Li Mantian squatted on the mountain ridge, clasping his fingers and suffering day by day.
On the evening of the seventh day, Li Zicheng returned home with a full load.
Li Mantian stood up and hurried to the cave dwelling and greeted excitedly: "Children, come and play music!"
"I'm coming……"
The men and women cheered.
Gao Guiying grabbed the rag and waved it around randomly.
Li Mantian took the suona and played the newly learned cheerful tune with all his strength——
A song "Zhu Bajie Carrying His Wife" is dedicated to the returning soldiers.
When the convoy reached the halfway point of the mountain, Minzhuang and the former postmen unloaded the excess grain. Li Zicheng gave them careful instructions and then sent them away.
Li Mantian, Liu Yue'e, Gao Guiying and their children were busy eating and drinking.
Li Zicheng looked at the dusty generals and said with some embarrassment: "Brothers! I forgot to explain something to you earlier."
Liu Zongmin shouted: "What else do you need to explain? Seriously, let go of a sheep and eat it first."
Li Zicheng nodded, "Forget it, let's eat later."
The lamb is very tender, has no smell at all, and is fragrant.
After eating and drinking, everyone sat in a circle on the Kang.
Li Zicheng cleared his throat and said, "Brothers, forget one thing before doing business. Listen carefully, our revolutionary army will not pay military salaries."
Several people stared at each other and didn't understand for a while.
"You see, this is what I think..."
After forming a team in the future, we will definitely have to wander around to fight guerrillas in the first few years. We may even wander without fighting.
Since the revolutionary army does not have a stable source of money and food, it is difficult to promise anything in advance. Otherwise, it will be like an army that owes its pay.
Therefore, we simply stopped paying the big-headed soldiers.
Liu Zongmin blinked, "Brother, what do you mean by this? Let the brothers work their lives, and then everything seized will be returned to the public, and then no pay will be paid? Did you hear that right?"
Li Zicheng smiled awkwardly, "It's not like I didn't say it at all.
From now on, we will implement a supply system, where everyone will eat together when there is food, and when there is no food, everyone will be hungry together."
This was okay, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Gu Kecheng smiled and said: "Brother, that's what you meant. A 20% split is already a lot."
"We still have more than 40,000 taels of silver. If we put it together, the 20,000 taels of silver will be...just..." Li Zijia counted on his fingers and couldn't figure it out.
"Two achievements are eight thousand taels."
Yuan Zongdi also began to calculate how much benefit he could get.
Tian Jianxiu rubbed his hands and suggested, "Let's not separate the food, right? It's not easy to carry."
Li Zijia and Gao Yigong nodded quickly, "Yes, yes, it's better to break it into silver."
"..." Li Zicheng sighed.
Alas, expecting them to have revolutionary consciousness is worse than watching a sow climb a tree.
It's okay to say that there are only a few soldiers now, but in the future, if there are thousands of soldiers, how many copper coins can each person get?
However, the future team will be mainly hungry people, and they can follow if they are given food. The disadvantage is that the cohesion is not strong. We have to take it one step at a time.
Seeing everyone talking among themselves and scheming, Li Guo had some opinions.
He knocked on the table, "Look at your potential! Haven't you seen that gold medal? You don't know about the Huama Sword? After we follow the eldest brother, we will all be crowned kings and prime ministers. This little money is just a request!"
Liu Zongmin slapped his thigh and said, "That's right! Forget all about this. We are not the bandit kings, we are the revolutionary army. We want to go to the capital to seize the old Zhu family's throne."
Li Zicheng also slapped his thigh, "Oh! I almost forgot again."
Everyone was startled and thought, "Don't mess around anymore. We are very satisfied with dividing 20% of it and capturing it."
"When it comes to being crowned king and prime minister, how many words do you idiots know? Starting tomorrow, go to school!"
"ah……"
The generals wailed and fell down on the bed.
…
May is here in the blink of an eye.
The generals have almost mastered the skills and tactics of formations and individual soldiers. Next, they will focus on teaching them bugles, semaphores, maps, formations, etc. Their days are fulfilling.
Several sets of standard military uniforms were also made.
A complete set from the inside out.
The hat is a little more troublesome, because men also wear long hair in buns, so they can only choose Fan Yangli.
There is nothing much to say about shoes, socks, trousers, vests, belts, and autumn clothes.
The jacket and trousers refer to the two classic styles of 65, which are combined into one.
Don't worry about fancy clothes.
A free set of clothes is a gift. They are not happy in time, and they get used to it after wearing it for a few days. Ordinary people don't have as many bad habits as scholars. A short coat also saves fabric.
What's more, in the early days, it was only distributed to officers and elites, not to casual soldiers.
Traditional military uniforms can be used as formal wear in the future.
On May 10, Li Zicheng made a muzzle-loading flintlock gun with his own hands.
If you rifled it, changed the warhead, and equipped it with a bayonet, then this gun would be considered the main equipment in the Crow War two hundred years after the original historical line.
Forget about flash cap guns, Li Zicheng was exhausted and couldn't make many. It was difficult to make primers. He worked hard to teach a few apprentices to make them, but they might be blown up the next day if they were allowed to work alone.
Besides, breech-loading guns have limited cost performance in a short period of time.
In fact, regardless of cost, making artillery is simpler than making muskets, and artillery is more practical. The classical phalanx comes to an end in front of artillery. After all, one cannon is a bloody alley.
It's just that the conditions are not mature now. Just get one out before the end of the year and use it for troop training. Large-scale deployment should be later.
On the 15th, news came from the city that Han Jin'er was looking for Li Zicheng again. He didn't see her last time. This time, Lao Li took away the money and food, and he wanted to enter the city unsatisfactorily.
