Chapter 21 Taking Risk
The rugged mountain road was not easy to walk. Everyone hurried on in a muffled voice, and the atmosphere was slightly solemn.
In fact, everyone has a problem in their hearts. Instead of getting easy-to-get grains, why should we get grains from local tycoons?
Everyone is sitting leisurely inside the fortress, guarding the courtyard with high walls. How can we, the servants, fight?
And even if it were defeated, how many people would die.
So, why go to all this trouble.
Duman was always in the middle, and he felt the atmosphere keenly.
He strode to the head of the team, found Zhang Chong, and whispered:
"Shi Zaizi, have you noticed that everyone is not in a good mood?"
"Of course, no one would be happy to let him chew the bones instead of eating the meat."
Zhang Chong didn't take it seriously. He thought this was not a problem.
Duman saw that Zhang Chong was in a bad mood and clicked on Zhang Chong:
"Shi Zaizi, our team is very mixed, and all the old brothers in Da Sang have grown up with you.
To be honest, we are all committed to the laws of the country and are united in loyalty. Isn't it time to be satisfied with our ambitions? ”
Zhang Chong saw that Du Man had misunderstood and did not dare to neglect.
He needs to be fulfilled now.
No one else, because this gentleman is the only one in this team who has received orthodox Confucian education and has a certain social vision and connections.
So Zhang Chong didn't pretend to be mysterious in front of him.
He said to Duman sincerely:
"People don't think I'm despicable, so they elected me as their leader. Naturally, I want everyone to live a good life.
But you also saw what happened before.
Everyone is as timid as a chicken to the powerful, and as fierce as a tiger to the petty people. If left unchecked, our team will only be a band of thieves.
Let alone return to Jinan alive by then, I am afraid that powerful tribes like the Li family will hunt and kill us wantonly.
Therefore, I want to use this young rich man of the Xue family as a target to help everyone practice their courage and get rid of the thieves in their hearts.
Moreover, it is really impossible to get much food from those mountain shacks.
The little rich man from the Xue family had just scanned it once. Even if some were hidden in those sheds, how much could be hidden.
Therefore, this food can only be obtained from the Xue family.
Finally, Damn, there is one sentence that I have never said indiscriminately.
That is, I want to help poor people like us understand this.
You must have seen us along the way. Where in the ravine were there not abandoned babies gnawed by wild beasts?
Why do we poor people have to abandon our children without raising them, so that they can be eaten by wild beasts in the mountains and forests?
People actually don't care about this, because they are used to it, and they are used to how difficult life is for ordinary people.
But Daman, you have read books, and you know that this is not because your parents are cruel, but because of the world.
Thousands of fine people in Guizhou devoted their blood to support the Liu family.
Among his clan, merits, relatives, and wealthy family, which one is self-reliant? It’s not all extracted from us.
Take this abandoned baby. Wasn't it because of the Liu family's reputation?
We can only get so much millet by digging in the soil, and one person's salary can offset a year's hard work.
Those of us who are strong are fine, but those young sons and daughters who don’t even know how to dig into the soil still have to pay the bills.
Doesn't this force parents to abandon them?
Even more so now.
In the past, people were required to pay if they were over seven years old, but now they are so shameless that even if they are one year old, they will be charged.
This is what we saw along the way, why there are abandoned babies in gullies and abandoned children in gullies.
Daman, do you think this Liu family world can continue? ”
Duman was silent, and then said leisurely:
"Shi Zaizi, do you want to join the Taiping Road?"
Zhang Chong was shocked. He had never told anyone about this, and how could Duman guess that Taiping Dao would rebel.
But Zhang Chong still chooses to be honest:
"Well, I also thought about this on the way.
Think about it, if our team keeps wandering around the lakes and seas, it will definitely turn into bandits in the end.
At that time, let alone realizing my ideal above, it will be difficult to even save one's life.
Therefore, I wanted to follow Big Beard's path and lead the team to join them on the Taiping Road.
