While Zhang Pingliang was full of ambition, he did not forget to order his subordinates to search Xiaozhai.
These thieves have all been in the army, and they are not good men and women. They are good at robbery and kidnapping. It didn't take long before several men and women were found in the village, a few captured laborers, four mules and horses, some grain, some armor and stomach equipment, and more than a hundred coins hidden by the bandit leader.
The queue heading back to the city was now longer than before.
Zhang Pingliang rode on his horse and looked back to confirm that the injured companions had only flesh wounds and no injuries to their muscles and bones. At this moment, he followed the team and walked quickly without any hindrance. There was only one who had an arrow in his knee. He had been bandaged tightly, applied medicine, and was lying on the cart to rest.
He felt relieved and couldn't help but said to his companions: "After this thief's nest is removed, there is nothing special to worry about around Yutian County. I heard that in a few days, there will be patrol inspections in Jizhou. People from the company will come down to visit, and I guarantee they won’t find anything wrong.”
Riding beside him were the cavalry generals sent by Liu Ran to meet him. They all smiled and said: "Aren't the people in the Metropolitan Inspection Department our own brothers? Even if there is a small problem, just say hello and it will be over. It doesn't necessarily have to break the relationship. What's more, what they focus on is collecting The focus of the Jiawei and Gong loss among the dispersed people is not on catching thieves."
It had been half a year since the Battle of Zhongdu. In fact, the larger group of thieves had already been eliminated. However, after every war, the defeated troops fled everywhere and there were countless bandits. This was an inevitable situation. After the defeat at Yehuling, the number of defeated troops who retreated from northern Xinjiang into Hebei exceeded 10,000, and combined with local forces, they formed numerous mountain and water villages. Guo Ning, the leader of the Ding Navy, emerged among them.
The power of the Dinghai Navy now naturally exceeds that of the Zhongdu Imperial Court at that time, but within the area under its control, the collapse and dispersion of the grassroots in various places is much more serious than three years ago.
Therefore, the Inspection Department of the Privy Council of Zhongdu, which was originally scheduled to take over theft hunting and public security in various places, has not been able to actually spread its power to various places. This type of security work is still in the hands of the local garrison.
Guo Ning was not very satisfied with this situation, so he specially urged Xu Jin, who had also served as the capital inspector several times, and his deputy Yan Shi.
In Guo Ning's view, the generals of Dinghai Navy were in charge of the fields of military households and shady households at the same time, and their power was already extremely great. If they took local security into their hands, they would be suspected of covering up the sky with one hand.
Moreover, the army is used to face strong enemies and fight fierce battles. If you are used to killing thieves every two days, it will be easy to kill chickens with a bull's-eye knife. But if you are used to killing chickens with a bull's-eye sword, can you still maintain its original vigor?
Therefore, the Inspection Department of the capital has been working hard to allocate manpower. It is said that the inspection departments of the military prefectures on Zhongdu Road have already been set up.
When they hand over the security work with the military, they are also evaluating the previous achievements of the garrison in various places in suppressing bandits. The military generals in various places are equipped with elite soldiers. If there are still a few bandits running around after half a year, the inspection department will report it to them one by one, and it will not look good in front of the marshal.
As the guarding general, Liu Ran suddenly dispatched troops and generals in the past few days to strictly supervise the investigation and suppression. It was for this reason.
He was an officer who was rapidly promoted after the war in Zhongdu. He was not in the same group as most of the generals in the army who came from the Hebei Army, and he had no connections at all. So he had to do things carefully and not leave anything to say to others.
However, Liu Ran had no qualifications, and the soldiers under him did have many veterans. In their eyes, Liu Ran was really worrying too much.
The Metropolitan Inspection Department has been empty-handed until now. It’s not just that Xu Jin, Yan Shi and others are not doing things well, they also have their own difficulties.
Most of Xu Jin's old subordinates are the gangsters who followed him in Tangluo, Hebei Province. They are used to doing shady things. They monitor and follow, break doors and locks, set up traps, bribe and plot, they are all part of their job. . Otherwise, when Guo Ning started out as the military governor of the navy, why would the place be so peaceful and the local officials of the Jin Kingdom not hinder him?
In addition to the majestic and fierce appearance of Ding Haijun, there are also many dark and cruel methods. This is where Xu Jin's contribution lies.
But firstly, the total number of these people is limited, and secondly, there is an upper limit to their ability. There are still many people who are too deeply involved in the dark side and are not suitable for transfer to other positions. After Xu Jin took over the capital inspection department, he always wanted to follow the previous practice in Shandong and recruit senior officers and soldiers from the army to enrich his own team.
