Strictly speaking, Cao Yao and the thieves entrenched in Laomiaozhuang were completely different in approach.
The former wants to be a bandit, while the latter wants to be a bandit.
Both types of thieves are not engaged in production. Their only means of obtaining survival resources is robbery. It seems that they can easily merge into a group, but in fact they are completely different.
This is the cruelty of the world, and the reason for their rebellion is nothing more than the particularly fierce class conflicts in the Ming Empire at this time.
Their common enemies are obviously the Ming clan members who own a lot of land, money and food, squeezing their living space; they are obviously the Ming emperor who lives in the Forbidden City and constantly increase taxes; they are obviously corrupt officials who commit evil in the local area and local tyrants and evil gentry who occupy the fields.
But they don't have access to those enemies.
Although those people breathed the same air as them, and some even lived on the land beneath their feet, they had no intersection with each other, as if they were in parallel worlds.
There are large households with earthen fences and landlords in the city. How can the rebel army that just rushed out of the wasteland have decent attack capabilities?
If you want to survive, you can only plunder the people in the countryside, or you can eat the gangsters.
It's as if their world is just a chessboard. Even though the hand that twists the chess is close at hand, it can only fight alone with the opposing chess pieces, and the blood will flow like a river.
They may not be enemies, but they can only swing their knives at each other.
Because they are all weak, the weak can only devour the weak and become the strong, and then they are qualified to compete with the strong.
Mr. Liu is also such a weak person. He could go to the world with his fame and success, but he can only trap himself in the Black Dragon Mountain and fight with animals.
It looks like there are a lot of choices, but in fact there is nothing you can do.
The experience of Laomiaozhuang is not far away. People in Xingping are in a state of uncertainty. Women and children in the village are shrouded in an atmosphere of terror. People don't know when the thieves will come. They only know that it will be difficult to defeat them.
After that day, Liu Chengzu set up seven sentries on the Black Dragon King Temple Mountain, all of which were manned by veterans leading farmers. The farthest sentry was on the top of the mountain overlooking Panlong River.
Under the threat of survival, everything in Xingpingli developed towards military defense, except for a few families who made up their minds to escape, and the whole family spent one night together.
Nearly a hundred families who stayed here continued to transport wood and stones to Liujiamao Tuwei every day.
Even farmers who went to Panlong River to fetch water had to go down the mountain in groups of three, carrying bows and arrows.
On April 17, Liu Chengzong stood on the mountain and dug a hole for himself to sleep in. This sentry post was well hidden by him. The excavated soil was piled under the old tree next to it. It was difficult for him to be detected while standing here day and night. Discover.
Due to the lack of technical level, the division of labor in this era was not as clear as in later generations. The essential skill of soil work was a skill shared by both infantry and cavalry in the frontier army.
Now that the weather is a little warmer, Liu Chengzong plans to dig a single trench in the mountain so that he can stand guard here during the day and sleep in the trench at night while still hearing the movement of the mountain road next to him.
The Xingpingli guard post implemented a three-person system. A single seven guard post plus the exchange of news and delivery of food and water required nearly 30 people. Next to Liu Chengzong were tenant Shi Wanzhong and Guo Zhashi, who had not recovered from his leg injury.
At the moment, the two of them were working, and Guo Zashi sat on a horse and watched the wind on the mountain.
Just as Liu Chengzong was about to put down his shovel and rest for a while, he heard Guo Zashi exclaim in a low voice: "My boss, there are soldiers coming from the south!"
One sentence made him suddenly raise his heart. He quickly opened up the piles of withered grass and lay on the small soil slope to look south.
The official road along the river was filled with smoke and dust. First, five Tangqi soldiers rode out carrying war flags. After a while, an endless line of guard flag troops were seen lining up under the leadership of officers, some with weapons and some without weapons. The north side is full of wind and dust.
Shi Wanzhong, who was standing next to him, covered his brows with his hands. Before he could look out, he was pulled down by Liu Chengzong and pinned down on the slope: "Get down!"
"Shaodong's family, the officers and soldiers of Yan'an Prefecture? There are many people."
Shi Wanzhong and Guo Zashi, one called him Shaodongjia and the other called him Dongjia. Both of them were illiterate and did not understand a few military regulations. It was obvious from this that there were many officers and soldiers.
But in Liu Chengzong's eyes, the situation of this army marching from south to north was clear at a glance.
"Don't make any noise, they are too far away. Let me see when they come closer. Well...the number is wrong."
Tang cavalry are Tang newspaper cavalry. Their functions are reconnaissance and communication, and they are the ears and eyes of the army. In the north, there are five cavalry and one pond, each holding a flag. In the south, where there are many mountains, the number of cavalry and foot cavalry is even greater.
Liu Chengzong briefly served as the Tangqi commander under He Renlong, so he was very familiar with the functions and abilities of the northern Tangqi. According to his understanding, these Tangqi should disperse rather than gather together carrying the five-square flag.
The size of Tangqi is largely proportional to the size of the army. In the past, when the border troops went out to burn wasteland, there would be twenty-four Tangqi on each road. When the army crossed the border, the Tangqi spread out to 20 miles away to explore the route. Nothing goes wrong.
But now there is only one Tang cavalry on the official road, and they are by no means serious Tang cavalry with high skills and boldness. They are timid and lack training, and cannot complete their mission according to the requirements of the Ministry of War's regulations.
Even if you look at it with Liu Chengzong's eyes, the distance they travel each time cannot reach one mile.
The regular soldiers behind looked even less serious, which brought great doubts to Liu Chengzong.
These people lined up and wearing smocks and coats don't look like soldiers.
This feeling is very vague, just the first reaction after seeing them.
If you look carefully, they wear a lot of dark armor with bubble nails, and they hold a lot of weapons in their hands, including fire blunderbuss, three-eyed blunderbuss, and bows and arrows. They are indeed lined up in a long square formation, and they are also carrying battle flags.
The soldiers hunched their shoulders and hunched their backs, as if they were carrying an invisible backpack full of stones; their steps were sloppy and their bodies were weak, as if they were overwhelmed and would fall to the ground at the next step.
There were also the officers who were riding on horseback and whose heads he had just nodded. Baihu's armor was better. It was a bright armor that showed no signs of cutting corners. He flaunted his riding whip and yelled and cursed loudly on the official road. From time to time, he would whip people who should have been. The whip of the big animal was swung at the flag soldiers passing by.
Like an overseer.
The positions of junior officers in the guard station can be identified by the helmet guns on their helmets and the flags on their backs. Liu Chengzong took an inventory and found that this team had three deputy officers from Qianhu, 26 deputy officers from Baihu, and a general flag officer. Thirty-seven officials and seventy small flag officials.
According to the number of mid-level officers, the strength of this unit should be between 1,000 and 3,360.
According to the number of junior officers, the strength of this unit should be at least 776.
But no matter how Liu Chengzong looked, he didn't see that there were 700 people in this army.
At most, two hundred and five.
When he saw the officers and soldiers marching north, there was no joy on his face. Instead, his expression became more and more sad. He took off his armor and said to Shi Wanzhong: "Go and send a message to my brother. Qianhu will lead the team and more than 200 banner soldiers will march towards the direction." north."
"Let me call out to the tribesmen and hide the horses, oxen, donkeys, mules, armor, valuables, and the beautiful aunts in the village, and prepare food."