You may have guessed that with the current power of Taiping Road, it will be impossible for them not to rebel in the end.
When the time comes, we will join forces with them to revolt and recreate the situation in the last years of Xin Mang, when people rose up in rebellion. It is still unclear. ”
Duman hesitated for a moment, then asked Zhang Chong:
"But most of my daily activities in Taipingdao are to fool the poor people. Can this really succeed?"
Zhang Chong smiled, because he knew Duman would go with him, so he pointed it out to Duman more directly:
"Daman, how do you think Confucius compiled the Six Classics back then? When we join Taiping Dao, it is not Taiping Dao that annotates me, but I annotate Taiping Dao."
Listening to Zhang Chong's heroic words, Du Man smiled.
He didn't know where Zhang Chong got his courage, but he trusted this friend who he had grown up with since childhood.
Moreover, this sincere conversation also made him understand that the person in front of him will be an extraordinary person regardless of success or failure.
Duman patted Zhang Chong and said with a smile:
"Okay, let's go home then? We'll also settle the score with Zhang Tiehu and the others."
"Haha, okay, look for Old Man Zhang, and eat from Old Man Zhang."
The two laughed and held each other's hands tightly.
"Then how do you plan to attack the Xue family's dock wall? With our current equipment, it is difficult to attack a dock head-on."
Duman asked Zhang Chong a practical question.
This problem also made Zhang Chong worried, and he had no good solution.
To put it bluntly, he has never fought a battle, let alone captured a dock wall.
Looking at it now, we can only talk about it when we get to the place.
In the final analysis, if you don’t have the strength, you will still have to take risks in the end.
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At this time, Li Qian's troops had arrived at the water village near Jishui.
After counting the seizures of the six canal boats, even a wealthy man like him was shocked at how rich they were.
But he still said to everyone sadly:
"What's the use of gaining these dead things if I lose my dear brother?" This sentence made everyone in the Li family shed tears.
In this way, Li Qian led his team, transported six more carts of baggage, and prepared a month's worth of corn and coarse salt, and then continued toward the east to meet Li Dian over there.
Around afternoon, Li Qian met Li Dian's troops who were resting by the forest.
A group of fifty people were drinking water and cooling off in the woods.
Li Dian saw the dust flying in the west from a distance, so he led two horses to meet them.
Li Qian was also surprised as to why the nephew was holding back on patrol. When Li Dian informed him of his discovery, he felt that this was a prudent move.
Li Qian pinched his beard and asked Li Dian:
"So, your judgment is that that group of people are not gangsters at all, but thieves from Luweize, right?"
"My nephew really thinks so, otherwise it wouldn't make sense.
The water bandits raided the area that night, and they had come out of nowhere, and now they were heading towards the Reed Lake again.
Those fellows from Qingzhou don’t know much about geography, so there’s no such thing as a coincidence. ”
"What are your plans?"
Li Qian wanted to test this clan nephew in school.
Li Dian put his hands on his hips, pointed to the east, and said boldly:
"Those water pirates usually camp in water moors. If we don't bring a canoe now, we will definitely not be able to defeat them.
Moreover, these water bandits are originally a scattered generation. If they are not annihilated while they gather in one place, it will be difficult to deal with them in the future.
But now, the other generation is scurrying around in a hurry, and those who stay in the nest are about to respond.
We can be simple and brave, carry out a night attack with a spear, go under the water stronghold, catch the enemy by surprise, and capture and kill them in the blink of an eye. ”
Li Dian's suggestion was actually to advance quickly and fight quickly to kill the thieves like them by surprise.
But the danger lies in taking too many risks. After all, if you want a surprise attack, you have to abandon your baggage and travel lightly.
But if it fails, it will be dangerous to send troops to the thieves' water stronghold.
Without food and instability, if you want to withdraw when the time comes, it will depend on whether the water bandits agree or not.
Under normal circumstances, Li Qian didn't need to take risks, just because he was strong and the water pirates were weak.
But Li Qian was thinking about another person, Zhang Chong, the prefect of this county.
