Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 77: Small thieves rob houses, big thieves steal countries! (First order)

"The wind blows up the dust, the clouds turn into rain, countless heroes emerge from all directions, and the righteousness of the world exists from ancient times to the present!

"Swords and knives shuttle back and forth, love entangles the hero's body, tears and wine sprinkle across the sky, and the book is filled with blood."

On the first day of October in the eleventh year of Zhizheng, there were still five days before Lu Jin's wedding.

Liao Yongan had already led three regiments and half of the navy and was feinting an attack on Lujiang County. Zhu Liangzu had been marching secretly for three days with the fifth regiment and had arrived at the predetermined target and was lying in ambush.

Yang Jing also led four regiments on a covert march, hiding during the day and moving at night, and was still on the way to the predetermined target.

Yu Tingyu came to Luzhou with two battalions of soldiers. Only Zhu Shou's regiment was left by Lu Jin's side, and the two cavalry battalions of Ye Sheng and Zheng Yong had not yet been dispatched. The other units had all been sent out and were being deployed in an orderly manner.

Lu Jin himself also entered a state of sage. He had arranged everything that needed to be arranged and prepared everything that needed to be prepared. He was just waiting for the action on the last day. He felt like he was about to take an exam.

On the first day of the new year, Yu Tongyuan finally came back and was doing morning exercises with Lu Jin and the others.

On the parade ground northwest of Luzhou City, behind Lu Jin were generals Ye Sheng, Zheng Yong, Zhu Shou, Zhang Wen, Yu Tongyuan, Yu Tongyuan, Xu Yong, and two half-grown children, Yang Huan and Zhu Xian. The group of people followed Lu Jin for a morning run.

Lu Pojun, the adopted son, was grazing his horse by the training ground, while Qin Li's son Qin Jinglin was leading other little kids in morning reading.

Lu Jin suddenly howled out Tu Honggang's Fengyun, which scared everyone and then they burst into laughter. They didn't expect that their commander could actually sing.

It is normal to sing Tang poetry, Song lyrics, Yuan opera, Yuan drama, and Ming novels. Song lyrics were meant to be sung, and there were popular songs in ancient times. But most people have never heard of the style of Lu Jin.

Lu Jin sang in a rather heroic manner, and the lyrics and the melody sounded like a man's song, which immediately made everyone feel fresh.

Yu Tongyuan immediately came over and asked while running after him.

"What song is this, Marshal? It's so beautiful. Why haven't I heard it before?"

As Lu Jin ran, he said, "This song is called Fengyun."

Ye Sheng recalled and said, "I don't think there is such a tune?"

"I just made it up." Lu Jin said nonsense.

"That one sounds nice, too. Even a scholar might not be able to compose such a piece of music. Besides, this piece of music is more suitable for men to sing. Marshal, why don't you compose a song for our Shengwu Army so that the soldiers can sing it?" Yu Tongyuan also ran up and suggested.

"Well, let me think about it. I can give it a try." Lu Jin said after thinking for a while.

Now there are so many soldiers following him to conquer the world, but their slogan is just "expel the Tartars, restore China, establish laws and disciplines, and save the people". This is a political program, but it is not suitable for the soldiers to understand.

When promoting to the soldiers, you need to be more practical.

Lu Jin also thought about giving the soldiers spiritual construction. Coming from the modern era, how could he not know the importance of instructors? However, he currently had no suitable person to be responsible for propaganda work.

Luo Guanzhong and Shi Naian are good people. In history, they were both advisers of Zhang Shicheng. Now, they may still be in Jiangnan, probably hanging around Hangzhou. They are hundreds or thousands of miles away from him, so he can't send people to kidnap them.
Zhang Shicheng is also a very interesting person.

In history, Zhang Shicheng was simply possessed by Dai Li. He was very good at intelligence warfare and repeatedly instigated generals under Zhu Yuanzhang to rebel. The most outrageous one was that he instigated Xie Zaixing to rebel.

