Although no one openly questioned Kong Youde, Kong Youde himself felt a sense of distrust surrounding him. .)
under. The rebels are bound to face the imperial court's suppression. As the saying goes, time waits for no one, and the time left for them is getting less and less. At the military council meeting the day before yesterday, everyone agreed that Huang County must be captured immediately. Siege Laizhou as soon as possible.
The purpose of capturing Huang County is to ensure the safety of Dengzhou, while capturing Laizhou can give the team more room for maneuver as soon as possible, so that they can advance, attack, retreat and defend. Otherwise, sooner or later, the officers and soldiers will be trapped between the mountains and the sea.
However, in order to further confuse the court and make the ministers advocating for appeasement open their eyes, it is still necessary to continue to express the sincerity of "appeasement". Although Sun Yuanhua has escaped, they still have a group of officials in their hands. These people are useless, so at yesterday's military council meeting, it was decided to release them all, including Song Guanglan, Zhang Tao, Wang Zheng and others. At the same time, they were asked to bring a letter signed by the main generals of the Dengzhou rebels to express their "appeasement".
Because Kong Youde had a good relationship with Dengzhou officials, this matter was left to him. Kong Youde thought to himself: On the surface, this is trust in him - "no doubt". In fact, he still has not been cleared of the suspicion of colluding with Sun Yuanhua.
However, there is no foolproof strategy at the moment, we can only take it one step at a time. Kong Youyou thought. Things haven't come to a conclusion yet, but we must capture Laizhou as soon as possible!
While he was lost in thought, a soldier came to report. Marshal Li Jiucheng invited him to go to the military meeting.
"Go back and report to the commander, I will be there soon." Kong Youde ordered. He knew that today's military meeting must be about sending troops to Laizhou.
They had captured Huang County a few days ago - it took almost no effort to capture Huang County, but it was hard to say how to capture Laizhou. The Ming army in Laizhou was limited in number and was not difficult to attack originally. But now that Sun Yuanhua has entered the city, the city's defense will inevitably be greatly strengthened. He was in charge of Laizhou as the governor of Denglai, and Yu Dacheng, the governor of Shandong, was very cooperative with his actions. Needless to say, Shandong's army would mobilize reinforcements to Laizhou.
"Come here, get my cloak!" he shouted.
A general came over and said, "Today is not the day of promotion, why should I wear a robe?"
"Of course we have to use it!" Kong Youde said loudly, "Military discussions should not be taken lightly."
He said that the soldiers would cover his whole body. Except for not wearing a bow and arrow, it is almost the same style as the "Court Ceremony". Although Kong Youde was the deputy marshal and his prestige in the army was second only to that of Li Jiucheng, he was very careful not to show any signs of arrogance and to maintain a low profile as a subordinate.
Now he was dressed neatly and went out of the Yamen. Someone had already prepared a fine Mongolian horse for him. Kong Youde got on his horse and headed to the Marshal's Mansion surrounded by his own soldiers.
The streets of Dengzhou have become silent. The people walking on the streets are all soldiers in uniforms. Occasionally, there are also ordinary people who are driven to work for the rebels, but few people make loud noises. Kong Youde and his party were walking in the middle of the road, and people on the road avoided them one after another.
The Festival Hall in the Governor's Yamen is now the Festival Hall of the Du Marshal's Mansion. Starting from the gate, there are neatly dressed warriors guarding you all the way.
Kong Youde was fully clothed and full of energy. He strode into the second gate, passed between two rows of solemn and silent warriors with shining swords, guns, swords and halberds. He bowed into the festival hall, knelt down about five feet away from the public case, and raised his head. Report your job title:
"Deputy Marshal Kong Youde, who is acting on behalf of the heaven, is here to see you, sir!"
Li Jiucheng nodded, smiled, and said, "Please get up."
In the festival hall, the main generals of the rebels have gathered. Most of them were generals from Dongjiang town officials to generals and guerrillas. They all have a group of basic troops in their hands.
