In the early morning two days later, the thunderstorm had begun to subside, and the air in the castle was very good.
Liu Chengzong stood in the open space of the castle and drew his bow fully, looking at the red willow branch twenty steps away with hatred in his eyes, as if there was another version of himself on the target.
Biao let out an arrow, and the arrow shaft flew violently and sank into the target made of bundles of red willow branches.
He put down his bow, frowned and looked at the target from a distance, exhaled a sigh of relief, and said to Master Chen: "Don't be discouraged, everything is difficult at the beginning."
Liu Shizi looked at the blue sky connecting the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and seemed to see countless Dharma kings and nobles in the sky, smiling eerily at him.
Master Chen lowered his head and sighed. He knew that the Generalissimo was actually trying to cheer himself up by saying this.
He never lost heart because he never had confidence in the progress the Generalissimo said.
Even sometimes, Master Chen felt that working around Liu Chengzong was like serving the great monk in the temple when he was a child.
I don't understand what you are saying, and I don't know what you are thinking, but I know that it will be good for me to do what you say.
He said to the commander, "Actually, I think it's good not to have to worry about the slaves. It's like this. Let the slaves become new nobles. They only know this. We can't let them suddenly become enlightened and want to become someone we have never seen before.
People who don’t know.”
Liu Chengzong put away his bow and arrows, with an expressionless face, pointing towards the stone pier on the edge of the open space and saying: "Go over there and say it."
Master Chen doesn't understand, he must fight against this system.
Not because of revolution, not because of liberation, not because of productivity, not because of power, but because of combat effectiveness.
The army he leads is composed of a group of exiled soldiers and frustrated officials who wield extreme force. They must become a political power and establish their own country.
If in Juerwan and Qinghai Lake, he still had the option of turning a blind eye to this system, they would naturally form a local government that was slightly more advanced than the Ming Dynasty.
But after he advanced into the hinterland of Qinghai, this option disappeared.
The system here will corrode him, corrode his army, and turn them from a group of desperadoes traveling four thousand miles into scattered slave owners.
The weak and bullied nobles, the submissive slaves, and the power of life and death can evoke the darkest things in people's hearts.
Who doesn’t want to be a slave owner?
When the two sat next to them, Liu Chengzong asked: "What do you mean when you say they have never seen or heard of someone?"
Master Chen just said it casually, but Liu Chengzong was so serious that he became nervous. After organizing his words for a while, he said: "Commander, I don't know if what I said is right..."
Liu Chengzong raised his hand and said, "Just say it."
"I was born in a chieftain's family. I have seen my father flatter Shangguan many times since I was a child. I am very satisfied with being the second son of the chieftain's family. I know that the commander-in-chief does not like monks, but what I want most is to be a monk, to be leisurely, comfortable, and have someone to take care of my status.
High."
Liu Chengzong did not regard this as idle chatter. He heard the implication of Chen Shifo's words. The slaves had never seen free people, they had only seen nobles. What they wanted most was not free people, but masters who could enslave others. p>
He asked: "Then why didn't you become a monk in the end?"
"I want to marry my mother-in-law."
Although he was very happy, Master Chen's eyes were full of sadness: "I'm not afraid of the handsome man's jokes. When I was sixteen years old, I fell in love with a shepherdess in Haibei and wanted to marry her back home, but my father wouldn't allow it. My family is a little chieftain, so it's not easy.
All the money was given to the temple, and the commander-in-chief also knew it."
"I recited sutras for people and rented a house in the west of Xining City for her to live there. My father always sent people to drive her back to Haibei. I felt very sorry for her. I gave her all the money for copying sutras. I shouldn't...
”
Chen Shifo shook his head, crossed his hands in front of him, and clasped them hard: "The last time I gave her money, she used the money to buy arsenic from the Han people."
Liu Chengzong patted him. No wonder there was a fake monk in Chen Shiwen's family who had not graduated. He came here to find a job.
Master Chen let out a long sigh: "I never went back to the temple after that. I didn't go home until my father died..."
This guy was open-minded, responded quickly, and brought the topic back: "After that, I don't want to be a monk anymore. I want to be an accountant. Mr. Accountant can live a leisurely life and make more money."
"I have met monks, accountants and chieftains, and they are not restricted by my origin, so I don't want to be a chieftain, I want to be a monk and accountant. The limitations of slaves' origins prevent them from wanting to do anything else, and if they don't
Due to family background restrictions, what they want most is not free farmers."
Liu Chengzong nodded: "I know, he is a noble gentleman."
