Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1079

Although no one openly questioned Kong Youde, Kong Youde himself already felt a sense of distrust surrounding him.

This is a very dangerous signal. The army is a place that kills people like hemp, especially in the rebellious rebel army: in troubled times, human life is slight, and people will die for a trivial reason.Not to mention the most hated thing about being "in two boats".

Although Li Jiuzheng did not show any doubts about him, the excessive trust expressed by Li Jiucheng and his son recently seems to confirm his opinion-Li Jiucheng and his son have already begun to doubt him!
This cannot but be said to be a very dangerous signal.

Difficult, how can he prove to himself that he is innocent?Kong Youde sighed deeply.

Of course he can trust his own cronies, but after all, there are only a few hundred people.In case most of the generals think that he has two ambitions, these hundreds of people are just buried for him.

If he hadn't had some prestige in the old Dongjiang Department of Dengzhou, he might have been killed as the second person!
How to win the trust of everyone has become the biggest problem Kong Youde is facing now.

For this reason, he had to try his best to express that he had no intentions, including voluntarily moving out of his original residence to avoid the suspicion of harboring Sun Yuanhua.

Fortunately, a few days ago, they received a spy report: Sun Yuanhua suddenly appeared in Laizhou, and officially began to inspect the affairs and arrange the city defense.This greatly removed Kong Youde's suspicion—however, how Sun Yuanhua escaped is still unclear, so Kong Youde's situation is still somewhat delicate.

Now Laizhou has been similar to the iron bucket of his rectification.And Xizuo also reported that Yu Dacheng, who had been sluggish and just chanted scriptures while hiding in the yamen, suddenly cheered up after Sun Yuanhua appeared in Laizhou. He not only sent reinforcements, but also transported a large amount of food and military equipment to Laizhou. go.

Apparently, Sun Yuanhua's attitude of "encouraging" is changing—the convenience they may have gained from "encouraging" after raising the flag to rebel is losing, especially in the original plan to use Sun Yuanhua to write letters to continuously send "willing to be appeased" to the court. The news, and then delay the imperial court's campaign to suppress, the idea of ​​expanding its power has been completely bankrupt.

Next, the rebels are bound to face the imperial court's attack. The so-called time is running out, and the time left for them is getting less and less.At the military council meeting the day before yesterday, everyone agreed that Huang County must be captured immediately and Laizhou should be besieged as soon as possible.

The purpose of capturing Huang County is to ensure the safety of Dengzhou, and the occupation of Laizhou can give the team more room for maneuver as soon as possible, so that they can advance, attack, retreat, and defend.Otherwise, sooner or later, he would be trapped between the mountains and the sea by officers and soldiers.

However, in order to further confuse the court, it is still necessary to make the ministers who advocate appeasement open their eyes and continue to express their sincerity in "appeasement".Although Sun Yuanhua has escaped, they still have a group of officials in their hands. It is useless to keep these people. Therefore, at the military council yesterday, it was decided to release all of them, including Song Guanglan, Zhang Tao, Wang Zheng and others.At the same time, let them bring a letter co-signed by the main generals of the Dengzhou rebels to express their "appreciation" heart.

Because Kong Youde has a good relationship with Dengzhou officials, this matter was handed over to him. Kong Youde thought: On the surface, this is trust in him—"no doubt", but in fact, he still has not washed away his collusion with Sun Yuanhua. suspected.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution right now, and we can only take one step at a time.Kong Youyou thought to himself, the matter has not yet reached the point of conclusion, but Laizhou must be captured as soon as possible!

When he was in a trance, some soldiers came to report, and Marshal Li Jiuzheng asked him to go to the military discussion.

"Go back and report to the Commander, I'll be right there." Kong Youde ordered.He knew that today's military meeting must be discussing the dispatch of troops to Laizhou.

They had captured Huangxian a few days ago-it took almost no effort to capture Huangxian, but it was hard to say that they captured Laizhou.The Ming army in Laizhou was limited in number, so it was not difficult to attack, but now that Sun Yuanhua has entered the city, the city's defenses will inevitably be greatly strengthened. He sits in Laizhou as the governor of Denglai, and Yu Dacheng, the governor of Shandong, cooperates with him very much. It is said that the Shandong army will mobilize reinforcements to Laizhou.

"Come, fetch my cloak!" he cried.

A relative came over and said, "Isn't it the time to raise the tent today, do you want to wear a cloak?"

"Of course it will be used!" Kong Youde said loudly, "A military discussion should not be taken lightly."

Speaking of which, the personal soldiers will cover his whole body, except that he does not wear a bow and arrow, which is almost the same as the "Lian Dian Li".Although Kong Youde is the deputy marshal, his prestige in the army is second only to Li Jiuzheng, but he is very careful, never showing a little bit of arrogance, and completely maintains the low profile of his subordinates.

Now put on neat clothes and go out of the yamen.Someone had prepared a good Mongolian horse for him long ago.Kong Youde got on his horse and went to the Marshal's Mansion surrounded by his own soldiers.

