Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The general of Sichuan is Lin Chong.

He originally led troops in Chengdu, and stayed in Hunan after defeating Zhong Xiang. He was transferred to eastern and southern Sichuan a few years ago, and only returned to Chengdu to take charge of the whole Sichuan in the past two years.

Lin Chong and the officials of the three Sichuan divisions were both happy and worried when they received the order from the court.

The happy thing is that they can fight and make merit, and even the civil servants who help with logistics can also have political achievements.

The worry is that not only do they have to fight, but they also have to relocate the people and change the natives to the Han people!

Some places can do it, but some places are difficult.

Take Zhizhou as an example. It is said to be a vassal state, but in fact it is only a palm-sized area in the western mountainous area of ​​Maoxian in the future. The mountains are high and the valleys are deep, the land is barren, and there are even snow-capped mountains all year round. It is difficult for the Han people to farm after migrating there.

Lü Benzhong, the Left Governor of Sichuan, said: "There are three chieftains in Zhizhou, Zhi Yongshou, Tang Junyan, and Dong Chengyou. The court said that they want to exterminate the Dong family, so we will exterminate Dong Chengyou, and Zhi Yongshou and Tang Junyan should still be suppressed and pacified. The same method should be used for other vassal areas that are difficult to immigrate and cultivate. Kill one group and subdue another group."

"But the court wants to change all the natives into officials." Lin Chong said.

Lü Benzhong shook his head: "Luoyang is thousands of miles away, and the officials in the court only know the general situation, not the specific situation in the local area. Even a few of us have only recently asked more and more detailed information from merchants and captives."

"We should still explain it to the court." The Right Governor Zhan Shangzhi said.

Lu Benzhong said: "We don't have much time this year. Send troops and report at the same time. We should fight first in places where the natives can be converted to officials, as those places have more convenient transportation. Those places where the natives cannot be converted to officials are all in high mountains and dangerous valleys. We can leave them alone for the time being and wait for the court's approval before taking action."

Lin Chong thought this was very reasonable, and immediately called the merchants and captives of the barbarians in Maozhou to inquire about the situation carefully before making a plan to send troops.

Since the duties of civil officials and military generals are clearly divided, it is no longer a case of civil and military officials checking and dragging each other down, but civil and military officials each perform their duties and work together to gain merit and political achievements.

After the hot summer days, Lin Chong personally led the army to the battle.

He only took 6,000 field troops and 10,000 garrison troops, and rushed to Maozhou.

These 16,000 troops can beat the barbarians in Maozhou several times, which is a bit like using a butcher knife to kill a chicken. But the number of troops sent out cannot be reduced. After taking over a stronghold, people must be left to defend it, and then guard the immigrants to build villages and organize baojia, so that the Han people can have the ability to protect themselves before they can withdraw.

The arsenals of various prefectures in Sichuan took out all the old equipment.

While Lin Chong led his army to the expedition, Luo Bingzhong, the commander of Sichuan, was also busy.

He couldn't wait for the landless peasants to apply for the army, and ordered the conscription agencies in Mianzhu, Deyang, Long'an and other counties to forcibly draft the men according to the conscription files of previous years. Farmers with more than five male adults who have not separated their families must draft a young man under the age of 25 to be an immigrant.

Emperor Zhu found it difficult to recruit immigrants, but it was not a problem for local civil and military officials!

On the pretext of training militia, they forcibly drafted and reorganized the men, and then took them to fight in places where immigrants were needed. After the war, they stayed there directly, settled down, divided the land and made a list. Those with wives and children brought their wives and children, and those without wives married local women-killing the male adults in the family of the barbarian chieftains could leave many women for marriage.

This approach can be easily accomplished as long as the local civil and military officials cooperate tacitly.

Especially since Sichuan has been peaceful for 20 years, a large number of young and strong people have been bred. There are families with too many males everywhere, and it is nothing to draw one from each family.

Except for the person who was drawn, even their brothers are probably willing. Because they can get a resettlement fee, and there is one less brother to fight for the family property!

Lin Chong did this in eastern and southern Sichuan.

