Fu Song

Chapter 463
Of course, there are still many people who are too busy to play in mud now.

For example, Gu Zheng.

At this moment, he is squatting on the ground, playing with mud boredly.

The rain-soaked clay was turned upside down in his hands, and it became extremely smooth in a moment, and then under his dexterous fingers, it turned into small living objects.

Kettles of different shapes, teacups and even some birds and beasts with both shapes and spirits.

If this guy doesn't become a general, with this skill, he probably can do well.

Hundreds of cavalry under his command were washing their horses by the stream at the moment, rushing all the way, the horses were splashed with mud.

Gu was ordered to suppress the bandits.

But the officer and Gu Zheng who issued the order knew that this was just a formality.

By the time Gu Zheng arrived, those so-called bandits had already fled into the mountains.

These bandits who are familiar with the terrain have a strong foundation in the local area. From Gu Zheng's point of view, it is likely that every household has someone who has become a bandit.

Can't live anymore.

After finally surviving the winter famine, those who should have starved to death have almost starved to death, and those who should have frozen to death have all become rotten bones buried in the ground.

When spring is ushered in, when everything recovers, you can always find something to eat.

No matter how difficult it is, it is necessary to plant some hope in the ground.

Without seeds, we can only buy them from wealthy families at a high price, because if we don’t plant them, isn’t there even hope?
After the busy spring plowing, the people who were exhausted both physically and mentally hadn't recovered yet, and a new order from the imperial court came down.

It was this order that caused the common people to completely collapse.

pay taxes.

Last year's tax has been paid, and last year's corvee has also been served. This year, whether it is summer tax or autumn tax, it is far from the end!
However, the imperial court ordered the collection in advance.

Moreover, the summer tax and autumn tax are collected in advance.

When it is allocated to every common people, there is almost a consistent amount of money.

If a family has three or five members, that is three to five pennies.

Even during the Taiping New Year, it is not easy for ordinary people to accumulate three or five pennies at home, not to mention that since last year, the outbreak of war has made livelihood even more difficult.

In addition to heavy taxes, there are even more frightening corvee.

This is not to build roads and bridges to prevent floods, but to deliver food and grass for the army, build ordnance and even build castles.

This is the stuff that kills.

Ever since, large-scale tax evasion and military evasion broke out in various parts of Dali.

When fleeing far away, it became commonplace to raise the flag and pull the pole to rebel.

Zuo Zuo couldn't survive anymore, he might as well go up the mountain and become a bandit, maybe he could save his life.

The local officials are afraid or unwilling to suppress the bandits now, because they are all from the village, several generations, maybe everyone still belongs to the same ancestral hall, and those young and strong all go to the mountains to become If you bully these orphans and widows in the local area, you can pay them back if they lose their accounts, but if they still have people, you may be able to get revenge at any time.

Such a thing has not happened before.

A county clerk forced someone to die for tax money, turned around on a dark and windy night, and was groped at the door, and the whole family was killed cleanly.

The suppression of bandits fell on the heads of regular troops like Gu Zheng.

Especially on the army that he defected from behind.

Hard work, tiring work, annoying work, thankless work, and work that is easy to be unlucky, naturally they have to do it.

In fact, if Gu Zheng knew a little better, life might be better.

But he was not very knowledgeable.

The [-] cavalry under his command were all the elite of the frontier army, and the cavalry was enviable and coveted no matter what time it was.

As soon as he arrived at Lanxi, someone signaled him overtly or secretly, and then asked Gu Zheng directly to ask for it, but Gu Zheng refused immediately, which meant that the leader of Lanxi County had promised him to form an army alone.

But in fact, it was Long Cang, the leader of Lanxi County, who really wanted to split up the cavalry.It's just that he still wants to save face, and he's embarrassed to lick him up when he speaks out, so he uses another person to hint at Gu Zheng. Unexpectedly, Gu Zheng doesn't show face like this, which makes people very unpleasant.

I think that when you were lured to come here, it was to divide Gao Yingxiang's strength. As his confidant general and cavalry leader, if you, Gu Zheng, surrendered, it would be a great blow to Gao Yingxiang.

