On the official road from Yanzhou to Guanzhong, the governor of Shaanxi was very tired of practicing state affairs.
He is the eighth grandson of Lian Zining, an important minister of Emperor Jianwen of the Yongle Dynasty after becoming a famous minister.
At that time, his ancestors scolded Zhu Di after he ascended the throne and had his tongue cut off. Zhu Di said: I want to be the Duke of Zhou and assist him in becoming king.
Lian Zining put his hand into his mouth, dipped it in blood and wrote: Where is King Cheng?
Zhu Di was so angry that he cut Lian Zining's body into pieces, killed 151 members of his family, exiled 371 in-laws, and killed 480 households in his hometown. Only one young grandson survived.
Just half a month ago, Lian Guoshi noticed that the thieves in Yan'an Prefecture had declined greatly. Many thieves had no idea where they were going, and he felt particularly excited.
The three most unruly and fierce thieves, Wang Jiayin was besieged in Fugu, Wang Chuang was still in Shanxi, and Liu Chengzong's whereabouts were unknown.
Nowadays, those who stay in Yan'an Prefecture are all small minions.
Lian Guoshi realized that the opportunity to fight was fleeting and it was time to counterattack!
Immediately dispatched Lingzhou General Zhang Quanchang, who was stationed in Qingyang, to enter Yaozhou, and together with Yaozhou General Zhao Dayin, he personally led two generals to march north with the intention of recovering Yan'an Prefecture, which had been troubled by thieves for a long time.
There are two most difficult problems in Shaanxi today. One is that there are no generals.
The generals who can take action are either defeated or those who are wise and protective like Du Wenhuan. The generals used are only promoted from the grassroots level and have neither the experience nor the strength to lead a large army.
Second, the imperial court did not mobilize national resources to provide disaster relief.
For a censor who was born as a scholar in state affairs, supervisory officials are different from administrative officials. The former discovers problems and the latter solves them.
He had no choice but to use what he had on hand to solve the problem.
Only two generals could be summoned, each leading 500 troops and entering Yanzhou.
His first enemy was a leader named Lone Wolf, who led more than 2,000 people in the mountains around Luochuan.
Lingzhou General Zhang Quanchang led 500 soldiers to fight for three days and nights, beheading more than 300 people, disbanding more than 1,200 prisoners and settling them in the Yijun area.
The situation can be said to be excellent. We just need to march into the hinterland of Yan'an, wipe out the bandits and restore peace to the world.
At this moment, news came from Xi'an Prefecture that Liu Chengzong, the giant bandit from Yan'an, had entered Qingyang, and Yang He, the governor of the three sides, had gone to Ningzhou.
Lian Guoshi was so frightened that he lost his soul. He quickly led his troops to withdraw from Yanzhou into Xi'an Prefecture, then transferred his troops to Pizhou. At the same time, he wrote a letter to persuade Yang He to leave Ningzhou as soon as possible.
If you don’t know how to fight and you don’t have generals, what kind of chaos will you cause!
But Yang He was much smarter than he thought.
Shaanxi is in a very chaotic situation. No matter the three sides or Shaanxi Province, they are facing the same situation: generals but no generals, soldiers but no soldiers, food but no food, and money but no money.
How to calm the chaos at this time?
It can't be leveled, it can't be beaten, it can't be beaten even if the military attaches are exhausted, so it can only be recruited.
A person has a historical mission at a certain stage, and maybe in the future the court will react and send troops to suppress the bandits, but during the period Yang He was in, he could not do anything except recruit people.
Moreover, the person who entered Qingyang was none other than Liu Chengzong.
Yang He had recruited several bandit leaders and had some knowledge of the Shaanxi bandits. He had always been afraid of this man and did not dare to send troops to attack Liu Shizi again.
The more we fight, the fewer officers and soldiers there are, and the more people Liu Shishi has. The soldiers who are obviously sent to suppress thieves become thieves even though they suppress them.