He smiled helplessly and said: "Let's do this first. Let Mr. Basang lead his slave soldiers to fight everywhere and wipe out all the nobles of the Gama family. We first go east and defeat Baili. We can't drag the war until winter.
”
Liu Chengzong has sent a message to Haibei, asking Chengyun to find Chen Shiwen and ask for someone who is proficient in Chinese language to be a teacher for the troops left behind.
Everyone in the remaining troops must learn the Spanish language.
Half of his soldiers came from peasant uprisings, and the other half were people who had suffered hardships. Even without deliberate training, they still have strong inciting abilities.
It's just that here, their ability to incite cannot be used at all...the language barrier.
In the next two days, Liu Chengzong selected the general who guarded Nangqian Fort, Huang Shengxiao, the commander of Qianqian Artillery Battalion, and ordered him to guard here, renovate the fort, transport four lion cannons up, and collect copper materials with the help of Ga Ma.
Castle cast cannon.
The garrison size is one thousand, with 200 soldiers and 80 Western craftsmen stationed on the mountain, and 800 sergeants stationed at the foot of the mountain.
Basang's army gathered in Nangqian, making Chen Shifo dizzy.
At the foot of the mountain, at the gate of Gama's slave barracks, Liu Chengzong saw Basang for the first time.
From a distance, I saw Master Chen approaching on horseback, and a crowd of dark people ran out of the camp, bending down and touching the ground with their foreheads.
Master Chen almost fell off his horse in fright, so he quickly ran over to wake them up.
He knew that Liu Shizi hated others kneeling down and kowtow.
He tried to persuade them twice, but no one listened. Finally, he swung his whip in the air and gave them orders, and everyone got up obediently.
People call him Master Chen, the master’s master.
After getting up, Chen Shifo introduced to them that the person behind him was Generalissimo Liu Chengzong, but people did not respond.
He said: "He is the master's master's master."
With a crash, the dark crowd knelt down again.
Chen Qindai accompanied Liu Chengzong. He rode in front, turned around and smiled bitterly: "Commander, what do you think...how do you do this?"
"What's the matter with this? I used to kneel when I saw the general, but you didn't kneel when you saw General Li before?"
Liu Chengzong shook his head: "They only know this. Now that we are here, they will know more. It will be fine in the future."
Liu Shizi is not pessimistic at all about these people who are kneeling down. On the contrary, he is very optimistic.
These people are like blank slates. From birth to now, they have never really learned anything other than executing orders. Some things have just been burned into their guts and become instinctive.
He is not afraid.
Chen Shifo swung the riding whip twice more and brought Basang over. Liu Chengzong got off his horse and looked at the young man in front of him carefully.
Basang gave him the impression that he was a lucky man.
This man was wearing a black and gray old sheepskin jacket, which looked like it had been oiled. The wool of the jacket was sticky and shiny with dirt. He wore a chainmail armor with a broken chest, and an iron tassel with white tassels on his head.
Helmet.
Half of the helmet was stained brown with blood.
If there is no comparison, he will feel that Basang is very pitiful.
But among the hundreds of slaves behind Basang, Liu Chengzong did not see the second sheepskin coat.
Most of them wore clothes made of torn coarse cloth sewn together, with the edges frayed to expose the threads. There were even a few elderly people wearing completely tattered old cloth strips.
Compared with them, the sheepskin jacket on Basang's body is simply elegant and luxurious.
Based on this, Liu Chengzong believed that choosing Basang as the new master might not be a good choice.
They should find someone who is close to death without enough food and clothing. Basang's old sheepskin jacket, no matter how dirty it is, is enough to prevent him from freezing to death while sleeping in the wild. Liu Chengzong smiled and said: "Your previous master was not bad to you."
Master Chen stared and asked, "Commander, do I want to tell him this?"
Liu Chengzong nodded, raised his hand and said: "Let him raise his head."
Basang raised his head carefully and with difficulty, and said: "Both the master and Master Duoji are very good to me."
"You have lowered your head for too long. Your neck needs training. Lift your head, straighten your back, stop kneeling, and tell everyone."
After Master Chen finished speaking, Liu Chengzong said: "They are very good to you, so do you still want to go back?"
Basang didn't answer. He thought for a while, with unconcealed vigilance in his eyes, and shook his head slightly: "I don't want to go back."
Master Chen was very satisfied with Basang's answer and breathed a sigh of relief: "Commander, he said he doesn't want to go back."
Liu Chengzong shook his head and said, "Ask him again why he doesn't want to go back."