Who is Xie Zaixing? He is the father-in-law of Xu Da and Zhu Wenzhen. He married his eldest daughter to Zhu Wenzhen and his second daughter to Xu Da.

Even though she was married to an important general under Zhu Yuanzhang, she was still instigated by Zhang Shicheng and defected to Zhang Shicheng with her troops. It was outrageous.

Zhu Di's Empress Xu, the Empress's grandfather, defected to Zhang Shicheng. Can you believe it?
Even Zhu Wenzheng, Zhu Yuanzhang's nephew and the god of war in the Battle of Nanchang, almost surrendered to Zhang Shicheng.

Also, during the period when Xu Da was stationed in Jiangdong, his generals repeatedly abused prisoners, which caused resentment among the surrendered soldiers and generals. Zhang Shicheng seized the opportunity and instigated a rebellion, and then those surrendered soldiers and generals all ran away, making Zhu Yuanzhang's Jiangdong Iron Wall almost a joke.

Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and accused Xu Da of not disciplining his troops strictly. Then, starting with Xu Da, all the officers under his command were demoted by one rank.

The generals under Zhu Yuanzhang liked to abuse prisoners more than once, which led to the surrendered soldiers and generals often rebelling again.

When fighting in Nanjing, the Yuan army rebelled again because of his surrender. Zhu Yuanzhang himself almost died outside the city of Nanjing. He was able to escape only by using a substitute to lure out the main force of the Yuan army.

Why did Chang Yuchun like to kill prisoners so much? It was because there were too many prisoners who surrendered and then rebelled again. According to him, they would run away anyway, so it would be better to kill them all to save trouble.
Brother Cheng is awesome at intelligence warfare. The Jinyiwei that came later are inferior to him.

What’s funny is that Zhu Yuanzhang still wasn’t convinced and wanted to win back the intelligence war, so he selected ten people from his own guards and used a torture trick on them.

Zhu Yuanzhang first asked them to go to the streets to oppress the common people, and then pretend to be discovered. The ten people were dragged outside and beaten half to death by Zhu Yuanzhang in the street. Then he asked these ten people to pretend to have grievances and go to Zhang Shicheng. It was equivalent to sending ten undercover agents to Chengge.

As a result, Zhang Shicheng took special care of these ten people, giving them money and helping them find wives. Then one of them couldn't resist the temptation and betrayed the other nine brothers on the spot. Zhang Shicheng was furious and killed those nine men.

Zhu Yuanzhang was furious when he received the news. Nine of his ten guards were killed, and one of them became a traitor. After he defeated Zhang Shicheng, he found the traitor and cut him into pieces 3,600 times in the street.
In terms of intelligence warfare alone, Chongba Ge has never won a single round and has always been beaten by Cheng Ge.

However, it was of no use. Although Cheng Ge had great strategies, he just couldn't win in terms of hard power, and he always lost in the frontal battlefield.

Maybe this is what they call "one force defeats ten skills".
Putting aside the idea of ​​military propaganda for the time being, after finishing the drill, Lu Jin led the generals to practice using their weapons.

His current equipment has almost been put together to be usable. He has made a new set of iron armor and disassembled the broken armor and reassembled it to better suit Lu Jin's body shape.

The main weapon was a Fang Tian Hua Ji, and the halberd head was the same one from Zuo Junbi's home. He asked a craftsman to modify it into an oval flat pole, and the gun barrel was made of oak, which was barely usable.

The construction period for the gun barrel made of bamboo tubes wrapped with iron core is too long and it has not been completed yet.

His secondary weapon is an ordinary waist knife and his baton.

Lu Jin also learned archery from Zheng Yong and found a strong bow weighing 160 stone, which is equivalent to about pounds in modern times. He also took it from Zuo Junbi's house and it might have been used by Zuo Junbi for practice.

This thing is collected by a hereditary military general. The material is quite good. It is the small-tipped bow style commonly seen in the Yuan and Ming dynasties. However, it should not be used in actual combat.

