In the twilight, Li Xiao's whole army had a hasty dinner, and the Jinjiazhuang Fort Guard calmed An Qian and led Li Xiao to patrol around along the Jinjiazhuang Fort City Wall Road. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

"My lord, my Jinjiazhuang Fort, is built in the second year of Ming Chenghua, Wanli four years of bricks, 36 steps on Tuesday, three feet high, there are four castle towers, three corner towers. According to folklore, Jin Xiuying, a female general of the Tang Dynasty, once led an army to guard the border in Jinjiazhuang. My Jinjiazhuang Fort once managed 30 side piers, each pier **** garrisoned 216 piers, 23 fire piers in the belly, 81 garrison piers, of course, now the Tartar invasion, these forts have been burned or abandoned, and the nearby soldiers and civilians have been plundered and slaughtered, which is really embarrassing. ”

When An Qian said this, he sighed unconsciously and looked worried.

Li Xiao's face was also grim. The large-scale invasion of the Tartars brought great disasters to the soldiers and civilians in the border areas. The blood, tears and deaths of these people may be rare to leave a single record in the history books. Only by being in the local area will you understand how difficult and difficult these people are living in this chaotic era at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Seeing that Li Xiao was silent, An Qian continued to introduce: "Master Li, in Xuanfu Town, there are four roads: East Road, West Road, Middle Road and North Road. Among the four roads, the north road is the most important, and it has always been the key part of entering Tumut Mongolia. The North Road is also known as the Dushi Road, which can be subdivided into three roads: Upper North, Middle North, and Lower North. My Jinjiazhuang Fort and Longmenwei Fort, Sanchakou Fort, Diaoyu Fort, Chang'anling Fort, Xiaobaiyang Fort and other border forts belong to Xuanzhen North Road Zhongbei Road。。。。。。 ”

An Qian spoke clearly and carefully, so that Li Xiao finally had a preliminary understanding of Xuanfu Town and this Jinjiazhuang Fort.

Li Xiao noticed that this Jinjiazhuang Fort is similar to other Xuanzhen border forts, all of which are rammed earth walls, without bricks, and this is located in the place of the border wall, and after crossing the border, it is Tumut Mongolia, which belongs to the semi-arid zone and has very little rainfall, so there is no need to worry about heavy rain damaging the earthen fort wall.

His eyes looked north through the heavy afterglow, and he could see that there were some abandoned fields scattered outside the fort like leprosy. It is a pity that the sorghum in the field has not yet been grouted, and it has been completely destroyed by the vicious Houjin army, leaving only an ugly black and scorched trace.

Two miles to the north, the Tangquan River, which originates from the border mountain, winds eastward like a stray dark red ribbon under the rays of the setting sun.

According to An Qian, this Tangquan River, in the past, was the mother river of the military and civilian life in the fort, the Tangquan River flowed eastward, merged into the monolithic water, and then turned around and went south to join the Longmen River, and finally flowed east with the Nanhe River.

Now because of the Tartar invasion, the soldiers and civilians in the fort do not dare to go out easily. All the soldiers and civilians in the fort had to draw water from two bluestone wells in the fort. Because of the drought, the water surface of the well is extremely deep, and it takes a rope dozens of meters long to get the water.

Li Xiao sighed in his heart, the life of the military and civilians in the border areas of Xuanfu Town is indeed much more difficult than that of Liaodong or Shandong.

He suddenly remembered something, and asked An Qian: "How many soldiers and civilians are there in the fort now?" ”

An Qian hurriedly replied: "My lord, there are a total of 415 households in the fort, including 310 military households and 105 civilian households. Originally, in the middle of Wanli, there were more than 1,300 households in the fort, but due to years of war and famine, many military households and civilian households fled, so now the number of households is less than one-third of the original. ”

Li Xiao frowned, he knew that since the end of Wanli, in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, the officers in the state forts had invaded the fertile land, transferred the fields, and the fields were reduced and abandoned due to various reasons such as drought disasters, resulting in the military and civilian households in the fort not being able to survive, and there was only one way to escape. It's just that compared with the mainland, Jinjiazhuang Fort, which is located in the border town, has to add the Tatar invasion, which makes the local military and civilian flight more serious.

"Oh, how many people are there in the fort?" Li Xiao asked again.

"My lord, because some time ago, the garrison of Jinjiazhuang Fort was to rescue the main fort of Longmen Guard, and the garrison officer and deputy Qianhu of Qianhu were all killed, and most of the soldiers who sent out the reinforcements were also killed, and only a few people were able to escape back. Therefore, in addition to the remaining 45 fort soldiers, there are no adult males in the military households, and there are still more than 70 adult males in the private households. The rest of the population is 98 old men, 103 old women, 246 strong women, 143 young men, and 155 young women. ”

Li Xiao sighed, and his face became more and more serious. He was thinking that there were so few old people in this fort, but because in this war era, the old and frail old people should be the easiest to become victims.

