Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 72 Solicitation
Gall alum is widely distributed. It is the product of copper sulfide oxidation. In theory, gall alum can be found wherever there are copper mines.In ancient China, copper has been used to cast currency and weapons. Over the past thousands of years, an unknown amount of copper has been mined, and there is a large amount of gall alum in those abandoned mines.It's just that bile alum is not easy to preserve, it is very soluble in water, and if it is too dry, it will turn into powder, so it is not easy to find in the south.However, the drought in autumn and winter in the north is notorious, and the alum in the mine should be well preserved.It's just that everyone is baffled, why does Yang Menglong need so much courage?That thing looks nice, but apart from the occasional use of it as medicine by traditional Chinese medicine, it has no other uses. Even if it can cure diseases, it doesn't cost tens of thousands of pounds, right?Forget it, the money is in Yang Menglong's hands, he has money, so it's okay to be willful.

After making arrangements one by one, Yang Menglong blew the cowhide again, and described a beautiful blueprint for cooperating with him, which made everyone dizzy, and they didn't even know how to leave this temporary headquarters.

When Qi Hu also walked out in a daze, Yang Menglong suddenly called out: "Old man, wait!"

Qi Hu turned around: "Anything else?"

Yang Menglong dragged a chair over and said, "Sit down and let's have a good chat."

Qi Hu sat down and looked at Yang Menglong silently, and Yang Menglong also looked at him silently, feeling somewhat moved in his heart.

In a blink of an eye, more than half a month has passed.

More than 20 days ago, Yang Menglong and the others met for the first time. At that time, Yang Menglong was still a boy scout on the battlefield. He completely instinctively killed four post-golden cavalrymen who entered the village and massacred them, and was frightened by the bloody corpses. Silly.As for Qi Hu, he was an honest and honest tenant farmer under Yi Xiao Yufang, who lived on a few acres of lean land. No one knew about his past, and he never mentioned his past to anyone.What now?A fierce battle changed the fates of both sides. Yang Menglong became Wuyang Thousand Households proclaimed by Emperor Chongzhen, but this old man still doesn't know where he is going.

The world is like chess, and it really is true.

Yang Menglong felt a little emotional.It has been almost a month since the end of the Ming Dynasty. In less than a month, he has experienced more and more bizarre things than the sum of the previous 18 years.He used to be aggressive, but he never had blood on his hands. To put it bluntly, fighting with others was just a kind of pastime, a special hobby to satisfy his psychological needs in some aspects, and he never thought of taking it. Someone's life, never.However, during this period of time, he fought fierce enemies more than once, shot deadly crossbow arrows at the opponent's chest time and time again, slashed the dog's leg knife at the opponent's neck, and then watched the blood splatter, watched Seeing the other party convulsed and screaming in a pool of blood, he had so many lives in his hands during this time that he couldn't even remember how many people he had killed.Every time I end a life, I always feel fear and uneasiness in my heart, and even have nightmares at night, but after the battle of shooting Tabrun, I rarely have nightmares.The piles of corpses made him understand that this era is completely different from the era he lived in. In this era, facing those fierce enemies, killing people is not a crime. It can only become the other party's spoils of war!
What a cruel era, what a cruel troubled times.

What's even more cruel is that this is just the beginning. The next ten years will become more and more cruel. The dark wings of death will cover the entire empire. This empire that has lasted for nearly 300 years will collapse in death and wailing. For ruins.This is a terrible catastrophe, and unless he can escape overseas, he can't stay out of it.

After sighing with emotion, Yang Menglong spoke up and said, "Old man, we have known each other for almost a month, and I still don't know your specific origins!"

Qi Hu sneered: "The old man is half buried, so why mention these things."

Yang Menglong said: "I don't mean anything else, I just want to know what position you used to be in the Qi Family Army."

Qi Hu said: "Mr. Qian."

