Three Kingdoms: Plundering Entries, From Merchants to Emperors

Linzhang County, Black Mountain Army Camp.

Inside the central army tent, Bai Rao and Sui Gu, two main generals, and several deputy generals and lieutenants gathered in the tent. A sergeant in ragged armor stood below, reporting something to everyone.

Everyone present looked solemn and the atmosphere was extremely tense.

Suddenly, Bai Rao slammed the table and said angrily: "What! You said Yu Du died?"

"General... General, yes... yes..."

The man hesitated and glanced at the two from time to time, with a bit of fear in his eyes.

"Asshole! Who dares to challenge the Black Mountain Army! Are you tired of living?"

"It's... it's... the magistrate of Guangping County, I think his name is Zhang... Zhang Chen..."

"What? Guangping?" Sui Gu on the side raised his eyebrows and asked suspiciously: "The commander-in-chief has ordered us to stay in Linzhang, why did he go to Guangping?"

"This... I don't know, everything is done according to the general's order."

Sui Gu suddenly thought of something and asked again: "Since Yu Du is dead, , where are the 10,000 troops?"

"More than half of them were killed by the county soldiers of Guangping, and the remaining 4,000 surrendered...surrendered..."

"What!"

Bai Rao was furious when he heard this, and threw the wine cup in front of him to the ground. He rushed down and grabbed the soldier and said, "You have 10,000 people, and how many troops does he have in Guangping County? How did you lose like this?"

"Old Bai!" Sui Gu hurried forward to stop Bai Rao, and Bai Rao let go.

Sui Gu said to the soldier again, "How did you lose? Tell me everything."

"Yes... yes..." The soldier trembled like a sieve, and tremblingly told how they were ambushed in the "Black Cloud Valley" the day before, and how Zhang Chen led his army to rob the camp later.

After the soldier finished speaking, Sui Gu couldn't help but close his eyes and sighed, frowning.

Bai Rao shouted angrily: "Incompetent! Incompetent! Yu Du is really incapable of success and more of a failure!"

Bai Rao became more and more angry as he spoke, with nowhere to vent his anger, and grabbed the soldier again: "You spineless, the commander was killed, why didn't you fight to the death, but escaped alone?"

"No... no, General! General Yu was captured drunk, he wanted to surrender, but the Guangping County Magistrate refused and ordered him to behead him. I... I pretended to be dead to escape..."

Hearing this, everyone present was in an uproar.

Bai Rao immediately shouted: "Damn, this bastard has brought shame to the Black Mountain Army!"

"Alright!" Sui Gu shouted, turned to the sergeant and said: "You have made a great contribution by reporting the news, and you will be rewarded with ten taels. Go down."

"Thank you, General! Thank you, General!" The sergeant knelt down and kowtowed as if he had been pardoned, and turned to leave the tent.

"Come back!" Sui Gu thought of something and stopped him again, saying: "Remember, this matter ends here, and you must not make it public, otherwise, you will be punished by military law!"

"Yes... yes..." The sergeant responded nodally and retreated carefully.

After the soldier left the tent, Bai Rao's mood eased a little, and he said bitterly: "Since we started the rebellion, we have never suffered such a big defeat. Now that such a thing has happened, how can we explain it to the commander? In my opinion, it is better to kill Guangping and chop off that dog county magistrate, so as to prevent the commander from looking down on us!"

After Bai Rao said this, several captains echoed him.

"Absolutely not!" Sui Gu hurriedly stopped him, "Yu Du's advance into Guangping is against military orders. If we act this way, if there is another mistake, we will die. Moreover, according to the sergeant, the magistrate of Guangping County is quite proficient in military tactics, and I'm afraid he is not an easy person to deal with. We should not act rashly, so as not to miss the great event of the Marshal!"

"Hmph! Well, let him jump around for a while, and wait until we break through Yingtao, then we can deal with him!" Bai Rao said bitterly, "But, speaking of which, why has the Marshal's order not arrived yet? Is there any change?"