This approach was very effective in the first two years, because Ding Haijun's territory was relatively limited and the size of the army was not very large. Many officers and veterans are old or injured, so they come out of the army and work in local security, which is a good place to go.
However, as Guo Ning conquered east and west, the territory controlled by Ding Haijun became wider and wider, and the size of the army became larger and larger. Many officers who are over 40 years old do not need to stay on the front line. With their military experience, they can be transferred to judges and officials. Even if the veterans are disabled, they are more than enough to serve as ministers.
If they don't want to stay in the military, soldiers can also transfer to civilian service.
In the past few years, more than thousands of local officials in the Kingdom of Jin were killed by the Mongols. Guo Ning did not want to use the candidates recommended by the high-ranking officials in Zhongdu. Therefore, officers who are relatively good at reading and writing can easily become county magistrates from the seventh grade; even if they are not good at writing, as long as they pass the assessment and training, they can easily become county magistrates or county captains.
If you don’t want to be a local official, then there are still Li Yun’s left and right departments, the commercial system of Qunmu Institute and even the maritime fleet who are constantly asking for people; the Privy Council of Zhongdu and Yidu, and the Marshal’s Mansion of Zhongdu are also constantly looking for people. Expansion, many important positions are vacant.
For this reason, the Metropolitan Inspection Department is always under-staffed, and some of those in office have a very close friendship with the soldiers.
At least, except for Liu Ran and Zhang Pingliang, no one was really worried that officials from the Inspection Department would come to seek bad luck for them.
The two of them were going to talk about it. They came out of Xiaoquan Mountain and walked south along the path for several miles. When they were about to step on the road parallel to the Li River, the two of them suddenly became calm and raised their hands to signal their subordinates to stop.
A few miles away from them, there was a military flag flying sideways, attracting nearly a thousand cavalrymen.
"It's a Qianjia who's coming."
The cavalry general said: "I heard that the troops and horses on the Linhuang Mansion Road will be rotated. It seems that these are the soldiers who came back from Chifengkou to rest."
Zhang Pingliang and his party only had thirty or fifty cavalry in total. Qian Ju, who had nearly a thousand troops, paid no attention to them and moved forward leisurely.
This commander is Zhang Qian.
Zhang Qian held the reins with his left hand, and his right hand drooped on his lap. His body swayed with the ups and downs of the horse. The cavalrymen under his command were also exhausted, and more than 20% of them were wounded. There were two empty horses following behind the cavalry. There were dozens of white linen bags on the horses' backs. In the pockets were urns of the fallen soldiers.
However, compared to the total number of soldiers, there were not many dead, and the soldiers did not show depression when they marched. Instead, everyone looked excited and proud, and many of them were still joking and joking while marching.
Zhang Qian's unit was one of the Ding Navy headquarters that was transferred to the front line of Dadingfu in Beijing to participate in the Linhuangfu Road war.
Since Genghis Khan retreated, Ding Haijun spent several months driving the troops to operate Beijing Road and Linhuangfu Road north of the Liaohai Corridor. The process was as Guo Ning expected. The march into Beijing Road was very smooth, while Linhuangfu Road was responsible for the exception.
Not only are the local Mongolian tribes still insisting on occupying the area, but there are also a huge number of other foreign races. In the past few months, Zhang Qian's troops had been entangled with Hu tribesmen ranging from hundreds to thousands of horsemen on the edge of the grassland. It was like a preview of their future conquest of the grassland.
On the other hand, important generals such as Wanyan Chengchong, Heshi Liede, and Heshi Liehuanduan in the northeastern interior also took advantage of the contraction of the Mongols and tried their best to expand. They not only started several large-scale battles at the east end of the grassland, but also had confrontations with Shi Tianying's and Zhang Qian's troops.
The Ding Navy originally thought that their move represented a special political attempt, and they worked hard to deal with it. It turned out that this group of greedy and cunning Jurchens just wanted to control the pastures west of Taizhou before Ding Haijun resumed trade with the grasslands. The ultimate goal was to protect their original share of the horse trade.
In the end, as the battle raged on, all the energy was spent on business and negotiations. This was a bit too relaxed, which made Zhang Qian very uncomfortable. He could hardly find the feeling of fighting to the death. But at this moment, while he was riding his horse and walking leisurely on the road, he suddenly thought, isn't this right?
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A battle that is always on the line of death is not worthy of praise. Not every battle is a matter of life and death. The sporadic fighting in northern Xinjiang at this time was to safeguard the interests of the Dinghai Navy regime and the financial resources of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Dinghai Navy.
Such a war proves that the navy has enough power to maintain peace and stability, and also represents a bright prospect for the future.
