I want to be emperor

Chapter 166 News from the North Line
In Dengzhou City, in front of everyone, even many gentry, Luo Zhixue bought a horse bone with a thousand gold, and gave Dong Xin the title of Zhizhou of the fifth rank.

In addition to Dong Xin, the other [-] or [-] officials and officials in Dengzhou City who followed Dong Xin and took the initiative to surrender were all promoted.

Among them is just one official from the ninth rank, who was appointed by Luo Zhixue as the magistrate of Xinye County, the sixth rank.

There are also some officials who don't even have a rank, and they have all obtained official ranks, and most of them are not low. The worst one is a regular eighth rank, and there are quite a few regular seven ranks.

Anyway, under the Rural Protection Army, there are still a lot of control areas that lack officials, and these dozens of people can't even make waves if they fill them in. Luo Zhixue is not afraid of them making troubles or having low abilities.

Let's just get past what's in front of us first, and then we can deal with it if we find any corruption or lack of ability in the future!

This is not only for all kinds of surrendered civil servants and officials, in fact, the appointment of a large number of civil servants recruited by themselves in the rural protection army is almost the same.

Anyway, there are only so few people, but there are too many official hats, even if there is one official hat in hand, there will be a lot more.

Under such circumstances, the Township Protection Army appoints civilian officials very casually. People who can basically read and write official documents, as long as you are willing to join them, you can get a half-job.

If you have some management experience, such as being a shopkeeper of a commercial firm, and then you have some talent after inspection, the group of officials in the Civil Affairs Department of the Baoxiang Army who are recruiting personnel all day long Dare to directly appoint you as magistrate, in charge of a county.

If you have a little management experience, your official document level is okay, and you have accumulated some experience and qualifications in the past few months, don't go to other places. Some directors, directors, etc. You can jump on any weight position.

In short, the current civil service system in the Rural Protection Army is very easy to mess with, and no one who can do anything will 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 came to join the rural protection army...

In the beginning, there were still some young students and even scholars with high reputations in the Rural Protection Army, but these people were basically short of people in the early stage. In addition, in order to kidnap some local gentry families, they were forcibly kidnapped as hostages, and by the way, they were taken as hostages. official……

Later, after the Township Protection 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 a reputation above the scholar level. In the past few months, they have only recruited a total of 45. .

This is not a one-day recruitment in one city, but a number of months in the entire Nanyang Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture area.

And these people, without exception, are all orthodox scholars who have been reduced to refugees or whose families can't get rid of the blame.

As long as there is a way to survive, the vast majority of orthodox scholars will ignore the rural protection army.

Even if they are already living under the rule of the Township Protection Army, they don't have the guts to resist or anything, but they will rarely turn to bandits to serve as officials.

After all, few people thought that the Rural Protection Army would last long.

From their point of view, Luo Zhixue, the leader of the rebels, would not be able to jump around for a few years at all, and he might be surrounded and suppressed by officers and soldiers in a year or so.

At this time, if you vote for a thief and become an official, it doesn't matter if you lose your life, and the family may also be directly implicated.

It's no fun to ransack your family and exterminate your clan.

Now, the Rural Protection Army is actually constantly trying to improve its own image, and reverse the public's inherent image of anti-thief and thieves to the Rural Protection Army.

Putting Dong Xin up as a signboard is also one of the measures to improve his own image.

Luo Zhixue did not stay in Dengzhou for long after Dong Xin and the others were made officials one by one, but led the main force back south to Xiangyang just a few days later.

He didn't even go to the inner country.

Because he had already learned that Sun Hongcai did not stay after arriving in Neixiang, but continued to pass through Xishankou after looting Neixiang, and went north to the mountainous areas around Lushi and Luanchuan.

Sun Hongcai learned the tricks of Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and other thieves, and then sneaked into the mountains after looting all over the place, which also made Luo Zhixue very speechless.

Who are the officers and soldiers here...

Sun Hongcai took the initiative to lead the army and fled into the territory of Henan Province with light clothes. Naturally, the rural protection army would not go deep into the mountains to pursue them, but 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 to the south!

----

When Luo Zhixue led his army back south and arrived at Xinye City, he once again received good news from the battlefield on the northern front. The second mixed brigade no longer had high hopes. After overcoming many difficulties, they finally captured the Kruyang Pass on May [-]. And began to build fortifications on the spot, blocked the ancient Yalu Road, and prevented Hong Chengchou's army from going south to enter the Nanyang Basin.

At this time, more than 3 troops that Hong Chengchou successively dispatched from other places in the Central Plains had arrived in Lushan County, only a few dozen miles away from Luyang Pass.

After hearing the news, Luo Zhixue heaved a sigh of relief.

One must know that Luo Zhixue had not been able to capture Luyang Pass before, but Luo Zhixue had always been worried that Hong Chengchou's army would come directly from Luyang Pass. For this reason, he had already asked the engineering department to urgently reinforce the newly conquered 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 Crow Road, that is, Nanzhao County, to stop the Ming army from going south.

