Chapter 86 He Crosses the River, So Do I

"What Sangui said is the truth. Generals Da Cao, Huang Long, Zu Kuan, the two generals in charge of the camp, Zhang Bangcai and Lu Yingjiao, and my son San Li, you all tell me your opinions."

Zhang and Lu were the commanders of the two camps brought by the military inspector Ji Yong. Their titles were guerrilla and garrison central army, and they were not even lieutenant generals. Their abilities were very average.

But the good thing is that Ji Yong picked honest people for himself. Zhang and Lu are fundamentally different from Wu Xiang, who is a master of running away. They are honest people who can fight to the death.

The generals spoke at once, and the majority supported Wu Sangui's opinion.

After all, the commander-in-chief was a brave general who dared to attack the Tartars' lair. The generals were slightly influenced by him and became more courageous.

Wu Xiang, whose eyes were seven parts honest and three parts cunning, sniffed and pretended to be cowardly.

Li Hao knew that he didn't want to fight on the front line, but this man was somewhat talented.

The cavalry he trained were not capable of fighting the Tartars head-on, but they were very capable of escaping from the elite cavalry of the Eight Banners, each of which had three horses.

It just so happened that what the Jinzhou general lacked was this kind of highly mobile cavalry.

After a light cough, the hall fell silent and the generals turned to the coach.

"Wu Xiang was promoted from Dusi to Yuji, and was assigned to my standard camp, stationed in Yizhou, in charge of recruiting and training Mongolian soldiers, and the soldiers who were able to fight were sent to the general's standard camp."

"Zhang Bangcai's troops moved to Panshanyi to monitor the enemy coming from Guangning City and the northeast of Shuangtaizi River."

"Lü Yingjiao's troops will follow me and march towards the Liao River with the general's battalion."

Li Hao arranged several key subordinates and looked at the generals sitting around the table.

There is a talent shortage right now, and there are many capable people here, so we should assign them some work to do.

"The three Lis are also useful. Let's take Li Yongxi as the main one and train the 470 newly recruited servants.

Li Yongshi, Li Youjie, you two brothers, together with Yang Shigong and Li Tianyang, take 5,000 taels of silver and go to Guancheng, Yongping and other places to recruit soldiers. When you have recruited 300 to 500 people, send them to Jinzhou City, and then recruit more, until you have recruited about 3,000 people. Remember, in addition to the monthly salary of the soldiers, each soldier's family will be allocated 50 mu of land. "

Only in Li Hao's place, as well as in memorials and reports sent to the interior, was Kong Youde called Li Yongshi and Geng Zhongming called Li Youjie. In private, other people called the three Lis by their real names.

None of the three godsons wanted to do the work assigned to them, because the family feud had not been avenged, and they actually wanted to go to the front line to kill the Tartars.

Only after Li Hao promised to take them with him when he attacked Haizhou and Liaoyang did the three Lis agree.

Cao Wenzhao, who was at the top of the generals, felt that this was inappropriate and spoke out to dissuade them: "General Li, can we postpone the recruitment of soldiers for a few months? The governor and governor have not yet opened a new camp. If we recruit soldiers, who will pay them?"

"Don't worry about that. Once I get the former general's seal, my battalion will become two."

If there is a royal flag, then Li Hao is the highest-ranking of the three generals under the Ji-Liao governor, and it is natural for him to be in charge of two battalions.

After arranging matters in his own territory, Li Hao sent people to deliver official documents to the civil and military officials in the south, roughly asking Ningqian, Guancheng and other places to send troops up.

These two large garrisons have more than 40 battalions in total, with at least 70,000 to 80,000 combat soldiers that can be transferred back and forth. If there are five battalions in Guancheng and five in Ningqian, the military strength of Jinzhou Qianfeng Town will not be so stretched.

As for food and wages, that was not something Li Hao should consider. Once enough lost territory was recovered, the court would naturally allocate food to him.

……

At night, in the hall in the backyard of the general's mansion.

Like most government offices, the rearmost part of the General's Mansion was the residence allocated to Li Hao.

Together with this small courtyard serving as the general's residence and the ancestral halls of successive Jinzhou garrisons and lieutenant generals next to it, they constitute the general's mansion in a broad sense.

The elder and younger Caos, Huang Zuwu, the three Lis, and several initial servants, who were relatively close to the commander-in-chief, gathered in this three-room hall to discuss some minor but necessary matters.

The purpose of Jinzhou General's return to the base camp is not only to mobilize troops and civilians to prepare for a large-scale crossing of the river, but also to solve the problem of his wives and concubines, which is also one of the important matters to be discussed tonight.

"I don't care about the family background of my wives and concubines. Of course, those who are too vulgar and rude are not acceptable either. It's better if they are a little educated and have some culture."

Li Hao put forward his own request.

The news that the general was about to give his son a title and a wife had spread. Even the veterans who followed him could not resist the temptation and began to look for girls of the right age among their relatives.

Wu Sangui was the first to suggest: "Godfather, there are many unmarried girls in my uncle's family. How about we take some time to go to Ningyuan?"

