Ye County is an important town in Nanyang Prefecture, and the Shahe River originally flows through it. When Liu Guoneng led his troops to garrison here, he specially strengthened the city defenses, diverted the water from the Shahe River into the city trench, and built some outside the trench to form a tie with the county wall.
A stronghold of horns.
Nowadays, Ye County has long been enveloped by the atmosphere of war, and all city gates are closed during the day. Only the west gate is open for a few hours every day, and only half of the gate is opened so that the load of firewood can enter the city.
At the gate of the urn city stood a group of servants summoned by gentry households, and the number was quite large. The defense at the main city gate behind the urn city was even stronger. Some families with generations of officials and gentry had gathered four to five hundred servants at the main city gate.
, and also prepared a large number of rolling logs and stones for defense.
During the day and night, the streets were patrolled by the children of various gentry families. After dusk, the vigilance became even stricter. Students and gentry children often took their servants with them to go door to door to check whether there was any unusual movement among the people.
Notices offering rewards for killing thieves are posted everywhere on the streets, at crossroads, on the screen walls of government offices, in front of temples, and in restaurants. In front of the county government office, a row of heads hangs, their hair as long as a flock of crows, blown by the breeze.
Dancing, there is also a child's head in it, and the eyes are bleeding, making people break into a cold sweat in the hot summer.
It is said that these heads are all spies of the rogue bandits, including more than a dozen of Liu Guoneng's soldiers who stayed in Ye County. Because people did not believe that powerful soldiers like Liu Guoneng and Li Wanqing would be defeated by the rogue bandits, there were rumors among the gentry that Liu Guoneng would be defeated by the rogue bandits.
Li and Li were originally thieves. This time they pulled the officers and soldiers out of the city to join the bandits.
Everyone was grateful for their foresight in driving Liu Guoneng and Li Wanqing out of the city, otherwise they would have opened the city gates to welcome the intruders!
"A thief is a thief. Even if he is recruited, as long as he is a thief for one day, he will be a thief for life!"
A scholar in Lianye County who once assisted Liu Guoneng in organizing military supplies also lamented that he did not know people well and cried sadly: "After all, we are just thieves!"
The gentry first invited Liu Guoneng's remaining liaison officers and soldiers in Ye County to drink wine. After half the drink, when everyone put down their weapons and took off their armor, they sent their servants to rush out and kill all the officers and soldiers.
In an instant, the heads of all the officers and soldiers were hanged in front of the county government office to scare the monkeys and see who would dare to get through to the thieves?
The residents in the city were all panic-stricken for a while. Everyone felt that if the officials and gentry killed so many people, it seemed that Liu Guoneng had indeed surrendered to the thieves, which was really hateful.
Others remembered that Liu Guoneng once recruited some common people to help build military camps, but the wages have not been calculated yet!
"He must have surrendered to the thieves and not escaped!"
However, some people think that since both Liu Guoneng and Li Wanqing have defected to the bandits, how many troops will the bandits have? At least 30,000 to 50,000! How can Ye County hold on? We probably have to find another way out!
The mentality of the gentry was even more complicated. They may not believe that Liu Guo could defeat the rogue bandits, but they also did not want to believe that the rogue bandits had the ability to eliminate so many officers and soldiers in one go.
In addition, some officials and gentry had conflicts with Liu Guoneng, and some scholars simply hated Zuo Liangyu.
In any case, no one can expect Liu Guo to be able to do anything.
But the gentry are also quite confident. The rogue bandits have disturbed Zhongzhou for so long, and they are not fools. They have been doing nothing. Since the fall of Luoyang five months ago, Henan patrol officer Gao Mingheng has implemented it in all the capitals of Henan.
A series of methods of "forming associations to fight against thieves": establishing a cooperative in the city, all gentry, and wealthy merchants joining the cooperative, and each family assigns servants to guard the city. Ordinary people who have not joined the cooperative need to pay a certain amount of silver per household.
In short, the gentry took the lead in giving money, and the common people followed suit. Everyone worked together. Not only did the officials and gentry increase their income, but they also had enough money to equip the servants of the wealthy families with weapons and equipment!
In the evening, with the sound of banging all night long, the young men of the gentleman family called their friends and led a team of domestic servants to patrol the streets to observe the curfew. Whenever they encountered ordinary people walking on the street at night, they would not ask any questions.
