Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 153 Occupying Lingchuan
But Li Zicheng never imagined that although Li Jing's cannon was small, its power was far beyond his imagination.

Seeing shells falling from the sky and exploding immediately after landing, the people who he arranged to defend the city were blown upside down in a blink of an eye, Li Zicheng's face turned green, and he hurriedly shouted to the soldiers around him: "Quick! Send an order to abandon the city! retreat!"

In fact, there is no need for Li Zicheng to send orders. After the rebels who escaped their lives on the city wall woke up from their panic, they ran away without saying a word.

Even if Li Jing couldn't see the situation on the city wall, he could imagine it.

Faced with such a powerful weapon, even the most elite troops would not have the guts to continue to resist, let alone a group of unorganized and undisciplined bandits?Li Jing didn't want to wipe out the rebellious army, it would be of great use to keep the rebellious army, just scare it away.

Therefore, when he saw Chen Dazhuang preparing for the second round of shelling, Li Jing waved to Chen Dazhuang and said, "Da Zhuang, there is no need to shoot, the rebels have already run away."

Sure enough, not long after, news came from the east gate that another group of rebels abandoned the city and fled.

Li Jing smiled, and after waiting for a while, guessing that Li Zicheng's men had almost run away, Li Jing asked Hutou to send an order to enter the city.

Hutou received the order and shouted loudly: "Send the order of the commander-in-chief, enter the city!"

Immediately, several messengers quickly mounted their horses and galloped towards the west gate and north gate, informing the troops on the two sides to enter the city.

The rebels in the city fled, and the city gate was useless. After breaking through the city gate, Li Jing led his people into the city.

Li Jing led the crowd straight to the county government, and the city was in a mess along the way.

Li Jing shook his head, Wang Jiayin, Wang Ziyong, Gao Yingxiang and others only know how to lead the refugees to rebel, but they don't know how to care about the people's recuperation. How can such people achieve great things?Similarly, Li Zicheng can't achieve great things, which can be seen from the fact that after he entered Beijing, he indulged his subordinates to plunder.

It is not difficult to capture a city, but it is difficult to conquer the hearts of the people. Only when the hearts of the people are willing can the city be completely occupied, and conquering the hearts of the people is not as simple as killing a few corrupt officials, powerful bullies.

"Gao Qi, pass down my military order that all officers and men are not allowed to enter civilian houses without authorization, not to buy or sell by force, not to rob rich households, and not to kill court officials without authorization. Zhang An Min Bang, to inform people who have no food at home to come to the county government office to collect food, At the same time, a porridge shop will be set up next to the county government office, and those who are homeless can come to the porridge shop to eat." Li Jing said as he walked.

"Yes!" Gao Qi nodded, and hurried away with his men and horses.

Li Jing continued: "Chen Dahu, you take over the city defense with your troops to prevent the officers and soldiers from attacking!"

"Yes!" Chen Dahu took the order and left.

Li Jing then ordered: "Chen Dazhuang, place part of your artillery on the city wall to assist Liu Erleng in defending the city, and the other part is on standby at any time."

"Yes!" Chen Dazhuang also took the order and left.

"Shitou, take your soldiers to patrol the streets. If you encounter soldiers who do not obey military discipline, you will take them down immediately. If you see any gangsters who take advantage of the chaos to rob and fish in troubled waters, I will punish you on the spot!" Li Jing said.

"Yes!" Stone answered the order and left.

Shitou is Zhou Daqing's son, one year older than Hutou, and grew up with Hutou. Back then, Hutou and Hutou were the child kings of Hongshanling, the most mischievous. I have a headache.

Later, Shen Ying opened a school in Hongshanling Taoist Temple, and Shitou and Hutou were the first batch of copycat children to go to the school.

But after going to school, Shitou gradually became sensible, and became more and more stable as he got older.

As the name suggests, the stone man is usually taciturn and doesn't fly away like a tiger's head. Li Jing thinks highly of him, so he stays by his side as the deputy captain.

And Shitou lived up to Li Jing's expectations of him, and all the things assigned to him never went wrong.

Lingchuan County is not big, only a few streets, Li Jing and others walked along the road, and they saw the Lingchuan County Government Office not far away.

The two stone lions in front of the gate of the county government are very conspicuous, but the gate is already wide open, and one of the gates even fell down, and it must have been hit by the rebels.

After so many years in the Ming Dynasty, it was the first time for Li Jing to enter the county government office, so he naturally had to take a closer look at the offices of Ming Dynasty officials.

After entering the gate, there is a courtyard with a very large area.Passing through the courtyard is the county government hall, and the gate of the hall is also open at this time.

Li Jing stepped in and looked around.

The lobby is very spacious, but at this time it is already in disarray, the doors and windows have all been smashed, and wooden sticks and other objects are scattered all over the place.Li Jing leaned over to pick up a wooden stick, which was quite heavy, a bit like a rowing stick, probably the board used by the yamen servants to beat people.

Li Jing shook his head and threw it away casually.

There are two steps in the lobby, and there is a desk in the middle above the steps, and the desk is skewed at this time.There is a plaque hanging above the desk, and one side of the plaque has fallen off at this time.

Li Jing turned his body to look at it, and saw the four big characters of "Qing Zheng Lian Ming" in the letter.

Li Jing stepped forward to straighten the desk. Seeing that there were brushes, inkstones and other objects on the ground, Li Jing leaned over to pick them up and put them on the desk.

