Chapter 17 If you want to be emperor, you have to dare to mess with your empress
The next day, Li Zicheng and Shen Bensheng made an appointment and parted ways for the time being.
Hu Maozhen sent the three of them out of Boluo Fort, and took them to visit the Lingxiao Pagoda and Sleeping Buddha Temple next door.
The temple is filled with incense and mist.
The common people's life is very difficult, but they worship Buddha very diligently.
When people do good things, they always want the ghosts and gods to know about it; when they do bad things, they always think the ghosts and gods don’t know about it. It’s so embarrassing for the ghosts and gods!
After leaving the temple, Li Zicheng looked across the Wuding River and saw the winding Great Wall to the north.
“How far is the side wall from here?”
"There are eight miles beyond the river. Brother Ninth, my brother is nearby. Why don't you go for a walk?"
"Okay! Save yourself the trouble of making another trip."
Li Zicheng happened to also want to see the Great Wall.
Farewell to Hu Maozhen, the three of them went down the mountain and crossed the river.
There is a lively nunnery by the river, which is used by businessmen and merchants to rest on weekdays. There is also a water mill for free use by farmers.
There are almost no mountains here, and the road is smooth and smooth, which is perfect for riding horses and whips.
First, they walked west along the river until they reached the boundary of the Huaiyuan Fort patrol area. Then the three of them turned around and headed north.
After arriving at the border wall, Li Zijia stayed to watch the horses. Baijiuhe led the way, and Li Zicheng climbed to the important border point without any effort.
Looking into the distance, the scenery here is unique.
What you see is not a vast desert.
In a flat area, there is a large grassland with some gravel interspersed.
In the past, there were green grass and many woods outside the Great Wall. After hundreds of years of defense, almost all of them were burned down by the border troops.
There is so much good horse breeding land within the bends of the Yellow River, not to mention the rich Hetao.
Looking south from Hetao to Guanzhong, it dominates the world.
If the Hetao is safe, the world will be safe; if the Hetao is in chaos, the world will be in chaos.
Needless to say, Xitao is located in the south of the Yangtze River. The Ming Dynasty had a tributary named King Qing there, and it was also the headquarters of Ningxia Town.
It's a shame to have a front cover.
After Dongshengwei (approximately Dongsheng District, Ordos) moved inland, Anda Khan stationed in Fengzhouchuan (in the Hohhot area) in the middle of the Jiajing period, built cities and reclaimed wasteland. At its peak, there were thousands of hectares of fertile land and more than 100,000 Han people.
Although the Yellow River has not changed its course over there in Houtao, it is easy to open up wasteland and cultivate land to feed an army of 10,000 people.
Moreover, the three units are connected by the Yellow River waterway, making it very convenient to mobilize troops and transport supplies.
It is a pity that such a good place was abandoned by the Ming Dynasty.
The reason is that this account is confusing.
There is a saying that there were no people in the early Ming Dynasty. Not only were the Mongols sparse, but the number of Han people was also seriously insufficient, and the Hetao was uninhabited for thousands of miles. It was still a wasteland to guard the edge of the hammer and cultivate the wasteland of the hammer.
The territory of the Ming Dynasty completely retreated to the line of the Great Wall.
Later, the imperial court also proposed "complexity".
Especially during the Jiajing period, three governors were dismissed and a Minister of War was beheaded for this matter.
Just because the former objected to sending troops to set up a loophole, while the latter tried his best to take the lead in the battle, none of the four ended up well. The "re-set" failed.
In fact, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Mongols had little fighting power.
In October last year, Taolu Qian'er scolded and united with Haiyimeng Mongolia (Qinghai) and Yinding, and formed two groups to invade Ningxia on a large scale.
Gan'er scolded him for being a real showman. He was wearing a golden dragon armor and a red sand war horse under his crotch. He was so coquettish that he didn't even know his last name.
If you take the lead, you must find the Ming army general to challenge him.
You Shilu, the commander-in-chief of Ningxia, did not tolerate him. He knocked him off his horse with an iron slip, then beheaded him, stripped off his armor, captured the red sand horse, and returned victoriously.
Thousands of Mongolian troops were beheaded in this battle, and they were so miserable...
Without enemies of the same level, we would fall into a quagmire like the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia, with novices pecking at each other.
Entering the age of firearms, the only outcome for the prairie folks was to be "good at singing and dancing."
War horses have the nature of herbivores and tend to run away when frightened. When the Mongolian cavalry charged and encountered a salvo of firearms, most of the horses would turn around and run away.
Although the grassland warriors are skilled in bow and horse, they are tribal in nature, and wars are called at short notice, and there is almost no organizational discipline.
The Mongolian Tatars were not good at forming formations; the Mongolian light-armored cavalry archers were no match for the Ming army's Folangji and fire guns.
As long as the border troops are well fed and the generals take a little more responsibility, Mongolia really has nothing to worry about.
Ten years ago, after the Sarhu War, Lin Danhan, who was still an ally of the Ming Dynasty, sent a message to the slaves.
He claimed to be the "Lord of 400,000 Mongolians" and asked Nurhaci, the "King of 30,000 people by the waterside", to unconditionally release Inner Kalka Taiji and Horqintai Ji, and warned the slaves not to offend Guangning City, which was protected by Lin Dan Khan. 1
The arrogance is very arrogant.
Then Lin Danhan would soon be beaten to pieces. At that time, more than one-third of the slaves had no horses, and almost no firearms.
In fact, it can be said that Jiannu is the strongest soldier in the Ming Dynasty, because the two are almost the same. To be equipped with firearms... Oh, what a pity. "I am invincible in the world!"
…
Li Zicheng looked at the beautiful mountains and rivers, and on a whim, he borrowed weapons, asked the border troops to open the door, and rode out to have fun.
