stubborn thief

On the Xianyang plateau, there is an endless stream of official cars and sedans.

This is a rare sight in a war zone.

The decree of the Marshal's Office has spread throughout Xi'an Prefecture through rumors, causing an uproar in the countryside.

On the official road from Wugong County to Xianyang, a mighty convoy of carriages and horses was marching.

In the middle of the procession, there is an official sedan with a silver top and a soap cover carried by eight servants. In front of it are government servants and horses leading the way. Around and behind the sedan, more than a dozen ministers, scholars, and officials' sons are accompanying them on horseback. At the end of the procession are a few people. A merchant who donated a crown followed.

The owner of this sedan, which is a third-grade official, is Ma Mingshi, a senior official in Wugong County.

He was a top three Jinshi in the 44th year of Wanli. In the same year as Hong Chengchou and Chen Qiyu, he was promoted from the magistrate of Hongdong County to the Minister of Household Affairs. He is the highest-ranking official in martial arts today.

Beside the official sedan, Zhang Wenxi, who was riding with him on horseback, looked worried. After thinking again and again, he asked inside the sedan: "Mr. Xiu Xu, have you heard that the marshal of the Marshal's Mansion wants us to redeem his farmland?"

Ma Mingshi, who was in the sedan, was distracted when he heard questions outside the sedan. He opened the curtain and took a look before saying, "It's Wen Xi. I heard about it. Rumors can't be believed."

Kang Wanmin, who was riding a horse next year and was the top three scholar in the new department last year, laughed and said: "What the old gentleman said is absolutely true, and the students think so too. He can obviously rob it directly, so why bother to make a stupid trick like asking someone to redeem his own land?"

As soon as these words came out, the people and scholars beside the sedan responded with words one after another.

Zhang Wenxi asked again: "Then why are there such rumors, so serious?"

Ma Mingshi in the official sedan shook his head slowly and said, "I'm afraid I have to ask Chen Yuxuan in Xi'an City."

He was talking about Chen Qiyu.

Ma Mingshi believed that Chen Qiyu in Xi'an Fucheng managed to spread the rumor about the land redemption to discredit the Marshal's Palace.

The gentry in Wugong County have a better impression of the Marshal's Mansion because of two people, one is Mo Yujing and the other is Zu Kuan.

This group of gentry formed a regiment as soon as the marshal's army entered Guanzhong from the east, and went out of the city to resist the marshal's army.

The leader at that time was a scholar named Han Shi. Every household in the county had people from wealthy families. They brought their own horses and weapons, and followed Han Shi to fight Mo Yujing outside the city.

Within an hour, Han Shi died in the battle, and the regiment collapsed. Then the Mongolian soldiers under Mo Yujing followed the defeated troops and marched straight in, taking down the Wugong city defense and declaring the complete defeat of the landlords' armed forces in Wugong County.

Ma Mingshi also had a grandson who died outside the city.

Ordinarily, they should hate the Marshal's army and hope that the Ming army will fight back.

But what happened next exceeded the imagination of the martial arts gentry... Zu Kuan directly robbed Xingping County next door.

Even in Jinshi Kang Wanmin's home, Liu Zhu, a Juren of Xingping County, is still hiding. More than 70 members of his family were killed while resisting the robbery.

In Wugong County occupied by Mo Yujing, only Tuanlian and Mo Yujing's troops clashed outside the city. In addition, the Yiding troops under his command entered the city more restrainedly than the official army did. The most excessive thing they did was just They let their horses graze outside the city and stepped on the graves.

In comparison, people think it is good that the Ming army cannot fight back.

What is even more surprising is that Mo Yujing did not lead troops to garrison in Wugong County for too long and quickly went to Fengxiang Mansion.

At that time, Ma Mingshi and others were even a little scared. Wugong County without the protection of the Marshal's Mansion must not attract the Ming army.

But this is actually a misunderstanding. Mo and Jingbu's military discipline is a special case. They are the soldiers with the best military discipline among the troops participating in the Eastern Expedition.

