The back door of my house can last until the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 25 Sun Chuanting's Doubts
Taking a deep breath, the smoke curled up and emerged from the nasal cavity.

Chen Hu also followed Sun Jie's example, lit the cigarette, and took a deep puff.

It's just that he, who had never smoked before, coughed straight from the sudden choking.

"Ahem, my lord, it's too choking, too choking!"

Chen Hu squatted next to Sun Jie, holding a cigarette, not knowing what to do with it.

Wanting to inhale, choking so hard that it can't enter the lungs, wanting to throw it away, this is another reward from Sun Jie, and suddenly caught in a dilemma.

"If you can't smoke it, just throw it on the fire. Since you've been curious about this stuff, I'll give you one to try!" Sun Jie exhaled a smoke ring with a casual expression on his face.

Having said that, Chen Hu still didn't throw away the cigarette, squatted there, coughed and sneezed, and abruptly smoked the cigarette.

"Cough, cough, uncomfortable, too uncomfortable, really too uncomfortable!"

Chen Hu kept coughing, and tears flowed out of his eyes involuntarily.

Fortunately, the discomfort didn't last long, and soon subsided.

The night is dense, the full moon is bright tonight, the night wind is blowing, and the flames in front of me are constantly beating.

A thin layer of Bai Lian appeared on the ground, which was the mist that condensed on the ground.

I smoked a few cigarettes outside, chatted some gossips with Chen Hu, and fell asleep again, so I went back to sleep.

When I woke up, the sun was just rising, and there was a bit of chill on the twilight plateau.

I simply ate some dry food, packed up the camping things, and set foot on the road again.

Sun Chuanting simply finished his breakfast and led the army forward again.

After he got money and food from the gentry and landlords, he took the trained soldiers and horses to Chengcheng.

Between the 11th year of Chongzhen and the 1th year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting had about [-] soldiers and horses in his hands, of which more than [-] were direct line elite soldiers, most of whom were military household soldiers recruited from the Gansu-Shanxi border area; the remaining soldiers were basically The strong men recruited in Guanzhong and the township soldiers trained in various prefectures and counties in Guanzhong.

"History of the Ming Dynasty Sun Chuanting Biography" records: ". There are more than 14 guards, and the annual salary is [-] million taels of silver, and more than [-] stones of rice and wheat."

It is recorded in "Reporting Gan Bing Arriving in Fenghuang and Asking Cheng Shu" that in the Gansu border area, 79 Gan soldiers, 320 horses, and 54 mules were handed over to Sun Chuanting.

Later, Sun Chuanting eliminated these Gan soldiers, abolishing 31 officials, 410 soldiers, 74 mules and horses, and finally only 580 were left.

According to the "Sun Chuanting Shudo" in "Ming History Sun Chuanting Biography", his direct army is roughly as follows: 960 militiamen from various states and counties were selected, 970 officials and students were recruited by themselves, and 960 were selected from the army.

These three forces add up to more than 3000 people, and according to the configuration of the Ming army to suppress soldiers and horses in three steps and seven steps, one thousand of the [-] people are cavalry.And the source of the army horses of this thousand cavalry is one thousand horses left over from the two thousand horses in the "Jiejing Tea Horse" in Shaanxi that year.

The source of Sun Chuanting's money and food, in addition to "feasting" the gentry and landlords, the most important thing is the rectification of the four guards in Xi'an.

The Four Guards of Xi'an are the four guards guarding Xi'an, namely the Xi'an avant-garde, rear guard, left guard and right guard.

Since the end of the Ming Dynasty, Xi'an has "a total of [-] troops stationed in the four guards, more than [-] hectares of land supported by the army, and the land belongs to Haoyou".

When Sun Chuanting went to Shaanxi, he found that the soldiers guarding the city were "less than three hundred".

In fact, during the reign of Chongzhen, there were many wars in Shaanxi, and there was no payment for soldiers. The court had already turned its attention to the four guards.

However, although the previous clearing operations of the Qing army in the Xi'an area were effective, they were not as outstanding as Sun Chuanting's achievements.

Sun Chuanting was ruthless towards the thieves, and he was also ruthless towards the inside. It was precisely because of this ruthlessness that he raised a large amount of military pay.

Of course, this also offended the local gentry and villagers in Shaanxi, making the relationship between the two parties even worse.

Sun Chuanting naturally didn't care about these things.

This time, the bandit chieftain "Hundred Thousand" Ma Jinzhong led his troops to rebel in Chengcheng, and Sun Chuanting led [-] directly subordinate elite soldiers and [-] strong soldiers, a total of [-] soldiers and horses to suppress "Hunted Hundred Thousand" Ma Jinzhong.

At this time, he led his troops to Pucheng and was heading northeast to Chengcheng.

