The king behind the empress

Chapter 388
"Okay, shut up!!!"

Unbearable, Hu Ming slapped the table violently, and the solid wood government office table case was smashed into pieces by his palm in a fit of rage.

Although the rest of the people were not very afraid of Hu Ming, but because they had to rely on him to defend the city, they all tacitly stopped arguing when they saw him like this, but it could be seen from their eyes that in this matter, They don't give in so easily.

"Before the imperial army came over, they were thinking of fighting for power. Do you really think that Yining City is an iron wall?"

Hu Mingqiang suppressed the anger in his heart, looked at the crowd and said, "Every family sends out 200 people to form an army, and I will personally lead these people."

"I can guarantee in the name of my teacher that this team will be disbanded after the war. This is my bottom line. If you can't even do this, then don't defend this city at all!"

After finishing speaking, Hu Ming ignored everyone's reactions and walked away in a huff.

After Hu Ming left, the rest of the officials and family members fell silent. After a while, someone tentatively said: "The defense of the city depends on Hu Ming. Look at his attitude. He is going to order 3000 people, I think it is better to hand over these people to him first, after all, it is important to defend the city."

The rest of the people looked at each other for a while, but there was nothing to do, so they nodded, "Forget it, he has brought out the name of Lord Situ, if you don't give it to him, it will be unreasonable."

"However, if you give it to him, you still need to have the necessary precautions. After all, you don't want to have another person who will give orders in Yining City afterwards, right?"

"Don't worry, we can give him this right, and naturally we can take it back."

Hearing this, someone spoke up and said: "Although he is a student of Master Situ, he has no foundation in Yining City after all. As long as you all work together, after the imperial army retreats, if he wants to hang on, we will There are ways to drive him away."

"Extremely..."

Just as a family member was about to speak in agreement, he suddenly remembered that this was the catchphrase of the sheriff Liu Ruqian, so he couldn't help laughing, and then stopped talking.

……

Liu Ruqian, who came out of the sheriff's mansion here, naturally didn't know that his mantra had already assimilated a person. At this time, he was slowly rushing towards the temporary residence of the peasants. Although he was no longer in the mansion to continue the discussion, he used Butt also knew that those people would definitely quarrel.

In such a huge county, everyone has vested interests. Everyone wants to hold on to the interests in their hands and not let go. How can such a simple reconciliation be possible.

But these have nothing to do with him. Although he is still a sheriff in name, he is actually just a decoration. He is watched even a few steps out. It is not his turn to worry about these things, so let Hu Ming, that little bastard Headache go.

I still hide as far away as possible, so as not to be angered by that little bastard again.

Because Liu Ruqian, the sheriff, still has some prestige among these refugees, so Liu Ruqian has always been in charge of the civilian husbands who have been recruited. Of course, when he is in charge, someone will definitely watch him to prevent him from saying something inappropriate. , so it is he who disposes of it, and it is more just to borrow his prestige.

On weekdays, when Liu Ruqian came here, he would take a stroll first, just to relax himself, but today he suddenly found something wrong.

"Old Wu, why are you in such a hurry?"

Liu Ruqian frowned and stopped a person. This old man looked about 50 years old. He seemed to be in a hurry. Even the sheriff in official uniform didn't see him, and walked away from not far away with his head down. past.

"Ah, the county... the county guard... my lord."

Old Wu Tou can be regarded as a leader of the people here. Although he is not a formal official position, he has a lot of people under him. He is somewhat familiar with Liu Ruqian who often comes here, but after being stopped by Liu Rugan at this moment, his expression is different. He seemed a little flustered, "I...I...I'm going down to explain something to them. Because I was a little anxious, I didn't see you. I hope you will forgive me."

"Oh, really?"

Liu Ruqian glanced at Old Wu head suspiciously, but he didn't go into the details, but asked another matter, "I walked all the way just now, and I didn't seem to see Zhao Dabao and Zeng Erniu. You know where they are going?" Where is it?"

The people Liu Ruqian mentioned were all the heads of the peasants. Any order in the weekdays would be conveyed to these leaders first, and then the peasants would follow the orders.

On weekdays, these civil servant leaders have a fixed place, and generally they don't go around randomly, but today, Liu Ruqian went to several places, but he didn't see those civil servant leaders, which made him a little puzzled. After arriving at Old Wutou, he immediately asked about the whereabouts of those people.

