Chapter 228: Sorting the Prisoners, Breaking the Ice
Zhao Xueqi concealed the truth from Shi Dayong, that is, he was not coerced into becoming a thief, but became a thief voluntarily.
Zhao Xueqi is indeed from Wuqiao, and he does have the reputation of being a scholar, but he is a restless scholar. He is a man who prides himself on being the ruler of the world. It is a pity that he may become a prime minister one day. The cruel fact makes him young.
Nearly forty years old, but he is still a poor scholar whose path to the imperial examination has failed.
Therefore, the heavy snowfall in Wuqiao not only changed the fate of the Dongjiang Liao soldiers led by Kong Youde, but also changed the fate of Zhao Xueqi, a poor scholar in the same town.
When the rebels showed up at the door of his house, Zhao Xueqi said to his wife, "A real man can have fine food and wine every day, so how can he have a simple meal every day!" Then he left his wife and went out to slay the thief.
As the first scholar to surrender, and also a scholar, the arrival of Zhao Xueqi made Chen Youyou, who always respected scholars, overjoyed [
There were many scholars who were captured by him, and one of them even had a good academic background. However, with one exception, these people all refused Chen Tongqi's coercion and never contributed to the rebels. There was nothing they could do about it, either soft or hard.
Chen sometimes did not bother to kill these scholars, but continued to raise them in the camp. He followed Liu Bei's example and visited the thatched cottage three times every day, hoping to impress these scholars into serving him. However, these scholars were as determined as eating weights.
, always unmoved
Chen sometimes tried his best to use both soft and hard tactics, but there was nothing he could do against these scholars. Therefore, compared with these stubborn scholars, Zhao Xueqi's submission became more and more valuable. With the purpose of buying a horse bone for a thousand gold, Chen sometimes
He also has great trust in Zhao Xueqi, almost to the point of obeying his words.
Zhao Xueqi was worthy of his ambition in life, and he still had some ability. After seeing the uprising of Kong Youde's army, he did not do anything positive. Instead, he burned, killed and looted everywhere, without any plans for the future. Therefore, he suggested to Chen You,
He asked Marshal Kong to imitate Emperor Hongwu, accumulate grain widely, build high walls, find a solid base to slow down development, and wait for the situation in the Central Plains to change drastically before sending his troops northward.
After his suggestion was forwarded to Kong Youde by Chen Youde, Kong Youde, Li Jiucheng and others agreed, so they took advantage of Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, to lead his troops eastward in an attempt to seize Denglai as a base. Zhao Xueqi also relied on this suggestion
Chen sometimes looked up to him with admiration, and was often referred to as "Mr. Zhao" by others.
It's a pity that Chen You is a pirate after all, and he is still the same in his heart. He did not follow Zhao Xueqi's suggestion to attack Shang County and exterminate the capital camp. Instead, he led his troops to attack Hexian County, which had financial but strategic value.
Let the Jinzhou Army pick up a loophole, and when he came out in full force, they fought thrillingly all the way to the door of his house.
When the fighting on the other side was fierce, Zhao Xueqi in the town had known about it for a long time. Because he didn't know how many officers and soldiers were coming, he did not dare to leave the town easily until the sound of gunfire on the other side stopped.
After learning that the general was defeated by the official army, the rebels in the town suddenly became panicked and panicked. Many people said that there was no way to make a profit in Shahe. They should immediately go east to Dengzhou to find the main force of the general before the official army had crossed the river.
Rendezvous, if it's late, it'll be too late
At first, Zhao Xueqi also wanted to go east, but he thought that once the Shahe River was lost, Kong Jun would lose his retreat and be blocked by the army in Denglai. It would be difficult to do anything in the future.
Following an army that has no future and continuing to rebel is definitely not the choice of a smart man like Zhao Xueqi. After weighing the pros and cons, he will pull General Qi Sanbao aside and first threaten him, saying how powerful the army is and how powerful it is.
The general's thousands of soldiers and horses were annihilated by them in half an hour. It can be seen that this time there are more officers and soldiers than the last time in the Beijing camp, and they can beat them. Even if they escape to Denglai and find Marshal Kong, they can't escape from the officers and soldiers.
encirclement and suppression
Instead of going all the way to the dark side, it is better to just leave it alone and lead everyone to join the army. No matter how bad it is, we can always save everyone's lives. If God has eyes, we might even be able to get an official position.
Qi Sanbao is a man who has no independent opinions. When he saw the general, he obeyed Mr. Zhao's advice and praised him as the reincarnation of Zhuge. Therefore, in Qi Sanbao's view, what Mr. Zhao said must be reasonable, otherwise the general would not
He values him so much. Now that the general is not here, there are only so many people in the town, and there are so many officers and soldiers, this battle is absolutely illegal. Mr. Zhao said, anyway, let’s do it anyway.
Better than being a rebel
The rebels who stayed in the town were mostly young men who were coerced by Kong's army from all over Beizhili after the Wuqiao Uprising. Naturally, they had no sense of belonging to the rebels and they were all uneducated farm boys. It didn't matter.
As soon as Zhao Xueqi and Qi Sanbao explained their opinions, the rebels immediately agreed.
But whether the officers and soldiers would accept their offer anyway, and whether they would settle the scores later, everyone still had no idea. It was getting dark, and no one knew what was going on on the other side. So, the people of Shahe came to be.
Reward the troops
Zhao Xueqi wanted to use the excuse of rewarding the troops to find out the tone of the officers and soldiers on the other side. If the other side refused to accept them anyway, he would have no choice but to flee to Dengzhou overnight.
