After Zhang Cheng left Zhang Jintai's ward, he visited other injured Ye Bu Shu soldiers. Naturally, he couldn't help but give some words of comfort and encouragement.
These people are the most loyal soldiers, and most of them are veterans. They grow up once they are injured. When the army expands in the future, we only need to divide these troops down, and the backbone of each team, sentry, and department will be reduced.
Yes.
After looking at the wounded, Zhang Cheng went to another part of the military camp, where there was a cool breeze and shady trees.
There is a large temporary wooden shed here. Now, rows of corpses are placed in front of the shed. These corpses are all the soldiers who died in the battle with Li Changsheng.
Of course, there are also some who were seriously injured and died after returning to the camp due to lack of treatment.
At this time, several medical doctors were collecting their waistbands, registering their military patches, and sorting out their personal belongings.
In such a scorching hot weather, the remains of the soldiers could only be kept for one or two days at most, and then they were cremated immediately. Finally, the ashes and relics were brought back to Xuanbei, and officials from the Kaiping Wei Department delivered them to them one by one.
's family members.
Along with these items, items such as their pensions and merit badges were also delivered.
Merit display cards were also decided upon by Zhang Cheng after he aided the Liao Dynasty. They were distributed exclusively to the families of fallen soldiers to demonstrate their military achievements to outsiders.
This merit display plaque is a rectangular plaque made of iron. It records the military experience of the fallen soldier. It starts from the time of joining the army, including all the battles he participated in, as well as the rewards for meritorious service, and finally how he died heroically in battle.
In the future, the family members of the fallen soldiers can use this card to go to various places in the Xuanfu Prefecture to go to the health department, garrison, and receive preferential treatment from thousands of households. They can also use this card to exempt the family members of the fallen soldiers from labor service.
This is actually Zhang Cheng's new trick, which can not only reflect the preferential care policy, but also better demonstrate the benefits of joining the army to other military households, thereby further changing people's views and attitudes towards soldiers in this era.
The original meaning of the word "Qiu Ba" was to refer to soldiers. It has neither praise nor derogation.
According to the content of "Xu Jin Yangqiu" cited in Volume 4 of "Taiping Yulan": "Fu Jian sent Murong Chui, but the minister Quan Yi did not listen to his advice. So Yi Nai sent strong men privately at night to attack Chui.
That night I was dreaming about walking, but the road was poor. I saw eight graves near the tomb of Confucius, and I felt disgusted.
He summoned the dreamer to apprehend it and said: 'The road is poor and the road is exhausted, so it is impossible. Confucius named Qiu, and "eight" matches "qiu". With this word for soldiers, there must be an ambush on the road.'"
Since then, there have been records of using the word "Qiu Ba" to refer to soldiers. However, with the passage of time, the word "Qiu Ba" has become a general term for soldiers of all generations, including literati and even common people.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the word Qiu Ba had become a collective name for all soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, as if all soldiers in the Ming Dynasty were tired.
Upon closer inspection, this reason should be closely related to the loss of power of the Ming Dynasty Wuxun Group in the imperial court.
It was precisely because the Wu Xun Group was in decline and the civilians were in power. In order to prevent the Wu Xun nobles from rising to power again, they suppressed and belittled them from top to bottom, deducting military pay at all levels, not letting the soldiers have enough to eat, etc. The reasons are mostly related to this.
What Zhang Cheng did had only one purpose, which was to try his best to raise the general's status in Xuanfu so that he could get the respect he deserved among the people of Xuanfu.
This further enhances the sense of honor and belonging of the soldiers under his command, making them unable to leave Xuanfu Town. Once they leave, they will lose everything they have gained here.
After all, the outside world will not give the soldiers supreme glory and respect like the Xuanfu. They will only laugh, despise and avoid them.
Only in Xuanfu, or in other words only under the rule of Zhang Cheng, would he give such treatment to the generals.
Therefore, Zhang Cheng believes that in the near future, Xuanfu will become a place that the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty yearn for, and will also attract a large number of ambitious young people to join the army.
He further believed that in the near future, he would be able to gather a large number of people with lofty ideals and use the existing generals as the core to form a new era martial arts group that would only take orders from him.
When this day really comes, the color of the world will change. If it does not change, then he will use brute force to forcefully transform it. He believes that at that time, he will also have the power to change the world.
However, at the moment, he still needs to stay dormant and not be too prominent, especially not to compete with the big bosses of the day and those ministers and elders. After all, holding the banner of the imperial court, his operating space will be larger and smoother.
Now, Zhang Cheng is following the tradition of the Xuanbei Army and is holding a farewell ceremony for the fallen soldiers before their bodies are cremated.