Qianzong is similar to Qianhu, and it also manages more than 1000 people.However, if you think that the status of the two is about the same, you are wrong. Qianhu is in charge of more than 1000 military households who only know how to farm, while Qi Hu, the general manager of Qianhu, manages the most disciplined households in the entire Ming Dynasty. , the most tenacious soldier in combat, the two are very different.Considering that the Qi family army only has a few thousand people, this Qianzong is even more impressive. Even ten thousand households in the mainland can't match this Qianzong!Yang Menglong was in awe: "No wonder the old man's organizational and commanding skills are so strong. He insisted on defending the county with a group of soldiers from the guard station and the township, so that Jiannu could not get over the thunder. It turned out that he was a general in the Qi family's army. Disrespect, disrespect. !" I know my own affairs, the real commander of this battle is Qi Hu, he just gave some rewards and killed a few slaves, the real hero is actually Qi Hu.

Qi Hu's eyes were very bright at first, and then quickly dimmed. He said in a shy voice, "What are you talking about about the Qi family army? The Qi family army has long since disappeared."

Yang Menglong said regretfully: "Yes, if the Qi family army is still there, if the Qi family army can be expanded to tens of thousands, 10,000+ people, there is no room for arrogance!" After thinking for a while, he lowered his voice: "I heard that the Qi family army The population has always been thin, you will not really be Marshal Qi..."

Qi Hu said: "Of course not. Marshal Qi and I are distant relatives. Let's put it this way, we both have the same surname Qi, and our family is a branch of the Qi family. I was young when Marshal Qi beat the Japanese pirates and I didn't catch up. Wait until he After I was transferred to the north, I joined the army. I started as a small soldier. I fought many battles with the Mongol Tartars. I made some small achievements and became his servant. Later, I was promoted step by step and became Chief Qian. The muscles on his face twitched slightly, "In order to stabilize the north, the general went to great lengths to fight countless bloody battles with the Mongolian Tartars. He took a bath in human blood, and just like that, the treacherous officials in the court still suspected him, just because he was a member of Tai Yuegong, he was removed from his post and alienated Qi's army! Tai Yuegong implemented a whip method, in order to eliminate Daming was so exhausted that he was coughing up blood. With the support of Tai Yuegong, Marshal Qi wiped out the Japanese pirates and beat the Tartars so hard that the Mongolian Tartars would not dare to invade our frontier again! General Yang, tell me what is wrong with Zhang Shoufu , What is wrong with Marshal Qi, why can't they tolerate a person who has made great contributions to the court!"

Yang Menglong said: "I don't know if Mr. Tai Yue is at fault, but Marshal Qi must be at fault anyway."

The old man suddenly changed color.

Yang Menglong went on to say: "The most erroneous thing about Marshal Qi is that he always likes to use the simplest way to solve the most complicated problems. This is true for the extermination of Japanese pirates, and the same is true for guarding Ji Town. He is the purest soldier who only knows how to kill The enemy served the country, and he never thought that after he solved the problem, it would be his turn to be solved. If he followed Li Chengliang's defense of Liaodong, so that the Mongol Tartars would always be able to threaten the border, the court would definitely not dare to touch him, but he did not By doing this, the Mongol Tartars would be beaten to the ground, and the court would be able to deal with him calmly without border troubles... In the end, he is still too honest."

Qi Hu thought about the decades-long prosperity of the Li family, Li Rusong's arrogance, and the increasingly embarrassing situation of the Qi family army since Qi Jiguang resigned. He had to admit that what Yang Menglong said was very reasonable. suffer.

Yang Menglong seemed to see through his inner thoughts and said: "However, I think God is fair and will not always let honest people suffer. A hundred years later, a thousand years later, people will always remember Marshal Qi who did his duty, not playing tricks on the enemy." Li Chengliang, who raised the bandits!"

Qi Hu said: "I firmly believe in this."

Yang Menglong said: "Old man, come and help me!"

Qi Hu was startled: "The old man is quite old, what else can he do?"

Yang Menglong scolded: "Stop pretending to be confused, you have fought all your life, will you be useless?" He looked at the beams, his expression became worried: "This world is getting more and more chaotic, Jianu can do it this time." Bypassing the solid Guanning line of defense, you can also bypass the second, third, and fourth times. They will become more and more greedy and rampant, and they will use the Central Plains as their hunting ground, taking whatever they want; and God will follow us I can't get through it. Droughts, locust plagues and floods continue one after another. Farmers can't survive. There are more and more refugees. The world will soon be in chaos. In such troubled times, if you have no strength, you can only die. I don't have any ambitions, but since I was elected If you have a thousand households, you should keep one side safe. It is impossible without a well-trained army. So I asked the old man to join the Wuyang Qianhu Guard to help me train the soldiers under my command. level is about the same.”

