There are more than 100 households in Lijia Village on Wanshou Mountain.
Most of them are related to Li Zicheng.
Compared to Changmao, the conditions here are much better.
Not only is the slope land relatively flat, suitable for reclamation, but the villagers also farm thousands of acres of fertile farmland on both sides of the Heimuo River at the foot of the mountain. Life is not good, but it is not likely to starve to death.
So why did Li Zicheng's father leave in the first place?
Because his father was a horse breeder for the government army, and later two of the army horses in Huaiyuan Fort died of illness. He couldn't afford the compensation, so he had no choice but to run away with his family.
Li Zicheng gave a piece of cloth to each of his elders, and two more bags of rice and wheat to Li Guo's grandfather's house. Seventy-year-old Li Shoudong even lost one of his teeth from laughing.
Most of the relatives who were close to Li Zicheng were in their forties or fifties, such as Li Zike, Li Ziliang, etc. There were only two who were younger than him, Li Zijia, who was twenty-four, and Li Zizi, who was six years old.
Li Zijia took the time to pull his cousin to a corner and asked furtively how he got rich and if he could lure him in.
Li Zicheng rubbed Zhenjia on his neck and asked, "Do you want to join the gang?"
Li Zijia slapped his chest loudly, "We are brothers fighting tigers, and father and son are going into battle. How can we talk about it!? Brother Ninth, please lead me up."
Li Zicheng rolled a large pile of garb into a round ball and bounced it away, and said, "This business is not easy to do!"
Li Zijia rolled his eyes and grinned without any surprise, "I understand!"
There was nothing to say that night.
The next day, Li Zijing and Li Guo left behind a string of relatives, and Li Zicheng and Li Zijia headed to Huaiyuan Fort, twenty miles away.
"Brother Ninth, why should we buy a horse?"
"runs fast!"
Li Zijia thought for a while and suddenly realized, "It makes sense! Let's run away after grabbing it. No one can catch us."
Then he came up with another idea, "First grab Zhao Laocai from Sichuan. The boss even let his dog bite me last month."
Li Zicheng kicked him, "Robbing, grabbing, grabbing! You don't learn well all the time!"
"Then what business are we doing?" Li Zijia stood still, with a grimace on his face, confused.
Li Zicheng smiled, "Of course I went to the landlords and wealthy families to 'borrow' money and grain."
"Hi!"
Li Zijia slapped his thigh, "Brother, are you joking with me? Why should I lend you money?"
Li Zicheng raised his arms and clenched his fists, "With this!"
"Oh, isn't that still a robbery? You're just bluffing me." Li Zijia laughed angrily.
"Shit! This is what I call doing justice for heaven, robbing the rich and giving to the poor!"
"Okay, okay! Let's rob the old man's wealth and give to our own poverty!"
The two chatted and laughed, and soon arrived at Huaiyuan Fort.
Huaiyuan Fort is located in the transition zone from the Ordos Plateau Mu Us Sandy Land to the Northern Shaanxi Loess Plateau. The northwest is gravel grassland, with flat and open terrain; the middle and southeast are the abruptly raised Hengshan Mountains, with deep ravines and undulating hills.
Zhonge of the Song Dynasty said: The Hengshan stretches for thousands of miles, there are many horses suitable for farming, the people are strong and good at fighting, and they have the advantage of salt and iron.
Di Qing, a famous general in the Song Dynasty, also stationed troops nearby.
This is a battleground for military strategists who block the Hetao in the north, screen Yanwu in the south, control Yuyang in the east, and strangle the three sides in the west.
Huaiyuan Fort is located on the ridge on the east bank of the Lu River, forty miles away from Boluo Fort in the east, fifty miles away from Weiwu Fort in the west, and twenty miles away from Dabian Great Wall in the north. As for the Erbiantu Great Wall in front of it, it is almost abandoned, so there is no need to mention it again.
Outside the Dabian Great Wall is the Taolu territory. The Taolu are the Hetao Mongols and the Ordos tribe.
Huaiyuan Fort has a circumference of 2 miles and 17 steps. It is built with brick walls, crenellations, twelve pavilions, and three city gates: Huaiyuan in the east, Rouyuan in the south, and Zhenyuan in the north.
There are 739 troops garrisoned in the fort, including 357 horses, mules, and camels. There is a guard station, a fort guard, and a garrison guard each.
The duty is to guard the 43 miles and 37 steps of the Dabian Great Wall and the 27 piers and abutments.
Originally, it was stipulated that one-third of the soldiers stationed in the field should be stationed in the fields and the other seven should be garrisoned. Now, 70% to 80% of the soldiers are farming - farming for the officers and landlords.
"There is little civilian land and lots of military land in the fortress. As time goes by, all the land has been occupied by powerful rightists. As a result, the villages are becoming increasingly embarrassed and the army is becoming poorer. Even those who serve as soldiers have no land, while those who cultivate land are not soldiers, and the powerful invaders use it to enrich their families. , public and private affairs are in trouble because of this."
In the early Ming Dynasty, the imperial court allocated only more than 200,000 taels of silver to all the frontier troops; now, a few two million taels are not enough, and they are still in arrears.