He passed by the bodies of these fallen soldiers one by one with a solemn expression, and the generals followed behind him, all of them with solemn expressions and silence.
Zhang Cheng looked at the remains of these former soldiers. Some of them had peaceful faces, some had ferocious faces, and some had expressions of pain.
Many of them who died in battle were nearly middle-aged, and some were still very young. However, they were all elite members of the Xuanbei Army, but at this time, they all died in a foreign land.
Zhang Cheng stood there quietly looking at the bodies of the fallen soldiers in front of him. He remained motionless for a long time. He was silent and his eyes were somewhat moist, but that was all.
As early as the eleventh year of Chongzhen's reign as King Qin, Zhang Cheng kept watching the soldiers under his command fall one by one, while he continued to grow and climb as if wading through bloody water.
During this process, more soldiers under his command fell, and the bodies of the soldiers were carried past his eyes. The more he saw, the more his heart became hardened.
Zhang Cheng secretly swore an oath: Never let the blood of the soldiers be shed in vain, never let the soldiers die in vain!
He wants to live, to protect the families of those soldiers who died, to protect the honor they exchanged with their lives, to protect the hard-won peace of Xuanfu, and to protect the hundreds of millions of people in this great tomorrow.
Although his heart is as strong as iron, Zhang Cheng's heart still hurts every time he sees the bodies of his heroic soldiers who died in battle being carried past his eyes...
He is destined to continue to suffer this kind of pain in the future.
Perhaps, this is his fate, his mission!
Just like, every time he sees the remains of these fallen soldiers, he will ask himself: Why did I come to this world?
Every time Zhang Cheng thinks about the past, it seems that his memory of his past life has become increasingly faint, and he cannot remember many things, but his experiences in this life are deeply engraved in his heart.
I had just arrived in the Ming Dynasty, when the Tartars invaded, and I was ordered to go to Beijing to serve the king. Instead of silently developing, I secretly allocated private power, without even leaving enough preparation time.
From then on, he began to struggle in order to survive and survive, trying every possible means to try to change something, but in the end he still watched Lu Xiangsheng and his uncle Zhang Yan sacrifice their lives for the country.
However, fortunately, not only did he escape from the killing field of Julu, but he also retained a certain amount of strength. He became famous in one battle, and was cared for by the king, ministers, and supported by the governor Chen Xinjia.
Only then did he gain a firm foothold on Xuanfu North Road. Now he is walking step by step. Every step is paid for with blood. These brave soldiers paid for it with their lives.
As he completely controls all the forces in Xuanfu Town in the future, his strength will gradually become stronger, his mental outlook will also broaden, and he will naturally be able to do more things!
However, what is your ultimate goal?
I remember that every time I read history in later generations, I always sighed and felt unwilling to accept all the regrets in history.
Perhaps God sent me back here just to make up for this regret!
After Zhang Cheng paid slight tribute to the remains of these soldiers, he left here silently.
…………
Although Li Changsheng suffered heavy casualties during his outpost, he also killed nearly a hundred Tatar thieves, and all the Tatar thieves came back with their heads chopped off. Especially in the last battle, he captured Tatar soldiers and Ge soldiers.
Bush had many wise soldiers, and the results were extremely fruitful.
Moreover, important information on the Qing army's mobilization near Baimiao Fort was discovered.
After obtaining the information, Zhang Cheng first went to the governor's residence in Songshan City and reported the detected information about the Tatar army to Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao. Along with him, he arrived at the governor's residence and the gains of Li Changsheng's outpost.
Of course, only the heads of the Tatars, as well as the coats and armor of the Bajara and Gebusch soldiers were used to report their merits, while the rest of the Tatar armor and ordnance were left in the Xuanfu army.
Especially those war horses, Zhang Cheng would not share them with others.
In the past few days, the Xuanfu army sent out sentries and cavalry from all camps. Although some men and horses were lost, more than a hundred Tatar heads were captured.
Just after Li Changsheng and the others returned from sentry duty, Zhang Cheng had already issued an order. The Xuanfu Army had suspended sentinel inspections of the Qing-controlled areas in the distance. The battalions were closed at night and their sentry cavalry were currently only covering our control areas to prevent the Tatar outposts.
Come ride.
At this time, each battalion of the Ming army aiding the Liao Dynasty also sent sentries to detect the movements of the Tartar thieves, but most of them did not dare to go too far behind the Tartar thieves, that is, they just wandered near the front lines of the two armies.
That is to say, it was Zhang Cheng's former Xuanbei Army Sentinel Cavalry who would go deep into the rear of the Tatars to investigate. Therefore, even Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, paid great attention to the military intelligence developments he obtained.
