Chapter 76 I advise you to kill less people

The thief named Ma Ze was stunned. "I am good at imitating the crowing of a rooster, but this fox... can only imitate the barking of a yellow fox."

Li Hao was a little disappointed. The weasel was not authentic.

But he thought again, this was a way of adapting to local conditions and in line with the characteristics of Liao.

"I'll take you in. What's your name? Do you have parents or brothers? If you do, I'll take you to Jinzhou and give you 50 acres of land."

This is a technical type of soldier, and it will always be useful if you raise a few of them.

"My name is Ma Ze, nicknamed Shengshangxian, and I am originally from Liaoyang. I am honored to be elected as a leader by the brothers of Fangaotou. My parents were all killed by the Tartars, and I am the only brother left to Fangaotou."

He first knelt down on both knees and kowtowed before explaining his life story.

"Fangaotou" is a common name for burglars. It seems that this man is actually the leader of the thieves in Shanhaiguan.

"Those who can climb over the roof are probably not in bad shape, and climbing a cliff is not difficult. So, those of you brothers who want to join the army can go to my camp and try. After you are selected, you will share the land and the salary together."

Li Hao didn't expect these soldiers to do any serious work. When he attacked a big city garrisoned by the Eight Banners in the future, he would send them in in the middle of the night to set fire and cause trouble.

Ma Ze leaned forward and kowtowed several times, "Thank you, Marshal. I and my brothers will always be grateful to you."

These words came from the heart. These brothers who had turned high and mighty were basically from Liao. They had tried every possible way to make a living and had turned to the path of thieves when they saw that there was no other way out.

The first day of conscription ended here. Zhao Rushi sent someone to invite Li Hao to live in the general's mansion in Guancheng. He took a dozen trusted servants with him, and the rest of the servants were sent to live in the standard camp.

Unexpectedly, there was a banquet in the evening. More than a dozen important officials from Shanhaiguan came. Although Zhao Lujiao was the host, the two hosts Wang Zhichen and Liu Yingkun firmly controlled the dominance of the dinner table.

These two are now the core members of Wei Yan's party. What they meant by their words is that they want to know whether Marshal Li has the determination and strategy to recover Guangning and other places.

"I have planned it all. After we have recruited enough retainers, we will go north to fight. We will first take back Guangning, Yizhou, Zhenwubao, and Xipingbao. You must also mobilize the refugees near Shanhaiguan and Tianjin to go north. They must arrive by mid-April at least. This year, the land west of Shuangtaizi River must be planted.

Around May or June, I plan to lead my army across the Sancha River to attack Liaoyang or Haizhou. Even if we fail, we must fight with the Eight Banners in the area between Shenyang and Liaoyang and never give them a chance to catch their breath. "

The main living areas of the Wild Jurchens are in the Heilongjiang River Basin, Greater Khingan Range, and Sakhalin Island, more than a thousand miles north of Shenyang, and their settlements are quite scattered. It is not easy for the Eight Banners to capture the Solon soldiers. A round trip takes at least two months.

Li Hao's first northern expedition resulted in the loss of two to three thousand armored bannermen in the Eight Banners. If this happened a few more times, Nurhaci would have to consider moving, if he could live to that time.

"Right!" Liu Yingkun clapped his hands in praise. "In the court, several officials of the Zhejiang Party support a massive war. Only a massive war can pacify Liao within a few years. The people of the world have suffered from Liao for a long time. The sooner the Tartars are defeated, the sooner peace will come."

In all unified dynasties, officials from the hinterland tend to be more warlike, while soldiers at the border are relatively conservative, because it is the soldiers at the border who are stabbed on the battlefield, not the civil servants who encourage people to fight in the court.

Wang Zhichen also expressed his opinion: "If I submit a petition to ask for war, I can persuade the court to mobilize elite troops to aid Liao around May or June, and we can prepare for the war around October."

As soon as he heard the time, Li Hao knew that he was in trouble.

He quickly waved his hand to signal no, "Forget it then. The grain of the Eight Banners has been harvested in October, and the Mongolian horses are relatively strong. If the two families join forces, the aid to Liao will most likely suffer a great loss."

If the Ming Dynasty took the initiative to attack in the autumn and winter, it would suffer great losses.

The governor of Ji-Liao looked guilty and said, "Are you going to let Li's troops keep fighting? Even the fastest horses cannot be used in this way."

Although he secretly hoped that only the fierce general Li Hao and his subordinates would carry out small-scale harassment on the heartland of the Later Jin Dynasty, he still had to do the necessary superficial work.