The streets of Dengzhou had become completely silent. Soldiers in livery were all walking and going on the streets, and occasionally there were civilians who were driven to work for the rebels, but very few people made any noise.Kong Youde and his party were walking in the middle of the road, and people on the road avoided them one after another.

The festival hall in the governor's yamen is now the festival hall of the Marshal's Mansion.Starting from the gate, there are neatly dressed guards and warriors along the way.

Kong Youde was fully clothed, full of energy, strode into the second gate, passed between the two lines of solemn guards and warriors with shining swords, spears, swords and halberds, bowed into the festival hall, knelt down about five feet away from the koan, and stood tall. Self-reported job title:

"Vice Marshal Kong Youde, who acts on behalf of Tian Xingdao, has an audience with your lord!"

Li Jiuzheng nodded and smiled, and said "please get up".

In the festival hall, the main generals of the rebel army have gathered. Most of them are generals from Dongjiang town official to general and guerrilla level. They have a group of basic troops in their hands.

After the rebels captured Dengzhou, they incorporated the local Dengzhou soldiers and the remnants of the Southern Army, and conscripted a large number of young men from the local Liao people, taking in many local bandits and desperadoes.The size of the army expanded to tens of thousands of people at once, but those who are really reliable and capable of fighting in the army are the original Dongjiang troops.

The mob can only be used as cannon fodder to gain momentum, and it is okay to fight smoothly, but it will be soft when encountering a tough battle.Therefore, Li Jiucheng and others dispatched a number of people early on to carry the salaries seized from Dengzhou to various islands in the Liaohai Sea to lure the Dongjiang generals to lead their troops to "raise the banner together."

This group of people is not very good at fighting Tartars, but it is absolutely no problem to cross the sea to Shandong to fight officers and soldiers.

This activity is currently going very smoothly, and Dongjiang generals have already expressed their willingness to join the uprising.

But in today's military meeting, apart from the originally planned attack on Laizhou, there was a new situation.

Mao Chenglu, who was sent to Huangxian County, sent someone back to report: At present, there is a large group of bravery in Huangxian County, and they are looking for refugees around the county seat of Huangxian County.The troops sent by the rebels to rob the refugees had already clashed with them, and most importantly, suffered a lot.

Yesterday, the rebel army pursued thousands of refugees who were taken away by Xiangyong, and fought a battle with Xiangyong in Baimatang. As a result, they not only failed to take advantage, but also killed or injured 500 people, and the rest fled back to Huangxian County.
"Whose Xiangyong is so bold?" Kong Youde was quite surprised. Xiangyong generally takes "protecting the environment and the people" as their main purpose, and will not take the initiative to provoke, but only wants to keep the safety of the village.Moreover, with the current military strength of the rebels and the large number of firearms they have in their possession, ordinary villages have no other way to deal with them except to wait and surrender.

"It's a stockade over Longkou." Li Jiucheng said, "Chenglu said they have firearms, and they are very powerful."

Kong Youde lost his voice and said, "It's Master Lu from Qimu Island!"

Li Jiucheng asked: "What? You know."

"That's right." Kong Youde nodded, "Master Lu is from the south, and like Governor Sun, he believes in God. So Governor Sun looked at him very differently at the beginning, and even gave him a lot of weapons and gunpowder."

It is not surprising that Master Lu set up a camp on Qimu Island-everyone does this these days.But why did he collect refugees on a large scale?
The land on the Longkou side is by no means fertile land, so it is impossible for him to open up wasteland to find refugees.Secondly, at this time of war and chaos, it is also a severe winter, and there is absolutely no possibility of opening up wasteland.

The only possibility is that they, like all kinds of folk Taoists on the ground in Shandong, are planning to take advantage of the Dengzhou chaos and prepare to raise their flags to rebel!

In ancient times, anyone who wanted to rebel first started by coercing the people and hosting refugees.The rebels wantonly demolished villages and burned houses in Huang County. On the one hand, they wanted to collect as much food and property as possible, fortified the walls and cleared the wilderness.

Master Lu also has such a plan? !All the generals in the festival hall immediately exchanged glances.

In this way, things will not be easy to handle.These generals have been in Shandong for a long time, and they know a little bit about the folk Taoism in Shandong, and they know that the believers who have been instigated are extremely fanatical. It takes a lot of effort to suppress it.

"This stockade must be destroyed as soon as possible." Geng Zhongming said, "Once they start an incident, it will be difficult for us to attack Laizhou!"

"The matter in Laizhou can't be delayed." Li Jiuzheng said, "If we don't win Laizhou, we brothers won't be able to sleep comfortably in Dengzhou. We should use two prongs! Fight Laizhou all the way, and destroy this deer master as soon as possible!"

Li Jiuzheng immediately decided to give Mao Chenglu another [-] elite soldiers to immediately attack Qimu Island and destroy the stockade on the island. Master Lu will kill all the people with foreign accents. If the refugees with local accents in the stockade refuse to obey All those ordered were also killed - so as not to leave future troubles.

Because the opponent had a lot of firearms, Li Jiuzheng decided to allocate some cannons to Mao Chenglu.

(End of this chapter)