Just when Liu Daer's hatred was hard to calm down, Cao Zhizhou sent his confidants to find him. Cao Zhizhou was originally a profit-driven person who believed that "if you have breasts, you are a mother" and had no feelings for family and country. He had already been distracted by the Mongols' attempts to persuade him to surrender. The reason why he has not surrendered for a long time is that he is not satisfied with the price offered by the Mongols. For him, there is nothing that cannot be betrayed, as long as the price is right; secondly, he is assessing the risks. Previously, there was suppression by the Perak Army in the north and Yu in the south. Xing was stationed in Jiading, and his rebellion would definitely lead to siege from both sides. Although the Mongols will definitely come to help in large numbers, the war situation will definitely be very dangerous. Although Yu Xing is corrupt, he has a reputation for being fierce in fighting, and the Pili Army is not a good one either.
The disillusionment of his dream of promotion made Cao Zhizhou deeply disappointed with the Lin'an court, and decided not to sit on the fence anymore, but to join the Mongolian army to realize his dream. He also found Liu Da'er, who had a similar fate, and plotted to surrender to the Mongolian army, and claimed to support him as the prefect of Jiading. He himself annexed the territory of the Perak Army and became the king of Western Sichuan. The reason why he wanted to recruit Liu Da'er was that, on the one hand, Liu Da'er had 2,000 elite soldiers, so it would be less risky to recruit him, and he would be able to bargain with the Mongols better. The other reason was that the location of Meizhou City was very important. Not only was it on the passage from Longzhou to Yazhou for the Mongolian army, but it also blocked the Jiading waterway where the Pili army went south for reinforcements. Moreover, with the support of the Meizhou Navy, the Mongolian army could not only freely travel between the two sides of the Minjiang River, but also made it impossible for Jiading City to hold on.
"The coldness of two people put together makes them warm." As this Song poem goes, Cao Zhizhou and Liu Da hit it off and quickly contacted Niulin. The Mongolian army currently stationed in western Sichuan is divided into two factions supporting Kublai Khan and Ali Buge, and there are many conflicts between the two sides. In order to avoid disaster, Niulin, who was on the sidelines, left his original station in Shuangliu County, Chengdu, and went to Longzhou on the grounds of being prepared for the Song army. The boundary between Meizhou and Longzhou is only separated by a river, which makes it convenient for Cao Zhizhou Liu Dal'er to hold secret discussions with the Mongolian army. However, there is no airtight wall in the world, and what the two men did was soon learned by the insider planted by the Pili Army.
Another intelligence also confirmed from the side that Liu Daer was preparing to surrender. After the Perak Army's field brigade was expanded into a division, the troops' locations were readjusted. Among them, a field infantry battalion was stationed in a fort outside Pengshan City. The battalion commander was named Zhou Jianshen. This week, Jianshen was the baggage officer who led the new auxiliary army to revolt in the Battle of Hengyuan Fort. It was he who led the new auxiliary army soldiers who refused to be lackeys to kill the Mongolian army's supervisory team and start an uprising on the battlefield. Due to his outstanding performance, he was fortunate enough to become the commander of the main battalion under Cao Ergou during this army expansion. You must know that although the main battalion of the Perak Army only has 500 people, it is equipped with muskets, grenades and artillery, as well as a large number of mules and horses, and its combat power is better than that of two thousand new auxiliary troops.
On this day, a man who looked like a traveling businessman was captured by the guards outside the fort. This man claimed to be Zhou Jianshen's clan brother and asked to meet him. After receiving the notification, Zhou Jianshen hurried outside the fort. According to the regulations of the Perak Army, in order to prevent leaks of secrets, unrelated personnel are strictly prohibited from approaching the fort, let alone entering the military camp. After the first meeting, Zhou Jianshen discovered that the visitor was not a brother in the clan, but a former colleague in the New Affiliated Army. The man burst out laughing. He made some small talk and whispered a few words. Before leaving, he secretly slipped a letter to him. After returning to the military camp, Zhou Jianshen opened the letter and read it. In addition to reminiscing about old friendships, the letter expressed his aggrievement for Zhou Jianshen, saying that he was a talented person but was still a junior high school student. If he wanted to return to the Ming Dynasty, he would become rich and prosperous and stay in the army. Downloaded the contact information. After Zhou Jianshen finished reading the letter, he thought for a moment and then ordered someone to send the letter to the staff department of Chongqing Mansion.
