It has been half a year since Li Laiheng annexed Pingfeng Village at the end of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, and Miao Lichen and other miners joined the camp.
This taciturn leader of the miners became more and more special, interesting and curious about the various situations he saw in the camp, or more accurately, the Little Tiger Team.
As far as the civil engineering team is concerned, this unit is a new unit organized by the commander Li Laiheng himself. The entire team is basically composed of Songxian miners who are experienced in civil engineering operations. They only participate in battles in emergencies.
In some cases, the civil engineering team is only responsible for setting up camps, building field fortifications and cooperating with soldiers to attack the city.
The commander liked to tell Miao Lichen a saying, "Sweating is better than bleeding." Civil engineering troops bleed much less than ordinary troops, but they sweat much more.
Although the civil engineering team does not directly participate in field missions, their rations and living allowance standards are closely catching up with those of front-line soldiers. In fact, there are many people in the camp who have strong opinions on the civil engineering team. They all say that the civil engineering team is just
Why should some peasants who dig in the mud enjoy the same treatment as barbarians who are fighting for their lives?
However, after Miao Lichen led the civil engineering team to make outstanding achievements in a series of battles such as Fengpo Lingzhai in Luoyang, people began to recognize the special status of the civil engineering team.
Attacking the city, defending the city, field battles, and marching. When the soldiers felt the advantages brought by the rapid construction of various fortifications by the civil engineering team and their special siege tactics, they paid attention to the actual camp invasion brothers, and naturally they would not embarrass Miao Lichen anymore.
A group of Henan brothers.
After Liu Rukui, Guo Junzhen, and Li Hao led their troops to conquer Yuzhou City, Miao Lichen led the miners of the civil engineering team to replicate the "Luoyang experience" in dangerous places around Yuzhou and built a series of small and
A strong wooden fortress.
The special tactic of defending danger but not the city is increasingly becoming a special tradition of Li Laiheng's army.
There are many more special traditions like this.
This was felt even more when Miao Lichen finished the city-building task and led his troops back to Yuzhou City to rest. Because the task was completed very successfully, Li Laiheng specially paid an extra living allowance to the civil engineering team. Miao Lichen
Chen then took a few fellow villagers from Song County with whom he had good relations to have dinner at a teahouse in the city.
There were people coming and going in the tea shop, and there was no atmosphere like the one that had just experienced war. Because there were many soldiers who broke into the camp to eat here, the business in the shop was much busier than in the past. Several waiters were so busy that they could hardly use their three hands.
It took some effort. A very young boy, probably not very experienced in serving tea and water, made a mistake in his hurry. He panicked and knocked over half a bowl of warm tea onto the clothes of a soldier from the civil engineering team.
The young boy looked horrified, fearing that the mountain king would draw his sword and chop him, so he apologized hurriedly, knelt down on the ground, kowtowed repeatedly, and muttered words such as "The villain deserves to be killed, please spare his life, the king".
The soldier from the civil engineering team whose clothes were soaked by the tea was a little angry at first. After seeing the fearful and frightened look of the young man, he laughed and said: "Little brother, I am not a mountain king, nor am I a cannibal robber. Just admit your mistake."
, how could Sheng be so frightened that tears and snot burst out from his nose?"
"People in this small place are ignorant. I have shocked you, sir. Please forgive me!" After seeing the commotion here, the shrewd shopkeeper also hurried over to handle the matter. When he saw that the intruder soldiers did not look like they wanted to cause trouble, he gasped.
He took a breath and said, "The shop also received officers and soldiers from Zuozhen a while ago. Because the food was not served in time, two waiters were chopped and injured! This kid was frightened before, so he offended the master's respect. Really
It was not intentional.”
Miao Lichen waved his hand and asked the subordinate whose clothes were wet to have tea and rice. He explained to the shopkeeper: "We are different from Zuozhen and the officers and soldiers! The shopkeeper should have heard the notice of peace and security posted by the intruders when they entered the city. ?Our commander has specially made a rule, which is public buying and selling. Just apologize a few times and serve tea again. No need to embarrass you."
The shopkeeper wiped the sweat from his forehead and whispered: "Who knows whether that notice is true... Hi! Your army is indeed very different from other soldiers and horses. The shop has entertained officers and soldiers from Zuozhen in the past. The Ruzhou thieves...the men and horses of the Ruzhou hero Shen Wandeng. But they all look the same. They never give money for meals, but they often find troubles and cause trouble."
The soldier whose clothes got wet by the boy laughed a few times and said: "I also worked under Shen Wandeng for two years, and then I went to Pingfeng Village in Song County to join Yu Dazhong... If I were still in Dazhong, Shen Wandeng Under his command, your store may be demolished now."
Miao Lichen quickly told him not to scare the shopkeeper. The miners were actually ordinary local bandits in Henan in the past. And because they were not farmers, their behavior was even more fierce and lawless. It was only because of the cultivation of Li Laiheng's special military law that they were now able to He turned into such a well-behaved person.
