Chapter 20: Cao Bing, Volume A

Jia Yucun hesitated for a moment and glanced at Xue Jun beside him.

He is from Huzhou. He studied and worked as an official and a gentleman in Jiangnan. Well, Yangzhou is not considered Jiangnan, but it is right next to Jiangnan. He really doesn’t know much about the situation in Shandong.

This sudden bandit chaos made him very confused. He didn't know what to do for a while and couldn't come up with many strategies to deal with it.

But when Feng Ziying asked him, if he didn't even get a reply, he was afraid that he would be looked down upon, and he might be used as a scapegoat when he was really desperate.

"Brother Feng, we are new here and are not familiar with the territory of Shandong. However, I also know that this canal line is the hinterland of Shandong and has troops stationed there. Even if the guards are mobilized, I don't know if there are any camps along this canal line. Soldiers?"

The Great Zhou Dynasty followed the Ming system, with the exception of the two capitals in the north and south, with the Weisuo Army as the main military force. However, during the eighty years of the Great Zhou Dynasty, except for the nine borders in the north and the Fujian and Zhejiang sea areas in the south, it had to face the Mongols, Jurchen Rangers and Japanese pirates at sea. Outside, the inland areas are generally calm.

Even if there are occasional bandit rebellions, they are wiped out immediately. Therefore, in the past ten or twenty years, the Guards have been gradually reduced and weakened due to insufficient military resources.

For example, the Linqing Guards should have had 5,600 guards according to the Zhou Dynasty. However, the Zhou Dynasty followed the Ming system. In fact, more than two-thirds of them were reduced to garrison troops, which are the so-called military households. They mainly farmed and farmed. Not trained in military affairs, just used as an additional source of soldiers.

There are only more than a thousand people who actually retain the establishment, and among these more than a thousand people, there are both old and weak. Half of the soldiers who can be drawn out to fight are already Amitabhas.

  However, in the inland provinces, in addition to the guards at various garrison posts, there are also camps stationed in key places.

This battalion is basically drawn from the elite of each guard post, and is led by battalion officers such as the commander-in-chief, deputy generals, staff generals, guerrillas, and garrison officers.

In other words, these forces are equivalent to the emergency forces garrisoned in various provinces. They are the armies that can really be used to fight hard battles. They must accept orders from the Ministry of War and be deployed to guard the border at any time, and they must also be responsible for the stability of a place. And like the current Guards Army, it has If it is reduced to a general security force, it will be difficult to support the overall situation.

Feng You glanced at Jia Yucun. Jia Yucun was quite powerful. He asked the key question in just one sentence.

Given the current bandit power in Linqing City, I am afraid that the return of hundreds of guards will not be able to help. If there are no guard troops to exterminate, I am afraid that the bandit chaos will get bigger and bigger.

Of course Feng Ziying didn't know how many camps were stationed in this province in Shandong, but Feng You did.

“Along the canal, only Jining and Dezhou have troops stationed, and there are also troops stationed in Jinan to the east.”

Feng You did not mention coastal areas such as Denglai. Firstly, the journey was far away, and secondly, the troops defending the coastal areas were not within the reach of ordinary people.

“Isn’t it easy to mobilize the troops in this battalion?”

Xue Jun also came from an official background. His ancestors were from Ziweishe, but his generation declined and he became a merchant family.

Of course, he can be regarded as a member of the imperial business family, and he knows something about the affairs in the government.

 It is a rule of the Zhou Dynasty that the three major battalions in Beijing and the movement of battalion soldiers are under the direct control of the Ministry of War. If it is an ordinary local matter, the battalion soldiers will not get involved.

Even ordinary thieves and bandits cannot mobilize soldiers. That is a matter for the local government and the inspection department. Even if the situation is bad, there is still a military preparedness road to summon soldiers from various local guards to help deal with it.

For the battalion soldiers, there are only two things that can be done. One is that the Ministry of War orders the deployment of border guards to fight, and the other is that Dusi and Xingdusi request transfer. There is only one reason for Dusi to request transfer, and that is that there is a rebellion by bandits or Japanese pirates invading the interior.