Sometimes it is good to not understand people's words, which allows him to focus all his attention on the other person's subtle expressions and demeanor.
Basang's expression showed that this reluctance was not because it was better to be here. Here he was a master, but when he returned he would be a slave.
Sure enough, not knowing what Basang said, Master Chen almost jumped up in anxiety, muttered a few words, and was so angry that his teeth itched, and then he said to Liu Chengzong: "Commander, he said he didn't want to go back because we let him go."
If he leads his troops back, he will harm his master and young master."
Liu Chengzong was not as angry as Master Chen, he just sighed in his heart.
His mentality is very complicated, and loyalty is inherently valuable. Even if the person in front of him is a slave, it is a rare character to not forget his old master.
It's just that he doesn't know how this slave grows, and he looks smarter than Master Chen.
"You have a very careful heart."
Liu Chengzong asked Chen Shifo to call all the slave soldiers outside the camp gate back to the camp, and he and the two of them entered the camp to find a place to sit.
He looked at the camp full of ragged soldiers, turned to Basang, who was sitting on a tree stump, and said to him: "In the Tang Dynasty, there was a man named Li Yide, who was also a slave and ran away from his master."
"Later, following Emperor Xuanzong's coup, he was appointed as General Wuwei. The past owner met him on the road and hid elsewhere. He invited him into the mansion and personally served the old owner food and wine."
"He left his old master to stay at home for a few days. He went to court and told the emperor that the official position and salary he received as a result of the country's favor were too high. His old master was of low status and had no official position. He asked the emperor to give him half of his official salary.
His old master hoped that Emperor Xuanzong could satisfy his foolish request."
"You should be able to understand this story."
After Chen Shifo finished translating, Basang thought for a while and looked at Liu Chengzong with a blank look on his face.
"In your place, slaves fight for their masters. No matter how brave they are, they can only wear the skin of a wolf or a tiger. When they go back, they are still slaves, and their official positions are all nobles."
Liu Chengzong pointed to himself: "But there are no nobles here. A person who uses his talents to fight bravely for the monarch can get an official position that only nobles can do... This is new, right?"
"Slavery is not enough to tap all people's talents. I want to do something bigger than the coup of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, so I have to let people learn and exercise and mobilize all the wisdom and strength of everyone. The nobles have too many things.
A generation of fifteen years, they must be finished."
"No one can stop me, not even your master, your old master, what is different from other nobles is you."
Liu Chengzong pointed at Basang: "Not used to sitting? You will get used to it. If you don't serve me wholeheartedly, they may not die, or they may die. A sword and a gun have no eyes, who can say for sure?" p>
After being translated by Master Chen, some of his words could be understood by Basang, while others could not be understood by Basang.
But Basang understood the story about Li Yide during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty.
He said: "I serve you wholeheartedly. If I hold an official position that can only be held by nobles in the future, can I give half of the official position and salary to Master Duoji?"
"Haha!"
Liu Chengzong shook his head: "I am not Tang Xuanzong, and I will not allow such a stupid request, but if you say you want them to live, I can let them live. I have dozens of acres of land, hire two people, and don't have to die or die.
Sleeping under the ladder."
While Basang was thinking, Liu Chengzong frowned and looked at this simple camp.
There are not only men in the camp, but also women, and there are even women holding unweaned babies.
Some people set up archery targets and practiced archery, but more people just sat on the ground meaninglessly. The women took care of their babies with open arms, and the men found a corner to defecate.
He turned to Chen Shifo and said: "In the afternoon, you go and ask some pastoral soldiers who understand the Western language to help, and ask the women in the camp to set up a small camp nearby. I will send you a few officers, and you can make up a small camp.
Set up military laws and read them out in the camp."
"Composing military law? I don't know how to do it, Commander."
"I want you to write, the first one is to dig four latrine pits 40 to 50 steps outside the camp, and bury them on the spot after leaving the camp, otherwise you will get sick."
Liu Chengzong shook his head, but he still thought nothing of it. Slaves alone could not form an army. No one had received military education, and the chaos in the camp was worse than that of bandits and robbers.
In the future, more and more slave soldiers will be recruited, and this cannot continue.
He asked Basang: "Have you made up your mind? Are you going to take these slaves back to your noble master and then destroy them together with me? Or are you going to work for me down-to-earth and save your master in the future?"
Order...don’t kneel when you’re sitting!”
As soon as Basang's butt left the tree stump, he pushed it back hard. Liu Chengzong never expected that this guy could actually sit down and kowtow, saying: "I will serve the master's master!"