, insisting that he was a "traitor", and after giving him a good beating, he robbed him of all his gold, silver, soft clothes and even his small clothes and hats.
But even with such a strict curfew, big things still happened in the city.
The early morning sun had just risen over the city. Looking to the east, the sunlight was only pale white and could not be seen clearly. But there was one place where everyone could see very clearly. A whole row of bloody heads in front of the county government office.
They all disappeared overnight.
I don't know who he was, but he evaded the surveillance of the vigilantes late at night and stole more than ten heads in one go.
The people in the county were all horrified. Some said it was ghosts and gods, and some said it was evil spirits taking revenge. Of course, sensible villagers did not believe in such ghosts and gods. They concluded that there were rogue spies lurking in Ye County.
Stole a row of heads in front of the county government office.
"Investigation! Thorough investigation! Who stole the thieves' heads? We must find out these spies. Once they are found out, they will be chopped alive on the spot!"
The frightened gentry became furious and immediately sent servants to investigate throughout the city: Who had the courage to steal the heads of the thieves?
They were not blindly guessing aimlessly. The first thing everyone thought of was that when Liu Guoneng garrisoned in Ye County, he took in a group of people who had fled from other states and counties.
These strangers are the most suspect.
Secondly, Liu Guoneng cleared out several villages near Ye County and Wuyang County, and moved back a group of county residents who had been kidnapped by the bandits. If they felt Liu Guoneng's kindness, they might indeed commit scandals involving thieves.
Come!
In addition, when Liu Guoneng was building a camp in Ye County, he used his own money to help dozens of well-performing civilians pay off their debts. These people are also highly suspicious!
The magistrate of Ye County is the most reasonable person. According to his opinion, the gentry has no conclusive evidence, so it is really inconvenient for everyone to kill them all at once. Just in the past few days, some people in the city have questioned, saying that the money donated by the people to resist the thieves
The silver was divided up by the officials and gentry, and each went into his own pocket. Therefore, many people were resistant to paying anti-thief silver, and the income of the officials and gentry was much lower than before.
Then simply imprison all these collaborators and plunder their property for military needs.
There are many tortures in the yamen. Once the severe punishments are imposed, the efficiency of torture is many times higher than that of the invading army. It is a pity that such a poor man is short of money. After a few tortures, he has no more money.
The county magistrate saw that the effect of copying silver was really good, so he sent his officials to lead the gentry's servants to Xicheng to hunt down other common people who had relations with Liu Guoneng.
The team of seventy or eighty servants was huge, each armed with water and fire sticks, red tassel spears, broadswords and various instruments of torture. They were majestic and full of courage. They rushed from the streets to the end of the alleys. Wherever they passed, chickens were flying, dogs were jumping, and they were screaming and wailing.
The sound filled the house.
At this moment, an emergency gong sound suddenly came from the west city gate. Following the gong sound was the panicked cry for help from the defenders at the top of the city. The servants of the wealthy families responsible for guarding the city wall all shouted "The bandits are coming!"
, "The thieves are coming", people have no fighting spirit and immediately fall into chaos.
A large number of poor people who were being arrested by the government officials all started shouting when they saw this. However, the defenders were panicking and shouting in fear, but the people were shouting for help like a sudden rain after a long drought.
"In the morning, you seek promotion, in the evening, you seek struggle. It is hard for poor people to survive these days.
Kill the cattle and sheep, prepare wine, and open the city gate to welcome King Chuang."
"King Chuang won't pay you any food when he comes!"
"Everyone, hurry up and open the city gate for King Chuang!"
Hundreds and thousands of common people, like a spring, rushed to the top of the city in the blink of an eye. The government officials were still drinking by themselves, but when he realized that the number of common people was far more than that of servants, even even
Many servants of wealthy families followed him and ran into the crowd of people who opened the city gate. Then they covered their mouths and tried to escape. Unfortunately, his tree was big and attracted the wind. Before he could run away, he was captured by the servants on the left and right, tied up and hung at the city gate.
The west gate of Ye County was quickly opened by the people. The leading troops who had just attacked Ye County were shocked. They didn't know whether it was true or not, so they hesitated and did not dare to advance.
