Minzhuang was a local militia organization founded during the Zhengtong period, and was one of the four government corvee groups.
Because Minzhuang is assembled and practiced twice a month by the local governor, it is also called Tuanzhuang or Tuanlian. In different places, it has different names depending on the skills it relies on, such as machine soldiers, quick hands, thugs, archers, etc.
wait.
The residential houses and kilns in Xingpingli are all on the mountainside, while Liujiamao is a flat-topped hill surrounded by residential buildings, relying on the Loess Plateau. The altitude of this flat-topped hill itself is not high.
Climbing up the mountain, in the loess primary school ground on the platform, I saw more than ten strong men in peasant uniforms, with seven or eight children waiting nearby. Liu Juren stood in the middle, wearing a square scarf on his head and a green Taoist robe with a large belt.
, holding a small stick behind his back, directing four people to strengthen their skills.
Under a tree in a corner of the small school grounds, there is also a warrior wearing armor. Judging from the style of his helmet and spear, he should be a junior guard officer of the Yan'an Guard.
Liu Chengzong's eye for archery was extremely sharp, and he could tell at a glance that the firearms held by the four people were blunderbuss. There was a row of wooden targets set more than 20 steps away from them.
The blunderbuss is a front-mounted matchlock gun. It was introduced to China during the Tuen Mun naval battle in the 16th year of Emperor Wuzong's reign in the Ming Dynasty. It has a history of 108 years and is not a new item.
During these 108 years, there was the Korean War that broke out in the Wanli Year, and the unprecedented prosperity of the silk trade to the Spanish colony of the Philippines. Almost the prototypes of muskets produced by various countries in this era can be found in the Ming Dynasty.
The bird gun is the most common small-caliber front-loading matchlock gun installed by the armies of various countries today.
Up to now, the Ming Dynasty has made great progress in firearms, including walking bird blunderbuss, riding bird blunderbuss, and even developing Franco-style rapid-fire bird blunderbuss and blunderbuss knives based on the local hot and cold mixed weapons fast guns.
Liu Chengzong saw in Yuhe Fort that the bird gun soldiers were equipped with a short straight-edged sword, which could be inserted into the mouth of the gun for close combat during battle.
People who use muskets are also called machine soldiers.
When recruited by the government, local machine soldiers will be incorporated into the regular army as musketeer reserves.
At this time, four machine soldiers were holding match ropes and holding blunderbuss. The small school grounds were silent and everyone looked nervous.
Liu Juren raised his hand and lowered it. They put the four-foot-long bird gun on the ground, took off the medicine pot from their waists and poured medicine into the small medicine tube.
After a few breaths, Liu Juren raised his hand again and dropped it, and the soldiers poured the gunpowder in the tube into the blunderbuss tube; again giving the order, they pulled out the stick from under the blunderbuss tube, turned it over in their hands, inserted it into the blunderbuss tube, and pressed it downwards.
Gunpowder, skilled movements.
The fourth command is to put ammunition into the barrel; the fifth command is to compact it again with the stick.
After the sixth order, the gun was finally leveled. The soldier took out the small medicine pot from his waist and poured the primer into the small medicine pool on the side of the gun.
With the seventh order, the soldiers untied the match ropes wrapped around their arms and installed them on the blunderbuss' faucet pole. At this time, the blunderbuss was finally ready for use.
The four of them were two in front and two behind. The one in the front was half-kneeling, and the one in the back was standing and aiming his gun. However, Liu Juren put his hands behind his back and said nothing. He waited for a moment until the soldier's deadlocked arms could no longer bear the weight of the gun and began to shake.
, and then finally gave the order: "Let it go!"
The muskets did not go off as Liu Chengzong imagined. All four soldiers pulled the triggers at the same time, and the match rope held by the faucet rod accurately landed on the medicine pool, but none of the four muskets went off.
This scene seemed to be expected by everyone, only he didn't know.
Shi Wanzhong explained in a low voice: "The government approved a small amount of medicine, and the master rarely used it in military training. The gunpowder and primer were filled with fine soil."
After a complete cannon shooting training was over, Liu Juren stepped forward, holding a small stick of wood, and lectured each soldier. It seemed that no one had reached the standard in his mind, and ordered each of them to reach out and use a small wooden stick in the palm of his hand.
Go up a few times.
This action was particularly familiar to Liu Chengzong, who was watching from the sidelines. When he and his brother were studying, his father would urge them to study in this way.
However, he has not yet begun to enlighten. Perhaps Mr. Liu found a trick to urge children to study hard. Whenever he made a mistake, he would let Chengzu reach out and be beaten while Chengzong watched from the side.
Because of this, the first idiom Liu Chengzong learned from elementary school was to kill the chicken to scare the monkey, and he studied most diligently.