After the rebels captured Dengzhou, they recruited the local Dengzhou soldiers and the remnants of the Southern Army, recruited a large number of young men from the local Liao people, and took in many local bandits and desperadoes. The size of the army suddenly expanded to tens of thousands, but the ones who were truly reliable and capable of fighting were the original Dongjiang troops.
The rabble can only be used as cannon fodder to build momentum. It is okay to fight smoothly, but they will be soft when encountering a tough battle. Therefore, Li Jiucheng and others had early sent a number of people to carry the salary captured from Dengzhou to various islands in the Liao Sea to lure the Dongjiang generals to lead their troops to "raise the banner together."
This group of people is not very good at fighting the Tartars, but there is absolutely no problem in crossing the sea to Shandong to fight against the officers and soldiers.
This activity is currently going very smoothly, and some Dongjiang generals have already expressed their willingness to join in the rebellion.
However, in today's military discussion, in addition to the originally planned attack on Laizhou, there was a new situation.
Mao Chenglu, who was sent to Huang County, sent someone back to report: There is currently a large group of rural warriors active in Huang County, and they are searching for refugees around Huang County. The troops sent by the rebels to rob the refugees had already clashed with them, and most importantly, suffered a lot of losses.
Yesterday, the rebels pursued thousands of refugees who were taken away by Xiangyong, and fought a battle with Xiangyong in Baimatang. As a result, they not only failed to take advantage, but also killed and injured four to five hundred people. The rest of the army fled back to Huangxian County.
"Whose Xiangyong is so bold?" Kong Youde was quite surprised. Xiangyong usually aims to "protect the environment and the people" and will not take the initiative to provoke, but only wants to keep the safety of the village. Moreover, with the current military strength of the rebels and the large number of firearms they have at their disposal, ordinary villages have no other way to deal with it except to surrender and let the situation be dealt with.
"It's a village near Longkou." Li Jiucheng said, "Chenglu said they have firearms and they are very powerful."
Kong Youde lost his voice and said, "It's Mr. Lu from Qimu Island!"
Li Jiucheng asked: "What? You know."
"That's right." Kong Youde nodded, "This Mr. Lu comes from the south, and he believes in God just like Governor Sun. So Governor Sun looked at him very differently at first, and even gave him a lot of weapons and gunpowder."
It's not surprising that Mr. Lu set up a stronghold on Qimu Island - everyone is like this these days. But why did he search for refugees on a large scale?
The land over Longkou is by no means a blessed land, so he couldn't possibly be looking for refugees to open up wasteland. Secondly, at this time of war and chaos, it is also winter, and there is absolutely no possibility of opening up wasteland.
The only possibility is that they, like the various folk Taoist sects on the ground in Shandong, are preparing to take advantage of the Dengzhou chaos to raise the flag to rebel!
In ancient times, anyone who wanted to rebel would first start by coercing the people and sheltering the refugees. The rebels destroyed villages and burned houses in Huang County. On the one hand, they wanted to collect as much food and property as possible and strengthen the walls and clear the country. On the other hand, they also took a large number of refugees into consideration, taking into account the expansion of the army.
This Mr. Lu also has such a plan? ! The generals in the festival hall immediately exchanged glances.
In this case, things will become difficult to handle. These generals have been in Shandong for many years, and they know a little bit about the folk Taoism in Shandong. They know that the incited believers are extremely fanatical. It takes a lot of effort to suppress it.
"This stronghold must be destroyed as soon as possible." Geng Zhongming said, "Once they start an uprising, it will be difficult for us to attack Laizhou!"
"The matter in Laizhou cannot be delayed." Li Jiucheng said, "Unless we win Laizhou, our brothers will not be able to sleep well in Dengzhou. A two-pronged approach! Attack Laizhou all the way, and kill this Mr. Lu as soon as possible!"
Li Jiucheng immediately decided to give Mao Chenglu 3,000 more elite troops and ask him to immediately attack Qimu Island and destroy the stronghold on the island. Mr. Lu and his team would kill all the people with foreign accents. If the refugees with local accents in the stronghold refused to obey, All those who were ordered were also killed - to avoid leaving any future troubles.
Because the opponent had a lot of firearms, Li Jiuzheng decided to allocate some more cannons to Mao Chenglu.
