stubborn thief

Chapter 366 Differentiation
Two hundred steps outside the Xiuchuan Gate in the west of Lanzhou.

Just as the ice and snow melted in the upper reaches of the Agan River, the mountain torrents rushed under the bridge, the water splashed and the waves roared. scene.

The pear blossoms at Xingyuan Temple on the upper reaches of the river are in full bloom and fragrant. At this time of beautiful scenery, there should have been a large-scale market on the bank for rice grains transported from Lintao, watermelons from Xigu, and timber transported by the boats of the Yellow River. .

It's just that the war made all this disappear without a trace.

Standing next to the pavilion, Zhang Quanchang, the central army of the Biao Battalion, governor of Shaanxi, watched the soldiers of the Biao Battalion in messy armor dragging guns and flags, retreating from the west bank of the Agan River to Lanzhou City, with a livid face.

In the secret letter he sent to Governor Lian State Affairs, it was mentioned that someone in Lanzhou City had leaked military information.

Hundreds of rafts in the Marshal's Mansion accurately bypassed the mine-laid defense line in one day, and landed on the north, west, and east sides of Xigu City, completely ineffectiveting his ambush, and was almost surrounded by Lama Ridge.

If he hadn't had enough experience and decided to retreat before the encirclement, Lanzhou's last fully formed elite army would also be buried outside the city.

Although this army is being kept, Zhang Quanchang doesn't know if he has lost the initiative to fight in the field because of avoiding the encirclement.

He only knew that his battalion must not go out of the city to fight until the spies were found in the rear.

He Renlong's face was also ashen in the city.

Among all the guards in this city, he has the most information on both the enemy and us on the battlefield.

The way the troops of the Marshal's Mansion evaded the minefields and landed, and Zhang Quanchang was withdrawn by Lian Guoshi before he was ambushed, these two things were connected together, it was not difficult for him to come to the conclusion that he was frightened to death and smoldering with anger!
He Yong leaked military information to Liu Chengzong.

But after all, He Yong is the brother who defended him from the arrows since he was a child, not to mention that there are many people in the city, and it is not a suitable place to talk. He Renlong just gave He Yong an angry look: "Wait to get shot !"

He Yong still didn't know what was going on, so he leaned forward and whispered: "General, we can plant the flag."

He Renlong raised his head and closed his eyes in pain, then turned his head to look at his servant leader in despair, and said in a low voice, "Still planting the flag, what an egg! Do you think everyone else is a fool?"

He Renlong cursed inwardly, why didn't he realize that Liu Shizi and He Yong had [-] intentions when they got together?

Liu Shizi has eight hundred and one, and He Yong loses one.

He hated iron but said: "You are being tricked!"

These two are absolutely amazing together, one is fucking stupid and the other is fucking bad.

He asked He Yong to find Liu Chengzong, with the intention of realizing that Lian Guoshi and Zhang Quanchang's ambush would cause heavy losses to Liu Chengzong.

Fearing that Liu Shizi would go crazy and slaughter the city, he asked He Yong to go over and let the lion recite the incense and fire.

Anyway, there is no big enmity between the two sides, but each is the master. I can't surrender, and you can't retreat. The old chief takes his brothers to eat, there is no need to kill them all.

This is half of what I said, if Liu Chengzong is smart enough, he will act cautiously, carefully check the terrain around Lanzhou, and reduce casualties; it doesn't matter if he is a big fool, anyway, the old officer has reminded you.

In the end, no matter what, He Renlong can get well. To put it bluntly, even if the battle wounds are captured, he will be healed anyway.

It was good for He Yong, who directly revealed the deployment of military aircraft for practicing state affairs.

Liu Chengzong was even more of a bastard, he didn't even wear any pretense, the army climbed up from the Yellow River like ghosts, bypassed the minefields, and directly divided into three groups to surround Lama Mountain.

The siege has not yet been surrounded, allowing Zhang Quanchang to run back to Lanzhou City without a fight.

He Renlong didn't believe that Liu Chengzong, who was able to defeat the frontier army of the three towns head-on, was too good at encircling and annihilating the governor's bid battalion. He thought in this direction, and it was easy to come to the conclusion: Liu Shizi did it on purpose.

He deliberately wanted to drive Zhang Quanchang back to Lanzhou City.

It's just that He Renlong couldn't understand Liu Shizi's purpose at first, but he soon figured it out.

From the evening of the second day of April, the cannons in the direction of Xigu roared until the early morning of the third day, when the cannons finally stopped.

In the morning, on the field ridges on the other side of the river west of the city, first hundreds of people drove donkeys and fled eastward.

People boarded the bridge where only people can leave, and left all their cars on the west bank.

