Anti Qing

Chapter 20
The wind picked up, and the rain fell harder and harder.

Thunder and lightning flashed in the air, and deafening movements followed one after another. The raindrops gathered into a stream on the top of the tent, flowing down like silver threads.

The branches were blown by the wind and made a rattling sound. Li Zijing tightened the Yanling Saber around his waist, and looked around at the crowd again.

The more than [-] veteran soldiers in the audience have all moved with the battalion for many years. They have fought against officers and soldiers and the Qing army, and each of them has many lives in their hands.

After waiting for a while, Li Zijing noticed that the expressions of impatience on the faces of these people became more and more obvious.

Li Zijing understood that if it wasn't for Liu Fangliang standing behind him, this group of people would have been yelling at him and attacking him.

Thinking of this, Li Zijing felt a little rejoiced.

It is so difficult to manage a mere one hundred old books. If you directly become the former battalion general, you will not be overwhelmed by more than 2000 old books.

You can't always rely on Liu Fangliang to lead the Zuoying people to stand on your platform. Without a direct line, it is difficult to control your subordinates.

There are some reasons why the Dashun army failed to get rid of the bandit style, and followed closely with the Qing army.

Whether it broke the capital or defeated Shanhaiguan, all of these came too suddenly, and the Dashun army was sent back to the northwest before it had time to make a change.

There were 250 veteran soldiers in Li Zijing's headquarters, and there were no more than a hundred people present, but they all moved with the battalion for many years, and they were the most vicious old bandits among the rogues.

Throwing one of them outside can easily deter dozens of refugees.

The quality of these old soldiers is not low, they are stronger than the green battalion of the Qing army, and they are trained enough to compete with the regular Manchurian Eight Banners.

What is lacking is iron discipline.

These people have been used to being unruly for a long time, and even the bad habit of coercing women into camp has been passed down to this day, and it needs to be changed as soon as possible.

Thinking of the woman's eyes when she died just now, Li Zijing's expression froze slightly.

Time is running out, and if you want to use this group of old bandits for yourself, you need to completely change their identities.

The habit of banditry in the past must be completely eradicated!
Troubled times use heavy codes, Li Zijing now has a deep understanding of these five characters.

"Take the prisoner."

The two soldiers of the Shun Army who were intimidated by Li Zijing in the camp escorted a veteran Shun Army soldier out, one on the left and the other on the right.

Seeing this, there were even more discussions around.

Everyone didn't understand what Li Zijing was doing at night, even if Liu Fangliang was there, he couldn't hold back.

"Little King Chuang, what is your trouble?"

"Brothers are very tired from fighting the Qing captives during the day. If there is nothing wrong, the younger ones will go back first!"

Looking at the veteran soldier who was full of complaints, Liu Fangliang's eyes were fixed, and he was about to shout for help, but he heard Li Zijing's voice.

"From now on, the army will be commensurate with the official position, and then call the little Chuang King, behead!"

The old soldier who yelled those words was taken aback immediately, his face flushed red, he held back for a long time, but he still retreated.

"As ordered."

"Small department, department chief!"

When the words came to his lips, Liu Fangliang did not continue to speak.

Li Zijing looked around at the crowd, wanting to rule his body with his own way.

"I brought him here to enforce military discipline."

"From now on, in the headquarters, anyone who robs the common people and coerces their wives and daughters into the army will be executed."

As he spoke, Li Zijing put his hand on the Yanling Saber at his waist and asked softly.

"Do you have any objections?"

There were objections for sure. The reason why Li Zijing asked this question was to wait for them to jump out of his own question.

Throughout the ages, it has always been the most effective to catch typical examples and kill chickens and monkeys.

The veteran soldiers of the Fifth Field Battalion of the Dashun Army were basically from the Northwest. Historically, there was a lot of looting in the Jifu area, but the military discipline was good when they returned to the Northwest. This is the reason.

No one knew them when they were robbing in the capital, so they could be at ease in robbing, and they didn't have to worry about being seen by acquaintances when they killed people.

But returning to the Northwest is different. What is important is to honor the ancestors and return to the hometown.

