Songjiazhuang is located in the west of Lushan County, not far from Songshan Village in Funiu Mountain, about thirty miles away.
The western part of this thirty-mile road is a trail in hilly and mountainous areas. Although it is barely passable for carriages, it is not a good road. After leaving the hilly and mountainous areas, it comes to the plains and walks for more than ten miles. It’s time to reach Songjiazhuang.
The Songjiazhuang was built near a tributary of the Shah River. There were ordinary villagers near the manor, mainly tenants of the Song family.
Surrounding Songjiazhuang are large areas of farmland, and most of these farmlands are owned by the Song family.
The strength of the Song family is that it not only owns large areas of farmland in the Songjiazhuang area, but also owns a large number of farms in other places. The large amount of farmland allows the Song family to obtain a large source of food. In addition, the Song family still cultivates and studies heirlooms. Naturally, they don't pay this tax, so the Song family's wealth is well-known throughout Ruzhou.
It is widely said that the Songjiazhuang is full of grain and cellars full of gold and silver.
This is why the rebels in the Baoxiang Camp immediately targeted Songjiazhuang after they decided to go out to collect grain, grass and other strategic materials.
It's not because everyone in the Baoxiang camp has any hatred against the Song family, nor is it because Huang Guangmao is pushing behind the scenes, it's just because the Song family village is a big piece of fat.
They were so fat that Anyongduo and Wang Xiazi were just about to go out to collect food and grass, and everyone thought of Songjiazhuang.
"The Song Family Manor is relatively large, but the periphery is defended by ordinary villagers without protection. The core is the Song Family Manor."
"I have been to the inside of the Song family manor. Its courtyard walls are half a foot high and one mile in circumference. It contains not only the courtyard where the core members of the Song family live, but also the Song family's granary and other warehouses."
As Huang Guangmao spoke, he used a brush to draw the layout of the Song family manor on the paper.
"Although their courtyard walls are high and thicker than those of ordinary wealthy people, they are not city walls after all. It is absolutely impossible to block the bombardment of a 600-pound cannon."
"The Song family has at least two hundred guards in the courtyard, but if we attack the Song family village, the Song family will definitely temporarily recruit tenants Qingzhuang to defend together, and there may be four to five hundred by then."
"They have at least three artillery pieces on the courtyard wall, but they are all light artillery pieces weighing about a hundred pounds. If our artillery posts can accurately attack the section of the courtyard wall where they deploy the artillery, it will be enough to destroy their artillery emplacements. "
"The Song family's nursing home is well-equipped with strong bows and armor. I don't know the exact number, but it shouldn't be too few. Otherwise, they would have been taken down by other bandits long ago."
"I heard that in the first half of last year, at least two waves of thieves tried to attack the Song family manor, but in the end they all failed."
In terms of understanding of the Song family manor, Huang Guangmao undoubtedly knows the most among everyone in the Baoxiang camp.
After all, he had personally been to the Song family manor and seen the high walls and courtyard of the Song family with his own eyes.
With Huang Guangmao's explanation, An Yongduo and the others had a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of the Song Family Manor.
Blind Wang said: "No wonder so many bandits passed through Lushan County, but none of them could capture the Songjiazhuang. It has high walls and well-equipped guards. Look at the artillery and armor, The strong bow is probably stronger than ordinary officers and soldiers."
Huang Guangmao nodded and said: "Yes, this Song Family Nursing Home is indeed not easy to deal with!"
Zhang Malin said: "It doesn't matter, what they rely on is just a high wall. There is nothing we can do against ordinary thieves with such high walls. It does not mean that we can't do anything. When the time comes, I will personally take the two six hundred kilograms long If the artillery goes over, a few rounds of shelling on their courtyard wall will probably be enough."
Lin Dongsheng said: "That's right. As long as the opponent doesn't have the protection of the high wall, our army can attack directly. Is it possible that the opponent's group of guards and tenant farmers can still fight us head-on?"
"We don't even need to rush in, we just need to knock down their walls and destroy the emplacements of their light cannons. Later, we can put the light cannons in front, plus archers and musketeers to cover the fire. Not to mention the mere two hundred guards, even two hundred soldiers cannot stop our attack."
Seeing everyone saying this one after another, An Yongduo, the director of the staff department, also said: "In this case, then we will formulate a detailed attack plan now and try to submit it to the general for a decision later."
When An Yongduo, Wang Xiazi, Huang Guangmao and others were tossing out various attack plans for Shanshan, especially the plan to attack Songjiazhuang, Luo Zhixue on the other side also summoned key personnel from various internal affairs departments for a meeting.
Guo Quanshu also followed Chen Xingkai, director of the grain collection department, into it. After entering, he looked up and saw that there were quite a few people coming to the meeting today, including Huang Chengxuan, who had a good relationship with him. He immediately nodded slightly to Huang Chengxuan.
Huang Chengxuan also nodded in response.
However, they both had a tacit understanding and did not speak.
Today's occasion is obviously not simple at first glance. The people who come are either the director or deputy director, or the chiefs of the core departments under each department.
He, Huang Chengxuan, was promoted to be the section chief of the Land and Acres Section of the Grain Recruitment Department, so he was able to participate in this meeting.
Of course, if Chen Xingkai, director of the Grain Recruitment Department, did not bring Guo Quanshu to the meeting, the meeting would not actually be held.
Because even though Chen Xingkai is the director of the Grain Recruitment Department, in fact the person working in the Grain Recruitment Department is Guo Quanshu.
