stubborn thief

Chapter 168
Nanhe Plateau, Yanchuan County.

The people on the dry terraced fields held their farm tools and stared into the distance. Not far away, on the plateau with a radius of a hundred paces, there were countless arrow targets and blunderbuss targets, and the servants and cavalry of the Lion Camp were practicing.

The whining horn sounded.

Han Shiyou got on his mount, led the two war horses forward, paced and galloped forward, and made the movements of hiding left pedal, hiding right pedal, and galloping and changing horses on the horseback.

Then when the horse galloped across a line drawn by the ashes of the bottom of the pot, he flew up and set his arrows, stretched his bow and let it go far to the target in front, which was an archery target standing at the end of the plateau, sixty paces away.

The feather arrow is still flying in the air, he has already opened his bow to the left again, and released an arrow towards the archery target twenty steps away, accompanied by the sound of the feather arrow hitting the bull's-eye, the bow has been changed to his right hand, and he once again opened the bow and released it two times to the right A ten-step target.

Complete these three arrows in sequence, put the bow back into the bag, the horse slows down, get on another horse, straighten the spear to the left, pick up the helmet on the grass target, stab right again, and stick the spear in the grass target's chest.

Finally, he drew out his saber and placed it by his side, cutting the last grass target into two pieces.

Then he rode over the last ten steps, and took down the arrow that hit two inches from the red heart from the archery target at the end of the plain.

A series of tactical actions were dazzling, and the servant cavalry behind cheered loudly.

The peasants on the dry terraced fields all showed expressions as if they saw a god descending from the earth.

A father taught his son: "See, you just learned how to dance with a gun and stick and want to enter the lion camp. What kind of skills do you have?"

The shirtless and sturdy son looked up from ear to ear, looked down at the shovel in his hand, and became more energetic in turning the ground.

As the saying goes, the summer sun rises in the furrows, and the small heat at the end of May has passed. The people in northern Shaanxi are suffering people. They have to plow the wheat fields several times before the millet turns yellow, and grab the moisture before and after Bailu. sowing.

After the wheat is planted, there is no rest time to cut millet, harvest millet, pick beans, pick cotton, pull black beans, pour sesame seeds, and sun, grind, beat, and sow some crops.

After the autumn harvest, we will continue to plow the fields and prepare the land until the beginning of winter.

Even in winter, there are not many people who can really rest, and they still chop firewood or go into the mountains to dig coal, which is enough for the family's expenses for half a year.

But this is not Guanzhong. There is no work to guarantee harvests due to drought or flood. A cold season at the wrong time or a drought that makes it difficult to preserve moisture can make their livelihoods that have worked hard for half a year in vain.

But no matter how hard it is, the peasants still have to keep going, even if they harvest dozens of catties of grain for an acre of land.

On another mountain plateau, the Jiading right team practiced, which was not so entertaining.

But there is not enough skill there, so they can use momentum to make up for it.

The fifty cavalry were divided into five teams, and one team galloped forward. Their target was a large square pile of wheat straw, with a chest-high wooden board fixed in the middle.

The horse team finished speeding up, galloping, and slowing down a hundred paces in front of the wheat straw pile. The horseshoes pressed the eight-step gray line to make a turn, each of them stretched their arms, and fired the Francophone guns at the target.

A row of faint gunpowder smoke rose, and they turned and ran backwards. On the way, they reconnected the matches that had been shaken off by the gunpowder, and removed the sub-barrels and reinstalled them.

Then the other team repeated this action. After the whole team finished shooting, Zhong Bao counted carefully in front of the target, and then shouted: "38 hits!"

Then the whole team checks the shot guns. Some people must have missed, but it is difficult to distinguish the missed ones.

It is also certain that some people have not fired their guns. This is easy to distinguish, so they are taken out for training, and after the training, they form a small team to shoot horses.

The rest of the people cleaned the gun chambers, put away the guns in their hands, and practiced running on horseback.

They were not necessarily cavalrymen who were skilled in bow and horse in the past.

Liu Lions will select people into the family team for various reasons.

For example, if he was injured in this battle, the injury is not serious, but it will affect the combat effectiveness for a short time, and others will continue to fight in the next battle. If he is afraid that he will die, he will be put into the family team first.

After the injury is healed, if this person still wants to stay with the Lions, he will stay in the Ding team.

So some people's riding skills are trained by riding mules, and these people are all on the right team.

There are even fans like Fan Sanlang.

Fan Sanlang hadn't slept in bed for two months. She was stationed in Yanchuan from Lion Camp, and she slept on the back of a different mule every night.

This is a special training for the Lion Camp. Each post will select some people to watch the night every day. The night watch team will be divided into two teams. One team rides mules around the mountain road, and the other team rides mules to sleep with them.

Others slept on the mule for one night after five days, and Liu Shizi arranged for Fan Sanlang to bump on the mule's back every day.

