On May 20th of the fifth year of Wanli, the new army, which had been renovating in Zhaoqing for a few days, headed towards Xinyi under the leadership of Ling Yunyi and Liu Xian.
Along with the new army, there were nine thousand soldiers led by Gaozhou General Chen Lin.
The so-called Martyr Soldiers, also known as "Wolf Soldiers", refer to the chieftain soldiers distributed in northwest Guangxi and parts of southern Guizhou. The ethnic classification is later divided into Yao and Zhuang, but there is no consensus. But for the soldiers who were born and raised here, ethnic categories are imposed by outsiders, and they themselves don't care.
The first use of soldiers in the Ming Dynasty was during the Yingzong period. In the winter of October of the second year of Zhengtong, Shan Yunshang, then the chief military officer of Guangxi and the governor of Guangxi, reported to the court, "In the local official areas of the left and right rivers, there are many people and few fields, and their soldiers are brave and feared by thieves." He suggested that the court "select Appoint the leader to lead people to cultivate the wasteland near the mountains and cut off the way for thieves to come and go." In order to stabilize the place.
The wolf soldiers fought bravely. History records that "the wolf soldiers in the three states of Dongguan, Nandan and Nadi in Guangxi were able to defeat the masses with a small number, and they won nine times out of ten. Why, the local officials in the three states were roughly like Qin The method is to take the first prisoner as the chief merit, the military order is strict, the reward is also heavy, and the number of soldiers is not willing to die." The combat ability far exceeds that of the guards, and in the late Ming Dynasty, there was even a saying that "Guangxi soldiers are the best in the world".
The reputation of Guangxi soldiers as being brave and capable has been passed down to later generations. Marshal Peng Dehuai even commented on the enemies of the Red Army during the Long March: "The Guizhou Army and the Dian Army are two sheep, the Hunan Army is a wolf, and the Guangxi monkey is the Gui Army, as fierce as a tiger." As evil as a wolf.”
Therefore, after Yingzong, the Ming court, which had tasted the benefits, relied more and more on the use of martyrs. In the later period, it even dispatched martyrs to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to fight against Japanese pirates. During the Jiajing period, "Mrs. Wa" led soldiers to fight against Japanese pirates in the south of the Yangtze River, and she was called a "heroine" by later generations.
However, the use of martyrs also has great disadvantages. The wolf soldiers were essentially mercenaries of the imperial court. Their command was in the hands of various chieftains. The imperial court lacked effective means of control, which led to military discipline disorder. There were many acts of burning and killing civilians, and the common people even feared the wolf soldiers. Yu thief's statement.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were many records of "calling wolf soldiers, looting, looting and killing, chickens and dogs were not spared, and the plot was not hidden, nothing more than this." There are many records like this. During the Zhengde period, when the bandits Liu Liu and Liu Qi were involved in the rebellion, the imperial court mobilized Yongshun and Baojing to coordinate the suppression of the rebellion, causing plunder and disaster. The bandit once said to the plundered people: We come here like a comb, and the chieftain's soldiers are like a grate - this shows the military discipline of the soldiers.
However, for this group of soldiers who were following the New Army, there was really someone who could suppress them. This person was Gaozhou General Chen Lin.
Chen Lin, also known as Chaojue. Born in the 11th year of Jiajing, from Shaozhou, he is now forty-five years old. In the 41st year of Jiajing's reign, Chen Lin led the way to pacify civil unrest in Chaozhou, Yingde and other places, and was promoted to the commanding officer, and later to the Guangdong garrison.
While Yin Zhengmao was in Guangdong and Guangxi, he vigorously promoted and used Chen Lin, a brave and resourceful general. In the first year of Wanli, Chen Lin defeated the rebels of Deng Shenglong and the Jieyang mountain bandit Zhong Yuequan. In March of the second year of Wanli, because Zhang Yuanxun's general Li Chengli was defeated in the attack on Chaozhou bandits Zhu Liangbao, Yin Zhengmao temporarily granted Chen Lin the post of general. Chen Lin was given command of a military force, and after pacifying Zhu Liangbao, Chen Lin was awarded Zhaoqing Guerrilla General, and was transferred to Gaozhou Staff General.