The director of the Grain Recruitment Department is an old thief. He has run errands behind Sun Chengcheng and Luo Zhixue successively and is responsible for some camp affairs. Previously, this person was in charge of coordinating the grain requisition operations of the Baoxiang Camp during the autumn harvest. Although he could not read Chinese characters, But it was a pretty good job, at least nothing went wrong.
After Luo Zhixue established the Grain Collection Office, he was officially appointed as the director of the Grain Collection Office, taking overall responsibility for grain collection and tax collection.
However, although Chen Xingkai is senior and has rich experience, he is still illiterate. He can't even read official account books. When he used to deal with grain requisition matters, he used messy symbols that only he could understand to record them. Account.
Later, when Guo Quanshu was assigned to serve as a clerk under him, the account books at the Grain Collection Office were gradually sorted out.
Therefore, Guo Quanshu actually knew more about the situation at the Grain Recruitment Department than Chen Xingkai, so it took him less than a month to surrender and less than half a month to be promoted to Tian Mu Ke before he could attend today's meeting.
Guo Quanshu's situation is not an exception, but a common situation.
In fact, of the twelve people who came to the meeting today, five were forcibly kidnapped scholars like Guo Quanshu.
In addition, there are a few people who are half-hearted scholars who were born in the mountains, and a few more are old thieves like Chen Xingkai.
The Baoxiang Camp is in short supply of talents, especially those who are literate and can read and write official documents.
This does not mean that you have to be a traditional scholar who is familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, as long as you can read and write official documents.
However, even so, it was difficult to find enough talents, so Luo Zhixue focused on the hostage children of the landlords and prisoners of war.
There is no way, there are only so many literate people in Funiu Mountain now, Luo Zhixue doesn't bother to care about his background or his ideas, he will use them to death if he catches one.
As a result, at today's internal affairs meeting, five of the twelve people attending the meeting were kidnapped children of landlords.
Guo Quanshu is just one of them.
After Guo Quanshu and others waited for a while, they heard someone outside shout softly: "The general is here."
Immediately, everyone stood up, and after a while, Guo Quanshu saw a young man appearing at the door.
This person is none other than Luo Zhixue. He is wearing a dark blue robe and a scarf. He looks relatively mature, but it can still be seen that this person is only sixteen or seventeen years old.
Guo Quanshu didn't stare at Luo Zhixue for too long. He just took a quick glance and lowered his head like the others, and then said loudly: "Meet the general!"
Although the Luo Zhixue in front of him was seven or eight years younger than Guo Quanshu, Guo Quanshu knew very well that the young man in front of him was the highest authority in Funiu Mountain, with thousands of Baoxiang soldiers in his hands.
The most important thing is that he also found out at this time that Luo Zhixue was not an old thief. He was just a refugee more than half a year ago. However, after joining the Baoxiang Camp, he was reused by Li Tonglin and Sun Chengli successively, and finally under Sun Li's leadership. After Xi Jinping died of illness, he came to power in one fell swoop and became the general of the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp.
Such a young man could become the leader of an army in just over half a year, and make the bandit leaders willing to obey his orders.
How is this possible without some ability?
Therefore, Guo Quanshu never looked down upon Luo Zhixue because of his age. On the contrary, Guo Quanshu paid more attention to Luo Zhixue.
Luo Zhixue stepped forward steadily amidst the crowd's voices, and made no other unnecessary movements. He waited until the main seat at the top of the living room sat down, then raised his hand and said lightly: "Stop standing, sit down."
Everyone sat down one after another at this moment, but except for a few old thieves who claimed that they were senior and had Luo Zhixue's trust and took the seat, the others actually only sat on the edge of the chair, but did not dare to sit down carelessly.
Luo Zhixue didn't care too much about everyone's actions. After he sat down, he took the tea provided by his soldiers, moistened his mouth and said: "I called the big guys here today because we will have a big move recently. And if the army moves, your support from behind must be indispensable."
After speaking, Luo Zhixue raised his head, glanced around and ignored the exclamations on everyone's faces. This internal affairs meeting was different from the military affairs meeting.
Luo Zhixue was there to listen to opinions at the military affairs meeting, but he was not here to listen to opinions at the current internal affairs meeting, but to assign tasks.
"Starting from today, all places must enter a state of combat readiness. Factories and workshops under the Industrial Department must work overtime to provide the army with a variety of ordnance, uniforms, and other supplies faster, more, and better."
"The Grain Recruitment Office should further tap the potential of each village in Funiu Mountain and prepare more grain and grass while ensuring people's livelihood."
"The Grain and Pay Office must do a good job in distributing grain and wages, and must prepare a batch of money in advance for backup."
"The Commercial and Trade Office should increase its efforts in collecting and purchasing materials, especially to ensure the supply of iron materials. I don't want to see the arsenal stop working due to lack of raw materials. In addition, we should prepare a number of manpower to purchase with the army."
"The Agriculture and Forestry Department should also tap into labor resources as much as possible to ensure that land reclamation and subsequent spring plowing are not affected."
"The camp office should also do a good job in internal logistics and coordinate various affairs."
Luo Zhixue said a lot after the meeting started. After saying this, he looked at everyone again: "Do you understand all this?"
When the chiefs of the various divisions said loudly that they understood, Guo Quanshu was horrified: Look at this posture, they are going to fight, and they are going to fight a big war!
