An hour later, Yao Yuanwai and other local gentry brought more than 700 strong men from their respective families to the county government to gather. Fortunately, they basically all had weapons in their hands. But these weapons
There are various types. Some people even only hold farm tools and sticks in their hands.
After a while, Zhou Xun also ran to the county seat with one hundred and fifty soldiers sweating profusely, and Li Sanhe also followed Zhou Xun to the county seat.
However, although Zhou Xun and others brought thirty heavy-duty firecrackers and ten three-eye firecrackers, they did not bring much gunpowder. Wu Shigong immediately sent people to the entire county to collect gunpowder. However, in the end, they only collected
It cost more than ten kilograms. Most of the gunpowder in the entire county had been bought back by Wu Shigong.
However, in order to strengthen Wu Shigong's long-range attack capability, Xue Yongli asked Zhou Xun and others to bring fifty bows and a thousand arrows.
Wu Shigong calculated it. With these gunpowder, thirty heavy-duty firecrackers and ten three-eye firecrackers, plus the twenty-odd medium-sized firecrackers guarded by Wu Shigong, each gun can fire at most thirty rounds of bullets.
.
Since there was not enough gunpowder, we still had to rely on cold weapons. So Wu Shigong ordered Zhou Xun to divide these strong men into groups of ten. Then these strong men were allowed to accept the training subjects when new soldiers first started training weapons. They were:
A group of ten people, all armed with spears, ran ten steps side by side and assassinated them together.
But as soon as the training began, Wu Shigong discovered something was wrong. These strong men had never received formation training. Therefore, they could not run ten steps abreast at all.
During the training process, these strong men all made a fool of themselves. Some ran for ten steps and did not form a line at all; some ran but fell; some ran astray and were interfered by people around them and were unable to perform assassination moves.
of.
Wu Shigong made a temporary decision to reduce the number of strong men in a row. But after reducing it to five strong men running side by side, it still didn't work. In the end, Wu Shigong could only let three strong men run side by side, and they only took five steps to carry out the assassination. In this way
Only then could I reluctantly start training.
However, Wu Shigong thought to himself: "If these strong men are to assassinate the rioters who have just climbed up the city wall on the city wall, these trainings will still be quite effective."
It was already time for lunch. Wu Shigong and Qi County Magistrate were not in the mood to eat. They both took their subordinates to the west city wall and waited for Zhang Biao and others to come back. They wanted to know the details of these rioters.
After waiting for more than half an hour, Zhang Biao finally returned with ten guards. He reported to Wu Shigong: "Sir, some of the young ones have discovered traces of the rioters twenty miles west of the county seat. But the number of these rioters is small."
There are only a few of them, and they are all busy robbing homes and houses in the countryside. They are just a bunch of stragglers."
"The young man was brave and led his brothers to bypass these rioters, and after going about five miles deeper, they found a large amount of smoke and dust raised by people and horses walking about seven or eight miles away. I guess it was the rioters' brigade.
I didn’t dare to go any deeper. However, I judged from the smoke and dust that the number of the rioters was indeed tens of thousands.”
"However, I have been observing for a while. The group of rioters is not walking very fast. It is estimated that they will not be able to reach the county seat until after noon tomorrow and before evening."
There was only one day left. Wu Shigong and Magistrate Qi looked at each other, and they immediately started discussing how to defend the county on the west wall. The officials and guard leaders on the side also came up with ideas.
After discussing for a while, they decided on the following measures:
The first point is: Immediately implement martial law in the entire county. If all residents do not obtain approval, they can only stay at home and are not allowed to go to the streets at will. Otherwise, they will be arrested and imprisoned;
The second point is: before dinner, after evacuating as many people as possible outside the city to the county, immediately close all the county gates and prohibit anyone from entering or exiting the county. If there are remaining people who want to enter the county, they can only do so at the city wall.
On the side, they were hoisted into the county town in a hanging basket;
The third point is: let Wu Shigong's 200 soldiers and more than 700 strong men, plus the dozen people brought by Li Lu, immediately divide into groups to guard each city wall. The Qi County Magistrate will also pass through various squares in the county.
Chief, organize all the young men in the county to gather and add them to the defense force;
The fourth point is: Wu Shigong asked Foreman Jiang, who was also trapped in the county town, to immediately survey the next line of defense in the county town. Based on this line of defense, demolish the obstructing houses and build a second wall;
The fifth point is: mobilize the young people in the county to block all four city gates with stones and sandbags;
The sixth point is: Qi County Magistrate immediately made arrangements and asked the yamen team leader to lead all the yamen to start a census of all the households in the county. If there are people who are not from the county, they must have a guarantor. If there is no guarantor
Strangers will be imprisoned.
In addition, Wu Shigong and Qi County Magistrate also requested that all food in the county be evacuated behind the second fence. Furthermore, Wu Shigong had someone convey an order to the young men: "I will evacuate all the young men's family members."
Gather behind the second fence and provide the best protection. However, if anyone dares to escape before the battle, I will first kill the entire family of the person who escapes."
Wu Shigong did this out of helplessness. Wu Shigong and Magistrate Qi had already walked around the city wall to see it before.
The city wall in this county is no more than three feet high. Because there has been no war in this county for a long time, the city wall has not been repaired for a long time and looks very worn out. Fortunately, it still looks strong.
