The policy of "one straight and four corners" to suppress the bandits was not advocated by Lu Sishou, but was derived from the "four straight and six corners" of Yang Sichang, the former Minister of War of the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, Yang Sichang used "Shaanxi, Henan, Huguang, and Jiangbei" as the four main points, and "Yansui, Shanxi, Shandong, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Sichuan" as the six corners. This is called a ten-sided net. The ten governors were dedicated to defense, the governor and the prime minister followed the thief's direction and were dedicated to expeditions.

The core content of this plan is to intercept and surround the peasant army in mobile combat, and then eliminate it. Although Li Zicheng rushed into Henan to death, Zhang Xianzhong "stops the enemy with his own actions", the Ming army's many conflicts in encirclement and suppression of generals, the plan ultimately failed, and Yang Sichang himself died of illness due to shame, but this plan still has many things worth learning from in this plan.

Therefore, Lu Si created a smaller version of the "Four Rights and Six Corners" in Xinghua, namely "One Rights and Four Corners", which takes Xinghua City as the main body and the four towns in Xinghua southeast, west and northwest as the corner.

The specific deployment was to station the four battalions in Siji Town, control the four major corners of the southeast, west and north, cut off the connection between reactionary landlords, gentry and militia in the area, and at the same time, ordering troops to be set up on the main roads at the border, including Baoying, Jiangdu, Yancheng, Taixing and other places bordering Xinghua.

The main force of the First Brigade stationed in Xinghua City, strictly controlling the main official roads and major ferry crossings leading to the four major towns. Then, using mules and horse teams as mobile forces to carry out rapid military delivery, thus forming a large network of reactionary militias in Xinghua, thus strangling the reactionary forces of landlords and gentry in Xinghua.

What is beneficial to the Huai Army is that the landlord militia in Xinghua did not have the ability to fight mobile combat, and at most it had the ability to move boats and ships in some lakes. Since most of the people who participated in these militia were locals, they were soldiers during wartime and people during wartime, so it was impossible for them to wander out of the landlords and gentry.

Under the shrinking and attack of the "one straight and four corners" network, the armed forces of landlords and gentry in Xinghua were hit by a devastating blow, and four teams of troops were destroyed in less than half a month.

The news that the three men of the top "rebels" Wang Juren and his son were hanged even more shocked the reactionary landlords and gentry. As the attacks of the Huai Army became increasingly fierce, the activities of the reactionary militia were greatly compressed, and the source of food became a huge problem. Some farmers who believed that the landlords and gentry participated in the attack on the Huai Army saw that the situation was not good, naturally became frightened and began to sneak home.

If we can make full use of this and strictly enforce military discipline, the people of Xinghua can fully realize that the Huai Army is not a thief and bandit as some landlords and gentry said, and that the place they pass is either murder or robbery, then we can completely solve the remaining militia by political means and completely stabilize Xinghua.

Unfortunately, except for Lu Si, the Huai Army, who had the concept of "politics", the rest of the Huai Army had no such consciousness at all.

In particular, the main soldiers of the First Brigade responsible for the Qingxiang of Xinghua were Fengziying, which participated in the siege of Xinghua, and some former Yancheng County Hegongs. They suffered huge losses in the early stage, killing and injured hundreds of people. In addition, the attack process of some reactionary gentry on the Huai Army was extremely cruel. Once the two sides were completely reversed, the simplest revenge mentality in the hearts of the soldiers of the First Brigade who already had the advantage of crushing will naturally explode.

Some of the First Brigade officers and soldiers of the First Brigade who were killed even saw that the other party was suspicious, and they would kill the people on the spot without asking any questions. When searching the families of some reactionary landlords and gentry, many family tragedies were caused.

The revenge mentality of the officers and soldiers of the First Brigade casts a terrifying atmosphere in Xinghua.

Liu Dingsheng's troops who captured Xinghua City were all added to the First Brigade. These Ming Dynasty surrendered soldiers were also crazy in the process of attacking reactionary militias. Under the intentional indulgence of Xia Dajun and others, they began to expand the scope of attack. For example, during the attack on a militia in Taozhuang, there were only one or two hundred people on the other side, but afterwards, there were as many as 500.

As the first brigade commander, Xia Dajun did not identify it and directly rewarded the victory and rewarded the merits.

"Brother Lu said that the best way to eliminate the enemy is to kill them. No matter who they are, as long as they oppose us, they should be eliminated ruthlessly, otherwise would they be kept to dig our ancestral graves with them!"

Xia Dajun was also impatient and wanted to fight a "turnaround battle" for himself, so that the Huai Army could not have been a false reputation, so he understood the "just killing" that Lu Si left him as "just killing all of them".

Seeing that the First Brigade had begun to kill people randomly, Zhao Zhongyi knew that something was wrong and immediately sent someone to inform Lu Si in Yancheng County of this situation.

"This is not the fault of the First Brigade, it is mine."

Lu Si first blamed himself. The expansion of murders in Xinghua by the First Brigade in the fundamental sense is that the Huai Army does not have political staff and does not have a complete program. Both generals and ordinary soldiers have a typical "rebellion" mentality. It is inevitable that some extreme events will occur under the promotion of violence.

But he could not criticize the First Brigade or even remove Xia Dajun, the brigade commander, because it was not their fault at all.

It has only been more than three months since the establishment of the Huai Army in Taohuawu. In just three months, how could the Huai Army, which was illiterate in just three months, could it be transformed into an army loved by the people and an army that can understand the terrible nature of "destruction" and thus develop self-binding within the army?

What Lu Si can do is to correct it, use his personal prestige to make some necessary corrections to the Huai Army, or some phased adjustments to the work of clearing the countryside.

The main reactionary forces in Xinghua have basically been eliminated, so the grassroots regime in Xinghua’s rural areas and counties should be constructed.

Lu Si sent people to order the Xia army that the First Brigade was not allowed to kill prisoners except the leader. Those who were healthy and had little guilt were changed to sending various troops to serve as Masters. For the leader, in addition to pursuing these people's attack on the Huai Army, they also had to try to dig out their evil deeds against the people and magnify them. If conditions permit, they should organize a "public trial" to let the miserable lords come forward to accuse them, so as to undermine some adverse effects caused by the First Brigade's random killing.

At the end of February, the last militia organized by reactionary gentry in Xinghua was annihilated, and the leader Liang Baohe was captured. The next day, he and his eight men were beheaded. The head was suspended at the Xinghua City Gate Tower and was taken down after three months of wind and rain.

On March 1, the new Xinghua magistrate Lu Youquan took office from Yancheng County. This person is Lu Si's uncle. He is literate but has no fame. He used to do accounting for others in Shanggang.
Chapter completed!