stubborn thief

Chapter 258
On the east bank of the Zhaqu River, Liu Chengzong was marching.

Master Basang's offensive was very effective. Within a month, he swept across the old land like a catastrophe, defeating all the nobles who surrendered to King Bailey.

Liu Chengzong listened to the report of the frontline Tangqi on horseback, showing a satisfied smile.

Dai Daozi, the leader of Tangqi, was temporarily in charge of Basang's army. Under his command, he was divided into [-] centurions, with a total strength of nearly [-].

After deployment, each centurion is composed of fifteen Han soldiers, fifty Mongolian soldiers, and one hundred Fan soldiers, which have an absolute advantage over the temporary conscripts of minor nobles from all over the place.

The real advantage lies not in the Mongolian soldiers, nor in the Han soldiers whose main job is to learn the Western language, but in the Lion Army Tangqi wandering outside.

Let them fight more and less locally like wildfire, burning every inch of land, and pushing the front line to the bank of the Gaiqu River.

The slave who lost his master took the master's weapon, transformed into a new soldier, and went to the next battle.

Monk Gama who followed the march wanted to cry, but he finally understood why when Liu Chengzong agreed to send troops to aid, the reward he asked for was the intermarriage of craftsmen, children and women... After fighting like this, he harvested countless lands, but it was all fighting. The white ground after the battle.

Monk Gama was thinking in the army that if the war continued like this, he would not even want to have children, and not only him, but the entire Nangqian would have to work hard to have children.

Undoubtedly, from Gama's point of view, Liu Chengzong is making his rule more difficult.

In any place, there are nobles, manors, and serfs, forming a complete slavery system, but now that nobility and manors are gone, there must be something to replace them.

This was intentional by Liu Chengzong, but it was difficult to explain it to Gama.

Compared with how Nangqian governs, Liu Chengzong cares more about the Bai Lijun who is defending the front line of Changdu.

He is used to seeing the nobles here follow the wind and push the boat according to the wind, and he doesn't have time to build a good relationship with every noble and make them obey him.

So using Basang's slave army to directly flatten all the nobles, even leaving a mess, would do more good than harm to him.

The remaining slaves only need to maintain a small amount of living materials, and it is difficult for Gama to starve to death. He can not want anything here in a short time, only one request... Road construction.

From Qinghai Lake to Nangqian, repair the official road in the early Ming Dynasty, build a dirt road that can be walked easily, and build your own post station.

The generals of the Lion Army laughed wildly when they first heard the news.

They started by demolishing post stations and courier shops, and now they are going to build post stations again.

The Ming Dynasty had a post station in the Qinghai-Tibet area, but the main route of the post station was from Sichuan to Longdawei, Longdawei to Leiwuqi, and Leiwuqi to Tibet. Most of this route still exists, but it has no effect on Liu Shizi. significance.

He has a system in mind to replace the aristocratic manor and needs his own inn.

With roads and post stations, news can be transmitted quickly, and then soldiers from the Lion Army are used to set up county offices, and slave soldiers from Basang form villages.

In this way, his soldiers can gain experience in establishing a grassroots regime and governing the local area.

At worst, it will prove that this set of things will not work on this land in the future, and the soldiers can also gain some experience in governing the area, so it doesn't matter if they change back to the feudal manor system.

This is more important than governing the place itself. This group of people can ensure that they will attack Daming again in the future, and the land they have conquered can be directly governed.

Skip nobles in Qinghai, the purpose is to skip gentry in Ming Dynasty.

The core thing is the same, they are all backed by the army, learn to mobilize the people directly, prevent the nobles from rebelling, collect taxes, and govern the local area.

When the nobles who surrendered to King Baili in Nangqian's hometown were cleaned up, and only women, children and disabled people who could not fight were left in the local area, for Liu Chengzong, the rear was stable.

However, the front line on the bank of the Gaiqu River is not stable.

Outside the cave near the river, Basang's slave soldiers kept whispering to each other. Dai Daozi led a few Tangqi to stop outside and pushed everyone in. After a while, he came out frowning again, breathing out foul breath and clenching his teeth.

In the cave, a soldier of the Xifan camp was brutally killed, and there was still a stone hat on his side.

It was obviously not done by the people in Nangqian's territory. They saw a lot of stone hats used for eye-gouging punishment in noble manors.