Ancestor's home?
Li Hao immediately waved his hands. He was planning to find an opportunity to deal with the generals of the Zu family. If he married a girl from the Zu family, it would become a bloody wedding with the host and guest reversed.

Although morality continued to decline in the late Ming Dynasty, it was not to this extent.

Wu Sangui was a little disappointed, thinking that his godfather disliked his uncle's daughter because she was ugly. Everyone recommended their own relatives, but Li Hao listened for a long time and didn't like any of them.

When the generals were silent after searching for candidates again, Li Tianyang suddenly said, "Brother, I remembered someone."

The Jinzhou general looked at him speechlessly, "Then forget it, your relatives are my relatives!"

He had no hope for his cousin's intelligence, but he also didn't expect him to be so stupid.

Li Tianyang waved his hands hastily, "That's not what I meant. The matchmaker I introduced is the granddaughter of old man Dong Yingju. I worked with him in the military farm and know some things about his family. Old man Dong's youngest son opened a cloth shop in Tianjin, mainly selling cotton cloth from Songjiang Prefecture. Old man Dong's teacher was Ye Xianggao, who was a high-ranking official and had a very good family background."

He hurried to explain it clearly to avoid his cousin's misunderstanding.

"Ye Xianggao?"

Li Hao lamented that the world was really small, how could just anyone be linked to the leader of the Donglin Party.

"Where is the Dong family's land? Why would his son open a cloth shop in Tianjin if he doesn't go home to farm?"

The Jinzhou general asked again.

When the other generals heard about the Dong family's relationship, they were immediately disheartened. Old man Dong had a high reputation among the refugees in Liao, so they no longer bothered to recall if there was any unmarried girl among their relatives who could be brought to the table.

The cousin scratched his head and thought for a while, "The Dong family seems to be from the south. Their land was contracted by a high-ranking official, so they sold all of it to the official and threw the 200 taels of gold from the sale into the river. There was also a strange story of throwing gold into the center of the river. Old man Dong's granddaughter is actually just right for you, brother. The more than 10,000 Liao people outside the Great Wall all give the old man a thumbs up."

Dong Yingju's act of throwing gold into the river was so lavish that Li Tianyang was stunned when he heard about it at first. It also improved his impression of the Dong family a lot.

"Have you ever been outside the Great Wall and seen those Liao people giving thumbs-up?"

Li Hao asked back.

The cousin was too embarrassed to answer, so he had to talk about Old Man Dong's granddaughter. "That girl is sixteen years old. I heard from others that she is pretty and educated. She exchanged her needlework for small change and bought food to share with the refugees. Let's not talk about what Old Man Dong is like, but at least this girl has a good heart."

The other generals had nothing to say. Yang Shigong, Zhu Yingtai and other initial servants thought that the granddaughter of old man Dong was good and advised the commander to consider it.

"There is no land at home..." Seeing that the commander had no suitable candidate to recommend, Li Hao reluctantly found an advantage, "Then talk to the old man and ask him to invite his granddaughter to Jinzhou. I will come back next time to arrange a blind date."

That’s all I have to say about this matter.

What follows next is very complicated.

"General Li, there is one more thing I don't know whether I should say it or not." Yang Shigong asked.

After getting the general's nod, he explained in detail:

"Before in Ningyuan City, General Li saw a group of Liao people who rebelled. They brought their families and ran to Jinzhou to wait for land distribution. They handed over a dozen people, saying that they were bondservants of the two yellow flags. They had planned to sneak into Ningyuan City and open the city gate, but because the four gates were blocked, they didn't have time to do anything and were discovered by them. They asked us to deal with these spies."

Li Hao sneered when he heard this.

"These dozen Baoyi and Liaomin have no good intentions. They didn't hand over the people before because they felt the situation was unstable and wanted to spare the spies. Now that we have secured Jinzhou, they remembered to hand over the spies."

He thought for a moment and ordered, "Catch the spies and make them work in the mines until they die of exhaustion. Since the land of these Liao people has been divided, we will follow the previous agreement, but we will increase the bean and grass fodder they hand in by 20%. If they can't pay, they can pay grain."

Now that there is a shortage of manpower, the kind-hearted Li Hao adheres to the principle of not killing if possible.

Wouldn't it be nice to put spies, who are free labor, into mines to mine?

Yang Shigong agreed.

……

April 23rd, Panshanbao on the west side of Shuangtaizi River.

After gathering the defeated soldiers, Yangguli led his troops to garrison here.

His idea was to block Li Hao's troops in the direction of Jinzhou along the river and hold out for as long as possible.

Unexpectedly, Li Hao, a Ming general who brought only two or three hundred family servants and less than a hundred civilian laborers, dared to openly prepare to cross the river not far south of Panshan Fort.

"If he crosses the river, I will cross the river too."

PS: I have something to do today and have no time to write, so it’s a bit late. Please give me the minimum monthly ticket and the recommendation ticket.

(End of this chapter)