() In Ganzhou city, Yang Tinglin also organized tens of thousands of refugees into baojia groups and selected 3,000 young and strong men from among them. The original garrison troops in the city served as officers at all levels. After the reorganization, Yang Tinglin personally led this team to borrow grain from the gentry and wealthy households in the city.
The Zhang family in the east of the city was the first to be approached, because they were the richest. Mr. Zhang relied on his connections in Beijing and refused to lend the money. Yang Tinglin did not get angry on the spot, but immediately posted a notice after returning to the government office: The Zhang family had colluded with the traitors, and the whole family was thrown into prison awaiting trial.
As the saying goes, the people's hearts are like iron, and the official law is like a furnace. Ganzhou is now like an isolated island in the huge waves. Yang Tinglin is not only the highest official in Ganzhou, but also holds military power.
Chen Shaoping, the co-magistrate of Ganzhou, Gao Dingfang, the judge, and Ma Sizhong, the co-magistrate of Ganzhou Guard, were afraid that the court would investigate them in the future, so they wanted to distance themselves from the matter. When Yang Tinglin did this, they just pretended to dissuade him and then turned a deaf ear to him.
Now everything in Ganzhou City is decided by Yang Tinglin. Since he is willing to take such a cruel action, who can guarantee that he will not really accuse you of collusion with robbery after you are put in jail
Ever since the Zhang family was thrown into prison, no one dared to refuse Yang Tinglin when he came to borrow grain.
Whenever the end of the world comes, this phenomenon often occurs: the country has no money, ordinary people cannot eat, but the homes of officials, gentry and wealthy families have mountains of money and grain.
Ganzhou was no exception. Yang Tinglin only borrowed 30% from each family, and the treasury was full. If he took all the money, it would be a spectacular scene. But before that, these officials and wealthy families kept crying poor and refused to lend a penny.
I really don't understand, if the rebels are allowed to invade, how many of them can protect their own money and food? There are so many short-sighted people in this world!
Tens of thousands of refugees could finally have enough to eat, and they were naturally grateful to the prefect, especially the thousands of young and strong people. It could be said that they could fight wherever Yang Tinglin directed.
In such a chaotic world, Yun Qiaoer is not the only one who sells herself for a pancake.
The tens of thousands of refugees in the city were no longer powder kegs that could explode at any time. On the contrary, they became the most important force in Yang Tinglin's hands.
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Qin Mu and his companions trudged through the mud and water all night. Everyone was dirty and looked even more like refugees.
When Huo Sheng arrived in Xinfeng with twenty or thirty men, they split up into groups of three or five. Then they didn't have to do anything else as they were actively recruited by the rebels. Even if you don't want to join, they will get angry with you.
It really is true that if God wants to destroy you, he will first make you crazy.
Gu Xiancheng followed Han Xin's example of selecting soldiers, the more the better. However, he ignored the fact that he was not Han Xin. It was really crazy to blindly expand the army and send it out without proper reorganization.
Of course, Gu Xiancheng was definitely not the first person to do this. The peasant uprisings in history were similar to this. Even during World War II, the Soviet Union pushed young people without any training or weapons onto the battlefield.
What can you do on the battlefield without weapons? Comrade Stalin will tell you that you can at least consume one or even a dozen bullets of the enemy;
If you fail to consume the enemy's bullets, you can also pick up the abandoned guns from the battlefield and let the enemy consume them. In short, let's eliminate waste.
Gu Xiancheng also didn't want to waste anyone. Even if you are a 70-year-old man, as long as you can still walk and as long as you are willing to join our glorious rebellion, we warmly welcome you. You can only add a number to our team. Sometimes, numbers alone can scare the enemy.
Come on! It's not scary to join us. After joining our team, you have only two options: to join the battle or not to join the battle. What's so scary about not joining the battle
There are two possibilities after joining a battle: getting injured or not getting injured. What's so scary about not getting injured
There are two possibilities after being injured: minor injury and serious injury. What's so scary about a minor injury
There are two possibilities after a serious injury: can it be cured or cannot be cured. What’s so scary about it being cured? Not being cured is even less scary because you’re already dead.
Of course, the most important thing is that if you don’t join us, you will die faster!
After a new round of crazy military expansion, the number of Gu Xiancheng's men had increased dramatically to more than 30,000. After organizing them into combat units such as small flags, general flags, hundred households, and thousand households, Gu Xiancheng led this force to march towards Ganzhou.
Tens of thousands of troops marched in a mighty procession, stretching for more than ten miles, which was quite spectacular. Huo Sheng became a centurion, with more than a hundred men under his command, which was not only full, but also overstaffed.
But Captain Huo could not be happy, because he was not just a military officer, he also held several positions including director of an orphanage, kindergarten principal, and women's director.
Look at the type of people among his more than one hundred men. There are eleven old men with almost lost teeth who are leaning on crutches, seven or eight children who wet their pants while walking, and several women breastfeeding on broken ox carts, who do not even avoid people and just pull out their white breasts to feed the babies. Several half-grown boys almost had their eyes popped out, and they forgot to look at the road when walking and bumped into each other.