However, when Liu Shizi entered Qingyang, he would be saved if he was attacked.
Yang He estimated in Guyuan that Liu Shizi entered Qingyang with the intention of defeating Liang, and Prince Han's Mansion was the closest and best vassal state to him.
Yang He thought about it again and again, but it was a dead end.
He sent weak soldiers to attack Liu Shishi, but the weak soldiers could not stop him; he sent strong soldiers to attack Liu Shishi, and then sent a group of border soldiers to Liu Shishi.
Either way he is guilty.
Yang He hasn't had a comfortable sleep in the past six months, and every night he feels that his life is coming to an end.
Sending troops to fight against Liu Shishi would undoubtedly speed up the process.
But he couldn't leave Qingyang Mansion alone.
In the end, Yang He gave up. He figured out a way to leave this difficult weighing of gains and losses to others - weren't he, the three governors, the ones who had to be saved by others?
I won't send troops, I'll go myself. If you don't want to lose your official position and suffer the consequences, come and rescue me quickly.
With this idea in mind, Yang He led 300 governor-general pacesetters and marched non-stop through Pingliang to Qingyang and stationed at the Ningzhou official office.
Ningzhou Zhizhou was so frightened that he almost peed on Sunday.
Zhou Qiang was already very scared. Since Heshui County was set on fire, he could write eight letters a day asking for help to surrounding prefectures and counties, begging his grandfather and grandma to send reinforcements to Ningzhou.
Relying on Ningzhou's own strength, even if it is a fortified city surrounded by rivers on three sides and backed by mountains, it is impossible to defend it.
Gathering together three squads of government officials and the Xiangle Inspection Department, there were a total of 126 defenders in the city.
Just these one hundred and twenty-six, plus Zhou Zhouqiang and his two sons, each guarding eight battlements on average, how could they possibly hold it?
For several days and nights, Sunday Qiang was undecided between defending the city or abandoning the city and escaping.
It's decided now.
Yang He, the governor of the three sides, moved to Ningzhou, and he could not escape.
The setting sun burns half the sky red.
Zhou Qiang, the magistrate of Ningzhou, was wearing a green official robe embroidered with white pheasants. His back was slightly stooped. He stood on the city gate with his hands clasped in his hands. His eyebrows were wrinkled into a frown. He looked at the back of his youngest son and his old servant riding south, and sighed tiredly. tone.
Like a worried old farmer.
The eldest son said at his side: "Sir, go back, the governor's army is still waiting at the Yamen."
"Being an official is really difficult. You still want to be an official. Is it easy to be an official for the imperial court?"
Sunday Qiang shook his head in distress and said to his eldest son: "If you can survive this time, you can go back to Baoding, study, draw, and do whatever you want. Don't take the imperial examination again."
He was a native of Li County, Baoding Prefecture. He had served as county magistrate in Shandong and Henan and had done well. He never expected to be promoted to magistrate in Ningzhou.
When he first took office, he knew that his official career would end here.
He was the magistrate of Lijin County in Shandong Province, with more than 20,000 people in one county. He educated the people to grow crops and fish hard, and even used his knowledge to help fishermen renovate their fishing boats.
He was the magistrate of a county in Henan. There were more than 40,000 people in one county, and farmland could be seen as far as the eye could see. The biggest problem was that wealthy households hid the common people and occasionally resisted taxes.
When it was his turn to be the magistrate of Ningzhou, his official position was promoted, but there was nothing he could do in this land.
There are more than 17,000 people on the Yellow Book, but only more than 1,300 people can be found during tax collection.
The taxes owed in previous years are almost the same as those of the Ming Dynasty since Hongwu, and they are owed every year.
Wearing a black gauze hat on his head, he wanted to organize the people into households and collect taxes for the court;
Even after taking off the black gauze hat, he is still a human being. How can he watch the people go to the mountains to dig holes in the ground like mice to survive, and he can still have a mouth to collect taxes.
