Vow to die at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 153

That day, when he knew that there was nothing to be done, Li Taiping made a decisive decision to abandon the foundation of Nanyang Mansion, and selected [-] elites and more than [-] family members to start the expedition.

There are more than 1000 wheelbarrows in the team of more than [-] people, and each wheelbarrow is loaded with a lot of supplies.Most of them are food, clothing and tents, and there are also some gold and silver and other property.After all, going to a new place for development also requires some financial support.

According to the previously established route, Li Taiping led these [-] people from Tongbai all the way west.After crossing Dafu Mountain, bypassing Tangzi Mountain, we came to the border of Xinye.It was more than [-] miles away from Tongbai. After walking such a long distance, everyone was exhausted physically and mentally.Moreover, in order to avoid trouble, Li Taiping led the team to avoid the main road and take the small road.In this way, more than three hundred miles have been walked for ten days in a row.

Along the way, Li Taiping saw that many lands were deserted, and the villages and towns he passed along the way were abandoned.

"The white bones are exposed in the wild and there is no rooster crowing for thousands of miles. What a scene in troubled times!" Mei Renxin, who was beside Li Taiping, also sighed.

The war has caused too much trauma to the society. All the fighting is money, and massive wealth will be burned by the war.The world has been in chaos for more than [-] years, especially after the Tatars entered the customs in recent years, the world has become even more chaotic. Some provinces that were not at all war-torn have also begun to suffer from war.

Traveling down these hundreds of miles, all I saw was a desolate scene of troubled times.The houses collapsed, the fields were barren, and it was difficult to see people on large tracts of land.Of course, although this is also related to the remote road that Li Taiping took, the situation is not much better when the small road is blocked and turned to the main road.

There are only a few villagers in sight, and they are all impoverished, with yellow and thin faces and ragged clothes.When they saw their huge team, especially when there were thousands of knives and guns in the team, they all showed fear in their eyes. Those who were closer lowered their heads and did not dare to look directly at them, while those who were far away turned and fled back. Home, quickly shut the door.

Several times, Li Taiping wanted to help these poor people and give them some food.But Mei Renxin persuaded Li Taiping that those who achieve big things don't care about small things, if they are kind-hearted and help them, their military rations will not be enough, because it may attract more people.Moreover, it is better to teach people to fish than to give them fish. Giving them food is a small kindness, but it is a great kindness to calm the world and let the people live and work in peace and contentment again.

Therefore, Li Taiping did not mention the food distribution anymore.He understands that military rations are more important than people's hearts, and even giving up military rations may not necessarily bring people's hearts back.

After a short rest in Xinye, Li Taiping led his troops to continue westward.Now that the world is in chaos and thieves are rampant, when the troops of the Fourth Battalion pass through the border, some local officials have closed the gates of the city tightly.When they saw the supplies on the more than 1000 wheelbarrows, although they were jealous, they gave up their greed when they saw the thousands of knives and guns.After watching Li Taiping and others cross the border, these people breathed a sigh of relief, no matter where the bandits come from, as long as they don't stop under their own control.

Stopping and stopping all the way like this, Li Taiping led his troops to wander around the borders of Henan and Hubei, shuttling through areas where the Tartar forces were weak, and finally arrived at Baihe County in Xing'an Prefecture a month later.Along the way, nearly a hundred people died of illness and freezing, which made the morale of the team very low.

When Li Taiping arrived in Shaanxi, he was disappointed to find that the situation here was even worse than that in Henan. The people's livelihood here was poor and the land was barren. It was really not a good place to start.

He walked west for a while, crossed the Baishi River and then the Lengshui River, and was almost at Xunyang County. The situation was still so dire, Li Taiping shook his head.Although the security regiment wants to develop in places where the Tartars are weak, most of the weak places are poor places.It's just that if the place is too poor and too few people, then it will not be able to recruit too many people, nor can it collect too much property. How can this develop?Could it be that he degenerated directly into the king of the mountain?

"Renxin, didn't you say that Shaanxi is the base of kings and hegemons? How can it be used as a base with such a poor population and few people here?" Li Taiping asked Mei Renxin.

At this time, Mei Renxin was also blushing. The straw belly with golden horns and silver borders he said was only obtained from books, and did not take into account the actual situation.In fact, Xi'an has not become a capital city since the Tang Dynasty, and there are also economic factors in this.The grain output in the Guanzhong area is too low to feed too many people.Soil erosion has also reduced the area of ​​cultivated land in Shaanxi, and almost all of them have to rely on grain transportation from other provinces to survive.

