Chapter 183 Banditry in Kansai

Chapter 183 Banditry in Kansai

In this recruitment process in Shang Yuan Village, Xiang Yong, who was in his early thirties, was finally selected as Li Tai's new hero.

Not to mention that these three hundred people are tall, most of them are capable of firing a three-stone bow, carrying a hundred kilograms of weight and walking quickly. They are all good at martial arts in Guanzhong and have some experience in the military. The only problem is that there are not many people who are truly skilled in riding. Only thirty or forty people can reach the standard of riding and shooting.

After all, raising horses is still a very luxurious behavior for ordinary people in Guan. Even Liu Sanqi, an old soldier who had participated in the Battle of Shayuan and followed Li Tai into the pass, had no skills at all in riding, let alone these new soldiers who had just been recruited.

But this is not a big problem. These new soldiers need to be trained before they can go into battle to kill the enemy.

The training of the new soldiers can be left to the old soldiers that He Basheng left to Li Tai. Most of these old soldiers are injured and injured, and it is difficult for them to wear armor again. However, they still have past military experience and are not capable of heavy physical labor. Arrangements for training new soldiers can make use of their remaining energy.

Some of these more than 300 rural warriors were from powerful households, some were landless people, and some were from households with even land. However, Director Yuwen and the county magistrates are both here, so they can open the door directly, which saves the trouble of further negotiations.

In addition to the different sources of troops and organizational forms, another important difference between the Township Corps and the Imperial Guard, the Sixth Army and other formal armed forces is that the Imperial Guard and the Sixth Army are completely off-the-job professional soldiers. The Township Corps, in addition to training and In addition to fighting, they also have to work part-time in production.

The powerful private armies are somewhere between the two, and they need to raise their own armor, horses, equipment and supplies. The powerful military leaders each have different wealth, and the combat effectiveness and organizational strength of their troops are also different. The private weapons of the powerful military leaders are even far stronger than those of the regular Sixth Army.

No matter what status these newly recruited local warriors had before, from now on, they and their families have become Li Tai's tribe.

Because of this private military nature, the imperial court and prefectures and counties generally rejected powerful private equity households because it would cause the loss of a large number of tax revenue units. But we have to accept this phenomenon. In the final analysis, people are poor and have short ambitions, because the government's finances simply cannot support so many retired troops.

The development of the government army system can be divided into several stages. Starting from the ninth year of Datong, the main target was Guan Longhao You, recruiting these powerful private armies.

Yu Wentai wanted to play a big game this year and expanded the recruitment scale of the township league, but the game almost collapsed. With the current administrative and organizational capabilities of the Bafu, it is simply impossible to sustain such a large-scale military expansion. Therefore, the next policy will definitely return to using powerful forces as recruiting units and delegating power to maintain the scale of the armed forces.

Therefore, the early government soldiers were a patchwork of private songs by powerful military chiefs of all sizes. When the government army system was formed in the last years of the Datong period, Yu Wentai gave the surname Hu and stipulated that the government soldiers must change their surnames to the surnames of generals and masters. Acknowledge the private nature of the soldiers and win over the middle-level generals of the soldiers to strengthen their control over the soldiers.

There is no shortage of people in later generations who are curious about why the Guanlong powerful men could bear to abandon their ancestral surnames and accept the Hu surname. This is because the prerequisite for the formalization of private songs is to accept the given surname. When most people accept this system, even some noise will be eliminated as unstable factors that undermine harmony.

Therefore, the great granting of the Hu surname has little to do with Huhua or Hanhua. It is a distribution of military resources with Yuwentai and other eight-pillar states as the core. The weak have something to rely on and will not be disorderly annexed by the strong.

The characteristic of the imperial army during this period was that it had the dual nature of the regular armed forces of the imperial court and the private affairs of the generals. The support of the army was shared by all members of the system, and the amount of power required the same amount of obligations.

As the supreme commander of the army, the Liuzhu Kingdom established a system of raising the army jointly by the six families. The main task of the soldiers during this period was to fight. Although they also participated in the guard, the main focus was on the relationship between the generals and the emperor.

This situation lasted until the period of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, when the sergeants of the imperial army were changed to servants, the institutionalization of the army soldiers and guards was formed, the emperor and the individual army soldiers were directly connected, and the imperial court formally recruited the army soldiers on a large scale and provided financial supplies. , the private nature of Fu Bing gradually faded.