This is not greedy?

Qi Hu almost spit out a mouthful of blood, this kid is really rude.He looked straight at Yang Menglong with a very serious expression, and paused every word: "Little General Yang, training an army is very costly, and an army like Qi's army is even more costly. To put it bluntly, if there was no full support from Tai Yuegong at that time, Even Marshal Qi can't train an iron army that can defeat tens of thousands of Mongolian Tartars with only 9000 men!"

Yang Menglong said: "I have my wallet, and I guarantee that you will not be short of money to spend."

Qi Hu smiled half-heartedly: "So confident?"

Yang Menglong said: "Nonsense, I don't even have this confidence, I'm a fool, I can go home and grow sweet potatoes as soon as possible!"

Qi Hu said: "If you really have enough financial resources, it is still very difficult to train an army like Qi's army..."

Yang Menglong rolled his eyes: "Nonsense, it's not difficult. Why should I ask you? I'll pay for it, and you train soldiers. That's it!"

Qi Hu was blocked and speechless.

That's right, it's not hard to ask him why?If a guy who has only received two weeks of military training and is not even a fan of the puppet army can train an invincible tiger and wolf army, he, a veteran who has been in the battlefield for decades, simply find a stick on the ground You can get in.Qi Hu was silent for a while, and asked: "Can you really get enough money and food to support an army like Qi's army?"

Yang Menglong said impatiently: "Of course! I assure you, the farms and steel factories I will run in the future will definitely make a lot of money. The most important thing is that there are inexhaustible treasures underground in Wuyang. A little bit from it is enough to train thousands of elite divisions!"

Qi Hu said: "Nanyang Mansion is very poor!"

Yang Menglong said: "That's because they are stupid. They don't know how to put money into the cornucopia! Those officials who study have ruined their brains. They know how to collect taxes from farmers all day long, and they don't even think about farmers' one-year income." The output can only be exchanged for a few dollars, and the income from running a steel factory, a chemical fertilizer and a soap factory is worth the food tax of a county!"

Qi Hu was dumbfounded.For thousands of years, food tax and salt tax have been the main source of income for a country, especially food tax, which is related to the life and death of the empire. This kind of concept has been deeply rooted, but now someone tells him with disdain, The food tax is a fart. The income from running a few factories is worth the food tax of a county. His brain can't turn around at all.He knows about steel, good thing, no country would think that its steel output is high, and steel has been a rare resource for thousands of years.But what fertilizer and soap are, he doesn't know, he is at a loss.

Seeing the dumbfounded look of the old man, Yang Menglong knew that he didn't understand, so he sighed and said, "You can't understand when I explain it to you now, but if my plan goes well, you won't be able to understand it in a few years. You will learn the power of industry. Industrial countries have a crushing advantage over agricultural countries. It is definitely not a myth that an industrial country with a population of only a few million can easily defeat a traditional agricultural country with a population of over [-] million." He was enthusiastic Said: "Of course, it is impossible to achieve industrialization in the whole country. It will take hundreds of years to achieve it. However, as long as one province can achieve industrialization, the power that will erupt is enough to kill Jian slaves easily. and Mongolian Tartars!"

Qi Hu listened quietly, although he didn't say the word "bragging", it was written on his face.He smiled and said, "Then I have to keep my eyes open to see if the industrialization you mentioned is so magical... The old man is only 58 years old, and he still has a few more years to live. You can see it!"

Yang Menglong exclaimed excitedly: "You agree?"

Qi Hu nodded: "After the Qi Family Army was wiped out in Hunhe, the old man wrote many times to request the reconstruction of the Qi Family Army, but he encountered obstacles everywhere. In the end, he was kicked out and could not even return home. General Xiao Yang wanted to train his troops. And you are confident that you can afford the huge expenses required for military training. The old man will naturally help you... Even if you fail, it doesn't matter. If you fail, you will give up. However, if you succeed by luck, I would like to ask General Xiao Yang to give me a Opportunity, let me fight to the death with Jiannu! All three of my sons died on the banks of the Hun River, this revenge must be avenged!"

Yang Menglong nodded solemnly: "There will be such an opportunity!"

(End of this chapter)