Dong Quanxin stood at the foot of Dengzhou City. Behind him were a group of low-level officials in Dengzhou City. Of course, not all of them were former Dengzhou City officials!
A very small number of officials have committed suicide, but most of them took advantage of the chaos to escape from the city or hide in the city.
Behind Dong Quanxin, on the top of Dengzhou City, there are now dozens of soldiers of the Baoxiang Army wearing gray military uniforms.
Half an hour ago, the forward First Infantry Battalion and several cooperating cavalry had arrived in Dengzhou City. Wang Dazhuang, deputy commander of the First Infantry Brigade, initially accepted their surrender and then sent his troops into the city to control the surrounding areas. The city gates and important places within the city.
But this is not over yet. Dong Quanxin and the others still have to wait at the city gate, waiting for Luo Zhixue's arrival.
Dong Xinxin looked at the slowly approaching army, and with his sharp eyes, he saw Luo Zhixue in front of the army.
This is not because he knows Luo Zhixue, but because Luo Zhixue is now too discerning.
First of all, he wore a dark blue military uniform made of different material from the surrounding generals of the rural protection army, and rode a tall maroon horse.
At the same time, there were more than a dozen generals of the Protective Army on horseback beside him, and these generals of the Protective Army were all wearing gray military uniforms. Among these people, there was someone Dong Xinxin had seen before, and he knew he was someone from the Protective Army. Wang Dazhuang, deputy brigade commander.
However, Wang Dazhuang, who had his nostrils turned upward before and didn't take the demoted officials as human beings at all, is now staying next to the young man with a charming smile on his face.
Just by looking at his appearance and standing, he could tell that this young man in a dark blue military uniform was the leader of an army, and the only leader of the Baoxiang Army who could appear here was Luo Zhixue.
Dong Xinxin looked at Luo Zhixue and couldn't help but sigh in his heart. Sure enough, as rumored, Luo Zhixue, the chief rebel leader in the anti-thief army, was not very old.
Even though the young man in front of him looks more mature in his attire, it can still be seen that he is only twenty years old at most, and most likely less than that.
At such a young age, this man already had an army of tens of thousands and occupied the territories of Nanyang and Xiangyang. It was not easy.
If you surrender to this person, you may not be able to gain glory and wealth one day.
Yes, the reason why Dong Quanxin was willing to lead a group of officials to surrender in the county was not just to save his life.
In fact, if he simply wanted to save his life, he could just abscond like other officials, and there would still be a chance of escaping the hunt of the rural protection army.
And the surrender of the county town was not for the lives of the people in the city, because without him surrendering, the people in Dengzhou City would not be in great danger.
After all, the Baoxiang Army is famous for its rules. Now that there is no soldier in Dengzhou City, the Baoxiang Army does not need to launch any siege operations. In the future, as long as the people and even the gentry in the city behave honestly, they will basically not Than there is any fear of life.
No matter what happens, surrender is okay.
However, Dong Qinxin did not abscond, surrender, or resist. Instead, he chose to surrender.
The meaning is completely different.
Dong Quanxin just wanted to join the thieves and gain some glory and wealth.
Dong Xinxin was a civil servant. In the early years, when he failed to pass the Jinshi examination, he simply entered the officialdom. He started from a small county magistrate and spent more than 20 years in low-level official circles before he could reach the rank of seventh-rank official. Pass judgment.
After serving as an official for more than 20 years, he considers himself a good official and has done a lot for the people. When he was young, he served as a county magistrate and devoted himself to cultivating talents for the imperial examination. During his tenure, he also produced several candidates and many students. .
Ten years ago, he was transferred to a certain county in Shanxi Province as the county magistrate. He spent several years repairing water conservancy, paving roads, encouraging farmers and mulberry trees, and suppressing bandits. He worked hard and did a lot of things without complaint, allowing the people under his rule to live a good life for a few years.
However, these achievements were snatched away by a new appointee who was old enough to be regarded as his grandson.
The new county magistrate above his head travels around every day. After his three-year term was over, he received an excellent evaluation and was immediately transferred to Nanjing to serve as a road officer. He has a bright future!
But he, Dong Quanxin, worked hard for several years, but in the end, let alone the credit, he didn't even get any reward for his hard work. He even did too many things while doing things, causing his immediate boss, the novice county magistrate, to be very unhappy. Dissatisfied, he got stuck in the evaluation.
So much so that he wasted several years on the eighth-grade rank. Last year, he couldn't bear it any longer, so he bribed his superiors with thousands of taels of silver to get promoted, and then was transferred to Dengzhou to serve as the general judge of the seventh-grade rank.
But he knew very well that with his Juren background, starting from the seventh rank was basically a direct official career. Even if his character exploded in the end, he would only be a seventh-rank county magistrate.
In his lifetime, it would be almost impossible for him to transcend the limitations of the seventh rank and rise to a higher position, even if he continued to bribe.
If in the middle and early stages of the dynasty, it was still possible for a person to hold a high position, then in the late dynasty, this situation would rarely happen.
For him, who was born in Juren, basically reaching the county magistrate level is the end, and it is basically impossible for him to go up to the next level.
But he is not convinced!
Speaking of work, he has done a lot. Speaking of qualifications, he has been an official for more than 20 years.
However, when he was the county magistrate in Shanxi, his novice county magistrate boss was a kid in his early twenties who traveled around every day and got promoted early without doing anything.
Why!
Dong Quanxin has become more and more unhappy over the years. But this time, as the Hometown Protection Army came to kill him, Dong Quanxin couldn't help but have some ideas that he didn't have before.
