In the city of Dengzhou, Luo Zhixue, in front of everyone, even many gentry, came to buy a horse bone with a thousand gold, and gave Dong Xinxin the title of Zhizhou of the fifth rank.
In addition to Dong Quanxin, the other twenty or thirty officials and even officials in Dengzhou City who followed Dong Quanxin and voluntarily surrendered were all promoted.
Among them was only an official from the ninth rank, who was appointed by Luo Zhixue as the magistrate of Xinye County, with the sixth rank.
There are also some officials who do not even have grades, but they have also obtained official grades, and most of them are not low. The worst ones are only eight grades, and there are also many seven grade officials.
Anyway, there are still a lot of control areas under the Baoxiang Army that lack officials. If these dozens of people are filled in, they can't even make a splash. Luo Zhixue is not afraid that they will cause trouble or have low abilities.
Let’s get over what’s happening in front of us first. If we find any corruption or lack of ability in the future, we can deal with it later!
This is not just for all types of surrendered civil servants and officials. In fact, the same is true for the appointment of civil servants in the Baoxiang Army, who were mainly self-recruited and half-baked scholars.
Anyway, there are only so many people, but there are too many official hats. Even if you have one person, you can still have a lot more official hats.
Under such circumstances, the Baoxiang Army appoints civil servants very casually. People who can basically read and write official documents can get an official position as long as you are willing to devote yourself to it.
If you have some management experience, such as being a shopkeeper of a commercial bank or something, and if you still have some talent after inspection, the group of officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Baoxiang Army who are recruiting people to serve as officials all day long will be able to I dare to directly appoint you as the county magistrate and take charge of a county.
If you have some management experience, good document skills, and have accumulated some experience and qualifications in the past few months, don't go to local departments, such as department heads and division directors in various ministries and agencies within the general. You can jump to any weight position you like.
In short, the current civil service system in the Baoxiang Army is very easy to mess with, and anyone who can do something will not fail.
But, even so, there are not many talents in the traditional sense, that is, those scholars who are determined to take the imperial examination, and come to join the Hometown Protection Army...
In the beginning, there were some scholars in the rural protection army who were born as children or even had the honor of being a member of the army. However, these people were basically in short supply in the early stage. In addition, in order to kidnap some local gentry families, they were forcibly kidnapped and used as hostages. By the way, they were used as hostages. official……
Later, after the Baoxiang Army no longer forced the gentry to send their direct descendants as hostages, the source of orthodox scholars quickly dropped to a freezing point, especially scholars with academic titles and above. In recent months, they have only recruited a mere forty-five people. Just one.
This is not a one-day recruitment in one city, but a number that has been recruited in the entire Nanyang Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture areas in several months.
And these people, without exception, are all refugees who have become refugees or are orthodox scholars who really can't get rid of the trouble in their families. They will come here to steal.
As long as there is a way to survive, most orthodox scholars will ignore Baoxiangjun.
Even if they already live under the rule of the Baoxiang Army and have no courage to resist, they will rarely join the bandits and become officials.
After all, few people think that the Baoxiang Army can last long.
In their view, Luo Zhixue, the great rebel leader, would not be able to survive for more than a few years. He might be surrounded and suppressed by officers and soldiers in a year or so.
At this time, if he becomes an official by joining a thief, it doesn't matter if he loses his life. I'm afraid his family will also be directly implicated.
It's not fun to confiscate your home and exterminate your family.
Now, the Baoxiang Army is actually constantly trying to improve its own image and reverse the people's inherent image of the Baoxiang Army as an anti-thief and a traitor.
Putting Dong Xinxin up as a signboard can be regarded as one of the measures to improve his own image.
After banning Dong Quanxin and others one by one, Luo Zhixue did not stay in Dengzhou for long, but led the main force back south to Xiangyang a few days later.
He didn't even go to the inner country.
Because he had learned that Sun Hongcai did not stop after arriving in Neixiang. Instead, he plundered Neixiang and continued to pass through Xishankou and north to the mountainous areas around Lushi and Luanchuan.
Sun Hongcai learned the tricks of bandits such as Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng. After looting the area, he went into the mountains. This also made Luo Zhixue speechless.
Who are the officers and soldiers here...
Sun Hongcai took the initiative to lead his army and fled lightly into the territory of Henan Prefecture. Naturally, the Baoxiang Army would not go deep into the mountains to pursue. They only sent a battalion to take over the inner township and garrison it, and then stopped the pursuit.
Under such circumstances, there is no need for Luo Zhixue to stay in Dengzhou for a long time.
On May 23, Luo Zhixue officially led his army back south!
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Just when Luo Zhixue led his army back south and arrived at Xinye City, he once again received good news about the northern battlefield. The 2nd Mixed Brigade no longer had high hopes, and overcame many difficulties and finally attacked Kruyang Pass on May 20th. And began to build fortifications on the spot, blocking the Yalu ancient road to prevent Hong Chengchou's army from going south into the Nanyang Basin.
At this time, more than 30,000 troops that Hong Chengchou had transferred from other places in the Central Plains had arrived in Lushan County, which was only a few dozen miles away from Luyang Pass.
After learning the news, Luo Zhixue breathed a sigh of relief.
You must know that Luyang Pass has not been captured before. Luo Zhixue has been worried about Hong Chengchou's army coming directly from Luyang Pass. For this reason, he has already asked the Engineering Department to urgently reinforce the newly captured Nanzhao County in advance. That is Yunyang Pass.
