Xie Ming

Chapter 87: Settlement of Accounts
When the clinic opens, we will temporarily hire a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner from the town to work there. We can find a good doctor to fill the position later. That's no problem.

The school opened and the instructor was the 43-year-old Xu Zhi, the head of the Seal Verification Department of the Ministry of Personnel.

Of course, Qiu Zhizhong also made an indispensable contribution to this. He had to spend a lot of time and effort to convince Mr. Xu to teach!
They all said that one should advance into an official position and directly enter the government to support the country, or retire to live in seclusion in the mountains and teach.

Fortunately, Xu Ruolu was honest and straightforward, and also had some literary bearing, so he did not shirk his responsibilities too much and was willing to work hard!
In addition, Qiu Zhizhong has worked hard and made great contributions in the past few days, and has achieved much more than this!

In fact, one person was assigned to several places. He first mediated among several old ministers in the court. He changed the ways and angles of the negotiation to reach an agreement on the matter that Xiao Jingchuan had previously instructed, which was to require Minister Ni Yuanlu to lead a team, Li Shichun and Lin Zengzhi, to go south first, and bring the prince's handwritten letter directly to Nanjing to convey the imperial edict.

Moreover, he immediately ran to discuss with the prince, and according to Xiao Lang's plan, he personally decided on the contents of the letter, so that this important matter was successfully accomplished!
In addition, Qiu Zhizhong had already set up an intelligence warehouse in the town, and he assigned several experts to carefully study the specific routes and time of the court officials' journey to the south, so that they could secretly protect each other in the future and finalize the details of their journey together.

Xiao Jingchuan was in charge of recruiting soldiers. He assigned Qi Dayong and Jin Xuan to lead soldiers to set up recruitment points in the east and west of the town. They selected strong and virtuous young mountain people to prepare for enlistment, and gave each of them three taels of silver for settling down. The newly recruited soldiers were then handed over to Sun Peizhong for unified management and training.

In just three or two days, more than 700 militiamen had been recruited.

In the matter of recruiting soldiers, the clan leader Xu Jialin and his two cousins ​​Jialu also made great efforts, and many people were personally guaranteed and recommended by the clan leader to join the army.

During this period, the whole clan jointly recommended Xu Jizu, the eldest grandson of the third old master of the Xu family, who had spoken with Xiao Jingchuan in the ancestral hall when Xiao Jingchuan first entered Jiulong Town, to join the army and serve as the leader of the local militia.

Xu Jizu was a 30-year-old man with a strong and sturdy build. He had also learned martial arts from some old folk masters for several years. Xiao Jingchuan could not refuse for either moral or logical reasons, so he let him lead more than a hundred militiamen.

At the temporary camping site in the northeast of Jiulong Town, the reconstruction of the barracks is also in full swing, and Wang Chuanwu is in charge of the overall management.

By the third day of April, everything had been settled and the outline of the base in Jiulong Town began to take shape.

Li Huchen, Ma Minglu, Liu Wenbing and Gong Yonggu were assigned to lead their troops to continue suppressing the bandits.

In three days, they had conquered three larger bandit dens and seized 53,000 taels of silver, 18,000 shi of grain, more than a thousand bird guns, and countless cold weapons.

【New gains in suppressing bandits! 】

[Silver: 5.3 taels; grain: 1.8 shi; more than 1000 bird guns, and countless cold weapons. ]

[Battle casualties: 133.]

【Troops and horses calculation! 】

[Sun Peizhong's troops: 100 (original Shenjiying) + 200 (newly recruited militia) = 300 people]

[Wang Chuanwu's troops: 100 (original Shenjiying) + 200 (newly recruited militia) = 300 people]

【李虎臣部：68（原骑兵部卒）+110（神机营调拨）-78（剿匪战损）+100(新募乡勇)= 300人】

[Liu Wenbing + Gong Yonggu's combined forces: 100 (allocated from the Shenji Camp) - 55 (losses in the anti-bandit war) + 100 (newly recruited militia) = 145 people]

[Xu Jizu's troops (newly promoted): 100 (village warriors of the same clan) = 100 people]

