All Heavens and Worlds Modified History System

Chapter 217 Finance and Military Horses

Hu Sanniang stumbled to the courtyard where the guest rooms were located.

She pushed aside the farmhand guarding the door and saw her elder brother, holding a sharp knife and stabbing her fiancé in the chest!

"No~~~"

Hu Sanniang screamed loudly, her large almond-shaped eyes filled with disbelief.

She closed her eyes and shook her head vigorously, feeling that she must have drunk too much and was just dreaming.

But the screams in her ears and the pungent smell of blood in her mouth and nose told her that she was not dreaming!
When she opened her eyes again, the screams had stopped, and all the people brought by the Zhu father and son had been killed.

Looking at the corpses scattered all over the guest room, Hu Sanniang grabbed her brother's arm and asked in a trembling voice, "Why?"

"For our family to survive!"

Hu Cheng didn't say anything, and it was Hu Taigong who responded to her.

Hu Taigong, who had drunk a lot of wine at the banquet before, was now in high spirits. "We didn't want to do that, but we had no choice."

"Sister." Hu Cheng comforted, "Of the three families in Dulonggang, the Li family has surrendered, and the Zhu family was directly wiped out. Only our Hujia Village is left."

"The government troops coming this time are too fierce. We can't defeat them. If we take them in, the only result will be that we will be dragged down by them, and our Hujia Village will be destroyed!"

"Just let them go!" Hu Sanniang shook her head vigorously. "Why do you have to kill them?"

"A letter has been sent over there." Hu Taigong sighed, "They specifically want the heads of their father and son. If we don't give them, our Hujia Village will be buried with them. Do you want to watch your brother, sister-in-law, nephews, nieces, parents and relatives all die tragically?"

Hu Sanniang was silent for a moment, and then she whispered to herself, "We have won the battle and occupied Zhuangzi, why do we have to kill them all?"

Hu Cheng shook his head and thought, "This is called uprooting the weeds. Our Hu family is just showing off their loyalty."

He called Hu Sanniang's maids over and said, "Send the young lady back to rest."

The next day, Hu Taigong and Hu Cheng, carrying the heads of Zhu Biao and his son, rode at full speed to Zhujiazhuang.

There are many passionate heroes in the world, but these heroes usually disappear within a few years.

Those who can truly gain a foothold are those who are well versed in the ways of the world.

Hu Cheng and his son are very sensible. Since they have chosen to surrender, they must surrender completely.

In the temporary military camp outside Zhujiazhuang, Hu Cheng and his son were holding a wooden box containing the heads of Zhu Biao and his son, waiting outside the tent for an interview.

"Dad." Hu Cheng carefully looked around and asked softly, "Hujia Village is right next to us. Why don't you live in the village but set up camp outside?"

"Because they are not thieves." Hu Taigong looked at the soldiers coming and going around and sighed softly, "They are real soldiers, and they are still at war."

The difference between the army and the bandits lies in whether they are bound by military discipline.

Soon, a captain came out and invited the two to come in.

Chen Ran sat behind the desk, head lowered, looking through the account book that recorded the statistics of the seized materials.

When he heard the announcement that the father and son of Hujia Zhuang had come in, he looked up.

The father and son knelt on the ground with their heads bowed, holding the wooden box in their hands so that their faces could not be seen.

Thinking of the ending in the original novel where the whole family of Hujiazhuang was killed, he felt a little sympathetic. "Stand up and talk."

"Thanks for the invitation~~~"

A lieutenant came forward to take the wooden box and check the authenticity of the head.

After confirming that it was true, Chen Ran said, "From now on, Hujia Village will be incorporated into the Zhaotao Army and will provide labor and food according to the rules. All farmhands and idlers in the family will be expelled, and the tenants will be divided into land and households."

After a series of arrangements and disposals were made, Hu Cheng clenched his fists in anger.

We have all surrendered and joined the gang. What kind of condition is this? They are going to destroy Hujia Village.

"What's wrong?" Chen Ran had excellent eyesight and could tell Hu Cheng's dissatisfaction at a glance. "Unsatisfied?"

"I dare not." Hu Taigong on the side bowed quickly and said, "I will obey your orders~~~"

"You have to understand one thing." Chen Ran looked at Hu Cheng and said, "Your Hujia Village should have been completely razed like Zhujia Village. It was because you made a decisive decision to surrender that you had a chance to survive. I am not bargaining with you, I am giving you a way out."

"Yes, yes, yes." It was obvious that Master Hu understood everything, and he quickly bowed and said, "I appreciate your kindness, and everyone in Hujia Village will never forget it."

He gestured to Hu Cheng beside him, "This is my son. He is willing to follow me and serve me like a dog."

"Following his command" and so on are just polite words, and in essence it means sending your son over as a hostage.

It is true that having an old person in the family is like having a treasure.

There are really not many people who can see things clearly.

Seeing that they were so sensible, Chen Ran nodded in appreciation.

Then he seemed to remember something and said, "I heard that your daughter, Sanniang, is a martial arts expert who is good at using two swords. Has she come?"

Chen Ran’s meaning was very simple. He just wanted to contact Hu Sanniang to see if he could trigger subtitle modification.

But to Hu Taigong, it had another meaning.

"Don't worry, I will send her to Qingfeng Town in a few days."

Dulonggang is a good place, as can be seen from the fact that hundreds of thousands of shi of grain were seized from Zhujiazhuang.