Being an official is nothing.
This is not something humans can do.
Back at the government office, Governor Yang was sitting on his paint-peeling chair flipping through a book. Seeing him come in, he raised his finger and pointed at the poem on it and said: "Is this written by Tai Meng about Shouning's feelings? Every word is true. .”
It was a forced poem written on Sunday, and he had nothing else to do here.
The poem says: The barren mountains, the city, and the land are semi-barren, and the people are fleeing and their huts are ruined and destructive. The officials have been with each other for five days, but the virtuous young man has been busy with the supply of goods for ten years. The scribes don't know the three-foot method, and Lu Yan has been in arrears with grain for several years. Who can call Liang Gong to ask and teach me how to save the suffering at that time.
Liang Gong is talking about Di Renjie. Di Renjie once served as the governor of Ningzhou. The problems he faced at that time were official corruption and lack of water conservancy repairs.
The problem he has to face now is the heavy taxes imposed by the imperial court. Sunday Qiang wanted to punish a few corrupt officials, but after Ningzhou was overwhelmed by heavy taxes, drought, and bandits, there would be no room for corrupt officials to survive.
"A piece of grumbling."
In the past, when the officer saw his poems, Sunday Qiang would be very happy, but now he really couldn't muster the slightest energy and said: "Please return to Guyuan, military gate. The thieves and bandits are chasing food. Ningzhou doesn't have the food they want, so they won't." Come and fight Ningzhou."
"But since the military gate is here, that's not necessarily the case."
Yang He deeply agrees with the helplessness in Zhou Qiang's poems, although their helplessness is different.
The so-called governors of the three sides were actually nothing more than scapegoats for embezzling military pay, money and food from Liao Town. A good man like Wu Zhiwang was driven to death by these things.
Yang He was also at a loss. He asked, "If I'm not in Ningzhou, where else can I be?"
Sunday Qiang didn't say anything, and stood aside with his hands down.
Then Yang He said: "Tai Meng, today Yanqing's bandits are targeting Ningzhou, what do you think is a good idea?"
"Back at the military gate, if you are chasing thieves for food, you can still persuade them to leave because of poverty in Ningzhou, bribe them to leave, or even set up farming on the spot. Anyway, there are a lot of wastelands in Ningzhou, but Liu Chengzong is a rebel leader, and he has no clever plan for his subordinates."
Zhou Zhouqiang spoke very boldly, which made Yang He raise his eyebrows. He even said that he bribed the thief?
He said angrily: "If you bribe him away and rob him somewhere else, is that not robbery?"
"Reporting back to the military gate, the subordinate officer has no military knowledge and is not familiar with farming. There are only a hundred or ten soldiers in Ningzhou. The important city of Xiongcheng cannot stop him. I will sacrifice my life to teach the leader of the thieves to retreat."
Sunday said forcefully: "With the imperial court's kindness in taxing Ningmin three times, I am afraid that the whole city will not be able to die. Instead, they will rush to surrender to the thieves."
He was not afraid of Yang He at all, and advised again: "Therefore, the military gate should go back to Guyuan. When the thieves attack the city, the people in the city may rush to join the thieves."
A person who cannot solve a problem is put in a position where he must solve the problem and has no other choice but to escape.
Death is also a way of escape.
Simple and effective.
However, Yang He was not angry. Instead, he grabbed what he said just now and asked, "You said chasing food and flowing thieves, and Liu Chengzong is the leader of the rebels. What do you mean?"
Isn't this obvious enough?
Sunday Qiang took it for granted: "He used his real name. I looked around the Yanqing bandits and found that there were only a few people who used their real names. Some of them gathered people for rebellion and committed illegal activities to make people recognize them. But Liu Chengzong has no use since he robbed Yan'an City." Pass a fake name.”
"No need for a false name. Of course I'm not the kind of little thief who wants to hide his name just for a few meals and some money."
Yang He clapped his hands and said with a smile: "Well said, are you really not afraid of death?"
