NOVEL NEXT Chapter 38
Chapter 38: Righteousness
Before dawn the next day, Zhou Shixiang got up early, but instead of rushing to find Zhao Sihai, he went to see Boss Hu first.
Although Zhou Shixiang really wanted to take the lead from now on, he couldn’t. At least, in name, Boss Hu, the bandit appointed by the General Counselor of Luo Dingzhou of the Yongli court, is the real owner of Luo Ding City and the leader of everyone in Daqiao Mountain. His Zhou Shixiang’s performance was more eye-catching, but he was just a little brother who followed Hu’s boss, and at best he was a number two or three.
If he wants to play his own name and be a real leader, Zhou Shixiang must first have his own people. Otherwise, it will be difficult for him to make Ge Wu’s gang obey him, and it will easily arouse the jealousy of Boss Hu.
The anti-Qing cause has just been started, and everything is still the grass-roots team. At this time, if there is a split and internal strife due to the seizure of power, it will be a fatal blow to anyone. Therefore, Zhou Shi always maintains respect and obedience to Boss Hu, unless the old man’s brain is feverish. Confused, otherwise he would never conflict with it.
Fortunately, so far, the performance of Hu Quan, the boss, is reassuring. He has not shown the shortsightedness of Ge Wu and others, nor has he shown arrogance, and he has taken the lead in capturing Luo Ding. He also obeyed his words, and in order to open up the situation as soon as possible, he even left everything to them to do. There is no doubt that Zhou Shixiang was ashamed of such a mind and daring.
Such a person is still the number one dutiful son since ancient times and modern times. How could Zhou Shixiang be willing to turn his back on him for a little power, face each other with blades, and kill each other?
The enemy of the enemy is a friend, unite all forces that can be united, even if the opponent is a murderous gangster, as long as he is willing to join the struggle for the salvation of the Han nationality, Zhou Shixiang will firmly regard him as an ally. As for merit or demerit, I’ll leave it to others to comment.
After telling Boss Hu about what he had done yesterday, Boss Hu nodded in agreement. After that, he repeatedly told Zhou Shixiang to recruit the soldiers, and then quickly discussed how to deal with the Qing army prisoners. There were dozens of them. No. People, who are neither allowed to be killed nor released, it’s not a problem to keep them locked up all the time. Besides, he can’t lead people to stay in the cell all the time. With such a big business in the city, can he be able to do it without him, a serious general Luo Ding?
When Boss Hu talked about his identity as a general of Luo Ding, Prime Minister Zhou Shi remembered that he should send someone to report good news to Cheng Bangjun. It doesn’t matter whether the official uniform is official or not, the key is to be able to coax some money from Cheng Bangjun. Anyway, it was also the credit for winning a state city. It would be too chilling for the big men of the Yongli court in Guangdong to not bleed out.
No matter how small a sparrow is, it is still meat, and this is also an opportunity for the Yongli court to officially recognize Hu Quanluo as a general and admit that these people under him are the Ming army. It would be ridiculous to take the empty vernacular that Cheng Bangjun said before.
Zhou Shixiang even planned to wait for the situation on Luo Ding’s side to open, whether to find an opportunity to meet the Emperor Yongli, or to meet Li Dingguo.
The history of Nanming, which is not much in the previous life, told Zhou Shixiang that Li Dingguo seemed to have some conflict with his righteous brother, Sun Kewang, the ruler of the Kingdom of Qin.
If Sun Kewang can be prevented from surrendering to the Qing Dynasty, the situation in Nanming will naturally not deteriorate due to Sun Kewang’s surrender to the Qing Dynasty. And the stronger the Yongli regime of Nanming, and the longer it lasts, the more benefits it will bring to Zhou Shixiang.
Although the time has been the 12th year of Shunzhi and the 8th year of the Yongli calendar, as long as the emperor of the Yongli calendar does not abandon the country for one day, and Nanming does not die for a single day, the righteousness is still there, and the hope is there, and the people of the world will not be willing to be filled with death because of this. The state people are enslaved, as long as the Ming army appears in front of them again, there will be many people willing to stand up again to resist the brutal Manchu people!
Zhou Shixiang never thought that he would also have a foot in the Yi Ding in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. He knew that Nanming’s failure was due to the struggle for the throne, which led to the consumption of all power in the internal strife, thus allowing the Manchus to pick the fruit. Before driving the Manchus out of the Central Plains and the northern land owned by the Han people for generations, he must not have any ambitions and repeat the mistakes of the infighting in Nanming, even if he thinks about it! Moreover, at present, he is not qualified to insert a bar between the Ming and Qing sides.
At present, the most favorable means for the rise of Zhou Shixiang is to play the banner of the Yongli court of the Southern Ming Dynasty with integrity, use his hundreds of years of knowledge to compete with the Qing court for Guangdong, and then lead the northern expedition. Luo Ding is the first step in this plan, and it is also the most difficult step. Only by taking this first step can you take the second step. If you can’t even take the first step, how can you talk about the second and third steps.
It takes ten years for a scholar to rebel.
Zhou Shixiang didn’t want his talent to rebel for ten years and achieve nothing. Therefore, he urgently needs to strengthen his strength and rise rapidly. Otherwise, he will still be a trivial **** in the long history and a shooting star in the sky.
