The Gao family built a mourning hall and a burial mound.
The head of the Gao family, who showed his loyalty to the Ming Dynasty, wore mourning clothes to welcome the gentry of the Zhending Prefecture who came to express their condolences.
As mourning music sounded, Gao Shizhong walked in front of the coffin and led the way, scattering paper money towards the Gao family's ancestral graves.
The funeral etiquette is very complicated. Gao Shiliang's tomb was buried in the ancestral grave of the Gao family.
In front of the grave of his third brother Gao Shiliang, Gao Shizhong said categorically to all the gentry who came to attend the funeral:
"Everyone, please rest assured that our Gao family and the thieves in yellow are at odds with each other.
My third brother Gao Shiliang was brutally killed by thieves in yellow clothes for his loyalty to the country, and his body was not found.
Our Gao family will never compromise and will continue to lead everyone to be on the front line against the thieves in yellow."
Many gentry who attended the funeral felt relieved after hearing Gao Shizhong's assurance.
These gentry families are rich in martial virtue.
It's okay to let people like them provide people and food, but it's really impossible to let them go to the battlefield to fight.
Gao Shizhong took many gentry back to the Gao family's old home from their ancestral graves.
The servants of the Gao family distributed teacups to many gentry. The Gao family took out several jars of wine and poured a teacup for each person.
Gao Shizhong raised his glass and drank it all in one gulp, saying: "Everyone knows the brutal behavior of the thieves in yellow.
Their rise along the way, their attitude towards the gentry is obvious to everyone.
The thieves in yellow came to the place where we live and took away the fertile land that our ancestors had worked hard to save for generations.
Anyone willing to give up their fertile land to the thieves in yellow should leave the house.
Different road non-phase plan.
We are going to fight against the thieves in yellow. If any one is behind us then, don’t blame me, Gao Shizhong, for turning his back on us."
When Gao Shizhong saw that no gentry came out of the room, he continued: "The thieves in yellow only want fertile land. The Ming Dynasty is really unstoppable, and we don't care about changing dynasties.
There is no dynasty that lasts for a thousand years, but there is a family that lasts for a thousand years.
As long as the new dynasty still safeguards the interests of our gentry, then we will support it.
The thieves in yellow are completely different. Not only did they seize our farmland, they also killed us completely.
In particular, the thieves in yellow want to cut off famous scholars and our path to the imperial examination.
Who are those tenants? They are not even domestic slaves, they are cattle and horses that produce food for us.
If the cows and horses disobey, of course they will be killed to scare the monkeys.
For us to be able to like the wives and daughters of these tenant farmers is a blessing they have gained over eight lifetimes.
There were no gentry who ever killed tenant farmers and robbed their wives and daughters.
You can go and fight against the thieves in yellow, you don’t have to join forces with us to resist the thieves in yellow."
Gao Shizhong saw that no gentry was out, so the swordsman and axemen he arranged to kill chickens and scare monkeys were of no use.
He said with a tearful tone: "The thieves in yellow will kill our people even if they hide in our fields.
But giving us a glimmer of hope, who can really make up his mind to resist?
If you fail to resist the thieves in yellow, your family will be destroyed.
But if we don’t resist, sooner or later our family will be destroyed.
The thieves in yellow reformed the imperial examination, and Zhu Shengren's teachings were abandoned by the thieves in yellow.
They have cut off the roots of famous religions, so they want to develop the Xinxue and the theories of various schools of thought.
Our descendants, under the rule of the thieves in yellow, will no longer be able to hold office, which cuts off our inheritance."
When many gentry heard this, they shouted in unison: "Down with the thieves in yellow, protect the famous religion, and protect the good land."
Gao Shizhong said loudly: "If everyone can stay in our Gao family, then there is no way out and they can only resist the thieves in yellow with us.
If the thief in yellow comes, he will steal our land.
Take us away and sentence us to please those idiots.
