Chapter 42: Killing innocent people to gain credit
In the county town of Jiangbei, the prefect, the county magistrate, and officials of all ranks sat at two large tables and drank celebratory wine to celebrate the elimination of the bandit problem in Yunding Mountain.
The transport envoy said with emotion that Zhao Yulin had fought a great battle. A large sum of stolen money was confiscated at Juexi Field, and tens of thousands of taels of silver, gold bars and countless treasures were seized on the mountain. No matter how the adults rewarded him, he would never be able to spend all the money.
He felt a little emotional. Normally, when the government troops were dispatched, the captured spoils would be pocketed by the soldiers themselves. But now that the Shenwei Army was coming to suppress the rebellion, not only did they train their own troops, but even the ships for transporting the troops were their own.
The prefect said that rewards should be given according to merit, and since it was the soldiers who risked their lives to achieve this, all the proceeds collected this time should be rewarded to them.
When everyone heard this, they were so surprised that they were speechless. It was a huge sum of money.
Seeing everyone's confused and reluctant faces, the prefect said that they should keep 30% of it, as Lingxiao Mountain was still spending money.
The transport envoy immediately said it was a great blessing, as it was the second half of the year and there were many places to spend money.
The next day, Zhao Yulin took four beauties, including Zhao Sihan and Chen Xiaomin, to accompany his mother and Si Niang to have dinner at Beggar's Chicken in Jiangbei.
He asked Aunt Li to invite all the elderly people in the Happy Home to be guests at Beggar's Chicken, and asked his mother and Si Niang to entertain these lonely beggars as the hosts, and also gave these elderly people new clothes and shoes.
The old people were so moved that they burst into tears and kept thanking him.
Afterwards, he escorted the two mothers to the newly bought boat and asked Zhou Ping to go around Sanjiangkou for the elders to see. Several future daughters-in-law surrounded the two mothers-in-law and pointed out the scenery on both sides of the river. Zhao Yulin told his sister that in the future he would buy a bigger boat to go to Chongqing and travel through the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, where the scenery was more beautiful.
When he got home, Lei Man and Lu Youpeng came to him in a hurry and said that the government soldiers suffered heavy losses in Lingxiao Mountain. After failing to capture the mountain for a long time, they became angry and killed innocent people around the foot of the mountain, which aroused civil unrest and caused more people to flee to the mountain. Some had already fled to Cuiping Mountain.
Zhao Yulin felt that this was a reckless act, with the government soldiers killing innocent people to claim credit. Even if the banditry in Lingxiao Mountain was eradicated, long-term peace and stability could not be achieved.
He asked Lei Man to strengthen the defense south of the Jinsha River and ordered the Shenwei Army to strictly enforce military discipline to help the people overcome difficulties.
After dinner, Chen Xiaomin came to the study to talk to him, asking him why he didn't care how much money their perfume made.
While writing about paintings, Zhao Yulin said that no matter how much they sold, it all belonged to them and their sisters and had nothing to do with him, so why did he ask?
Chen Xiaomin was bored and said that the sales method planned by Ma Ling and Si Han this time was an incentive sales method. After the merchant company gave scores and grades to the cooperating merchants, only those who passed the scores could be the agents to sell their perfumes, and then the sales volume and order of picking up the goods were determined according to the scores.
This is a new method that Cuiping Commercial Bank has explored after introducing a supervision mechanism. Xiaomin told him that after they did this, the quality of the commercial bank's purchases improved rapidly, and the service attitude of the merchants became better.
Thinking about how hard they worked on their brains, Zhao Yulin quickly went over and kissed her, encouraging them to keep up the good work.
Xiaomin asked him disdainfully what happened to Wu Yuqi, and whether Brother Yulin had forced himself on her and done that to her.
Chen Xiaomin suspected that Zhao Yulin raped a woman.
Zhao Yulin put down the brush in his hand, stared at her and asked, "What do you mean? Am I that kind of person?"