"The Marshal ordered us to meet here before, and I believe there must be news in the past half day."

"Report!" As soon as Sui Gu finished speaking, a sergeant outside the tent suddenly broke in and bowed, "Two generals, the Marshal has a letter."

"Oh? Present it quickly!" Sui Gu was overjoyed, and just as he finished speaking, it came!

The soldier handed over the letter, and Sui Gu hurriedly opened it to read.

After a while, Sui Gu finished reading it, and a hint of joy appeared in his eyes.

He handed the letter to Bai Rao and said, "Take a look."

Bai Rao blushed and said angrily, "You...you guy, you know that I can't read, but you are deliberately making fun of me!"

"Hehe, I forgot for a moment, sorry." Sui Gu smiled, and then said seriously, "The commander said in the letter that the people inside Yingtao have already taken action, and ordered us to advance in three days and set up camp ten miles away from the east gate of Yingtao. In addition, the commander already knows about the poison. The commander ordered us not to wait.Don't act rashly. Everything will be settled after we conquer Yingtao!"

"Good!" After hearing this, Bai Rao rubbed his hands and said to all the generals: "Pass the order, the army will rest, and in three days, we will send troops to Yingtao!"

...

Two days have passed before I knew it.

In the past two days, Gao Shun's recruitment has been going very smoothly. When the young and strong men in the city learned that Zhang Chen was recruiting soldiers, they all rushed to sign up.

Now everyone in the surrounding area knows that the county magistrate defeated the enemy with a small number of troops last time and defeated the bandits in the four camps. Now he has used clever tricks to defeat the Black Mountain bandit army. Following such a master, why worry about not being able to make a name for yourself in the future?

Defending the country, making achievements, and becoming a great hero are the dreams of every passionate young man.

Zhang Chen is happy to see it happen, but he also knows in his heart that recruiting soldiers is important, but farming is also important. Can't delay.

This autumn harvest, he is still counting on harvesting food to feed the people.

So Zhang Chen ordered that those who have no sons or only one son should stay at home to farm and not apply for conscription. Those who have two or more sons should leave at least one young and strong man at home to farm.

Encouraging agriculture and sericulture has been the first priority for officials since ancient times, and Zhang Chen will never forget it.

As soon as this order was issued, the people were all grateful for Zhang Chen's benevolence and praised him more.

However, even with the limit order, Gao Shun still recruited more than 4,000 people.

At the same time, Zhang Chen was not idle. The problem that gave him a headache in the past two days was The armaments and military pay of these people.

Although a lot of weapons were seized in the previous defeat of Yu Du, there were more than 7,000 surrendered soldiers and new troops in total, and the seized armaments were still insufficient. Zhang Chen roughly calculated that it would probably take at least 100,000 gold to fully arm these people.

Zhang Chen looked at his assets again. The property alone was already 300,000 gold.

He could afford the money, but he couldn't always pay out of his own pocket, right?

Such a large sum of money still made Zhang Chen feel a little painful.

Besides, these were the imperial court's troops, not his own private soldiers. What can he do with the imperial court's money? His own business, this is what Zhang Chen is happy to see.

But the money in the treasury had long been squandered by Zhao Xiong. After Zhang Chen took office, he cancelled various items and only collected the court's regular taxes. Now there is not much money left in the treasury, and there are probably only 70,000 or 80,000 yuan that can be taken out.

Alas, it is not easy to save some family assets, it seems that it will bleed again!

Forget it, you can't catch a wolf without sacrificing a child, and you can't raise an army without spending money.

Zhang Chen gritted his teeth and asked the quartermaster to take the approval document and first withdraw 50,000 gold from the treasury, and then withdraw 70,000 from his private treasury to purchase weapons for the new army as soon as possible.

The less you can spend, the better. There will be many places to spend money in the future!