Yan'an Prefecture, Jialing Mountain, Nanguan siege.
Accompanied by the moonlight, the flag soldiers wearing helmets at the gate of the city struggled to push the winch, and the sound of rattling iron chains was heard. Finally, with a bang, calm returned.
On the dry ditch illuminated by torches, among the billowing dust from the suspension bridge, a man rode into the pass alone from the smoke.
The guard who closed the door said hello and said: "Little Master Liu, the general and Ren Baihu are waiting for you at Fanggongjing."
"knew."
The person in the smoke is Liu Chengyun.
He turned over and got off the donkey, lifted up the scarf that kept out the smoke and dust, waved his hands to disperse the dust in front of him, and said to the guards: "Have you been waiting for a long time?"
"Soon, soon." Qi Jun said as he stood on tiptoe and leaned behind Cheng Yun, looking at the donkey cart: "Little Master Liu, what's behind you?"
"Several brothers are injured and are recuperating in the siege. I also have soybean oil from the oil mill to replenish the brothers."
After saying that, the guard was still happy when he saw Liu Chengyun take out pistachios from his arms and stuff them into his hands: "Pistachio, from the west, break it up and eat it at night."
The guard beamed with joy and asked his men to come down to carry goods and bring wounded soldiers into the city. He did not forget to say thank you: "Thank you, Mr. Liu, for remembering our old brothers from the Lion Battalion."
Liu Chengyun waved his hand and stepped into the Nanguan siege city built on the mountain.
The guard in this city is Yang Yanchang.
At this time, Yang Yanchang was no longer a trial 100 households who wanted to be a thief to make a living, but an actual 1000 households in Yan'an Wei Nanguan siege. He was dressed in brocade and stood by the well looking at the moon with his hands behind his back, looking very majestic.
But no one knew how painful he felt.
This has to start from the day Liu Chengzong robbed the county government prison.
The city and outside were in chaos. Zhang Xiong of Qianhu led his troops out of the siege.
Yang Yanchang originally wanted to take advantage of the chaos and lead the remaining defenders to loot the treasury and food in the besieged city, and then escape to Luocao with Liu Guoneng.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Wu Qian and Qianhu Zhang Xiong died in the hands of Liu Chengzong.
His immediate boss is dead and there is no need for him to run away.
But if he didn't run away, he would be the last serving officer of the Yan'an Guard.
Liu Chengzu, Zhang Tianlin, and Wang Monk, who were busy doing nothing, led their troops to run around outside the city.
The Nanguan siege with only thirty-six banner troops remaining was the last stronghold of the government that day.
The situation is critical, and even famous generals from ancient times cannot protect Yan'an Mansion.
But Yang Yanchang can.
The thirty kilograms of silver that had just been collected were put into a small wooden box, wrapped in red satin, and sent directly to Liu Chengzu's face.
Yang Yanchang of the Hundred Households, with a horse on his hip and an iron gun in his hand, crossed the formation of hundreds of bandits. There was no enemy under his command. As if he was in a deserted land, he shouted to expel the bandits and protect the prefect, and rode into the city of Yan'an alone. .
In the afternoon of the same day, the bandits came back again. Yang Baihu, who was full of wine and food, once again rode his horse out of the city and killed seven in and seven out of the formation. The bandits scattered in shock.
In the evening, the prefect's Yamen inspected the corpses of more than thirty thieves on the battlefield where the fierce generals were passing by. It was indeed true that they all had the faces of strong men, but the wounds were different, mostly from knife wounds and arrow wounds.
But it doesn't matter, a general star is rising over Yan'an Mansion.
When the news reached Guyuan's Trilateral General Office, Governor Yang He was extremely angry and recruited Yang Yanchang to Guyuan for negotiation. He felt deeply that the guard house was corrupt and that the high-ranking people were stealing the high positions, so he asked such a brave general to serve in a trial of only a hundred households.
Not even an actual official title!
shame! What a shame!
After reporting his meritorious service, he was promoted to the third level and transferred to the Hancheng garrison to guard against the bandits in the south.
