There was a sound of horse hooves deep in the bamboo forest. Wang Yuan and others immediately became vigilant and reined in their horses to observe the situation.
Suddenly, a horse jumped out of the bamboo forest, wearing a green military uniform. The color of the clothes blended in with the bamboo forest. If you dismounted and slipped into the grass in the forest, you could easily hide your tracks. It was probably equivalent to ancient camouflage clothing.
"Uncle Friday!" Li Ying shouted happily.
"Hush!"
Uncle Wu suddenly blew his whistle, and soon the sound of horse hooves sounded in the forest again. He stood on the horse and asked: "Li Sanlang, why are you here?"
Li Ying pointed at Song Ling'er: "I will escort the daughter of the Song family to Beiya."
"Confused!"
Uncle Wu said: "Go back quickly, Beiya Village and Yunjin Village have been surrounded by bandits."
Song Ling'er asked nervously: "Is my father okay?"
"Master Song is fine, maybe he is drinking with his concubine in his arms at Beiya." Uncle Wu sneered disdainfully, obviously despising Fatty Song.
"It's okay." Song Ling'er ignored the other party's attitude and tone.
Li Ying asked: "Uncle Wu, what's the situation over there in Beiya?"
Uncle Wu said: "The bandits numbered at least tens of thousands, and half of them were fully equipped with soldiers and armor. They also captured the Song family's Yangma Village, and now have a thousand-man cavalry force. The Song family's troops in Beiya Village and Yunjin Village were overwhelmed.
With three to five thousand, it is more than enough to defend the stronghold, but we certainly would not dare to leave the stronghold to meet the enemy."
While he was talking, three more riders came running from the bamboo forest. They were all spies sent by the government and the army.
Uncle Wu said: "Li Sanlang, we are going back to report the military situation. Don't get too close to Beiya."
"I know, thank you Uncle Wu." Li Ying cupped his hands and said.
Wang Yuan looked at the retreating figures of the army spies and sighed: "It seems that the guard station in Guizhou is really in ruins."
Li Ying looked embarrassed and tried to excuse himself: "Not only Guizhou, but the entire Ming Dynasty's health centers have been abandoned."
The number of troops stationed in Guizhou City is 15,000, and there are several guard posts nearby to guard important roads. The total number of troops stationed in Guizhou City is just over 20,000.
Even if only one-tenth of the fighting force is left, that is still 2,000 men.
The Song family's two villages still have three to five thousand troops.
The Miao rebels who besieged Beiya and Yunjin were said to have tens of thousands of troops, but they could really fight at most five or six thousand. Moreover, they were just rebellious troops. Their morale may be very high, but their organization level was absolutely pitifully low, even
There are also factions among each other.
If Commander Li from Guizhou City led his elite troops out of the city for a surprise attack, and cooperated with Fatty An from Beiya, they would definitely kill the rebels to pieces.
It's a pity that General Li didn't dare to take the initiative to go out of the city to meet the enemy, and Fatty An also hid in Beiya and acted like a coward, allowing a group of rabble to show off their power there.
Wang Yuan and his four men rode forward again and soon passed a village.
This is a Han village, and all the residents are the families of Guizhou's avant-garde military households - the Ming Dynasty guard system not only has military fields for farming, but also often private fields owned by military personnel. Especially in border areas, it is equivalent to military and civilian villages operating together.
Allow military households to live and work in peace and contentment in the garrison areas.
Wang Yuan's father, Wang Quan, used to live in this village, but the Wang family's private land had been occupied by military officers.
This is a very nonsense thing. The officers and the Wang family are enemies, and the Song family and Chuanqingzhai are enemies. Logically speaking, Wang Yuan should join the rebels.
Why not join the rebels?
Just look at the scene in front of you and you will know.
All the houses in the village had been set on fire by the rebels. Villagers who had no time to escape were also slaughtered by the rebels, and many corpses could be seen in the streets.
These rebels just killed people for no reason, but they didn't know how to collect the corpses, and they weren't afraid of causing a plague or something.
Wang Yuan rode through the village on horseback, his face expressionless.
Not far in front of him, an old woman was lying on the ground with two huge wounds on her back. Under the old woman, there was the body of a child, whose neck was chopped off until only a layer of skin remained on the body.
Before the rebels rose up, they were exploited by the chieftains and were absolute victims; at the beginning of the rebel uprising, they were rebels with a spirit of resistance and did not need to be harshly criticized.