Chen Lin was born to lead troops. He has a stout figure and amazing physical strength. His eyes are small but slender, always flashing with a fierce light, his nose is wide and his mouth is wide, and his voice is low and hoarse. When others meet him, they will know that this person is not easy to get along with.
The soldiers and chieftains under his rule saw him like a mouse seeing a cat, and no one was afraid of him, because this man was more cruel. When Chen Lin first served as a general, because the soldiers were dissatisfied, Chen Lin used a sword to challenge the warriors' weapons in the school field.
Due to the enthusiasm of the fight, he knocked down the weapons of several wolf soldiers in succession, and then cut off their forearms. Chen Lin painted his face with blood and continued to shout a challenge, but none of the wolf soldiers dared to respond.
Chen Lin is brave and powerful on the one hand, but also wise and greedy on the other. Since his days in the army, he has been predatory by nature, killing prisoners for credit, and bribing his superiors to do anything - exactly in line with Yin Zhengmao's temper.
Yin Zhengmao, a member of Zhang Juzheng's party, had similar temperament and temperament. They only sought merit in doing things and did not care about anything else. Their reputations were not very good in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty. They themselves were greedy for merit and money, and they were not stingy with their subordinates. Chen Lin gave most of what he got from looting to his superiors and a small amount to the soldiers, leaving only some soup for himself. After several years of this, Chen Lin used the uniforms of his soldiers as if they were arms and fingers.
This march will cover 480 miles from Zhaoqing to Xinyi and will take fifteen days. As soon as the two armies walked on the road, the gap was immediately obvious: the new army was trained like a wooden man, and even after traveling thousands of miles, the formation was not scattered. Most of the soldiers led by Chen Lin did not even have military uniforms. Most of them had black cloth, black shoes, and black cloth headbands. Some had weapons on their shoulders, some carried them on their shoulders. They walked as hard as they could, and the thickness of the team was uneven. , there is no requirement for neat queues.
Liu Xian and Deng Zilong, the commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief, both fought in Guangdong and knew that the combat effectiveness of these skinny soldiers cannot be judged by their appearance. However, the middle and lower-level officers of the New Army have been brainwashed by the martial arts concept of "discipline is combat effectiveness". When they see the soldiers like this, their disdain is palpable.
The new army transferred to Guangdong for training. Every day after the two armies were stationed, seminars were held, with Chen Zan as a teacher, teaching the officers of the new army.
Chen Zan has never been to a martial arts school, but in the past six months, he has met a few officers from Guangdong and Guangxi who graduated from martial arts schools and had exchanges with them. In Chen Zan's view, these officers who returned to Guangdong and Guangxi from martial arts training were basically stupid.
After these people came back, they copied the martial arts training methods to their own guards, and copied all the methods of formation, garrisoning and marching. However, how can the guardsmen have the supplies of the new army in the Beijing camp? After practicing for less than half a month, two people provoked mutiny, leaving all these graduates disgraced.
Therefore, a general like Chen Zan, who fought through a sea of blood, did not look down upon military officers. However, under the orders of Ling Yunyi, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, he had no choice but to listen to these lessons.
On the first day, the two armies were stationed on the north bank of the Xijiang River. Before dinner, Chen Zan gave lessons in the big tent. He first used Luopang Mountain as an example to give an overview of the impact of dense forest and mountainous terrain on marching, and then emphasized: "Luopang Mountain is high in mountains and densely forested, with criss-crossing trails. The first thing to do when marching is to be vigilant..."
