One of the fellow riders was a villager named Liu En. After confirming that Laomiao Village was not in danger, he rode back to Xingpingli to report the news.
Liu Chengzong, Cai Zhongpan, Cao Yao, and Lu Bin found a house in the ruins of the old village where lonely ghosts roamed, and moved the bodies of the two owners lying in the house to the courtyard. After dinner, they planned to make do indoors. One night.
The three men who came from Black Dragon Mountain were able to overcome their fear of death.
Lu Bin was a survivor of this village. He had no time to let them run back to Black Dragon Mountain to sleep at night, let alone too lazy to run back the next day, so he made this decision.
Not to mention that the weather is still cold now, even if the spring breeze is gentle, sleeping outdoors is not as comfortable as sleeping in a house.
Liu Chengzong stayed in the old temple village for the next few days, carrying corpses and digging graves in the ruins.
Fortunately, the weather was still cold, so the work would not be too difficult. However, during the busy farming season, Heilongshan could only spare twelve young men to help, and there were too many corpses, leaving them with a serious shortage of manpower.
Fortunately, starting from the next day, the rising smoke from the old temple village attracted the attention of the surrounding villages. The first people to come were the people left behind by Dingjia Station. I didn’t know what mentality they had in coming to help, but they were chased away by Lu Bin. After leaving, the two sides quarreled, cursed, and vowed to kill people in the future. They were extremely irritable, and were finally driven away by Cao Yao with a gun.
Later, several groups of people came to Songjiagou and Zhifang in the distance. At first, it was just a strong man with a bow and a knife on his back to look at it from a distance. After confirming that the people in the ruins were only carrying corpses and digging pits, they dared to go forward and inquire. .
There are several survivors in both villages who escaped from the old temple village. When they met the Lu Bin brothers, they cried together for the rest of their lives.
With their help, the victims in Laomiaozhuang were able to be buried two days early.
Four hundred and seventy-two barren graves were buried in the miserable farmland. There were no tombstones, which made the dirt bags look particularly scary in the cold wind. There were only a dozen villagers left in the old temple village, lying on the dirt bags and crying till the sky was dark.
The people who came to help only wanted to leave the dead villagers with the last dignity of burial. Carrying them to the ground and burying them in the soil would count as a proper job.
The cries of the survivors are heart-wrenching. Who is not afraid that such a disaster will happen to them?
"What's there to cry about? Can they tell who is buried in the grave? Why not take advantage of this opportunity to sow some seeds."
Cao Yao was riding a horse in the distance. He had been too lazy to carry corpses for the past few days. He dug a few graves the day before, but stopped working when he saw the villagers who came to help him the next day. He rode in circles all day long, saying that Be alert around the area in case the thief comes back to kill you.
Liu Chengzong knew that the old thief Cao just felt unlucky and was too lazy to help others.
At this moment, another sarcastic remark came into Liu Chengzong's ears: "Look, there are no mats, and there are very few wrapping cloths. If there is no one here next year, I will bring the little ones over here to sow food. This land How fat."
It was a bit inappropriate to say such nonsense. Liu Chengzong only glanced at him and said angrily: "Let's live until next year. There are many thieves, mules and horses, and pack guns. If they come back, we can't stop them."
Liu Chengzong surmised that the thieves had artillery. When he was carrying the body in the strongest courtyard in the village, he found that half of the wall had fist-sized holes and dense bullet holes. The only weapons that fit this pattern were artillery.
Large iron bullets and small iron bullets were mixed together, which was a common method used by the Ming army in firing artillery.
The mark of the gun made the wandering thieves extremely dangerous in his mind.
Swords, bows, crossbows, and flesh and blood bodies wearing armor can barely block it, but even if they are wearing heavy armor, it is difficult to escape with guns, let alone artillery.
However, his discovery seemed to be what Cao Yao had expected: "I know, two Franco machines, carried on mules. As soon as these thieves came here, I wanted to find an opportunity to seize the cannons."
"There's really no chance." He curled his lips and shook his head. "In addition to the two big guns, the traitor also has two flying cannons."