But Lu Jin was quite strong, so he could play it well, but when he was learning, he made a joke. Lu Jin thought it was the Mediterranean three-finger string-pulling method used in the Olympics, but it turned out that everyone used the thumb-pulling method.

There is also the term 'thumbnail ring'. When he said 'thumbnail ring', Zheng Yong didn't understand at all. The term 'thumbnail ring' was not used until the Qing Dynasty.

After the communication, I learned that the thing was formerly called "韘", which is homophonic with "射", and was also called a finger machine or trigger. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the written scientific name of this thing was called "螭玦". It is made of many kinds of materials, including leather, bone, and keratin.

Lu Jin asked someone to make one using a yellow ox horn, and it works pretty well.

He got the hang of it quickly. His body had been strengthened during the time travel, so he had great strength and good eyesight. He had not been sick for more than a month since he traveled through time. He mastered the archery skills very quickly. Now, he can hit the target with every arrow from 70 meters away, and hit six or seven out of ten from meters away. However, he can only shoot while standing still. He still needs to practice rapid shooting and horseback shooting slowly.

In the beginning, bows and arrows were indeed irreplaceable by muskets. Apart from other things, muskets could not compare with bows and arrows in terms of firing rate. If a musket wanted to compete with bows and arrows in firing rate, it had to wait until the invention of bottom guns and metal fixed bullets.

The musket will definitely be equipped, but the bow and arrow should be practiced now.

He started with physical training in the morning, then moved on to spears, sticks and long weapons, then archery, and finally horse riding. He practiced martial arts for the whole morning, and continued to compile his Gongshu Secret Book in the afternoon.

Now that the territory is small, there are not many internal affairs that need him to deal with. The entire Marshal's Office is more like a temporary military government, with military affairs taking priority in everything.

While Lu Jin was editing a book in the city, near Douyang Pass, north of Hezhou Port, several bandits were patrolling to see if there were any merchants passing by.

Douyang Pass is located in Hanshan County. Hanshan has been known as the "head of Wu and the tail of Chu" since ancient times. It is an important hub connecting the Chu and Wu states. Although the mountain is not high, it is "steep" and has many passes. It has been a battleground for military strategists throughout the ages.

Even if you look at the entire Jianghuai Plain, Hanshan is one of the few commanding heights.

Among them, Jilong Mountain is part of the Hanshan mountain system, and Douyang Pass is a naturally formed ravine in the mountains. It is an important passage leading to Chao County from Chuzhou.

The most important thing is that Jilong Mountain is less than 30 miles away from Heyang City, and can be reached in half a day by a quick march.

On a huge rock beside the mountain path, Chang Yuchun, a 21-year-old young man with a height of meters, long arms and natural strength, was playing with a horn bow, which he had stolen from a wealthy family when he broke into the house a while ago.

As for humans, they were killed, naturally.
Chang Yuchun has now become a captain among the bandits, with dozens of followers under him. This time, he was ordered by the bandit boss Liu Ju to come to the vicinity of Heyang to see if there is any business to be done there.

It's very difficult to survive in the north now. The power of Xuzhou's Sesame Li is growing stronger and stronger. There are wars everywhere. Life is not easy for these bandits!

In peacetime, there were still passing merchants who could be robbed, but now that a war has broken out and the merchants have been cut off, all they can do is break into people’s homes to rob. However, which wealthy family doesn’t build a stronghold to protect themselves? It’s not easy to break into a landlord’s house.

If the bandits are too few in number, they cannot defeat the landlords; if they are too many in number, it will be difficult to support them by just robbing.

So Liu Ju decided to develop southwards. He heard that the south was relatively peaceful and Heyang was an important port on the Yangtze River with many merchants. If things didn't work out, he would move here to do the business of banditry. This time he sent Chang Yuchun to explore the way.

But after Chang Yuchun came over, he found that the situation was not quite what Liu Ju had expected.

Not to mention the merchants, they observed along the mountain road for a few days and there was not a single hair, this is not normal
Chang Yuchun has also been reflecting recently. He was born into a poor peasant family. Because he didn't want to die in the fields like his parents, he worked part-time to pay for his tuition and learned martial arts from others.