In addition to this kind of thing, there are also many bone magic tools and weird and cruel things. Every time the manor is captured, a few bags of things collected will be shown to the slaves, and then they will be burned or smashed to destroy them all.

Although Liu Chengzong said that these things should be kept and displayed in the future for future generations to see, to prove that these cruel punishments existed and to prevent the nobles who used this punishment from returning.

But for Dai Daozi, they captured more than 20 aristocratic manors, and only two nobles escaped in advance. Zhuangzi found less things.

In other manors, dozens of such torture instruments and by-products of punishment can be found in each, and even two to three hundred pieces can be found in some more.

Dai Daozi has guarded the border in Ningxia for many years, slept on the dead man's pillow, and tried to assassinate the clan. He always thought that he had nothing to fear.

But seeing these things for the first time still gave him the creeps.

He was not afraid of these things themselves. He held a gem-studded human head bowl and looked at it carefully. It was exquisitely made and handled very cleanly.

But the evil hidden behind these things, the cold touch made his strong heart tremble.

He knew that Wang Mang's head was probably the same, but that wouldn't bring him any empathy. What happened to Wang Mang would probably make his Generalissimo feel empathy.

Dai Daozi only thought of his daughter when he saw these things.

His daughter was killed by Lieutenant Fengguo of Qingfan a few years ago, and that lieutenant died of illness before he could take revenge, which became the greatest regret in his life.

Dai Daozi didn't dare to think about it when he saw these, so he ordered that all the things be burned except for some special things that were sent to Nangqian.

He even sent someone to send a sealed letter to Liu Chengzong, suggesting that cremation and burial should be implemented here, and that the most honorable people here can be cremated and buried in a tower, and everyone should be treated like this.

It didn't take long for the corpse placed outside the cave to be recognized as belonging to Basang's 900th team. In the soldier's roster, he was once a slave in the Danba territory.

Dai Daozi looked at the other side of the Gaiqu River with a bad expression: "It seems that someone wants to come back."

Limited by the language barrier, the Tangqi knew very little about the land on the other side. They only knew that the land on the other side was called Su Mang, and the nobles who ruled there also used land as their surname, which was not the traditional territory of King Nangqian.

After asking all the slave soldiers who belonged to Danba's territory, some people said that Master Danba was on the other side.

A few days ago, Mr. Su Mang's Langsheng crossed the river and brought the news, but no one knew how the dead Xifan soldiers were taken away.

Dai Daozi was so angry that he scolded the fifteen Han soldiers of the ninth team over and over again.

They don't do anything all day long, except for firing guns from afar, they don't even need to participate in battles. They just learn the Spanish language. The work is very easy, but they can't even look down on the soldiers under them!

It's just that Liu Chengzong's earlier order did not allow them to cross the river to attack, so they only strengthened their defenses and did not attack the opposite bank.

As Dai Daozi turned his attention to the opposite bank, he found that the other bank was not only fortifying, but also gradually increasing its troops.

In the early morning, squads of infantry walked lazily along the river beach. From time to time, cavalry in armor appeared individually on the mountain, and sometimes the cold air from their breath could be seen.

At night, his Tangqi ventured across the river. Standing on the mountain, he could see that the other side of the mountain was illuminated black and red by the fire, and there were densely packed tents in a blur.

And there are more and more military flags on the other side.

Ordinary nobles don't know how to use military flags. They only saw Ngawang Daiben's military flag in Nangsuo Qianmo Palace. At this time, the military flag appeared on the other side. For Dai Daozi, it was most likely that King Baili's army had arrived.

He first sent someone to inform Liu Chengzong of the news, and then sent someone to inform Su Mang, ordering him to hand over the murderer who crossed the river.

He needs to determine whether the murderer came from the other side.

Dai Daozi, on the other hand, prepares to gather troops for the upcoming conflict.

He has a lot of troops.

One hundred Tang cavalry, 240 Han troops, [-] Mongolian soldiers and more than [-] Western Fan soldiers.

But the purpose of this Han-Mongol-Tibetan mixed battalion was not to fight regular warfare. Those Western soldiers had very low recruitment standards, they didn’t need to be strong, they didn’t need to know how to use weapons, and they even... only had one hand or one eye. Disabled people are not counted in mixed camps.

There are nearly 1000 people, but Dai Daozi can only count as [-] people.

"General, they say they didn't kill our slaves."

Dai Daozi frowned and said, "What did they say?"

