Nanheyuan, Yanchuan County.
The people on the dry farming terraces leaned on their farm tools and looked into the distance. Not far away, on the plateau a hundred paces away, countless arrow and musket targets were set up, and the servants and cavalry of the Lion Camp were practicing.
The sound of the horn sounded.
Han Shiyou climbed on his mount, led the two horses forward and accelerated forward. He performed the movements of hiding on the horse's back, pedaling on the left, hiding on the right, and changing horses at a gallop.
Then, when the war horse galloped across a line smeared with ashes on the bottom of the pot, he flew up to pick up an arrow, opened his bow and shot it far away towards the target in front of him. It was an archery target standing at the end of the plateau, sixty paces away.
The arrow was still flying in the air. He had already opened his bow again and fired an arrow towards the target twenty steps away. With the sound of the arrow hitting the target, he had changed the bow to his right hand and opened the bow again twenty steps to the right. Target for walking.
After finishing the three arrows in sequence, he put the bow back into his bag, slowed down his horse, climbed on another horse, raised his spear to the left, picked up the helmet on the target, stabbed with the right again, and pierced the chest of the target with the spear.
Finally, he drew out his saber, held it horizontally to his side, and cut the last straw target into two pieces.
Then he galloped the last ten steps and took out the arrow that hit the red heart two inches from the target at the end of the plateau.
The series of tactical moves were dazzling, and the servant cavalry behind them cheered loudly.
The farmers on the dry farming terraces all looked as if they had seen gods descending to earth.
A father lectured his son: "Did you see that you just want to join the lion camp after learning some spear and stick dancing? What kind of skills do you have?"
The son, who was shirtless and strong, raised his neck and stared from ear to ear. He looked down at the shovel in his hand and turned more energetically.
As the saying goes, summer is in the furrow. The mild summer heat at the end of May has passed. The people in northern Shaanxi are suffering. They must plow the wheat fields several times before the millet turns yellow, and grab the moisture before and after the white dew. sowing.
After planting the wheat, there is no rest time to cut millet, harvest millet, pick beans, pick cotton, pull black beans, pour sesame seeds, and dry, grind, beat and winnow some crops.
After the autumn harvest, we have to continue plowing and preparing the fields until the beginning of winter.
Even in winter, not many people can really rest. They still have to cut firewood or dig coal in the mountains to earn enough for their families for half a year.
But this is not Guanzhong, and there is no way to maintain harvests during droughts and floods. A cold spell at the wrong time or a drought that makes it difficult to maintain moisture can wipe out their hard-earned livelihood for half a year.
But no matter how hard it is, farmers still have to work hard, even if they only need to harvest dozens of kilograms of grain from one acre of land.
The drill of the right team of servants on another mountain plateau is not so interesting to watch.
But they don't have enough skills there, so they can use momentum to make it happen.
The fifty cavalry were divided into five teams, and they galloped forward one after another. Their target was a large square pile of wheat straw, with a foot-high wooden board fixed at chest level in the middle.
The horse team completed speeding up, galloping and decelerating a hundred paces in front of the pile of wheat straw. The horses' hooves pressed against the eight-step gray line to turn. Everyone stretched their arms and fired their Franchise muskets at the target.
A line of faint smoke rose, and they turned and ran back. On the way, they reconnected the match rope that had been shaken off by the gunpowder, took off the musket and reinstalled it.
Then the other team repeated this action. When the whole team finished shooting, Zhong Bao counted carefully in front of the target, and then shouted: "Thirty-eight shots!"
Then the whole team checked the shot guns. Someone must have missed the shot, but it was difficult to distinguish the missed shots.
There must also be someone whose gun didn't fire. It was easy to tell, so they were taken out for training. After the training, they were formed into small teams to go horse racing and shoot.
The remaining people cleaned the barrels of their guns, put away their guns, and practiced running on horseback.
They were not necessarily all skilled cavalry in the past.
Lion Liu will be selected into the servant team for various reasons.
For example, if you are injured in this battle, the injury is not serious, but it will affect your combat effectiveness in a short period of time. Others will continue to fight in the next battle. If you are afraid that he will die, you will put him in the servant team first.
After recovering from his injury, if this person still wants to stay with the Lions, then he will stay in the Guards.
Therefore, some people's riding skills were gained by riding mules, and these people are all on the right team.
There are even people like Fan Sanlang.
Fan Sanlang had not slept in bed for two months. Ever since she was stationed in Yanchuan from the Lion Camp, she slept on the back of a different mule every night.
This is a special training for the Lion Camp. Each post will select some people to watch the night every day. The night watch team will be divided into two teams. One team rides mules on the mountain road, and the other team rides mules to follow them to sleep.
Others only slept on the back of a mule for five days. Fan Sanlang was arranged by Liu Shizi to ride on the back of a mule every day.