The southern part of Luzhou, Nanguan tribe (Yunlian), Zizhou (Xishui), Yelang, the northern part of Luoshi Barbarians (Xuyong, Gulin), the northern part of Mahu tribe (Mabian, Suijiang)... A total of more than 60,000 males were deceived and thrown into those places on the pretext of training militias for combat.

In addition to their wives and children, as well as the criminals who were exiled. In the entire southern Sichuan region, more than 100,000 Han people have been stuffed in in the past ten years!

The weaker Nanguan tribe, that is, the Yunlian area, the barbarians were directly driven back to the mountains. They wanted to take back the land under the mountain, but every time they went down the mountain to plunder, they were defeated by Han immigrants.

Because those Han people were all properly trained militiamen before they immigrated, and they were given leather armor, swords, guns and bows and arrows!

All the newly emerging villages in southern Sichuan have their own villages.

Even during the busy farming season, they would arrange people to stand guard in the nearby mountains.

Although they are all remote and poor places, education is very developed. Almost every new village has a convicted official, who teaches children to read, and the villagers help them farm. When encountering major events, these convicted officials are also responsible for making decisions.

In another ten or twenty years, when the children of these immigrants and convicted officials grow up, at least ten more counties can be set up in southern Sichuan - some counties are even in the territory of Yunnan and Guizhou in later generations.

Since the destruction of Zhong Xiang, Lin Chong has not had any spectacular military achievements.

But he and the Sichuan civil officials have joined forces to violate the rules and have been expanding the territory.

The violations are real violations, and they have always been kept secret from the court.

They refused to admit that they had forcibly conscripted men, saying that they had all volunteered to migrate. As long as they could suppress the counterattack of the barbarian tribes and prevent large-scale deaths of immigrants, Sichuan civil and military officials could continue to gain political achievements and military merits!

These guys even came up with a set of procedures and continued to improve them.

Some Sichuan civil and military officials were transferred to other provinces and brought this set of procedures with them.

For example, Hunan and Guangxi have begun to follow suit in recent years. But their capital is not as strong as that of Sichuan. To put it bluntly, they do not have enough population to support them, so they can only implement it in a small way.

Do the censors who patrol various places know about this violation?

Know!

But they all chose to conceal it and not report it.

Of course, the process was followed this time. Emperor Zhu said that at least 5,000 immigrants would be immigrated, and those guys directly recruited 6,000 militiamen. Many of them are already married, and they will bring their wives and children with them when the time comes. Counting the children, it is estimated that tens of thousands of people will immigrate.

…

Xiong Yangzu is 18 years old and his native place is Xiaoquan Town, Mianzhu County.

His ancestors were also from a wealthy family, and they had not separated their families for a long time. Therefore, the identity is very strange. The family seems to be powerful, but the ordinary clan members are undoubtedly tenants.

Seeing the pity, the imperial court ordered the big family to split up.

The Mianzhu Xiong family had been disobeying the situation for several years, until the dismantling of ethnic groups in Jiangxi became a big issue, and the Sichuan government quickly took action. Troops were sent directly to various prefectures and counties to forcibly separate clans. Xiong Yangzu's father was even assigned clan fields.

Unfortunately, there is not much land, only a few dozen acres.

There are parents, grandfather, three elder brothers, one younger brother, and one younger sister in the family. Each of the brothers also married and had children.

The dozens of acres of land they were allocated were simply not enough to eat.

One brother went to work in the county town.

An elder brother occasionally goes to the town's oil refinery to help when he is not farming.

My father and grandfather were both bamboo craftsmen, and my mother and sister-in-law raised silkworms and weaved cloth. They could survive by farming a few acres of land.

Xiong Yangzu even attended a village school for three years. Unfortunately, his qualifications were mediocre and he was definitely hopeless in the imperial examination. He dropped out of school after he learned some daily words.

Just after harvesting the rice this year, officials suddenly came to the village.

The official dropped some settlement money and took away several men from the village, and Xiong Yangzu was one of them.

Xiong Yangzu was led northward in confusion, and other men continued to join him along the way, and finally settled in an unknown mountain village.

Many officers came, gave them soldiers and armor, and then began training.

Flags, orders, and formations are all simplified and quick versions.

Since Xiong Yangzu had studied for three years and was in good health, he directly became the squad leader of the Yuanyang Formation. Not only was there a spear, but a crossbow was also issued.