Pucheng is located in the northeast of Fuping, and the two are connected, not too far away.

Sun Chuanting, dressed in military uniform, rode a war horse and led the troops forward.

Lieutenant General Luo Shangwen rode a horse and rushed over from behind.

"My lord, Ye Bufu sent out found a group of thieves, but this group of thieves is a bit weird!" Luo Shangwen looked at Sun Chuanting solemnly.

Sun Chuanting turned sideways, frowned and said, "Strange? How weird? It's just bandits, why is it weird?"

"My lord, this group of thieves seemed to have been attacked by a certain army. They seemed to be running away. Yebushou grabbed a few tongues and interrogated them, but they didn't find any substantive content. They are talking nonsense about Tianhuo and Tianlei, by the way, these bandits escaped from Fuping." Luo Shangwen said.

"Sky fire? Sky thunder? Most bandit soldiers are illiterate, so how do they know what sky thunder and sky fire are? The first time bandit soldiers saw the artillery in our army, they also called it sky fire and sky thunder."

Having said this, Sun Chuanting's eyes narrowed, and he became serious, "I'm afraid I will be bombarded, otherwise I wouldn't say such nonsense!"

Sun Chuanting was keenly aware of the unusualness here, and he pondered: "In addition to the county soldiers and township soldiers, there are no other soldiers in Fuping.

According to the information from previous investigations, there are no major bandits there, just small groups of bandits roaming around in the countryside. It is impossible for them to have the courage to attack the county seat.In other words, this group of bandits was probably attacked in the wild.”

Sun Chuanting peeled back the cocoon, crushed and split the matter.

He suddenly looked at Luo Shangwen, and said: "This matter is unusual, I ordered Ye Bushuo to press those tongues over, and I will interrogate myself."

"The Great Army"

"The army advances as usual, and there is no delay. The most urgent task is to eliminate the horse thieves!" Sun Chuanting ordered.

"Mark the order!"

Luo Shangwen rode away.

At noon, Ye Bushou came to Sun Chuanting with a few tongues in custody.

Sun Chuanting didn't care about the rush, so he interrogated these tongues on the side of the official road.

These tongues were so frightened that they spoke nonsense, repeating words such as "Skyfire" and "Tianlei" in their mouths.

From time to time, sentences such as "four people", "a mule cart", "like a rich man" popped up.

Sun Chuanting connected these fragmentary words together, and also learned some news.

What is certain is that they did not attack the county seat, but were attacked in an unknown place.

What they encountered was not a large group of soldiers and horses, it was very likely that it was just "four people" and "a mule cart".

The weapons used are not military artillery, but some "colorful" jars and "big sticks" that can burn.

These news did not make the doubts in Sun Chuanting's heart lessened, but intensified them.

What are they talking about, all inexplicable words, it sounds like a storybook novel, could it be that the black-faced Zhang Fei immediately drank Dangyang Bridge?
Four people plus a mule cart can beat dozens of people to pieces?This is impossible!

It would be fine if one person said that, but almost all of the tongues that were escorted over said that, which made people puzzled.

No way, I can only take care of these people first, and make plans after the Chengcheng incident is over.

The matter in Chengcheng is already very urgent. Not long ago, Chengcheng County reported that a gang of [-] horses had swept through the surrounding villages, engulfing the people and preparing to attack the city.

Otherwise, Sun Chuanting would not have sent troops so early.You know, Sun Chuanting's original time for dispatching troops was in late June and early July, but now it's nearly a month earlier.

Let people push down these tongues to guarantee their lives.

Then, Sun Chuanting continued to march with soldiers and horses, putting this aside in advance.

The army is like a forest, marching on the official road.

Sun Chuanting's military order stated that "traveling young crops in the march is a felony." Even though the fields on both sides of the official road were barren and there were no crops, no soldier dared to cross at will.

The sun began to linger on the horizon again, and the mountains on the horizon couldn't hold it back, so it plunged down the mountain.

The flatbed truck stopped outside a deserted village, Sun Jie asked Liang Wu and Zhao Dading to stay and watch, and led Chen Hu into the deserted village.

The houses in the barren village are basically half-built mud houses, low and cramped.

Most of them have collapsed beyond recognition, with jagged earthen walls.

For the houses that have not yet collapsed, there are no tiles on the roof, but almost all black and rotten straw.

The roads in the village are full of potholes and weeds.

A few chinchillas or hares jumped out of the grass from time to time, the skinny ones with little flesh.

He stepped on a hard object, his feet were unstable, and he staggered.

After standing still, Sun Jie leaned over to take a look, and saw a human head that had already turned into bones lying quietly under the pile of grass.

"hiss!"

Sun Jie took a breath and pushed away the weeds near his head.

A scattered skeleton of human nature appeared in front of him. It had already been boned, and it was covered with the teeth marks of wild beasts.