Within the current reward and punishment framework of the Marshal's Law, they have a mature set of plundering practices.

After all, Liu Chengzong's army was a team of professionals who could even place the bricks of Pingcheng in place and tear down five walls in order to move two Babou beds.

The efficiency of collective plundering can surpass the Ming army's private plundering, looting and burning of eight streets.

It's just that the Mongolian soldiers under Mo Yujing's command had a low level of education, lacked life experience in the Han region, lacked a correct understanding of the value of the spoils, and were relatively rude in their actions. They couldn't do the job like other field battles during looting. The camp is so detailed and beautiful.

So Mo Yujing didn't give the order.

After all, he didn't want his subordinates to smash all the bottles and cans, burn all the calligraphy and painting wood, and come out carrying a pile of iron pots on their shoulders.

Professional matters should still be left to professionals.

This spectacle of the Yiding not committing any crime against the local people prompted the gentry in Wugong County to receive Liu Chengzong's invitation and were willing to go to Xianyang for a banquet to see what Liu Chengzong thought.

Similar scenes also occurred on the official roads leading to Xianyang from various counties in Xi'an Prefecture, but the gentry in other places were not as enthusiastic as Wugong County.

The vast majority of people received the invitation and neither dared to come nor not come, so they discussed among the clan and sent suitable people over.

There are also some who are timid and clever. There are policies from above and countermeasures from below. They have already divided their households and land with their clan members.

This can be considered as the good news does not flow to outsiders.

More people chose to stay where they were, waiting for news about the Xianyang Banquet to see what the Marshal's Mansion planned.

What bad intentions could Liu Chengzong have?

He just calculated that these gentry were already on their way to Xianyang, so he ordered to mobilize 8,000 men from each battalion. At the same time, he selected 19 school captains, 38 captains, and 114 Xiaoqi from the Huben camp. .

"A school captain, two captains, and six knights, carrying proclamations and documents, went to the six prefectures and thirteen counties of Xi'an Prefecture. They sent 300 troops from the county and 500 from the prefecture to find a way to enter the city."

Liu Chengzong looked at the most elite mid-level officers in the Marshal's Mansion and ordered: "If you can enter the city, take over the city defense and carry out the work of registering the population and clearing the land."

"If you can't get in, come back and call someone."

After that, after everyone responded, Liu Chengzong smiled and said: "Of course, it would be best not to attack the city. Peace is the most valuable thing."

Liu Shizi is not afraid of attacking the city.

He had already ordered Milayin to mine ore in the mountainous areas around Yaozhou and Qianzhou. At the same time, he had ordered Zhao Jichang, the magistrate of Xianyang County, to set up a kiln factory, and recruited civilian workers to be transferred to the commander of the three camps to build a blast furnace on the north bank of the Wei River.

Forge cannons in the face of battle.

The siege of Xi'an Fucheng is indispensable for shelling the battlements. The thousand-jin field bronze cannon currently accompanying the army is not enough in the siege battle.

After all, Xi'an Mansion has a moat, so methods such as bombing the city are not easy to use. If it is heavy artillery, it is possible to collapse the thin upper part of the city wall, forming several gentle slopes that are easy to climb onto the city.

For this purpose, he needs heavy siege artillery weighing more than three thousand kilograms. If there are prefectures and counties in Xi'an that do not want to be taken over, it will be the same as sending hundreds of cattle to pull a dozen cannons.

It's just that Liu Chengzong believed that the entire Shaanxi Province was in dire need of reconstruction, and the heavy post-war reconstruction work required a lot of manpower. Therefore, the surrounding small counties could not fight without fighting. More people will lead to more productivity, and there is always something that can be used.

After arranging this matter, Liu Chengzong didn't rest for too long. Soldiers came outside the tent to report that Monk Xue, the cartographer of the Commander's Mansion, was back.