After the two-month militia crash training ended, Xiong Yangzu was taken to Maozhou.

He soon saw a captured village with hundreds of dried human heads hanging on it.

An officer rode up on horseback and said to the general leading the militia: "Why are you here? Leave five hundred people to settle here and choose the land yourself. The rest will be divided into three groups and dispersed to immigrate and cultivate in various places!"

Five hundred militiamen stayed here, and dozens of regular troops temporarily guarded the stockade with the militiamen.

I heard that the bandit chiefs here have not been wiped out, and they have fled into the mountains with a small number of remaining soldiers. They may come back at any time to sneak attack on the village.

Before it snows in winter, you have to be prepared.

After snowfall, you need to be even more careful. Those bandits are freezing in the mountains and are very likely to risk coming out to plunder.

Only after this winter is over and many of the remaining bandits are frozen to death and starved to death will the potential threat next year be smaller.

Xiong Yangzu continued to march with his troops.

On the way, we encountered several more breached villages with dried human heads hanging on them, and some militiamen were left one after another.

In late autumn, Xiong Yangzu came to a place called Hengzhou, which was more than a hundred miles north of Wenchuan County - only twenty miles away in a straight line. It was later called Bazhou Town, where Dong Yanbo's hometown was.

The Dong family has been running this place for hundreds of years, accumulated countless treasures, and built stone castles.

He was unwilling to give up his family fortune and flee into the mountains, but actually chose to defend the city!

Lin Chong divided his troops all the way to fight, with only 6,000 main troops around him.

There were seven to eight thousand barbarians scattered in Dong's castle and nearby mountains, many of whom were barbarians who had fled from other places and were chased by Lin Chong's army to defect to Dong Yanbo.

The day after Lin Chong arrived with his army, Dong Yanbo sent his son Dong Cunzhi out of the city to sue for peace.

When Dong Cunzhi saw Lin Chong, he knelt down and said, "General Lin, Dong is willing to surrender. He will give up his official position and rewards. From now on, he will submit to the imperial court and never betray again."

Lin Chong, with a beard on his face, stared at Dong Cunzhi and sneered, and then uttered two words: "Kill."

Several soldiers raised their guns and stabbed him. Before Dong Cunzhi could react, there were already several bloody holes in his body.

The mountain road was difficult to navigate, so Lin Chong only brought a few artillery pieces.

Moreover, the troops are divided in various places, and he currently only has two in hand.

"Boom boom boom!"

Two artillery pieces bombarded the stone castle, and the barbarians inside shouted in panic.

A barbarian chief named Luo Quanli said in horror: "It was this kind of thunderous cannon that destroyed my village wall in half a day. I was so frightened that I ran away from the back mountain and finally managed to save my life!"

Dong Yanbo stood there stunned, speechless.

He has been living in the mountains, and the news is too limited.

After surrendering to the Ming Dynasty, the chief envoy of Sichuan asked them to send their son to study in Chengdu. However, he found various reasons to refuse, unwilling to contact the outside world at all, and did not even know that the Ming army had artillery.

The development of things was completely beyond Dong Yanbo's expectation.

The Ming court not only refused to discuss peace and rewards, but instead sent a large army to kill him.

These Ming troops were so powerful that the Tibetan chiefs did not even have time to gather their troops before they were defeated one after another in more than ten strongholds.

Five days ago, he set up an ambush halfway.

Unexpectedly, due to the dangerous terrain, the Ming army actually sent a mountain search team to explore the road, forcing Dong Yanbo to launch an attack in advance.

The soldiers of the Ming army, who were marching in a long snake in the valley, formed small teams as quickly as possible. The troops marching in leather armor were responsible for covering, while the remaining sergeants went to wear iron armor as quickly as possible. Not only did they quickly repel Dong Yanbo's surprise attack, they also formed a formation to counterattack and chased them to the mountains.

Dong Yanbo was stunned on the spot. The Ming army had a strange squad formation that could be formed even when attacking mountains.

His troops were defeated. Fortunately, the mountains were high and the forests were dense, so he was able to escape quickly by relying on his familiarity with the terrain.

