Chapter two hundred and thirty-fifth land occupation and protection fees
Even though he has a modern soul, to be honest, Li Xuan is not much different from other bandits in Huangzhushan. They are all bullies and afraid of the strong.
Ordinary bandits are naturally afraid of the government. Therefore, although Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren talk about reviving the Tang Dynasty and overthrowing the Puppet Ming Dynasty every day, they have a natural fear of the Ming government in their hearts. When encountering a large number of Ming troops, they will not run like rabbits.
Still fast.
As for Li Xuan, he is not very afraid of the government, but he knows the horror of a unified dynasty better than any of the Huangzhushan bandits!
Even though the Ming Dynasty has now entered the middle period of the dynasty, the local guards have long been in decay, and their combat effectiveness has declined so much that even Japanese pirates and bandits cannot defeat them.
But their place is big and there are many people!
Li Xuan and others worked so hard that they only managed to produce a few hundred bandits, but the Ming Dynasty could easily mobilize thousands or even tens of thousands of troops from surrounding prefectures and counties.
If these tens of thousands of troops are killed, it doesn't matter. We can also mobilize troops from other places. A few thousand from this place, a few thousand from that. Finally, we can easily mobilize tens of thousands of troops to fight back in Zhengtai County.
Precisely because he clearly understood the strength of the Ming Dynasty, the central dynasty that unified Kyushu, Li Xuancai had never dared to attack Zhengtai County.
To put it shamelessly, even if Zhengtai County surrenders and invites him to enter the city, he would not dare to enter the city!
But not entering the city does not mean that we have to give up the hundreds of miles of Zhengtai County and its hundreds of thousands of people!
What Zeng Ziwen said just now can be regarded as igniting Li Xuan's ambition: Now Zhengtai County has no power to stop itself. If it doesn't take advantage of this moment to develop and expand, when will it wait?
The county seat of Zhengtai County will not be attacked, and the military town of Longhua Town will not be attacked, but that does not mean that the vast land of hundreds of miles in Zhengtai County cannot be included in the pocket!
After cleaning the battlefield, the soldiers all went to rest, but the senior generals and officials were not able to rest. Li Xuan gathered them together to hold a military meeting.
At first, Zeng Ziwen thought that Li Xuan called a meeting to attack Zhengtai County, but he could tell from the beginning that something was wrong.
Because this is what Li Xuan said at the beginning: "Now that the Zhengtai Ming Army has been newly defeated, it is no longer able to stop our army from marching across the countryside. This is a great opportunity for our army!"
Li Xuan's words did not mention the county town or Longhua Town, but the countryside!
In response, Zeng Ziwen said: "Your Majesty, why don't we take this opportunity to capture Zhengtai County?"
After Li Xuan listened, he didn't bother to pay attention to Zeng Ziwen. This person's war thinking was still based on traditional war thinking, and he had no understanding at all of how a rebellion war should be carried out!
And as a man who grew up under the red flag, with a red scarf and a strong roots, and the successor of the party and state, he knew a term called "rural areas surrounding cities" when he was very young.
If it is the industrial age, production resources, especially the production resources to sustain wars, are mostly concentrated in cities, so wars need to be fought around cities. If it is a country with a small land area and a small population, its main population will also be concentrated in a few cities.
In the city, the war must also be fought around the city.
But it was different in China in the agricultural era. First of all, most of the country's means of production were in the countryside. These means of production included population and land, which could produce taxes, soldiers, food, weapons and other strategies needed to sustain the war.
Sexual weapons.
Secondly, due to the special national conditions of China's traditional government orders not to go to the countryside, urban officials have never been able to effectively rule the countryside for thousands of years. In other words, the Ming Dynasty's rule in the countryside was weak, which was conducive to the Tang Dynasty
The dynasty did gain popular support in the countryside.
The second key point is that cities these days are actually typical consumer cities. The countryside does not rely on the city to support itself, but the city relies on the countryside to support itself.
As long as you control the countryside, you actually control the blood of the city!
Having said so much, in short, it is better to control the countryside than to control the cities, and it is much better!
However, Li Xuan would not explain these reasons in a long way to his subordinates. He even did not even say the words "rural areas surrounding cities". They are a group of illiterate people. If you tell them about the theory of rebellion, they will not understand.
.
So he told everyone very straightforwardly and simply: If we don't attack Zhengtai County, we will first control the villages near the mountains, and then recruit troops and collect food on the spot!
A group of bandits felt relieved once they heard that they didn't have to attack Zhengtai County. As for looting the countryside, that was their main job and it was no big deal.
Although Li Xuan was talking about controlling the countryside rather than plundering, in the minds of these bandits, they consciously converted Li Xuan's words into: occupying the territory and collecting protection fees!
So after listening to what Li Xuan said, Fang Dongquan said this: "Your Majesty, what you said is great, now we just take advantage of the empty Ming army to occupy a few more villages, recruit troops and collect food!"
Huang Xueren on the side also said: "Yes, now is the time to occupy more territory!"
Li Xuan didn't take it seriously when his subordinates talked about grabbing land and collecting protection fees. After spending time with these bandits, he also knew that these people's way of thinking was so direct. Even if they wanted to rebel, they were just fools.
