A sudden knock on the door made Sun Tu wake up from his dream, and then he found that there was a petite and soft body curled up in his arms. Then he remembered that the little girl Ya'er fell asleep in his room last night.
After being told to go out the night before, Sun Tu did not return home until yesterday afternoon. This frightened Ya'er greatly, thinking that something had happened to her third brother. When he came back, the little girl was sobbing and crying. Sun Tu comforted her for a while before she calmed down.
But at night, Ya'er refused to go back to her room to sleep, and stayed by Sun Tu's side. In the end, Sun Tu couldn't defeat her, and because he had been running around all day and night before and couldn't rest his mind, he finally fell asleep without knowing it.
In fact, Sun Tu has already understood some of today's customs. The so-called adopted mother is not a goddaughter in the literal sense (why does this term seem so evil now...), but a child bride. It is difficult for ordinary people to get married, so under certain conditions, they will raise a helpless girl at home from an early age, and then marry her son when she grows up. Apparently, the Sun family had this idea before. But now he is the only male left in the Sun family, so Ya'er's identity is self-evident.
But Sun Tu is a time traveler after all, so he always cannot accept such customs, and Ya'er is too young, so he always keeps a corresponding distance from him on weekdays. But judging from Ya'er's performance last night, he felt a little distressed. Maybe he was the only one in her eyes.
Seeing that the little girl frowned because of the continuous knocking on the door, as if she was about to wake up, Sun Tu quickly stood up gently and went out quietly. When I came outside, I realized that it was just dawn. Why did someone come to the door
With doubts in his heart, Sun Tu opened the courtyard door and saw the policeman standing in front of his house, which made him frown even more tightly: "I wonder what the policeman's orders are?"
"Are you Sun Tu?" The officer looked Sun Tu up and down, and after seeing him nod, he said, "Then make preparations quickly and meet at the west gate at about nine o'clock."
"What does this mean?" Sun Tu became more and more confused. But the other party glared: "This is the order of the county Yin and the county captain. Today we are going to attack Hutou Village in Xishangang. You have been drafted!" After saying that, he turned around and hurried away. He still had to inform others. Woolen cloth.
Sun Tu stood there for a moment. He knew very well that the county was going to send troops to attack Hutou Village, and he was responsible for this. But he always thought that this matter had nothing to do with him. After all, he was just a hotel owner, not a soldier. But now that the county government has actually recruited him, it will make him miserable, otherwise the charges will be serious if he is investigated.
"Third brother, why did you come out?" Ya'er's voice suddenly came from behind. She actually woke up after leaving Sun Tu's arms. She was still rubbing her eyes with a confused look on her face.
Sun Tu then suppressed the surprise on his face, smiled and said: "It's nothing, someone is asking me to do something, and he will be leaving soon. You just stay at home today, and I will come back in the evening."
The little girl obviously felt that something was wrong, but she did not dare to object. She could only nod and said: "Well, third brother, you must come back early." Sun Tu nodded immediately, but his heart was still heavy. Yes, he could clearly feel that someone was taking care of him.
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When Sun Tu rushed to the west gate, hundreds of young men in the city who were just as worried and confused as him had gathered there. After asking each other, everyone realized that these were bandits recruited by the government to cooperate with the army to attack Xishangang. This made many people seem a little nervous.
Soon afterwards, Huang Si, the leader of the county government's Zhuang Squad, came over with more than ten subordinates, and called the names according to the roster. After the number was counted, he said: "There are thieves from Hutou Village outside the city today. You are so audacious that you dare to rob the imperial court's property. In order to protect the peace of our Yuncheng County, the county magistrate will suppress the bandits today. You must obey the orders and act. As long as you can break the nest of thieves, you will all be rewarded."
As soon as these words came out, the people were in panic and uproar. The Hutou Village outside the city has existed for more than ten years. The government has always been unable to do anything to them. Can it be successfully eradicated this time? Thinking of the dangers they may face, the young people are naturally terrified.