An obvious knife mark was scratched from the forehead to the jaw, maybe the knife was not sharp, and there were some broken holes on the knife mark.

I searched around, and found seven or eight dead bones that were almost the same size.

Walking through the entire deserted village, I found more than a dozen similar dead bones here and there.

The dead bones vary in size, the largest is the size of an adult, and the smallest is no more than a foot long, obviously a baby.

A lot of dead bones couldn't be put back together, and they were bitten and devoured by the wild beasts around them, and they were already beyond recognition.

Xu Shi died at the hands of bandits, and Xu Shi died at the hands of soldiers.

The phrase "Bandits are like a comb, soldiers are like a grate, and officials are like a shave" has never been just a saying.

Li Zicheng and his like, under the banner of doing justice for the heavens, do the business of burning, killing and looting.

In order to avoid punishment by the court, it has become common for officers and soldiers who have no meritorious service to kill good men and pretend to be meritorious.

It's not Jiannu and Tartars, there is almost no difference between ordinary people and thieves. For the hats on the heads of officials and gentlemen, if you kill them, you will kill them.

Sun Jie led a few people to dig a few big pits outside the village, and buried the dead bones in the deserted village inside.

A few pieces of wood were cut and inserted in front of the grave as a tombstone.

This is probably also "fallen leaves return to their roots", but it is a pity that this is the ending.

The tent was set up not far from the grave, and the fire to prevent the wolf was burning vigorously.

After dinner, it was already night, Sun Jie went to bed early after a long day's journey.

I don't know when the strong wind started. The weather in May often blows strong winds here.

Afraid that the fire would ignite the tent, Chen Hu and the others covered it with soil while the wind was still rising, leaving only a few scattered torches for lighting, and protected them carefully so that they would not go out.

The strong wind blew like this all night. There were no tall and dense plants on the long-dry land of Shaanxi. The wind rolled the loess and earth and rocks and hit the tent, clanging all night.

Put away the tent, choke some dry food with mineral water, and hurry on the road again.

Before leaving, he added a handful of soil to the grave to reinforce the blown down "tombstone".

The figure gradually disappeared from the deserted village, and after leaving the deserted village, I don't know how many years it would take for the deserted village to see this kind figure again.

A few days later, Sun Jie finally arrived at his destination.

According to the description and map on the Fish Scale Book, Sun Jie finally arrived.

Sun Jie didn't have any intuitive concept of how big the [-] mu of land was before, but only now did he know how big the [-] mu of land was when he arrived at the place.

This place is located in the northwest of Fuping County, I don't know how far it is from the county seat. Looking around, there are flat land and earthen walls.

At the end of the field stood some dilapidated earthen houses, and a few blackened wooden signs lay down on the field.

Through the scorched surface of the card, one can vaguely see the words "Qin Wangfu Fuping County Wuzihuanghao Land" and other words.

"Wu" is the stem of heaven, and "Huang" is the "yellow" in "Heaven and Earth Xuanhuang" in "Thousand Characters".

In ancient times, these were generally used to count, and the numbered rooms in the Gongyuan of the two capitals were counted in this way.

"Here is our destination, and it can match up with the ones on the fish scale book!" Sun Jie held a wooden sign that was about to decay and his face was scorched black.

Looking at the surrounding land, I feel indescribably comfortable.

"Go, look around and see what else is around!" Sun Jie took the wooden sign and walked around.

The land is very barren, it is all bare loess, there are not many weeds, and a few drought-resistant weeds grow sporadically.

There are several wells in the field, which have already dried up, and there are some corpses of wild wolves in them, maybe they fell into them by mistake.

Before arriving at a village, the village was very dilapidated, even more dilapidated than the one Sun Jie encountered before.

The houses in the village have already collapsed, and as far as the eye can see, it is devastated.

There are some weeds growing in all directions, and there is no vertical wall.

There are no dead bones inside, but there are many graves at the head and tail of the village that are about to be blown flat by the wind.

The village is almost flat, and it has been abandoned for a long time, maybe ten years, or twenty years, or even more years.

"This place is extremely desolate. The land is so poor that we can't grow any crops. Why do you want the land here? How can it compare to the paddy fields around Xi'an Mansion? It's really not worth it to walk so far!"

Standing behind Sun Jie, Chen Hu said with a puzzled expression.

"Otherwise, this land is much better than those around the Xi'an Mansion. It is deserted and desolate, and it is exactly the place I am after.

As for the barrenness of the land, there are some solutions.”

Sun Jie spoke in a relaxed tone.

The land is barren, and with a few bags of chemical fertilizers, are you afraid that you won't be able to grow crops?
If there is no water, dig a few mechanical wells, are you afraid that there will be no water?Can't dig deep.

Backed by modern society, these are not problems.

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(End of this chapter)