In Ruzhou City, Chen Zhibang also learned that a group of thieves had bypassed Ruzhou and headed south to Lushan County. After hearing the news, he couldn't help but show a hint of joy on his face.

After four to five thousand thieves are gone, the pressure Ruzhou needs to face can be reduced.

In this way, he will be more confident in guarding Ruzhou.

During this period, two main groups of bandits came south from Henan Prefecture. Among them, more than 10,000 bandits directly besieged Yiyang. There was also a group with more troops, more than 30,000 bandits, who reached the gates of Ruzhou City.

Facing the offensive of the bandits, he Chen Zhibang might be defeated and die.

Under the huge pressure from the bandits in the past month or two, Chen Zhibang didn't even pay attention to Huang Guangmao's troops being annihilated by the Funiu Mountain bandits last year, let alone now that tens of thousands of bandits have arrived at Ruzhou City.

, no longer care about the life and death of Lushan County.

What's more, he doesn't think there will be any big trouble in Lushan County.

In the past six months, he has often heard news about bandits in Funiu Mountain. According to his understanding, the bandits in Funiu Mountain are a bit more difficult to deal with, but there are still only a few hundred people. It is only because of the complex terrain of Funiu Mountain that they can successfully ambush Huang Guangmao.

Department.

Now they took the initiative to run over from the Funiu Mountains. When they got outside, they lost the complex terrain to rely on. How could they be the opponents of the officers and soldiers?

Even though the number of Funiu Mountain bandits has expanded to several thousand through kidnapping and other means in the past few months, Chen Zhibang still does not think that such bandits pose any actual threat. After all, the backbone of these bandits will die if they can survive.

Just a few hundred people.

When he frees up his hands and casually takes out a partial army to go south, he will probably be wiped out by these Funiu Mountain bandits.

But now, Chen Zhibang's focus is on Ruzhou. How to defend Ruzhou City under the siege of tens of thousands of thieves is the most important thing.

His main task is to garrison Ruzhou. He can lose it elsewhere, but he must not lose the city of Ruzhou.

Moreover, Tan Zhengling, the current guard of Ruzhou in the city, Wen Xiangwen, the prefect, and Wang Jida, the co-president, have made it clear that they are not willing to let Chen Zhibang divide his troops to rescue other cities.

Once the troops are divided and the bandits take the opportunity to capture Ruzhou, general Chen Zhibang can still break through and escape with his soldiers. Although he will inevitably be punished, if the loss of troops under his command is not too great, he can still keep his official title. The worst is to come.

Make meritorious deeds.

However, the few adults in Ruzhou City who were born in Jinshi were unlucky. Even if they were lucky enough not to die in the chaos and escaped, they would still be arrested and imprisoned.

If you are lucky, you will be dismissed from office and exiled; if you are not lucky, you will be directly executed!

Who gave these civil servants the responsibility of guarding the land!

In recent years, many civil servants have been killed because of losing their cities, but not many generals have been killed because of defeat.

This is also a very interesting current situation in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty in recent years.

Civil servants with high status died more, military generals with low status died less.

Normally, civil servants can suppress military generals to death. One slap today, one slap tomorrow...

But, when it comes to a critical moment, it’s usually the civil servants who die.

Whenever he was defeated in a battle, Chongzhen usually killed civilian officials, but he rarely killed military generals...

After all, killing a civilian official will not cause the army to mutiny or even raise a flag to rebel. On the contrary, killing a senior civilian official can calm the anger of the frontline soldiers.

But the consequences of killing military generals will be much more serious, and they may force the frontline troops to rebel.

The rebels have caused harm to several provinces in recent years, so many high-ranking civil servants have resigned from their posts, such as the former governor of Yunyang Jiang Yunyi, the governor of five provinces Chen Qiyu, the governor of Shaanxi Lian State Affairs, and the current governor of Henan Xuan Mo will also be in trouble because of the rebels

Many places in Dongchu have been lost, and the imperial court is already arresting Xuan Mo...

However, except for those who died on the battlefield, most of the generals who suppressed thieves in the Central Plains were fine.

Maybe your political status is not high and you get angry and scolded every day, but generally you don’t have to worry about losing your life just because you lose a certain city.

Unless he fights too hard with the bandits and destroys all his troops, allowing the court to kill them without any scruples...

For example, Zuo Liangyu has been suppressing bandits in the Central Plains in recent years. In fact, he has not won many commendable victories. Most of the time, he follows the trend, or simply hides in a certain place to protect himself, and takes the opportunity to gather surrendered troops to strengthen himself.

.

He is playing the trick of raising bandits to respect themselves.

But does no one know? We are not stupid. Many people in the court saw it, but the Ming court did not punish him. Instead, it continued to promote Zuo Liangyu.

Because the big shots in the court know that Zuo Liangyu is different from the previous Mao Wenlong, and the times have also changed.

In the past, Mao Wenlong was relatively stupid. He obviously had huge contradictions and conflicts with Yuan Chenghuan, but he stupidly ran to the camp to see Yuan Chenghuan alone, so he was chopped down by Yuan Chenghuan.

Mao Wenlong's death can be regarded as a major turning point in the Chongzhen Dynasty!

