Chapter 163: The Two Parties Meeting Face to Face (Part 3)
Faced with his ignorance of farming, Lei Hu decisively chose not to touch upon this aspect directly. Instead, he used his strengths and began to quickly collect intelligence.
There are special local personnel in charge of recruiting soldiers. This does not mean to look down on Lei Hu, but it is really inefficient for a Hebei person to speak with a Hebei Changshan accent to promote Shandong rural people to join the anti-bandit army.
Lei Hu's hard-tipped pen writing is quite good, even though he only started learning to use a hard-tipped pen after coming to Huo Chong's place. This greatly improves his writing speed.
"When can you come back?"
"After we finish this battle and kill all the government troops, we can come back."
"I can't fight well."
"I don't let you fight with others. Just be obedient and do whatever you are told to do, and you will win."
"If this is the case, how long can Mr. Huo stay here?"
"As long as we all follow Master Huo, he will have to stay here for decades at least."
…
This was the conversation between the conscripts and the villagers. Lei Hu was almost dizzy after hearing this. He never expected that such a big thing as rebellion would be seen by the common people as just joining others in a fight.
As for the compensation that the people want, it is also very interesting. The staff here mentioned wages, and everyone does think that money is a good thing, but they want more practical objects. This year, the people generally said that the grain harvest was relatively large. Fewer people wanted grain. More people wanted objects such as farm tools, oil, and cotton cloth.
No one mentioned status, and no one wanted to gain a local title.
It was just such a simple conversation, and at the end he added, "I'll go back and ask my family."
After recording many times, Lei Hu even set up a lot of repeated content. Use the symbols you have learned to do it, so that the repeated content does not need to be written down repeatedly, only a few symbols are needed.
Just because he was really curious, Lei Hu asked many people who came here a question, "Why do you dare to discuss this with us?"
Without exception, everyone who came asked in confusion: "What do you mean? I just think Mr. Huo is a good person, so I'm talking to you. Otherwise, who would care about you!"
Lei Hu finally understood how things were going. It turned out that so many people came here just to see Huo Chong's face, and they really regarded the rebellion as a large-scale fight between Huo Chong and a more powerful person.
Huo Chong's side is indeed artificial. In a sense, war is like this. Future wars based on fists and teeth, swords, guns, sticks, and even exoskeleton armor that has already taken shape. In fact, war itself is a large-scale brawl.
In the plan, Huo Chong hopes to recruit 6,000 people and expand the current force to 10,000.
Similarly, Huo Chong also hoped to form a transport team of tens of thousands of people. The transport team of tens of thousands of people led by Master Changxin last time was a great help. If the Dengzhou Town camp had not been completely emptied, the Qing Dynasty would now have more sufficient means of operation.
Days passed one by one, and Huo Chong, who looked calm but was nervous inside, heard good news that the Qing army had no signs of advancing. The news sent by Captain Hong through the secret channel of the intelligence department said that he heard that there was a flood in Hebei, so the people the Qing army was waiting for did not come.
The Eighth Master provided Huo Chong with the plan of the Qing military department. In the plan, the Qing army in northern Zhili would not participate in the battle, but would take on the task of "side support". Probably supervising the battle.
After all, the proportion of Manchus in the Qing army in Northern Zhili was very high, and Yongzheng obviously did not want these Manchus to charge in front of the Han people. Huo Chong killed tens of thousands of Qing soldiers in the Green Camp twice. There were also bannermen in the Green Camp soldiers, but most of them were Han Eight Banners. Several times, the bannermen as a whole had a higher status than the Han people. However, within the bannermen, the status of the Han people was also lower than that of the Manchus.
The unexpected flood hindered the southward advance of Northern Zhili, giving Huo Chong more time.
The entire July dragged on, and in early August, the Qing army vanguard in Northern Zhili arrived near Jinan. Huo Chong had already gathered 9,000 troops, and after half a month of queue training, the new 5,000 troops were able to follow the captains of each team and march in formation. It must be said that this had already met Huo Chong's minimum needs.
At this time in Jinan City, Shandong Governor Chen Shiguan was trying to maintain the operation of Jinan Prefecture. Chen Shiguan used to think that Shandong was actually quite wealthy. However, with Huo Chong's rebellion, Jinan Prefecture immediately felt heavy pressure.
Huo Chong occupied the area from central to eastern Shandong, dividing Shandong into two. Food and supplies from southern Shandong could no longer be sent to Jinan, which had to take on the logistics of 20,000 people, so Jinan Prefecture had to provide food and supplies.
Even during the autumn harvest, the situation did not improve. After all, the army could not eat wheat directly. If you want to grind wheat into flour, you need to thresh, dry, shell, and grind. This process takes time, not just one or two days.
Moreover, the Qing army lived in the Jinan Prefecture area and caused all kinds of trouble. Fighting with the people was commonplace, and forced buying and selling and humiliating women happened more than once or twice. Recently, it happened quite a few times every day, making the local people extremely disgusted. They were unwilling to get close to the Qing army. The Qing army was stationed on both sides of the road, and if the people wanted to avoid it, they could only walk a long way around.
