Chapter 104 Persuasion

Ying Yi was startled: "Why?"

Zheng Yunzhi asked him: "Where is the magistrate of Yuzhou County now?"

"Dead." Ying Yi said.

The magistrate of Yuzhou County died in the riot last night.

Zheng Yunzhi nodded: "There was a military turmoil in Yuzhou, and the county magistrate defended the land and died, and he died a worthy death. But there are thirteen counties in Nanyang Prefecture. In addition to Ye County and Yuzhou, there are still eleven counties left. Wuyang is vacant, and there are ten counties left. . If you send troops to capture these ten counties, what will you do to the magistrates of the ten counties? Kill them all?"

He looked directly at Ying Yi and pointed out: "Now that I have 'turned the tide', the emperor will definitely reward me. As you said, without mentioning the governor of Henan, the prefect of Nanyang cannot escape. At that time, it was just as the saying goes, and if you use some means to fight or pull, Na The whole territory of Nanyang is easily within your grasp. Now that you are sending troops to occupy it, you will have to bear the consequences of killing people."

Speaking of this, he said earnestly: "To govern a place, we still need to rely on scholars. You kill people and seize the city for no reason. Are you a bandit? Do you still want famous weapons? All county magistrates are scholars. If you kill ruthlessly, all scholars in the world will be killed." If I want to oppose you, do you still need your great cause?"

Ying Yi was silent for a moment and said: "But time waits for me..."

Zheng Yunzhi laughed: "I don't know why you are so urgent, but it is easy to break the strong point, and sending troops is not a good strategy. In my opinion, you occupy Wuyang first, and leave the other ten counties alone. The bandits are in Kaifeng, so we can count them Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars, the county magistrates will not fail to see that if you don't care about them, they will still rely on you due to the situation of bandits. When the court appoints you, it will not be too late to come back to the district office. "

Seeing that Ying Yi still didn't answer, Zheng Yunzhi sighed: "You just send out troops, kill people and seize the city. If you want to sort out the ten counties, won't it take a lot of time? In that case, it's better to keep it as it is - with your current size , you still can’t digest the entire Nanyang Mansion.”

When Ying Yi heard this, he finally sighed: "My father-in-law has some good advice. I'm probably too impatient. That's all. Let's occupy Ye County, Yuzhou, and Wuyang counties first."

Ying Yi doesn't care about anything that is too strong or easy to break. But Ying Yi really doesn't have the stomach to swallow Nanyang in one gulp - he has no one to use.

That's why he changed his mind.

The famous weapon was justifiable, he really wanted it. But he also expected that even if he went too far, the court would be unable to do anything to him. As long as he does not pull the pole to erect the mountain, but raises the flag himself, the court will turn a blind eye.

However, Zheng Yunzhi also spoke cautiously, and there is truth in it. Since no one is available, let's leave it like this for now.

"in this way..."

Ying Yi thought for a moment and said: "The governance of Ye County, Wuyang and Yuzhou counties will be entrusted to my father-in-law. I will ask Zhou Li to lead troops to Wuyang later."

Now that he has changed his mind, there is no need for Ying Yi to take action himself. Wuyang has been without a county magistrate since last year when thieves broke into Nanyang and killed the king of Tang Dynasty, so they just took over it.

He added: "It's only June now, and we can still plant another crop of grain. This is the top priority. My father-in-law should first stabilize the people's hearts and organize people to clear up wasteland. My son-in-law has to reorganize his troops and horses, and I'm afraid I won't have time to take care of both."

Zheng Yunzhi smiled and stroked his beard and said, "Don't worry."

Ying Yi nodded.

Although the war in Nanyang has ceased, Ying Yi cannot relax yet. The biggest problem is the intruders from Kaifeng in the north. He needed to organize his troops in the shortest possible time in preparation for sending troops north.

For this reason, even several branches of the Yuan Qi plan that have already been launched cannot be realized for the time being.

Farming is certainly good, but it requires a stable environment. Without driving away the intruders, farming would be impossible.

Nanyang cannot be digested in a short time, so some of Ying Yi's plans need to be changed according to the times.

Then came the reorganization of troops and horses.

From a total of more than 40,000 prisoners in Yuzhou and Baihe River Valley, more than 8,000 were screened and selected as basically qualified. The remaining more than 32,000 captives were demoted as laborers and would contribute to Ying Yi's farming plan.

The more than 8,000 people selected were combined with Ying Yi's original 3,000 troops and horses, totaling 11,500 people. These 1,1500 people are the targets of reorganization.

Because there was no one available under his command, there were not enough trustworthy Qianhu officers to be selected for the time being, so the troops were reorganized and no longer followed the Ming military system. The original more than 3,000 soldiers and horses were scattered and mixed with the more than 8,000 selected people, and 10,000 of them were organized into four groups, each with 2,500 people.

One of them, Ying Yi, led it by himself, and the remaining three generals were Zhou Li, Zhu Bingkun and Zheng Wu.

The remaining 1,500 people will not close their troops at night, and their troops will be led by Zhang Shi.

During the reorganization process, Ying Yi made detailed arrangements for each branch of the army. Except for the night guard, the four troops and horses are temporarily divided into four battalions: spearmen, archers, artillery, and cavalry.

Each unit of soldiers and horses has one thousand spearmen, and the other three battalions have five hundred men.

The battalion generals were all selected and promoted from the more than 3,000 soldiers and horses recruited by Crescent Valley.

Department general and camp general are different official ranks in the Ming Dynasty military system. However, below the camp general, they are still based on hundreds of households, general banners, and small banners.

It just reduced the establishment of one hundred households to one hundred people, reducing the number of twelve people.

A hundred households have one hundred people, a general banner has fifty people, and a small banner has ten people.

Five small flags constitute a general banner, two general banners constitute a hundred households, five hundred households constitute a battalion, and four battalions constitute a unit. In addition to the 1,500-strong Night Retention Unit, 11,500 people were reorganized.

After this battle, Ying Yi was not short of armaments. It only took two days to organize the troops and horses, and then assembled them neatly.

In this way, Ying Yi had a total of 4,000 spearmen, 2,000 archers, artillery, and cavalry each, plus 1,500 night troops.

Then Ying Yi set up recruitment banners in Yuzhou and Wuyang to recruit auxiliary officers and craftsmen.

The auxiliary officer requires scholars who can read and count to be mainly responsible for logistics and military merit evaluation. Needless to say, craftsmen can also be regarded as logistics, building and repairing weapons, armor, etc. for the army.

It took five days to complete the recruitment and selection of auxiliary officers.

Nanyang is located in the Central Plains and has many scholars. But many scholars are unqualified, and there are countless people who are slippery and pedantic. Sun Xiucai and Zheng Yunzhi discussed detailed methods before selecting some auxiliary officials who had calculation ability, were steady and not pedantic.

Although scholars in this era belong to the privileged class. But as the dynasty comes to an end, things may not be easy for scholars either. Maybe people like Juren disdain military auxiliary officers, but the vast majority of scholars don't have that confidence.

Although Ying Yi still complained about the number and ability of the auxiliary officers recruited and selected, he had no choice but to make do with setting up the framework first.

As for craftsmen, it is much simpler than selecting auxiliary officers. Not many craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty had a comfortable life. Word of Ying Yi's achievements had spread, and when his salary was revealed, craftsmen from Wuyang and Yuzhou flocked to the place. Even Nanyang and other few who heard the news Craftsmen from several counties also came to apply.

This time, the harvest was not small. Various craftsmen recruited more than a thousand people in total, and they were all sent to Fangcheng Mountain by Ying Yi.