Zhao Luejiao's generals had more practical considerations. "Right now, only by using small groups of servants to harass can we play to the strengths of the Ming Dynasty. Gathering a large army to besiege the city will not have much chance of success. It is better to train the soldiers for a few years first." They have always supported the Dongjiang fighting style, which is to send a small group of elite cavalry of one or two hundred people to the heartland of the Later Jin Dynasty to burn, kill and loot. Unfortunately, the civil servants in the court always believed that the Ming border army was invincible, and always wanted to kill Nurhaci and his Eight Banners in one or two battles.

Complete his work in one battle.

"That makes sense. If Wang Jinglie is willing, he should transport Jinzhou Town's food and military pay to the place in time, and also send some high-quality heavy muskets and cannons. As long as the military pay is paid, our Jinzhou Town will be able to recover Shenyang, Liaoyang and other places."

Taking advantage of the fact that the people in charge were relatively gathered, Li Hao put forward some of his own requests to Wang Zhichen, such as mobilizing Shandong craftsmen to make a batch of face protection visors and collars, and to stockpile enough food for Jinzhou Youtun and Guangning, which was about to be liberated.

Of course, he also asked for middle-level generals such as Zuo Liangyu and Zhou Yuji.

The governor of Ji-Liao naturally agreed readily.

The atmosphere of the banquet was very harmonious. The people in charge of Shanhaiguan were counting on the young Jinzhou general to earn military merit, and no one would hinder him in fighting the Tartars.

The next day, Li Hao took some servants and stayed behind to continue recruiting soldiers, while the remaining servants and the standard camp went north first. They were a chariot camp, and their marching speed was much slower. Running forty miles a day was considered fast.

In the next two or three days, more strong men from the public came after hearing the news. Some of them were even veterans from the other eight military garrisons. The reason they came to Liaodong was very simple. Now only Liaozhen and Jizhen Dongxie paid their salaries on time, and the rest of the military garrisons owed nearly 700,000 to 800,000 taels of salary in total.

By the end, a total of 470 quasi-household-level recruits were recruited, and more than 320 ordinary recruits were found. Although there were 40 or 50 more soldiers than the battalion, Li Hao still had a lot of money in his hands, which was enough to support these extra soldiers.

After going to the Jinglüe Mansion and instructing Wang Zhichen to mobilize the refugees to go north, he immediately led the recruited servants and soldiers northward.

Also traveling with the army were Wu Xiang, the master of escape, who was transferred to Jinzhou as a commander, and nearly two hundred horses and dozens of carts of bean fodder allocated by the Ma Ke to the Jinzhou general's camp.

As there were not enough war horses, the group naturally had to march on foot. Just ten miles away from the city wall, Li Hao's close servants actually clamored to go to the Guandi Temple and Li Shuai's ancestral temple near the express delivery shop to worship.

"I usually tell you to kill less people, but you don't listen. Now you want to worship, you might as well worship me directly."

He could only agree with the servants' nonsense.

"Li Shuai, even though we have killed many people, who wants to be struck by lightning? If we come across a temple, we should still worship it."

Nagisa Ota, wearing a new set of armor, replied with a smile.

After the noisy worship, we finally set off again.

It took the new army two days to reach Qiantunwei, where they encountered a group of cavalrymen heading south to report a message.

"General Li, something terrible is happening. Several groups of Tartars are coming from the direction of Sancha River, bringing small cannons and civilian laborers. They seem to want to tear down the walls of Jinzhou, Youtun and other places. In the area of ​​the Great Wall just north of Jinzhou, the cavalry of the five major camps are gathering. It seems that they will break through the pass and march south by the end of the month to take back their people and cattle and sheep."

The cavalry was sent by Deputy General Zhu Mei. Enemies appeared in the east and north of Jinzhou, which made him extremely anxious.

Li Hao laughed, "I'm just afraid they won't come. But I want to correct one of your statements. We haven't actually controlled the Liao Great Wall north of Yizhou for a long time, so we can't use the term 'breaking the pass'. The Inner Khalkha tribe has always treated that place as a toilet, coming and going as they please."

Since the enemy had already appeared, he had no reason to delay. After carefully settling the new army, he sent two initial servants, Gou Quanzhong and Zhu Yingtai and their men, as well as the Wu father and son, to lead the troops north.

Li Hao himself took some servants and ran day and night. If they were not taught a lesson, the Tatars and Mongols would not learn their lesson.

Now he is the only one who can take the initiative to attack in Liaodong.

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(End of this chapter)