The reason why Wang Shanyan asked his son Wang Bin to take the Wang family to guard the county was not because they had a high awareness, but because they were simply from interests.

Once the bandits occupied Xinhua County, the Wang family would either surrender, obey, and cooperate with Shen Mo's policies, or resist firmly and fight to the end. There was no third way to choose.

The first road, even if the Wang family can survive, the price they pay is too high. By then, the Wang family will plummet in both wealth and status, and they can only rely on Shen Mo to survive. Such a price is for Wang Shanyan or the entire Wang family.

All are unacceptable.

The premise of compromise is that the conflict of interest between the two parties is not large. If the conflict of interest is too strong, it is naturally impossible to compromise easily, and it will only be a life-and-death battle.

If Xinhua County is included in its own rule, Shen Mo will naturally no longer allow a giant gentry family like the Wang family to exist.

The Wang family could not bear the price of losing their former glory, so both sides were destined to become enemies of life and death, and it would be over unless one side fell completely.

The reason why Wang Bin helped defend the city was that he wanted to use Xinhua County to fight the attrition war with the bandits. As long as the bandits could be dragged under Xinhua City, the servants and local brave men of the Wang family trained the soldiers and the villagers would be able to fight.

The enemy army encircled and annihilated.

Wang Bin believes that as long as the bandit army is defeated in Xinhua City, morale will definitely drop sharply and will no longer pose a threat to Xinhua City in a short period of time.

For Wang Bin, the names of the Bandit Army and Shen Mo have been almost calling out recently. They all say how wise and powerful Shen Mo is, how good the skills are, how good the elite and good at fighting, and how good the trained

.

But Wang Bin didn't agree with these news.

A group of thieves who were born from mud-legged lucky enough to occupy several cities and win several battles, and they will be invincible in the world?

What a joke!

Wang Bin also fought with thieves when he was a garrison in Changde Mansion. He knew very well what kind of virtues these thieves were.

Morale is very strong when fighting a battle, but once you encounter a tough guy, you will soon fall into a collapse.

During the Chongzhen period of the former Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng had such a great momentum. He had already established a country and proclaimed himself emperor. He even attacked Beijing City and forced Emperor Chongzhen to death. However, he was defeated after the battle of Shanhaiguan. Then he began to retreat step by step, in less than a year.

The millions of troops fell apart, and Li Zicheng himself died in Jiugong Mountain, Hubei.

All such powerful thieves as Li Zicheng failed, let alone a small thief who only occupied a few cities.

So Wang Bin believes that as long as he can defend the county town and withstand the first wave of attacks from the bandits, the morale of the bandits will gradually decrease. When his encirclement plan is realized, it will be the time for this thief army to be destroyed.

The head of the family was still a little confused after being scolded by the master, and blinked and asked in a low voice: "So, what does the young master mean?"

Wang Bin said: "This group of thieves performed better than I thought. Whether it was attacking or retreating, they were very calm and composed. When we counterattacked them from the top of the city, the death of our companions around us was against the other thieves around us.

The soldiers had almost no influence and continued to maintain the intensity of the attack. This was even more so when retreating. The bandit army was roaring and retreating in full swing. The bandits immediately followed the officer's whistle and retreated alternately, without giving us any at all.

You can take advantage of the opportunity."

"Also, the attack of the thief army is obviously a test, and we want to test our defense. It seems that the general of the thief army who led the troops this time is not a reckless man."

"So, it may be much harder to win this battle than previously expected."

After hearing this, the head of the family member had a hint of worry on his face and suddenly said, "Master, if this group of thieves cannot capture the county town, will they attack the Wang family's mansion?"

Wang Bin sneered and cursed: "It's really right to say you're a fool. I can't imagine anything you can think of? It would be fine if the thief army didn't go to harass the Wang family's mansion. If they go, they would definitely get bleeding from their heads.

.

The reason why Wang Bin is so confident is that the Wang family mansion was converted into a castle-style manor a few years ago. Not only is the surrounding towers standing tall, but the courtyard wall is even taller and thicker, and a piece of paper was even dug outside.

Trench, bringing in river water.

It's just a small city.

More importantly, the Wang family mansion was left with 500 most elite Wang family servants, and two thousand township brave men temporarily recruited to guard them.

Almost everyone was wearing armor, and all of them were fed by Wang with silver, and they were loyal to Wang.

In recent years, Wang used iron tools workshops. Although he only created various tools and farm tools on the surface, he privately cast a lot of weapons, armor, bows, crossbows and other objects.

Although all dynasties have explicitly prohibited the private hiding of armored bows and crossbows by the people, the ban is one thing, but in fact it is another.

The armor and weapons found from the home of the gentry landlord who was captured by Shen Mo's uprising is a very telling problem.

Not to mention armor and weapons, during the Ming Dynasty, there were also many gentry clans who privately cast cannons and muskets in Fujian, Guangdong and Fujian.

During the war, the court was unable to control it.

During peacetime, even if the court wants to take care of it, it can't take care of it at all. After all, the emperor is far away and the communication is very underdeveloped. The emperor can only rely on the people below to report the information to obtain.

Basically, the people below want the emperor to know what he wants.

This leads to the great power of local officials. Local officials often rely on these gentry clans to govern local areas, so many things are turned a blind eye.

Even if you know that these gentry landlords have private weapons and armor, they are unlikely to report and search.

Sometimes there are even thieves in the county and when the government is insufficient, these gentry and tribes have to be invited to send troops to suppress the bandits.

