The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 69 Play a big game
Yue Wenxuan: "I will first make a video of the most famous match, Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, ​​C Ronaldo vs. Messi. Please send me two sets of action figures of all the players in that match."

The boss was delighted: "Great, Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​right? I'm familiar with these two teams! I'll arrange to have all the action figures of these two teams sent to you right away."

The boss went to urge the work without saying a word.

Within two days, the figures of all the members of the two teams fell into Yue Wenxuan's hands.

The classic battle of the Spanish national derby, the seventh round of the 12-13 La Liga season, the life-and-death battle between Ronaldo and Messi.

This match was truly earth-shattering, with countless spectators' eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

After Yue Wenxuan got the figurine, he was not in a hurry to put it in. Instead, he first ordered Qian Zhuoqun to prepare the venue. He cleared a huge lawn on an open space outside Dongmiaozi Village and painted the playing field with white lime powder.

Before the game started, he put in two small plastic goals...it was perfect!
The preparation of the football field took unexpectedly long time. It is really not easy to get a huge piece of flat land these days.

Moreover, Cuju was a personal hobby of Qian Zhuoqun and a small group of rebel soldiers. Qian Zhuoqun was embarrassed to use his status as the "second in command" to mobilize the rebel army's resources, so he and the group of enthusiasts used their rest time to prepare the stadium.

These people had to participate in Qi Jiguang's training during the day, and during the rest time they followed Qian Zhuoqun to the open space outside the village to carry stones and soil and level the ground. This was really a bit hard, and several days passed with slow progress.

There is another thing that is also progressing very slowly.

Qian Zhuoqun sent people to the county town to contact the military-controlled craftsmen, hoping to use food to lure them to Dongmiaozi Village to join the group. He thought that with food in hand, this matter would be easy, but he did not expect the progress to be unexpectedly smooth.

When the blacksmiths in the county heard that they were going to join King Gong, surprisingly few of them agreed.

This has to be blamed on the former leader of the rebel army, Gong Yi.

Last year, the rebel army rose up to fight against the Jin army at the call of Gong Yi. Gong Yi was just an ordinary soldier with a lot of patriotic enthusiasm, but little education and no "guiding ideology". The more than 10,000 people he recruited were maintained by the two words "resist the Jin army", and the military discipline and regulations were a mess.

There are many people like Zheng Qi and Zhang Jiu in the rebel army!
Although they claim to be a righteous army in the name of national justice, their actual style is not much different from that of a bandit army.

When the rebel army entered Jimo County last year, they did a lot of bad things.

News spreads faster in the county town than in the countryside, so the rebel army's reputation in the county town is much worse than in the countryside. When the craftsmen in the city heard that they were asked to surrender to the King Gong, how could they be willing to do so?

The scouts Qian Zhuoqun sent to the county town tried their best to persuade several craftsmen to come to Dongmiaozi Village, but were reported instead. Wu Jialiang led a group of subordinates to arrest them. Fortunately, Yue Wenxuan happened to be aware of Master Ye and learned about the matter. Master Ye and Bruce Lee gave the scout some slack, and the scout escaped easily, but he never dared to go to the county town to lobby again.

The next morning, when Yue Wenxuan "descended" into the sandbox, he saw Qian Zhuoqun's face full of frustration. When he saw Yue Wenxuan, he was like a child who had not finished his homework when he saw his teacher. He was timid and didn't know how to speak.

Yue Wenxuan smiled: "I already know what you want to say. You can't recruit craftsmen, right?"

Qian Zhuoqun said pitifully, "Our army's reputation in the county is really not good. When the army entered the city last year... well, it's hard to put it into words."

Once your reputation is ruined, it will take time to restore it.

Yue Wenxuan spread his hands and said, "Forget it. I'll take care of this. Go and gather a few dozen soldiers that General Qi has trained, the kind that can strictly abide by military regulations and discipline. Dress them up as porters, prepare carriages and horses, and fill them with food. I'll take them around the county town."
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In Jimo County, County Magistrate Cui Weihua and County Lieutenant Wu Jialiang sat across from each other at a table filled with tea, but neither drank a sip. Both were experiencing headaches.

Wu Jialiang has been in a state of tension ever since he secretly watched the rebel army join forces in Dawang Village last time.

After returning to the county town, they immediately organized archers and prepared to defend the county town to the death.

However, they did not expect that after the two bandit armies joined forces, they did not attack the county town, but dispersed on the spot.

A part of the bandit army actually returned to their original village and began to prepare for spring plowing and sowing.

Another part of the bandit army went to Dongmiaozi Village and had no intention of attacking the county town at all.

Wu Jialiang was completely confused about this group of thieves.

If he was a thick-skinned person, he would just laugh it off.

He happened to be a brilliant mind, his brain working faster than most people. He had spent the past few days behind closed doors pondering and coming up with ten thousand possibilities for the bandit army's subsequent plans...

I scared myself, it was really scary.

Last night, he received another report from an official craftsman, saying that Gong Dawang's people had secretly contacted him and wanted him to join their gang. This frightened Wu Jialiang even more, and he always felt that Gong Dawang was "playing big."

"Your Excellency!" Wu Jialiang tapped the tabletop lightly with his fingers and said, "I simply cannot fathom this gang of thieves. For now, we have no choice but to recruit more archers. We need at least five hundred, no, a thousand, to fight the palace thieves."

County Magistrate Cui Weihua said bitterly, "Archers, archers, you keep wanting to recruit more archers, but archers need food, and the government has to provide it for them. There are tens of thousands of mouths to feed in this county alone, and I'm already starving. Where can I get the extra food to recruit more archers?"

It turned out that the number of disaster victims in Jimo County was increasing day by day.

When the rebel army and the Jin soldiers successively occupied the county town, nine out of ten houses in the city were empty. However, the people did not all die. Most of them fled into the surrounding mountains and forests.

After Cui Weihua arrived, he issued a notice to reassure the people, and all kinds of people flocked back to the county town, causing its population to explode.

We have to mention the urbanization of the Song Dynasty here.

The Song Dynasty was an era with a very high level of urbanization.

The Song Dynasty abolished the Tang Dynasty's lifang system, allowing street-side shops to emerge. This promoted commercial prosperity and the refinement of labor divisions, allowing more people to engage in non-agricultural work. The opening of cities and the prosperity of commerce refined the division of labor, leading to the rapid development of industries such as newspapers, books, finance, brokerage, performing arts, and advertising. Cities also developed specialized firefighting and water supply facilities and personnel. Non-agricultural tax revenue accounted for over 70% of the Song Dynasty's tax revenue, exceeding both the Han and Tang dynasties and the Ming and Qing dynasties.

During most of the Song Dynasty, the urbanization rate exceeded 20%, and during the heyday of the Southern Song Dynasty, the urbanization rate even reached 30%.

This number is very scary because when the People's Republic of China was first founded, the urbanization rate in our country was only 10%.

(End of this chapter)