stubborn thief

Chapter 335 Go Westward
Mo and Jing are very embarrassed to settle the chaos.

As he entered the Hehuang Valley, he once again directed his knives, bows and guns at the rebels and ex-military soldiers, and the veterans who followed him to Shaanxi for more than a year, their combat effectiveness plummeted.

Common people hate war, but the people who hate war the most are soldiers, especially when there is no reward for killing people, no merit, no possibility of promotion, and even no loot, soldiers are the most war-weary people in the world.

This is the dilemma of Mo and Jing. The Lutang battalion soldiers he led are all good fighters who escaped death, but they have killed too many people, and too many relatives and friends have been killed. Everyone's spirit is more or less Something went wrong.

Some soldiers have trouble with themselves, not only do not want to kill anymore, but also do not want to do anything. When there is no order, except for being irritable and irritable, they are like walking dead, and they will no longer be as firm as before when they receive orders.

Another part of the soldiers had trouble with others, but they were willing to continue killing, even wanting to kill everyone they saw. When marching, they saw hungry and refugees passing by and wanted to kill them for fun. If the army was not allowed to make way for the people, there would be a big problem.

However, those who were willing to kill were left in the Lutang camp. Most of the people Mo and Jing brought with them were unwilling to kill. Not everyone was sick, and only a few dozen were half-crazy, but war weariness affected the entire army .

Fortunately, there is no supervising army, otherwise, the jokes made by this army during the quelling chaos would be enough to make Mo and Jing die eight times when sent to the court.

In the battle to recapture the ancient Shanbao, Mo and Jing fought for two whole days. For such a big castle, his [-] small Franco cannons fired a salvo for seven rounds. None of the hundreds of shells hit. battlements.

Seven rows of blastholes were punched on the wall below the battlements.

In the end, the ancient Shanbao was taken back, because the rebels in the fort thought that these officers and soldiers were too good, and more than 400 people came out of the fort!
At the moment of life and death, the artillery did not perform, one round of iron bullets and one round of scattered bullets, the rapid fire was so accurate, and the hundred and ten people were overthrown, the rebels scattered and fled, and the veterans were wilted again.

They didn't even pretend to be wrestling or stumbling, they just stood there and drew out their knives and yelled twice, then sat down and sighed, until Mo Yujing gave the order to chase, and they formed a small team and wobbled After driving out for two hundred steps, the bandits had already climbed a mountain.

Mo Yujing has no temper. On the one hand, the soldiers did not violate military laws and regulations. What they did was not written in the military laws and regulations;

All his enthusiasm as a military commander was exhausted in the battle in northern Shaanxi... The timing and region of his participation in the war were wrong.

If two years in the morning, when the great uprising had just begun in troubled times, the rich families in northern Shaanxi were still singing and dancing, and the villages in various places could still save some life-saving rations, and looting was everywhere at that time, not to mention that the officers and soldiers were willing to suppress bandits, even Liu Lions have the motivation to suppress bandits.

If you change places, the situation in Shanxi and Guanzhong at this time is similar to that in northern Shaanxi two or three years ago. Of course, soldiers will be tired of fighting and have mental problems after fighting for a year, but it will not be so serious.

But at this time in northern Shaanxi, there are no looters. The rebels who stayed in northern Shaanxi are all popular in attacking the city, and Wangzhuang is almost lost. When Beijing led the army into the battlefield in northern Shaanxi, there were only [-] adults left here who could survive without rebellion.

The key point is that the remaining [-]% ​​of the people are either high-ranking officials or those who have served the high-ranking officials for generations, not to mention ordinary big-headed soldiers. Even Mo Yujing couldn't empathize with the little King Han squatting in Pingliang City.

People's minds have been changed by the drought and war. Earlier they heard that rebels were going to Pingliang, and people were very worried. The surrounding troops immediately returned to Pingliang for help.

But now that they heard that there were rebels going to Pingliang, the first thought of the generals, soldiers and soldiers was not to worry about the safety of Han Wang Qiansui, but to regret.

Regretted that he hadn't acted first and robbed Han Wangfu's Lumi this year.

He sighed deeply for a while, and then set off to Pingliang in a hurry to watch the battle from a distance. His whole mind was the same as Liu Shizi's mind when he watched Bai Yingzi besiege Tuwei.

Therefore, after capturing the ancient Shanbao, Mo Yujing did not dare to push the soldiers too hastily, and garrisoned troops in the fort for repairs. At the same time, they sent people to spread letters widely, and recruited the chieftain of Huangzhong to help fight and quell the chaos.

Before his letter was delivered, there was an urgent report from the west that the Nianbo Qianhu House was breached by Liu Chengzong. Tens of thousands of captured Nianbo are heading east.