Monk Xue, who was tired of his career, brought two apprentices from Xincheng Academy. The three of them held armfuls of scrolls. As soon as they came in, they said happily: "Commander, General Wei's soldiers built a mountain in Bailuyuan. They can barely overlook the city with a telescope. The city walls regulate Already painted!" "Good job! Have you seen the city wall?"

As soon as Liu Chengzong finished speaking, Monk Xue said: "General Wei Shen is right behind."

Soon, Wei Qian'er also came back with a complicated expression on his face. When he entered the tent, he saluted Liu Chengzong and said, "Commander, Xi'an Fucheng is not easy to fight."

"How to say?"

Wei Qian'er took out a note of his own from his arms and said while handing it over: "The city of Xi'an has a moat. The city is 13 miles long. The wall is four feet high, four feet thick at the top and five feet thick at the bottom. The corners, horse paths, The horse face is also strengthened, our cannon..."

At the end, Wei Qian'er's expression was a little strange.

Obviously, against such a huge city, no matter how heavy the artillery is, it will be difficult to blast it away.

A rammed earth city wall more than ten meters thick, covered with blue bricks, what is the difference between this thing and a mountain?

Liu Chengzong looked at the drawing and pondered for a moment, then said: "What about casting thousand-jin cannons outside the city... ninety-eight enemy towers?"

The drawing of Xi'an Fucheng brought back by Monk Xue is very exquisite, but what is drawn on it is completely a huge war machine.

On all sides of the city wall, there is a protruding enemy tower every less than a hundred steps, and there are enemy towers on the enemy tower, which can bring the other side of the moat within shooting range for dozens of steps.

This undoubtedly increased the difficulty of siege.

Anyone who attacks a city like this will not end well.

Liu Chengzong also had no good solution. Apart from the difficult methods of encircling the enemy until they ran out of food or combining forces from inside and outside, he could only use artillery to destroy the enemy's towers, battlements, and gate towers until they could no longer stand, and then use ladder ants to trap them and occupy the city wall.

However, given the size of Xi'an Fucheng, such a huge offensive would increase ammunition consumption to a terrifying figure, and even artillery would become consumables.

Fortunately, Liu Chengzong did not feel that he was short of gunpowder.

The Marshal's Mansion's gunpowder reserves are much smaller than those of the Ming Dynasty. Every year, only Kangning Mansion transports 60,000 to 70,000 kilograms of gunpowder to Xining in order to offset taxes.

Of course, if you look at this number worldwide, it is actually quite a lot. More than a hundred years later, during the American Revolution, the annual output of gunpowder in the thirteen colonies of North America was only at this level.

However, the Marshal's Mansion transports 60,000 to 70,000 kilograms of gunpowder from Kangning Mansion to Xining Mansion every year simply because it is useless to buy so much gunpowder without a full-scale war.

The saltpeter in Kangning Prefecture is cave saltpeter, and each cave is boiled to weigh several thousand kilograms. It is a bit laborious to make, but it is easy to transport. It is loaded on a yak cart and there are stations along the official road, and it is sent directly to Xining Prefecture immediately. .

The soil saltpeter scattered in arid areas is easy to make, but it is troublesome to transport.

For example, the saltpeter mines in Golmud, Hami, and Dunhuang were discovered, and production was easy, but it was okay to gather people to collect them once in a while, but it was difficult to sustain.

Because we need to continuously transport these things, we have to build roads, post stations, and dig wells in the Gobi Desert. But if we do these things, not to mention Liu Chengzong’s Marshal’s Mansion, even all the wars in the entire world combined will not be able to consume them. So much saltpeter.

Therefore, when there is no war in the Marshal's Mansion, they simply don't use it.

After all, saltpeter, after it is mined and prepared, must be used as needed. If left unused, it will easily get damp and waste.

Unfortunately, it cannot be directly made into gunpowder in large quantities. In most cases in this era, black gunpowder is produced centrally according to needs.

And there is no so-called optimal gunpowder ratio of seventy-five, ten, and fifteen.