When he turned around, he raised his eyebrows fiercely at Liu Chengzong, who was standing on the side of the primary school holding a horse. He turned around and said to the soldiers with a straight face: "Clean the barrels and rest for a while. Think about your actions carefully. Later, we will repeat the formation."
Then turn on the fire and play the quiz."
After saying that, he turned to the guard officer standing aside and said: "General Peng Qi, please call for the flag later and set off the gunpowder."
Liu Juren was in his prime. Because his family was poor when he was young, others started to gain weight at their thirties. By the time he was in his early forties, he had not started to gain weight even after being imprisoned for a year. His body was still well-proportioned and his mental state was good.
"Father."
"Why are you back?" Liu Xiangyu frowned and stared at his second son's face, which turned from sunny to gloomy. It was obvious that the current situation made him think of bad things, so he simply said: "Go home first, don't go out and don't see anyone."
Liu Chengzong didn't understand at first, but when he heard this sentence, he understood that his father regarded him as a deserter, and said quickly: "Not only me, my brother is also back."
He briefly explained to Liu Xiangyu the situation of the return, including the defeat of Bai Yingzi, and said: "My elder brother asked me to come back to find someone to find a truck to transport the grain. The grain truck is too heavy and I really can't pull it back."
Knowing that his son was not a deserter, Liu Xiangyu felt much more relaxed.
After all, he was a man who was used to being an official. He gave orders with open hands and called a few young children from the schoolyard: "Go to the fields and call people, let each family lead the donkey and drive the cart. Minzhuang took the weapons and went down the mountain, and went to Qingpingchuan with me."
Pick someone up.”
"You have run for forty miles, do you want to go home for a meal or should you follow me? Then we can talk while walking on the road."
After saying that, Liu Xiangyu turned to talk to Mr. Peng Qi who was waiting aside. Mr. Peng just nodded without saying much and let the little boy in the village lead him to rest. Before leaving, he bowed his hand to Liu Chengzong.
Within a moment, more than a dozen civilians took spears, boring machines, waist knives and other weapons from the school field, and followed Mr. Liu down the hill in a mighty manner.
At the foot of the mountain, several villagers also gathered, and there were people pushing handcarts and donkey carts on the path toward the village.
The days that have just begun in spring are not considered slack for farming, but the drought has made people idle, leaving them with plenty of time to be busy.
"Why does father know how to train soldiers?"
"This is training troops, not leading them. Training only requires regulations and prestige. Do you think that as a father, you don't even have the prestige to make others obey?"
When Liu Xiangyu said this, there was no doubt that Liu Chengzong did not question it. He was just a little puzzled, took off his helmet and walked a few steps in silence before saying: "Father has his own prestige, but this is different from before."
My father is a civil servant and has been an official for more than ten years. Although he is not the chief magistrate of the county, he is respected enough by the folks and elders in his hometown.
But respect is not prestige, and what he saw and heard this time, everyone obeyed, was no longer respect.
What's more, the training of the National Youth League was not their family's business in the past. In addition, his hometown was now different from other places, with a vibrant atmosphere of hope. Liu Chengzong had so many doubts in his mind that he didn't know where to start.
Liu Xiangyu took the air for a moment, and when his son was silent, he turned around with a complicated smile that was both proud and sad: "As a father who was convicted for his words, he knows best that the disaster is coming."
"Last year, the new Emperor of Mongolia ascended the throne and granted amnesty to the whole world. When he returned to his hometown, he summoned his clan uncles and decided on farming for the year. He mobilized the villagers to dredge the Panlongchuan canal and plant more drought-tolerant grains."
"Last year, I heard from the prefect's yamen about the Guyuan mutiny and the rise of bandits in northern Shaanxi. I also invited Peng Zongqi from the Yan'an Guard to teach the children in the village martial arts... It's just a pity for the younger generation."
Liu Xiangyu stopped walking and sighed in a very soft voice: "Why didn't my family get a chance to take the imperial examination?"
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Note:
1. Team training in the Ming Dynasty.
In the Ming Dynasty, Minzhuang was selected from among the common people, and its main members were rural farmers who had not received formal training.
In order to allow Minzhuang to have capabilities close to those of the regular army, the Ming Dynasty took a series of measures to train them. During the Tianshun and Zhengde years, they also provided venues, weapons, and military pay.
Later, most of the officials responsible for this matter were perfunctory or used central funds to line their own pockets. This powerful force gradually fell into disuse.
2. Fran's bird gun, the gun blade comes from the "Bing Lu" printed in the third year of Chongzhen by He Rubin, the deputy general of the Ningshao Army in the Ming Dynasty and the soul painter.
Formula, twenty-seven pages of Zimu gun fraction.
The book was destroyed in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong's reign.