Mao Wenlong's death itself is nothing, but its impact is huge.

From now on, all the generals in the Ming court were very submissive to the civil servants on the surface, and they were beaten and scolded at will, but secretly they were all trying to support the invaders and support the troops with self-respect. If they were really offended, they would immediately mutiny.

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Some military generals who have no sense of shame will even turn into traitors and surrender to the Qing Dynasty, such as Kong Youde.

Specifically, Zuo Liangyu is not stupid. He also knows how Mao Wenlong died, so naturally he will not follow in his footsteps.

In the current situation, if Hong Chengchou asked Zuo Liangyu to go see him alone, Zuo Liangyu would dare to directly order a mutiny...

He even booby-trapped someone, thinking he was a fool!

Therefore, the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty in recent years has been really different from previous years, especially the relationship between civil servants and military generals.

Under normal circumstances, civilian officials can still suppress military generals through various official procedures, such as impeachment on false charges, control of food and grass, etc. As long as they do not push the generals too hard, such as directly killing the generals, it can basically be done

Slap the generals casually.

If you do it well, you can imitate Yuan Chenghuan and trick the general into killing him with a single blow.

But if the operation is not good, don't blame the generals for mutiny.

This is the case in Ruzhou City now. Tan Zhengling, Wang Jida, and Wen Xiangwen can undoubtedly suppress Chen Zhibang and let Chen Zhibang defend Ruzhou.

But when the time comes for the army to be defeated and the city to fall, Chen Zhibang can retreat with his army with a slap on the butt, while Tan Zhengling and the others will have to be imprisoned and exiled unless they die.

Tan Zhengling and others are also very aware of this, so at this critical moment, in addition to threats, they also offer inducements, such as asking for credit for Chen Zhibang, raising food and grass for Chen Zhibang, and so on, and throwing them over without money.

If this had happened a few years ago, Tan Zhengling and the others would not have had to make promises to Chen Zhibang. They would have just asked Chen Zhibang to do whatever he wanted. If he was unhappy, he would have imitated Yuan Chenghuan and killed Chen Zhibang.

But now, it's no longer possible. Even if Tan Zhengling and others disdain these generals in their hearts, they still have to give Chen Zhibang some benefits besides threatening them.

As for Chen Zhibang, if possible, he still hopes to defend Ruzhou.

After all, if Ruzhou is abandoned, the court may not punish him due to the military power in his hands, but the court will not let him live a good life in the future, and will definitely find ways to kill him.

Chen Zhibang does not want such an extreme situation to occur unless it is absolutely necessary.

Therefore, if Ruzhou can be defended, it should be defended as much as possible.

But for other places except Ruzhou, let him go. Even if other places can attract bandits to divide their troops, thereby reducing the pressure on Ruzhou City, it will still be a great thing for Chen Zhibang.

"I hope Lushan County can hold on longer!" Chen Zhibang looked south, sincerely hoping that Xie Liangcai could hold Lushan County and attract more bandits to attack the city, thus reducing the pressure on Ruzhou City.

————

Chuang Potian, a group of about 5,000 people heading south from Ruzhou, had just entered Lushan County after heading south. Their leader, Chuang Potian, discovered that there was actually a rebel army of about 1,000 people in Lushan County.

, after some inquiring, I learned that they were killed from the Funiu Mountains, and they were not part of the rebel forces.

These rural protection camps are just a bunch of local thieves in Funiu Mountain.

Chuang Potian naturally did not take this kind of small-scale thieves seriously, and directly sent people to ask Luo Zhixue to lead his army to Lushan County to follow his orders. He also heard that Luo Zhi was only sixteen years old, so he promised

After Luo Zhixue made meritorious service, he adopted him as his adopted son.

Of course, he just talked about accepting an adopted son casually. His real purpose was to take over this Baoxiang camp with more than a thousand people, so that he could be used as cannon fodder when he attacked Lushan County.
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Originally, Chuang Potian thought that after sending the envoy, Luo Zhixue would immediately run over with his soldiers and horses. After all, Chuang Potian was considered a big thief, and he claimed to be one of the seventy-two battalions of the rebel army.

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As for whether it is true or not, there is no need to take this seriously. The rebel armies are divided, ups and downs, and they are not subordinate to each other. The Ming army that encircled and suppressed them did not even understand how many rebel armies there were...

Chuang Potian confidently sent an envoy there, but several days passed without waiting for Luo Zhixue's arrival. Not to mention Luo Zhixue, even the envoys he sent before did not come back.

At first, Chuang Potian thought that the envoy he sent out was lost or died in the hands of officers and soldiers on the way, and the news failed to reach him.

So he sent someone over again. This time it was not just the envoy with a few followers, but thousands of troops.

After all, although Chuang Potian felt that the possibility of an accident on the way to the envoy he sent was relatively high, he did not rule out the possibility that he was killed by Luo Zhixue and his gang, so it would be safer to send more people.

In fact, Chuang Potian believed that the relatively small possibility was the truth: after the envoy sent by Chuang Potian expressed his intention in a positive and arrogant manner, he was chopped down on the spot by the blind man Wang next to him.
Chapter completed!