Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1027 Wuqiao's Butterfly

Just when Longkou was preparing nervously, there was a rainy and snowy scene outside a small village in Wuqiao County, Hebei, adjacent to Shandong, and there was a dilapidated small temple standing alone on a small bare hill. ,
Under the mound, scattered horses and disheveled soldiers, there are about 1000 people.Crowded and leaning against the flickering bonfire, they scolded their mothers while stretching out their hands on the fire to keep warm.

A burly young general, wearing a burqa over his armor, stood under the eaves of the small temple.His complexion is dark, his skin is rough, and his face is covered with a cold and dignified expression that only a person who has experienced many battles has.Behind him, there is a flag.The flag was already drenched in the cold rain and snow, hanging feebly under the eaves of the corridor.A gust of cold wind blew, and it could barely be seen that there was a word "Kong" on it.

There are many horses tied in front of the temple gate, which are much taller than the horses down the hillside.With disgusted expressions, the horses reluctantly ate the blackened wheat straw that the soldiers had pulled from the peasants' roofs.

He seemed to be waiting for someone, looking intently to the north.To the north, separated by large fields and sparse groves, there is a faint light -- that is Sangyuan Town where Wuqiao County is located.

This general was none other than Kong Youde, a general of Dengzhou's infantry left battalion.Although his official position is in the infantry left battalion, in fact he is in command of the Liaodong cavalry in the past.He is from Tieling, Liaodong.Both his father and he were local miners.After Nurhachi raised his troops, Tieling Guard soon fell.When he was a teenager, he participated in the uprising organized by his father against the Houjin regime in Tieling.After the failure of the uprising, he was exiled to various places in Liaodong, and joined the army in Guangning. He was once an official to travel notes.After Guangning withdrew from the town, he joined Mao Wenlong and changed his name to Mao Yongshi.

After Mao Wenlong was killed by Yuan Chonghuan, his former Dongjiang Ministry was under the command of Dongjiang Deputy General Chen Jisheng.Before long, General Liu Xingzhi rebelled in Phi Island and killed more than ten people including Chen Jisheng.Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming refused to accept Huanglong's rule because they felt excluded by Huanglong, so they led their troops to Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai.Kong Youde became a general of the Left Battalion of the Infantry, and he was still in charge of the old army.

It was raining and snowing constantly in the sky, and the northwest wind was blowing, blowing on the drenched burqa, it looked extremely cold, and white thick fog was sprayed out with every breath.Most of the cavalrymen at the foot of the mountain wore thin, dirty and ragged clothes. They huddled together in groups of three or four, wrapping up their tattered clothes tightly.Someone was talking in a low voice, someone was staggering, and had already fallen asleep.

At this time, several fast horses came all the way from the north, and the sound of horseshoes broke the silence on the hill.
Hearing the sound of hooves, he took a heavy breath.

After a while, the sound of horseshoes came closer and closer, and then a small group of people appeared in the middle of the sparse, leafless bushes under the dim moonlight.

There are four or five people in this team, and the leader is a young man named Qian Zong.When they reached the top of the hill, they all jumped off their horses.The leading officer led the horse to the general and reported:
"Report to General: The matter is settled."

Hearing this news, Kong Youde's eyebrows stretched.Originally, the long-distance march to aid Liao Dynasty was already a miserable mission with a bleak future, but I didn't expect such a thing to happen on the way!

When Kong Youde and his troops arrived at Wuqiao, they encountered severe rain and snow. The troops were short of supplies and suffering from hunger and cold.There is neither salary nor food.Ask Wuqiao County to prepare grain and grass, but the county simply ignores them.Kong Youde is a passer-by from Shandong, and has no influence in Hebei.The army is almost out of food.The people in the villages and towns were terrified of officers and soldiers—the army discipline in the late Ming Dynasty was extremely poor, and long-distance marches were almost bandits on the run—and they fled when they heard that the army was coming. Although the county town did not close its doors to them, it still All the markets were closed and there was no place to go even to buy food, let alone no money at all.

Since ancient times, there has been a saying that soldiers who can't starve to death, no one provides food and grass, and soldiers are self-sufficient.With the officer's acquiescence, they divided into small groups at night, quietly left the camp, and went to various places in the countryside and cities to search for "forage"-in fact, robbery.

During the looting, a soldier broke down the gate of a seemingly inconspicuous family in the city and took a chicken.Unexpectedly, this chicken was raised by a servant of Wang Xiangchun's family, a prominent family in Shandong.

Offending a local big family is the same as robbing ordinary people, and the result is very different.So the soldiers who robbed were "swimmed through the camp with arrows"-this was a very severe punishment in the ancient army, second only to beheading.The soldier with a grudge killed the servant immediately.

Now Kong Youde, who originally wanted to calm things down, made a fool of himself: the power of the gentry in the Ming Dynasty was extremely heavy, not to mention Wang Xiangchun, a former senior bureaucrat who had appeared in "Donglin Dianjianglu"-that is the top gentry in the local area, the county When the Ling and the prefect saw his films, they were all very polite.Wang Xiangchun's son refused to give up, and must demand that he be held accountable.