Liu Chengzong originally thought that it would be good if the thieves had one cannon, but he didn't know that there were actually two Franco machines, and there was this new gadget that he had never heard of before. He couldn't help asking: "How come they have four cannons? "
"The flying cannon is not a cannon. It is similar to the three-eyed gun. It is inserted into the pole, but the front is a foot-long iron gourd. When you hit the pillar, the bullets will explode. When firing, you first set off the cannon and then the iron gourd. Then you can fire the cannon. When fired with explosive shells, the range is not far but it is very powerful. It can blow up a group of people, but sometimes they are dumb."
Something like... a mortar?
Cao Yao's introduction was very abstract.
Fortunately, Liu Chengzong has another memory, which is easy to understand. It is equivalent to a small mortar that shoots out blooming bullets in an arc trajectory. It has many advantages and only two disadvantages.
It has a short range and is prone to duds.
But in Liu Chengzong's eyes, this is not a shortcoming at all. This thing is enough if it can hit fifty steps. As for the problem of firing dumb bombs, as long as one out of ten rounds is fired, one will explode, which will shock the enemy psychologically. It's far more powerful than ten solid bullets.
If the formation is destroyed, who can still fight?
"As for the thieves having cannons, it's not surprising at all. It's not the Jiajing period. Even the Franchise is an old thing from a hundred years ago. Nowadays, there is no castle in the Nine Sides that doesn't have more than a dozen cannons. These thieves are deserters everywhere. Yes, the people in Yansui Town, Gansu Town, especially Guyuan Town, are serious rebels."
Cao Yao became more and more enthusiastic as he talked, and even told Liu Chengzong: "The red Yi cannons are now popular in the imperial court. I guess they are similar to the Huang Laoye cannons. The old minister bought dozens of cannon makers from Fujian and sent them to the capital to make them. The cannon that comes out is longer than you lying down, weighing two to three thousand pounds. To light the cannon, you have to dig two pits. When it is lit, run over and jump into the pit to avoid injuring anyone."
After finishing speaking, he still had more to say: "Having seen those cannons, I am no longer afraid of these little miscellaneous cannons."
"That's also scary."
Liu Chengzong is very serious. Who is not afraid of artillery? Old thief Cao boasted: "I will be afraid of you even if you open a door for me."
Listening to these words, Cao Yao was thoughtful, paused for a while, then looked at the undulating graves in the wasteland in the distance and said: "Lion, you said I would take the lead in going to the surrounding villages, and let's build a Panlong River to protect ourselves. how?"
"Panlongchuan protects himself, how to protect himself?"
"I have looked at the fields along the river. If there is irrigation, there will be harvests. Starting from Zhifang in the north and ending at Heilong Mountain in the south, four or five of our people are stationed in every village for forty miles from north to south. They provide ten dan of food every month. The border troops Brothers have someone to support them, and they can help each other when thieves come, and protect the village together."
When Liu Chengzong heard what he said, he nodded and said: "Of course it would be best if it can be done. I'm just afraid that others won't want to..."
What happened to Lao Miaozhuang has proved that independent villages are not enough to resist the invasion of bandits, and Zhang Qianhu has proved that the official army is unreliable. In fact, even if Zhang Qianhu leads his troops to fight the bandits head-on, he will not be able to do anything to the undead in Lao Miaozhuang. Useful.
"You don't have to worry about this. Leave it to me to deal with it, but there's no rush."
Cao Yao polished his beard under his chin, raised his hand and pointed at the surrounding land, and said: "These people want to eat, let's buy the land in Laomiaozhuang together."
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Note:
In the article, "Huang Laoye Cannon" refers to the Luzon Big Bronze Cannon. In the 47th year of Wanli Dynasty, Huang Kezuan, the Minister of the Ministry of War and the Crown Prince, raised money from Tong'an County, Fujian Province to recruit sixteen people who were good at building Luzon cannons and went to Beijing to cast the cannons.
In the Ming Dynasty, Xu Guangqi purchased and introduced the Hongyi cannon for the first time; Fujian reverse-engineered Haidilao Dutch cannon; Huang Kezuan asked craftsmen who were familiar with Spanish copper cannons to imitate them; and Xu Guangqi and others learned and spread the theoretical knowledge of Western French artillery.
There was a step-by-step process and the techniques used in making the artillery were always indigenous.