However, Yunyang Pass is always a little worse than Luyang Pass. If Luyang Pass can be occupied, the entire three passes of Yalu will be controlled by the Xiangbao Army. It will be difficult for the Ming Army to open up this passage again.

If Hong Chengchou's brain is burnt out and he insists on attacking the three passes of the Koya Road, Luo Zhixue is sure to consume Hong Chengchou's 10,000+ troops to death 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 officially besieged Nanzhao County, fought hard for six days, and did not take Nanzhao County until May 200, and also paid more than [-] casualties.

Then the second mixed brigade rested for a whole day, and after supplementing more than 200 recruits, went north to Luyang Pass, and officially besieged Luyang Pass on May [-].

Moreover, the north and south attacked together. At that time, the Fifth Infantry Battalion was in the south of Lushan County, 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 smooth.

The main reason was that the second mixed brigade had just formed an army at that time, and the most important thing was that the third artillery post that was scheduled to be assigned to the second mixed brigade, the six [-]-jin field guns to which it belonged, had not been in place for a long time.

Therefore, no matter whether it started to attack Nanzhao County or the subsequent attack on Luyang Pass, in fact, the Second Mixed Brigade launched a strong attack without the cover of the [-]-jin long-barreled artillery.

At the same time, Nanzhao County (Yunyang Pass) is still Luyang Pass, which is a pass with dangerous terrain. The local defenders were not frightened by the township protection army and abandoned the city directly, but kept trying to wait for Hong Chengchou's main force to go south to rescue .

Therefore, when attacking these two cities, especially when attacking Luyang Pass, the Second Mixed Brigade was still relatively difficult, and finally took Luyang Pass entirely by smashing.

In the Battle of Luyangguan, more than 300 people were killed and injured by the Second Mixed Brigade.

In order to conquer these two cities, the Second Mixed Brigade killed and injured more than 500 people one after another, that is, Nanyang City and Li Qingdian are just behind, and recruits can be added at any time. Otherwise, can they continue to take down Luyang Pass?

Now, after reading the victory letter sent by Lin Dongsheng, the commander of the Second Mixed Brigade, Luo Zhixue finally showed a smile, and said to the people around him: "Brother Lin, he is still capable. Before the reinforcements arrived, they gnawed down the hard bone of Luyang Pass."

Xu Zhixian on the side also answered the words: "After the battle of Luyang Pass, our army has the three passes of Crow Road in hand, so there will be no worries on the North Road from now on!"

"However, the enemy troops may detour to Yuzhou and go south at any time. The next step is to look at Yuzhou!"

"According to the time, it should be about the same time. There is good news. Two days ago, we received a battle report from the Fourth Mixed Brigade, saying that they had filled the moat and built a lot of siege equipment, preparing to launch a general attack. Even if there is no heavy artillery to assist in this battle, it is not a problem to win Yuzhou with the strength of the [-]th Mixed Brigade!"

Luo Zhixue said: "I hope so!"

Having said that, in fact Luo Zhixue is still a little worried about Ernst Young's Fourth Mixed Brigade.

This fourth mixed brigade is not the main force in the rural protection army, it is different from the second mixed brigade.

Although both of them bear the name of mixed brigade, the second mixed brigade is the main force in a serious manner, while the fourth mixed brigade is just a traditional force formed by surrendering troops.

The difference in combat effectiveness between the two is still very large, and the actual combat has also proved this point. Even if the second mixed brigade lost a little bit more, it still won consecutive battles. After winning Yunyang Pass, it dared to send south troops sent by Hong Chengchou. Taken this place before.

However, when An Yongduo led the fourth mixed brigade to attack Yuzhou, he was limited by the quality of soldiers, and his mixed brigade marched at a slow speed at the beginning.

Slowly arriving at Yuzhou with great difficulty, before launching the siege of Yuzhou, he discovered that there were Ming troops from Wuyang and Ye County in the east to reinforce Yuzhou.

As a result, An Yongduo had to give up attacking Yuzhou for the time being, and brought the 200th Mixed Brigade to a siege point to fight for reinforcements. He fought an encounter about twenty miles west of Yuzhou, and finally paid the price of more than 2000 casualties, annihilating the More than [-] Ming troops came to aid.

After this battle, Ernst and Young turned around and besieged Yuzhou again.

However, the follow-up was still very difficult. Lacking heavy fire support, they could only rely on the traditional old methods to safely attack the city.

Naturally, the casualties will be very high!
According to the successive battle reports, the 600th Mixed Brigade has successively added more than [-] reinforcements, which shows that the casualties in the siege operations are not small.

The reason why there are so many reinforcements is because the brigade just took part in a siege attack, captured nearly 2000 people, and selected hundreds of qualified soldiers from them. Otherwise, the fourth mixed brigade didn't even have any reinforcements...

At present, Luo Zhixue still has not received the news that the Fourth Mixed Brigade has won Yuzhou City.

(End of this chapter)