Lian Guoshi wanted to burn the Zhuoqiao, but Zhang Quanchang said that the bridge would be gone if it burned.

Therefore, Zhang Quanchang left a few soldiers guarding the bridge to check the passers-by in order to prevent thieves and spies from sneaking into the Lanzhou city defense.

However, there is no need to be on guard against this meeting. Thousands of people escaped, and there was no time to interrogate them. Some of them were stripped down to only their clothes, and they ran to the city to report the news of Xigu's fall.

Zhang Quanchang couldn't care less about getting angry, and it wasn't a bad thing for the people to flee. It happened that he reorganized the people and built a sheep and horse wall [-] steps outside the city for city defense.

In the past, there was a sheep and horse wall built by Yang Yiqing in Lanzhou, but that was during the Jiajing period of Zhengde.

There has been peace here for a long time. Even when the Songlu pirates were at their worst, the military disasters did not affect Lanzhou City, and the sheep and horse walls that affected the people to enjoy the scenery and cross the river were demolished long ago.

It's just that this normal recruiting and reorganization of refugees caused the people who fled to blow up the pot, and the distinguished gentry figures in it complained one after another, why are your officers and soldiers not as good as bandit soldiers?

Even Zhang Quanchang was dumbfounded.

After questioning him carefully, he found out that these people fled eastward, not because they were killed by thieves, or because they were hungry, but because they escaped from forced labor.

The respectable old man among the refugees wept and accused the army of the Marshal's Mansion of the evil deeds. Those troops surrounded Xigu City, sent scattered horses to the villages, incited the people to attack and kill the gentry, and opened warehouses to release food everywhere to declare the peace of the people to confuse people's hearts.

Anyone with the surname of Li Jialiang who built a fort and set up a village ordered the demolition of the barracks one after another, and asked the farmers to designate them as rich and unkind big families.

They only gave two parts of what they looted to their neighbors, and then forced the people to send the money, food and materials to the vicinity of Xigu.

The people were terrified all night, and the artillery bombarded the battlements until the early morning. When the city wall could no longer stand people, they erected long ladders to climb the city, and the city of Xigu fell immediately.

Then the western thieves showed their true colors and drove tens of thousands of people gathered from all over to tear down the bricks and dig the earth to level the city.

Many people are quite happy when they distribute food and money, but they are not happy when it comes to work. They didn't sleep well all night, and they gave up the hard work in Pingcheng. run?
Fortunately, Xikou didn't stop them, and thousands of people came to Lanzhou City with the money and food distributed by the thieves.

Everyone in Xigu was forced to work hard by thieves, and at least they were given money and food; whoever wanted to go to Lanzhou to meet the officers and soldiers would be fine if they didn't give money and food, and let them do this hard work for free.

Who can bear this!

Zhang Quanchang was very helpless, both angry and amused.

Naturally, Liu Chengzong was angry because he wanted to flatten Xigu City. This castle is easy to tear down but difficult to build. As long as there are brothers and sisters, a city can be flattened in three or two days, but if you want to rebuild the city, it won’t take a year. It can't be repaired in half a year.

As for the funny part, it was laughing at Liu Chengzong.

Zhang Quanchang also moved to various parts of Shaanxi for two years following Lian Guoshi, and he was used to seeing what northern Shaanxi looked like.

As far as Liu Chengzong's set is concerned, if it is anywhere west of Taihang Mountain or east of Liupan Mountain, the people who were not robbed are absolutely grateful, and will have to offer Liu Chengzong's portrait on the stove in the New Year.

But this is Lanzhou, except for the heavy rain that flooded the fields in the first year of Tianqi, Lanzhou has a good harvest every year for the next 12 years.

Liu Chengzong wanted to use this set of ancestral handicrafts from northern Shaanxi to confuse people here, but it didn't work at all.

The common people sat quietly at home, when bandits and soldiers suddenly arrived, killing their neighbors, employers and even relatives.

To put it bluntly, in Lanzhou, even idle laborers are not short of the two monthly rations, let alone tenants.

The same behavior is essentially different in Lanzhou and northern Shaanxi.

But the smirk on Zhang Quanchang's face soon froze.

These Lanzhou people ran from the west to the east. When they heard that the countrymen would not let them enter the city, they would have to dig trenches and build walls.
Within a day, [-]% of them went back as they came, and all ran west.

Except for the old and weak, women and children, the rest of the young and strong cannot be stopped.

Zhang Quanchang later realized that it was really difficult for Liu Chengzong to rely on small favors to buy people's hearts in Lanzhou, but the court seemed to be even more unpopular.

From the perspective of the common people, it is true that the West Thief robbed the richest neighbor near his hometown, but it doesn't hurt like cutting someone else with a knife.

