stubborn thief

Chapter 26 Upstream
As time entered March, the entire Xingpingli became more and more busy.

When it came time to plant seedlings in the fields, men, women, young and old all went down to the fields, even Liu Chengzu's frontier troops were busy following him.

This scene does not mean idyllic pastoral, next month will be a good day for fertilization. Every household picks out the decomposed manure from the manure pit in the backyard, and one mu of land can stink for two or three miles.

For the frontier army, although no one has done less work in Yuhebao earlier in the matter of picking manure and fertilizing, but in Xingping, even if the armor was ripped off by Liu Chengzu and hidden, even if he wears plain clothes alone, there is a big old man. Tightening, they could only arrange for them to run to the river to fetch water.

Speaking of which, the frontier troops generally prefer to carry water or help in the fields, otherwise they will be arranged to buy materials in the prefectures and suburban mines-that work is boring and highly dangerous.

At the beginning of March, Cheng Yun took Tian Shoujing to the east mine to buy bricks. The miners over there rebelled with the refugees. The fire in the brick kiln went out.

In the end, the bricks were not bought, so they just brought back two miners from there, and went to the west end of the village to build another brick kiln.

Even if it's not dangerous, after going out for three or five days, eating dry food dipped in soy sauce all day will make the mouth panic.

Helping in the village is different. The leeks in the field are growing taller as soon as they are done. After they are busy, they chop up a handful, and then pull up the radishes. When they go back, they can eat fried balls with beans, not to mention that there are villagers preparing for the busy farming. glutinous rice.

And they also found neighbors.

It is not surprising to have neighbors, but it is too difficult to meet neighbors in disaster years. The water flow of Panlongchuan, which flows from north to west to south to east, further decreases during the irrigation season. It is obvious that someone upstream is also irrigating, and it seems that people are still there. Not a lot.

Liu Chengzong rode several horses along the river and walked several miles when he suddenly realized that the Black Dragon King Temple Mountain was not an isolated island on earth.

Within [-] miles upstream, there are seven villages scattered across the Hexi and Hedong. They can still rely on this river to irrigate their fields, and the disaster years have little effect on them.

In the place guarding the river, there are still people alive. Many new fields have been reclaimed on both sides of the river. People abandoned the fertile fields of the past and reclaimed the nearby fields for the convenience of irrigation, even on the mountains.

In the peacetime, there were wastelands that could not be opened up by three generations in 50 years, but now they are well managed by people.

A few villages were not very enthusiastic about them. Four villages had built fences. When they saw Liu Chengzong's cavalry in the field from a distance, they ran to the village, and the young men drove them away with hunting crossbows and clubs.

The other three villages were bold and willing to add two sentences, but they all had the same meaning: there is no food in this place, no matter whether it is soldiers, civilians or bandits, please go elsewhere.

"Just like this, the situation in several villages is similar, and they demolish each other."

Liu Chengzong, who went back to Xingpingli and talked with his brother, couldn't help laughing when he mentioned the matter: "There is a village called Dingjiazhan on the other side of the North River, with more than 50 households. The person in charge is called Master Ding. He has no other skills and has eight children. , called Dingzhuang Eight Wolves."

"Eight wolves beat the tax collector to death last year when they harvested the summer grain. The whole village has been through several days, and they are afraid that the officers and soldiers will go to ask for it. Brother Lu told me about them in Hedong Laomiaozhuang. The Laomiaozhuang also has [-] or [-] households. It's the Lu brothers who are in charge."

"The two Zhuangzis are incompatible with each other. Decades ago, they often fought because of grabbing water and blocking rivers. Brother Lu thought I was a soldier and asked me to go to Ding's station to get food.

Liu Chengzu, who was on the side, frowned when he heard it: "We haven't brought anyone to fight in the lower reaches, what are they fighting?"

Eh?
When Liu Chengzong thought about it, this was the truth. These two villages blocked the river upstream and cut off the water. Before we could bring Qingzhuang to fight with them in the downstream Xingpingli, the two of them started fighting first.

"Nowadays, even if the words are spoken to the bright spot, guarding this river, all the villages in the villages are just poor people with half a way to live, and they still think about killing each other first."

"Human, this is the virtue." Liu Chengzu said with emotion, and then asked: "These more than 100 households can't be united, so it's not very useful. How is the situation in other villages?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head and said: "There is also Songjiagou, which is a little far away, so I couldn't go there to see it, but the situation is similar. There are five brothers called Five Tigers. At this time, whoever has more males will have the final say, except for them. The northernmost paper shop."

"Paper Workshop... I think I've heard of this." Liu Chengzu thought for a moment after hearing the words: "Wang or what is the last name of the paper maker in the upstream spring?"

"The last name is Shi, and the merchant's name is Shi Jiazhi. It's a very polite name."

"Don't care what his name is, paper is good, and there is bamboo in papermaking. I will take someone to buy some bamboo tomorrow, and the rest of the crossbow will be made."

After Liu Chengyun was almost shot to death by a cold arrow in a brick kiln, the elders in Xingping once again realized that the situation was unmanageable.

After firming up his determination to build a walled city to train ethnic soldiers to defend themselves, Liu Chengzong's proposal on the formation of national troops was also accepted by the tribe.

However, in the end, the formation of all soldiers was not according to his idea. There were five teams of young men, four teams of healthy women, three teams of boys, and one team of aircraft soldiers into twelve teams.

Brother Liu Chengzu put forward a better suggestion. The 480 men, women and children who can fight in Xingpingli, together with the frontier army, will be organized into three teams: front, middle and rear.

Strong men form the front team, healthy women and youth form the squadron, and the old and weak women and children form the back team.

In fact, it is the battle team, the reserve team and the baggage team.

The rules were set, the front team practiced every other day, the squadron practiced every three days, and the rear team practiced every five days.

The training day was divided into four subjects by Liu Chengzong, two subjects in the morning and two subjects in the afternoon.

When farming is busy, the two subjects are suspended in the morning.

Before the city is built, it is not a matter of time to improve military capabilities, but it is urgent to strengthen organizational capabilities.

When the villagers start a war, the thieves will definitely kill the thieves at the door. When the time comes, let’s not talk about killing the thieves. If you have the ability to organize, you will at least have the possibility of defense.

Liu Chengzong, who had been in the frontier army for more than a year, could not be more clear about the quality of the people in Xingping, who had just been reorganized into the army.

Fifty frontier soldiers with full stomachs can beat hundreds of Bai Yingzi to flee, and the same is true in exchange. The bandit soldiers who have seen blood can also use half of their forces to kill the new people to the point of blood.

What's more, they will not even have enough weapons to arm the front team, and there are only fourteen collars of decent armor. Any casualties will seriously dampen the enthusiasm of the villagers to join the people.

Among the two or three hundred people, four or five or even seven or eight casualties are just a grain of sand, but when carried on an individual, a grain of sand is a mountain.

A mountain that no family can carry.

In the outskirts of the village, the two brothers carefully decided to go to the north Panlongchuan Quanyan paper shop to buy bamboo sticks. They accidentally chatted a little late. When dusk came, they saw Sixteen Trot running out, the little bald head shining brightly, calling out. : "The management team, Brother Shishi, the master told you to go back. There are guests at home. They are adults from the city."

"Lord of Fucheng, where did you hear about this little thief with a hairy face?"

Liu Chengzong smiled and patted the little head of Sixteen. This child looked aura and was asked to be a errand boy by his father. After cleaning up, he looked much cleaner: "How can adults come here."

"It's really a high-ranking official in Fucheng. He told the master that Wang Zuohang had attacked Yaozhou."

(End of this chapter)