Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 80, Battle of Zhending

The talents gained through practical learning were quickly assigned to positions by Fang Yong.

Shen Tu was sent to help under Xue Dacuizi.

Although now is not the right time to set up a chamber of commerce, we can build a prototype first, which will make it easier to establish the chamber of commerce in the future.

The rest of the talents were sent to caravans and military settlements, starting from the most basic positions, with the capable ones promoted and the incompetent ones eliminated.

As for the talents for scientific examinations, Fang Yong's arrangement is more important.

Because if we don't count Shentu, in terms of average quality, the talents selected through the scientific examinations are indeed much higher in average quality than those selected through the practical examinations.

Therefore, the starting points of the two are naturally different.

Among them, the top twenty were directly arranged by Fang Yong to hold important positions in the townships and counties under his command, responsible for managing basic government affairs.

Those who come later with weaker abilities, although not as good as those before, are at least well-versed in literature and have a certain level of knowledge.

Fang Yong asked them to serve as "teachers" and "instructors" in various places, responsible for promoting academic style and preparing for universal education in the future.

In addition, Fang Yong also specially established a position of military instructor.

This position is specifically responsible for training basic officers in the army.

The basic officers in Fang Yong's army are basically peasants who have fought their way up step by step with real swords and guns. There is no need to say much about their abilities, and their culture is also beyond description.

Fang Yong did not require them to understand the essence of Confucianism, but at least required them to be literate.

There are still too few talented people, and this amount of people is just a drop in the bucket for Fang Yong's territory.

But at least it's a start, and it can be improved slowly in the future.

Soon after, the scientific examination list was released.

Those who made the list were delighted, while those who didn’t were devastated.

But soon, the smiles of those who made the list disappeared.

"Instructor in the army? Does this count as an official?"

A scholar ranked 100th protested in dissatisfaction.

He thought he was extremely talented. After passing the exam, he might not be directly appointed as a county magistrate, but he could at least be a county assistant or a chief clerk. But now he was asked to be a "military instructor" to teach those soldiers how to read. Wasn't this an insult to his talent?

There were many people like this. They were dissatisfied with the official positions arranged by Fang Yong, so they gathered together and refused to take up the posts.

After Fang Yong learned about this, he sent someone to persuade them and explained in detail the importance of the position of instructor in the military.

After the explanation, some people were persuaded and agreed to take the post.

But there were still more than 20 people who refused to take up the post and stubbornly asked Fang Yong to transfer their positions.

In a steamed bun shop, two young scholars were discussing with each other.

"Brother Yun, although being a military instructor is a lowly position, we both failed to pass the county exam and have to make a living by selling calligraphy. Now that we can get an official position, it's already good enough. You should agree. You and I will go to the army together and help each other. Isn't it a blessing?"

Hearing this, the scholar called "Brother Yun" said dissatisfiedly:

"Hmph, that's wrong. Although I usually fail the county exam, it's because of the corruption of the Daxi government, not because I'm ignorant. This time, I ranked 100th. How can I be mediocre and be a mere teacher? Fengsheng, you only ranked 163rd, so being a teacher is not a disgrace to you. Go and take up the position."

The student named "Fengsheng" was very angry after hearing this.

"you!"

Fengsheng walked away in anger.

afterwards,

The twenty or so people who refused to take up the post did not receive any replacement positions.
Some just remain idle.

In Zhending, a large number of Jin bandits came out of Taihang Mountains one after another.

If nothing unexpected happens, Niangzi Pass should have fallen.

The Bai family is a large family located in Bailu Town.

Bai Chongli is the patriarch of the Bai family. He has passed the imperial examination and his son has also passed the imperial examination and is preparing to take the imperial examination to become a Jinshi.

There are more than 3,000 households in the entire town, and the rice shop, cloth shop, oil shop, and butcher shop in the town are all owned by the Bai family.

When Chen Zhengdu was clearing the countryside, he urged the Bai family to leave, but Bai Chongli was stubborn and refused to leave.

Here, the Bai family is the local emperor of Bailu Town, and Bai Chongli can decide a person's life or death with just one word.

But if he left, he would at best be considered a wealthy man, and he would have to give up all the property and land accumulated by his family for generations. How could Bai Chongli accept this?

In the end, Bai Chongli only agreed to let his son leave alone with part of the property, but he stubbornly led the Bai family to stay on this land.

Under the leadership of Bai Chongli, the people in the town ultimately chose not to leave.

On this day, with horses' hooves raising dust, vicious bandits came to the town.

"Welcome to the King of Jin's Master!"

Bai Chongli led the townspeople to kneel under the horse's hooves, and someone behind him held up a red couplet that had been prepared long ago.

First couplet: We are delighted to see you ascend the throne, and let us all work together to achieve your great cause.

Second line: The whole town will work together to pray that the outcome will be resolved soon!
Across from them, the Jin Bandit Branch, the Taihang Bandit Branch, and the second in command of Xiaolongshan asked in confusion, "Brother, what does this say?"

The "big brother" on the side looked at it for a while and said:

"I don't know. No matter what he wrote, none of these landlords are good people. Let's kill them first!"

Under Bai Chongli's horrified gaze, a saber slashed across, and the old head flew up, and the blood dyed the already bright red couplet red.

The crowd fled in all directions and the Jin bandits rushed into Bailu Town.

The Bai family's home was easily breached, all the gold, silver and jewelry were looted, the food was taken away, the women were abducted, and the children and men were stacked up and strung together at the door.

It is not known whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that the ordinary residents of Bailu Town were spared from death because they were penniless.

However, despite this, these people were still forced to join the bandits and head to the next town.

The area outside the city fell very quickly, and before long, the bandits were close to the city.

Chen Zhengdu was on high alert. The civilians who were previously responsible for repairing the city walls were now given weapons and turned into soldiers defending the city.

Fortunately, this time Chen Zheng provided them with better food. After all, they couldn't defend the city on an empty stomach. If the city was broken, no one would be in trouble.

Two days later, Wu Sheng brought the real main force of the Jin bandits to the city of Zhending.

The siege began.

The attackers, the Jin bandits, claimed to have three million soldiers, but actually had 700,000 soldiers, most of whom were bandits and refugees. They had a loose structure and no management system, and basically everyone was fighting against each other.

The usual method of attack was for the bandits to drive a large number of refugees from behind to climb up the city to attack. A few old tower blocks were already the most advanced siege weapons of the Jin bandits.

The defenders, led by Chen Zhengdu, claimed to have an army of 300,000, but their actual strength consisted of 30,000 soldiers from the Beijing garrison and 30,000 ordinary civilians.

The structure is that one soldier leads one civilian to defend the city. In fact, the number of civilians can be more, but these civilians have hardly received any training. If the proportion of civilians is too large, the defense capability will be greatly reduced.

The artillery in the army looked brand new, but in fact they were old cannons from the Corning era that had been polished and refurbished. No one knew where the new cannons issued by the Ministry of Industry had been sent. In short, after Chen Zheng ordered his men to fire a shot and the barrel exploded, they never dared to use it again.

On the other side, Wang Ziteng and Mao Cheng were on their way with their troops.

(End of this chapter)