But outside the city wall, the moat surrounding the county has long since dried up, and even the dry riverbed has been basically filled in with silt. Coupled with the recent drought, the silt has basically dried up. Therefore, the moat and trenches cannot play their role.
arrive.
But from another aspect, this county town is not big. If there are nearly a thousand soldiers defending on the city wall, it will be barely enough. However, the defensive soldiers also need to rest, and they will also suffer casualties. Therefore,
Wu Shigong asked Qi County Magistrate to mobilize all the young men in the city to strengthen the defense.
Building the second layer of walls was Wu Shigong’s plan to build the Qianhusuo Fortress. In Wu Shigong’s mind, not only should the second layer of walls be built, but if time allowed, a third layer should also be built with the county government as the center.
The wall forms the third line of defense.
Wu Shigong thought about this issue from the perspective of these rioters. The current purpose of these rioters is nothing more than to steal food. However, around here, the food is basically in the county town and Qianhusuo fortress.
If Wu Shigong concentrates the food in the core defense area of the county, that is, behind the third wall. Assume that it will take half a month for these rebels to break through the city wall and ten days to break through the second wall. Then Wu Shigong and the others only need to hold on for five days at the third wall.
In less than three days, the rebellious people will be without food supplies for nearly a month.
At that time, even if these rebels got some food from Zhuangzi near the county seat, the food would definitely not be enough to feed tens of thousands of rebels for a month. In other words, as long as Wu Shigong and the others persisted for a month, they would be hungry.
All these rioters starved to death.
Besides, by that time, all levels of government offices in Henan Province will take action after receiving news of the rebellion, and reinforcements will basically arrive in the county to come to the rescue.
On the contrary, Wu Shigong was not too worried about the defense of Qianhusuo Fortress. Under the leadership of Xue Yongli, an experienced military leader, there were nearly 500 soldiers who had received at least four months of military training to defend the Qianhusuo Fortress.
The terrain is difficult, and there are strong men from the military households to supplement it. Therefore, the combat effectiveness of the defensive forces of Qianhusuo Fortress will far exceed the combat effectiveness of the defensive forces of the county town.
Under the threat of artillery and muskets from Qianhusuo Fortress, these rebels may not be able to fill in the ditch in front of Qianhusuo Fortress within a month, and they may be able to approach the city wall to attack Qianhusuo Fortress.
Wu Shigong gathered the families of these strong men and evacuated them behind the second wall. On the one hand, the reason was of course to protect the safety of the families of these strong men and to allow these strong men to fight on the city wall with peace of mind.
But the more important reason is: nakedly taking the families of these strong men as hostages, forcing these strong men and the mob to fight to the death, in order to achieve the effect of guarding the county wall for as long as possible.
The reasons for Wu Shigong's last two decisions - blocking all four city gates with stones and sandbags and asking Qi County Magistrate to arrange for government officials to search for strangers without guarantors in the county and imprison them all.
, that is: Wu Shigong already knew from Li Lu's words and Zhang Biao's inquiries that this rebellion was organized and led by the Holy Spirit Society.
Wu Shigong still remembered that when he arrived in the town, Xiaojie fell ill, so Chang Meng hired a holy man from the Holy Spirit Society for Xiaojie from the town. From this, there must be some Holy Spirit Society in this county.
Believers. Now that the Holy Spirit is going to attack this county, why won’t they make use of these believers?
In addition, the Holy Spirit Society may send some people to take advantage of Wu Shigong and others' opportunity to evacuate the people outside the county and sneak into the county. When the rebels attack the county, those internal agents can cooperate with the inside and outside to open the gate of the county and cause the county to fall.
.
Therefore, Wu Shigong simply blocked the county city gates with stones and sandbags. For a short period of time, these internal forces could not open the county city gates at all.
The Qi County Magistrate arranged for the government officials to search and imprison him, and there were no strangers in the county to be a guarantor. This was also to eliminate as much as possible the role of the Holy Spirit Society's internal agents.
Wu Shigong's estimation was indeed correct. These two decisions of his were also very timely. Later, after the search by the government officials arranged by Qi County Magistrate, a total of more than 100 strangers who entered the county without a guarantor were arrested.
Under the harsh interrogation of experienced government officials, a total of more than a dozen Holy Spirit Society insiders were captured. Wu Shigong immediately beheaded them all in public display. Some Holy Spirit Society believers in the county, after seeing the tough style of the government, also
I don't dare to make any moves anymore.
By the way, Wu Shigong's last two decisions were all made under Shu Mo's reminder. It seems that although Shu Mo is timid, timid people always have a very keen sense of smell when it comes to saving their lives.
, and he also has some life-saving tricks.
Before dark, the people near the county seat basically evacuated into the county seat. The city gate was immediately closed and began to be blocked with stones and sandbags.
Foreman Jiang had already surveyed the route and led a group of young men recruited from the county by the county magistrate to start building the second wall overnight.
Seeing that Wu Shigong's arrangements were in good order, the young people in the county also took action. At this time, the officials, gentry, and every common person in the county began to feel calmer.
After receiving the news that the rebels were going to attack the county seat, these people felt for the first time that it was indeed possible for Wu Qianhu to lead them to defend the county seat.