In Chen Zan's view, the security of mountain warfare requires elite troops to be deployed at the front, middle and rear outposts, and they must be deployed in groups - at least a thousand people must be deployed to be responsible for security, and the protection of grain roads must be given top priority. Judging from past experience in dealing with the Yao people, what they are best at is breaking them into parts and then breaking them into parts again, sneaking attacks on the rear of the army and cutting off our food routes.
After hearing this, the officers of the New Army looked at each other and thought that this was all the teacher was tired of talking about. The protection of grain roads was also a top priority in the plains - who could ignore it? Seeing that they were dissatisfied, Chen Zan picked up a two-foot-wide wooden crossbow on the big case and said: "There are poisonous arrow trees in Luopang Mountain. The Yao people cut the skin to get the juice and apply it on the arrowheads. Although this arrowhead It's not iron but made of bone, but it doesn't have to penetrate very deep, it only scratches a little bit of your skin and seals your throat when it sees blood."
Chen Zan continued: "He hid in the dense forests on both sides of the mountain road. When your army passed by, his crossbows were like rain, and he left in a wave. He killed five of your army at once, and after two days, one or two hundred people were not seen. Their face is gone—how to respond?”
"If you stop and strangle him, he will escape without a trace through the woods, and you will not be able to transport food and grass; if you ignore casualties, the poisonous arrows will become more and more dense, how many people do you have?" Enough to kill him?"
Zhang Qianyu, the commander-in-chief of the New Army, raised his hand to signal. When Chen Zan nodded, he stood up and said: "The New Army has elite soldiers who stay awake at night. We can use scouts to fight scouts, and both sides will strangle them. His crossbow is not as far as my gun, so we can respond." .”
After hearing this, Chen Zan nodded and said: "This method is also what I use. That's why I have elite troops placed in the front, middle and back to protect the main force and food routes from a distance - it is fundamentally different from the plains. When entering the mountains and forests, Strangulation is everywhere, and there is no distinction between before and after in combat!"
After hearing this, the officers of the New Army all took a breath of the humid and hot air of Guangdong. When Chen Zan saw them calmed down, a smile appeared on his lips - because he looked so vicious, it was better not to smile. Seeing him, he called up a soldier beside him and said, "You see, how is his uniform different from that of our army?"
The officers of the New Army looked carefully and saw that the soldier had a black cloth wrapped around his head, black clothes and black shoes. He was no different from the daytime. They all shook their heads to express ignorance.
Chen Zan gave the answer: "I didn't know at first, but then I took them into the forest and realized the benefits of this outfit. Please see, this bun is used to prevent sweat. After entering the forest, it was extremely hot and stuffy. We sweat ten times more than we do now! When fighting, the sweat is in your eyes, where will your blunderbuss go?"
After hearing this, the officers of the New Army suddenly realized. Chen Zan pointed to the soldier's legs again and said: "Look at his pants. From the ankles to the entire calf, they are tightly wrapped with cloth. This is to prevent poisonous insects. Have you seen this in the dense forest? The poisonous insects are so densely packed here that if we didn’t have these leggings, the poisonous insects alone could kill half of us!”
Seeing that any of the New Army officers sitting below wanted to speak, Chen Zan smiled and said: "Although the New Army also wears leggings, they use straps. I think it is to prevent the legs from swelling when walking - straps may not work. I think it is best." Wrap them with cloth like wolf soldiers! If there is any gap left, the poisonous insects will be able to penetrate everywhere. After entering Luopang, our collars and cuffs must be tied tightly, and we cannot loosen them even if it is too hot to death. Governor Ling has given new instructions. When the army has prepared the step of tying your legs and wrapping your head, I will send soldiers to teach you how to tie your legs and wrap your head."
Liu Xian had known about this for a long time, and after listening to Chen Zan's words, he expressed his gratitude to Ling Yunyi. After listening to this lesson, the officers of the New Army suddenly had a picture of fighting in the mountains and dense forests - it turns out that in fighting in the southern mountains and forests, what has to be overcome is not the difficulty of attacking and killing the enemy, but the ubiquitous murderous intent in the dense forests!
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