Time has passed, and now Gao Yingxiang has become a grasshopper after autumn, and it won't be a few days. Your role, Gu Zheng, is naturally not that important. If you don't know a little bit about it at this time, you can't blame others for it. You're welcome, aren't you?
Thus, the arrears of wages happened.

From time to time, people come to make trouble.

So the hard work came one after another.

Gu Zheng was very stubborn.

The group of cavalry under him is also very united.

At least so far, no one has been wooed by certain people or forces to abandon Gu Zheng.

This cavalry is struggling to survive in Lanxi.

But it is not an easy task to feed a cavalry of [-] people.

"General!" A school lieutenant came from a distance with two tying horses, got off his horse, his body was covered in yellow mud spots, and waved for the two soldiers to brush their horses, but he came up to Gu Zheng , and said in a low voice: "I have inquired clearly, Yugou Thief's farm and village are about [-] miles away from here. There are more than one hundred guards in the manor, and the equipment is very good. There are about twenty archers."

Gu Zheng didn't raise his eyes, kept his hand, and in a blink of an eye, he pinched a small figure like drawing a knife and attacking, while carefully pinching the eyebrows and eyes of the clay figurine with his fingers, he asked: "The key is that there are good things inside. No?"

"I heard from the tongue that there is a large warehouse, which contains about tens of thousands of rice, noodles and other miscellaneous grains. Other gold and silver are always indispensable, because the old brother of the dog thief has always lived here."

After arranging the made clay figurines upright, the captain glanced at them but gave them a thumbs up: "General, you look like a dog thief!"

Gu Zheng rubbed his hands, peeled off the dirt on his hands one by one, and said, "I will do it the night after tomorrow. By the way, have you made arrangements? What do the people on the mountain say?"

"It's all arranged." The captain said: "Those bandits have also attacked this village before, but they have never been able to attack this village. General, this time, we can still follow the previous example. When they When we return, wipe them out, and then we can perfectly push all the problems on them, and we can clear the suspicion smoothly."

Judging by the captain's expression, I'm afraid they have done this kind of business not once or twice.

"Not this time!" Gu Zheng said, "After taking down this manor, we will take away the necessary food and give them the rest, so that they can use the food and gold and silver to quickly recruit troops and expand their power."

"General, this will leak out. These bandits are very complicated, and they don't have any rules at all!"

"There is no need for any rules!" Gu Zheng said indifferently: "The big change is coming, and the time when we lived in a poor way will also end. Didn't you say that you were beaten up by Long Dayan for fighting for a woman a while ago? Don't you? When the time comes, you go and cut off his head to vent your anger."

The captain blushed, not because he could take revenge, but because of the news: "Is the general going to counterattack? Didn't Dong Xiangguo unite more than a dozen tribes to form an army of [-] to attack Huichuan?"

"Isn't this just right?" Gu Zheng said indifferently: "When the general retreated to Huichuan, he arranged for us to go to Lanxi for today, isn't it? After this battle, you can also be a general!"

The sound of beeping leaf whistle sounded, and the cavalrymen who had finished washing quickly put saddles on their horses, turned on their horses, and galloped forward along the avenue.

On the big rocks by the roadside, only Gu Zheng's exquisite handicrafts remained.

Night, Yu's Farm.

As the second largest surname and the second most powerful force in Lanxi County, Yu Yu is naturally the number two person in Lanxi County, second only to the leader Long Cang.Once you stomp your feet, the whole Lanxi will tremble, which is not an exaggeration.

The farm covers a wide area, including several hills. Since a river has passed through, tens of thousands of acres of fertile land are at the foot of these mountains. Duandi is a good place.

It is called Zhuangzi, but it is also a fortress. The location of the fortress is excellent. It is just surrounded by the river on three sides, forming a figure-shaped middle, and the highland suddenly protrudes. threatening danger.

The only piece of land is the gate of the fort.

Such a place, if you say you want to fight, it is really rare to take it down, unless you organize a large enough army to attack head-on.