For a time, the defenders of the ancient Shanbao were in chaos, and Mo Yujing hurriedly led his troops to leave from the ancient Shanbao.

He knew it couldn't be more clear, his army seemed a bit reluctant to put down the chaos, and he was afraid that if he fought Liu Chengzong, he would end up as a thief in the end.

He doesn't need to guard the ancient Shanbao, but he must not leave these seven hundred elite soldiers to Liu Chengzong... What if these soldiers are not unwilling to kill people, but they just don't want to be killed by the court?

As the leader of the army, does he dare to think about this question?

The most irritating thing is that Mo Yujing received the news of Nianbo Qianhusuo's request for help only the day after receiving the news that Nianbo Qianhusuo was captured.

Before the siege began, Nianbo Qianhu sent someone to the east to ask for help, and ran directly to Lanzhou, only to find out that Mo Yujing, the deputy commander of Xining, had led the army to take up his post, and then turned back to look for him.

The timeline is chaotic for him, Nianbo was captured first and then besieged.

Mo Yujing always thought that the gang of thieves who couldn't afford to eat in Hehuang earlier was in chaos enough, but he didn't expect that Hehuang would really become chaotic when he ran out of the valley of the ancient Shanbao.

He originally wanted to retreat to the valley and rely on the local nobles to defend and wait for reinforcements, but there were not many wealthy families in the area.

Pedestrians, scholars and merchants, people packed their family belongings and loaded up small carts, congested the official road and fled eastward in a hurry. A series of carriages made deep ruts in the farmland.

The deserters who lost the battle in the west blocked the road with knives, rode on other people's horses, carried other people's bags, hugged other people's wives and whipped them away. Everything was messed up.

The landlords in Hehuang didn't panic when they knew that the mud legs had risen, but they were terrified when they knew that Liu Chengzong was going east. They hurriedly packed up the luggage they had prepared two years ago and fled.

During the three days when the news spread all over Hehuang, the words that were repeated the most by people may be "I knew there would be such a day", and they were all prepared long ago.

Thanks to Liu Shizi, the wealthy families in Hehuang have become much more frugal in the past two years. Many luxury furnishings in the courtyard can be moved and sold. Some people have moved their furniture to their houses in Lanzhou long ago.

When Liu Chengzong came, people didn't have time to know what he was doing, and when everyone reacted, he ran to the west of Xining like a gust of wind.

As the saying goes, without long-term considerations, there must be near-term worries. The consensus in the Hehuang Valley is that Liu Chengzong will come out sooner or later.

People of insight came to this conclusion based on the fact that Hehuang had no danger to defend, and there were many places that could be said to be easy to defend and difficult to attack, but they all required a large number of full-time soldiers. Hehuang also had [-] battalions guarding various places.

Including the Zhenhai Camp and Fuqiang Fort, the [-] battalion soldiers have already eaten the food of the Liu family before the fight started, what a fart.

Common people come to this conclusion, the argument is simpler, there is no place to farm in the sea, the generalissimo is nesting there, what does he eat?
But for ordinary people, even knowing that Liu Chengzong will come out, it doesn't make much sense. If the gentlemen run east, it is at best a trip to Lanzhou.

During the good-hearted tour, the tenants were exempted from the land rent, and they took out a big house for the long-term workers to live in; if there were those who could not avoid the rent, it would be their duty to ask the tenants to pay it when they came back.

Anyway, the lords have the title deeds, as long as Hehuang is not occupied, they will still be the lords when they come back;

Ordinary people are different. Tenants cannot find land in Lanzhou, and self-cultivating farmers and small traders are called abandoning their homes when they leave the land.

Adding a chicken coop and a pigsty to five acres of land is only worth a few taels of silver. For some people, it is lighter than the wind to blow it into the sky when it is made of foil.

But for more people, a few taels of silver are more important than life, and it is worth taking a chance to tie yourself to the land for a gamble.

What if the thief didn't hit his home?What if the Marshal's Mansion doesn't kill innocent people indiscriminately?
In Mo Yujing's heart, gentlemen cannot run away.

Because they can run, they can't run. As local leaders, the backbone of the people, and land householders who hold the fields, they are usually respected by others, but they must stay in the place to lead the people in times of war.

Under normal circumstances, they make decisions for the people whether to fight or to surrender; they organize the people whether to run or leave;

Even if the enemy is tyrannical and greedy, and the gentry surrendered and stayed in the place to be knifed, it is also the responsibility and obligation of the gentry and the village sages.

With them at the front, the people would not suffer too much. Otherwise, would they run away and leave the people there to be vented by the tyrannical and greedy enemies?

But Liu Chengzong is different, Liu Chengzong is too scary.

