In every organization, there is a person like Wei Deng. His position is not high, but he is senior, well-connected, and has a backer. His actual status and influence are much higher than his position. Killing such a person serves as a warning.
It is also much higher than punishing ordinary officers.
The person responsible for carrying Wei Deng's head on a bamboo pole and patrolling various sections of the city wall was one of Guo Zhongyuan's confidants, and Guo Zhongyuan sent ten more soldiers with loud voices to follow him.
With only this few manpower dispatched, the number of regular troops around Guo Zhongyuan dropped to less than a hundred. There was originally a group of prison troops accompanying him, but they were sent out in an emergency last night and could not come back for a while.
The noise last night was extremely dangerous.
The huge city of Kaifeng is full of businesses, but it is really a mixed bag. More than 30,000 people have fled into the city one after another. If someone panics and causes chaos, and the people spread rumors and threaten themselves, there will be a big chaos immediately. So Guo Zhongyuan has already
There are strict orders to clean the streets, no matter day or night, no one is allowed to go out and walk without military orders.
It happened that a group of wealthy merchants from the Song Dynasty did not listen to orders. They were frightened by the Mongolian army's direct confrontation, and they believed that they had no duty to live and die with the Zhou Dynasty's soldiers and civilians, so they accumulated money by throwing money around during business.
They had many connections and colluded with others in private. These people were really rich and willing to spend money. They quickly bribed a group of soldiers guarding the city gate with heavy sums of money, planning to use them as a cover to escape from the city at night.
If Kaifeng's city defense is stable and its troops are sufficient, it would be fine to send some troops out of the city to actively cover their escape. After all, these people are all big financiers, and they will still have to do business in the future. Moreover, the Southern Dynasties did not distinguish between officials and merchants, and the people behind them were
God knows whether a certain powerful person will be needed in the future.
However, Kaifeng City was at a weak stage. If they escaped, they would almost certainly fall into the hands of the Mongolian army. The lack of troops in the city could not be concealed.
The Mongolian army is not good at siege. Judging from their sudden virtue, they do not seem to be able to carry various siege equipment. But if they know how embarrassed the military power in the city is, knowing that the general Guo Zhongyuan only has a hundred people with him.
There are many people running around to suppress... How can there be no reason not to bite?
Even if they don't want ants to invade the city, they can still drive the people to fill the trenches with their lives!
Fortunately, these people did not succeed. Monitoring all kinds of changes is what the Recorder is good at. This Mongolian raid, the Recorder had no warning in advance. Everyone felt ashamed and had to be very alert in the city.
They heard the news in advance and informed Guo Zhongyuan to send troops and horses to intercept. Guo Zhongyuan immediately sent out more than 200 prison troops, blocked the group of people in the street, and first killed several of the leaders, and then killed the primary school student who accepted the bribe.
The people from the Recording Department immediately suggested that a taller building in Kaifeng City should be occupied specifically for monitoring the movements. They also suggested that a certain type of people could walk around Kaifeng in peacetime, and they were also the guests of local officials.
.But the rules are different during wartime. In order to prevent trouble in the bud, some things must be done.
So Guo Zhongyuan ordered the city army to assist and gather the wealthy people, merchants, and Song tycoons who came to do business in the city to one place in advance. It was called protection, but it was actually a confinement.
Everything needs manpower to do, and every team of men has to be sent by Guo Zhongyuan. Every time Guo Zhongyuan gathers a few available people, they are immediately redistributed to the huge city for various reasons. He feels
I was like a soldier, busy shoveling soil into the churning river water, but every little bit I shoveled was swallowed up by the soupy river water, and there was no visible effect at all.
However, there are still people outside the city who are looking at the situation. Guo Zhongyuan can only try his best to stabilize the situation in the city so that the diners outside can't figure out the reality and dare not act rashly.
The important towns in Northern Xinjiang of the Great Zhou Dynasty were close to Mongolia, and daily small-scale battles continued. The garrisons were generally well-equipped, well-trained, and large in number. However, Kaifeng was different from the cities in Northern Xinjiang. As the old capital of the Song Dynasty and the central city of the entire Henan Province, Kaifeng
Its political and economic significance has always been far greater than its military significance. Militarily, Kaifeng's significance as a logistics and military supplies distribution center is far greater than that of a defensive node.
Therefore, once a serious situation occurs, a small number of troops are busy suppressing internal chaos, and externally they rely entirely on civilians to implement suspicion tactics, and there is nothing they can do.
The situation is really bad, and Guo Zhongyuan has no means to break it. Now he just hopes that no more men and horses will retreat to Kaifeng. If they come, they will only be intercepted and killed by the Mongolian cavalry, who will use their heads to intimidate the defenders; even if they are lucky enough to escape, they will not be able to take them with them.
Any good news will only trigger continued unrest in the city, so why bother?
Guo Zhongyuan held his hand on the city battlement and looked out.
Cong Cong said from the side: "Commander, be careful of the cold arrows of the Mongols."
Guo Zhongyuan snorted and didn't move back much. The morning fog outside the city had dispersed, but the winter sun seemed to have little energy and could not rise above the treetops. Guo Zhongyuan squinted and looked as far away as possible. He saw the road outside the city.
Between the corpses and the corpses, there were many corpses lying in random directions, including those of Zhou army officers and soldiers, some of ordinary people, some who had just died, and some who had been dead for several days, attracting birds to circle around and peck at them.
The wind blew across the city, faintly bringing with it the cries of children, the wails of women, and the people who had been chopped by the Mongols but could not die for a while. They were tossing and groaning, and uttering painful curses from time to time.
Only the Mongolian cavalry was missing.
Guo Zhongyuan knew that they had retreated far away. The Mongols' usual tactics of luring the enemy into field battles had no effect in Kaifeng. The defenders on the city were always ready, but never left the city. So the Mongols were suspicious. They were watching and waiting.
.
Guo Zhongyuan is also waiting, waiting for the power in his hands to gradually increase.
The progress in this area has been a bit slow... He doesn't want to complain to his subordinates. They have tried their best. It is the continuous redeployment in the past few months that has made this originally simple task too difficult.
He was very sure that the powerful war machine of the Zhou Dynasty would definitely respond to the Mongolian surprise attack, but it was really hard to predict when the reinforcements would come. As the commander-in-chief of the Nanjing Road Tongjun Division, he had to do something.
Guo Zhongyuan coughed violently, and his staff quickly fetched his cloak.
At this time, there was a rumble of footsteps at the foot of the city, and a large group of people arrived in a queue. It turned out that local officials were encircling the city nearby and wiped out the strong men of several cart-making workshops. A total of more than 3,000 people rushed to the city.
The several waves of civilians sent before were all loose. Guo Zhongyuan did not even dare to equip them with weapons such as bows and crossbows. He only gave them long guns and a large number of flags. For every hundred additional people, more than ten old soldiers had to be added in order to comply with military orders in a timely manner.
.
This batch is much stronger.
Guo Zhongyuan knows that this is because most of the new cart manufacturing workshops established in recent years do not rely on trading companies, but are funded and constructed by independent transport fleets. These transport fleets are generally closely related to postal stations in various places, and undertake many services from the military to the postal service.
Post, and then retired from the knights of the post post to the old soldiers of the common people.
The procedures for making carts themselves came from the army. Many craftsmen were born in Alixi in the army, so in the workshop, they were divided into groups to give orders every day, which was different from ordinary people.
A military academy was arranging to equip weapons, and as a result, the civilians raised the tools in their hands to show him. They were axes and chisels commonly used in workshops, and they looked quite fierce.