I want to be emperor

Chapter 172 The Rural Protectors Are Rules-Based

For the General's Mansion of the Rural Protection Army at this stage, the most important thing now is one thing: fighting!

Everything that the General's Mansion of the Township Protection Army is doing now serves the purpose of fighting the war.

And fighting needs money, food, and weapons.

Therefore, in addition to the military, there are only two administrative agencies that receive the most attention now, the Ministry of Industry, which is responsible for the production of various types of ordnance, and the Ministry of Taxation, which is responsible for collecting money and food.

Relatively speaking, the Ministry of Taxation is more important than the Ministry of Industry.

After all, if you have money and food, you can make ordnance, right?
In addition to these, other matters, the General's Mansion of the Township Protection Army does not have the energy and personnel to pay attention to it for the time being, and it is only a little symbolic.

This also caused the tax department to have huge funds and huge personnel!
After all, if you want to collect taxes, you must have enough people and funds. Those big gentry are not honest people. If you don’t investigate the situation clearly, you don’t even know how many fields they have. Don’t expect them to pay hidden land. tax.

Even if someone evaded taxes, the tax officials of the Township Protection Army didn't even know about it...

The matter of tax collection is a process of fighting wits and courage between tax officials and wealthy gentry.

After all, the Township Protection Army is now transforming into a formalized dynasty, and they will not treat themselves like rogues and indiscriminately, collecting money and food or even ransacking their homes.

The current Rural Protection Army is following the rules, even if the rules they make are stricter, they are still following the rules.

Now that the rules are followed, if you want to collect taxes, you have to investigate clearly, put the matter on the bright side, and you can't collect taxes randomly.

Even if the gentry wanted to evade taxes, they had to abide by the rules of the Protectorate Army. For example, evading taxes through unknown methods, at least they could not evade taxes or even resist taxes on the face of it.

If they don’t follow the rules directly, for example, they refuse to pay the tax directly, or they still don’t pay the tax after the tax evasion is discovered, then the township protection army doesn’t bother to talk to you about the rules, and directly sends a large army to search the house and exterminate the family...

Most of the time, the tax officials are actually wishing that the big gentry would not follow the rules. It would be better to come to an armed resistance to the tax, so that they would not have to spend their minds on various investigations, and they would directly let the army come to search the house, which would be more convenient and direct!
But those gentry are not stupid, they would rather spend money to eliminate the disaster for the sake of their lives, but most of the gentry want to spend less money to eliminate the disaster, except for a few iron or stupid gentry, there are still few people Those who dare to face tax resistance.

Therefore, this makes the tax department even more busy. Even in order to better collect taxes, tax officials are dispatched to uncontrolled areas in advance to join the county government offices that are in underground activities and collect various taxes in advance. intelligence.

----

Tang County, northeast of Xinye City.

This small county on the banks of the Tang River welcomed an army of gray thieves many days ago, and today it ushered in a larger army of gray thieves.

And this gray bandit army is the main force of the First Infantry Brigade led by Luo Zhixue himself.

Luo Zhixue led the army all the way to the north, and it took only two days to reach Tang County smoothly after covering a distance of more than 50 kilometers.

This time going north, the army led by Luo Zhixue did not go along the Baihe River, first arrived at Nanyang City, and then turned eastward. Instead, they marched quickly along the Tanghe River in the northeast direction to shorten the distance. The [-]th Infantry Battalion led by Duo and other troops converged on the way.

Chief of Staff Xu Zhixian said: "Li Duo has sent a message. He has ended the Biyang battle. Tomorrow he will formally lead the army to the north. It is estimated that he will arrive in Dama Town in two days. At that time, he will join our main force there. Confluence!"

After hearing this, Luo Zhixue said: "It's good that we can meet up smoothly, but I didn't expect that guy Li Duo moved so fast, it didn't take long, even Biyang was taken down."

"At first, I thought I could meet him in Tang County, but that's good, at least Biyang won and there will be less worries."

"However, Biyang Xinke lacks the main garrison. It is still risky to rely on the No. 18 infantry battalion that has just been reorganized for two days. You can discuss it with the Logistics Department and the Military and Political Department and allocate an additional batch of light artillery and armor,

Send a few capable and reliable people to serve in the past. "

Xu Zhixian said: "Subordinates obey!"

Originally, Luo Zhixue expected that Li Duo would be able to gather Li Duo in Tang County, but he did not expect Li Duo to lead troops to move very quickly. At the same time, the Ming army in Tang County did not have many soldiers, let alone the will to resist. After leading the army to arrive here, they fought casually, and the defenders of the city surrendered directly.

Obviously, the officials and ordinary guards in Tang County also knew that Nanyang City, Xinye City and even the area around Xiangyang had been captured by the rural protection army, and Tang County was not a strategically important place. There is also no main Ming army stationed there, and there are not many ordinary guards.

Under such circumstances, facing the menacing Li Duo's security guards, they simply chose to surrender after a symbolic resistance.

Later, Li Duo led his army eastward to attack Biyang, and the defenders in Biyang were not much better, even worse than the defenders in Tang County.

At any rate, there were still dozens of guard soldiers in Tang County's defenders. They led a few hundred ordinary guard soldiers and a group of young and strong soldiers to make a symbolic resistance.

On the other side of Biyang, there are only a few hundred soldiers in the ordinary guards, and there are only a few soldiers.

So they didn't even resist. Before Li Duo led his army close to Biyang City, several officials in the city had already fled without knowing where they were going. Hundreds of guardsmen and government servants simply coaxed away when they saw this. scattered.

Li Duo's troops took down Biyang without even fighting.

Li Duo's actions went smoothly, and he will naturally be able to join the main force led by Luo Zhixue himself to go north.

However, after Li Duo led his army northward, the garrison of Biyang and Tang counties became a problem.