Two days later, two counter-espionage officers came to Chongqing Mansion, and they also brought Huang Dagen's personal letter. In the letter, Huang Dagen told Zhou Jianshen that he asked him to agree falsely to understand the other party's intentions. These two counterintelligence officers were sent to assist him. Zhou Jianshen acted according to Huang Dagen's request and figured out the situation after going back and forth. It turned out that his former colleague had now defected to the Meizhou Army and became a confidant of Liu Daer. He was ordered to come here to ask Zhou Jianshen to join the Meizhou Army and defect to the Mongolian Army. What Zhou Jianshen needed to do was to seize Pengshan City and cooperate with the Mongolian army and navy heading south from Chengdu to prevent the Perak Army and Navy from going south to Meizhou and Jiading. Liu Dal'er promised to let him serve as the magistrate of Pengshan County after the completion of the matter.
After Ouyang Xuan got this information, he burst out laughing. He was laughing at Liu Daer's stupidity and self-righteousness. The Perak Army paid special attention to ideological and political education. Especially after the rebellion of Chang Yuan, the deputy commander of the Jiangyuan Militia Company, the Perak Army strengthened its daily anti-Mongolian ideological education. Political deputies are also set up at every level of the regular army, including brigades, battalions, companies, platoons, and squads. These political deputies do not interfere with military command and daily management, but have the right to report work directly to the staff, and even in emergencies Can veto political decisions made by military chiefs. Under such circumstances, it is impossible for Zhou Jianshen to lead his troops to rebel, let alone the political deputy who would take emergency measures, and the soldiers would not follow his actions.
Of course Ouyang Xuan also believed that Zhou Jianshen could not rebel. On the one hand, Zhou Jian is sincere and has deep feelings for his family and country. According to his words, becoming a new vassal was actually forced into a pit of fire. In the Battle of Yokoyuan Castle, he surrendered to the Mongolian uprising and escaped from the pit of fire. It was obviously impossible to jump back again. On the other hand, there is the Pili Army’s strict qualification system. To become a soldier in the Perak Army's standing army, you must go through strict background checks, and those who want to become a soldier in the main battalion must go through strict background checks. As for the selection of officers who want to become the main force, it is no longer strict; The inspection of battalion-level military officers like Zhou Jianshen has been carried out in secret, and the review opinions were finally formed after a long period of observation of words and deeds.
What made Ouyang Xuan laugh was the price offered by Liu Daer. Due to the frequent wars between Song and Mongolia, the financially strapped government could not spend much money to encourage soldiers to work hard, so they had to use official positions to encourage them. However, due to the traditional national policy of emphasizing civility and suppressing military affairs, military officers are often very generous in providing military positions, but stingy in providing civilian positions, resulting in serious "inflation" of military officers' official positions. In addition, due to lack of pay and other reasons, the shortage of officers and soldiers is very serious, and their value is far lower than that of civilians of the same grade. For example, a team of officers and soldiers should have fifty people according to the establishment, but in fact there are less than half or even more than ten people. A battalion should have five hundred people, but if it can only have 200 capable soldiers, it is a strong army.
The main battalion led by Zhou Jianshen has 500 people. During wartime, there will be two to three times the number of militiamen as logistical support. In terms of combat strength, it can match the strength of the Meizhou garrison. From the perspective of the internal system, due to the pressure of survival, the Perak Army did not emphasize civil and military suppression, but emphasized military-first politics with both civil and military forces. Zhou Jianshen's official position was at least equivalent to that of the magistrate of Jinyuan County where the capital was located, and higher than that of a second-class county like Pengshan. In Ouyang Xuan's opinion, Liu Da'er was stingy even in doing things like drawing big cakes. He didn't even understand the situation, so he took it for granted that he would use the position of Pengshan County Magistrate as bait to induce Zhou Jianshen to surrender to the Mongolian army. It was really ridiculous.
