Chapter 74: The Way of Benevolence and Forgiveness (7)
The Tang Dynasty was a peculiar dynasty. Perhaps because the royal family itself contained foreign blood, this dynasty's ability to tolerate foreigners reached its peak in Chinese history, forming two extremes with the Ming Dynasty, which harbored Han nationalism complex.
Many of the most powerful army commanders in the Tang Dynasty were barbarians. This phenomenon was particularly prominent during the Tianbao period. For example, Gao Xianzhi, the commander-in-chief of the Anxi Army, was a Goguryeo. He was in charge of the most prestigious Modao Army in the Tang Dynasty; for example, in Youzhou, An Lushan, the commander of the Fanyang Army, is a bastard. He has the most courageous Yiluohe cavalry in the Tang Dynasty under his command. For example, in Hexi, Shu Han, the commander-in-chief of the Longyou Army, is a Tuqi Shiren. He commands the last palace of the Tang Dynasty. Elite soldiers...
The Ming Dynasty took Han chauvinism to the extreme. During the entire reign of the Ming Dynasty, it always fought to the death against foreigners. The emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty made Beijing his capital and guarded the country personally as the emperor. After the Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty was defeated and captured, The Ming Dynasty immediately pushed out Emperor Jingtai and continued the fight, leaving Taishi Meng Yuan, who was holding the super hostage, to cry out. The Ming Dynasty had never even had a true peace talk with the foreigners, which was a big reason why the governor Yuan Chonghuan was killed. , that is, he once fantasized about reaching an agreement with the Jurchens...
Li Chengzhong did not want to dwell on the final details of tactics. He did not explain too much about the Battle of Tuhe Zhenshui that Jieli was proud of. He just said: "Since ancient times, there have been Huns, Xianbei, Turks, and Uighurs outside the Pass... I It is admitted that they have defeated us Han people many times, but over thousands of years, these ethnic groups have gradually disappeared. Only we Han people still occupy Zhengshuo in the Central Plains, passing on from generation to generation... Do you think the Khitans will break this fate? ?Okay, I admit, maybe you Khitans will rise, maybe you are rising, but as long as I, Li Chengzhong, are here, I will not let you succeed easily. Perhaps, this is also one of the reasons why I came here."
Jie Li didn't understand the meaning of Li Chengzhong's last sentence, but he knew that what Li Chengzhong said before was true. He couldn't help but sigh, and looked at Li Chengzhong with some loss of interest and curiosity: "You seem to have a high opinion of yourself. , I don’t see why you can say such a thing? With more than 400 people under your command?”
Li Chengzhong smiled: "Last year, I was alone. After a few days, I had Jiang Dutou by my side. After a month, I gathered twenty people. When I arrived in Pingzhou, there were fifty people. When I was in Yuguan There are one hundred people. When we entered Bailang Mountain, there were two hundred people. Now, as you know, I have four hundred people. So what about next month? What about the end of this year? Actually, it is useless to say this. Everything depends on Let's make a bet in the future, right?"
Xie Li was stunned: "What?"
Li Chengzhong said: "You stay with me for three years. If I occupy Yingzhou within three years, you will serve me from now on. Otherwise, I will let you go. What do you think?"
Xie Li himself couldn't figure out what state of mind he was in when he agreed to Li Chengzhong's bet. He just felt that he had seen some direction in his future life, and he felt a lot more relaxed, so he followed Li Chengzhong's request to form the Khitan "Wolf Army".
The winter in Bailang Mountain was full and tense. The soldiers’ daily schedule was as follows:
After getting up in the morning, the team formed up and went on an armed cross-country along a rugged mountain road. The so-called armed cross-country means that the soldiers need to hold weapons when running. Among them, the logistics team led by Zhao Dasuo has the heaviest burden. On the way, they crossed a single-plank bridge over a stream - - The real "single-plank" bridge, and the broken stone bridge - pieces of stone in the stream, going up and downhill about six to seven times, crossing three residual wood obstacles... The whole process took half an hour , the total length is about ten miles.
After a short rest after cross-country, the day begins with breakfast. The common people are responsible for cooking breakfast, and the soldiers have to eat together as a team. Before the meal, they sing military songs and minor tunes, and they can only eat when they are empty in their stomachs. Military songs are mainly composed by Li Chengzhong
Creation - in fact, it is naked plagiarism, including "Three Major Disciplines and Eight Points of Attention", "Unity is Strength", "Guerrilla Song", "I am a Soldier", "Song of One, Two, Three and Four", "Defend the White Wolf"
"Mountain" etc., of course, the lyrics have been appropriately modified.
After the meal, it was bright and the soldiers in the front camp conducted military posture and split training for about an hour. After that, there was strength training for each group of soldiers, including push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, carrying logs, etc. There was a break at noon.
time, including lunch and nap. Of course, military songs are still sung before lunch.
In the afternoon, technical training was carried out, and each group of soldiers were divided according to the weapons they used. For example, the sword and shield soldiers trained under the leadership of Zhou Maidao, the instructors of the archers were Jie Li, Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao, and the instructors of the spearmen were
Zhang Xingzhong and Xie Li also had to guide the cavalry scouts in the riding and shooting training.
After the training of each group, there is still half an hour of joint training of the whole army, which mainly practices the formation of the march, the mutual cooperation of the various arms after the formation, and the order of attack and defense. Sometimes this kind of joint training of the whole army is also
It was changed to single-weapon whole-army drills, such as bow and arrow drills for all soldiers, sword and shield melee drills, wooden gun drills and horseback riding drills. According to Li Chengzhong's requirements, the soldiers in the front battalion must try to achieve "multiple specialties" while ensuring "one specialization".