Others could fall asleep, but she couldn't. Every day on night watch, she would watch others sleeping on the mule, leaning down from the left side. Little by little, she saw that he was about to fall. Hey, suddenly his body straightened out again. , and then tilt it to the right little by little.
Fan Sanlang was different. She was so sleepy that after squinting for a while, her body began to tilt to the left, and then she really fell.
People gave him the nickname Kowtow Saburo.
Last month, her job almost consisted of standing and taking naps, sitting and taking naps, eating and taking naps, wielding knives and taking naps, shooting arrows and firing muskets, and falling on the back of a mule.
And it's a different mule's back, because Liu Shizi said that mules also have to sleep and can't accompany you around the mountains every day.
Everyone needs to sleep, but she doesn't.
Fan Sanlang's condition is a little better this month. There is no improvement in his skills, but his body has become accustomed to falling asleep anytime and anywhere.
For example, now.
The people of Wohu Mountain were short of manpower during the summer harvest, so they borrowed some people from the Lion Camp to help. Now the wheat is ground into flour, and the people happily transported pigs and white flour to the Lion Camp.
When Liu Shizi saw how enthusiastic the people were, he couldn't be stingy. He simply called the whole village over, killed a lame horse, made cakes with white flour, and invited the war auxiliary soldiers who had gone to Crouching Mountain to help and the people to eat them. A meal.
This is like buying a horse bone with thousands of gold. There is no need to tell the war auxiliary soldiers to help the people. But if someone does this, Liu Shishi will let him benefit, and people will naturally know what to do in the future.
During the dinner, Liu Shizi asked Fan Sanlang to go back to the military tent to get him something. After the meal was finished, he still didn't get it back.
When I returned to the military tent, I saw Fan Sanlang sitting cross-legged on the couch with his back facing away. His helmet was on his spine and his head was in front of his body. He was curled up into a small ball and snoring gently. .
Fell asleep.
Liu Chengzong raised his hand to scratch his face and couldn't help but smile.
The last time he saw someone sleeping like this was when Shiliu Yi had his head stuck in the stable of Fish River Fort.
He couldn't help but wonder, is it so difficult to sleep on the back of a mule?
How stable the mule is!
Liu Chengzong did not disturb Fan Sanlang's sleep. He simply went back out of his tent and went to various posts.
He had a plan in his mind to find a place to put Fan Sanlang, so that she would not be a soldier.
Being a soldier is hard, but being a mobile peasant army is even harder.
In the Lion Camp, it was much harder than the peasant army.
After walking out of the military tent, Tang Qi, who happened to meet Wei Qian'er, came to report: "General, the deputy general is back!"
The Sky Monkey came, but Liu Chengzong didn't lead him to the military tent. He just picked a tent and went in. He asked, "How is it? Is there any news from the south?"
"Yes!"
The monkey in the sky looked very excited and said: "After Governor Liu caused the illness, the new governor has been appointed. His name is Wang Shunxing. He was previously Zuo Buzheng Envoy. He is a native of Xutong, Henan. He was a Jinshi in the 38th year of Wanli."
"That sum of money is finally coming. It should be 130,000 taels."
The monkey in the sky raised his index finger and tapped it on the small wooden table: "Guess how I know this?"
"I wasn't looking for the news, it was the news that found me!"
"The news has found you?" Liu Chengzong asked curiously: "How do you say this?"
The monkey in the sky just smiled and smiled for a while before saying: "General, do you remember that horse, Ma Maocai?"
"Are you talking about Ma Maoguan?" Liu Chengzong was impressed by this name and asked: "Ai Mu's subordinates, the one who went to cut off Yang Chengzu's head in the valley?"
"Yes, that's him! Him and his brother-in-law."
Shangtianhou explained one after another: "His brother-in-law was at the top of the city. The turrets were bombarded and the soldiers on his hands were killed and wounded. Later, he surrendered and found his brother-in-law in the prisoner camp. Both of them received travel expenses and food and were imprisoned."
"Originally, one was in charge of the team and the other was in charge. When they returned home, they were both raped. My brother-in-law called him Qi Shuangquan. He was also beaten by the officer. He lay there for a month and almost died."
After the monkey in the sky finished saying this, he stared at Liu Chengzong and said, "They are the ones escorting the silver."
Liu Chengzong burst into laughter and said in disbelief: "The Xi'an Mansion is sick, but these people were just released and sent to northern Shaanxi?"
After laughing, he thought carefully and asked: "Is there a scam? Is Guanzhong out of troops or something, so we can only send them here?"
"It's really not true. I heard that the soldiers in Guanzhong are unwilling to come to northern Shaanxi. They can't get supplies along the way, and there are no post stations, so they have always been the coolies to dispatch troops and generals. "
Liu Chengzong thought for a while and asked, "How did they find you?"
"Li Laojiao from Yanzhou is a leader with more than 3,000 subordinates. He is very familiar with Liu Liuliuqi and Hao Lin'an from Qingyang. Ma Maoguan's brother-in-law found him and asked Li Laojiao to find you, so he found me. .”