Wang Wenxiu was in charge of Pingxi Gucheng. At first, he saw thousands of people from all over the world running away, but there was nothing he could do.

Before crossing the river, Liu Chengzong had already explained that the progress of land grabbing in Pingcheng could be slowed down, but military discipline must be strictly enforced to let the common people know that the Marshal's Mansion won't do much good, but it won't do much harm to most people.

The people who are willing to do things obediently will be paid according to the food and money they hire, and the people who are disobedient and unwilling to do things will also let themselves go.

The fleeing people returned to Xigu, some of them hid in the mountains to the south, and some of them bit the bullet and came to talk to the soldiers of the Marshal's Mansion, asking if they still wanted to recruit Pingcheng.

When the infantry sergeant reported the situation to Wang Wenxiu, Wang Wenxiu couldn't help laughing loudly: "Recruitment, pay according to salary and food according to food, level the city!"

On the other side of the Yellow River, Liu Chengzong, who set up a command tent on Baita Mountain, also showed a satisfied smile when he saw people fleeing and leaving on the other side.

The destruction of production and public order by the war itself is unavoidable, and the drought has little impact on Lanzhou. The people are still the people of the court, but here, he is dubbed the title of a traitor, and he cannot have too many extravagant expectations for the people. .

He doesn't need people to stand on his side and follow him to throw away their homes and businesses to start a rebellion, let alone expect the people to eat pots of milk to welcome the king's teacher.

As long as most of the people who are still in peace can wait and see the situation, and even think about it in their hearts, Liu Chengzong is indeed not very good, but it doesn't seem to be that bad.

That's enough for him.

Liu Chengzong, who was born as a small landlord, knew best in his heart that the people who had the most conflicts with him in the world were the gentry, landlords, civil and military bureaucrats, and these people were also the biggest stumbling block and help for his eastward advancement.

Because he lacks food, these people happen to have food; the people lack land, but these people happen to have land.

And these people are precisely the weakest and bluffing group of people. They can only control the power at the top and communicate with the people at the bottom, so they look extremely powerful, but in fact they are only a little bit stronger than ordinary people.

This power is borrowed, the source of which is the fear and hope of the multitude.

People are afraid of death and yearn for survival, but a single person or family cannot accomplish anything, so they will attach themselves to those who can lead them to survive in times of chaos.

Attaching to the rich gentry is a stronghold that resists self-defense; attaching to heroes who rise up is like rogues who prey everywhere;

The power of one man is like a weed blowing in the wind, and the power of ten thousand men is like a torrent that controls the world.

Liu Chengzong is the beneficiary of this power. He knows where this power comes from and how to strip it away.

People should not be afraid of death. Without fear of death, they naturally have no longing for survival. They should be alive.

As long as the Marshal's Mansion can prevent the common people from feeling afraid, and let everyone know that it is not safe to follow the big gentry, the division can be completed, and the gentry who cannot gather the strength of others are just lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Liu Chengzong stepped out of his handsome tent, looked at the other side of the mighty Yellow River, Lanzhou City, which stands toweringly by mountains and rivers, with a smug smile on his young face.

Xigu City is about to be flattened, Anning Fort has also fallen, and the cities of Jinxian, Hezhou, and Lintao are next.

When those cities are all flattened and only this huge and strong Lanzhou City remains, the divided rich families will naturally realize that building a fortress in the countryside is not a place to settle down, and only this Lanzhou City can protect them. wealth.

All the wealth and food will be gathered in this giant city that is [-] miles long, and people will mistakenly think that this city is indestructible.

Waiting until next year or the year after, when he digests all the Hehuang Valley and surrendered soldiers gained from this war, all he needs is a natural disaster. Liu Chengzong, who is not so kind in Xining, will become Lanzhou's savior in a blink of an eye.

At that time, the wealth and food in this giant city can save countless dying people.

Looking at the Zhenyuan Floating Bridge across the Yellow River outside the Shuibei Gate in Beicheng, Lanzhou, Liu Chengzong turned his head and said, "Sanlang, ask the guards to tell Wang Wenxiu to select those who have parents, wives and children from the migrating family members who have returned to the Lanzhou Guard Banner Army, and separate them in batches." send over."

Fan Sanlang nodded in response, and asked the guards before asking: "The commander-in-chief wants to send you?"

"Yes, I will give their parents, wives and children the best care in Xining, but for the time being, they will stay in Lanzhou for a year or two as the hard-working bannermen whose family members were plundered by the robbers...the city will be in the future."

Liu Chengzong's arm was pushed forward flatly in front of him, pointing to the majestic Sufan King City: "I want it to break without attack!"

　good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)