Dengzhou City is about to fall into the hands of thieves, and many civil servants in the city have committed suicide or absconded. However, no matter what, they will not end well. Even if they abscond, the court will hold them accountable.
Why did Zhizhou hang himself so decisively? It was because of Sun Hong that he could run away, but he, a civil servant Zhizhou, could not run away.
Because civil servants such as magistrates have the responsibility to defend the territory, but military generals do not!
If Zhizhou and the others abandoned Dengzhou and ran away, the court would have to settle accounts. It would take a matter of minutes to confiscate the family and exterminate the clan. Even if Dong Quanxin and the others were just officials of Zhizhou and not the biggest responsible persons, don't expect the court to let them go. pass them.
Suicide is actually their best choice.
Absconding also affects family members.
Dong Qinxin didn't want to commit suicide or abscond, because he was taking his whole family with him. They were in Dengzhou City, and he didn't have the ability to abscond directly with his whole family at the critical moment.
If he doesn't want to die and can't escape, then the only choice left for Dong Quanxin is to be a prisoner or to surrender directly to the thieves...
Dong Quanxin was unwilling to be directly taken as a prisoner. Thinking about his past official career, Dong Quanxin gritted his teeth and simply turned into a traitor.
Maybe he would be able to do better after turning into a thief. In the Ming Dynasty, he was limited by his fame as a civil servant and could not break through the limitations of the seventh rank. He could only hang around among low-level officials for the rest of his life.
But if you defect to the thieves, in a new system like the Baoxiang Army, these anti-thief systems will definitely be in urgent need of talents, and in the early stages of development, all types of talents will definitely be given preferential treatment, and promotions will be easy.
Anyway, his two elders, Dong Xinxin, had died long ago, and he had no relatives in his hometown. With his wife and several children by his side, there was no pressure at all to bring the whole family to join the bandits.
Many reasons led Dong Qinxin to finally make the decision to surrender the city.
Naturally, Luo Zhixue was not clear about Dong Quanxin's many inner thoughts. Now Luo Zhixue only saw an old man with a goatee in front of him, about fifty or sixty years old, looking at him expectantly.
No matter what Dong Quanxin's psychology was for surrendering to him, Luo Zhixue still paid more attention to this first mid-level civil servant of the imperial court who took the initiative to surrender to him.
After all, he was a serious seventh-grade civil servant. Considering the phenomenon of emphasizing culture over military affairs in the late Ming Dynasty, his political content and influence were far beyond what military generals such as Huang Guangmao and Chen Yongfu could compare with.
Luo Zhixue also plans to publicize it well in the future to build momentum and better leave a new image of the Hometown Protection Army to the people.
That is, the Baoxiang Army is not an ordinary rebel, let alone the so-called bandits, but a serious new military and political force with the goal of conquering the world.
Tell it to those people with lofty ideals who are unappreciated, who are bent on gaining glory and wealth, or who are dissatisfied with today's troubled times and want to end the troubled times and benefit the people, even if they are just ordinary people who want to make a living.
You see, many court officials have already defected to our Hometown-Basing Army, which shows that our Hometown-Basing Army has a bright future. You should also defect to us quickly. We have the Hometown-Basing Army and can give you everything you want.
It is also to tell the many civil and military officials in the Ming Dynasty that they don’t have to fight so hard when facing our Baoxiang Army in the future. After all, even if you can’t become an official in the Ming Dynasty, you can just turn around and become an officer in our Baoxiang Army. Well!
As long as there are more civil and military officials in the Ming Dynasty who think this way, the resistance the Hometown Protection Army will encounter in the future will be smaller!
Luo Zhixue, who was determined to use Dong Quanxin as a sign and wanted to play with a thousand pieces of gold to buy horse bones, went up to see Dong Quanxin. He did not even ask Dong Quanxin in detail about his situation. He announced on the spot that Dong Quanxin was appointed as the magistrate of Dengzhou. Fifth grade.
In fact, it doesn't matter whether you ask or not. Ever since Luo Zhixue decided to accept this person's surrender, Luo Zhixue had already decided to make him the governor of Dengzhou.
Even Dong Quanxin himself was a little surprised, because he found that he was directly promoted to the fifth level, from a seventh-level general judge to a fifth-level magistrate.
It's just that the Zhizhou is the fifth grade, which still makes Dong Quanxin a little uncomfortable. After all, the prefectural governor under the Ming Dynasty only has the fifth grade.
According to the recently enacted military regulations to protect rural areas, the level of the governor of the prefecture under the jurisdiction of the prefecture is the fifth rank, which is one level higher than the fifth rank of the governor of the prefecture under the Ming Dynasty.
Not only was the level of magistrates higher, but the level of county magistrates under the rule of the Baoxiang Army was actually higher. The magistrates under the rule of the Baoxiang Army were the sixth grade, instead of the seventh grade during the Ming Dynasty, which was raised by two grades.
As for the seventh grade, in the Baoxiang Army, it belongs to the magistrates of the towns under the county and the chiefs of the departments under the county.
However, the Baoxiang Army has not yet officially established a prefecture-level yamen, and the predetermined prefect level is still only the fourth grade.
The grade of the prefect remains unchanged, but the grade of the subordinate magistrates and county magistrates has been greatly raised. From this, it can be seen that the Baoxiang Army pays more attention to grassroots rule than the traditional dynasty.
In particular, they pay more attention to the role of the chief officials of a land, and for this reason they do not hesitate to directly raise their grades.
How should I put it? Luo Zhixue feels that a county magistrate who is in charge of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people is just a seventh-grade sesame official. It is too low and seriously mismatches their role and political status. It is not enough to say the least. You have to get a genuine sixth grade!