There have been no Japanese pirates in Shandong for decades. They only existed in the pre-Ming Dynasty, so they can be ignored. As for rebellion, the hinterland of Shandong is right under the eyes of the capital. If there is an occasional civil unrest, it will be wiped out in an instant. It is basically useless. No soldiers stationed in the town.

Without the writings of the Dusi, most people just want to go to the garrison camp and imitate the Yamen style of beating drums and knocking on the door to persuade the camp soldiers to dispatch. This is simply nonsense.

Feng You obviously knew this. The soldiers stationed in the town, like the troops stationed on the nine sides, generally did not listen to the local authorities at all. Even the writings of the Dusi and Xingdusi had to be considered, depending on the situation.

Not to mention that people asking for help can be pushed to the local health office.

It is not impossible to mobilize the troops, but you have to mobilize the Shandong Dusi.

The problem is to report to Jinan. The Shandong Dusi will definitely send someone to investigate after hearing the news. Bandits will not start just because you talk about bandits.

Even if it is confirmed that there is indeed a bandit, if you encounter someone who doesn't take it seriously, you may have to ask the Ministry of War for instructions, and you don't know how long it will take.

If you are a bit responsible, you also need to write to Texas or Jining or Jinan's camps to send troops to come to Qingqing. I am afraid that there will be no ten days.

If this gang of thieves is really entrenched in the Feng family mansion and refuses to leave, the dry food and water stored in this secret room will not be able to cope with it. Even if everything goes well and the officers and soldiers are driven away, the people in this secret room may not be able to survive. .

"Mr. Jia, I know what you mean. It is difficult to mobilize the battalion, and there will definitely be no time." Feng You shook his head decisively, "It will be too late until the battalion arrives."

"But the Linqing Guards have all been transferred away. I don't know who ordered it, and I don't know when they will return. Are we just going to sit here and wait for death?" Jia Yucun was also a little anxious. He still had a bright future, so he saw that he had climbed up to King Jia. The two families could achieve great things by working together, so how could they die in Linqing City?

“Uncle You, in addition to the camp soldiers and guards, are there any soldiers around here who can ask for help?” Feng Ziying was also at a loss.

He didn't know much about matters involving military mobilization within the Zhou Dynasty. This was because he was born into a family of generals, and ordinary people didn't know much about it.

 “Then there are the cavalry troops.” Feng You sighed.

The Cao soldiers are stationed nearby, but everyone knows what the Cao soldiers are. In name, they are guards protecting water transportation, but in fact they have long been reduced to a bunch of garbage who make a living on waterways, even worse than The guardsmen were inferior and not worth mentioning at all.

Although Feng Ziying didn't know the situation of the cavalry, she could feel from the expressions of Feng You, Jia Yucun, Xue Jun and others that the cavalry could not be relied upon at all.

The task of the Cao soldiers is to guard the Shuici warehouse, and then **** the grain to the capital. In December of the first year, the grain was entered into the warehouse. The Governor of Water Transport was responsible for supervising the entry of the grain into the warehouse and starting the transportation of the grain to the capital. When the water transportation was completed in September of the following year, it was considered complete.

 The five national water storage warehouses located in Huaian, Xuzhou, Linqing, and Dezhou, plus Tianjin, a maritime transport hub, have become the biggest reliance on ensuring food supply for Beijing’s millions of people.

 So for Cao soldiers, the sky and the earth are not as big as Cao Liang. As long as the safety of Cao Liang is not endangered, they will not participate in any other affairs.

Since grain is the lifeline of millions of people in the capital city of the Great Zhou Dynasty, no one has dared to think about the safety of water transportation in the past few decades. This has also reduced the canal troops along the canal to the status of ordinary households.

 Let alone going out to fight, even if they are really attacked by bandits, as long as the matter is not too big, they are more willing to suppress it.

 At worst, it has become a common practice to use the excuse of "drifting" to excuse the matter.

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 (End of this chapter)