Gao Yigong wanted to escort his elder brother all the way because he was worried about his safety.
"Forget it now. Have you learned Pinyin? Don't follow the nonsense. I'm going to do business."
Li Zicheng hurriedly fled.
After hanging around in the city for two days, Gao Yigong came to report that Tang Ruowang had delivered a letter. Li Zicheng hurried back to Changmao.
Lao Tang sent someone to bring three monocular telescopes, five pocket watches, and several scriptures. The books were thrown into the toilet as toilet paper.
Let’s talk about an episode. During the Tang Dynasty, Suleiman from Arab came to visit, and then went back to write a book and said: Chinese people do not pay attention to hygiene. They do not wash with water after defecation, but wipe with paper.
Washing with water does seem to be better than wiping with paper, but you have to use your hands and do it with your hands, so forget it.
…
Old Xier Shen Bensheng opened a pawnshop in Yulin, and the two parties had completed the first transaction, worth more than four thousand taels of silver. Li Zicheng specifically told him not to sell stolen goods in northern Shaanxi.
Recently, various peasant armies have not been idle, wreaking havoc in various places.
There are more than a dozen titles of various sizes, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands.
Among those who stayed in Shaanxi, Wang Jiayin's tribe was the strongest. In February, he also raided the Qingyang area of Yan'an.
Yang He, the governor of the three sides, was left mentally and physically exhausted.
In fact, Lao Yang was also considered a capable minister, and he made great achievements when he patrolled Guizhou; Yang Hao's four-way Liaodong Army was defeated, and he also recommended Xiong Tingbi and others.
However, it is difficult for a clever woman to make a meal without rice.
Before taking office last year, Chongzhen asked him about his governance strategy.
Yang He replied: "It's just to be cautious and self-sufficient, and to provide support to the soldiers."
What kind of pension should I get? The emperor won’t give me any money.
In recent years, the three sides of Shaanxi Province have been in arrears of more than 4 million taels of Beijing Yun Yin alone. Due to poor annual performance, the Minyun Bank has also been in arrears of nearly 1 million taels. If we count from the 38th year of Wanli
, Beijing Yun Yin's debt amounted to nine million taels.
Not long after Yang He took office, elite soldiers from three sides went to defend the capital again. He had no choice but to promote Hong Chengchou to lead the army to fight against the bandits, and then deposed general Du Wenhuan to take up the post.
But there is no money, no soldiers, no food, no food, and there is still a Mongolian invasion outside. What can Yang He do?
Therefore, when facing the rogue bandits, he could only focus on appeasing them.
In February, he recruited most of the first rebel army Wang Er, as well as small and large bandits such as Little Red Wolf, Yi Zhangqing, Luo Dihu, and Hun Jianglong.
The tens of thousands of people who were recruited needed food and drink, but Yang He couldn't provide anything, so he could only try to maintain the situation.
Shanxi next door also imposed martial law along the Yellow River in the name of "preventing bandits" and prohibited the sale of grain to Shaanxi.
The grain transportation was interrupted, and the price of rice in northern Shaanxi increased to seven cents of silver, seven to eight times more than usual. This made the already disaster-stricken northern Shaanxi even worse. 1
Li Zicheng was the chief of Shuangquan Village and called himself a rebel. He had to take care of the people both in public and private matters. It was impossible to keep them well fed, but only to keep them from starving to death.
Spring passes and summer comes.
In June, the peasant army Wang Jiayin's troops were going north again.
Yan Zibin has escaped, and the new county magistrate of Mizhi is Wang Xiangdui.2
Old Man Wang once taught in Shandong. When the White Lotus Sect was in rebellion, he assisted the magistrate in defending the city and made great contributions.
This time, Mizhi received the news of the bandits in advance. Wang Xiangdui notified the commanders of each district and asked them to recruit strong people to join the guard.
Li Zicheng brought a hundred people into the city.
There is no need to worry about safety, Wang Jiayin will not attack Mizhi anyway, because in seven or eight days he will run to the vicinity of Yulin and capture Papaya Fort, Huangfu Camp, Qingshui Fort and Fugu County in succession.
Therefore, Li Zicheng's trip was a success.
But others didn't know it, and most of the residents in the city fled.
The common people have experience. Small chaos comes to the city, and big chaos goes to the countryside.
Small chaos means harassing the countryside, hiding in the city for safety; big chaos means attacking the county and destroying the government, hiding in the village is more stable.
A small county like Mizhi cannot withstand an attack.
Wang Xiangdui summoned five village chiefs at the county government office, and even comforted and beat them to calm people's hearts.
In order to avoid having to kneel down, Li Zicheng pretended that his legs were broken and he had not yet recovered, so he asked Liu Zongmin and others to carry them in.
Wang Zhixian was indeed deeply moved. He left his seat and came to express his cordial condolences. He also called on the other three district chiefs to learn from Li Zicheng.
Since the head of the police team fled with his family and was nowhere to be found, the county magistrate immediately appointed Li Zi as the new team leader.
There was another reason why Wang Xiangdui made this decision. The "minzhuang" recruited by the other four families were really unacceptable.
It’s just a matter of feeding the hungry people, but what about children, women, and old men in their sixties or seventies?
In contrast, the one hundred people brought by Li Zicheng can be said to be a real strong people.
Those who serve the country so loyally must be reused.
But Li Zicheng had no time to play with him, so he refused to give up.
Mr. Wang put down his posture and resorted to the strategy of "visiting the thatched cottage three times".
Li Zicheng really couldn't shirk it, so he could only reluctantly agree. This chapter has been completed!