Chapter 393: Killing with a knife, talking about Liaodong

Fengyang is the location of the Zhu family's dragon vein. If it is conquered and the dragon vein is cut off, the country's destiny will have major problems. Emperor Chongzhen was anxious and ordered troops to be dispatched from all over the country to reinforce Fengyang Prefecture. He also ordered Hong Chengchou and Zhu Dadian to quickly attack the peasant army. Hong Chengchou was actually not ready yet, so he had to send troops. Therefore, from Henan to the Fengyang Prefecture area in Nanzhili, the peasant army and officers and soldiers fought in full swing, which was difficult to distinguish. Fengyang Prefecture was not conquered for the time being, and Yang Yipeng's head was temporarily saved. However, the future development of the war situation is still difficult to predict.

Five days passed, and the horse thieves in Daze Mountain did not move at all.

The officers of the Hu Ben Army were a little unable to hold on. They were worried that Zhang Zhun's plan might not necessarily work. Zhang Zhun's plan obviously wanted the horse thieves to kill each other and fight each other in an internal conflict. If the plan was successful, it would indeed greatly weaken the horse thieves' strength. The Hu Ben Army would not need to do anything to dismantle the horse thieves. The problem is that the horse thieves are not fools, and they may not be really fooled. They all think that the Hu Ben Army would go directly to the mountains to clear them out, which is more safe. Even if it has to pay a large price, it is worth it.

Zhang Zhun said lightly: "Continue to wait."

Three more days passed in a blink of an eye, but there was still no movement.

The officers of the Hu Ben Army became a little anxious again. It took a total of eight days. If Zhang Zhun's plan really took effect, some horse thieves must have started to kill each other. However, after eight days, the horse thieves still did not move, which means that the horse thieves must have seen Zhang Zhun's plan.

Zhang Zhun said confidently: "Continue to wait."

Finally, on the evening of the tenth day, a horse thief finally appeared.

The horse thief was less than 30 years old, with a pale face and looked a little over-threatening, and his spirit was obviously in an abnormal state. He had multiple knife wounds on his body, and an arrow was inserted behind him. Fortunately, the arrow did not hit the vital point, otherwise he would have been finished. He carried a bag with a large bloodstain and led three horses to come out of the Daze Mountain and surrender to the Hu Ben Army. According to Zhang Zhun's instructions, the soldiers of the Hu Ben Army quickly brought him to Zhang Zhun.

Zhang Zhun looked at the horse thief and said slowly: "What's your name?"

The horse thief said weakly: "Xie Youzhi."

Zhang Zhun nodded, asked someone to give him food and water, and gave him some Yunnan Baiyao to deal with the wounds by himself. It’s not that Zhang Zhun didn’t want to ask someone to help him deal with the wounds, but this horse thief was very sensitive to anyone close to him. Whenever someone approached him, he would react excessively.

After Xie Youzhi swallowed his fill, he drank a large sip of clean water and then treated the wound by himself. He first pulled out the arrowhead, then pressed the wound, sprinkled Yunnan Baiyao on it, and finally bandaged it with a cloth strip. Although the movement was a bit awkward, the basic procedure was correct. Obviously, he must have been injured before and received regular wound bandaging training.

Zhang Zhun asked casually: "You used to be the Ming army?"

Xie Youzhi said bitterly: "I am from the Han Dynasty in Liaodong."

Zhang Zhun asked curiously: "Why are you a bandit?"

Xie Youzhi said bitterly: "There is no place to go."

Zhang Zhun asked suspiciously: "Are you a military household? Which ward?"

Xie Youzhi's face became more and more gloomy, as if he was unwilling to mention the past. After a while, he said in a very low voice: "Kaiyuanwei."

Zhang Zhun pondered for a moment and said slowly: "Huang Degong is also from Kaiyuanwei. Do you know him?"

Xie Zhiyou said listlessly, "I know that he and I lived in the same room. He cut off the heads of the two Tartars, received a reward of more than 60 taels of silver, and invited us to drink. He was lucky, so he was transferred by Master Jinglei to be his personal soldiers... We are not so lucky. We didn't die at the hands of the Tartars, so God blessed."