As a last resort, the staff could only use the newly created No. 18 Infantry Battalion to garrison Biyang to prevent the Ming army from Runing Mansion from crossing the mountains and hills into the Nanyang Basin with light armor.

As for Tang County, just leave dozens of people at random, and then recruit some yamen servants to maintain basic law and order. Anyway, this place is not of strategic importance now, and it is in the hinterland of the area controlled by the Township Protection Army.

It is impossible to face any large-scale Ming army attack, at most there is a small-scale rebellion of some local gentry, and if something happens, the nearby Xinye City can quickly lead an army to attack and suppress it.

After Luo Zhixue led the army to rest overnight in Tang County, he continued to go north early the next morning, walking another nearly [-] kilometers that day.

On that day, they camped temporarily in a small village for the night. By noon the next day, they arrived in Dama Town and camped to rest.

It was only noon when they arrived in Dama Town, and they could continue to march according to the routine, but on the one hand, they were waiting for Li Duo's troops who rushed to the march, and on the other hand, they were also for the soldiers, mules, horses, etc. who had been marching continuously for several days. There was a rest time for accumulating energy, so I simply camped in Dama Town to rest.

After all, it was already the fourth day that Luo Zhixue led the army to go north. During these four days, they set off from Xinye City and walked hundreds of kilometers in one go.

Continuous high-intensity marches, even in the main force of the rural protection army, have a large number of mules, horses and livestock, which can reduce the physical consumption of soldiers and the average single-horse physical consumption of mules and horses.

However, the physical energy consumption is still very high, and it is urgent to stop and rest.

At least give the soldiers a breath of relief.

It is even more necessary to breathe a sigh of relief to the large number of mules and horses in the army.

In the past four days, at least a dozen mules and horses have died of exhaustion, and dozens of mules and horses were unable to continue to advance with the army due to overuse, and could only stay at various points along the way to recuperate.

As for the soldiers, it is better.

After all, the food supply of the Rural Protection Army is very good now, and the corresponding physical training can also keep up.

Furthermore, people's stamina is much stronger than that of mules and horses. You can't see anything when you march for a short distance, but it can be very obvious when you march for a long distance.

In ten days, ordinary soldiers of the Rural Protection Army can easily march for at least 250 kilometers, and they can even walk [-] kilometers faster.

But the mules and horses that transport artillery and all kinds of luggage can't do it. If they walk [-] kilometers without stopping for ten days under heavy load, more than half of the mules and horses of the rural protection army will die of exhaustion.

This is based on the fact that the mules and horses in the Rural Protection Army are very large, and multi-horse carts will be used or even rotated, and the average burden on a single horse is relatively small.

If there were not so many mules and horses, and all the mules and horses were exhausted to death, it would be impossible to pull so many artillery and luggage for [-] kilometers in ten days.

Impossible!
To some extent, it is no longer the physical fitness of ordinary soldiers that limits the marching speed of the rural protection army, especially the speed of long-distance marching, but the number of mules and horses.

----

After Luo Zhixue led the army to rest and recuperate in Dama Town for most of the day, it was not until the evening of the same day that they finally arrived at Li Duo's troops.

Li Duo's troops set off from Biyang to the north. Although they did not carry too much luggage or heavy artillery, they were semi-light marches, but the road was more difficult and the journey was longer.

Being able to arrive in Dama Town on time today can be regarded as Li Duozhi's army well.

After Li Duo led the army to arrive, the army rested for another night, and continued northward the next day, and finally arrived at Shanghe Town successfully, together with the main force of the [-]rd Mixed Brigade who arrived in Shanghe Town a day earlier, and the [-]rd Mixed Brigade accompanying the army. A large number of weapons and ammunition, food and supplies, and a group of recruits came together.

On June [-]st of the eighth year of Chongzhen, Luo Zhixue finally led the main force of the army to Shanghe Town after a continuous high-speed march for many days.

It is only about ten kilometers away from Yuzhou City.

At the same time, Luo Zhixue also successively merged the various departments of the Third Mixed Brigade, so that the Third Mixed Brigade was fully equipped in the true sense.

However, the mixed brigade should be fully staffed, and the name of the mixed brigade will be gone, and it will return to the name of the third infantry brigade.

Because after merging with the main force, the third artillery post and the third cavalry post originally under the jurisdiction of the third mixed brigade were drawn out.

The third artillery post was transferred to the first artillery brigade, under the command of Zhang Malin, the artillery director who also served as the commander of the first artillery brigade.

The [-]rd Cavalry Post did not belong to the [-]st Cavalry Brigade, because the [-]rd Cavalry Post was just half-baked cavalry infantry, not the same as the cavalry elite of the [-]st Cavalry Brigade.

Therefore, the cavalry post is temporarily under the direct control of the General Staff, um, it is under the direct command of Luo Zhixue.

After gathering all the ministries, the current strength in Shanghe Town consists of two fully equipped main infantry brigades; three field artillery posts; four cavalry posts, three of which are cavalry cavalry and one is cavalry infantry; There are 1000 or 600 personal military battalions and a [-]-strong first supply battalion.

Not counting the soldiers who accompanied the army to transport the battalion, Luo Zhixue now has 500 combatable troops, including eighteen [-]-jin field guns, and [-] cavalry!

Now, Luo Zhixue is about to lead this army to march towards Yuzhou City, this move is not only for the rescue of the Fourth Mixed Brigade in Yuzhou City.

It is also to defeat the coalition forces of Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong, eliminate the threat posed by the Ming army on the northern front, and completely stabilize the northern defense line.

Luo Zhixue never forgot that only when the defense line in the north is stabilized, can he free himself to go south to the Jianghan Plain and take over the entire northern part of Chu completely!
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(End of this chapter)