Others can fall asleep, but she can't. Every night on patrol, I watch others sleep on the mule, leaning down from the left side, watching him fall down bit by bit, hey, suddenly the body is back upright , and then tilted to the right bit by bit.

Fan Sanlang was different, she was so sleepy that she squinted for a while, her body began to tilt to the left, and then she really fell.

People gave him the nickname Kowtow Saburo.

Last month, her job consisted of dozing standing, sitting, eating, wielding a knife, shooting an arrow, firing a blunderbuss, and falling off a mule every day.

And it’s a different mule, because Liu Shizi said that mules have to sleep too, so they can’t accompany you in the mountains every day.

Co-authoring everything requires sleep, but she doesn't.

This month, Fan Sanlang's condition is a little better, he hasn't improved much in skills, but his body is used to falling asleep anytime and anywhere.

For example now.

The people in Crouching Tiger Mountain were short of manpower during the summer harvest, so they borrowed some people from the Lion Camp to help. Now that the wheat has been ground into flour, the people happily brought pigs and flour to the Lion Camp.

Liu Shizi saw that the people were so enthusiastic, so he couldn't be stingy, so he simply called all the people in the village over, slaughtered a lame horse, made bread with white flour, and greeted the Zhan Fubing and the people who had gone to Crouching Tiger Mountain to help them to eat well. a meal.

This is also buying horse bones with thousands of dollars, so there is no need to tell Zhan Fubing to help the people, but if someone does this, Liu Shizi will benefit him, and people will naturally know what to do in the future.

During the dinner, Liu Shizi asked Fan Sanlang to go back to the army tent to get him something, but he didn't bring it back after the meal was over.

Looking back at the military tent, Fan Sanlang was sitting cross-legged on the couch with his back facing outwards, with his helmet on his spine and his head in front of his body. He curled up into a small lump in a gesture of bowing to the tent cloth, snoring softly. .

Fell asleep.

Liu Chengzong raised his hand and scratched his face, he couldn't help smiling.

The last time he saw someone fall asleep like this, it was Shiliuyi with his head stuck in the stable of Yuhe Castle.

He couldn't help but wonder, is it so difficult to sleep on the back of a mule?
How stable is the mule!
Liu Chengzong didn't disturb Fan Sanlang's sleep, he simply turned around and went out of the tent, and went to the posts.

He had a plan in mind, he planned to find a place to put Fan Sanlang, she was not a soldier material.

Being a soldier is hard, but being a mobile peasant army is even harder.

In the Lion Camp, it was much more difficult than in the Peasant Army.

Walking out of the military tent, I happened to meet Wei Qian'er's Tang Qi coming to report: "General, the deputy general is back!"

The Heavenly Monkey came, but Liu Chengzong didn't lead him to the army tent, he just picked a tent and went in, and asked, "How is it, there is news from the south?"

"Have it!"

Shang Tian Hou looked very excited, and said: "After Governor Liu introduced the disease, the new governor has been appointed. His name is Wang Shunxing. Before that, he was Zuo Buzheng, a native of Xutong, Henan, and a Jinshi in the 38th year of Wanli."

"The money is finally about to be shipped, it should be 13 taels."

Heavenly Monkey raised his index finger and tapped on the small wooden table: "Guess how I know this?"

"I didn't find the news, but the news found me!"

"The news found you?" Liu Chengzong wondered, "How do you say that?"

Shangtian Monkey just smiled, and after a long laugh, he said, "Do you remember that horse, Ma Maocai, General?"

"You mean Ma Maoguan?" Liu Chengzong had an impression of the name, and said, "Ai Mu's subordinate, the team that cut off Yang Chengzu's head in the valley?"

"Yes, it's him! He and his brother-in-law."

Shang Tianhou explained one after another: "His brother-in-law was at the top of the city, and the turret was trampled down. The soldiers in his hands were killed or wounded. Later, he surrendered and found his brother-in-law in the prisoner camp. Both of them received travel expenses and food. They will be locked up."

"Originally, one was the management team and the other was the superintendent. They were all dismissed when they returned home. My brother-in-law was called Qi Shuangquan, and he was beaten up by the officer. He almost died after lying down for a month."

After the Monkey King finished speaking, he stared at Liu Chengzong and said, "They are the ones who escorted the money."

Liu Chengzong laughed out loud, and said in disbelief: "Xi'an Mansion is sick, but these people have just been sent back to northern Shaanxi?"

After laughing, he thought about it carefully and asked: "Is there any fraud? Is there no soldiers in Guanzhong or something, I can only send them here?"

"That's not true. I heard that the soldiers in Guanzhong are unwilling to come to northern Shaanxi. They can't get supplies along the way, and there are no post stations, so they have always been the coolies for dispatching troops and generals. "

Liu Chengzong thought for a while and asked, "How did they find you?"