"We can't let the enemy keep thundering (shelling). The warriors are almost scared out of their wits. They must go out to fight immediately!" A chief who escaped from elsewhere suggested.

Dong Yanbo hesitated for a moment and finally decided to give it a go.

If the Ming army keeps shelling, although his castle is strong, it can only last for two or three days at most.

In the castle, with mountains on both sides, thousands of barbarians were attacking from three sides.

They were in a mess and were not in formation. Even if they said they were an army, they would be flattered. These guys had not fought a decent battle in hundreds of years.

During the Xining period, barbarians from various Jisi prefectures jointly sent troops, but were defeated by a group of militiamen led by Zhizhou Fan Baichang. Immediately, the Tibetans gathered more barbarian troops to besiege the city. Fan Baichang defended the low and dilapidated Maozhou City until the Shaanxi border troops were transferred to Sichuan for rescue.

A group of guys with extremely low combat effectiveness!

Xiong Yangzu and some militiamen happened to watch the whole battle.

They hid behind the regular troops, also took up arms and waited for orders, but their help was not needed at all.

I saw the musketeers in the regular army's mandarin duck team constantly firing freely, and sporadic barbarians were shot and fell down along the way. The barbarian soldiers managed to get close, but they couldn't break the firearm version of the mandarin duck formation at all.

In just a few minutes of hand-to-hand combat, seven or eight groups of barbarians fled one after another.

"kill!"

The regular army of the Ming Dynasty suddenly counterattacked, and the barbarians were immediately defeated.

Xiong Yangzu also wanted to chase them with a spear, but the officer leading them shouted: "Don't move. These are the elite direct descendants of General Lin, and we must not take away their military exploits!"

Xiong Yangzu looked at the spear in his hand and then at the fleeing barbarians.

It seems that fighting is easy, and he is not here to die.

The bandit chief Dong Yanbo finally escaped. When the army was defeated, he fled and took his family and a group of soldiers into the mountains.

It is surrounded by mountains and mountains on all sides, and there is no way to catch it!

Dong Yanbo's idea is very simple. He will come back after the Ming army leaves.

Although his place has never been breached, the Song army had breached other fortresses before, and they always looted and then withdrew before winter.

Sure enough, the Ming army left quickly.

But the main force of the Ming army left. Since this place was Dong Yanbo's hometown, Lin Chong left behind 300 garrison troops and 800 militiamen.

Dong Yanbo could only continue to hide in the mountains.

However, Xiong Yangzu was left here, and the officers took them to select fields, and from time to time they went into groups to get to know the terrain in nearby mountains.

The officer in charge of them said:

"Those who have wives and children, the government will take your wives and children next year. Those who have not yet married, you can choose among the captured barbarian girls. As long as you think you can afford it, each person can choose up to two."

"Next spring, the government will also send farm tools, cattle and seeds."

"You eight hundred militiamen, disperse to the nearby valleys. Form a village for every one hundred people, and give each village four cattle. The villagers' houses should not be too far apart, so that they can be easily dealt with when encountering an enemy situation. I will teach you You can build simple piers with bamboo. Build a few more in each village. If you encounter an enemy, run to the nearest pier."

"For the barbarians who have not been executed, the government will take away some to mine and free up more land for you. The remaining barbarians will be transferred to other tribes so that the barbarian chiefs who fled into the mountains can no longer gather their old tribes."

"Remember, there are still bandits who have escaped into the mountains and may come out at any time. You must be careful at all times!"

"I will stay here with you for half a year. After half a year, everything will depend on you."

"Your land will be tax-free for five years and half-tax for three years. In the future, the imperial court will also exile criminal officials and set up village schools to teach your children. Maybe a champion will be born here."

"When the post station is built, you can also write letters home and send the letters to the postmen. Within five years, the postmen will not charge you money to deliver letters to you..."

At dusk, the autumn wind is bleak.

Xiong Yangzu was sitting in a strange valley, looking at the strange mountains opposite, as if he was having a big dream.

He has only been to Mianzhu County twice since he was a child. He was usually in the village or town.

He was forcibly recruited into the militia, and settled here again.

Yesterday I chose a barbarian girl as my wife, and I estimate that I will spend the rest of my life here.

He misses home!