Then he ordered the guards in Xi'an, Tongguan, Qingyang, Fengxiang and other places to select and train warriors and eliminate incompetent guards to make room for the capable ones.
Later, under Yang Yanchang's repeated advice, Yang He also realized that Yan'an Guard was short of major generals and no one was guarding it, fearing that the fortress would be lost, so he offered him the position of Yan'an Guard Qianhu.
The governor also specially sent a letter to Zhang Nian, the magistrate of Yan'an Prefecture, praising Yang Yanchang's meritorious service in frightening the bandits and protecting Yan'an. He must use civil and military forces to drive out the bandits.
Governor Yang's love for him, the effusive words of praise for him from officials at all levels, and even the daily script of the storyteller at the teahouse at the gate of Yan'an Prefecture... Hearing every word in Yang Yanchang's ears was heart-piercing.
He is just a fake famous general, there is nothing amazing about his bravery.
Can he do Chihu's job well? Sooner or later this will be revealed.
In the suffering day after day, Yang Yanchang surprisingly found that his job was very simple.
It just needs to be a decoration, nothing to do.
The work of the Yan'an Guards can no longer be described as being as easy as breaking a bamboo, it is completely like the bamboo breaking through itself and hitting the knife.
He needs to recruit troops, build ordnance, and find ways to provide food and grass.
But before the recruiting officer went out, hundreds of soldiers came to join the army with their own weapons and dry food without even saying hello.
The enthusiasm of the military recruits made Yang Yanchang dumbfounded.
Since the defeat of Emperor Jiajing Daojun, do we still have hundreds of people coming to serve as military households in the Ming Dynasty?
Except for the fact that most of the people here are named Liu, the rest of the place is particularly good.
"Ahem."
The sound of coughing behind him interrupted Yang Yanchang's meditation on looking at the moon, pulling his thoughts from memories to the siege of Nanguan at night.
He turned around and saw that Liu Chengyun was here.
The famous general who showed his strength in Fucheng looked extremely helpless when faced with the small stature of Liu Chengyun. He sighed: "Chengyun, you came here this time and sent wounded soldiers again?"
Liu Chengyun smiled and cupped his hands to Yang Yanchang: "General Yang is in need of people, why don't we just send them here."
"Where did you rob again? I heard that you are instigating people in various villages to extort food from big households. If you are not satisfied, you will fight with swords. The prefect's Yamen still doesn't know who is behind the scenes. Sooner or later, the news will be leaked, not to mention..."
Yang Yanchang showed some dissatisfaction: "You are treating Yan'an Guard as a wounded barracks."
Liu Chengyun greeted the surrounding guards nonchalantly, and then said: "General Yang, you can't say that. The soldiers sent by the Lion Battalion are all good soldiers. They have fought with others and been injured. When the time comes for the general to use troops, won't they be better than Is it easy to recruit refugees?"
"On the occasion of military use..."
When Yang Yanchang heard these words, his head was covered: "In addition to suppressing you, why else would I use troops?"
Yan'an Mansion is now a den of big thieves, and half of the leaders are named Liu.
Liu Xiangyu, Liu Chengzu, Liu Chengzong, She Taotian, Chuang Taotian, Guo Tianxing, Wang Monk, and Cao Cao.
Except for the last one, he had greeted everyone in this group when he went to deliver the money and knew them all.
"Then we'll kill them. If the magistrate's office gives the order, the Yan'an Guards will go out and kill twenty or thirty heads. We'll kill two big families who are rich and unkind."
Liu Chengyun waved his hand and said: "The general and my second brother are acquaintances. We can discuss everything easily. If we like money, we will divide the money one piece at a time."
"Suppress, squelch, there are four hundred households under my command, three of them are from your Heilongshan surname Liu, and the remaining one is Ren Quan'er."
When Yang Yanchang mentioned this, he became even more angry. He took a step forward and said to Chengyun: "Can you tell me, your second brother is the same age as Ren Quan'er. What kind of ecstasy soup did you give him? A month later, the child became like this. .”
Ren Quan'er was his old subordinate.