"Old Li Jackal of Yanzhou is a leader with more than 3000 subordinates. He is very familiar with Liu Liu Liu Qi and Hao Lin'an of Qingyang. Ma Maoguan's brother-in-law found him. He asked Li Lao Jack to find you, and he came to me. "

Shang Tianhou analyzed: "I think if this is a deceit by the government, then it should also directly defraud Li Laojie, that guy is not at all uneasy."

"Originally there were Feishanhu and Dahonglang gang in Fuzhou. They didn't talk about grabbing territory. Anyway, they were far away. Now Feishanhu was beaten to death by Chen Qindai, and the little red wolf took the death-free card and was placed without knowing it. where."

"He's the only one left in the big Yanzhou. If you rob this one today and that one tomorrow, even if the government wants to cheat, you have to kill him first, so that they won't come looking for you through him."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly, as he recognized Shangtianhou's analysis, and asked, "Then what are they going to do now?"

"How to do it... nothing to do, the Lion Camp will do three things, connect the silver, lock the gold lock, and resettle these people."

"Hit the golden lock?"

Jinsuo Pass is located in the south of Yijun County, the northernmost point of Yaozhou, after passing through that pass is Guanzhong.

Liu Chengzong didn't quite understand: "What are you doing at Jinsuo Pass?"

"Their family members are all in the south of Jinsuoguan, and they can't enter northern Shaanxi. We need to go to Tongguan County to help them bring their families to the north, and then give them some money, and they can also go to Yaozhou to collect food. .”

Liu Chengzong was not so enthusiastic about entering Yaozhou to hunt grain.

Because his uncle was in Sanyuan, he knew something about the situation there.

To be honest, he doesn't want to go out of the drought-stricken area, but prefers to follow the drought.

He has his own code of conduct.

If there is no drought in a place, and the people say that they are being exploited or squeezed, but they have not yet reached the point where they want to eat soil and desperately, then as long as his people are not in a desperate situation, he is unwilling to lead troops in and disrupt the land. other people's peaceful lives.

Not because of morality, but because there is no place for him in that land.

The common people will naturally unite around the gentry, just like Black Dragon Mountain.

Of course, he can do work for the people in the name of justice, plunder the big gentry who frantically annexed the land, and distribute the land to the people.

But dividing the land is easy, what happens after the division is over?
After the division, when he left, on the Guanzhong Plain, what would the people who had lost their military support use to protect their land.

When these people die, their death will tell other people on the Guanzhong Plain that they believe that the lion camp will die, and they can live with the government.

Forget about entering Guanzhong.

Only in Yan'an Mansion under the cover of drought and mountains, the Lion Camp can defeat one general after another and protect the people who believe in him with force.

At least in these places, even if he is defeated, the government has no way to find the people's back, so they can only barely save money and try to collect some taxes.

But under this code of conduct, his strength is increasingly stretched.

If he wanted to enter Shanxi, and the officers and soldiers entered Yan'an Mansion again, he would bring his troops back to fight a decisive battle with the officers and troops.

When his sphere of influence extends to Fuzhou, then when the official army enters Fuzhou, he will go to Fuzhou to fight with the official army.

In fact, he was very worried that the officers and soldiers would discover his characteristics. With such characteristics, he would be attacked by the officers and soldiers, and he would save him and wait for work.

Liu Chengzong didn't speak for a while, and after a long time, he asked: "How many people are there?"

"five hundred."

The Heavenly Monkey said: "The silver transportation team has a total of 500 people and 46 silver transportation vehicles. Ma Maoguan has united [-] people. After passing the Jinsuo pass, more people will be united. It is estimated that there will be more than a hundred internal responses."

"The family members of the 46 people sneaked into Tongguan County after the silver team passed the Jinsuo pass. There are probably more than 700 family members."

"It's a good thing. The drought in northern Shaanxi has not been so severe this year. They came here just in time to plant wheat. How much do they want?"

The Heavenly Monkey paused and said, "Officer Ma Mao said that there are 46 of them, and each wants 500 taels."

Liu Chengzong smiled and said, "Isn't this a dream?"

"Their family members want me to go to Jinsuoguan, and they will be resettled after they are picked up. The army of the government army wants me to fight. They don't have to do anything, and they will take away 3000 taels."

"After passing the Jinsuo Pass, they will instigate some more people, and in the end they will take away 5 to [-] taels." Liu Chengzong raised his hand and pointed to the outside: "Ask the brothers in the Lion Camp if they agree?"

"When we defeated them, we only needed to spend 200 taels as travel expenses for the captives. In fact, I didn't intend to pay these people travel expenses at all."

"If you can contact them again, tell Officer Ma Mao that there is no need to instigate others, and ask him to keep the news secret, and give him 1 taels after the matter is completed."

Liu Chengzong stared at Shangtianhou and said: "In the name of Ai Mu's defeated family, I robbed the twenty carts of silver, and put gold on the knife."

　Good afternoon, I'm sorry, I pressed the alarm clock, and I didn't get up until ten o'clock.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)