He just thought that even if he failed to attack Luyang Pass in the end, he could rely on Yunyang Pass, one of the three passes on Yalu, which is the seat of Nanzhao County, to stop the Ming army from going south.
However, Yunyang Pass is always worse than Luyang Pass. If Luyang Pass can be occupied, the entire three passes of Yalu will be controlled by the Baoxiang Army. It will be difficult for the Ming Army to open this passage again.
If Hong Chengchou's brain is burned out and he insists on storming the three passes of Die Keya Road, Luo Zhixue is sure to kill Hong Chengchou's hundreds of thousands of troops here!
But the three levels of Crow Road are not easy to beat!
According to the battle report of the Second Mixed Brigade, on April 29, the Second Mixed Brigade formally besieged Nazhao County and fought hard for six days. It was not until May 4 that Nazhao County was captured, and at the cost of more than 200 casualties.
The Second Mixed Brigade then rested for a few days and recruited more than 200 new troops before heading north to Luyang Pass and formally besieged Luyang Pass on May 9.
Moreover, they were attacking from the north and the south together. The Fifth Infantry Battalion was in the south of Lushan County at that time, just north of Luyang Pass.
Even though the Second Mixed Brigade formed a north-south pincer attack on Luyang Pass, the attack on Luyang Pass was still not going smoothly.
The main reason was that the Second Mixed Brigade had just formed the army at that time. The most important thing was that the third artillery post scheduled to be assigned to the Second Mixed Brigade had not yet received its six 600-pound field guns.
Therefore, whether it was the initial attack on Nanzhao County or the subsequent attack on Luyang Pass, the Second Mixed Brigade actually launched a strong attack without the cover of 600 kilograms of long-barreled artillery.
At the same time, Nanzhao County (Yunyang Pass) or Luyang Pass are both passes with dangerous terrain. The local defenders were not scared out of their courage by the rural protection army and abandoned the city. Instead, they kept trying to wait for Hong Chengchou's main force to go south for rescue. .
Therefore, it was quite difficult for the Second Mixed Brigade to attack these two cities, especially Luyang Pass. In the end, it was completely dependent on fighting to the death to capture Luyang Pass.
In the battle of Luyang Pass, the Second Mixed Brigade suffered more than 300 casualties.
In order to conquer these two cities, the Second Mixed Brigade suffered more than 500 casualties one after another. That is to say, Nanyang City and Li Qingdian were just behind, and they could replenish new troops at any time. Otherwise, whether they could insist on conquering Luyang Pass or not is another matter. .
Now, after reading the victory letter sent by Lin Dongsheng, the commander of the 2nd Mixed Brigade, Luo Zhixue finally smiled and said to the people around him: "Brother Lin is still capable. Without the support of heavy artillery, he is still in the enemy's army." The hard nut of Luyang Pass was broken before the reinforcements arrived."
Xu Zhixian on the side also answered: "After the battle at Luyang Pass, our army has the three passes of Yalu in hand. From now on, the north road will be worry-free!"
"However, the enemy troops may detour through Yuzhou and go south at any time. Next, we have to look at Yuzhou!"
"According to the time, it should be almost the same. Good news has come. Two days ago, we received a battle report from the Fourth Mixed Brigade. It said that they had filled in the moat and built a lot of siege equipment and were preparing to launch a general attack. Even though there is no heavy artillery to assist in this battle, it is still not a problem to capture Yuzhou with the strength of the 4th Mixed Brigade!"
Luo Zhixue said: "I hope so!"
Having said that, Luo Zhixue is actually a little worried about An Yongduo's Fourth Mixed Brigade.
This fourth mixed brigade is not the main force in the Baoxiang Army, unlike the second mixed brigade.
Although both of them are called mixed brigades, the second mixed brigade is a serious main force, while the fourth mixed brigade is just a traditional force formed by surrendered troops.
The gap in combat effectiveness between the two is still very large, and actual combat has proven this. Even if the Second Mixed Brigade suffered a greater loss, it still won consecutive battles. After taking Yunyang Pass, it dared to arrive at Luyang Pass with the troops sent south by Hong Chengchou. We captured this place before.
However, when Anyongduo led the fourth mixed brigade to attack Yuzhou, due to the quality of the soldiers, his mixed brigade was not marching very fast at the beginning.
After slowly arriving in Yuzhou, before he even started to besiege Yuzhou, he discovered that there were Ming troops coming from Wuyang and Ye County to the west to reinforce Yuzhou.
As a result, Anyongduo had to temporarily give up the attack on Yuzhou, and led the 4th Mixed Brigade to a encirclement point for reinforcements. They fought an encounter about 20 miles west of Yuzhou, and ultimately paid the price of more than 200 casualties. Annihilated more than 2,000 Ming troops who came for reinforcements.
After this battle, Anyong Duocai once again turned around and besieged Yuzhou.
However, the follow-up battle was still not smooth. Without heavy fire support, they could only rely on traditional methods if they wanted to safely attack the city.
Naturally, the casualties in this fight would be very high!
According to the battle reports coming in one after another, the Fourth Mixed Brigade has successively added more than 600 reinforcements, which shows that the casualties in the siege battle are not small.
The reason why there were so many reinforcements was because the brigade had just carried out an encirclement and reinforcements campaign, captured nearly 2,000 people, and selected several hundred qualified soldiers from them. Otherwise, the Fourth Mixed Brigade would not even have the reinforcements... …
At present, Luo Zhixue still has not received the news that the Fourth Mixed Brigade has taken Yuzhou City.