Those who don't do a lot of work are not noble at all.
Li Xuan couldn't expect them to follow the revolution or national justice at all times. It would be more suitable for them to seize territory and collect protection fees.
But then again, this rebellion and hegemony is all about grabbing the territory. Everyone is fighting over it. In the end, the strongest person grabs all the territory. Then the unification will be completed naturally, and a new country will be formed.
The Central Dynasty was born!
Everyone deliberated for nearly half an hour before dispersing. Everyone was very tired these two days, so they had to go to bed early to play.
The next morning, Li Xuan and others got up after sleeping for half the night. After breakfast, Li Xuan listened to the reports from the scouts, saying that most of the Ming army that was defeated last night had gone to nowhere.
, Su Jiakang and Wang Zhitan only gathered two to three hundred people and fled back towards Zhengtai County. As for where the remaining hundreds of fleeing soldiers went, no one knows!
Those defeated soldiers seemed like drizzle seeping into the Gobi Desert, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye!
However, Li Xuan and the others were too lazy to pay attention to Su Jiakang and the other Ming troops who were defeated. Starting from today, they had something important to do and they had something serious to do!
After eating and drinking, Li Xuan gave the order, and the new army of the Tang Dynasty continued to advance south with more than two hundred prisoners.
To the south is the mountain, and between the mountain and Zhengtai County and Longhua Town are dozens of miles of vast countryside. These countrysides are their goals.
These countryside in the south were close to the mountains. For the Tang Dynasty, they had to rely on the mountains to advance, attack, retreat and defend.
Therefore, they traveled south not to return to Huangzhu Mountain, but to control these rural areas.
But how to actually control these vast rural areas is a problem. First, you have a group of bandits running over to rob people and food. These people will run away. Why do you want a large wasteland when the people have run away?
In order to dispel the farmers' concerns about his group of bandits, Li Xuan imposed strict military discipline requirements on the troops: no disturbing the people and no looting!
This requirement may be normal for later generations of armies, but nowadays, it is an epoch-making 'move'.
Don't care about officers and soldiers or bandits these days? Is there anyone who doesn't disturb the people?
Few, absolutely few, it should be like this under normal circumstances, whether it is officers, soldiers or bandits: the army has traveled thousands of miles across the red land!
This is true even for the previous New Army of the Tang Dynasty!
But now, in order to win over the people, Li Xuan has strictly ordered not to disturb the people. Anyone who disturbs the people and plunders will be killed!
This order made a group of bandits in Huangzhushan quite unaccustomed and even confused. It would be better not to disturb the people. It would be better if they were not allowed to molest good women. At most, the lower one was a little uncomfortable. I couldn't help but use my hands.
It can be solved too!
But even if they don’t allow looting, what will they eat in the future?
You must know that the food that the army eats now is all looted. They have been eating from the enemy in the past few months. If they don't let the food be looted, they won't starve to death!
But there is nothing you can do if you are not used to it. Military orders are like mountains. Li Xuan personally issued military orders. If anyone dares to disobey, his bodyguards will immediately kill anyone!
While Li Xuan was rectifying military discipline, he also planned to put forward several other slogans to attract the broad masses of people to join the Tang Dynasty.
However, what slogan should be put forward to attract a large number of people to join the Tang Dynasty is a question worthy of discussion.
Because this kind of slogan cannot be shouted casually. For example, "Qingjunzi" is not suitable for him, Li Xuan. He, Li Xuan, is not a clan member or powerful official of the Ming Dynasty. If he raises such a slogan, it will make people laugh.
You can't shout slogans such as the people have no choice but to rebel. Although the people these days are living in quite hardship, this is caused by the limitations of the times, low food output, and low production efficiency. The world has not yet entered troubled times, although
Many people will still starve to death, but starving to death for thousands of miles has not happened.
There are also generals, ministers, princes, who would rather have the guts than shout randomly. He, Li Xuan, is the emperor. Although he is just an emperor in the valley, he is still an emperor. The slogans shouted by the rebels are not applicable to him.
Then Li Xuan really wanted to shout slogans about attacking local tyrants and dividing their land, but his rationality told him that although such slogans were pleasant to shout, they would offend the entire gentry and landlord class.
There are a large number of scholars in these classes. Although most of the scholars in the Ming Dynasty have been brainwashed by the eight-part essay and have all turned into rotten things, it has to be admitted that these people have a huge influence in contemporary society.
of influence.
Especially in rural areas, the scholars in the hometown have great influence. If they are offended to death, they will lead the villagers to carry out various armed resistances.
The Tang Dynasty was still so weak that it could not withstand such a toss. Even if it had to conquer the local tyrants to divide the land, it would have to grow stronger and have a solid foundation and an army of hundreds of thousands before engaging in such a thing.
As for now, Li Xuan feels that he should learn from our party, first unite all the forces that can be united, first embrace the lap of the local tycoons in order to overthrow the Ming Dynasty, and then fall out with those decadent and decadent local tycoons after overthrowing the Ming Dynasty!
As for why you should fall out with them?
Who makes them tycoons? Do they need a reason to attack the tycoons?