will not be able to think of sending troops to the west of Liaoxi!Please, Liaoxi is a tomb that can't be filled. No matter how many elite soldiers are transferred there, they will never return. Yang Menglong, Yang Menglong, can you have some fun!
Yang Menglong didn't care what Fang Yizhi and Wu Yong thought. After "the victory was over", he didn't even bother to come over to say hello to the prefect and the supervisor. He went straight into his tent and fell asleep... Today is the beginning of September. Nine, if the rogue bandits had not fled into the Nanyang Basin, it would be time for him to enter the bridal chamber.Unfortunately, the wedding night was disturbed by these gangsters, and the wedding had to be postponed, so he could only sleep with his pillow in his arms tonight.

Yang Menglong could sleep, but there were people in Xixia County who couldn't sleep.

A large group of rogues swarmed in and surrounded the county seat. When they climbed up the tower and looked down, they were densely packed with people. When the rogues lit the torches at night, the torches were as dense as the stars in the sky, which made people tremble with fear.Zheng Jing, the county magistrate of Xixia County, sighed secretly that his life was hard. He studied hard for ten years and finally got a good reputation, but he was thrown into such a ghostly place to be company with hares. If he has to be harassed by bandits and may die at any time, this official might as well be inappropriate!When the rogues flooded into Xixia County, he used the fastest speed to evacuate the people into the county, and at the same time organized the township to strengthen the city defense. This kind of thing happened almost every year. Everyone was well-trained and did a good job. Extremely smooth.It's just that the number of rogues this time was beyond his expectation. When he saw the dense rogues rushing towards the county town, he couldn't help but gasped!He didn't think that his gang of yamen servants and civilian husbands could withstand the onslaught of thousands of rogues. The only hope was that the Wuyang Guards would come to help quickly, otherwise he might have to die for his country!

It was late at night, and the camp of the rogues was still noisy. They were rushing to make siege equipment such as ladders and shields overnight, and they deliberately let the defenders see them, so as to exert psychological pressure on the defenders.Needless to say, seeing them rushing to make all kinds of equipment all night, the defenders couldn't help feeling a little panicked, and the experienced bandit leader took the opportunity to go to the city to bargain with them:

"Listen, brothers in the city—we came here not to make money or kill, but to have a good meal! You guys can't stop us, don't waste your efforts, Open the city gate, give us four hundred shi of grain, and we will go back to Shaanxi right away!"

The people on the city wall were afraid of returning, but they heard that they wanted so much food, so they refused to do it: "People below, listen - stop dreaming and get out of here as soon as possible. We are half-starved ourselves. How can we get such a lot of food?" I’ll give you more food!”

The people below were easy to discuss: "If we don't have four hundred shi, we can use less. Three hundred shi is fine! Three hundred shi of food will be enough for us to survive for several days!"

The people above did not know how to praise: "There are not even three stones! You should go back to Shaanxi as soon as possible. We adults have already asked the government for help. If you don't leave, once the army arrives, you won't be able to leave even if you want to!"

The people below still refused to give up: "Don't scare people! I'm not afraid to tell you. I have fought with officers and soldiers from Ningxia to Henan. I don't know how many times I have dealt with them. I still don't know what kind of urine the officers and soldiers are? They have only come here." It’s for sending food and weapons and armor!” Probably because he felt that he wanted too much and the person being blackmailed couldn’t afford it, he took the initiative to offer a discount: “Don’t count on those officers and soldiers, they are unreliable! Let’s do this, Give us 250 shi of grain and a few more cows, and we’ll leave immediately, and promise not to ask for anything more!”

The people above are very shameless: "Say it again, no! If you say no, there will be no!"

The two sides come and go, constantly bargaining, and every time the rogues build a ladder, they will carry it around the city wall surrounded by many torches, and at this time, the people above will buy it with their own money. The price of peace is raised a little bit.After so many years of dealing with each other, everyone knows exactly what the other party wants. It is better to exchange some food and fodder for peace than bloodshed, but it cannot be given too simply, and the blackmailer must know He couldn't extort anything, so he took it and left quickly. If he gave it too simply, it would be a lot of trouble in the future.

After the 150 ladders were built, the defenders had raised the amount of grain they could pay to [-] shi, which was far from the psychological price of the rogues, so they had to continue building ladders.

However, they had no chance, because the Wuyang Guard army had already rushed toward them along the official road like a giant python.

(End of this chapter)