After discussing with the commanders of various Qing armies many times, Chen Shiguan found that these commanders were too polite in their words, saying things like "these people are unreasonable", "they should be severely punished", and "once discovered, they must chop off a few heads as a warning to others".
It's true, but no one really does it. Many of the petty officials below are locals, and they work for the government on a daily basis, so they are not well-received by the locals. At this time, I have suffered too much, so I can only come to them to ask for help in filing a complaint.
With so many people harmed, government officials are unwilling to take such cases anymore.
Chen Shiguan felt that he was a man who loved his people like his own children, and he could not bear to see a group of people kneeling down at the gates of various yamen to file complaints every day. Some people who were really suffering directly ran to the gate of the governor's yamen to kneel down and file complaints regardless of their lives.
The commanders of the government army were invited to come, but they either said nothing or pretended to sympathize. Chen Shiguan made up his mind that since the officers had expressed sympathy, he had to ask them to take real action. When pressed, the commanders replied: "In that case, let these people point out the criminals. If they can identify them, we can arrest them."
The people who were begging below were stunned , and so was Chen Shiguan. Compared to the people's confusion, Chen Shiguan was furious.
Identify! How to identify these 20,000 troops? Chen Shiguan thought his memory was pretty good. He walked in front of the army and thought about it. He couldn't remember who he had seen.
Let’s not talk about whether these commanders would allow civilians into the military camp. Even if they did, with so many people, would they really be able to recognize them?
Seeing the situation like this, Chen Shiguan could only urge the government troops to fight quickly while writing a memorial to Yongzheng, asking the emperor to consider the people and either send people to enforce military discipline or let the army move to other locations first. Don't block the official road anymore.
In the memorial, Chen Shiguan emphasized that he had tried his best to tell the leaders who came to suppress the bandits to move their camps. However, these leaders were greedy for convenience and could easily obtain supplies from the main road. If they moved, they would have to move at least ten miles.
Yongzheng was also very angry after reading Chen Shiguan's memorial. However, Yongzheng had a low tolerance for corruption and collusion among officials. But when it came to such things that harmed the people, Yongzheng was not very angry. The reason he was angry was because he saw the chaos of the officers and soldiers described by Chen Shiguan.
After putting down the memorial, he ordered the people from the Ministry of War to come. When he saw these people, Yongzheng threw the memorial to the Minister of War. After reading it, the Minister was not panicked. He just asked: "Is the emperor blaming these people for not intensifying the training?"
Yongzheng was delighted. It seemed that the Minister of War understood his thoughts very well. However, he could not praise him at this time, so he said unhappily, "Those people are so lazy that they have no time to harass the people!"
"Your Majesty, you can send an imperial envoy to secretly check whether the camps are training. This training is very exhausting. If you train every day, you will have to rest for a few days if you really fight. Therefore, the camps train every two or three days, and never every day."
"Can we move the camp away from the roadside?" Yongzheng asked about the crying request of Shandong Governor Chen Shiguan.
"Reporting to the emperor, these garrison locations were decided by the Ministry of War after finding military officers who are familiar with Shandong geography. These locations can be used for both attack and defense, and are just right for protecting Jinan City. Besides, the government troops from Northern Zhili will be here soon. Once the government troops arrive, let alone move, the people of Jinan Prefecture want the government troops to stay in Jinan City, and they will not stay."
After hearing this, Yongzheng felt relieved. As long as the government troops could fight and annihilate Huo Chong, that bastard, it would be fine. The Minister of War was right. There were arrangements for where the government troops would be stationed. But there was no movement now.
At this time in Jinan, several Qing soldiers who were obviously obsessed with sex were chasing a beautiful woman who was well-dressed, and they were running farther and farther away from the official road.
The soldiers didn't intend to use force at first, they just wanted to tease this pretty woman. Unexpectedly, the woman ran so fast, some of them gave up, but the few who didn't gave up were furious, and not only had evil thoughts in their hearts, but also had evil intentions.
However, when they were chased to a place where the Qing army could not see them, seven or eight people suddenly jumped out from the hiding place and directly arrested several Qing soldiers. They gagged them and tied them up, then passed a wooden stick through the rope ring and carried several Qing prisoners away.
The woman followed the crowd. Although the shoe prints on her feet were smaller than those of the men, they were several times larger than those of the women with bound feet. It was because of her natural feet that she was able to successfully lead the Qing army here and capture them without being caught.
After returning to a secluded spot not too far away, Qian Qing came out and said to the woman with a smile: "Li Li. Thank you for your hard work. "
"Sister! Can you kill them?" The two were still angry.
"If you dare to do anything, you can do whatever you want after the interrogation." Qian Qing said with a smile.
The two of them got angry for a while, then shook their heads and smiled bitterly, "Forget it, big sister, I don't dare."