He was born as a soldier and the eighth generation of the guard family. He has been carrying water to wash Yang Yanchang's feet since he was a child. He is so loyal that he can no longer be loyal. If he is left in a wealthy family outside, it is called a family.
Just because he delivered a cannon to Liu Chengzong once, he lived in Tiger waist for more than a month.
The kid came back like a man possessed.
I kept saying that I was Chief Liu's, and kept saying that Chief Liu was good to me.
Dare to suppress it?
Can it be suppressed?
Who in the guardhouse can Yang Yanchang command?
On the surface, he is a Qianhu, but his actual command ability is minus one. Let alone commanding troops, he can't even control himself.
Liu Chengyun just chuckled: "I can give him whatever ecstasy soup I want, just be nice to him."
How good is it?
Washing his feet, treating his injuries, and not letting him work while he was resting were even better than Quan'er's own father.
Having lived in a hierarchical society for three hundred years, Yang Yanchang, who was born as a military officer, is not unable to understand what it means to be kind to others.
But the brain naturally can't think of any good reasons for the humanoid objects in Weisuo.
There's no need. Eight generations of ancestors have been here here and have been loyal to each other for generations. Do you still need to be nice to him?
This is the consensus of the health officials.
But now Yang Yanchang knew that it was time to deal with the military household.
Because many military households were named Liu, if he didn't want his head to be chopped off at any time, he had to be kind to the military households.
The Lion Battalion had been sending wounded soldiers to Yan'an Guard, but Yang Yanchang had no idea what to do, and said: "Cheng Yun, were all these things arranged by your second brother before he ran away?"
He had been holding this question in his mind for a long time. Only Liu Chengzong knew him in the Lion Camp.
Everything about getting promoted went too smoothly. There were corpses left in fake battles outside the city, there were people in the city writing storybooks for teahouse storytellers, and people were immediately sent into the siege after thousands of households.
Later, they even arranged for the Yan'an Guard to find craftsmen to make weapons, nurse wounded soldiers, and Ren Quan'er.
Liu Chengzong also fought twice at the county government office and two more times outside the city. After fleeing for ten miles, he turned back and beheaded Zhang Xiong.
The more he thought about it, the more Yang Yanchang felt that Liu Chengzong, who pretended to be a brave general, was more suitable for him.
Moreover, this man was very smart. He arranged the funeral arrangements in such detail that Yang Yanchang was frightened.
Apart from anything else, the script of "General Yang of Yan'an Prefecture Defeats the Bandit Army" that Shan Fucheng talks about all day long cannot have been written before.
Even if Nanjiashan had been plotting against him since the day they first met him, he couldn't have planned it so carefully, right?
Unexpectedly, his words made Liu Chengyun burst into laughter: "How come? My second brother killed Zhang Xiong that day. He was so tired that he didn't even say anything. He lay on the horse and fell asleep. Later, he explained what we should do. If you don't do anything, he will take the people away, and there will be no time to plot against you."
Yang Yanchang shook his head, feeling in his heart that Cheng Yun was not telling the truth: "I have met all of your leaders. Except for your second brother and She Taotian, no one else knew me before that day."
As for Li Wanqing who shot down the sky?
Yang Yanchang had known him through Liu Guoneng for a long time, but he didn't believe that the Orion boy had such ability.
"Someone knows you."
Liu Chengyun couldn't say more. He only said: "No one wants to plot against you. It's just that the higher you are promoted, the safer everyone is. It's not your Lion Battalion, it's you, General Yang, the Yan'an Guard, and us. Lion Camp.”
Yang Yanchang's promotion was truly a collective effort, from military exploits to creating public opinion.
Yang Dingrui came up with most of the ideas, including throwing corpses. The corpses belonged to the Yan'an Guard Banner Army, but they were thieves who fled from Lao Huihui's men and joined the Yan'an Guard.
The storybook that fabricates the details of the battle outside the city was written by Liu Chengzu, who witnessed the battle.
Song Shouzhen, a hungry thief born in Lehu, also wrote a song for the song, with lyrics written by Liu Xiangyu. He wanted the lawyer Wang Kun to sing it to his adopted daughter in a brothel.