Behind the book table was a grand teacher's chair, and Li Jing sat down and looked forward, feeling quite condescending.

Looking around, he saw that there was a side door on the left side of the lobby. After sitting for a while, Li Jing got up, pushed the door open and entered.

Pushing open the door is a long corridor, and there are several houses on both sides of the corridor.

Among them, the first room on the left is only separated from the hall of the county government office by a wall. There are only two tables and a few chairs in the room. At this time, the room is full of pens, inks and papers, and there are a few official letters among them. It seems that this room should be It is a room like the study room where the county magistrate temporarily handles official business.

Li Jing took a brief look at the several rooms, but didn't think there was anything unusual about it.

Through the long corridor is the back room, which is where the county magistrate's family lives.

"Hutou, take someone to look around carefully to see if there are any survivors. If there are survivors, don't frighten him." Li Jing said.

"Yes!" Tiger Head replied.

Hutou led people to search separately, while Li Jing went back to the study behind the lobby and silently thought about what to do next.

If Li Jing was aware of the lack of talents in his staff before, then now he realizes how troublesome it is to have no talents.

When he was in Hongshanling before, he digested the surrounding territory bit by bit by nibbling. Even though there were not enough manpower, he could take it slowly.

Now that Lingchuan has been occupied all of a sudden, many problems are immediately highlighted.

The first is how to quickly rectify the dilapidated situation in Sulingchuan, and then bring the policy in Hongshanling to Lingchuan to implement. As the saying goes, things are complicated and complicated, but these things cannot be delayed, but need to be done as quickly as possible. Speed ​​handles them well.

While Li Jing was thinking, Hutou brought an old man and a girl dressed as a maid over.

"Marshal Qi, there are only these two living people in the whole house." Hutou said, walked to Li Jing and whispered a few words.

Li Jingjing nodded, and looked at the two of them carefully, and saw that the old man had gray beard and hair, and the maid's legs and feet seemed to be somewhat inconvenient.

Seeing the two men's expressions were extremely frightened, Li Jingling ordered Hutou to move two chairs for them to sit on, and asked someone to pour a cup of tea for them, and then said: "Don't be afraid, we are not a rebel army, we will not harm you , what are your names?"

The old man saw that Li Jing was obviously not dressed in the official army, but he was called a commander in chief. He had doubts in his heart, but he could only reply tremblingly: "Thank you general, the younger one is Zhou Xianlong."

"My servant's name is Xing'er." The servant girl replied.

"Who are you from this mansion? Where are the other people in this mansion?" Li Jing asked.

Zhou Xianlong hurriedly said: "Returning to the general, the young one is the one who guards the back door of the mansion. All the people in the mansion ran away before the rebel army attacked the city the day before yesterday. The young one is too old to run, so he had to find a place to hide. "

"The servant girl is the servant girl serving the young master. The servant girl's foot was twisted two days ago. When the rebel army came the day before yesterday, the servant girl escaped by hiding in the rockery behind." Xing'er said.

"Oh? The rebellious army is famous for being able to search and search. You are lucky to escape their search, but how did my subordinates find you?" Li Jing laughed.

Zhou Xianlong hurriedly said: "Don't dare to lie to the general. We escaped the search of the rebel army by hiding in the secret room under the rockery. Just now we heard that the rebel army escaped from below. We wanted to come out to see if the officers and soldiers had returned. Thinking of meeting these military masters, I was brought here."

Xing'er nodded beside her.

"Oh, so that's the case." Li Jing thought for a while, then continued, "How is your county magistrate's official voice?"

Xing'er and Zhou Xianlong looked at each other, shook his head and said. "This... this servant is just a girl, and I don't usually go out. I don't know how the master's official voice is, but the master usually treats us servants pretty well."

"Returning to the master, Master Zhou's official voice is a bit quiet, but it's not good, but it's not too bad." Zhou Xianlong said.

"How do you say that?" Li Jing questioned.

"If you are an official, you will inevitably do some corrupt and illegal things. Zhou County magistrate has to support his family, so he has done a lot of corrupt things, but as far as I know, he has not done much about illegal things." Zhou Xianlong said .

Li Jingjing nodded: "Well, the salary of a county magistrate is indeed not enough to support his family. A little bit of corruption is inevitable. As long as he doesn't do anything against the law, he can be regarded as a good official."

Li Jing glanced at Zhou Xianlong, and continued: "Poor parents in the world, it's not easy for you as a father. You don't want to say that your son is bad, and you don't want to lie. It's really difficult for you."

"You, how do you know that the county magistrate is my son?" Zhou Xianlong said in shock.

Li Jing shook his head, pointed at Zhou Xianlong and said with a smile: "Although you have changed your clothes, the clothes on you reveal a lot of doubts. Think about it, a person who guards the gate has been exposed to the wind and sun for years, how can his hands and face be changed?" So delicate? Could it be that the gatekeepers of the county magistrate's family are pampered all day long?"

After a pause, Li Jing then smiled and said: "Besides, if you two are really servants, how can you know where the county magistrate's secret room is? Even if you know, how can you two servants enter the county magistrate's secret room? Could it be the secret room? Is the door open? And you don’t sound like someone looking at the door when you reply. From your tone, I can conclude that even if the magistrate of this county is not your son, he must be your relative’s younger generation.”

(End of this chapter)