Chapter 186: Between the government and the country

In the first month of the tenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led a large army to defeat the Ming army again in Baoji, and Sun Chuanting defended Xi'an and refused to leave.

These news has not been spread to the world through Dibao and Tangbao. However, the military and civilians in Shandong all knew that the imperial court gathered a large army in Dengzhou to go out to sea to prepare to help North Korea, which was besieged by the Jurchens. During the Ming Dynasty and the Donglu Jurchens, North Korea helped a lot because of harassment in the rear.

Although these battles were all failed, it was unknown if the North Korean vassal state had not dragged the Donglu Jurchen back behind, the situation might have been worse.

Moreover, North Korea is a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty. If something happened to the vassal state, the superior country would not save it, which would make the subjects in the world feel even more disheartened. Even for this attitude, the Ming Dynasty court, which had been on the defensive position against the Jurchens since the early years of Chongzhen, still sent its own troops to sea to rescue.

Of course they didn't know that North Korea had surrendered to the East Seal of Jurchens, and the Jurchen Tartars had no worries about the Ming Dynasty's offensive.

In early February, the salt squads in Jiaozhou Camp officially became regular troops under the command of the generals of Laizhou Prefecture. Although they were reluctant, some veterans were still drawn out to learn how to use axe guns, cotton armor, chain mail, ring arm armor and shields began to be distributed.

What made the infantry jealous was that the six hundred cavalry were the most preferred soldiers with armor. Now Li Meng had accumulated about eight hundred horses between Laizhou Prefecture and Dengzhou Prefecture, and six hundred cavalry composed of former horse salt, horse and official cavalry. The cavalry instructor Zhang Lin and several cavalry leaders of the past led them to train. Tang Er is now the Qianzong General of the Cavalry Battalion, but everyone sees that he is already at the level of garrison.

At present, Wang Hai is the captain of Li Meng's personal guards. He is the rank of Qianzheng and leads 300 people. Ma Gang guards Weixian and is actually stationed in Changle. He is responsible for the Qingzhou area. He is the garrison and leads two thousand infantrymen. Zhao Neng is the capital of Pingdu Camp, taking into account the Laiyang area of ​​Chengye County, Laizhou Prefecture and Laiyang area of ​​Dengzhou. Chen Liu is the garrison of Jiaozhou camp, leading one thousand infantrymen, stationed in Lingshan Guards, Lingshan and Jimo Salt Field.

Li Meng led his own personal soldiers, horse teams, and old camp soldiers in total. Although Wang Hai and Tang Er were at the level of the Qianzong, there was a rule in the official and military circles that the confidants around the leader had a higher status than those guarding outside. Wang Hai didn't feel that he was wronged.

It is also worth mentioning that the young and strong children brought from Laizhou, Dengzhou and Qingzhou are no longer needed to be used as baggage soldiers. Among them, the outstanding people have been added to the army, and the rest have gone everywhere to replace the work of the salt peddlers in the past. However, there is a principle that locals cannot be local salt peddlers, so that the local forces behind these tyrants and gentry monitor each other to balance each other.

The cavalry camp led by Tang Er often stationed in Jiaozhou, which was often 300 people. Most of the rest were escorting salt trucks and patrolling the salt roads in Dongchang Prefecture, Qingzhou Prefecture, Laizhou Prefecture and Dengzhou Prefecture. There are also many bandits in Shandong, who can always suffer from large and small battles, which is considered practical training.

However, the significance of this practical training is not very great. Just imagine a cavalry wearing armor, well-trained and well-equipped, and there are 400 people. Such a team once cleared the team of nearly 4,000 Liu Zeqing's men in Dongchang Mansion within a dozen days of raids, let alone these thieves.

Originally, Liu Zeqing attacked, and after Li Meng became a general, he reduced his troops to reorganize and train. The powerful and powerful gentry in the local area were a little ready to move. The well-organized private salt sales system that was rectified by Li Meng and Jiaozhou Camp system was like a treasure pot. Outsiders think that as long as they could go deeper, they could make a lot of money. These fictional and short-sighted places have been jealous for a long time.

Li Meng's cavalry traveled between prefectures, counties and towns. The places where he rested were naturally in these strongholds selling private salt - the strongholds and the mansions of the powerful. When he saw these elite cavalry in armor, his well-trained manner and cold and silent temperament, some rumors about the Jiaozhou camp became clear again in the minds of these people, and the only strange intentions and idiots disappeared.

It is not difficult to build an axe gun, especially Li Meng has a set of things. Guo Dong doesn't even need to affect the progress of manufacturing the muskets. Apprentices can supply the use of these 2,000 people. The muskets have relatively high requirements for iron materials, and they also have strict quality controls, so the output cannot be increased.