It's trivial to beat the waves or suppress them, but you can chop them immediately, shoot arrows, stand on your head, overtake on horseback, etc.
The soldiers on the side wall cheered loudly.
Suddenly a rabbit burst out of the grass, and Li Zicheng drew his bow and nocked an arrow.
"Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" "Whoosh!"
Three arrows kill two rabbits.
Li Zicheng turned his horse around, leaned over and picked up the rabbit.
His smooth and flowing movements drew cheers from the wall.
Bai Wang asked curiously: "Brother, where did the young man come from?" 2
Baijiuhe gestured, "Let's do this business."
He turned around and said, "Have you not wanted to join the gang for a long time? The opportunity has come."
Gu Kecheng clenched his fists and said happily: "Finally we can escape from the sea of suffering." 3
The three of them were chatting privately when the crowd nearby suddenly burst into an uproar.
The white dove crane quickly looked up and saw five or six riders running from a distance outside the wall.
He quickly waved and shouted: "Brother Li! Come on, come on! The captives are here."
Li Zicheng has noticed it, and there is no need for him to show off and go back to the city.
There was a commotion on the city wall.
The five Taolu cavalry went straight to the wall and lined up in a row.
The big man in the middle shouted: "Hey! Brother! Let me ask you, our officials, you have been driving around the wall day and night. What are you going to do?"
One of the generals replied: "I'll tell you! The general has gathered supplies to transport food and grass, and wants to mobilize thousands of troops to search for traps and attack your account."
The big man waved his hand hurriedly, "Lin Dan Khan is here, and there are many Tatars in the bag. You can't fight, you can't fight."
He added: "Brothers from Yulin, we are fellow villagers. Could you please bring me a new bow so that I can take it back as a token."
The general replied: "You are a Yulin person! Surrender and you will have steamed buns to eat."
The big man laughed and said: "The donkey is trying to frighten the devil! Can you drink enough rice soup at your house? It's easy to live on the grassland, so I won't surrender."
At this time, Baijiuhe pulled Li Zicheng and whispered: "Du Si is here. It's not a good place to be here. Let's retreat first."
Gu Kecheng was a bachelor, so he found an acquaintance to give him a hare, whispered a few words, and immediately became a deserter.
After leaving the Great Wall, Baijiuhe returned to Huaiyuan Fort, and Li Zicheng rode three horses back to Lijiacun. After staying one night, he returned to Changmao.
In the evening, as soon as Li Zicheng and others went up the mountain, a swarm of seven or eight old men came to greet them.
Li Cheng shouted first: "Huang Laiwa, please come back."
"Something happened?" Li Zicheng was a little panicked.
"That...let's forget it..."
In the early Ming Dynasty, there were thirteen li in Mizhi County. During the Jiajing period, people fled the land and the land was desolate, so they were merged into five li.
This also shows how poor Mizhi is. Haiyan County in the south of the Yangtze River is 1,610 miles away.
Each li has different villages, each with a li length.
The main tasks of the li leader are to collect taxes, collect labor, etc., and assist the government in running errands.
In a year of severe drought, even if you drive the people to death, you won't get a few grains of food, but the county boss doesn't care.
If the commander fails to complete the task, he will be served with a cane.
Therefore, the former head of Shuangquan Village had just worked for three months and fled with his family ten days ago.
This time the situation exploded, and Shuangquan lost its backbone again.
How knowledgeable can the common people in Shengou Mountain be? They can brag about it for half a year after entering the county town. Therefore, someone like Li Zicheng who has been a postman can be considered a capable person.
Then a group of old men from each village came to respectfully invite Li Zicheng to be the village chief.
"What a big deal, I'll be the mayor." Li Zicheng readily agreed.
All the old men claimed to be good.
Then they began to complain with tears in their eyes.
There are so many difficulties in the village. Who has escaped famine, who has starved to death, who has had his legs broken after borrowing money, who has sold his daughter or wife, etc.
The same thing comes to mind over and over again, don’t count on paying taxes this summer.
You take the blame and you die.
At that time, the local elders should go to the county jail and go to jail.
Even if the weather is extremely good this year, it is impossible for the district chief to collect enough taxes.
Shuangquanli governs 72 natural villages and has 630 rated tax households. Only 281 households remain.
But no matter how many households you actually have in the yamen, even if only one household is left, you still have to pay the tax of 600 households.
“Those who stay are the food of those who lose, and the living bear the burden of the dead.”
The commander is faced with a certain death situation.
All the old men complimented Li Zicheng and left with satisfaction.
The cave dwelling was empty.
Li Zijing began to complain constantly that his second brother was out of his mind. How could he agree to become the head of the village? He was clearly asking for death.
Li Zicheng lectured: "You are the only one who complains so much, go and cook."
Li Zijing went out with his head hanging down.
This will not work in the later generations. The reason why he will be promoted as Emperor Dashun in the future is just because he is Li Zicheng's biological brother. Old Li has no sons, and it is a traditional practice for brothers to succeed to each other.
At that time, all the generals recommended Li Guo, but he humbly refused. In this way, Dashun had no backbone and fell apart in an instant.
Li Guo asked, "Uncle, do you have an idea?"
Li Zicheng sat cross-legged on the kang, "This man, if you want to be the emperor, you have to dare to challenge the empress! If you have to worry about something happening before you finish the work, then it is better to stay at home and wait to starve to death. Even a mere liar chief can't afford it.
,How can we do big things in the future?"
Li Zijia praised: "That's right, my brother is very capable. Let's eat steamed buns every time from now on."
Gu Kecheng hesitated for a moment and then added: "Brother, if we are short of manpower, please let me know. I can recruit at least twenty young men."
"There's no rush. Let's make a plan first." Li Zicheng knew what was going on. This chapter has been completed!