Blood from Daming

Chapter 125 Burning Fort
Xue Yun listened to Lu Yaojin's report: "There are about 600 people in the entire inner fort, and only two hundred of them are adults. One hundred of them are temporarily recruited from the village and other places. Most of the people living in the inner fort are thieves killed by us. Our relatives, after the barracks came in, these old people, women, and children took the initiative to fight us with their lives, causing several of our brothers to be injured. In the end, all the brothers were killed regardless of men, women, or children. Now there may be two to three hundred people in the inner castle. .”

Xue Yun came to the small courtyard opposite to the gate of Zhang Wangcai’s inner courtyard, and looked at Zhang Wangcai’s inner courtyard through the wall. The entire courtyard covers an area of ​​several acres and was built with pavilions and pavilions, but the fence needs to be beautiful and not high and lacks the necessary defensive facilities. Xue Yun found that the back wall of Zhang Wangcai's inner courtyard was very close to the inner fort wall. At this time, many heads appeared behind the gate of Zhang Wangcai's inner courtyard.

A middle-aged thin man showed half of his body: "The court general opposite us is not Bailian who taught you to make a mistake, please come out and talk to your general."

Xue Yun said a few words to Lu Yaojin, and Lu Yaojin went and arranged for a soldier to call out: "Our general orders you to surrender immediately and accept the scrutiny of the government. If you continue to resist, you will only die."

A middle-aged thin man: "I know that you are the army of the Xue family. I was deceived by others. Please give me a way out. I am willing to pay 5 taels of silver to continue my crime."

Seeing that the other party had revealed his identity, Xue Yun ordered Lu Yaojin to arrange for his men to go to the forage yard outside the inner fort to fetch bundles of grass, and throw them down from the fort wall on the back wall of Zhang Wangcai's inner courtyard. Some Ming soldiers discovered that they could hang bales of timber and grass from the side of the fort wall, and the transportation speed of timber and grass was greatly accelerated for a while. Not long after, Zhang Wangcai's inner courtyard was piled up in a small area.

Zhang Wangcai also came from a horse breeding background. It is not easy to make money raising horses. Most of the imperial officials bought them at low prices. Zhang Wangcai was eloquent and fair and was promoted as the leader of the village. When Zhang Wangcai came back, he saw that everyone in the village raised horses and lost money. Many villagers could not survive. In the last ten years, Zhang Wangcai and Zhangjia Village made a fortune by robbing and murdering, and Zhang Wangcai became a well-known rich man in Texas.

Zhang Wangcai and the people in the yard were dumbfounded when they saw the bundles of timber and grass thrown from the wall of the fort. It was clear that the Ming army outside was going to set fire to the yard. The men and women who ran in all panicked, some yelled hoarsely, some ran around looking for places to hide, and some rushed to the gate of the yard trying to get out.

Zhang Wangcai regretted not coveting enjoyment. The fence of the courtyard was too short and lacked protection. He even piled up the fodder from the horse farm on the side of the castle wall, waiting for others to burn him. Zhang Wangcai has been a thieves for many years and is a vicious master. When I saw this formation today, I knew that the people who came were going to kill them all.

Zhang Wangcai has experienced the fighting power of this Ming army. All the soldiers of the Ming army are not afraid of death, and no one will retreat because of the danger ahead. They are also skilled in archery and powerful in firearms. Zhang Wangcai, who lacks men, is no match at all, including Zhang Wangcai On the wall of the courtyard, I saw with my own eyes the group of Ming troops slaughtering the old, weak, women, children, children and babies in the fort. Everyone was so cruel and ruthless. Zhang Wangcai had never heard of such a Ming army, let alone saw them. Afterwards, Zhang Wangcai said desperately that it must be the Xue family army that killed the Jurchen Tartars.

Zhang Wangcai's whole body was cold and he had provoked such a big monster. Now Xue's army was about to set fire to the courtyard. Zhang Wangcai knew that he could not win the fight, so he had to try his best with his last hope: "General Xue, I have something to discuss please. Don't throw those fodder anymore, you won't get anything if the compound is burned down, General Xue, I'll give you 8 taels of silver, okay?"

The soldiers of the Ming army were still throwing the fodder bales to Zhang Wangcai's yard. Zhang Wangcai looked at the subordinates and relatives who were close to madness around him. Many people stared at him with red eyes. Zhang Wangcai did not doubt that the Ming army outside shouted to kill Zhang Wangcai. Let them live, and these people will tear themselves to pieces in no time.

Zhang Wangcai made up his mind to hand over all his floating wealth. Doesn’t he still have a manor and a large amount of land, and he can be a project thieves in the future to snatch the money back? Let’s go through this hurdle first, and then he can go to sue The Xue family killed innocent people indiscriminately, framed good people and spent a little more money, can't they kill him?

It's a pity that before Zhang Wangcai could figure it out, the torch was thrown off the wall of the fort. Although Zhang Wangcai and the others made preparations, they opened some straw bags and prepared several large tanks of water to put out the fire, but those bundles of grass, a bag of grass The sacks of hay bales had been piled up to the height of the roof of the yard, and the flames ignited as soon as they came.

