Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 172 Purple Mountain

Li Jing told Yuan Keli his idea, seeing that Yuan Keli was noncommittal, Li Jing knew that Yuan Keli agreed.

So Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng were once again entrusted with important tasks by Li Jing.

For Chen Dahu and Liu Erlen, this period of time was really depressing, especially for Liu Erlen.

At any rate, Chen Dahu fought Gao Yingxiang in Lingchuan, and Liu Erleng never let go of a single shot after he came out of Hongshanling.

Seeing the rogues and the officers and soldiers turning around in front of their eyes, but they couldn't make a move. With the character of these two people, it is really rare to be able to hold back.

On this day, Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng received an order from Li Jing saying that they had a task to do. They were overjoyed and rushed over.

Seeing the anxious faces of the two of them, Li Jing secretly laughed, and didn't talk to them, but even told them about the plan he had made.

Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng were overjoyed when they heard that they were going to pretend to be rogues to rob. This job was much more interesting than fighting rogues. They were good at torturing the big landlords around Hongshanling back then.

Moreover, the scale this time was much larger than that of Hongshanling, covering five counties, which meant that both of them would be engaged in the rogue business for a long time.

But before looting those officials, gentry and landlords, Li Jing needed Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng to lead people to occupy four places first.These four places are: Zheyao Mountain in Yuanqu, Zijin Mountain in Quwo, Tangshan in Wenxi, and Huigao Mountain in Yicheng County.

These four places were found by Li Jing after hearing from Zhou Huhu that there was copper in Yuanqu County. There are four copper mines.

Hearing that there are four copper mines here, Li Jing was overjoyed, but with Li Jing's strength at that time, he couldn't stretch his hand so far, and the timing was not ripe. Now that these counties are occupied, Li Jing's first thing to do It is to win these four copper mines.

For Li Jing, copper mines do not represent money, but bullets and shells.

The main equipment of Li Jing's army is guns. If there are no bullets and shells, it is better to burn sticks. Li Jing does not want soldiers to carry bows and arrows when fighting, so Li Jing does not wait for Cao Wenzhao to agree to his cooperation. If the conditions are met, troops will be dispatched.That is to say, even if he turned against Cao Wenzhao at that time, Li Jing would still get these four copper mines.

Li Jing was the first to strike at the copper mines instead of those wealthy businessmen and gentry. Li Jing was quite familiar with those rich businessmen and gentry. When the news came out, these people were probably the first to start looting, and the copper mine would naturally become their first choice. After they finished robbing, they would blame all the crimes on the rogues.

Li Jing didn't want to be taken advantage of.

Li Jing asked Chen Dahu and others to start sweeping up these wealthy businessmen and gentry after they occupied the copper mine. If they dared to take the idea of ​​the copper mine, they would be wiped out.

After telling Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng the exact locations of the four copper mines, Li Jing formulated a detailed action plan for them.

Then, on a dark and stormy night, Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng led two battalions of troops into bandits' attire, and started to move in four groups.

On the surface, what Li Jing did was not much different from that of a bandit, but in fact it was completely different.

First of all, Li Jing ordered his subordinates to only rob, not murder and set fire, let alone rob women. Even if the crime is heinous, it must be investigated thoroughly before killing, and there must be no connection.

Secondly, the food and money that Li Jing snatched from these people will eventually be distributed to the people here, but the rogues will never spit it out again.

After sending Chen Dahu and others out, Li Jing then ordered the troops distributed in several counties to prepare to wipe out the rogues.

Due to the large number of people involved in this operation, in order to keep it secret, except for the two battalions of Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng who knew the whole story because they were pretending to be bandits, the rest of the Jishi Army officers and soldiers were completely kept in the dark. The battalion officials in charge of maintaining law and order in the county knew the inside story.

Therefore, when receiving this order, most of the officers and soldiers of the Jishi Army were puzzled, and asked whether Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng had run away?Are there any bandits around here?
Li Jing would not explain these questions.

However, there were always discordant voices. For the tricks played by the officers and soldiers written and directed by Li Jing, the battalion officers responsible for the security of the counties all complained that Li Jing was torturing them.

Li Jing also knew that these people had difficulties because they didn't have enough troops.

The total force brought by Li Jing was more than [-] people, including [-] guards sent from Lin County and two battalions sent from Hongshanling who had just turned into regular soldiers.

However, the two battalions of Chen Dahu and Liu Erleng were sent out to perform special tasks, and Li Jing was stationed in Jiang County. In order to deal with emergencies, two battalions of troops were left here.
As a result, the actual number of troops available for deployment in these counties is only about [-].

With the weapons and equipment of the Jishi Army, 1000 people are enough to guard a county, but these troops are obviously not enough to disperse to wipe out the bandits.

Hearing the complaints from the people below, Li Jing himself was quite helpless, but Li Jing did not stop the game, firstly to win the hearts of the people, and secondly, this was also an excellent opportunity to test his subordinates' ability to handle affairs.