But at this moment, the rebels have transformed into tigers and wolves, leaving no chickens or dogs behind wherever they go. They kill young and old, young and strong, take away women, money and food, discuss laws, theories, and emotions... Every one of the rebels
Damn it!
In ancient times, do not believe in any rebels. Before Zhu Yuanzhang captured Nanjing, he had been relying on grabbing food to maintain army supplies. Good military discipline was just not killing randomly when grabbing food. But if you robbed all the people's food, others would not
Still starving to death? His hometown, Haozhou (Fengyang), was repeatedly tortured by the warlords and was almost completely destroyed. It was in a state of ownerlessness for several years, and even the bandits were too lazy to occupy the city.
"This is war," Wang Yuan asked in a cold tone, "Do you still think about fighting all day long?"
Song Ling'er remained silent. Her romantic fantasy about war was so different from the cruel reality that she lost her ability to think for a while.
Li Ying was also sulking in his stomach. He suddenly turned over and dismounted, and said to his book boy: "Ah Zhong, come down and collect the body for them!"
Wang Yuan and Song Ling'er also went to help, but they couldn't find hoes to dig holes. It was estimated that the iron farm tools had been stolen by the rebels. They carried the bodies together, piled firewood and burned them clean, and finally put the ashes into the broken
Among the clay pots - those clay pots may be the utensils used by the villagers to store rice grains, but they are now randomly thrown around the village.
This is not just a setback, cremation was already popular in the Ming Dynasty.
"Da Ming Code" stipulates: "If the person dies in a faraway place and his descendants cannot return to bury him and he is burned, then he must do as he pleases."
When someone dies in another place, they are basically cremated, and then the ashes are taken home for burial.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang also banned local cremations and only allowed the cremation of deceased persons in other places. However, when Zhu Di came to power, he inspected the imperial history and reported local conditions, and found that there were no more than 100 burials in Fujian. By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the flow of population,
With the increase in frequency and the spread of Buddhism, cremation has become popular at the bottom of society, and there is even a profession called "Huo Jia" for burning corpses.
It took two hours to collect the corpses of the villagers.
The four of them washed their hands and ate some dry food before continuing towards Beiya.
They no longer dared to ride horses, fearing that the sound of hoofbeats would attract the attention of the rebels, so they only led their horses forward very cautiously.
Fortunately, there are bamboo forests everywhere in the wild, which makes it easy for them to hide their tracks. The horses' hooves will not make too much noise when they step on the bamboo leaves on the ground.
It is two or three miles away from Beiya, and the surrounding area is full of farmland.
These are the clan fields of the Song family, which are usually farmed by serfs. There is even a house dedicated to the serfs to live in.
The houses were not demolished, and there were no killings. Most of the serfs had defected to the rebels. There were rebel camps in the fields, and smoke was rising from the stoves. The rebels seemed to be making fires to cook.
The four of them hid on the edge of the bamboo forest. Wang Yuan observed for a while and said: "It's impossible to get through. The passage into Beiya is full of bandits."
Li Ying sneered disdainfully: "These bandits don't know how to fight at all. They don't even cut down the bamboo forest near the camp, and they don't send light cavalry to cut off the four directions. If I have a thousand soldiers and horses, I will ambush here and attack at night. I will definitely
Kill all these bandits!"
"Third Master, there shouldn't be tens of thousands of natives here," Li Ying's book boy said.
Wang Yuan studied in Beiya Village for two years and was very familiar with the place. He explained: "Beiya Village is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and in the mountains to the north, there is a road leading to Yunjin Village. If these bandits want to attack Beiya Village, they must
At the same time, surrounding Yunjin Village and dividing the troops is certain. Now that the Song family is on full defense, I am afraid that it will not be easy to break through with 20,000 or 30,000 people. Let's go, Ling'er, your father is not in danger, so let's not even think about passing through."
"Look over there!" Song Ling'er pointed towards the foot of the mountain to the east.
Many women could be vaguely seen there, being led out by the rebels, with their hands tied and strung together. In addition, there were also mules and horses laden with items walking ahead.
Wang Yuan guessed: "The thieves are probably about to withdraw from the siege. They are not stupid. Although Beiya Village has countless treasures, they cannot be defeated in a short time. It is better to deploy troops to capture other places. They were robbed in advance.
The women and property may have to be evacuated tomorrow or at most the day after tomorrow."
Li Ying's eyes suddenly shone and he said excitedly: "I will go back and report to my father. I will set up an ambush in the mountains in advance and catch all these bandits in one go!"