Our children are sent to mines to mine, and they may one day freeze and starve to death in the dark mines.
Our wives and daughters were arbitrarily betrothed to Qiu Ba in the army by the thieves in yellow.
They would also point at our graves, spit, and mock us as cowards.
If everyone does nothing, this will definitely be the end.
Now the imperial court allows us to organize regiments and train armed forces, as long as we have our own army.
We can bring our own army to keep the yellow-clad thieves out of the city.
We must hold our destiny firmly in our own hands.
The Gao family's regiment training force is too weak now, and I need everyone's support to build a regiment training force that belongs to all the gentry in Zhending Mansion."
After Gao Shizhong finished speaking, he poured another teacup of wine and drank it in one gulp at the many gentry.
"I will follow Uncle Gao's arrangements."
A young man raised his head and shouted loudly.
He raised the tea cup and drank the wine in one breath.
The gentlemen were holding teacups. Some of them hesitated at first, but most of them drank the wine in the teacups directly.
The hesitant gentleman, seeing this situation, drank all the wine in his teacup.
After they drank Gao Shizhong's wine, they agreed to Gao Shizhong and provided money to organize team training with the Gao family.
When Gao Shizhong saw everyone's choices, a smile appeared on his face.
With the help of these gentry, the Gao family's regiment training will expand and it will become the largest regiment training in Zhending Mansion.
Gao Shizhong ordered the housekeeper to start registration immediately.
While everyone is in a bit of a frenzy, we need to finalize the matter of holding a large-scale group training.
Once they calmed down, they realized they had no way to resist the yellow-clad thieves, so they abandoned their possessions and ran south.
With only the strength of the Gao family, it is impossible to resist the thieves in yellow.
Gao Shizhong saw that another account book had been changed, and the writing skills of several accountants were sore.
He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled happily.
This time they expanded the scale of the regiment training and armed forces and raised 60,000 tenants.
There were also many concubine children of the gentry who joined the regiment training of Zhending Mansion and served as officers.
Every officer is accompanied by elite servants equipped by the gentry.
In addition to the 60,000 regiment training tenants, including the Gao family, these gentry spent a total of 200,000 taels of silver to run the regiment training.
It is used to purchase weapons and clothes for group training, and to provide military pay to group training members.
The most donated material by the gentry was food, and this donation was enough to feed Zhending Mansion for a year.
When Gao Shizhong saw this situation, he couldn't help but laugh twice.
"I immediately went to Commander Pang and asked him to find me a few more officers to be responsible for training these regiments.
Now the thieves in yellow have reached Guangping Mansion, which is not far away from our Zhending Mansion.
We must pay close attention to training, no matter what, let the regiment trainees learn how to arrange troops and how to shoot the enemy."
Gao Shizhong was about to say goodbye to many gentry, so he went to find Pang Yong, the commander of Shenwu Right Guards.
These gentry also want to go home to prepare the tenants to participate in group training and to raise the silver and food needed for the group training.
"Master, something big happened."
Gao Sanfu, the captain of the second team of the Gao Family Training Team, ran in with sweat on his face.
Gao Shizhong saw Gao Sanfu's performance. It was really useless for him to embarrass him in front of so many people.
"When something happened, I was shocked.
No matter how big the issue is now, it is not as important as our Gao family's expansion of team training.
You are not training our regiment with the Shenwu Right Guards.
Why did you run back by yourself? Could it be that you couldn't bear the pain there?"
Gao Sanfu immediately fell to his knees, his body trembling.
He said in a trembling tone: "Sir, the gentlemen of Shenwu Right Guards must evacuate Zhending Mansion."
When Gao Shizhong heard Gao Sanfu's report, his immediate reaction was that the Ming Dynasty's guard was going to run away.
No wonder the court asked them gentry to organize team training. It turned out that this mess was thrown to them gentry.
Gao Shizhong's previous idea was to rely on the Shenwu Right Guards and Zhending Guards of Zhending Mansion.