[Total number of soldiers: 1145]

【Logistics reserve! 】

【白银：3万两（剿马大棒子）+5.3万两（后剿匪所得）-3000两（发饷）-2200两（募兵安家费）-500两（购置宅院及装配）-1000两（兵营筹建经费）= 7.6万余两】

[Food: 1.2 shi (for suppressing Ma Dabangzi) + 1.8 shi (earned from suppressing bandits later) - 1500 shi (cost of soldiers + aid to poor households in the town + cost of building barracks and recruiting civilians) = more than 2.8 shi]

[Surplus weapons and equipment: 2 tiger squat cannons (temporarily kept in the barracks, used to suppress bandits); bird guns (more than 800 pieces)]

On the fourth day of April, all matters in Jiulong Town were initially settled, and civil officials such as Ni Yuanlu were eager to set off south. Therefore, after Xiao Jingchuan assessed the situation, he discussed with Qiu Zhizhong and others and decided to set out and lead the troops out of the mountains immediately to Yi County, southeast of Sanpo!

The purpose of this trip was to raise troops to escort Ni Yuanlu and others out of the mountains. Secondly, he felt that staying here for a long time was not a long-term strategy, and he needed to lead the troops to advance and make some preparations for the next step of reorganizing the troops to go south. Before leaving, Xiao Jingchuan ordered Qi Dayong and Jin Xuan to continue recruiting soldiers in the town, and they did not need to follow. At the northeastern barracks preparation area of ​​Jiulong Town, Wang Chuanwu's headquarters of 300 soldiers were also left behind to guard.

The third prince Zhu Cixiong and the head of the Ministry of Personnel Xu Zhi had originally intended to keep him in the town, so they would not take him out.

Crown Prince Zhu Cilang had not recovered from his cough, and Xiao Jingchuan felt that the Sanpo base would take time to develop and expand, so he was not brought with him on this expedition. He was left in the library to recuperate and was properly settled.

Early in the morning of the fourth day, when the sky was already bright in the east, Xiao Lang led all the generals and more than 800 soldiers to assemble on the mountain road at the town entrance, preparing to set out for the expedition.

The second daughter of the Xu clan leader Jialin, Xu Jingyi, and her close friend Feng'er, had secretly run out of their home at some point and were standing on the high slope north of the stone archway at the town entrance, apparently intending to see Xiao Lang off.

Seeing this, Xiao Jingchuan felt helpless, so he had to wave his hand and gesture to the two to go back before leaving.

"Wow, Lao Xiao! You can do it!"

"I have not had a moment's rest in the past three or five days. I have been running around doing things for you!"

"How wonderful you are! You still have the time to annoy the little girl from Chief Xu's family."

"This girl's name is Xu Jingyi, right? You know what, her features do resemble those of the Duke's family's eldest daughter, Zhu Yuzhen!"

Qiu Zhizhong approached Xiao Lang at some point and started teasing him.

Hearing this, Xiao Jingchuan was stunned and looked embarrassed.

"Huh? Go away and stop framing me!"

"How did I get offended? It was this girl." Xiao Lang hesitated and didn't know how to continue.

"Hey, look at you like this?!"

"No problem, no problem! Beautiful women love heroes!"

"Oh, by the way, there is a shop called Liu Ji in Yi County. Their pastries are the best in Yi County. You can go there if you want to buy some!" Qiu Zhizhong said coldly.

"what?!"

"You, how do you know that this girl asked me to sell cakes yesterday?" Xiao Jingchuan was speechless.

"Hehe, I, Qiu Zhizhong, haven't wasted all these days in vain!"

"Is it so difficult to know such a small thing as yours?!" Qiu Zhizhong acted like he was asking for a beating, pretending to be profound and not explaining the details.

Xiao Jingchuan recalled the situation at that time and suddenly raised his eyebrows.

"Long Court!"

"Tell me, Changting, are you a big talker?" Xiao Jingchuan suddenly turned to Gu Changting beside him.

"what?!"

"This, this, that, that."

"Oh, by the way, General, look, it's a nice day today!"

(End of this chapter)