In fact, Li Jing can't stop this game now, because if he doesn't send people to rob, Li Jing won't be able to support the people in the five counties.

Although Hongshanling has stored a lot of grain in the past few years, it is not unlimited purchase. You must know that grain has a shelf life, and if it takes too long, it will rot and deteriorate.

Although the yield of sweet potatoes and potatoes is high, they are not easy to preserve. If these two things are raw, they can be preserved for a year. If you want to preserve them for a long time, you can only cook them, dry them in the sun, and then seal them.But it can't be sealed with things like wine jars and water tanks, right?How many water tanks are enough to store tens of thousands of catties of dried sweet potatoes and potatoes?

Corn can also be stored for a longer time after drying, but don’t forget that once the grain is stored for a long time, it will attract a lot of small animals who make a living by stealing. Li Jing is not that stupid, spending a lot of money to hoard a lot Grain to feed the mice.

In fact, Li Jing only purchased [-] shi of rice noodles from the south every year in the past three years, and [-] shi of which were not stored in Hongshanling, but were placed in grain shops in various places. Once it was useless in the next year, it would be sold immediately.

Fortunately, the profit of grain is still relatively high, and when it is sold the next year, it will not lose money after all.Even if you pay a little, after selling sweet potatoes, potatoes and corn, you can help Li Jing make up for it.

That is to say, apart from the 15 shi purchased, Li Jing's grain storage in Hongshanling is sweet potatoes and corn collected from taxes every year, which are only about [-] shi.Including last year's surplus, the total amount of grain that Li Jing can mobilize from Hongshanling is only [-] shi.

And there is also a capacity issue here.

One shi of rice weighed about 120 jin, and 120 shi was 1000 million jin. At this time, there were no trains and cars, so we had to rely on animal power and manpower. A cart could pull more than 300 jin, and a cart could push more than 200 jin.If it is transported by big carts, more than 4000 carts are needed for [-] shimi, and more than [-] carts are needed for carts.

There are not so many horses and carts in Hongshanling, so they can only rely on human-powered carts. Fortunately, carts are a must for every family at this time, otherwise, they will not be able to gather all the carts.

In addition, the folks who transport grain also need to eat. If 4000 people transport [-] shi of grain, each person will eat one catty per day, which is [-] catties of grain. It will take at least ten days to travel from Hongshanling to Jiangxian County, which is [-] About [-] catties of grain, plus the fact that the peasants still have to eat when they return, actually requires [-] catties of grain, which is close to [-] shi.

The transport capacity of Hongshan Ridge is at most [-] shi, which requires a large number of auxiliary soldiers from the mountain to act as civilian husbands. If there is more, there will be no civilian husbands available.

The last time Li Jing asked Shen Zheng to mobilize [-] shi of grain, in fact, it was transported five times in total. Fortunately, Hongshan Ridge is not far from Lingchuan, and those auxiliary soldiers are all young and strong, so they can go there in two days, if it is not for the mountain road It is difficult to walk, and you can run back and forth in a day, which is one of the reasons why Li Jing wants to build roads.

As for the five thousand shi of grain given to Gao Yingxiang, if there were not so many captives who became civilian husbands, it would be good if Li Jing could give him five hundred shi.

A large number of civilians are needed to deliver food, but Hongshanling and Lingchuan are currently undergoing major infrastructure construction, and half of the auxiliary soldiers left behind have been promoted to regular soldiers and started to participate in the war, and the rest have to guard their old nests.

If we can't transport food, we can only rob local big households and even ordinary people.In addition, Li Jing brought two thousand shi of grain when he set off from Lingchuan, which was enough to last for a while.

When the situation here is stable, Li Jing can mobilize part of his troops and recruit a group of peasants to go back to the mountains to transport grain, and wait for the next spring to plant sweet potatoes and potatoes.

The second reason why Li Jing couldn't stop the game was that Li Jing had already seen very clearly at this time that if the five counties were not messed up and the foolish people were not given some lessons, Ji Shijun would not be able to speak well.

The so-called sticks make filial sons, and kindness raises unfavorable children. Some people can't get used to it.

……

Purple Mountain.

Chen Dahu sneaked into Quwo Zijin Mountain overnight with more than 500 brothers.

Seeing the darkness ahead, the sentry officer Ding Gousheng followed behind Chen Dahu, wiped his face and said, "Brother Hu, why can't you see anything? Did you go the wrong way?"

"It's his grandma's. I remember that when my elder brother told me it was in this direction, why can't I see a house?" Chen Dahu also said depressed.

Ding Gousheng said: "It's better to light the torch, anyway, when we get to the mountains, it doesn't matter to hide our whereabouts at this time."

Chen Dahu pondered for a while, and was about to agree, when he suddenly heard a person shout from a distance: "Brother Hu, there seems to be a road over there, it should be the way into the mountain."

(End of this chapter)