"Although you and the whole township of Yonghua are guilty, you are the leader in the siege of the county. Isn't this true?"
The other three Tianchang Gongs immediately agreed: "Master, it's true! It was Baimangzhai who incited us to attack the county seat!"
Tian Changgong of Baimang Village could not argue, he just kept shouting about injustice and kowtowing like garlic. Whether it is the Ming Dynasty or the Song Dynasty, there are always "officers and soldiers". Since ancient times, it is common for officers and soldiers to "fu Yao", killing people, setting fires, massacring villages and destroying strongholds. They all saw how powerful the officers and soldiers of the Song Dynasty were last night. He was about to go to Yonghua Township to "fu Yao", which would be a catastrophe that would destroy his family and his clan. The Tiangong knew the seriousness of this and had no choice but to cry out for injustice.
Huang Chao himself had no intention of taking advantage of the Yonghua Yao people to establish authority: the Yonghua Yao people had been registered as households for many years and had frequent contacts with the local Han people, so they were a target that could be won over - to quell the local war, winning over some local people could play a role. A huge boost.
However, the scale of the Yao people's riot was so large that even the Yonghua Yao people who usually "keep themselves in peace" participated. This shows how chaotic the situation is and how agitated people are. Without letting these Yao people "know fear", it is impossible to make them obey your command.
"Not to mention your collusion with the Badai Yao rebellious party, the crimes committed by your Baimang village would have been enough to slaughter your entire village." Huang Chao said solemnly.
"Sir, please forgive me! Xiaozhai is really not the leader! There are people seducing Ba Paiyao in every village! ...There are..." Tian Zhanggong shouted at the top of his lungs, "I am willing to report you!"
"He's talking nonsense!" "Speak louder than your conscience!" "Won't your conscience hurt when you say that?!"
Huang Chao raised his hand to tell them to stop arguing. He glanced at the four Tianzhang Gongs and said: "I know very well who has colluded and who has not. You will go down in a while and write your own defense. Those who write clearly will lose the merit. Sin! If you are vague and careless, don't blame me for being ruthless."
"The little one is illiterate..."
"You said, I will arrange for someone to write it." Huang Chao said, "One more thing, you immediately send people back to the village. Anyone who robbed things or kidnapped people will give you three days to send them all back to the county. Come. If you don’t return it by the time, I will have to send someone to pick it up."
Several Tianchang Gongs had sad faces and could only say "yes".
"But we still have to buy salt. There is no salt at all in the village..." Pan Tianshun said with a sad face.
"You can only eat salt if you have a brain." Huang Chao said coldly.
The four Heavenly Lords couldn't help trembling after hearing this. When Huang Chao saw this, he smiled with his teeth and said: "Do as I say, listen to my words, and I will ensure that you have salt to eat."
The four Tianchang Gongs knew what else Huang Chao would ask for, so they waited silently for Huang Chao to speak again.
"You can go back tomorrow morning, and I can let your people go, but the morning after tomorrow, I want to see your young men outside Lianzhou City: all those between eighteen and forty should be armed and come to the county to listen to me. Order."
The Tianzhang Gongs looked at each other. The conditions were not harsh, but there was something strange about them. They have been dealing with the government and doing business with merchants for many years, and they have long developed the habit of being suspicious. Is this move meant to lure all their young men to death? I heard that the government had done this kind of thing in the past.
Huang Chao saw them hesitating and hesitating one by one, with confused expressions on their faces. He couldn't understand it at first, so he thought to himself, why is this so rare? asked:
"What other difficulties do you have?"
"This, this..." Pan Tianshun was in a dilemma. Telling the truth wouldn't make the Song official furious. Not to mention whether the other party was setting up a frame-up, but as soon as he said these words, he had to push them all out. Beheading is not allowed.
Peng Shouchen had been here for a long time and had experience in dealing with the Yao people. Seeing this, he already understood something about it, so he whispered a few words to Huang Chao. Huang Chao laughed when he heard this, shook his head and said:
"If I had killed them all last night, I would have kept you alive until now. Are you really going to do these tricks?" Huang Chao expressed disdain.
The four Tianchang Gongs knew that what Huang Chao said was true, but they could not make a decision immediately. They discussed with each other, and Pan Tianshun put forward a condition on behalf of the four of them: "We must have a hostage."
"hostage?"
Huang Chao suddenly looked up to the sky and laughed. He laughed so hard that the people on top and below were confused. After a while, he stopped his smile and said seriously: "Everyone of you, open your eyes and take a look! The heavenly soldiers of the Song Dynasty Yuan Yuan are here. If I want you There are a few strong heads in the village. In a battle last night, I could have slaughtered all of you. Today I will kill all the chickens and dogs in each village - still want to bother with this? You all should understand more clearly: I am thinking I have been keeping you together for many years, and you are all good and peaceful people. This time, I did not accept the instigation of Ba Paiyao, so I rose up and besieged the county town. Many people died. I feel sorry for you, and I am waiting for a way out! It's a life. Whether it's death, it's all within a thought!"
These words made several Tian Changgong turn pale. Pan Tianshun glanced at the others and didn't dare to speak anymore.