Until now, Jiaozhou Camp has only 800 muskets. What makes Li Meng particularly troubled is saltpeter gunpowder. Although two ships have been sent to the arsenal of Nanjing, the number of shooting trainings is almost done after several times. Guo Dong once carefully suggested to Li Meng that it was to teach the shooting methods of muskets and shoot again and wait until the battlefield to save ammunition?

Many people think this proposal is right and agree with it, but Li Meng denies it without hesitation. Soldiers who have not been shot in live ammunition on the battlefield will not go to the battlefield. Isn’t that going to die? This is something that must be mentioned in the training of recruits.

However, although the training is barely maintained, each musketman has at most three rounds of ammunition during combat. Li Meng can only transfer some of the most experienced people into the category of muskets. In addition to muskets, these people also have to bring hand-to-hand combat knives, axes and weapons to appear as close-to-hand combat troops at any time.

Therefore, the military pay for musket soldiers is 30% higher than that of spearmen and cavalry, but no one has any opinions. The one who needs the most technical difficulty in operating weapons is musket soldiers, and the one who is closest to the enemy is also musket soldiers.

After all, Guo Dong is just a craftsman, and it is a bit difficult to achieve this point. Li Meng originally wanted to build a cannon, but there was no craftsmanship here, and even gunpowder could not be satisfied, so he had to do it.

Speaking of which, the Huang Ping brought back in Nanjing was originally at the level of a thousand households. To be a joke, among the officers and soldiers of the Jiaozhou Camp, he was the one with the highest status. However, Li Meng did not give him any position to command one side, but just gave him the identity of a personal guard and served as the chief officer in the personal guard team led by Wang Hai.

The training, organization and even weapons of Jiaozhou Camp are different from those of the Ming Dynasty's official army. If you want to truly integrate into this group, you have to learn a lot.

Huang Ping had no complaints. He was an outsider. Although he had been in Jiaozhou for a while, his true understanding of this army was just a little bit. When he really entered it, he found that there were many things that he had never heard of. Huang Ping, who was willing to do something, entered the treasure house like a poor man. He studied and understood and understood it every day. He felt that he had not enough time. He, a generation of officers who grew up in the core army of the Ming Dynasty, had naturally much higher understanding and understanding of this kind of thing than Zhao Neng and others, and even Ma Gang could not be so profound.

Under the leadership of Li Meng, the following soldiers, Ma Gang, Zhao Neng, Chen Liu and Wang Hai, were divided into two teams, and the troops led by several people were rotating in Jiaozhou for martial arts exercises. Only then did Li Meng find that the troops were not fighting and were indeed tired during the garrison. After several rotations, the troops were marching, competitions, exercises, and training. The soldiers' spirits were indeed different. Although each unit was a little embarrassed, it was better than exposing these problems during the war.

Li Meng was carrying out a big training, while other soldiers and horses in Shandong were all in a peaceful scene. Five days after going out to sea, the ships that rescued North Korea came back in shame. They got news from the fishing boats at sea, and North Korea fell...

However, General Denglai was actually very relaxed. Going to sea to fight was extremely risky, let alone fighting Tartars like those wild beasts. In fact, if they were a month or two, they would be happier, because in February, near Xi'an, Shaanxi Governor Sun Chuanting and General Cao Bianjiao and Li Zicheng fought seven days later and defeated the rebel army. Zhang Xianzhong's troops near Anqing were also defeated by Zuo Liangyu, and Zuo Liangyu also shot Zhang Xianzhong. If it weren't for a wall, Sun Kewang would rescue him, he would probably be cut to death by Zuo Liangyu. It seems that there is "peace is hopeful" again.

The bureaucrats' delays are indeed superb. Now it is not the general army that reprimanded Dusi, but the general army attacked the generals and led troops into bandits. One of these two men was in the west and the other was in the east, and they had nearly 10,000 soldiers under their command, and no one could afford to offend them. What the court and the Shandong Governor's Office could do was just regulation.

Liu Zeqing's memorial to the court was quite fierce, saying that more than 4,000 soldiers and horses were cut and killed and defeated, and the great soldiers did not sacrifice their lives for the country when they pacified the Kong Youde Rebellion. Who would have thought that they would die at the hands of their comrades. Li Meng is a thief, and the court should punish him seriously and be a meritorious soldier.

This is to directly express his own merits to threaten the court. This method is extremely useful for generals in commanding the army. When Liu Zongzhou, the famous Qingliu, impeached Liu Zeqing and harmed the garrison, General Liu Zeqing directly refuted, and his words were fierce, and the court could only mediate in the end.

However, this time, Li Meng's reputation for occupying the civilian woman in Nanjing (not that she is a civilian woman) has been spread to the capital by Jiangnan literati. However, the Donglin Party in the capital kept silent or downplayed it in the court, and only those who had no official positions were shouting loudly.
Chapter completed!