"Ah, Zhao...Zhao Dabao and the others... aren't they here? I...I don't know him...where did they go?"

Old Wu Tou was in a calm mood when asked by Liu Ruqian, and suddenly panicked again, but after all, he is an elderly person who has experienced many things, so he quickly adjusted his mood, and flattered him: "My lord Your memory is really good, you can remember their names just after seeing them once or twice, it's amazing."

"of course."

Old Wutou's flattery just scratched Liu Ruqian's itch. He looked at old Wutou's admiring gaze, stroked his mustache proudly, and said, "The biggest advantage of this officer is his good memory. Back then, I became a well-known little child prodigy by relying on this skill."

"Don't say that I met two or three times, even if I didn't meet, I can remember them just by relying on the files."

"My lord is worthy of being a child prodigy. With this memory, it is not an exaggeration to say that you are a Wenqu star."

Seeing Liu Ruqian eating this set, Old Wu's flattery immediately patted him as if he didn't want money, "No, sir, you are the star of Wenqu, otherwise how could you be the governor of the county?"

"Okay, okay, stop flattering, hurry up and get to work, if you dare to be lazy, I won't let you go just because of your flattering."

Although he said so, from Liu Ruqian's smile on Xiaoyuan's face where he couldn't see his eyes, it can still be seen that he was extremely happy to be flattered by Old Wu, "By the way, if someone turns around because they can't find Blame you for your affairs, you can say that this official asked you to do things."

"Although the official's current reputation is not easy to use, I think others will give it to me."

"Thank you, my lord. Please don't worry, my lord. Even if you say this, we will never be lazy in our work."

Seeing that this matter has been fooled, Old Wu finally breathed a sigh of relief. After he said goodbye to Liu Ruqian and walked away, he realized that his entire back was soaked in cold sweat. The weather was cold, and he was wearing thick clothes. No matter how much sweat he was sweating, it was enough to reveal his secrets.

What he didn't know was that after he left, Liu Ruqian narrowed his eyes and stared at his back for a long time before retracting his gaze, "It's interesting, the person in charge was not there at the same time, and the old Wu was still so flustered that he put the inside It's probably something wrong."

At this moment, many thoughts flashed through Liu Ruqian's mind, and he even thought of the possibility that the imperial court sent internal agents in Yining City to contact these civilian husbands.

However, these thoughts were thrown behind him in a blink of an eye.

Even if it is so what, who cares, it is true that he is controlled by people like Hu Ming, but in the final analysis he is still the sheriff of the court, not the sheriff of these rebels. What about Yining City?

Although he, the county guard, was forced to be a thief, and he would definitely be dealt with at that time, but he did almost nothing, and he couldn't deserve to die. At that time, he would be exiled at worst.

Anyway, even exile would be more comfortable than being puppets for these rebels.

"I was originally from Wollongong..."

Liu Ruqian, who saw someone wrecking havoc in the city, was in a good mood, so he simply didn't go to inspect the camps of these civilians, and walked back humming a little song.

The person who followed Liu Ruqian and was in charge of monitoring him saw that Liu Ruqian was suddenly in a good mood, and couldn't help but glance at each other. Just a few flattering words could make him so happy, the county guard must have been too easy to dismiss, no wonder I have been calculated by others for so many years without knowing it.

……

Outside Yining City, when Mo Zizai was marching along the road with his army, he couldn't help turning pale when he saw the villages and towns that had been plundered by Hu Ming's men on the road.

As the saying goes, bandits pass like a comb, and soldiers pass like a grate. These officers and soldiers in Yining City are not considered elite and have no military discipline at all. Now they are ordered to plunder. , how could it end well.

Along the way, countless villages and towns were burned, killed and looted, and some villages were even burned to the ground. Among the ashes of the villages and towns, there were countless charred corpses of villagers, which attracted crows all over the sky.

"Hu Ming, this person really deserves to die!"

The anger in Mo Zizai's heart was almost uncontrollable, "If I openly plundered him, if I caught him, I would have to cut him alive!"