Xue Yun ordered the soldiers of the Ming army to give way to the fire chief and continue to add material and grass in the sheltered place.Lu Yaojin looked at it with distress: "How much money did the young master burn in this fire?"

Xue Yun: "The gold and silver can still be picked out after the fire is extinguished. It's better than sending brothers up to sacrifice in vain."

Lu Yaojin: "Master, maybe the people in the yard will surrender after a while."

Xue Yun didn't speak, but Wang Erwa imitated Xue Yun's tone and said: "The general said that anyone who offends my Xue family will definitely die."

Lu Yaojin: "Master, I just think it's a pity to burn it. I don't have any sympathy for these thieves. The Tartars in Liaodong are much more vicious than us. When they plunder without sealing their knives, they rape first and then kill or After the rape, they were thrown into the fire and burned alive."

Xue Yun: "I want gold, Erba, no matter what you think, I'm doing this for everyone's benefit. It's not clear that our Datong army went to Shandong to destroy the White Lotus Sect, not to mention that the White Lotus Sect is still half-true Well, if these people are spared today, and they turn around and sue our Xue family and the Datong army everywhere, then we will be the ones who are unlucky, so I think the dead are the most reassuring for me."

The north wind of the first lunar month in Shandong was blowing, and the flames in Zhang Wangcai's yard were raised more than ten feet high. At first, people could be seen shaking. After bang bang bang bang bang for a while, there was no more movement.

Xue Yun saw that Zhang Wangcai's yard was completely sealed off by the raging fire, and he believed that no one inside could escape, so he continued to say to Lu Yaojin and Wang Erwa: "Zhangjia Village has been a thieves for more than ten years. Almost all the men are thieves and habitual bandits. Killing them is actually eliminating harm for the people of Ming Dynasty. I must kill those who dare to invade our Xue family, and give a warning to those who are doing or planning to harm the Xue family. , The Xue family is not a good man or woman, and Zhangjia Village in Dezhou is a model."

Xue Yun sent someone to inform the local county magistrate, and still used the same method to deal with Dongchang. When the county magistrate came to Xue Yun to threaten the other party with Dongchang's signature fox and tiger power, the magistrate was very knowledgeable and would not mess with you murderers. God, since you have Dongchang's backing, let's do as you want.

The magistrate looked at the Buddha statues, books, tokens, and costumes of the White Lotus Sect in one place and knew that the bandit case was going to be confirmed. The magistrate couldn’t tell if Zhang Wangcai’s family set himself on fire. How did you get these things? Go into the fort and have a look The entire fort was full of corpses and pieces of meat. Zhixian felt that his head was a little dizzy, so he hurried to the front of Zhang Wangcai's inner courtyard and ordered his men to open the gate and go in to check.

As soon as the yamen servant opened the door, it collapsed and was filled with pieces of black charcoal, and immediately showed a shocking vision.Inside the gate was a hill of scorched corpses stacked on top of each other, and the strong smell of meat came over the face. The magistrate and the government servants were stunned by this scene, and they didn't say a word for a while.

The magistrate is an expert who knew at a glance that he was burned to death by these officers and soldiers. Thinking that these Ming army officers and soldiers are all vicious, if he speaks improperly, he might be caught with a knife, so he suppressed the fear in his heart and said: "Wu Zuo, hurry up!" Check the self-immolation case of the White Lotus Sect carefully."

Wu Zuo hesitated, and the magistrate became angry: "Hurry up and deal with this suicide case." Wu Zuo quickly retreated.

Seeing that the magistrate is sensible, Xue Yun didn't make things difficult for him: "Master Zhixian, this general will also send someone to help you, maybe there are still some stolen goods that have not been burned clean."

The magistrate's eyes lit up: "The general's subordinates will help you." Xue Yun immediately sent hundreds of soldiers to help push away the charred corpses. Looking at the frozen corpses in the twelfth lunar month of winter, he moved the upper corpses away from the lower ones. Immediately, bursts of heat and the smell of cooked meat came out of the corpse. Some soldiers and yamen servants were dizzy, and some had already started to vomit. Everyone moved much slower.

The county magistrate is not ignorant of the thieves in Zhangjia Village, but has received a lot of benefits from Zhang Wangcai, and someone from above has spoken to Zhang Wangcai, plus Zhang Wangcai rabbits don’t eat grass on the side of the nest. , Officials don't investigate, I have been sitting in the magistrate for a few years and leaving, these thieves offend them severely, and they will kill people if they do it.

The county magistrate also knows a major secret, that is, a thousand elite cavalrymen under Shandong Town were wiped out in the north, and a few remnant soldiers have been passing through their own territory in the past few days.The magistrate knew that the capital was to the north. Most of these Shandong cavalry were pretending to be thieves and were defeated by the barracks.

The county magistrate had heard earlier that thousands of thieves had surrounded more than a dozen ships of goods, and they had fought against the officers and soldiers of the Ming army coming from the north. The elite cavalry was to deal with the northern Ming army, but a few thousand people were defeated a few days ago, and the troops had disappeared and fled in all directions. Now the lieutenant general of the Xue family is clearly here to take revenge. There are tens of thousands of murderers from the Tartars. I don’t know who took the medicine and went crazy and provoked such a murderer to come to Shandong.

(End of this chapter)