Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 41 This Army is So Terrifying

"There's a martial arts competition today, go watch it!"

The villagers called their friends and gathered in groups on the streets, moving slowly towards the village gate.

After handing over the transported metal ore, Lin Jianghe walked out of the warehouse and joined the crowd. Several children ran past, excitedly talking about wanting to see something new.

In the past, "Yangjia Village" was just a small village of a hundred people, but now it has developed into a small town with a population of thousands and is crowded with merchants.

"Wow! These ancient people are so realistic! Their clothing, headscarves, and shoes are a hundred times more realistic than those in costume dramas!"

"I've found a real gem. This is still at the beta stage, if it were released for public testing, I can't imagine how many people would flock to it."

"Where are the Tartars? I want to kill them!"

Lin Jianghe smiled lightly and shook his head, as if he was impressed by the naughty boy's agility and activity.

Every time he escorted goods to Yangjiazhai, he would hear the exclamations and strange cries of the "spiritual soldiers", and he was no longer surprised.

The new spiritual soldiers no longer simply and roughly crawled out of the mud, but walked out of a spacious mansion.

He and a few villagers knew that these spiritual soldiers were transformed by Li Tianshi from "clay figures", but to the newly arrived people who had reclaimed the wasteland, these people were just Mr. Li's more trusted personal guards.

Lin Jianghe speculated that this mansion where spiritual soldiers frequently appeared was a "spiritual altar" built by the "spiritual soldiers" to assist the Heavenly Master in order to summon more spiritual soldiers and generals from time to time.

Based solely on his observations, the total number of spiritual soldiers was already several times greater than when he first arrived at Yangjiazhai. If this rate of growth continued, the future would be promising...

The villagers like the lively scene and are full of enthusiasm. They go out of the city in groups to watch the martial arts performances held regularly in Yangjiazhai.

Lin Jianghe followed the crowd and heard the villagers' praise for Mr. Li and his servants from time to time.

Mr. Li's servants did not disturb the people, did not owe debts, and even occasionally helped the farmers with small things within their ability. They did not have the crude and bandit-like nature of the government troops at all.

However, a group of servants were a little strange. They climbed up the roof to tear off the tiles, played music and jumped around, teased the dogs and chased the chickens, and even gave handfuls of copper coins to the children. When asked about it, they said, "I have money and I can do whatever I want." It was really confusing.

However, these strange behaviors are just minor details. For the villagers and vendors, making money is the bottom line.

You have to know that the servants all received wages from Master Li, and they had enough money and food in their hands. They were always generous when buying goods, which really allowed a group of small people to earn their first pot of gold.

Some people even paid to build shops next to the village.

More funds mean that vendors can provide more goods, and more goods will lower prices. Therefore, the business atmosphere in the town gradually prospers under the dual stimulation of consumption and prices.

The merchants and shop owners who benefited greatly from the consumption wished that Mr. Li would recruit as many servants and farmhands as possible so that they could make more money.

There were many open spaces outside the village, and most villagers just picked a piece of open space to sit down. Lin Jianghe also followed the local customs and sat on the ground with the servants.

"Scone, delicious scones, freshly baked scones!" The clever vendor carried a wicker basket on his back and walked through the crowd selling scones.

There are many vendors who come here to earn extra money, selling fried dough twists, turbid wine, dried fish, steamed corn bread, and even some people sell fabrics and supplements.

Lin Jianghe bought two scones.

Watching the vendor happily express his gratitude and feeling the lively discussions of the surrounding villagers, Lin Jianghe felt that this harmonious environment made him feel at ease.

Perhaps this is the harmonious life in a peaceful and prosperous era, without attacks from bandits, without heavy taxes, and without the chaos of war.

It’s so comfortable.

If possible, Lin Jianghe really wants to live here forever...

"Here they come! They're here!" A young boy jumped up and shouted loudly, like a crazy fan seeing his idol.

A neatly-organized column of servants came out from another military camp, singing easy-to-understand military songs in unison. The marching column along the road was like a mighty dragon.

A fence was erected around the martial arts training ground, and "spiritual soldiers" armed with weapons stood guard in front of the fence, not allowing ordinary people to approach at will.

The reason is to be careful of stray bullets.

Therefore, the villagers who were staying on the periphery could only see the outline of the servants' ranks, but they could not tell whether the black weapons in some servants' hands were short spears or iron pipes.

"See? That's my son! He's also in Master Li's retainer team!"

A villager was spitting excitedly, pulling the stranger next to him and frantically introducing a servant in the queue.

But other people couldn't see the servants at all, not to mention that it was difficult to identify the target pointed by the villagers at a glance among the group of people in standard uniforms.

"Look, it's Master Li!"