Because nitrate can achieve extremely high purity through traditional purification processes, so can sulfur, but not carbon.

The charcoal produced from different wood materials has different purity. The same proportions are used to make medicine in various places. When used intensively, you can only get a bunch of gunpowder with different powers.

What's more, gunpowder has to be ground and granulated to separate into primers that burn quickly, large particles that burn slowly, and explosive particles that burn quickly.

The situation that real users face is more complicated.

For example, the nitrate delivered to you is not purified enough, so the ratio needs to be increased to 80% or even higher.

There is even no problem with the raw materials of gunpowder, but there is a problem with the weapons that use gunpowder. No one dares to use the most powerful gunpowder to load an old Hongwu cannon.

Therefore, in a peaceful environment, collecting saltpeter in Qinghai, Hami and other places is an embarrassing matter for the Marshal's Mansion, where the investment exceeds the output.

But when the war breaks out, it will be different.

Liu Chengzong knew very well that facing a huge and solid city like Xi'an, it would take a huge amount of gunpowder to break the city.

So he immediately made two preparations. On the one hand, he ordered Yaozhou, Qianzhou and other places to collect copper and iron, open kilns to cast cannons and shells, and on the other hand, he sent a message to Lanzhou, asking Qinghai to collect saltpeter and transport it to Qinghai Lake, where it would be fried in Qinghai Lake by Xining Prefecture. Refining saltpeter soil.

For the purification of saltpeter, clean water is very important.

Xining Prefecture is uniquely endowed with natural resources. The army can use the melted water from the snowy mountains in the Qilian Mountains to purify the best horse teeth salt.

In any case, after defeating the Ming Dynasty's heavy military group in Shaanxi, Liu Chengzong already regarded the entire Shaanxi as his own.

No matter the city of Xi'an in front of him, the 20,000 troops of General Hou Liangzhu on the Sichuan border, or the defeated Ming army running around in Shaanxi, there was no way to stop him from taking Shaanxi.

The most important thing at the moment is not whether Xi'an Prefecture can be conquered quickly, but whether the Marshal's Army can complete the expropriation of Xi'an Prefecture.

That Chang'an County attached to Guo is insignificant compared to the entire six prefectures and thirteen counties in Xi'an Prefecture.

But just when Liu Shishi thought everything was slowly getting better, misfortune also quietly came to this land.

He received a warning letter from Monan Yang Qi.

The letter said that the war in Monan was over this year. Dorgon's Houjin Army failed to get any benefits in Ordos, but he became angry and attacked Guihua City, scaring Yang Qi half to death.

Fortunately, Yang Qi also had many defenders, and the Ming court's Shanxi frontier troops successfully moved out of the border again, prompting Dorgon to withdraw his troops eastward. Yang Qi successfully protected Monan for Liu Chengzong.

But the land has been saved, but soon there will not be many living people on this land.

As the Shanxi border troops left the border, plague appeared in Ulanqab and Datong both inside and outside the border wall, and spread to the surrounding areas as the troops moved.

Fortunately, the plague progressed extremely violently, and the area was sparsely populated. Most of the people infected with the disease died early in the morning. Yang Qi only received the news of the plague in the front, and there was no trace of the plague except those who died of the disease in the back.

Yang Qi sent a message to remind Liu Chengzong that the plague broke out both inside and outside the border wall, especially in Liaozhou and Zezhou in Shanxi.

If it spreads out of Shanxi, if it spreads to Yan'an Prefecture, it's okay. If it spreads to Henan and Xi'an Prefecture, then the plague will not be like this.

After Liu Chengzong read Yang Qi's letter, Wei Qian'er's soldiers stormed in.

"The commander is reporting urgently, Tongguan! There is a plague in Tongguan. The Ming army rushed out to fight several times. Now the general camp of Wei Shen is also infected. The morale of the army is unstable, the soldiers are making noise, and a mutiny is imminent!" (End of this chapter)