Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 50, Forming a Militia

April.

The weather is getting warmer and the rice in the fields is entering a period of rapid growth.

Wang Ersao had never seen rice grow so well in her life.

The green stems are half a person's height, with lush branches and leaves, just like small saplings!
How many kilograms of grain will it take to produce this?
Wang Ersao couldn't stop grinning foolishly.

Even if she had to hand over 70% of the food, the remaining food would be enough to feed her and her two children!
This month, the head of the household sent back another 500 coins of salary from the army.

She saved all the money.

As a military dependent, the general would give her special food every month. The food was not much, but if she saved a little, it was enough for her family to live on.

"Mom, look, I caught a liar!"

A little boy covered in mud came out of the rice field and showed Wang Ersao the frog he had caught as if he were presenting a treasure.

Behind the little boy, there followed an even younger girl, with empty hands, having caught nothing.

Mrs. Wang smiled and hit the little boy, saying:
"I told you to go to the fields to catch insects, but you caught the idiot. Let it go. We have enough food now. Let it go to the fields to eat the pests."

"Oh!"

The little boy reluctantly let the frog go.

The little girl behind him saw the little boy being humiliated and started laughing.

Mrs. Wang said:

"Okay, take your sister to catch insects. I'll go to the county and buy you some meat when I come back!"

When he heard that there was meat to eat, the little boy immediately became happy again.

Wang Ersao went to the city.

Buying meat was just a spur-of-the-moment decision, the real purpose was to buy some paper money.

Alas, her poor mother-in-law.

If the general had come half a month earlier, her mother-in-law wouldn't have starved to death because of a mouthful of food...

After entering the county town, Wang Ersao went to buy paper money first.

Then he went to the butcher's shop and spent fifty cents to buy two taels of pork.

Like grain, pork also went up in price, but thinking of her children at home, Wang Ersao gritted her teeth and bought it.

"I want this one, the fat one!"

Wang Ersao pointed at a piece of fat meat and said this.

The stall owner was a skilled man. With one cut of the knife, the pork was neither more nor less than half an inch.

Wang Ersao picked up the pork happily, wiped off the meat residue on the stall owner's knife with her fingers, and walked away with a silly smile.

There was a peddler selling hairpins on the street.

The wooden hairpin was very beautifully made, with a small piece of copper wrapped around it, and cost five cents.

Wang Ersao looked at it for a long time but finally decided not to buy it.

Humming a little tune all the way, Wang Ersao hurried to the fields to call the children, but suddenly heard the sound of horse hooves ahead.

"not good!"

Wang Ersao quickened her pace and ran, but saw several tall horses galloping across the fields, trampling the tall seedlings until their roots were broken and their stems were severed.

They are people from the imperial court. The imperial court is killing people again!

Wang Ersao was extremely frightened, but she could not go back because she could not see her child.

Wang Ersao lay on the ground and carefully entered the rice field.

"Bao'er, Fu'er! Where are you?"

Wang Ersao was searching, and suddenly, she found Baoer hiding in the mud with his sister not far away.

Wang Ersao was overjoyed and was about to say something when a huge horse hoof stopped in front of her.

"Hey, there's a chick here!"

"He looks pretty good!"

"Hahahaha!"

After a while, several soldiers pulled up their trousers, and one of them drew out a knife and stabbed Wang Ersao in the thigh, cutting the tendons horizontally!

This is the strategy of Duke Shanguo.

They didn't kill them directly, but crippled them and hindered the logistics of the Huaiyin bandits. The officers and soldiers rode away laughing.

Baoer released the hand that was covering her sister.

The little girl rushed out crying.

"mother!"

……

Duke Shan's strategy had a very bad impact on the people under Fang Yong's command.

This kind of disgusting and unscrupulous method makes everyone hate it!

A group of soldiers whose family members were injured even knelt collectively outside Fang Yong's mansion, begging Fang Yong to lead them to attack the city where the Duke of Shanguo was located. They were willing to lead the charge and fight to the death!

Fang Yong understood their situation very well.

However, this is irrational.

Attacking the city by force would not cause any pain to Duke Shanguo; on the contrary, that was exactly what Duke Shanguo wanted to see.

Fang Yong knew this clearly, so no matter how angry he was, he could only suppress his anger temporarily and calm the soldiers.

On that day, Fang Yong called together his senior officers and asked them if they had any good ideas to deal with the attack by Duke Shanguo.

The soldiers began to think about it.

Wu Yuan suggested:
"We can order the wounded and retired old soldiers to train the local militia among the people and give weapons to the common people to resist the invasion of the Duke of Shan Guo's troops."

Simply put, it is to train militia.

After listening to this, Fang Yong thought it made a lot of sense and was worth a try.

Just as he was about to adopt it, Xue Dacui reminded him:

"If common people have sharp weapons, those in power may not be able to control them."

Upon hearing this, Wu Yuan did not refute Xue Dacuizi, but said affirmatively:

"This is indeed a danger. General, you need to think twice before making a decision."

After hearing this, Fang Yong carefully thought about the pros and cons and finally decided to adopt Wu Yuan's suggestion.

Training the militia would do him more good than harm at present.

As for the future, he can incorporate these militias into the regular army after his power expands, so as to prevent difficult-to-control problems from arising among the people.

In fact, Fang Yong also thought about taking advantage of the opportunity of training militia to carry out a civilian literacy education campaign, but the reality made his plan fail.

The scholars of this era had an unimaginable arrogance towards the common people.

Even the most destitute old scholar was unwilling to condescend to teach these common people.

Fang Yong had no choice but to put the plan on hold.

In addition, Ma Laohei proposed to form a cavalry to deal with the harassment from the troops under Duke Shanguo.

But Fang Yong had too few horses, less than a thousand at most, and most of them were poor horses used to pull goods, not war horses, and could not be used to form cavalry.

This is a common problem throughout the southern region, and it has been difficult to solve throughout the dynasties.

Wu Yuan mentioned that he had a friend in the Jurchen tribe on the grassland, who was his former classmate and was now working for a foreign tribe in an important position. Perhaps he could try to use this relationship to sell horses over.

After hearing this, Fang Yong couldn't help but be surprised at Wu Yuan's connections.

However, despite being surprised, he was not very optimistic about Wu Yuan's idea.

Not to mention the many difficulties along the way, even if the horses were really transported here, I'm afraid the cost would be quite high.

Moreover, the Duke of Shanguo is now harassing people every day. Judging from the time, selling horses from the grassland now may be of little use.

But no matter what, having a solution is always better than having no solution.

Fang Yong immediately agreed to let Wu Yuan contact this good friend.

In addition, Fang Yong also ordered the establishment of a medical hall, recruited good doctors from the folk, granted them official positions, and treated civilians who were injured due to the harassment by Shanguogong.

This move brought Fang Yong's reputation to a new level.

A few days later, Fang Yong took some time out to take Daiyu to the medical hall to visit the injured military dependents.

Fang Yong admitted that this was a show, but at least Fang Yong was willing to show off.

Compared to other people of this era who even Xiu was unwilling to be, Fang Yong's virtue is already worthy of being a saint sent from heaven in the eyes of the people.

(End of this chapter)