Unfortunately, because of the thief incident, the city was under martial law every day, which severely affected the brothel business outside the moat. In the end, Mr. Liu's lyrics were not used.
"Who else?"
Yang Yanchang asked: "Are Mengxian Cheng, who is in charge of the county government, and Zhang Shuban, the household secretary, also involved? When I went to the county government to do business, the Zhangshuban recognized that my bannermen were from the Liu family. Later, Mengxian Cheng actually told In each room, manpower should be attached to the Yan'an Health Office first."
Zhang Shuban?
Liu Chengyun knew Meng Xian Cheng, and knew that his second brother had an appointment with the county cheng, so he could not touch Liujiazhuang if anything happened, but they could not trust the county cheng.
That's why Yang Dingrui asked many Liu family members to go to Yan'an Guards to join the army. However, Meng County Prime Minister did not touch Liujiazhuang and even Black Dragon Mountain. He only sent someone to take a look.
But Zhang Pan, the secretary, didn't know what was going on.
Not knowing whether he knew or not, Liu Chengyun smiled and said: "General, just leave them alone. If you ask them, they will not admit that they are complicit. If others ask you, will you admit it? General, come to me..."
Chengyun stepped forward and asked, "Is there any news about my second brother? Where is he?"
"Don't worry about your second brother, he is very powerful."
Logically speaking, Yang Yanchang should be happy when he became a member of a thousand households, but he just couldn't be happy. He always felt like he was being controlled at every turn.
But he didn't want to put aside his relationship with the Lion Camp.
My mentality is very contradictory. Although everything is going well, I am being controlled by others, which makes me feel uncomfortable everywhere.
Yang Yanchang shook his head and looked towards the dark east: "He completely destroyed the post station express shop. News from Yan'an Guard cannot get out, and news from outside cannot get in. Sending a letter can exhaust the postmen in Heshui County." die."
Heshui County is the Qingyang Prefecture, and several letters have been sent to Yanzhou City. The local postmen did not dare to go north when they heard about the situation in Yan'an.
In the end, Qingyang's postmen had no choice but to endure not knowing the way and ran three hundred miles before delivering the news to Yan'an Fucheng.
"Your second brother probably entered Shanxi. He killed the guerrilla general Lu Cheng who suppressed him at Yanshui Pass... Chengyun, do you know how much trouble it took for twenty soldiers to deliver the letter in one day? "
Yang Yanchang shook his head. There was no way to send the news of the battle at Yanshuiguan south, so he could only send it north, passing through Qingjian, Suide, Mizhi, and all the way to Yuhe Station in Yuhebao.
From Yuhe Post, they were sent up the second border wall, and the border army raced on the Great Wall, all the way to Yanchi Post where the Ningxia defenders were, and then rushed along the way to the Trilateral General Office in Guyuan Prefecture.
Finally, he was sent all the way from Guyuan Prefecture to Yan'an Prefecture.
"The governor-general's city was attacked just after he took office, and a guerrilla general was killed. Master Yang was very angry."
Yang Yanchang patted Liu Chengyun and said very seriously: "The officers and soldiers in Yansui Town are going south. The border troops in Guyuan Town mutinied just last year. The governor did not dare to move, but the Qingyang Guards also want to gather troops and march towards Yanzhou."
Cheng Yun was young after all, so he panicked when he heard it: "Then my second brother is in danger, I must find a way to tell him the news!"
"Your second brother has made too much noise. In the official document handed over by the government, he has been listed as the first-class thief leader along with Wang Jiayin and Wang Zuogao, the king of Hengtian. But don't worry too much. Your brother is smart. As long as he hides in Shanxi , the Qin army could not cross the Yellow River."
Yang Yanchang raised his finger and pointed at Liu Chengyun, worried: "On the contrary, it's you. When the Qingyang army arrives, I might also be drafted. By then, the chaos around Fucheng will be calmed down, and the post station will be reset for express delivery. If Chengzong can't be found, it will be impossible." I will look for you, so don’t worry about it these days... If anyone gets caught then, all of us will be ruined!"