Chen Ran took Hu Cheng away and sent Li Ying's family to Qingfeng Town.

In this way, Li Ying and Hu Taigong could only work for him honestly and take good care of this fertile land. In the future, they could collect a large amount of food and goods from here every year, which was very suitable for raising troops.

After returning, Chen Ran immediately began to expand his troops.

He took the route of elite troops, and previously only raised a few thousand combat soldiers because the expenses were too high.

However, after capturing Dulonggang, seizing a large amount of grain from Zhujiazhuang, and obtaining a large amount of wealth from Li Ying, they naturally had the confidence to expand their army immediately.

He is different from the Liangshan heroes.

At the peak of their powers, the Liangshan heroes were said to have an army of 100,000 men.

It feels like bragging, but even if the force is cut in half, the total force size can still be 50,000.

As for the place called Liangshan Marsh, even if all the fish and shrimp in the lake were caught, it would still not be able to support so many people.

The reason why they had so many people at their peak was, on the one hand, because they had captured Dulonggang, which not only provided them with huge spoils but also brought them a steady stream of food income.

The other aspect is even more important, because there is no military pay on Liangshan.

It is natural for soldiers to get paid, but those on Liangshan are not soldiers, they are all bandits, even the small minions are bandits.

The bandits naturally had no military pay and relied entirely on dividends from looting.

As the saying goes, drink wine in big bowls, eat meat in big chunks, and divide gold and silver with big scales.

After returning from robbery, they would eat the stolen livestock and wine, and distribute the stolen property according to their status and rank, which was considered the bandits' dividends.

Since there is no military pay on weekdays, Liangshan can naturally recruit more people.

Chen Ran's case is different. He has been following the regular army route from the very beginning. Salaries are paid as a must, and he never withholds even a penny or a grain of food.

This creates enormous financial and logistical pressures.

Fortunately, with the capture of the fertile land of Dulonggang, this pressure was alleviated, and the army expansion began immediately.

The Liao Kingdom can only hold out for one or two years at most. By then, facing the hundreds of thousands of Jin troops heading south, Chen Ran's few thousand soldiers will not be enough to fill the gap.

It is easy to recruit soldiers. There are a large population in Jingdong and the two roads, and there are many young people who cannot get enough food under the heavy burden of heavy taxes.

Chen Ran's reputation for having sufficient food and wages has spread, and many young people are willing to come.

However, he did not raise flags to recruit soldiers. Instead, he allocated recruitment quotas according to the population ratio through the villages and towns under his control.

The advantage of doing this is that you know the ins and outs of the place, which strengthens control over the local area and makes it difficult for spies to infiltrate.

At the same time, he is still looking for his next target.

It is very difficult to deal with the Jin people by relying solely on a large infantry formation, because Chen Ran knows that even Yue's army had an extremely powerful cavalry unit when they defeated the Jin people.

If the Jin army wants to fight in the field, a strong cavalry unit is essential.

But the Song Dynasty was not the Tang Dynasty, especially after the Western Xia rebellion, it lost its last horse farm.

There was an extreme shortage of horses here, even for the imperial guards. It was too difficult for him to get a large number of horses to form a cavalry corps.

In a normal Jing Kang world, this problem could not be solved. The only options were smuggling from Qingtang and Xixia, or taking advantage of the demise of the Liao Kingdom to get horses from the Liao Kingdom.

But this is a world where Jing Kang and Water Margin are mixed together. There is an incredibly large horse farm on both sides of the east road.

That’s right, it’s Zengtou City!

Chen Ran had already arranged people to go to Zengtou City to investigate in advance. The pasture in Zengtou City was hundreds of miles in radius, and there were tens of thousands of trained and usable military horses.

These are just the usable military horses. If you include other pack horses, riding horses, mares and ponies, there would be tens of thousands of them.

"In the heart of the Song Dynasty, there is such a large military horse farm that has been open for so many years. It is absolutely impossible to say that there is no one to protect it."

Novels are just novels, but reality has its own specific operating rules.

Just like when he captured Zhujiazhuang and seized hundreds of thousands of shi of grain before, he learned from the confiscated letters that a large portion of this grain was government grain.

A big shot in the court resold government grain through Zhujiazhuang as a white glove!

This explains very well why a mere village like Zhujiazhuang could have 500,000 shi of grain.

After all, Dulonggang’s annual grain output is not that much.

"There must be some big guys behind the horses in Zengtou City." Chen Ran thought intently, "If we touch these horses, we will definitely attract the revenge of the big guys. But it doesn't matter. The stage of accumulating strength has passed. At worst, we can tear off the disguise and raise the banner of justice to rebel openly."

Having made up his mind, Chen Ran began to carefully plan the offensive against Zengtou City.

Zengtou City has a lot of horses and cavalry, so they naturally can't act like they did when attacking Zhujiazhuang. They need to plan carefully.

Chen Ran was busy until the evening. After finishing work, he packed up and went to have dinner.

After dinner, he returned to his yard and prepared to go to bed.

But when he returned to the yard, he was surprised to see several women in the yard busy doing something.

Chen Ran was shocked and immediately called the guards to ask "What's going on?"

The guard responded, "It was the young lady from Hujia Village who was sent here. The person who sent her said she was the concubine they wanted to recruit."

Chen Ran'(⊙﹏⊙)'

How come I didn’t know I had a concubine!

(End of this chapter)