It is difficult for the gentry in Hehuang to regard him as a normal regime. Instead, they either regard him as a thief who killed the rich and helped the poor in the past, or they regard him as the Tubo Zanpu of Han descent who is also the Mongolian version of Nurhaci.

In short, he is the kind of person who does not leave a way for rich gentry to survive.

Every move of the Marshal's Mansion in the past two years has affected people's thoughts. Since Liu Chengzong set up a mansion school in Xining, most of the gentry in Hehuang dared not plan to share wealth with him.

Of course, there are still those who stay in Hehuang. These people have already sent their smart children to study in Xining Mansion. When they heard that the commander-in-chief’s mansion entered the army, those who sent them off early celebrated with their crowns, and those who sent them off late sighed.

Mo Yujing led the army to approach the mouth of the river in a hurry. Seeing that there were still three miles to go, the official road and the river bank were blocked, and the broken and abandoned horse carts and donkey carts alone were thrown on the ground for a full mile.

Both sides of the Yellow River are full of rich and well-to-do people dressed in luxurious fabrics and exquisite decorations, bringing good horses and beautiful families, servants and maidservants. Money is no longer money in this place, and people waving silver taels are everywhere on the bank, urging and yelling at the river.

The boats on the Yellow River were transported back and forth, even the cowhide rafts and sheepskin rafts were crowded with people. Like cattle and sheep being driven, the crowd sometimes waded to the shore and sometimes retreated to the ferry, and there were exclamations from time to time.

Either a raft capsized in the river, or someone on the bank took the opportunity to snatch it, all kinds of chaos.

Mo Yujing got angry when he saw this gang of gentry fleeing around, snatched his subordinates' three-eyed guns and fired them into the sky, leaving his men behind to watch the enemy's situation, deploying troops to maintain order, promulgating regulations prohibiting panic looting, and at the same time dispatched The two soldiers went to the opposite bank and asked Lanzhou generals to recruit civilian ships and troops to cross the river.

"Let the Lanzhou Banner Battalion soldiers cross the river first, and then send all the chieftains from Taozhou Minzhou Lintao Gongchang. Don't lose the river mouth!"

Once the river mouth is lost, Liu Chengzong can directly threaten Lanzhou and cut off the connection between Gansu Town and Shaanxi. The assembly will be completed within half a month.

At that time, the government and the army will split up and attack Liu Zei.

If Hekou is lost, the chieftains will not receive support from Lanzhou, and it will be difficult to win the battle on their own.

But soon, Mo Yujing realized that the problem seemed not so simple. He actually found several chieftain's nephews at the ferry of the Yellow River.

Mo Yujing is also from Xining. As a general who went out of Xining, he has a close relationship with many fellow local officials. Why did the family members of Chieftain Li and Chieftain Qi run away?
After careful questioning, those chieftains were actually invited by Liu Chengzong to celebrate the New Year in Juerwan during the Chinese New Year. Mo Yujing felt dizzy when he heard the news: "They, why are they going to the Marshal's Mansion!"

News of the fortresses being toppled and captured, or surrendered in anticipation, continued to come from the west. The chieftain was not in the territory. It was like bad news, hitting Mo Yujing's heart hard.

Hehuang Valley may be lost.

Lanzhou, like Shanhaiguan, will become the front line directly facing the threat of the enemy.

Things have progressed to this point, which is beyond Mo Yujing's control. He hurriedly sent people to board the ship to go to the other side. The general reported that he was practicing state affairs as the governor of Shaanxi, and asked to call the generals of the five towns in Guanzhong to lead the frontier army to discuss Hehuang again. .

At this moment, exciting news finally came from the west: the rout of soldiers from all walks of life was collected, and the chaos of rout was contained at Shangchuankou.

The only chieftain who did not go to Juerwan, the old chieftain Ye Guoqi, who was the deputy general of Changping, led 27 servants and [-] local soldiers to carry the coffin and stationed in Binggou Racecourse. The banner of "朙" was raised.

A group of stragglers who were chased and fled by the army of the Marshal's Mansion in the Hehuang Valley, scurrying like hooded flies, found the backbone again and began to gather at the mouth of the upper river.

Ye Guoqi sent people to Hekou to send news, asking Mo and Jing to ask for help from the imperial court, and sent troops westward to preside over the overall situation at Shangchuankou.

Immediately afterwards, Lu Yunchang, chieftain and general of Liancheng who had lived in Hexi for generations, led [-] local soldiers to station in West Datong Fort.

Mo Yujing was ecstatic about this, and immediately swore an oath at the mouth of the river to encourage the morale of the soldiers, and also propped up the dilapidated banner with the word "朙", and led [-] veterans to march westward.

　Good evening!Sorry for getting up late today.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)