Li Laiheng's subordinates were given almost no monthly salary, but only a small living allowance. The spoils of war were not allowed to be privately owned. Instead, they were uniformly handed over to the army and then uniformly distributed by the rations, wages, equipment, etc.
The bulk of what soldiers earn from battles is not gold and silver, but the so-called rations. Within the army, gold, silver or other currencies are now rarely used as rewards, and most of them are directly distributed as food, rice and wheat.
For example, when he was in Luoyang a few months ago, Miao Lichen was rewarded with a large bag of wheat for his meritorious service in defending Fengpoling Village.
This practice had a subtle influence on the soldiers who broke into the camp. For them, looting gold and silver was of little use and hiding the loot privately. Because the soldiers mostly moved in the countryside and mountainous areas, even if they captured the city, they would not be able to hide the loot. The period of time was short and military discipline was strict. The benefits of hiding gold and silver privately were few, but the punishment if discovered was severe.
For the soldiers who invaded the army, strictly abiding by the discipline of handing over spoils of war and buying and selling to the public was not only a moral constraint, but also a reasonable decision made by the individual soldiers after weighing their own interests.
The soldier patted his clothes and said with a smile: "Sir, shopkeeper, please serve us tea again. What do you mean by that? Oh, yes, we are going to apologize for our sins. Let the little brother bear our thorns to apologize for us!"
"Why are you asking for forgiveness? You learned a few words from Mr. Fang and then used them randomly all day long!" Miao Lichen punched the soldier and couldn't help laughing and scolding, "Mr. Fang and shopkeeper Zhang, whenever they have time, I’m just going to teach you how to read, not just to let you drop your book bag like this.”
The Mr. Fang and Shopkeeper Zhang mentioned by Miao Lichen were Fang Yiren and Zhang Yuheng, two people with relatively high educational levels under Li Laiheng. As early as when he first entered Henan, Li Laiheng had consciously asked Fang Yiren to start literacy in the army. activity.
However, this is easy to say, but difficult to do. Not only is the difficulty of literacy itself and the soldiers' resistance to studying, but what is even more difficult is that it requires the soldiers to spend a considerable amount of time in literacy, which means that their labor is reduced. Training and fighting time.
Even if the Chuang army conquered Luoyang, the overall material conditions were still relatively simple. Even Li Laiheng himself maintained a very low living standard, and ordinary soldiers often worked half-farming and half-fighting. In between battles and training, they had to travel with the mountains.
People and refugees cultivated the fields in the valley together.
Under such a heavy burden, it is of course a very difficult task for them to allocate some time to literacy.
It’s just that Li Laiheng attached great importance to literacy, to a degree that even Fang Yiren, the person in charge of this matter, could not understand. Thanks to his persistence, the literacy movement was able to achieve an efficiency with an efficiency under extremely difficult and difficult conditions.
Although it is very low, the state of perseverance has been maintained.
Soldiers who have received a simple education and know a little bit of writing can more easily accept the various policy propaganda carried out within the army. Li Laiheng also spent a lot of effort to get Zhang Yuheng and his group of accountants to follow the policies he wrote.
A lecture book explaining the benefits of "public buying and selling" to the soldiers themselves.
From the fact that good military discipline can reduce the resistance of urban residents, to the centralized procurement policy that allows individual soldiers to obtain various daily necessities at cheaper prices and through more stable channels, the multi-faceted policy propaganda has freed the entire army from being suppressed.
The violent atmosphere formed a more normal collective temperament.
"Brother Miao, don't tell me, it's time for the assessment again today. Have you memorized the words you should write silently?" The soldier laughed a little, showed the lining of his clothes and said, "Look at what I wrote.
Sample!"
"Good boy, are you making a cheat sheet? You're tired of living!"
He chuckled and said, "Brother Miao, what are you talking about? I'm afraid I'll forget, so I write the words I want to recognize on the lining of my clothes so I can remember them at any time. I'm pretty good at that.
Yes, I heard that Boss Guo next door directly asked his soldiers to write the words that needed to be assessed silently on their backs, and then when marching, everyone had to stare at the butt of the person in front to read!"
Every once in a while, the Little Tiger Team will assess the completion of literacy tasks. And the results of this assessment are not only related to the individual soldiers' rations and living allowances, but also to the rewards and punishments of the leading officers and the unit as a whole. Everyone is naturally interested in it.
People like Guo Junzhen, who are very thoughtful, have come up with a special way to deal with Li Laiheng's spot checks.
After listening to the content of the conversation between the two men, the shopkeeper exclaimed: "Even ordinary soldiers in your army are literate, and they are so sensible. No wonder it is widely spread that Mr. Li is the resurrected Mr. Taiyuan!"
Although Miao Lichen knew some words now, he knew very little about historical allusions. He didn't quite understand what the shopkeeper was talking about, Mr. Taiyuan. When he wanted to ask, he heard a burst of noise coming from outside the tea shop.
Another blast of horns.
The soldiers who broke into the camp in the teahouse all looked at each other. Everyone knew that it looked like the commander was about to send out troops!