It is almost impossible to expect some bandits to attack such a heavily fortified fortress.

For the past few days, bandits have been haunting the area. The old owner Yu has already recruited all the young and strong people outside to defend, but I heard that this time it is a combination of several bandits, and the old owner Yu has no idea. So he sent people out to ask his son for help, and asked the county to send a large army to wipe out these bandits, so as to keep the manor safe.

In the middle of the night, the lights on the fort wall were still brightly lit, and teams of Fort Ding and young adults were patrolling.

Suddenly, the sound of horseshoes sounded in the distance, and the fort wall became tense. After a while, a fire dragon appeared in their field of vision.

"It's officers and soldiers, it's officers and soldiers!" On the fort wall, everyone became excited, and bandits would never have so many cavalry.

Sure enough, after a while, the fire dragon rushed directly under the fort, with a dense army and bright armor.

"My general, Gu Zheng, came to support Yujiazhuang under the order of Yu Changshi." Under the banner, a general in armor and armor raised his head and shouted. "Hurry up and prepare some food and hot water, we rushed here overnight, but we are exhausted!"

From the old owner Yu to the ordinary Baoding, no one in Zhuangzi thought about other aspects. This Zhuangzi, who had almost perfect defensive terrain, opened the door in front of Gu Zheng.

Gu Zheng took the reins and rushed into the gate of the fort.

Behind him, hundreds of cavalry could not enter.

In a blink of an eye, screams sounded in the castle.

The perfect terrain was originally a natural defensive position, but at this moment, it has become a ghost gate for everyone in this village. After the gate is blocked, they have nowhere to escape.

The screams continued throughout the night.

At dawn, the cavalry came out of the castle in single file. The difference from last night was that their armor was splashed with red liquid, and everyone's face was full of cruel smiles.

Everyone immediately brought [-] years of food, and each person was rewarded with ten guan coins.The rest were thrown in the fort.

These hundreds of cavalry were led by Gu Zheng with strict discipline.

It's only a few miles out of the castle, but there are several horses waiting beside the road.

Gu Zheng walked towards them with his horse, but the rest of the cavalry didn't even look at them and continued to move forward.

Even if these people can clearly feel that in the forest not far from them, there are countless people lying there watching.

They were all bandits who couldn't even get enough to eat. If they really dared to attack these hundreds of heavily armed cavalry, they would be looking for death.

"Everything in Zhuangzi will be rewarded to you!" Gu Zheng said indifferently: "Within a month, pull up a team of at least [-] people, and then wait for my order to do it well. When the general returns , you will not only be able to return to the army, but you will also be promoted to ranks."

"Obey!" Several bandit leaders bowed deeply.

These people were originally from the frontier army.

He already knew Gu Zheng, the general next to the great general.

It wasn't until the five hundred cavalrymen disappeared from their sight that the leaders shouted, and immediately stood up from the woods. Countless figures, men, women, old and young, were the same, but all of them were skinny.

They rushed towards Yu's Manor with shouts, and rushed into the fortress with the gate open without any resistance.

Then, the sound of exclamation sounded inside.

In Yu's Manor, there is no longer a living person to be seen.

Several leaders looked at each other, and they all saw the horror in each other's eyes.

They know that this account will undoubtedly be recorded on their heads.

But what does it matter?

"Bring food, weapons, and everything useful, let's go!" the leader roared loudly.

On the hilltop in the distance, Gu Zheng looked coldly at the soaring fire and the billowing smoke in the direction of Yu's Manor, smiled at his side and said, "Write to Long Jun and Yu Changshi, the bandit raided Yu's Manor at night, Tuzhuang, looted property and set fire to it, and now my subordinate is searching for the traces of these bandits, and vows to avenge Yu Changshi!"

With the horseshoes won, they headed towards Lanxi County. At this moment, another cavalry, starting from the direction of Bijie, was also rumbling towards Lanxi County.

The scale of [-] cavalry on this land is enough to make people's faces change.

And the flying flags showed their identities even more.

The Skyhawk Army, composed of the three-way barbarians in Syria, officially launched an attack on Dali.

(End of this chapter)