In fact, there are no ordinary people in Shahe Town anymore. More than 2,000 of the original residents, old and young, were massacred by Li Jiucheng and his men when Kong Youde led his army through.
Later, Chen Ou was ordered to guard the Shahe River, and he brought hundreds of captive women from Beizhili with him. In addition, there were more than a hundred young men in the town who worked hard for the rebels, and they were all farmers in the Beizhili area.
When Qi Sanbao returned and reported the news that the generals had agreed to allow them to return, all the rebels in the town went to the river to camp again. The rebels did not dare to take the women with them, so they all stayed in the town.
Under the supervision of Jiang Wanli's two hundred soldiers, Qi Sanbao and his subordinates were very content and did not adapt to the sudden change from rebels to official soldiers. On the contrary, they all looked complacent, especially when they saw the random soldiers on the other side.
When Chen Shihe's brothers in Hehe County were all captured by the army, they all took pleasure in his misfortune.
Here, Li Dashan and Shao Wu led the people to forcibly divide the prisoners into several groups. The torches were scattered everywhere, lighting up the wilderness like daylight.
In order to prevent accidents from happening during the process of picking people, Cao Bianjiao led the wolf cavalry to occupy a small slope to wait for the prisoners. Although the prisoners were commotion, they still knew the principle of not taking immediate losses. When he saw the official cavalry looking at them eagerly, he naturally couldn't help it.
Dare to make trouble
Peng Dachui and his group of horse thieves were ordered by Shi Dayong to help select people. After seeing the Liao army defeat thousands of rebels with hundreds of cavalry, the group of horse thieves became even more convinced. Several horse thieves had already told Peng Sihai privately that this Liao army
If you can fight like this, you might as well just go with them, instead of hiding around and holding your head up every day and being killed by the officers and soldiers at any time.
According to Shi Dayong's request, the Jinzhou Army began to select those who were strong and healthy from the prisoners, but most of the prisoners looked the same. In terms of physical fitness alone, there would be no more than a hundred prisoners who could meet the standard of being strong.
In recent years, natural disasters in North Zhili are not as rare as those in the west. People are generally malnourished. Most of the young people come from ordinary families and do not eat well. Naturally, they cannot be strong.
But in this way, it is a long way from the one thousand people required by Shi Dayong. How should this person be selected?
Shao Wu and the others had no idea. In the end, it was Li Dashan who had the idea. His early experience as a bandit gave him a way to distinguish between strong and weak people, and that was to pick out those with rosier complexions. No matter what their height and shape were, they would all be the same.
Count them among the able-bodied
Shi Dayong also agreed with this method of selecting people. Theoretically speaking, these young people from Beizhili were kidnapped by the rebels at different times. Before that, most of them had the same physique, and there was no difference between them.
After rebelling, they plundered with the rebels and ate wine and meat. This nutrition will definitely increase. Therefore, whether the complexion is rosy or not has become the best benchmark to distinguish the time when the young and strong surrendered to the thieves. It is also the best to distinguish the strong and weak among them.
Method
No matter where you are, stronger people can always eat better than weaker ones. This has been almost a truth for thousands of years.
Under this standard, more than 700 people were quickly selected. Then, among the remaining people, those with thick calluses on their hands were selected. The thickness of the calluses did not refer to the calluses ground out with a hoe, but the calluses ground with a knife.
cocoon
We are all soldiers. It is easy to tell whether the calluses on a person's hands are caused by holding a knife or a hoe.
Although there may be errors, they are also extremely rare.
In this way, after half an hour of work, a thousand "strong and strong" rebels were selected one by one.
The remaining forty or so Dongjiang Liao soldiers were all included, and the former bandits and bandits were also caught in one round. Who made their faces too rosy and their hands too thick with calluses?
The captives each had their own ideas as to why the officers and soldiers wanted to select people. After seeing that the officers and soldiers allowed the rebels in the town to rebel, most of the prisoners thought that the officers and soldiers wanted to select strong men to expand their troops, just like
The same as when the rebels coerced them
Therefore, during the process of selecting people, most of the prisoners behaved quite cooperatively, but some of them smelled a signal of danger, especially when they saw someone among the officers and soldiers suddenly walking to the frozen sand river to observe back and forth, and from time to time they took the
If something pokes here and there, the uneasiness becomes more intense
However, they were surrounded by officers and soldiers with swords and blunderbuss, and not far away there were eyeing cavalry. Prisoners who sensed danger wanted to resist, but they had to first ask the officers and soldiers whether they would accept their swords and blunderbuss.
The subordinates were busy selecting people, while Shi Dayong took Guo Yi to inspect the terrain. According to Qi Sanbao, there was a bridge on the Liusha River, but after Kong Youde's army passed by, the bridge was removed to prevent the army from pursuing them.
After it was demolished, when Chen sometimes took them to Shahe River, he originally wanted to rebuild the bridge, but then he found another bridge three miles downstream, so he gave up the plan of rebuilding this bridge.
Later, the weather suddenly got cold and the Liusha River froze. The ice was not very thick at first, but after two days the ice was thick enough for people and horses to walk on, so they didn’t even need to take a detour downstream.
Qi Sanbao's statement explained Shi Dayong's confusion. At first, he thought that Chen Shi had stationed the main force on this side of the river and left only a few soldiers and horses in the town, so that the former students could fight.[
After observing the broken bridge for a while, Shi Dayong rode towards the middle of the river. Song Qing was leading people to smash ice there.