Chen Xiaomin was frightened by his terrifying look. She jumped away and stuck out her tongue, and asked him weakly why Yuqi seemed like a different person after she came back, being silent all day and never smiling.
Only then did Zhao Yulin realize that he cared too little about Wu Yuqi.
He stood up and said that Yuqi must be feeling upset and unable to bear it after seeing the brutal killing scenes on the battlefield.
Chen Xiaomin didn't believe it and said that he was trying to cover up his mistake and was lying. He must have bullied Yuqi.
He didn't explain, and took Xiaomin to find Wu Yuqi. The little woman was actually doing needlework in the room. Zhao Yulin asked her if the wounded soldiers were much better.
Yuqi nodded and asked in surprise why they came here?
He said Xiaomin saw that she looked listless and didn't know what was wrong with her.
The girl said she was fine, but she felt a little sad. She wanted to vomit when she saw the living people being blown into pieces like meat. They were still having dinner together yesterday, and today they were buried in the ground. It was very sad.
Zhao Yulin sat down next to her, held the weak woman in his arms and said, "This is war, we're just fighting bandits, can't you bear a small sacrifice?"
In the future, when we fight against the Mongolian army, I don’t know how many hundreds or thousands of casualties there will be in one battle.
Yuqi put her head on his shoulder and said that she really didn't want to see such killing, it was too cruel.
Zhao Yulin said that we must stand up straight and face reality. He said that our army goes to the battlefield to stop violence and protect peace. How can we protect peace without destroying the enemy?
Zhao Yulin held her head with both hands and kissed her forehead. As soon as she raised her head, Chen Xiaomin said, "Wow, Yuqi is enjoying it. Brother Yulin, I want one too."
Then she walked over, bent down and asked Zhao Yulin to kiss her, which made Wu Yuqi laugh.
Zhao Yulin poked Xiaomin's forehead with his finger and said he was tickling her. Then he stretched out his claws to check for mines on Wu Yuqi, and Chen Xiaomin immediately joined in.
Wu Yuqi laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes, and she rolled over and over on the bed, shouting "No, no."
At this time, Chen Xiaomin suddenly stretched out his claws towards Zhao Yulin and shouted, "Scratch him."
Zhao Yulin was hit in the soft spot and fell down immediately. The two women touched him all over and made him feel like he was dying. He hurriedly slipped off the bed and ran away.
Chen Xiaomin laughed happily in the back. She told Wu Yuqi that it was really enjoyable and they would do the same to him next time.
Zhao Yulin ran to his room in panic and bumped into a woman. He looked closely and found that it was Wu Yuqi's mother, Aunt Li. Aunt Li was looking at him with a puzzled look.
Zhao Yulin's heart became even more confused. He hurriedly helped Aunt Li up and said, "We didn't do anything, really." Then he fled again.
Aunt Li shook her head in confusion and hurried towards her daughter's room.
At the Wang family in Jiangbei, Mr. Wang is holding a wedding for Wang Dehui.
The Wang family actually found an unmarried scholar named Liu Yuanhao who was almost 40 years old for Wang Dehui. This man was well-read, but his family was poor. He asked Mr. Wang for loans many times to go to Lin'an to take the imperial examination, but he failed and was left with a lot of debts.
The Wang family sent a matchmaker to propose marriage. After promising to buy a house, give money, and waive the loan, Mr. Liu simply became the buyer.
So, Wang Dehui, with her maid and wearing a loose red wedding dress, married into the Liu family.
On the wedding night, Mr. Liu got drunk on the sweet lychee juice from the Wang family. He didn't care which family Wang Dehui came from, and actually wanted her to use her sweet little mouth to stimulate and please him.
Haha, you are so knowledgeable that you can even wash this one well.
He became more and more excited, and pulled Wang Dehui's hair to force her, causing Wang Dehui, who was already several months pregnant, to burst into tears and cough constantly, feeling extremely uncomfortable.