Huang Chao took care to release all the captured Yao people, and the wounded also received simple treatment. As for the corpses of the war dead, their heads were not removed. Each village was informed that they were willing to collect them themselves, and those who were not taken back were buried on the spot. All the captured weapons were also returned to them - the weapons of the Yao people were worse than those of the worst team of officers and soldiers. They didn't even have many iron weapons, and many of them were bamboo spears.
Starting from the next day, the Yao people from Sizhai came one after another under the leadership of Tian Changgong, and not only brought back the stolen property, but also brought back more than 500 men, women, and children from Yangshan County and surrounding areas who had been kidnapped.
Huang Chao looked at the property they handed back and found it really shabby. The Han people in Yangshan can't be said to be very wealthy, and naturally they don't have much soft goods. They saw that what they brought back was not only the bulky furniture from ordinary citizens' homes, but also various farm tools. As for cloth, food and clothing, they considered them to be the best trophies.
"This is really the poor robbing the poor." Huang Chao looked at the local people who came to hand over the Yao people and the local people who came to claim the items, and secretly sympathized with him. It seems that if we want to have long-term peace and stability here, we have to let everyone live a life of food and clothing. .
The things returned were miscellaneous and piled up in front of the county government office. Except for large items such as furniture, most of the items could not be clearly identified. Wang Chuyi followed Huang Chao's instructions to register and distribute them to the people. .
The robbed items were not registered, so it was naturally impossible to check whether all the Yao people in Yonghua had returned them honestly. But Huang Chao just turned a blind eye. Sizhai Tianchanggong said that all the things taken away had been returned, but part of the salt had been used and could not be returned...
"I won't pursue the problem of salt. It's difficult for you to eat salt and it's expensive. I've heard about it," Huang Chao said.
"Thank you, sir!"
"Where's Ding Zhuang?"
"They are all here. Wait outside the south gate for the master to check."
Outside the south gate, the young men of the Yao people from the Four Villages have already gathered. Because he only wants men between eighteen and forty, and in addition to the fifty or sixty young men of the Yao people from the four villages who were killed and injured in the ambush, so There are only more than a hundred people who are strong and strong. According to his prior instructions, they all carried bamboo spears and crossbows.
He looked at Ding Zhuang's complexion and thought it was pretty good. Anyway, the people in this time and space all have dark and malnourished faces. It's just that the clothes are a little tattered, and some people are wearing clothes that were obviously stolen.
Huang Chao asked these young men to wear blue armbands and form the Yangshan temporary squadron of the National Army. One of the teams stayed in Yangshan, and the National Army was responsible for "military training". The other two teams were ordered to follow the large army to Lianzhou.
Huang Chao stayed in Yangshan for a day and took care of some urgent matters in Yangshan. Early on the morning of June 1, he led his troops to take the small steamer that had been reinforced from Guangzhou and went north along the Lianjiang River. He came with the small steamer for reinforcements. There are also two small gunboats, 6 12-pound mountain grenades and their gunners, and 12 artillery cadets.
At noon, the fleet arrived in Lianzhou. Huang Chao was originally from Lianzhou in northern Guangdong. This was the first time he returned to his hometown in eight years. Looking at his hometown in 1635, Huang Chao was speechless for a while. At that time, he and his wife Huang Susu chose to time travel because their families did not agree with their marriage. Now he has returned to his hometown, but his parents are in another time and space. Huang Chao couldn't help but sigh. Was he too naive back then? Should he have persuaded both parents again?
Huang Chao couldn't think too much. He didn't even see the beautiful scenery of the Huangchuan Three Gorges on the way here. He had a lot of problems to solve in front of him. The troops landed on the west side of Lianzhou City, on the other side of the Longjinmen Pier. They saw that the eight rows of Yao who besieged Lianzhou City were sparsely populated. There were only fifty or sixty people outside each city gate, and they were generally older. Huang Chao roughly estimated that there are ten gates in the old city and new city of Lianzhou City. Except for the south gate of the old city that connects the new and old cities, the other nine gates all lead to the outside of the city and now surround Lianzhou City. There are about five hundred people, and the rest either hide somewhere or disperse to the surrounding villages to plunder, but this is not risky. Most of the villages in Lianzhou area have built walls, and each village has a strong guard. , every time five or six hundred men are not dispatched, it is impossible to attack a stronghold. If more people are dispatched, the defenders in Lianzhou City will break through if they seize the opportunity.
Information before departure showed that there were more than a thousand people in the Eight-Pai Yao siege. According to Pan Tianshun, Huang Chao estimated that there were probably between 2,500 and 3,000 young men in the Eight-Pai Yao and Twenty-four Charges. The number of Badai Yao who besieged Lianzhou City was probably more than 1,000, ranging from 1,500 to 2,000. Therefore, there is still a large part of Bapaiyao's troops that has not been discovered, and there is still a large part of Ding Zhuang left behind.
Now, Huang Chao only has 400 men on hand at full strength. There is one National Army squadron left behind in Yangshan, one squadron left in Yonghua Township, and only one brigade and the Li Miao Company who followed Huang Chao to Lianzhou. Huang Chao was unable to attack, so he chose to control the ferries on the west bank of the Lianjiang River to block Bapai Yao's retreat to the west. Now it depends on whether Yang Zeng can occupy Luming Pass in time.
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Next update: Volume 7 - Guangzhou Governance Chapter 397