Sunday Qiangxin read the telegram, thinking that I just said this, do you really want to kill me?
But the words had already been said, so he rubbed his neck and said: "Don't be afraid, what do you want me to do?"
"Do you dare to go deep into the bandit camp, follow the example of Guo Linggong Shijia, throw a spear, and ride back to the He army alone?" Yang He sat upright, stared into Zhou Qiang's eyes and said, "Recruit him."
This should have been a very impassioned moment, but unexpectedly Sunday Qiang shook his head like a rattle and said righteously: "I don't dare to be a lower-ranking official."
Yang He almost couldn't hold back the curse and rolled his eyes at him.
I just made it sound like you love your people like your own children, but in fact it was just empty talk.
Who can’t stand and talk?
Unexpectedly, Sunday Qiang didn't finish his sentence. He asked: "It doesn't matter if you enter the bandit camp or die, but I really can't think of anything I can do to recruit him. That is to commit suicide. I don't dare to commit suicide."
When Yang He heard that there was still a chance, he struck while the iron was hot and asked: "Isn't it enough to have an official position in the imperial court? From the guard to the general, you can negotiate. If you know how to reason, what is the benefit of going against the imperial court?"
On Sunday, he asked forcefully: "I hope the military gate will tell me where the money and food come from, where the camp is, where it is deployed, and how many soldiers and horses are dispersed?"
He always felt that Yang He's recruitment plan was just a joke. He couldn't afford the money and food, and he didn't dare to give him an official position. He didn't feel confident after being placed. How could the recruitment be successful?
The most critical issue is that none of the imperial troops have defeated Liu Chengzong, so what can be used to talk to him and what can be used to reassure him.
"The soldiers and horses were scattered to a thousand people, the military rations came from Shaanxi, and the people were stationed in Yanqing. As for the money..." Yang He looked at Zhou Qiang and asked: "He robbed 130,000 taels of silver, and he still expects the court to pay more Give him money?"
Sunday Qiang thought about it and asked, "What if Thief Liu is dissatisfied with his position as a general?"
"Then just delay. The Shaanxi governor's reinforcements are on the way and will be reached soon. King Qin's army has also returned from the capital. When the army arrives, we will wipe it out."
Yang He said, and gave Zhou Zhou a strong hand: "It's just that by then, Tai Meng will have to think about a way to escape."
The implication is that if the negotiation is not successful, his fate will be a well-deserved death.
However, Yang He did not just let Sunday be forced to die. He said: "If Tai Meng can help me facilitate this matter, he is the first giant bandit to surrender. I will tell you your merits in front of your majesty and recommend you to a fourth grade in Shaanxi." What do you think about the official position?"
Zhou Qiang's back was still slightly hunched and he sighed.
To be honest, he has been promoted from the fifth rank to the fourth rank by three consecutive ranks. However, after serving in Ningzhou, promotion does not mean much to him.
Especially in Shaanxi, he was recommended to the fourth rank, which means that whenever the bandits make trouble again, this fourth rank will be picked again.
He has long recognized the reality. The imperial court is finished in Shaanxi. This is not something he can solve.
Now he just wants to go back to Baoding Mansion and live out the rest of his life in peace.
He cupped his fists and said, "Then please ask the military sect to send a few followers and give me a letter. If you are determined to recruit me, I will set off to find Liu Chengzong today."
"good!"
Yang He was very happy, thinking that the great thing had been accomplished, so he immediately wrote a letter to persuade Zhou Qiang to surrender. In the letter, he expounded the pros and cons, and bluntly stated that Liu Chengzong's stubborn resistance in the corner was lifeless.
On Sunday, he was forced to take this job. It was an unreasonable disaster. He cried goodbye to his family behind the Yamen and encouraged his eldest son to be a good man. Then he led the four cronies assigned to him by Yang Hedian, led eight horses, held torches, and left the city. In the deep darkness.