In fact, many of the Dashun Army's deep-seated thinking was to grab some places near the capital, and then return to their hometowns to buy houses and fields, marry wives and have children.

To eradicate their banditry habits needs to be done step by step, but Li Zijing didn't have the time, so he had to use strong medicine directly.

The rules for so many years were not abolished even by Li Zicheng in the capital, but now they are suddenly abolished, and the veterans naturally cannot accept it.

The veteran soldiers of more than a hundred people, as far as the eye can see, are full of resentment.

A veteran soldier in cotton armor first pretended to hold his fists together, and then shot his fierce eyes straight over.

"Brothers have fought with His Majesty for many years, and they have worked hard without credit."

"Our Dashun does not have a fixed monthly salary, and has always used plundering to subsidize the salary. The head of the department is not allowed to rob. How do you ask the brothers to live?"

After he finished speaking, Yu's old soldiers echoed their words one after another.

"I followed His Majesty through life and death for the sake of fame and wealth."

"Your Majesty won't give it away, but I'm allowed to rob it. Now the head of the department doesn't allow robbing, so it won't give the brothers a way to survive!"

Li Zijing's expression gradually became dignified. When he was researching his graduation thesis in later generations, he had already realized one of the main problems of Dashun, that is, there was no perfect taxation and payment system.

In Dashun, in most areas, the collection of stolen goods is used instead of the levy per acre.

When preparing his graduation thesis, Li Zijing couldn't find any historical records that Dashun had officially collected taxes.

In other words, in all likelihood, Li Zicheng never collected taxes at all.

The powerful and wealthy households are limited. When the powerful and wealthy households in the local state capital heard that the Dashun Army was coming, they either moved their families ahead of time, or transferred their family properties to the south.

As a result, the further the Dashun army went, the more difficult it was for them to get supplementary food and salaries. Without these two as the basis, the order of the army would be difficult to maintain.

Quenching plum blossoms to quench thirst and painting cakes to satisfy hunger can relieve temporary difficulties, but you can't always let soldiers fight for you, you can only allow them to replenish supplies on the spot.

To supplement supplies on the spot, the officers at all levels must be delegated authority to allow soldiers to plunder places.

Grabbing the red eye, getting used to it, what can't be done?
In this way, the policy of not collecting taxes because of caring for the people, all the evil results finally returned to the people.

Compared with the normal collection of taxes, the impact of this kind of soldiering like a bandit is even worse.

To solve this problem, we can only establish a complete taxation and payment system to change the existing situation of supplementing payment and payment on the spot.

With fixed monthly rations and strict military discipline, it will not be difficult to turn these Dashun veterans into regular troops.

The crux of the problem is that when Li Zicheng established government in Xiangyang last year, in order to cater to the popular sentiment, he announced that the Dashun occupied area would be exempted from taxation for three years.

This policy seemed good at the time, but once it was issued, it led to the current situation that the Dashun Army did not have a fixed monthly ration.

Collecting food and payment from the occupied area broke the promise of three-year exemption. If food and payment were not collected, there would be no fixed source of food and payment.

After entering Beijing, Li Zicheng had actually discovered the seriousness of this problem, and there were some signs of change, and he began to win over the gentry and former Ming officials.

And on the eighth day of April this year, it was ordered to stop the action of recovering stolen goods and paying wages in Dashun, and all the detained bureaucrats and gentry would be released regardless of whether they had recovered their stolen goods or not.

It's just that this sign has just begun in Beijing, and the process was interrupted by the entry of the Qing army.

Then he was chased all the way back to the northwest, and the occupied area was full of turmoil, fighting and rebelling, and there was no time to think about the taxation and payment system.

Acquiescing to coerce women to accompany the army is also Li Zicheng's helpless act of turning a blind eye and closing his eyes because he cannot meet the soldiers' food and wages.

If you want to tighten military discipline, this hurdle is hard to pass.

Li Zicheng's measures are one thing. In Li Zijing's view, his team should look like a regular army.

Now that Dashun has been established, it should no longer regard itself as a bandit.

Finding a stable base to establish a taxation and payment system is second, and the most important thing is to train the team first.

With an obedient soldier, everything is easy.

(End of this chapter)