Looking at the angry Mo Zizai, Yang Yanzhang was also a little speechless. Although as a person in charge of intelligence, he had seen more cruel scenes than this, but those were only intelligence after all, and it was the first time he saw it with his own eyes.

So under the strong impact of this scene, he also had the urge to cut Hu Ming into pieces.

On the other hand, Han Qu, who was at the side, didn't feel too much about this. He said calmly, "It's okay. After all, there are people in these villages who can survive, and after they die, there will still be a corpse left."

"If it's at the border, they won't even be able to keep a corpse."

Hearing what Han Qu said, Mo Zizai, Zhou Qi and the others all turned their heads to look at Han Qu. Mo Zizai was silent for a moment, and asked, "Those barbarians, are they still..."

"Ah."

Han Qu nodded, and said, "The barbarians on the grassland, we generally divide them into raw barbarians and mature barbarians."

"The so-called barbarians refer to those tribes who often come into contact with the people of the Great Zhou, and even do business with the Great Zhou. These barbarians are slowly approaching the Great Zhou in terms of behavior and customs, and they can barely be regarded as half-civilized people."

"As for those savages, they are talking about those tribes that are completely uncivilized. They are self-enclosed and do not contact the outside world. Many bad habits have survived, including living sacrifices and cannibalism."

After Han Qu said this, he saw that the atmosphere was a bit dignified, and said again: "However, that was all in the past, and now such cases are rare."

"Oh?"

Hearing what Han Qu said, Mo Zizai guessed, "Is it because there are fewer students?"

"That's it."

Han Qu nodded, and then said, "But it's more because of Kou Shuai's revenge decree."

"Retaliation Act?"

Mo Zizai felt that this word was a bit novel, so he couldn't help asking curiously: "What is the law of retaliation?"

"The Retaliation Act is simple."

Speaking of this, Han Qu couldn't help but put on some inexplicable expressions on his face, "That is, if the enemy kills me alone, I will kill ten enemies. If the enemy kills one of my villages, I will kill one part of the enemy."

"In the early years, the Tianmen army fought almost every year. As long as there was a grassland tribe who dared to attack the people of Dazhou, Kou Shuai would personally lead the army to retaliate. No matter how heavy the casualties were, the tribe who attacked would be wiped out. .”

"Ten years, Kou Shuai spent a full ten years, killing more than a dozen barbarian tribes around the border of Dazhou, and the grassland tribes who were killed were terrified."

"It's not an exaggeration to say that the grassland tribes at that time would be terrified when they heard Kou Shuai's name, let alone invade my Da Zhou!"

"I didn't expect Old Marshal Kou to have such a domineering side back then."

Hearing what Han Qu said, Mo Zizai couldn't help but feel fascinated. Kou Yi was a figure of his grandfather's time. Before Mo Zizai was born, there were very few wars in the northern border, and Kou Yi was also quiet, so He didn't know much about Kou Yi's past either.

But now after hearing what Han Qu said, he realized that the peace in the northern border these years was completely brought about by this old general Kou. No wonder he has such a high prestige in the northern border.

I just don't know why the old marshal Kou would not protect him at the end of the festival, and chose to hand over the Tianmen army to the fourth uncle, causing turmoil in the Great Zhou?
Is it because he is more optimistic about fourth uncle?But it doesn't look like that. If he is really optimistic, he can just go to the fourth uncle directly, why bother to retire and don't care about anything.

Mo Zizai couldn't figure out what the old marshal Kou was thinking, but he didn't bother to guess. Anyway, there would be a battle with the fourth uncle sooner or later, and if he won the battle, if there was a chance, he would go and ask him in person.

And Han Qu, who was on the side, obviously also thought of the current choice of Marshal Kou, and his originally high-spirited expression also dimmed.

"Forget it, let's talk about the northern border later, let's settle Yining City first."

Mo Zizai saw what Han Qu was thinking, so he changed the topic and said, "This time, you guys pay close attention to this Hu Ming."

"If you can capture him alive, then capture him alive. If you can't, you can kill him on the spot. In short, you must never let him go."

When Hu Ming was mentioned, Mo Zizai's face showed a chill again, he had no intention of letting Hu Ming go, let alone let him escape now.

Among other things, just because he ordered the massacre of these unarmed civilians, Mo Zizai would not have killed him a hundred times!

(End of this chapter)