Anyway, as long as these big clans do not rebel, local governments will almost turn a blind eye to these things that obviously violate the imperial ban.

The Wang family is a typical gentry, which not only constrains local governments and can also provide strong support to local governments. Therefore, no matter how dissatisfied local officials are, they will be able to live by the fact that they will not suppress local tyrants.

Wang Bin's confidence comes from this, so he is not afraid of the thief army attacking the Wang family's mansion.

The head Ding of the family heard Wang Bin's words and immediately laughed: "The eldest young master is right. If these thieves really get rid of their brains and go to fight the Wang family's mansion, they will definitely regret it."

Let’s talk about the bandits’ side, Du Yi withdrew his troops and returned to the camp after a tentative attack, stabilized the camp, and immediately summoned several company commanders below to discuss.

After seeing that all the people arrived, Du Yi said in a deep voice: "It is obvious that the Qing court officers and soldiers guarding the city are not the ones who are guarding the city now. There are basically not many people after the green camp of Baoqing Mansion was defeated twice. The rest

After we occupied Shaoyang City, we had already run away. There was no way for Xinhua County to have a complete Qing army. So, I now suspect that there is another person guarding the city. The first company commander, at dusk, you will take people from the back camp.

Go around to investigate and find a few people who are familiar with the situation in Xinhua County to come back and forth. Others, guard the camps and obey orders at any time." Everyone accepted the order, and the meeting ended soon.

After the first attack failed, the bandits never launched another attack. Instead, they set up camp and closed the camp gate, without any movement.

Wang Bin on the top of the city was also paying attention to the movements of the bandits under the city, but he didn't see any movement until it was almost dark. When he breathed a sigh of relief, he was also a little confused.

What exactly do these rebels want to do? Are they planning to siege the city?

But the siege of the city was obviously different. After all, the two thief troops in Xinhua County only set up camp outside the west gate, and there were no thief soldiers appearing in the other gate.

But it would be obvious that the thief would stop because of a failure in a siege.

So Wang Bin was not sure what the enemy troops under the city wanted to do for a while, but when he thought that this was just in line with his wishes?

As long as the rebels dare to be under the city, they will spend two days, and the chances of being surrounded and annihilated by their own side will become better and better.

So Wang Bin didn't think much about it, just asked someone to continue to monitor the movements of the bandits, and then went back to his luxury house in the county town to rest.

Although the Wang family servants were fully equipped and looked very elite, they did not have much combat experience after all. Moreover, because the bandits attacked the city once, there was no movement, which naturally made these servants look down on them, so although they were monitoring the city,

But he just took a look when he was fine, and he didn't send anyone out of the city to investigate.

The company commander who was sent out for investigation took the first company's people to sneak out from the back camp during the dusk and walked along Zishui for the middle of the night. When he returned to the camp, he brought back several people with his hands tied to block his mouth.

"Who are these?" Du Yi asked with a frown.

"Battery Commander, these are all big landlords near the county town. When we touched the village, we just found the largest house in the village, and it was definitely the home of these big landlords. If you want to find out the news, it is definitely better to know about these people than those ordinary people.

many."

Du Yi nodded and walked to these people and said, "We are the bandit army under the command of King Shen of Yongzhou, and are coming to attack Xinhua County. I will ask you a few questions now and answer them truthfully. I will never make things difficult for you. But

If you don’t report it, don’t blame me for not giving you a chance.”

Amid the frightened and nervous expressions of several landlords, Du Yi asked someone to take them out of the tent first, leaving only a fat middle-aged man.

Du Yi walked up to the fat man and asked, "Do you know who is the presidency of defending the city in the county town now? Don't tell me that it is Liu Shouyuan, the magistrate of Xinhua."

The fat man's face changed when he heard this, his eyes dripped and he kept making money. He gritted his teeth and said, "This general, Xiaomin really doesn't know. Xiaomin is ignorant and doesn't know much about the county.

”

Du Yi nodded with a calm expression when he heard this, and then waved his hand. Immediately, two soldiers of the bandit army came to carry the fat man out of the camp. Then he heard the fat man begging for mercy in horror. Finally, after a scream, the voice stopped abruptly.

.

The two soldiers returned to the tent and bowed to their deaths, with obvious blood on their bodies.

The landlords standing outside the tent were now pale and their bodies were shaking like sieves.

Du Yi asked someone to bring in another person. Before he could ask, the man knelt on the ground with a thud and started to scream.

Du Yi asked someone to take off the cloth strip from the man's mouth, and the man quickly said in a crying voice: "God help me, please spare me, I said, I will say everything, don't kill me!"

Then the man said everything he knew.

Du Yi felt a little outrageous after hearing this. A large landlord brought his own private soldiers to help the government guard the city.

However, after thinking about it again, he also understood the reason why the Wang family did this.

"It seems that our real enemy in Xinhua County is not the government, but the Wang family."

Du Yi said to himself, and asked the man just now: "What does that fat man have to do with the Wang family just now?"

The man hurriedly said, "He called Yan Shengcai. He married his daughter to Wang Shanyan as his ninth concubine, and he also managed a papermaking workshop for the Wang family. He was afraid that he would go back to the Wang family to deal with him, so he didn't dare to do so.

Said."

Du Yi smiled and said, "Then aren't you afraid that the Wang family will turn back and deal with you?"

The man said with a sad face: "The Wang family will deal with me, that's all the time. But if I don't tell the truth now, the general will immediately take my head, and I will still be able to settle the accounts."
To be continued...