Chapter 21: Earth Crack Nine

After Liu Wenxiu left Guiyang City, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, he knew that Li Dingguo would not do anything to him. But things have come to this point, and it is natural to guard against people. It is safe to leave Guiyang early. He hurried back to Kunming to meet Sun Kewang.

Sun Kewang listened to Liu Wenxiu's words and waved his hand to let Liu Wenxiu go down.

He was not too surprised by this result.

Although Li Dingguo is loyal and upright, he is not a temperamentless person.

However, he will not immediately turn his face because of this little thing.

"It's not the time yet." Sun Kewang said: "The Qing army will not retreat so easily, I will wait a little longer to see where the situation develops." ”

Sun Kewang sat in Yunnan and did everything possible to gather more than 200,000 elite soldiers, which was also a great burden on the people of Yunnan. But the current situation also puts Sun Kewang in a dilemma, and Yunnan alone has become a big deal. But if he wants to wield the Central Plains, the strength under his command is also beyond his strength.

And the crisis of this Xia Dynasty is certainly where Sun Kewang's opportunity lies, but the more this is the case, the more Sun Kewang dare not easily play the cards in his hand, not to mention that the person opposite is Li Dingguo.

There is another reason why Sun Kewang does not dare to act rashly, because there are many things happening in Guangxi. It has even affected Tusi in the east of Yunnan, so that Sun Kewang has to think that if he wants to send troops to Guizhou, he will not only face Li Dingguo, but also Cao Zongyu.

Because the situation in Guangxi was not initiated by Guangxi Tusi, but by Cao Zongyu.

Just after Zhang Xuan left, Cao Zongyu summoned all kinds of toasts, and all kinds of toasts did not dare to disobey Cao Zongyu's orders, so they all came, Cao Zongyu was entertained with good wine and meat, and then on the second day, he sent troops and brought all these toasts, so that their headquarters sent troops and food, and advanced into Sicheng Prefecture at a speed that no one could have imagined.

Sicheng Prefecture is the territory of the Cen clan of the Great Tusi of Guangxi.

The Cen family is also a big toast inherited from the Song and Yuan dynasties. The strength may be a little worse than An's, but in the entire Guangxi toast, it is second to none.

The Cen clan ruled on both sides of the Red River. And it's not just the Cen family in Sicheng Prefecture, the Cen family is in Guangxi, and the toasts from all over the country have intermarried with it, and there are many other Cen toasts. In later generations, he was compared with Yuan Shikai's Northern Yuan Nan Cen Chunxuan. It is from Guangxi.

This is a ground snake, no, it should be said to be a ground dragon.

Sicheng Prefecture is also in the western part of Guangxi, in the mountains. It is far away from the prosperous area in the eastern part of Guangxi. It is connected with Guizhou and Yunnan. Belonging to the periphery of Great Xia's rule in Guangxi, when Deng and his division swept west of Guilin, they did not do anything to Sicheng Prefecture, but only made them verbally submit.

Therefore, when Cao Zongyu summoned the Tusi from all over the country, the Cen family only sent a messenger over.

Even the Cen clan took in many Ming Dynasty officials, and the rule of Great Xia was just a person under the roof and had to bow his head. But he didn't expect that Cao Zongyu was so moving like thunder, just feasting and drinking here, and loading the artillery there.

Cao Zongyu had the intention of establishing authority, so he used a large number of artillery, loaded it with ships, and marched west along the Xixi River, but in a few days, he arrived in Tianzhou. Dozens of cannons roared together, and then Cao Zongyu asked the Nanyang battalion to take the lead and immediately take the city.

The salvo of dozens of artillery pieces made all the toasts extremely frightened.

Originally, they were a little reluctant to Cao Zongyu to hijack them here and let them recruit the people of their headquarters to serve food. But after seeing this situation, they didn't dare to say a word more. Immediately write a letter to bring a lot of Tusi soldiers from the headquarters.

Cao Zongyu took advantage of the situation to advance westward and hit under Sicheng Prefecture.

The head of the Cen family's toast, Cen Jilu's heart was pounding, and he didn't know what to do. Little did he know that he was just answering the call. That's what happened. Especially in the face of the Xia army artillery. Cen Jilu was not sure if the state city could resist it.

Most of the cities of Tusi in Guangxi are built on the mountain, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. However, most of these mountain towns were inherited, and when they were first established, the power of artillery was not so great, and they did not think about guarding against artillery.