It turned out that Xie Youzhi was from Kaiyuanwei, the Liaodong Dusi, and was under the same small flag and lived in the same house. Kaiyuanwei was in the north of Shenyang and formed the largest barrier to Shenyang with Tielingwei. After the Battle of Sarhu, the Tatars continued to attack Kaiyuanwei and Tielingwei.

In a fierce battle, Huang Degong killed two Tartars, received rewards, and was appreciated by the Liaodong Jingli. He was transferred to serve as a personal soldier by the Liaodong Jingli, and was promoted continuously. He is now a guerrilla general. But Xie Zhiyou is still a big-headed soldier.

The Tartars continued to attack, and the Kaiyuan Guards and Tieling Guards finally fell. After the Kaiyuan Guards fell, Xie Zhiyou retreated all the way to Chenyang with the surviving Ming army. After the Chenyang was lost, he retreated to Liaoyang. After the Liaoyang was lost, he retreated to Guangning. After the Guangning... their team was inexplicably abandoned in the rear of the Tartars. There was no way, so everyone had to find a way out.

At that time, many people in Liaodong used wood and other places to evade the massacre of the Tartars, drifted across the ocean with the help of the north wind to float towards the ground in Shandong. If they were lucky, they could get ashore near Shandong or Tianjin Wei. Xie Youzhi was no exception. He found a piece of wood, lay on it and went out to sea. After wandering on the sea for a few days, he actually got ashore in Laizhou Bay.

However, the big-headed soldiers in Liaodong had no other skills except chopping people. After coming to Shandong, Xie Zhiyou didn't know what to do. Because they were Han people from Liaodong and the Ming army in Shandong were worried that they were spies from Tartars, so they would definitely not accept them. Even the city did not allow them to go in. Apart from chopping people, they had no other survival skills, and they eventually became bandits and scrambled with the horse thieves.

There are many people like Xie Zhiyou who have changed from mutiny to thief in Pingdu Prefecture. This is a very common phenomenon, not Xie Zhiyou. Most of the Liaodong military households have difficulty making a living after coming to Shandong. Some of them have completely fallen, keen on killing, setting fire, burning, and looting, and becoming complete thieves. There are also a very small number of people who look up at heaven in hell, hoping that they can return to the army, live a normal life, and be a normal person.

Zhang Zhun pondered and asked, "How many of your horse thieves are there?"

Xie Youzhi said obscenely: "It turned out that there were more than 100 people, but dozens of them were beaten to death by you later. Now there are more than 50 people. After entering Daze Mountain, everyone dispersed."

Zhang Zhun nodded and asked someone to open his bag. There were indeed two heads inside. The heads of two horse thieves, one is not money, the other is ten taels of silver, plus three war horses, a total of one hundred taels of silver. Zhang Zhun immediately handed him twenty five taels of silver ingots and fulfilled his promise.

Strangely, Xie Youzhi took the money but did not leave. Instead, he said nervously: "Sir, can I stay here for a longer time?"

Zhang Zhun glanced at him, nodded, and said casually: "Yes! But you can't return your weapons and war horses to you."

Xie Youzhi had no objection. Zhang Zhun was not saying anything. So Xie Youzhi stayed here. When the Hu Ben Army was having dinner, Zhang Zhun asked someone to give him a copy. Xie Youzhi ate silently without any requests. When he went to bed at night, he found a lot of dry grass, piled it on his body, and used it as a quilt, and fell asleep like this.

During the day, when the soldiers of the Hu Ben Army were training, Xie Zhiyou also followed suit. Many of the training movements of the Hu Ben Army soldiers came from later generations. He didn't know how to do it, so he imitated it next to him, and then repeated it there if he had something to do. Until he did it with a straightforward and basically met the standards, he stopped to rest. Zhang Zhun quickly understood that he wanted to work hard to return to normal life. To be precise, he was back in the army.

In his previous life, Zhang Zhun also felt this way. Many veterans who left the team felt confused and unadapted for a long time. They didn't know what they were going to do. Some non-commissioned officers even had phobia for retirement. They left their familiar military camps, left their familiar comrades, put down their killing skills, and became an ordinary person. If there is a mistake in the connection between them, they will fall into trouble or even go on a wrong path. Among veterans, there are actually many who go astray.