Damn, what kind of marriage is this?
What kind of punishment have you endured?
Wang Dehui could not help it. She cursed Mr. Liu's ancestors eighteen times, regardless of her status as a lady from a wealthy family. She looked at the man lying beside her with his ugly lower body exposed, and cried while crawling into the quilt and covering her head...
Zhao Yulin returned to his room and saw Zhu Congwen coming.
He asked Xia Dingtian to make tea. After they had tea, Zhu Congwen said that the number of new recruits was increasing rapidly, and some squadrons could be increased to 300 people.
Zhao Yulin suggested that we start from the first squadron and promote it to a battalion, which is composed of 600 people. He believed that with the existing equipment, a battalion should be able to fight against a 1,000-man squadron of the government army.
Zhu Congwen agreed with his point of view. After such configuration, the organization of a battalion and a battalion is basically the same, which is basically the same as the organization of the Song army at present. In the future, the troops will be organized into a general team according to six battalions, and six general teams will be organized into a column.
Zhao Yulin asked him to go to Miao Gui's first squadron to select some brave generals and promote them to be squadron leaders, so as to quickly expand the team.
Zhu Congwen worriedly said, "What are the imperial army doing? They can't kill the rebels but kill the people around them. Lingxiao Mountain is a typical example of killing innocent people for credit. This will provoke more people to rebel. It's not a way to control the chaos but to create chaos."
Zhao Yulin said that with our current strength we are not able to lead troops to stop their actions, so the same thing applies, we should do our best first.
At the foot of Lingxiao Mountain, the arrow wound of Tongpan Xu Chaolin had almost healed. The government troops led by him surrounded the rebels and killed them, driving away the people within ten miles around, and artificially created a no-man's land to isolate the rebels.
Last night, his subordinates suggested that the government troops disguise themselves as civilians and blend in with the crowd going up the mountain. Perhaps if they could get as close to the gate of the stronghold as possible, they might be able to break into the stronghold.
Xu Chaolin needed a victory so badly that he led his troops out with great confidence, thinking that he could achieve immediate success. However, even with the reinforcements, he was still trapped at the foot of the mountain.
He received a military report that the Shenwei Army had wiped out the bandits in Yunding Mountain and returned home, but he was still staying in this remote mountain area without making any contribution.
Xu Chaolin decided to take a risk.
Now, the disguised officers and soldiers have set off. On the narrow mountain road leading to Lingxiao Mountain, a death squad of 200 people dressed in civilian clothes are walking towards the gate of the mountain village in groups of three or five.
However, just as they were approaching the mountain gate, they were discovered by the rebel leader guarding the mountain.
There was only one road on the top of Lingxiao Mountain that opened out of the cliff, and the rebels had seen them long ago. Because the government troops had driven away the people around, although there were mountain people who came up the mountain to seek refuge, that was a few days ago. How could so many mountain people suddenly appear, and they were all strong and healthy?
The disguised soldiers were eventually seen through, and when the rebels asked for the secret code and incision for going up the mountain, the government troops had no answer at all, and the two sides immediately engaged in close combat.
The mountain gate was a crack less than two meters wide that was formed when a huge rock split open. The rebels used the cover on the mountain to shoot arrows and throw stones at the enemies. The death squad had no way to retreat, so they rushed forward to fight desperately. Both sides were fighting for their lives.
Unfortunately, the road outside the village gate was too narrow, and it was all a narrow path carved out of the cliff. The rebels could shoot several soldiers with one arrow, like shooting a candied haws. The government troops who were cut off from the rear were like lambs to be slaughtered, and most of them were quickly wiped out. The few soldiers at the back retreated in a hurry, and more than a dozen of them fell off the cliff in the crowd.
A sneak attack ended in a disastrous defeat for the government troops.
Xu Chaolin had to stay where he was and engage in a long-term confrontation.