These two guards of the Ming army were the main force against the thieves in yellow clothes.
These group trainings are just to assist the Ming army and give them a hand.
Looking at the current situation, these team members will become the main force against the thieves in yellow.
The thieves in yellow are elite soldiers who have experienced hundreds of battles. They are just farmers who have just picked up weapons.
Even in a city defense battle, combat is extremely difficult.
Gao Shizhong has no confidence at all now, but he has no way out.
The carriage was speeding on the road, and Gao Shizhong took the carriage and rushed to Shenwu Youwei.
He wanted to ask Pang Yong for the specific situation.
Gao Shizhong came to the camp of Shenwu Right Guards and saw the soldiers of Shenwu Right Guards loading supplies into trucks.
A large number of horse-drawn carriages and mule-carts loaded with goods.
After Gao Shizhong said hello, he entered the Shenwu right guard camp and met with the guard commander Pang Yong.
He stepped forward, cupped his hands politely, and asked:
"Brother Pang, what's going on? How come you Shenwu Right Guards are packing your bags and leaving Zhending Mansion?"
"Brother Gao is here. I have too many things to do right now and can't entertain you.
We had a good stay in Zhending Mansion, and we didn’t want to leave Zhending Mansion.
There is no other way now, we must leave Zhending Mansion.
It's not just us who want to leave, the real guards in the city.
There are also the Shenwu vanguard and Dingzhou guards from Dingzhou who are all rushing to Baoding City."
When Gao Shizhong heard the news, it was like a bolt from the blue. The worst outcome he thought about actually happened.
He didn't expect that it wasn't just Shenwu Youwei who was leaving.
All the Ming Dynasty's guard posts in Zhending Mansion will be transferred.
Zhending Mansion now really only has regiment training and armed forces.
Gao Shizhong asked in confusion: "Brother Pang, we have been friends for decades, if you give me an accurate answer, why are you leaving?"
Pang Yong sighed and said: "You also know that my father-in-law is the commander of Daning City, and this yamen is established in Baoding.
Now Baoding is an important city to resist the yellow-robed thieves.
Yang Sichang, Grand Scholar Yang, will soon go to Baoding for inspection, and at the same time, he will bring sufficient military pay.
When he went to Tongzhou for inspection, he found that Tongzhou had insufficient troops, so he directly beheaded the two commanders of the Shenwu Zhongwei and Dingbian Guards.
In our Ming Dynasty, any guard post with half the number of soldiers is full and the generals are conscientious.
My father-in-law used his connections to learn about the intentions of Grand Master Yang Sichang.
He only looked at whether there were enough troops in the local area. How many troops the court paid would determine how many troops he would see.
Baoding Prefecture has five guard posts: Baoding Vanguard, Baoding Guard, Baoding Left Guard, Baoding Right Guard, and Baoding Central Guard.
Yang Sichang, Grand Scholar Yang, had to meet 28,000 people before he could pass this test.
What to do about the shortfall? Of course, we must find a way to make up for it.
Yang Sichang, Grand Scholar Yang, will not come to Zhending Mansion.
My father-in-law could only mobilize the soldiers and horses of the Zhending Prefecture's guard station to supplement the troops and horses of Baoding Prefecture.
It is an open secret that we do this.
The military attachés at Tianjin Guard were severely underpaid, and there were not many guard posts in the surrounding area, so they could only recruit young men from the civilian population to make up for the troops.
This is very easy for Yang Sichang and Grand Scholar Yang to spot the flaws.
What we do is a more advanced approach, and we are the real military households of the guards.
University student Yang doesn’t know which guard station we are from. I said that I am a military household member of the Baoding Right Guard, but he can’t tell."
When Gao Shizhong heard Pang Yong's statement, he immediately understood the truth behind the transfer of the Ming army.
"Brother Gao, our guard station can't take away too many things, so we'll sell the rest to your group training.
The price is very cheap, you can buy the weapons and armor of the guard."