The two came down from the city wall, and Li Xiao noticed that in this Jinjiazhuang Fort, the planning was very rough, with only three streets and ten alleys, while in the mainland, there were basically nearly twenty streets and alleys in a thousand-household fort. In addition, there are only a dozen or so shops on the side of the main street, which are crooked and dilapidated, and the dilapidated houses of many military and civilian households are mixed together, which looks lifeless and depressing. All the streets and buildings in the fort have a shabby and dirty feel. Although it was getting late, you could still see from time to time those numb, dazed-looking, ragged people shuttling back and forth through the streets.

Compared with these civilian buildings, the various facilities of the barracks in the fort, such as barracks, granaries, forage yards, arsenals, stables, etc., are also messy, but they are still cleaner. At this time, the soldiers had finished their dinner and were being led by the generals into the barracks to rest.

More than 1,100 soldiers of Li Xiao's department, plus more than 480 soldiers of Du Shaoru's department, and more than 40 fort soldiers under An Qian, just happened to fill the military camp.

On the side of the barracks, there was a small blacksmith shop, where three craftsmen were originally working here, doing things like repairing armor and martial arts. Now Li Xiao arranged for Zhang Tongzhu to take over the blacksmith shop in an all-round way, and he was also responsible for these three craftsmen. In the vicinity of the blacksmith shop, he found a house vacated by the flight of military households, and let Zhang Tongzhu and the entourage blacksmith settle down.

The physician Chen Mazi and his men also found two large empty houses on the street near the barracks as a resting place and a temporary medical hall for Chen Mazi and his men.

Li Xiao was next to the medical hall again, and specially found a clean house for Zu Wan'er and let her rest in it alone.

Seeing that it was getting late, An Qian took Li Xiao to the Qianhu official hall on East Avenue and let Li Xiao live here.

Originally, when Du Shaoru's department settled in, An Qian had let Du Shaoru live in it, but Du Shaoru suspected that the thousands of garrisons and deputy thousands of households who had lived in it were all killed in the war, and they felt unlucky and did not want to move in. Instead, he found another large mansion in the fort and drove the original owner out of the mansion, so that he could move in.

Compared with Du Shaoru's suspicious ghosts, Li Xiao, who fought from the pile of corpses in the sea of blood, didn't think about it at all, so when An Qian proposed to let him stay in the Qianhu Official Hall, Li Xiao agreed quite happily.

Li Xiao noticed that this thousand-household official hall occupies a large area, with the front and back houses, with the gate, lobby, second hall, and third hall as the central axis, and the other buildings basically maintain left and right symmetry. It is divided into several sections, namely the main and deputy thousand households, Wei Zhenfu, and the office of the officials in the order room.

It's just that in these thousands of official offices, only one of the thousands of garrison officials lives here on weekdays, and the other officials only come here during the day to do business, and they go home to rest at night.

An Qian took Li Xiao to the back house, which was very neatly cleaned up. Li Xiao noticed that the blankets and mats were all new, and the tables and chairs were wiped very clean.

After visiting the Qianhu Official Hall, Li Xiao arranged for 20 auxiliary soldiers to serve as servants and guards in the Qianhu Official Hall, and found two vacant rooms in the Qianhu Official Hall for them to settle down and rest.

Seeing that Li Xiao had settled down, An Qian then retired.

Li Xiao then bathed and changed clothes, lying on the bed, looking at the bright moon outside the window, but it was difficult to calm down in his heart.

Now in Jinjiazhuang Fort, the three troops of Li Xiao's department, Du Shaoru's department, and Anqian's department add up, with a total of nearly 1,700 soldiers. Li Xiao had arranged for the soldiers to take turns to garrison the fort tower, corner tower, and city wall, unless a large number of Tartars arrived, the safety of the castle was safe.

Li Xiao's biggest worry now is the shortage of food.

This question weighed heavily on Li Xiao's heart like a heavy boulder.

Since Li Xiaojun passed through Beijing, it has been difficult to buy food. Starting from the north of Beizhili, to Yanqing Prefecture, to the north road of Xuanfu Town, and to this Jinjiazhuang Fort, Li Xiao's whole army could only eat the grain loaded on the seventeen four-wheeled carriages.

Up to now, the grain unloaded from the four-wheeled carriage and stored in the granary is only more than 410 stone of rice grain, and another 150 stone is horse bean feed.