"Yes." Because the battlefield is ever-changing, situations often require sword and shield players to abandon sword and shield and use bows and arrows, or archers to abandon bows and arrows and form gun formations.
Then it was dinner time, and the same pre-dinner military songs made people want to sing. After the military songs, they ate. After dinner, half an hour was set aside for "tidying up the housework" - cleaning the cave dwellings where each group lived, washing clothes, etc.
Dutou Jiangmiao will inspect the caves one by one to inspect and evaluate the housekeeping conditions of each cave.
In the largest cave dwelling that was converted into a classroom, the lights were brightly lit every night. Feng Dao first taught basic cultural courses for half an hour, including literacy, principles of dealing with others, etc. There were many people listening to Feng Dao's lectures. In addition to military officers,
There are also many ordinary people attending. Whenever Feng Dao starts a class, hundreds of people will be crowded into the cave dwelling that can accommodate fifty or sixty people. There is not even a place to sit, and they all stand and listen to the lecture.
Then came the military courses, which were lectured by Dutou Jiang Miao and Zhang Xingzhong, both of whom were highly educated. The course covered various military rules and regulations and answered various questions raised by officers during daily training. The participants were officers above the gang leader level.
Every three days, the course will be changed to "case" teaching. These cases select famous battles in history to analyze the background before the battle, the comparison of the strength of the two sides, the process during the battle, and summarize the experience of the victor and the defeat.
Lessons. Most of these cases were provided by Feng Dao, and Li Chengzhong gave the lecture during the explanation. Of course, there are also a few cases that are Li Chengzhong’s analysis of famous battles after the Song Dynasty, such as the Battle of Jin and Liao Guards and the Mongolian Western Expedition, such as
The Battle of Songshan in Ming Dynasty, Jin Dynasty, etc., the origins of these battles were all dismissed by Li Chengzhong as "the countries in the far west of the grassland".
The focus of "case" teaching is discussion. Li Chengzhong always uses "What would happen if...?" to induce the team officers and gang leaders to think, laying out various possibilities for the officers to discuss with each other. In order to facilitate discussion
, he divided the officers into groups according to the formation of the team, and conducted group confrontation. For example, the officers of the Jiadu left team and the Bdu right team were divided into groups to conduct sand table exercises, while other officers watched carefully. The so-called sand table was proposed by Li Chengzhong
The concept was made by Zhang Laojiang's apprentice. Because of the trouble of making, Zhang Laojiang specially appointed two apprentices to make sand tables specifically for Li Chengzhong to meet the needs of each lecture.
When one party in the case is a prairie barbarian, instructor Xie Li often leads Wang Dalang and other officers from the scout team to participate in the discussion as the prairie cavalry side in the exercise to provide more ideas.
After the course, the gang leaders of each group will return to their cave dwellings to teach the soldiers the day's course content. At this time, the status of the group leaders is similar to that of Feng Dao and Li Chengzhong. Specifically, when it comes to "case" discussions,
Soldiers are led by the team leader to participate. This task places high demands on team leaders. They must not only listen carefully and remember the content in class, but also pass on what they have learned to the soldiers according to their own understanding.
Officers such as Li Chengzhong, Jiang Miao, Zhang Xingzhong and Zhou Maidao will randomly participate in the study and discussion of a group, observe the group leader's lecture, and give excellent, medium, and poor evaluations to each group leader based on their performance.
At the end of the month, the team leader who is rated "poor" three times in a row will be demoted to the team leader, and the team leader position will be "checked" by other team leaders who have outstanding performance in the training.
By the end of the first month, a total of six team captains in the former battalion were demoted to corps commanders, six corps commanders were promoted to school inspection team captains, and six soldiers were appointed as corps commanders. It is foreseeable that things will continue like this.
, this method not only allows talents with outstanding performance to be promoted, but also allows the experience of various groups to be circulated and shared with each other. At the same time, a group of "candidate officers" are stored quietly.
In addition to daily training and study, every other day, a team of soldiers could not enjoy a lunch break. They were sent to the back mountain to conduct a simulated actual combat with the "Blue Army" established by Li Chengzhong. Of course, except for what Li Chengzhong insisted on calling this team
In addition to the Khitan soldiers led by instructor Xie Li as the "Blue Army", all the soldiers in the front camp, including the Khitan themselves, called them the "Wolf Army".
Every five days, the entire army has a football league day, which is also a day for soldiers in the front camp to rest and have fun.
Every ten days, the entire army will have a competition to select outstanding soldiers based on their individual performance in combat, archery, riding, etc. In addition to being rewarded with work points, they will also be included in the roster as candidates for corps commanders.
focus on.
Because a large amount of supplies were robbed from the winter camp of Pinbu, the nutritional conditions of the soldiers in the front camp have been greatly improved. As the vegetables in the back mountain mature, this improvement becomes more obvious. In the three meals a day, the soldiers can drink porridge.
, eat bread, drink goat milk or milk, and vegetables and beef and mutton are a must-have supply for the two meals at noon and evening every day. In addition, under the leadership of Li Chengzhong, the soldiers in the front camp began to eat haggis
Soup and beef offal soup. Whether you are used to the fishy mutton of beef and sheep offal, or you feel disgusted by eating these things, having haggis soup or beef offal soup for dinner every day is a must. You must finish it while pinching your nose - this