The interpreter from Xifan repeated it, and the answer was still the same.

Dai Daozi yelled: "Damn it, the people I sent didn't say whether the dead were slaves or not!"

It was done by the people on the other side, and it is very likely that the Danba nobles who ran over did it. Otherwise, it would be difficult to forcefully take away a large living person without the Han army not paying attention.

Only the masters of the past can deceive the slaves.

Soldiers scattered in various manors were assembled in the Danba territory, and the Han soldiers led Basang's Xifan battalion to set up defenses. They set up camps, dug trenches, and arranged defensive offensives around the manor to prevent their counterattacks.

Afterwards, a hundred Tang riders were gathered by Dai Daozi. Looking at those familiar faces, he couldn't help but smile.

His pond soldiers are all heroes who are good at observing the battlefield in the most dangerous places. Even if the enemy's army is overwhelming, even if there is only one of his pond cavalry, he dares to stand a mile away.

But today, he may want to use them as the main cavalry.

Dai Daozi handed over the task of guarding the camp to 240 Han soldiers in the Basang army. He led Tang Qi around Danba, crossed the river from the mountain pass in the west, and entered Su Mang's territory. How many troops did Su Mang gather?

On the endless hillside, Dai Daozi saw the smoke and dust bouncing off the horse's hooves at the farthest point of sight. The smoke and dust rose into the sky, all towards the valley near the river bank, and the sky was completely blank.

Then they saw the herd, far away and looking black.

This further confirms Dai Daozi's conjecture that such a scale cannot be gathered in a Su Mang territory, and it is likely that King Bai Li is dispatching troops here.

He wanted to capture a prisoner for interrogation, but he couldn't understand the language. There was a Spanish interpreter in the Danba Territory, but there was only one, who was a must for controlling the army.

This made Dai Daozi's teeth itch with anger.

He was tired of fighting here, and many tactics were useless.

The last thing they had left was to get closer and count the military flags.

King Briley's army is organized differently than Nangchen or most other places.

In Nangchen, a daibon commanded 250 soldiers, but in Baili, a daibon commanded [-] to [-] soldiers.

Each generation has three Ruben under its jurisdiction, and each Ruben has a military flag with the same color as its own helmet.

Therefore, by counting the number of military flags of one color, one can roughly calculate how many Baili troops gathered in Su Mang's territory.

But before Dai Daozi got close enough to count the military flags, he heard his subordinates telling him to go up the mountain quickly.

On the mountain, he saw someone crossing the river from the Danba territory on the other side, and riding a horse towards the valley where the army was assembled in the Sumang territory.

Dai Daozi punched a tree trunk hard on the mountain, it was a woman.

The nobles in the Sumang territory used women as spies. Their army could care about men, but they didn't consider those honest women as spies.

Not long after, the dusty team in the distance was still far away from the valley in Su Mang's territory. Someone in the valley raised a banner and pulled out the army formation.

Dai Daozi and the others approached further, only to see the mandala outside the valley. It seems that someone is doing it, so there is no need to count the military flags now.

More than [-] people formed three orderly army formations outside the valley, and a large number of cavalry wearing iron helmets were arranged at the rear and on the two wings. In addition to the tiger heroes they had seen in Nangqian, there were also many people with helmets on their helmets. with bird feathers.

Dai Daozi didn't know what kind of organization it was, but he only knew that no matter infantry or cavalry, there were soldiers with bird feathers in their helmets, and their equipment looked a little better than ordinary soldiers.

Tibia horns and trombones sound one after another.

Immediately afterwards, this army, led by the military flag and signaled by the sound of drums, marched towards the opposite bank in several formations.

This is indeed an army, and it is not the kind of rabble that the nobles call up temporarily.

Dai Daozi carefully observed the formation of the enemy army, and it took a while to realize that he slapped his thigh and said, "They are going to attack Danba!"

However, he wasn't too worried. The enemy's assembled army was less than he had imagined. Although more troops seemed to be gathering here, the news had spread, and the commander-in-chief would surely send troops to support him.

Looking at the well-equipped and proud Spanish cavalry, the hairs on Dai Daozi's body stood on end. He waved his hand to order his subordinates to rest for a while and follow the enemy's marching route across the river. The battlefield will be their camp in Danba Manor.

Night is coming, 900 years.

The descendants of Tang and Tubo cavalry galloped together on the battlefield.

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)