When Gao Shizhong heard the news, he was extremely surprised.
I didn’t expect to get such good news during this trip.
Gao Shizhong asked with some concern: "This is the standard equipment of the army. Can we use it?"
When Pang Yong heard Gao Shizhong's words, he laughed.
Immediately ask someone to fetch it, the newly issued imperial edict of Emperor Chongzhen.
Pang Yong also explained to Gao Shizhong the tactics implemented by the Kaifeng Prefecture's officers and soldiers.
"Brother Gao, with Emperor Chongzhen's imperial edict, whatever your team will do in the future will be justified.
This method of Kaifeng Prefecture is extremely effective, especially for your regiment training."
Gao Shizhong thanked Pang Yong. With this imperial edict, he could make many articles.
He negotiated a price with Pang Yong and purchased a large number of weapons for the guards.
With these weapons, team training can truly have combat effectiveness.
Gao Shizhong bid farewell to Pang Yong, and went to Zhendingwei again, where he purchased a large number of weapons.
The commanders of the Zhending Guards were even more generous in their actions. They even sold Hongyi cannons and flintlock guns.
…………………………
Gao Shizhong looked at the gradually formed regiment training weapons.
From now on, he is the most powerful person in Zhending Mansion and controls the largest army in Zhending Mansion.
Just now he entered the Zhending Prefecture's Yamen, and the prefects were all polite to him.
At that time, Gao Shizhong experienced the feeling of holding huge power in his hands.
He looked at the group training and armed training and lectured:
"You go to the countryside this time and bring your seven aunts and eight aunts, as well as those who are willing to serve the Ming Dynasty, to Zhending Fucheng.
Outside the city, we must strengthen the walls and clear the fields, leaving not a grain of grain or a single well for the thieves in yellow.
We robbed all the food stored in the homes of everyone who was unwilling to follow us into the city.
If they are willing to follow the thief in yellow, then let the thief in yellow feed them.
Never leave a grain of Ming Dynasty food to them.
I threw a large number of corpses into the well outside the city and polluted all water sources."
Gao Shizhong gave the order, and the team trainers immediately began to take action.
They were previously very afraid of the Ming army plundering them.
But these people went to rob other people and did not hold back at all.
The Tuan Lian armed forces had no military discipline, and a large number of people were harmed by the Tuan Lian armed forces. The people had no choice but to flee for safety.
Gao Shizhong led a group of soldiers and horses to Lijia Village, and he immediately surrounded the village with his troops.
"Li Zhenxi, your family has successively defaulted on paying taxes to the court of eighty thousand taels.
Now make up the tax immediately and give it to me as team training funds, otherwise I won't be polite."
Gao Shizhong looked at the people in Lijiacun and saw them trembling.
He showed a very comfortable smile, the Gao family and the Li family were feuding.
Now the Tuan Lian Armed Forces of Zhending Prefecture is the dominant one.
The court also expected him to resist the thieves in yellow. Even if he committed some crimes, the court could only pretend that nothing happened.
Li Zhenxi was leaning on crutches when he saw Gao Shizhong leading troops to surround Lijia Village.
He said arrogantly: "Gao Shizhong, you have to think about it, our family and the Supervisory Censor King Wei Wang are related by marriage.
You are a small group coach, but you behave so domineeringly, I will ask Mr. Wang Wei to take a copy of you."
Gao Shizhong waved his hand and said:
"Li Zhenxi colluded with the thieves in yellow, and the Zhending Mansion team trained to clear out Lijia Village for me."
Li Zhenxi hit Gao Shizhong with a walking stick.
"Let's see who dares."
Li Zhenxi was hit by an arrow and fell to the ground. The regiment trained armed forces and entered Lijia Village.
Gao Shizhong showed a cheerful smile. He found that with soldiers in his hands, he could directly eliminate dissidents.
As long as he defeats the thief in yellow, he will become the biggest gentry in Zhending Mansion.