Only Ma Bao, who was rushing at the front, curled his lips. He was a very brave man and yelled, "Who dares to pretend to surrender with me? The city gate is open, so don't even think about blocking me again!" Then he rushed straight in.
In the county town, those who blocked it were invincible, and in the blink of an eye, they killed three servants who had not seen the direction of the wind clearly and were still resisting.
Jiao Da, who had saved Ma Bao's life, could not understand the situation of the battle. He just saw that Ma Bao, who he felt was very powerful, had rushed into the city, so he stopped thinking about it and followed him in with the same knife.
Seeing this, the other soldiers in the front line no longer hesitated, and all rushed into the city behind Ma Bao and Jiao Da. Although the number of domestic servants in the county was large, several times that of the intruders, they lacked training and military morale.
In a panic, they were completely vulnerable. Ma Bao and Jiao Da destroyed a large area with just a casual charge.
After the large army followed, the servants became even more unable to resist. There were even whole teams of servants who revolted on the spot and joined the invading army's siege queue.
The gentry in the city immediately became confused and didn't know what to do. A rich man who claimed to be "knowledgeable about military matters" and "good at riding and shooting" rode a famous horse and rushed to the street with a treasured bow in his hand.
The stray thief looked good, but he asked Ma Bao to pick up a short spear on the ground and killed him casually.
The army was defeated like a mountain. By the time Li Laiheng and Liu Fangliang led the main force to break into the camp, Ma Bao and others had already occupied and consolidated the entire city of Ye County.
Even Guo Junzhen was shocked and sighed: "We have never attacked cities as easily and quickly as this time."
Li Laiheng smiled slightly and asked Liu Fangliang to enter the city first to show respect for his master. Then he followed Liu Fangliang's personal soldiers and the second team walked through the city gate.
"Master Liu, Liu Guoneng was defeated in this battle. You traveled a long distance to defeat Beiwudu. You have always made the greatest contribution."
There was almost no fierce fighting during this siege. Except for less than ten corpses at the west city gate, not even a drop of blood was shed in the city. I don’t know when the dark clouds suddenly gathered and it started to rain continuously.
The raindrops fell on the bluestone, which actually showed a bit of peace and tranquility.
Liu Fangliang's hair was a little wet from the light rain, and he felt a little heavy. In any case, Liu Guoneng and Li Wanqing have been his old friends for many years. If I don't kill Boren, Boren will die because of me.
"Lao Liu's ten-year-old son is in the county, right? Get him there as soon as possible and ask a family to take good care of him. Once the war has calmed down, we will give him travel expenses so that Lao Liu's child can return to Yan'an and live a peaceful life.
Be a farmer!"
Liu Fangliang was still thinking about Liu Guoneng's ten-year-old child, but it was a pity that this little boy, like the other officers and soldiers Liu Guoneng left in Ye County, were all killed by the county gentry, and the city was hung above the county government office.
After the invading army broke into the city, Li Laiheng learned that Liu Guoneng was falsely accused of being a traitor, and the rest of his troops were killed by the gentry, their heads were displayed to the public, and they were later stolen.
He lamented the shamelessness of the Ye County gentry, pitied Liu Guoneng's destruction of Huang Zhong, and deeply respected the righteous men who stole the heads of officers and soldiers.
"Although these loyal men are not in the same camp as the Chuang Army, they are still highly respected!"
Li Laiheng personally posted a notice in the county town to reward this faithful man with a hundred gold. For a time, many people claimed that they risked their lives and stole the heads of officers and soldiers, but no one could provide evidence.
It wasn't until the next day that the Chuang army found more than a dozen heads buried in a garden in the city. Perhaps the faithful men who stole the heads back were the common people living around the garden?
Li Laiheng later found out that a total of seven families around the garden were arrested and tortured. Five of them were dead, and the four who were still alive claimed that they had not stolen their heads.
I'm afraid the person who stole the head was among the five people who were tortured to death, right?
Li Laiheng was silent for a long time, and then ordered to give thirty taels of silver to each of the four people who were still alive.
Light rain flies into Ye County.
"The old commander has made such a big circle in northern Henan to mobilize the main force of officers and soldiers. He should be jumping back to Nanyang soon, right?"