But martial arts cannot make a living, and when he was starving he had no choice but to seek refuge with the notorious bandit Liu Ju. Because he was tall and strong and had good martial arts, Liu Ju appointed him as a sergeant as soon as he joined. Later, Liu Ju gradually became his confidant and promoted him to a centurion.

When he first started robbing, Chang Yuchun was quite excited, thinking that it was better for those unscrupulous landlords to die, and that he could have enough food and clothing by robbing. But gradually he began to feel depressed, thinking that being a robber was nothing more than that.

Nowadays, the world is in chaos, and rebel armies are rising up everywhere, with anti-Yuan rebels everywhere. Look at those rebel generals, which one of them is not full of vigor and enthusiasm, commanding thousands of troops to capture cities and territories.

Look at others, then look at yourself, what is a real thief?

Small thieves rob houses, big thieves steal the country!
He has recently thought about joining the rebels, but he has not yet decided who to join.

Just then, a 16-year-old boy came running over in a hurry, speaking as he ran.

"Brother Yuchun, it's bad. A large army has come to Hanshan. The search team is all over the mountain. There are also many soldiers. They have set up sentries everywhere. There may be tens of thousands of people. No wonder there are no merchants here. Why are we robbing them?"

Chang Yuchun looked over and saw that it was Lan Rong who joined them when they passed by Dingyuan some time ago. Lan Rong also had a younger brother, Lan Yu, who was still a 12-year-old kid.

Chang Yuchun rolled his eyes at him and cursed, "You know nothing. What does the presence of a large army in Hanshan have to do with whether there are merchants? Merchants all come from Hezhou Port. Now that there are no merchants, it means that Hezhou Port has also been blocked by government troops. It seems that fighting will break out here too."

"Ah? Doesn't that mean we will have no business? Should we go back? If they start fighting, don't let it get to us." Lan Rong said depressedly.

Chang Yuchun's expression changed, "I want to stay and see, which red scarf is the closest here?"

Lan Rong thought for a moment and said, "It seems to be Marshal Lu of Luzhou. Didn't we pass by a village before and posted a red paper notice saying that Marshal Lu was going to marry and the people under his rule would only get two liters of rice in the next summer harvest?"

After being reminded, Chang Yuchun immediately recalled, "Yes, I remember. Someone in Dingyuan was saying that Marshal Lu used work-for-relief to let the people build the city wall. I heard that he paid a lot, two liters of rice for one day's work, and another one bucket of rice for half a month's work. Even the people of Dingyuan wanted to run over to help him build the city wall."

"That's true. It's also being spread in my hometown. I heard that Marshal Lu was quite kind and righteous. He even abolished the usury that the Tartars had lent and burned all the IOUs.

"I heard that when he conquered Luzhou, he also killed a Tartar prince. Hey, it's really satisfying!" Lan Rong also echoed.

Chang Yuchun rolled his eyes and then smiled.

"That's interesting. Marshal Lu posted everywhere that he was going to get married and get a tax reduction. He wanted the whole world to know about it. He even announced the wedding date to everyone. But at this time, he sent a large army to station in Hanshan. What do you think he wants to do?"

"Oh, don't worry about what he wants to do. What should we do? Should we leave or stay? We can't stay here anymore." Lan Rong said anxiously.

"Let my brothers retreat first, I will stay and watch. It's rare to see such a good show." Chang Yuchun made the decision immediately.

As the bandits evacuated, two days later, another large army entered Jilong Mountain. They marched entirely at night without even lighting torches. The troops were well-organized, silent and solemn, and they entered the mountain stealthily.

There are nearly 10,000 soldiers hidden in various places in Hanshan. Such a disciplined army that can march in the mountains in the middle of the night made Chang Yuchun gasp and he began to have a higher opinion of Lu Jin's strength.

Let's try to divide the chapters first, don't make a mistake, this chapter has 4,000 words, there are at least two more chapters today, I really don't have any drafts saved, please forgive me

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(End of this chapter)