Lin Jianghe looked in the direction of the sound and saw
Suddenly, a horn sounded, piercing the sky.

The servants' column suddenly changed its formation while marching, as if they were encountering an enemy charge from the front.

The 300-man army instantly formed into three solid squares. Then, the drums of war sounded rapidly, and the three solid squares turned into three hollow squares. "This!"

Lin Jianghe couldn't help but be amazed at the servants' ability to quickly form a formation.

This was even faster and more orderly than any other changes in formation he had ever seen among the government troops!

But he heard that more than 80% of Mr. Li's servants were farmers, and a few were miners and trackers.

He didn't understand how the army fought, but he knew that a group of farmers could form militia. They could fight against bandits, but they were absolutely not capable of fighting against a powerful enemy.

He never expected that Mr. Li, who was so skilled in "turning beans into soldiers", was also knowledgeable in military management and training.

A group of servants were placing wooden stakes and planks dozens of meters ahead of the queue.

What is this doing?
As he was thinking about it, the villagers around him shouted excitedly, as if something important was about to happen.

Lin Jianghe looked far ahead and saw hundreds of servants armed with spears and short spears lined up in two rows, and the drummers in the ranks beat the war drums and suona.

Following the rhythm of drums and suona, the servants moved left and right in an orderly manner, and then stopped at the appropriate position.

"A martial arts performance with a stage troupe?"

Lin Jianghe couldn't help but chuckle, but then he thought, Mr. Li is not an ordinary person, what he did must have a hidden meaning.

As one of the retainers drew the saber from his waist, he chopped it down heavily at the air in front of him.

The servants holding the black "short spears" seemed to have activated some switch. Rows of black iron pipes spewed out thick smoke, and the ejected bullets hit the wooden boards and wooden stakes with a crackling sound, and broken wood chips flew everywhere.

Lin Jianghe immediately exclaimed, this is clearly a bird gun!

After firing their rounds, the gunners in the first row took the muskets handed to them by the men in the back row and continued firing. Indistinct bullets flew out, riddling the wooden planks that served as targets with holes.

The bird gun, a simple and easy-to-use powerful weapon, was strictly prohibited by the imperial court.

Of course, at present, the grassroots government is corrupt and wars are everywhere, so the government has no time to ask whether a wealthy man is privately making bird guns.

So what if it was created?
Every year, there were rebel armies and government troops passing through Henan. The prefectures, counties, and cities all raised money to strengthen the city walls, and the local wealthy families also built stockade walls and purchased weapons privately, not only to resist the rebels who preyed on the wealthy, but also to resist the government troops who were like bandits.

The imperial court would sometimes dispatch local militia to help in the war, so privately possessing some banned weapons was not a big deal at all.

The shock of the servants' orderly firing had not yet subsided when several large weapons carts, each pulled by several pack horses, appeared in sight.

The servants were divided into several groups, each of which brought several larger and thicker wooden boards and placed them in front of the army formation a few hundred steps away.

Lin Jianghe squinted his eyes and examined the large tubular object.

Could it be?

Lin Jianghe had a premonition of surprise.

As expected, under the operation of several servants, several thick pipes were ignited, and they all emitted even more violent noises, like a bolt from the blue exploding in his ears. Lin Jianghe was so startled by the sudden explosion that he almost dropped his pancake.

It’s actually a cannon?

However, the shape and color of this cannon are different. It looks more like a wooden cannon with an iron outer hoop.

Lin Jianghe didn't understand the pros and cons of the artillery. He only knew that after several wooden cannons fired several rounds in succession, the wooden boards in the distance were broken one after another.

OMG!

Lin Jianghe opened his mouth and wanted to say a few words of praise, but his brain was too shocked, so he could only close his mouth repeatedly and could not utter a single word of praise.

Lin Jianghe felt stupid.

The Heavenly Master's spiritual soldiers were already extremely brave and valiant, and he had trained a group of farmers into a well-organized army, even equipping them with sharp bird guns and wooden cannons.

Mr. Li's strength is so terrifying, so why is he still hiding at the foot of the mountain to train troops and settle down?
Could it be?

The shock subsided a little, and an uncontrollable arc appeared on the corner of Lin Jianghe's mouth, and a few big words popped up in his mind - build high walls, store up food, and slowly become king.

This is the founding strategy of our dynasty’s Taizu in his quest to conquer the world.

Lin Jianghe thought to himself that his guess was correct. Since the Heavenly Master had come down from the mountain and entered the world, he had the idea of ​​conquering the world.

Just as Lin Jianghe was imagining things, he suddenly saw a servant quickly passing through the crowd watching the martial arts performance and running towards the Taoist priest.

It seems like there is something urgent that needs to be reported in person.

(End of this chapter)