But before they could raise any objections, groups of officers and soldiers had already rushed from the long street at the rear. The dozens of cavalrymen at the front were even more murderous, directly suppressing the ordinary people who had never seen a sword battle. They didn't dare to breathe anymore, so they could only obediently take the sticks they were given, then obey the orders, and follow the officers and soldiers in a chaotic queue towards the outside of the city.
Sun Tu was in the middle of the team, looking at the lackluster march and just scratching his head. Can such a miscellaneous army really defeat the bandits of Hutou Village who have been entrenched here for many years? He had already heard that Hutou Village was not only well-defended, but also had no less than two hundred fierce bandits.
At this time, a slightly confused voice sounded from beside him: "Why are you recruited, Sanlang?"
"Song Yasi?" Sun Tu turned his head when he heard the sound, and fisted Song Jiang, who was just coming over: "I received the transfer order the next morning, so I had to come here."
"Your Sun family is considered a single household now. Logically, you shouldn't be allowed to take risks. It seems that someone has used some trick secretly." Song Jiang said thoughtfully. As soon as Sun Tu heard this, he remembered the cold look Liu Yuan looked at him yesterday. Only this old official had such means.
However, he was confident that nothing would happen to him based on his ability, so he seemed indifferent and just said with a smile: "Since it is an order from the government and it is to wipe out the local bandits, I naturally have no shirking duty."
These words made Song Jiang look at him again and couldn't help but say: "Sanlang is indeed a hero, Song Jiang admires him."
"It's just that I really don't understand something. Shouldn't it be the duty of the officers and soldiers to suppress thieves? Why are they recruiting me and other common people to go with them?" Sun Tu took the opportunity to ask his doubts.
"Hey, there are less than 300 rural soldiers in our county now, and there are less than 500 government officials. We are not sure of victory in terms of momentum and combat power. Therefore, it is a helpless move to recruit the young and strong people in the city to send troops together." As Song Jiang spoke, he found that Sun Tu was still confused, so he explained: "Maybe you don't know yet. In addition to the border troops, the official army of the Song Dynasty can be divided into the forbidden army, the Xiang army and the rural soldiers according to their ranks. The forbidden army is drawn from the army. The elites of the whole country were used to defend Bianliang in Tokyo, while the Xiang army was weaker, but they only stayed in the important cities of various states. Only ordinary rural soldiers were scattered in counties and towns across the country to maintain local stability. But in terms of Although the fighting force is strong, the rural soldiers are too weak."
After hearing this, Sun Tu finally came to some understanding and made a further judgment based on the knowledge he had mastered - the Song Dynasty's military arrangement of strong branches and weak branches originated from Emperor Taizu Zhao Kuangyin.
And he also had to take such countermeasures because he accepted the lessons of the military commanders from various places in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties who constantly rebelled and subverted the government. He was worried that military commanders would rebel after the founding of the Song Dynasty. It’s just that the strategy that may have made an outstanding contribution to stability at the beginning became a disease that hindered the self-improvement of the Song Dynasty many years later.
Mobilizing elites from all over the country to Beijing will naturally keep the combat effectiveness of local Xiang troops and rural soldiers at an extremely low level. In addition, the Song Dynasty court has always had the tradition of recruiting people from disaster areas to join the army after natural disasters to prevent the victims from rioting. The right way is to vertically The flag of raising troops has its own food-eaters, and the recruitment of troops is completely regarded as a means of maintaining stability and making people eat. This has caused the combat effectiveness of local government troops to continue to decline. Now, more than a hundred years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the army and rural soldiers in various places have long been It is so weak that it cannot even defeat the bandits and bandits who dominate the mountain.
The same was true for Yuncheng County, and under Suo Chao's pressure, Liu Yaochen could only do his best to bite the bullet, and even resorted to the helpless move of recruiting young people from all over the city to jointly suppress the bandits.
Although this allowed the number of troops sent to fight against the bandits to reach nearly a thousand, which looked mighty, but in terms of combat power, could these chaotic thousands of people really pose any threat to the hundreds of bandits in Hutou Village? At least in Sun Tu's opinion, it's really a bit embarrassing...