Captain Huo wanted to enforce military discipline, but among the Seventeen Prohibitions and Fifty-Four Beheadings, there was no one prohibiting breastfeeding during the march, and he really could not find a legal basis to prohibit this behavior.
However, it was this group of people, when they participated in burning, killing and looting, they were no less powerful than a group of tigers and wolves, and were even more ruthless and robbed more thoroughly. You could see that among the looted things they had, even spatulas were on them.
After walking for a day and covering thirty miles, we arrived at a place called Xiniu Town and set up camp at night.
Xiniu Town is not big, with less than two hundred households, half of which live in thatched houses made of bamboo and wood.
Before the arrival of the rebels, most of the people in the town had fled. There were also a small number of people who had no place to live who lined the streets, waiting to join the rebels. Gu Xiancheng still accepted everyone and recruited them all.
At night, Gu Xiancheng lived in the town with two to three thousand of the more elite troops and sent a large number of sentries to guard the surroundings. The rest of the old and weak were stationed around the town to protect it.
Gu Xiancheng looted a large amount of treasures and beauties in Xinfeng. In order to quickly march north to attack Ganzhou, he had no time to enjoy them. At nightfall that day, bursts of lewd music were heard in the town.
Huo Sheng, the women's director and the kindergarten director, had no chance to be stationed in the town. Gu Xiancheng was not really a fool. Most of the people stationed in the town were relatively reliable, and they were all selected young and strong, with some fighting power. Unlike the miscellaneous people outside, there were old, weak, women and children, who were just there to make up the numbers.
When the outer team set up camp, there was still an open space of one mile wide between them and the town. All the trees in the open space were ordered to be cut down by Gu Xiancheng. The sentries in the town were more alert, which made Huo Sheng very embarrassed.
Huo Sheng originally planned to attack the center directly as soon as the plan was launched, but he didn't expect Gu Xiancheng to do this, which completely ruined his plan.
Qin Mu, with his three hundred men, had long been impatient to wait. Since leaving Ganzhou City, they had been hiding during the day and traveling at night, hiding in the mountains and forests, relying on dry food to fill their stomachs, and enduring the bites of mosquitoes. All they were waiting for was an opportunity to launch a night attack.
Of course, others are not fools. They will not fail to send out sentries at night. With only 300 men and horses, if you reveal your identity in advance, others can throw stones at you and make you run away in fear.
Even if you can sneak up to the enemy camp and launch a night attack without anyone noticing, and surprise attack on part of the enemy, the other enemies will also react, and it will be very difficult to completely defeat the enemy.
Fortunately, Qin Mu still has a fifth column.
In October 1936, when the Spanish rebels and the German and Italian fascist armies jointly attacked Madrid, the capital of the Spanish Republic, General Lano led four columns to attack Madrid. When asked who entered Madrid first, he replied "the fifth column", implying the spies and saboteurs who were rioting in the city.
Facts have proved that the successful capture of Madrid was indeed due to the wanton sabotage of the "Fifth Column". Since then, the "Fifth Column" has become a synonym for traitors and spies.
However, Qin Mu, who had prepared everything, did not receive any help from the "Fifth Column" until the third watch. Cui Feng approached Qin Mu and asked, "Sir, what should we do?"
"Keep calm and wait a little longer." Various accidents often occur in wars. There are many cases where a well-planned war turns into a chaotic melee. So even though Qin Mu had made careful arrangements beforehand, he had to keep calm at this moment.
As the captain of the "Fifth Column", Huo Sheng was getting impatient at the moment. He had tried many times but failed to sneak into the town. In a rage, he led his men to the upwind side of the outer camp, lit dozens of fires separately, and then tied firecrackers to the tails of a group of cows. The crackling of firecrackers suddenly broke through the night sky, and dozens of cows were frightened and ran wildly in the camp, and the rumbling sound of their hooves was deafening.
The camp on the east side soon became a mess. The raging fire was blown up several feet high by the wind. Tents were quickly set on fire, and the flames illuminated half of the sky red.
Thousands of rebels didn't even bother to put on their clothes as they rushed out of their tents. They saw fires and mad cows running everywhere. Some people kept shouting, "The government troops are coming! The government troops are coming! Go report to the second in command!"
"The government troops are coming, run! If you don't run, you will die!"
"Hurry, hide in the town, hide in the town!"
The rebels, who were running around like headless flies, didn't think much when they heard the shouts and rushed into the town in a panic.
At this time, the earth-shaking sound of war drums came from outside the camp, and torches were everywhere in the mountains and plains, like a sea of fire rapidly spreading towards the camp. Qin Mu led more than 200 people, each holding a few torches, and tried to disperse the formation as much as possible, rushing towards the rebel camp on the east side which was already in chaos.
Hurry, hurry! Qin Mu could see clearly from the mountain that the fire was only in the rebel camp to the east. If he could not follow the rebels to the east and rush into the town, the attack tonight would fail.
So we have to be quick, we must be quick, we must chase the fleeing soldiers in the east and rush into the town!
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