The result is that "at first the armies were selling their clothes and selling arrows, but now they are selling their wives; at first they were begging for food on the street, but now they are deserting the army; at first they were talking in the sand, but now they are shouting openly."
During the Chongzhen period, "the hungry army fled, and the retribution was in vain."
This is the current situation of the border army.
…
Li Zicheng and the two entered Huaiyuan Fort effortlessly, and no one was holding the door anyway.
Today, the guard's mother celebrated her birthday, and a big opera was performed in front of the Tutu Temple, and a huge crowd of people gathered around her.
Li Zijing searched for a long time, crawling around before pulling the white dove crane out.
Baijiuhe is the son-in-law of Li Zijia's cousin-in-law.1
"Brother-in-law, this is my ninth brother. When you were children, you herded sheep together, do you remember?"
Remember a hammer.
Li Zicheng was herding sheep in Huaiyuan Fort before he was five years old. Baijiuhe was only three years old at that time. After that, Li Zicheng went to become a monk, and the two never met again.
Bai Jiuhe greeted warmly: "Oh Brother Ninth, long time no see. I asked you why your left eyelid kept twitching this morning. Let's go back and sit in the house."
When they entered the dilapidated house, Li Zicheng presented him with a piece of cotton cloth. Madam Baijiuhe smiled so hard that her big teeth were revealed. His wife was also very pleased with herself and wanted to boil water and went to borrow tea leaves from her neighbor.
After finishing the polite remarks, let’s get down to business.
Baijiuhe felt worried when he heard that Li Zicheng wanted to buy two war horses.
"Brother Ninth came late. If he could have been more accommodating last year, there are only eighty-nine horses left in the fort, and the guards dare not let them go any further."
Where did the war horse go?
In the first year of Chongzhen, more than 700 horses were lost in Ningxia; 2,545 horses were lost in Guyuan; 1,817 horses were lost in Yansui...
As for how it was lost, it may have been due to freezing, illness, starvation, or being resold.
Since Baijiuhe accepted a piece of cloth, he must be responsible to the end.
He thought for a while and said: "If Brother Ninth can wait, I can go to the border to find Tatars and horses."
To get it, of course, is not to rob or steal it, but to exchange it for iron pots, cloth, and tea leaves.
In the late Ming Dynasty, one of the reasons why the border troops were cut off and owed rations and wages was that some civil servants said that the border troops often violated regulations and traded with Mongolia, and their lives were still decent.
Take the three sides of Shaanxi as an example. The Mongols entered the border from time to time to harvest grass and valleys, and the border troops also went out of the Great Wall regularly every year to drive horses, settle accounts, burn wasteland, and destroy nests. However, after the two groups finished fighting, they should continue to do business. There was no delay.
Li Zicheng could not dislike the Mongolian horse, which was as short as a donkey, because there was nowhere to find a big horse.
In order to obtain Dawan horses, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not hesitate to mobilize huge manpower and material resources and launch thousands of miles of expeditions; the Tang Dynasty also paid attention to the pedigree control of military horses in order to maintain excellent stallions for a long time.
After the Song Dynasty, horse breeding was no longer good, and Confucianism had to take the blame. Those people said that crossbreeding with horses was against human ethics and completely ruined horse breeding in the Central Plains.
Li Zicheng asked: "How long will it take?"
Baijiuhe replied: "It can be as short as half a month, or as long as one month."
Mainly because they are wandering around all day long, so it's hard to find them.
Li Zicheng thought for a moment and shook his head, "I can't wait."
He didn't have much cash on hand, so he had to rob a rich man to replenish it as soon as possible. For the sake of longevity, he couldn't find the local tycoon nearby. It would be inconvenient to run far away without horses.
Baijiuhe touched his chin and suggested, "There are still many horses in Boluo Fort. I can ask an acquaintance to recommend them. But the price...it's not our own territory, so it's hard to say."
Li Zicheng lifted up his clothes, revealing the small cloth bag hanging on his belt, "As long as the horse is good, money is not a problem."
Baijiuhe slapped his leg and said, "Okay! Let's leave now."
Taking a few black-faced steamed buns with them, the three of them immediately set off for Boluo Fort.
On the way, Baijiuhe began to ask round and round about the reason for buying the war horse.
Because if you are traveling by horse, a donkey is more cost-effective; for carrying things and pulling a cart, a mule is more suitable.
Horses are difficult to maintain, and Li Zicheng also specified that he wanted war horses, which makes it easy for people to imagine.
Li Zicheng didn't hide it from him and directly said that he wanted to do a business without capital.
Baijiuhe was not surprised when he heard this. There are so many little bandits and big gangsters these days.
"Brother Ninth, that is, my old mother is in poor health and can't leave. Otherwise, I will do it with you. I have a brother who is having a very difficult life. Do you think you can lure him in? Just give him food.
."
"No problem! If you can make Brother Bai speak, you must be a good man."
"Brother Ninth, come on! That young man is good at horseback riding and archery. He is currently on shift at Dabian. I will have him come back later."
The three of them went down the mountain and took a shortcut through the ravine.
If the water is strong in a normal year, you can take a boat directly on the Luhe River and go northward to enter the Wuding River. It will take you another twenty miles to reach it.
If there is no water, we have to take the dry road. This chapter has been completed!