"Battalion Commander, my subordinates made a mistake. They didn't take into account that after more than ten years of ravages by bandits in Shaanxi, the people have already been overwhelmed. Battalion Commander, why don't we go all the way north to Shanxi, Shanxi is much richer than Shaanxi." Mei Renxin said.

In fact, what Mei Renxin said was only one aspect. The border of Shaanxi has not only allowed the peasant army to wreak havoc for more than ten years.In recent years, there have been many wars and small battles, especially the Xing'an Mansion under Li Taiping's feet, which is a place where wars gather.

In the first year of Huaxing, that is, the first year of Shunzhi, Li Zicheng was expelled from Beijing by the Tartars, and then fled to Shaanxi.In September of the same year, the Tartars attacked Shaanxi, and Li Zicheng's troops fought in two ways.Prince He Shuoying of the Tartars, General Azige Jingyuan, led Wu Sangui Shang Kexi and other traitors to invade Suide, Shaanxi, and defeated the Northern Route Army led by Li Guo and Gao Yigong.At the same time, Duoduo, Prince Yu of the Tartars and General Dingguo, led Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and other traitor troops to fight Li Zicheng in a decisive battle at Tongguan. As a result, Li Zicheng was finally defeated.The general of the Dashun Army, He Zhen, submitted a letter of surrender to the Tartars in Hanzhong.In February, Duoduo went eastward, entered Henan, went down to Yangzhou, and destroyed Hongguang.It was this Duoduo's invasion of Henan that Qiu Tianxing was separated from Song An and witnessed Song Xiu being robbed with his own eyes. It was this heart-wrenching hatred that made Qiu Tianxing determined to form a security team.

In the first month of the third year of Huaxing, He Zhen, a general from the Dashun Army, mobilized more than [-] horse infantry troops including Sun Shoufa and Hu Xianghua to besiege Xi'an.At this time, the Moergen and Li Guohan troops of the Tartar Army newly transferred to Shaanxi arrived.He Zhen retreated due to internal and external attacks.In February, the Shaanxi Tartars attacked in three directions. He Zhen was defeated and retreated to southern Shaanxi, and other anti-Tartar troops in Guanzhong also retreated to southern and northern Shaanxi one after another.

In May, Hauge, Prince Su of the Tartars, led an army in person and entered Hanzhong and Xing'an (now Ankang) from the plank road, attacking He Zhen, Sun Shoufa, Hu Xianghua and others.Liu Wenbing, Kang Qianzong, Guo Tianxing, Zhang Polian, etc., who resisted the Tartar army in Beishan, were defeated and retreated to northern Shaanxi.He Zhen's troops were defeated and retreated to Xixiang and then to Huguang.

In November, He Zhen led his troops to counterattack southern Shaanxi from Huguang. When the army reached Xing'an, the Tazi army attacked, and He Zhen and others retreated.

In December of the fourth year of Huaxing, Mi Guozhen, Li Guoxuan, Li Shiying and others in Xing'an Prefecture led troops to rebel against the Tartars.Ren Zhen, the commander-in-chief of Xing'an Town of the Tartars, led his troops to attack.Mi Guozhen and Li Shiying were killed in battle, and the rest were scattered.

In April of the fifth year of Huaxing, in order to quickly suppress the anti-Tartar wave in southern Shaanxi and the border areas of Sichuan, Huguang, and Gansu, the Tartars sent a large number of troops to Shaanxi.And Wu Sangui, who was stationed in Jinzhou, moved the town to Shaanxi and stationed in Hanzhong.

In October, thousands of Beishan anti-Tartar troops fought fiercely with Shen Wei, a guerrilla from the Zuoying Tatar Tibiao camp, in the Jianshan area of ​​Heyang.The anti-Tartar army was defeated and retreated into Beishan.

Such repeated seesaws for several years have made the local people in Xing'an Mansion miserable, which naturally presents a scene of decline in Li Taiping's eyes.

However, things are also two-sided. Since the anti-Tartar forces in Xing'an Mansion have repeatedly rioted, it also shows that the anti-Tartar forces in Xing'an Prefecture also have a mass foundation.

Although he was somewhat dissatisfied with the current base area, his team was already exhausted and sick. The price of traveling thousands of miles in such a severe winter was not small, so it was better to take a rest.

So, Li Taiping said.

"There's no need to go any further. Our army has already traveled thousands of miles and is already exhausted. Moreover, it's winter now, and it's inconvenient to travel after the heavy snow. Let's settle down here for the time being."

(End of this chapter)