The monkey in the sky analyzed: "I think if this is a scam by the government, then it should be a scam directly. That guy is not at peace with himself."
"Originally, there were Feishan Tiger and Big Red Wolf's gang in Yanzhou. They were far away from each other anyway, let alone grabbing territory. Now Feishan Tiger asked Chen Qindai to knock him to death, and Little Red Wolf took the avoidance card and was placed there without knowing it. where."
"He is the only one left in the big city of Yanzhou. If you rob this today and rob that tomorrow, even if the government wants to cheat, they have to kill him first so that they won't come to you through him."
Liu Chengzong nodded slowly, agreeing with Sky Monkey's analysis, and asked: "Now, what are they going to do?"
"How to do it...nothing, how to do it, the Lion Camp has three things to do, collect the money, build gold locks, and settle these people."
"Hit the Golden Lock Pass?"
Jinsuo Pass is located in the south of Yijun County and the northernmost part of Yaozhou. After passing that pass, you will reach Guanzhong.
Liu Chengzong didn't quite understand: "What are you doing at Jinsuoguan?"
"Their family members are all south of Jinsuoguan and cannot enter northern Shaanxi. We need to go to Tongguan County to help them bring their family members to the north. Then we will give them some money and go to Yaozhou to collect grain. .”
Liu Chengzong was not that enthusiastic about entering Yaozhou to collect grain.
Because his uncle had been in Miyuan, he knew something about the situation there.
To be honest, he doesn't want to leave the drought-stricken area, but would rather follow the drought and move forward.
He has his own code of conduct.
If there is no drought in a place, and the people say they are being exploited or oppressed, but they are not desperate enough to eat the soil, then as long as his people are not in a desperate situation, he will not be willing to lead troops in and disrupt the situation. The peaceful life of others.
Not because of morality, but because there is no place for him in such a land.
The people will naturally unite around the gentry, just like Black Dragon Mountain.
Of course, he could use the name of justice to do work for the people, plunder the wealthy gentry who were annexing land crazily, and distribute the land to the people.
But it’s easy to divide the land, but what happens after it’s done?
After the division was completed, when he left, on the Guanzhong Plain, what could the people who had lost their reliance on force use to protect their land.
When these people die, their deaths will tell other people on the Guanzhong Plain, believing that the Lion Camp will die and those who follow the government will survive.
He wouldn't even think about entering Guanzhong.
Only in Yan'an Prefecture, protected by drought and mountains, could the Lion Battalion defeat one general after another and use force to protect the people who believed in him.
At least in these places, even if he is defeated, the government has no way to find fault with the people, and can only reluctantly gather together to collect some taxes.
But under this code of conduct, his power is becoming increasingly stretched.
If he wants to enter Shanxi and the army enters Yan'an Mansion again, he will lead his troops back to fight the army decisively.
When his sphere of influence extends to Yanzhou, then when the official army enters Yanzhou, he will go to Yanzhou to fight with the official army.
In fact, he was very worried that the officers and soldiers would find out that he had such characteristics. With such characteristics, he would be attacked by the officers and soldiers and would rescue him and wait for work.
Liu Chengzong didn't speak for a long time. After a long time, he asked: "How many people are there?"
"five hundred."
The monkey in the sky said: "There are a total of five hundred people in the silver transport team and twenty silver transport vehicles. Ma Maoguan has united 46 people. We will unite more people after passing the Golden Suo Pass. It is estimated that there will be more than a hundred internal responses."
"The family members of the forty-six people sneaked into Tongguan County after the Silver Team passed the Jinsuo Pass. There are probably more than 700 family members."
"This is a good thing. The drought in northern Shaanxi is not that severe this year. They came here just in time to plant wheat. How much do they want to share?"
The Heavenly Monkey paused and said, "Mao Guan said that there are forty-six of them, and each of them wants five hundred taels."
Liu Chengzong smiled and said: "Isn't this a dream?"
"Their family members want me to attack Jinsuoguan and resettle them after they are received. The government troops want me to attack them. They don't have to do anything. They will take away twenty-three thousand taels."
"After passing the Golden Suo Pass, they incited some more people to rebel, and finally they took away forty to fifty thousand taels..." Liu Chengzong raised his hand and pointed outside: "Can you ask the brothers in the Lion Camp if they agree?"
"We defeated them and only needed to spend two hundred taels on the prisoners as travel expenses. In fact, I was not even prepared to pay travel expenses to these people."
"If you can contact them again, tell Ma Maoguan that there is no need to instigate others to rebel. Ask him to keep the news secret. After the incident is completed, I will give him ten thousand taels."
Liu Chengzong stared at the monkey in the sky and said: "In the name of Ai Mu's defeat of the servants, I robbed these twenty carts of silver and put gold juice on the knife."