Facing Cao Zongyu's cannon, I couldn't help but feel a little blind.

Since he couldn't beat it, he had to think of something else.

As mentioned before, Cen's toast is deeply rooted in Guangxi. There were all kinds of networks, and he wrote letters one after another, and sent people to ask for surrender. This disaster is finally over.

Cao Zongyu's original intention was to establish his authority and let the toasts in Guangxi weigh a little, so he did not embarrass these toasts, after Cen Jilu surrendered, Cao Zongyu was in Sicheng Prefecture, the conference toast. After this demonstration-like battle. Tusi from all over Guangxi no longer looked down on Cao Zongyu and attended the meeting one after another.

On the large square of the Cen family's Tusi Mansion, there are rows of wooden buildings around it with a bit of Zhuang flavor, and there are long large tables below. Cao Zongyu stood on the high platform, holding the wine bowl in his hand, and said: "Everyone, there are some things, you have also heard, the failure of Your Majesty's Northern Expedition is certainly a disaster for the imperial court, but it may not be a good thing for you. ”

"The general ordered me to recruit soldiers."

"And the wolf soldiers in Guangxi are famous all over the world, and I am here to gather all of you for this matter."

"The salary of the regular soldiers of the imperial court is eighteen taels a year, as long as you have qualified manpower, who is this money for?"

Cao Zongyu also thought about Zhang Xuan's conscription, and finally decided to recruit in Guangxi. Compared with Guangdong, although Guangxi is a little poorer, it is a good source of soldiers, not to mention anything else, the Gui Army during the Anti-Japanese War, and the Guangxi veterans of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, all illustrate this point.

These Cao Zongyu may not know, but the Guangxi wolf soldiers were very famous in the Ming Dynasty, and when Qi Jiguang resisted the Japanese, he also cooperated with the Guangxi wolf soldiers. But the military discipline of the Guangxi wolf soldiers is a little worse. But combat effectiveness can be guaranteed.

Moreover, the toast system is a very backward system.

The Tusi soldiers were often the slaves of the Tusi soldiers, so Cao Zongyu released them according to the money given to the regular soldiers of the imperial court, and many times the money could not reach the hands of the Tusi soldiers.

But Cao Zongyu didn't care about this, he paid attention to three points, the first is to weaken the power of the toasts in various places. After all, the number of Tusi soldiers in the hands of Tusi is not too much, and the Tusi people who live in the deep mountains, although they are good at fighting by nature. But there is also a limit to the number of strong men that each toast can control. Between this entry and exit, the power of toast in various places will definitely be weakened.

The second is to divide the toast.

Although Cen Jilu surrendered, Cao Zongyu did not let him go like this, Cen Jilu was conscripted to serve in the army, and Cen Jilu's son inherited the position of Tusi and installed one or two civil officials into Sicheng Prefecture. The tentacles of the Great Xia court penetrated deep into the Tusi.

Cen Jilu is just a special case. If you want to recruit Tusi soldiers on a large scale, you will definitely let some Tusi disciples enter the army, and then some Tusi will inevitably become the pillars of Daxia's rule in Guangxi.

Third, it is to bury the secret hand in the future.

The imperial court treats the wolf soldiers in Guangxi equally, the regular soldiers are eighteen taels a year, and the auxiliary soldiers are miscellaneous soldiers, which is naturally a lot less than the regular soldiers, but for ordinary people, this is still a lot of money, if the toast is insatiable, these wolf soldiers have little knowledge before they leave the house, and they dare not resist. But after a few battles and seeing the world, how can it be so easy to grasp?

Whether it is relying on the support of the imperial court in the future, moving his family out and becoming a common man in Daxia, or overthrowing the Tusi with the support of the imperial court, it is easy to arrange one entry and one exit.

After these toasts saw the strength of Great Xia, they were greedy for money. Most of the toasts sent a lot of toast soldiers. As for the salaries given by the imperial court to the soldiers, at least half of them fell into the hands of Tusi. And Cao Zongyu didn't have much silver in his hands, just Zhanjiang Manufacturing Branch, nothing else was done, but there was a lot of iron. Cao Zongyu directly replaced silver with iron and paid these toasts.

The best of both worlds at once.

Iron has always been a hard currency in ancient times, but large-scale iron smelting, in addition to the cost, I am afraid that there are no ten taels. Cao Zongyu saved a lot of money.