In these days, the Qing army mobilized frequently and stormed Jinzhou City, still intending to lure Hong Chengchou to send troops, but they never saw the movement of the Ming army, and they were full of suspicion.
There has been no big movement from the Ming army aiding the Liao Dynasty, which actually created a problem for the captive chieftain Huang Taiji.
Now let’s see who can stay calmer between the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The key to this battle is the word “stability”. Both sides are equally powerful. It just depends on which side makes the first move and which side makes the first mistake.
Careful generals of the Ming army can see that in these days, the slave chief Huang Taiji often climbed to Shimen Mountain, holding a telescope, and kept looking at the Ming army camps at the foot of the mountain.
On August 20, more than 10,000 troops under the command of Liu Zhaoji, the chief military officer of Liaodong Town, set up camp and set up camp. They left Songshan Fort in a mighty manner and marched slowly toward Xingshan and Gaoqiaoyi.
After the previous governor's camp was agreed upon, in addition to Liu Zhaoji's return to defend Gaoqiao, the guerrilla camp of Kuang Yongzhong in Xuanfu Town and the Biao Right Battalion of Dusi Tang Xiancheng also set up camp to Mama Mountain and the mouth of the Xiaoling River to guard the food roads for the army.
According to the governor's wishes, these two battalions were temporarily under the control of Shanxi Commander-in-Chief Li Fuming during the period of aid to Liao. Before leaving, they all went to Zhang Cheng's commander's tent to say farewell. They said they were saying farewell, but in fact they were here to invite them.
Zhang Cheng gave the opportunity face to face.
Zhang Cheng was naturally very enthusiastic towards them, and made it clear that they were still the guerrillas and the capital of Xuanfu Town. This time they were put under the control of Li Fuming, which was entirely based on the overall situation and was temporary.
At the same time, Zhang Cheng also emphasized the importance of the grain road to the two of them, and asked them to actively cooperate with Li Fuming to protect the safety of the Xiaoling River mouth grain road for the army aiding the Liao Dynasty.
…………
It's almost dusk, and smoke is curling up.
In the large and small camps of the general soldiers of various towns around Songshan Castle, there are countless sergeants wearing red tassel felt hats and worn-out mandarin duck jackets, enjoying dinner.
Different from the widespread use of cooking carts in the Xuanfu army, the soldiers in other towns still use the traditional method of cooking in buried pots. A team or a general uses a large pot together, and the food is boiling on the pot.
It is also a kind of delicious rice.
This kind of food is made by steaming rice, then soaking it in water, and then exposing it to the sun. This is repeated several times, and finally some dry rice is obtained, which is somewhat similar to the compressed biscuits in later military rations.
Although it is just a small ball of rice, it can turn into a big pot after being boiled in hot water.
However, the taste is really indescribable. When eating it, you need to use salt, vinegar, etc., or you can also use pickles.
Generally, the monthly salt for a Ming Dynasty sergeant was two kilograms per month for those with a family, and one kilogram per month for those without a family.
But at this time, it was common practice in all the armies of the Ming Dynasty to withhold the moon salt. The sergeants had to deduct half, or more than half, of the moon salt when they went up to the peak. Therefore, it was considered a good thing to have some salt to go with the rice when eating.
What a treat.
In an era when there is no oil and water, the stomach will get hungry very quickly. There are piles of Shanhai Town sergeants standing or squatting, all of them eating very hard.
They are not as orderly as the Xuanfu armies. They have been controlled since the selection of the troops. Not only do they need good family members, but they also need to be strong and strong. If they recruit some sick people into the army, how can they fight?
However, the soldiers in Shanhai Town are a mixed bag of good and bad. There are tall and fierce soldiers, and there are also thin old and weak soldiers. Among the crowd, there are also some arrogant men wearing mandarin duck war coats and folded scarves on their heads.
Sergeants, most of them are also cavalry.
According to the military system of the Ming army, generally only cavalry or officers above the armor commander in the infantry were issued armor.
However, in the garrison camp, except for the sergeants on patrol, these cavalrymen do not wear a suit of armor all day long. The folded scarves they wear also serve as inner hats.
The cavalry received good treatment, much better than the infantry. Although they also faced deprivation, most of the cavalry still had money to buy some dried vegetables, dried meat and other items from traders inside and outside the city to go with their meals.
As cavalry, they always feel that they are much higher than the infantry, and they don't bother to get together with the infantry. They are also piled up and gathered in their own circle.
At this time, some different forms of dried fish appeared on their bowls. Although these dried fish were very hard and tasted fishy and bitter, no one cared about them. Many people even ate the bones together.
Many people even praised it while eating, saying that this dried fish is really delicious. In this era of meat shortage, any meat is welcome!