Kong Youde was just a small general. Although he could command thousands of people to charge into battle, he was far from being an opponent of a gentleman like the Wang family in terms of power and status. ginseng", getting rid of his little ginseng will be easy.

Therefore, he could only continue to bear the burden of humiliation, and led his troops to withdraw from Wuqiao County, stationed in this wasteland, and sent Li Yingyuan to negotiate the matter.

"I beheaded the kid who committed the crime, and the matter is over." Li Yingyuan was indignant, "The manager who came out to speak still seemed unwilling, and I had to give him another ten taels of silver to make him feel comfortable."

Kong Youde sighed heavily: "There is nothing we can do about it! It's a pity for a good man!" He stomped his feet, "These gangsters are hard to part with good fortune, forcing us to go to the public!"

"Brothers said they couldn't take it anymore—first, they forced us to go to Pidao to suppress Huanglong's rebellion, but Huanglong couldn't handle it himself? If it weren't for you, General, who returned to the voyage without hesitation, you would probably have fed the fish and shrimp! This time again Let us have cold and hungry people rush to the Daling River to die!" Li Yingyuan said excitedly, "We have risked life and death for the court, followed Mao Shuai on the island to blow the wind, eat sand and beat tartars, how many brothers died! The court and the big family They didn't treat us as human beings at all!"

There was a ripple among the surrounding soldiers and generals—they were all from Dongjiang's former troops who followed Mao Wenlong in Liaodong. Mao Shuai's beheading had already planted the seeds of dissatisfaction in their hearts.In Dongjiang, he was excluded by Huanglong, and after he arrived in Dengzhou, he was always discriminated against by the Shandong local army and the southern army.

This trip to the north to reinforce Dalinghe was originally a dangerous and vicious battle that never returned, and they had to suffer such anger along the way.The hearts of the soldiers became more and more resentful.

These words also resonated with Kong Youde, his chest heaved and he seemed to want to say something, but in the end he didn't say anything, he waved his hand resolutely, and said with a sinister smile:

"We won't be able to offend these masters. We can't stay here. We'll freeze all the people and horses. Let's set off as a whole. We'll go far to find a village and slaughter them. Everyone stay warm!"

"Zha!" Li Yingyuan and several officers around him echoed with excited expressions.Although the army kept looting along the way, at least they just got some food to eat, and they didn't dare to do too much.Since I want to let go of my hands this time, I can get a little oil and water.

Everyone went to prepare to leave one after another, and Li Yingyuan was about to leave, Kong Youde stopped him:
"Ying Yuan, when will your father arrive?"

Li Yingyuan's father's name was Li Jiucheng. Although he was no more than a guerrilla in his position, he was very prestigious in the old Dongjiang tribe in Liaodong. People like Kong Youde all respected him.

More than a month ago, Li Jiuzheng was ordered by Sun Yuanhua to buy horses from the Mongols in Fortress. He didn’t get the horses, but he spent all the money. Get in touch with Kong Youde, and go north with him to see if you can make a military exploit to make your meritorious deeds worthless.

Li Jiuzheng has a high prestige in the old army of Dongjiang, and the people in the army are shaken now. He urgently needs a veteran like Li Jiuzheng to suppress and appease him, otherwise the sentry will collapse if they don't reach Shanhaiguan.If he, the general in charge of the army, had no choice but to run away if he didn't want his head cut off.

Li Yingyuan replied: "My father sent someone to say that he was blocked on the road because of the snowstorm. It will take two days to go to Wuqiao to meet with the general."

In the old time and space, Li Jiuzheng, who dared not go back to Dengzhou because of the loss of money to buy horses, was already in Kong Youde's army on October 10.

The instigation of soldiers by Li Jiucheng and his son was the main reason why Kong Youde's troops launched a rebellion in Wuqiao.But in this time and space, Li Jiuzheng was blocked by the road, and if he didn't rush to the army on this day, he lost the opportunity to incite the soldiers to riot.

The butterfly wings of history are slightly deflected in different places.This was unexpected by the elders.

"Okay, let's go north!" Kong Youde ordered, "Send a few fine brothers in casual clothes to Sangyuan Town and wait for General Li to catch up."

With the sound of an order, the drowsy soldiers who were starving and cold suddenly regained their spirits, tightened their horses' girdles one after another, and got on their horses.More than 1000 people on foot and on foot issued a call sign and headed north.

The early morning sun shone on Wuqiao County on November [-]st, and the people in the county were relieved to learn that the army from Shandong had gone far away, and they opened their gates one after another to start their own businesses.No one knew that they had just escaped a catastrophe they were destined to suffer.

More than 20 miles to the north of them, there was a large village that had disappeared and was wiped out.

No one of the elders who were waiting in battle on Qimu Island expected this.In their view, any historical event will strictly follow the historical trajectory of the old time and space.

　According to the biography of Kong Youde, Li Jiucheng and his son played a greater role in the Wuqiao rebellion than Kong Youde.Later, Kong Youde and others elected Li Jiucheng as the Marshal of the capital, which also shows that Li Jiucheng's actual influence in the old Dongjiang Department is greater than that of Kong.Geng is much stronger.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)