Now these 1,700 soldiers, because it is difficult to have pork to eat now, in order to ensure the basic combat power, each person must consume at least three catties of rice grain every day, so the daily food consumption can reach 34 stones, and Li Xiao's grain storage is only enough to last a little more than 10 days at most!

Li Xiao sighed secretly in his heart, now that there is a shortage of food in the army, even Du Shi's cronies like Du Shaoru can't wait for the food and salary to be delivered, and he is a foreign guest army, so it is estimated that he should not expect Du Shi, Qin Guoying and others to send food.

If history develops according to the records in the history of the Ming Dynasty, then these Tartars will be completely out of the customs, and they need to get the eighth and seventh days of the leap month, and Huang Taiji will leave the Ming Realm with the Tartar army from the upper fort of Wanquan Right Guard, and return to Houjin with a large number of captured people, animals and goods.

In other words, Li Xiao will have to hold out in Jinjiazhuang Fort for at least another month, and this war-torn Xuanfu Town can be calmed down.

What to do?

Can you just sit back and wait for you to die?

Or, like Nadu Shaoru, he robbed the soldiers and civilians in the fort who were already struggling on the death line?

If the army has no food, it will be chaotic, and in these ten days, what should I do to get food?

Li Xiao was in an upset mood, he tossed and turned in bed, but he couldn't think of a better way for a while.

At this time, a sergeant suddenly came to report that Zu Wan'er was coming to see him.

Li Xiao hurriedly took him into the hospital, and the two sat on both sides of a stone table.

"Li Xiao, do you know, when Du Shaoru was treating you in my medical hall, he was always scolding you." Zu Wan'er sat down and laughed deliciously.

Li Xiao smiled and said: "He can still have the strength to scold this official, which means that this official punished him lightly." Such useless goods can also be the general manager of my Ming official army, which is really ridiculous and lamentable. ”

Zu Wan'er also smiled and said: "Later, Doctor Chen gave him a good medicine, and Du Shaoru wanted to follow his family Ding Xu Mao and others back to his own military camp, but he was forcibly taken back to his house by those rampant team members arranged by you to be imprisoned and imprisoned. ”

"It's his own fault! Now this man is full of resentment towards his officer, and if he is allowed to return to the camp, it will not be difficult for him to encourage his soldiers to make trouble. In order to avoid any extraneous complications, the official ordered that after he was drugged, let the rampaging team lock him up alone, so as to save him trouble. When our army retreats to Shandong, let's release this person. Li Xiao sneered.

"Li Xiao, your handling of those troublemakers today is really decisive, and this girl appreciates it very much." Zu Wan'er said loudly, her clear eyes full of appreciation.

Li Xiao gave her a warm smile in return.

"But there is one thing that this girl is not satisfied with. You're sorry for those traitors. are dealt with lightly, and if I were to deal with them, I would have beheaded them all like the wicked murderers. When Zu Wan'er said this, she gritted her teeth.

Li Xiao shook his head and said in a deep voice: "Wan'er, you don't understand. Although these people are hateful, they do not harm people's lives after all. If it is peaceful, the official can kill them. It's just that now in times of war, it is the time to employ people, and it is also a good thing to spare their lives in order to atone for their sins. ”

Zu Wan'er sighed, she groaned for a while, and said to Li Xiao: "Li Xiao, there is one thing, I have been thinking about it for a long time, and I want to tell you today. ”

"You say."

"I thought that during this time, the soldiers would have fought with the Tartars a lot, and there would be a lot of wounded. And now in the Fort Medical Hall, there are only Dr. Chen and his four or five men, and they will definitely be too busy by then. So I thought that if I could pick some of these women in the fort and teach her some nursing skills, and then take care of the wounded soldiers, I would greatly reduce the burden on Dr. Chen. ”

After Zu Wan'er finished speaking, Li Xiao was unhappy.

In the hospital in the previous life, weren't all those female nurses nursing patients? Zu Wan'er's suggestion is really good.

"Wan'er's idea is very good, I support you. If this matter is successfully implemented, it can continue to be implemented in our military medical hall when it returns to Shandong in the future. Li Xiao nodded in agreement.

Seeing Li Xiao's promise, Zu Wan'er was very happy, this naughty girl looked around at no one, blushed, quietly kissed Li Xiao, and then turned around and ran away.

Looking at the back of Zu Wan'er's departure, Li Xiao's originally suppressed mood in his heart relaxed a lot.

There must be a road before the car reaches the mountain, and I will definitely find a way to solve the food problem.

And Zu Wan'er's suggestion also provided Li Xiao with an idea, he was thinking that if he could integrate the forces of the military and civilians in the fort, perhaps, in the future confrontation with the Tartars, there would be a greater chance of victory.

Time is running out, and such changes will be implemented from tomorrow.