This gentleman is from Henan County and is quite capable of winning the hearts of scholars.
Four years ago, when he first took office as the prefect, he met with local wealthy people to build a monument to Emperor Yao.
The stele describes the local customs and features, and records the local moral figures. It immediately won the support of powerful families.
In addition, Zhang Chong had a teacher-student relationship with Zhang Xun, a scholar from Dingtao in this county.
And Zhang Xun was also in the same party as Cai Yong, a great scholar in the country.
They are both township party members and colleagues, and have very close ties in the political arena.
Zhang Xun was from Dingtao, Jiyin, and Cai Yong was from Chenliuyu County. They both belonged to Yanzhou, and they were not far apart. They had been in contact with each other when they were in their hometowns.
Later, both of them were appointed by Sangong and became Yilang. It can be said that they were close to each other.
Therefore, they did a big thing four years ago and revised the "Six Classics" outside the Imperial College.
They believed that the Six Classics were ancient and full of errors, so they wanted this version to be the original version of the world. They even left it publicly outside the Imperial Academy for everyone to copy and make rubbings.
This behavior greatly offended the Confucian classics family. If Cai Yong hadn't been the nephew of the Yuan family, he might have lost his official position at that time.
But two years ago, Cai Yong offended someone he shouldn't have offended. He actually sealed the country and criticized the eunuchs and close ministers for their many illegal acts.
But how could such a secret message be concealed from the eunuchs who lived with the country day and night.
After they found out, they immediately framed Cai Yong and his uncle Cai Zhi for slandering Liu He, the then Dahonglu.
This is actually a reason.
Because although Liu He had enmity with Cai Yong, he had an even greater enmity with the eunuchs.
At that time, his brother, together with General Dou Wu and Taiwei Chen Fan, wanted to kill Cao Jie and other eunuchs, but failed and were killed by the eunuchs.
How could Liu He, who had a vengeance for killing his brother, use these eunuch swords?
But it was useless. Even if the government and the opposition begged for mercy, Cai Yong confessed.
In the end, he was sentenced to death and exiled to Shuofang with his family, and his uncle Cai Zhi died directly.
That's all at this point, but something happened again about the great craftsman Yang Qiu hiring a murderer to kill someone.
Now Mr. Liu couldn't clean himself up at all.
It turns out that Yang Qiu is not only a native of Liu Gong, but also a member of his shogunate. He can be said to be one of his own people.
But Li Qian knew that this matter had nothing to do with Liu Gong.
Yang Qiu himself was a cruel official, and he had been convicted several times before for severe torture and indiscriminate killing.
If the country hadn't really seen him as capable and pardoned him several times, he would have been punished long ago.
But he never changed at all. This time because the leader Liu Gong was humiliated, he directly hired an assassin to assassinate Cai Yong.
If the assassin hadn't thought this was unreliable and gave up on his own initiative, Yang Qiu would have died.
But why does Lala Zaza think so much?
The reason is very simple. It turns out that Dahonglu Liu He was the previous governor of Jiyin County and was also Li Qian's backer.
Li Qian had been actively moving closer to Liu He before. Therefore, we came up with suggestions to get rid of the Ju Ye Ze water bandits.
But the current governor of Jiyin is Zhang Chong. His teacher is a close friend of Cai Yong, and Cai Yong is a mortal enemy of Liu He.
In other words, Zhang Chong had a grudge against Liu He, and the Li family had a relationship with Liu He, so he naturally became a thorn in the side of the prefect Zhang Chong.
Now he is leading his troops across counties to arrest thieves without notifying the county magistrate or prefect, which is a big taboo.
Because Luweize is near Chengyang County, if you want to suppress the bandits, you must cross the county.
If the suppression of bandits is delayed for a long time, Zhang Chong will definitely receive orders, ranging from punishment to imprisonment.
But he wasn't willing to give up like that. His brother's death couldn't be in vain.
After thinking about it, I could only use Li Dian's risky plan.
(End of chapter)