Borrowing all the power that can be used, borrowing all the names that can win people’s hearts, borrowing all the means that can defeat the enemy, as long as it is beneficial to the anti-Qing Dynasty, Zhou Shixiang doesn’t mind or cares which lord bows his knees.
The news is also simple. When he left, Cheng Bangjun said that once Luoding City was captured, he could immediately send someone to Gaozhou to report the news. He and Zhang Xiaoqi, the governor of the four prefectures, were stationed in Gaozhou City. In addition, the great scholar Guo Zhiqi occasionally visited Panheng in Gaozhou. some time.
Song Xianggong introduced to Zhou Shixiang that the general of Gaozhou, Le Tongwu, was Li Dingguo’s confidant and favorite general. There were more than 1,000 elite Ming troops from the original Daxi Army, and there were also three or four thousand Ming troops adapted from Nanming local armed forces. There are no less than 5,000 troops, and Zhang Xiaoqi, the governor of Gao, Lei, Lian and Qiong, is stationed in Gaozhou. Therefore, Gaozhou has replaced Guangzhou as the military and political center of the Ming army in Guangdong to a certain extent, and Gaozhou is supported by the army of Li Dingguo who retreated to Guangxi. Therefore, the Qing army in Guangdong did not dare to take a step forward in the west, lest Li Hu, who had just withdrawn from Guangdong, would strike again with his troops.
After Zhou Shixiang’s reminder, Boss Hu also woke up, hurriedly recruited a subordinate and ordered him to ride to Gaozhou to report the news.
Originally, Zhou Shixiang wanted to instruct that person to exaggerate when reporting the news. Beheadings, prisoners, seizures, etc. should be bigger. Don’t be afraid to scare people to death, but then I thought about sending people to Gaozhou to report the news. The purpose is to get material support from Gaozhou. And the official recognition of the Yongli court, this will be reported to the big, where will Gaozhou give money and food, I am afraid that in the opposite direction, they will have to be seized.
Self-defeating things cannot be done.
After coming out from Boss Hu, Zhou Shixiang wanted to find Duke Xiang of Song, but Duke Xiang of Song also had something to do. He had to take someone to check the 120 stone of grain “borrowed” from Qi Yuantai’s six families last night, and he had to send someone back to store it in the stockade. of food arrives. In addition, as the nominal Lord Luo Ding Zhizhou, he is inseparable from the large and small affairs of the city. Therefore, Song Xianggong is also very busy, and there is no time to accompany Zhou Shixiang to recruit troops.
The recruiting place was under the gate of the east city wall. When Zhou Shi met, Zhao Sihai and Peng Dazhu were sitting behind a table, one was lying there and the other was lying there. Judging from the loud snoring, the two seemed to be the same. Just slept all night.
There were several men from Daqiao Mountain around with twenty or thirty young men on patrol with all kinds of weapons. When they saw Zhou Shixiang coming, the leading man hurriedly woke Zhao Sihai.
When he was sleeping soundly and was woken up, Zhao Sihai was in a bad temper. He was about to scold when he found Zhou Shixiang standing in front of him, laughing hurriedly: “The scholar is here!” At first, it took a long time to know which one was coming.
Zhou Shixiang glanced at the cave of the city gate. Three boxes of silver were being piled up there. Only the seal on the top box was torn off, and the two boxes below did not move.
“How many people have you recruited?” Zhao Sihai pointed at the twenty or thirty young men with a hand and said helplessly, “It’s all here.”
“Just so many people?”
Zhou Shixiang was taken aback. It was quite a lot for one person to pay two taels of silver to settle down. These days, silver is really valuable. One tael of silver can make a family of three barely survive for half a month.
In the past, Zhou Shixiang couldn’t guarantee that Luo Ding’s young man would be fooled by two taels of silver, so he raised his head and served as a soldier. UU reading www. uukanshu. com But a fire broke out last night, and nearly half of the people’s homes were affected, let alone food, they couldn’t even grab a cloth bag. In this situation, two taels of silver can be said to be a straw for survival. In Song Xianggong’s words, young people from the affected people’s homes should be very active in signing up, but why did they only recruit these twenty or thirty people in one night? Where is the lively scene in your imagination? How can those young people not be fooled by these two taels of silver?
“Why, the people don’t want to be our soldiers? You didn’t say that we are Li Dingguo’s soldiers and horses?”
Zhou Shixiang was afraid that Zhao Sihai did not make the name of the recruiting clear. Those gentry probably already knew that they were not the Ming army, but how would these people know. Li Dingguo attacked Guangdong two years ago and last year, and his reputation was quite loud among the people of Guangdong. To borrow his name, the people did not justify not joining the army enthusiastically.
Zhao Sihai gave a wry smile and said helplessly: “Xiusai, we have already said what you ordered, but Brother Dazhu and I are both hoarse, and these are the only people who are willing to sign up. Willing to do it with us.”
“If it wasn’t for Brother Zhou, you told us not to be rough, and to talk to those people, I would have tied them with a knife long ago, so why would I need to be polite to them.” Peng Dazhu muttered a few words, thinking that he was holding fire in his heart.
Zhou Shixiang ignored Peng Dazhu’s complaint, but asked Zhao Sihai: “Then they think they have less money?”
Zhao Sihai shook his head and said, “That’s not true.”
“Why is that?” Zhou Shixiang was also surprised.
Zhao Sihai glanced at the people who were watching from afar, and then lowered his voice and said to Zhou Shixiang: “Xiusai, the people are afraid that we will run away!”