The situations of these military households in Liaodong are similar. The only thing they are good at is actually killing people and fighting. The combat effectiveness of the Ming army outside the pass is completely different from that inside the pass. Most of the Ming soldiers outside the pass have real skills. Because those without the ability have all died. The rest are naturally elites. If the command of the superiors is not too bad, they may not be opponents of the Tartars.

In the following two days, there was still no movement from the horse thief.

While waiting for the horse thieves to kill each other, Zhang Zhun and Xie Zhiyou said more. Xie Zhiyou did want to return to the army and live a normal life. Therefore, the questions raised by Zhang Zhun, as long as Xie Zhiyou knew, were answered in detail. Unfortunately, he was just a big-headed soldier, and there was not much knowledge. He knew that the Ming army was constantly defeated, defeated, and was defeated all the time. He lost a piece of land this month and a piece of next month. In the end, the entire Liaodong was gone and they were trapped on the front line of Shanhaiguan and Guangning.

In order to understand the combat effectiveness of the Ming army in Liaodong, Zhang Zhun also asked the sniper around him to compete with Xie Zhiyou, fighting with bare hands. As a result, he found that although Xie Zhiyou's actions were inappropriate and ugly, they were actually very effective. You can tell at a glance that they were trained on the battlefield. No wonder he was able to escape by chance even after experiencing so many battles. He really had some skills under his command.

Having said that, others are at least under the same flag as Huang Degong, and they will never be much worse than Huang Degong. At that time, the quality of individual soldiers of the Liaodong Ming Army was still commendable. The main reason for the defeat of the Ming army was the blind command of the Ministry of War and all civil servants. If they had changed to the real future command, they would definitely not have failed so miserably. Xiong Tingbi, Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan knew a little about military affairs, so that the Tartars could not move forward, which is the best proof. To be honest, the elite Ming army soldiers in Liaodong died unjustly!

"Sir, another horse thief has surrendered to you."

Wu Qingliang came to report in a hurry.

The two horse thieves came to surrender this time. They brought five companions' heads and seven war horses. These two were brothers. They cooperated with each other during the massacre with other horse thieves and actually killed five horse thieves. Their combat skills were actually not very good, and they were all brothers after all! Other horse thieves, because you fear me, I am wary of you and I dare not sleep at night, for fear that your companions would plot against him. As a result, after a period of time, they would be seriously depressed and their combat power would naturally be greatly reduced. The two brothers took turns to sleep and kept their energy. When both of them were infighting, they naturally took advantage of them.

Zhang Zhun still took their weapons and war horses, and then sent the corresponding silver. The two horse thieves took the silver and left in a hurry. Xie Youzhi was always paying attention to their movements. He originally thought that Zhang Zhun would kill them and take the silver back. However, Zhang Zhun did not do this, and the two horse thieves really left. Xie Zhiyou couldn't help but look at Zhang Zhun a few more times, his eyes wandering.

The arrival of these two brothers, horse thieves, seemed to have brought good luck to Zhang Zhun. More and more horse thieves came to surrender to the Hu Ben Army. In the next three days, Zhang Zhun received more than 60 horse thieves' heads and more than 70 war horses. At this time, officers at all levels of the Hu Ben Army were finally convinced. Zhang Zhun's plan was indeed effective. As long as the massacre between horse thieves was launched, it would definitely become more and more fierce, and more and more people would die. Once such internal strife was launched, it would be difficult to control.

Sure enough, two more days later, Zhang Lingyun hurried to report: "Sir, the horse thieves are in chaos!"

Zhang Zhun said casually: "Where is it?"

Zhang Lingyun said excitedly: "In the wild wolf's den."

He reported that three horse thieves ran out of the mountains and stumbled to surrender to the Hu Ben Army. However, they did not carry their companions' heads. It was not that they didn't want to carry them, but that there were too many heads and could not carry them. They did not dare to carry them. Because a large number of horse thieves, a total of seven or eight hundred people, had a large-scale bloody conflict in a place called the Wild Wolf's Nest. They saw that the opportunity was not good and hurriedly avoided them. Otherwise, they would have been trapped in the Wild Wolf's Nest.
Chapter completed!