The development of Li Tai's power can be regarded as a typical example of the early period of Fubing. Although he was awarded the title of Governor, the imperial court and the Overlord did not give him a single soldier. All the sergeants, equipment and supplies had to be raised by himself.

Therefore, how much power he, the governor, can control depends on how much energy he has. Any orders from the Bafu are only for him. He is a combat unit himself, and his troops are only subordinate to him.

Director Yuwen stayed in Shangyuan for a long time before saying goodbye and returning to Huazhou City, while the county envoys stayed to discuss the details of the suppression of bandits with Li Tai.

More than 300 new soldiers still need to be trained, and the only ones Li Tai can use at the moment are the old soldiers.

When he went to northern Shaanxi, there were about 600 troops, but when he returned, there were only more than 400 people left. Several administrative officers summoned some troops, and now the number of troops that can carry out anti-bandit operations has returned to six hundred. More than a hundred people.

Although there are not many in number, their combat effectiveness cannot be underestimated due to their sophisticated armor and horses and strong mobility. Except for the kind of big bandits who have thousands of people and have power across states and counties, ordinary bandits can be controlled with their hands.

Of course, if there was such a big bandit, Li Tai would not need to take action. The imperial court would dispatch the conquests and the captured people and materials would be wealth.

These counties invited Li Tai to enter the country to suppress bandits, and they were naturally responsible for military supplies.

However, based on the idea that the new business had just started and needed gifts, Li Tai did not ask for too high a reward. He only asked the county to provide part of the horse materials and bandit information. He was responsible for the sergeants' supplies, but he needed full authority to handle the spoils. right.

Such conditions are very generous. When Li Tai proposed it, he immediately received loud praise from the envoys from the counties present.

To be honest, if possible, who would want bandits to be rampant in their own country?

However, bandits that have been around for a long time are usually related to the wealthy families in the territory, and the township groups often return without success when they go out to suppress them. It is also a tacit understanding in the village that the strong men should respect themselves when raising bandits.

With the presence of bandits, county officials need to rely on the power of big families and be polite. The intrusion of bandits has made the people's living environment extremely poor, exacerbating the dependence of ordinary villagers on powerful households.

Although there are some military leaders who directly send food and garrison to the local areas, this part of the armed forces is not under the jurisdiction of counties and counties, and counties and counties have no obligation to support them. If you want to use it, you can just send money, food and supplies first, and figure out how much supplies can be exchanged for one head.

Some military leaders who are starved of food will take the initiative to attack and suppress bandits. But after the battle, I will stay at the county government office and not leave. You need to bear the expenses of my march and battle!

Therefore, sometimes, it is not that county officials do not want to eliminate bandits within their territory, but that they cannot afford to do so.

As long as banditry doesn't go too far, they don't even dare to report it. If the Taiwanese government really wants to mobilize thousands of troops to enter the country and clean it up, even if all the bandits are killed, the treasury will be empty. Who is the soldier and who is the bandit? It is really hard to say in this situation.

But now that Li Tai, the leader of the banditry, has entered the scene, the cost of suppressing bandits has been greatly reduced, and the envoys from these counties have less worries. They rushed to raise their hands to speak, and each proposed the needs of suppressing bandits within their territory.

Seeing this scene of enthusiastic crowds, Li Tai couldn't help but be surprised. Is the banditry in various areas of the pass already so serious? I wonder how you can still hold on! Are you really asking me to suppress bandits, or do you want to use me as a knife to eliminate dissidents?

Business is too good but it is also troublesome. After all, Li Tai only has about 600 men to dispatch at the moment, and most of them have just experienced the fierce guerrilla war in northern Shaanxi and are still waiting for Shili to recuperate.

So he put forward several conditions, stipulating that the first batch of bandits to be suppressed must have a fixed range of activities, within a hundred miles of the Luoshui River Basin, and must have conclusive evidence of crimes and actual records of invading counties, counties, and cities.

If he is really the kind of bandit who commits crimes on the run and has no fixed whereabouts, it will be a waste of time to track him down. If he flees to a county where there is no agreement to suppress bandits, it will also be troublesome to argue with him.

Not to mention that county officials took revenge for personal gain. Just because the powerful villagers refused to obey the rules, they returned to gangsters. After they were done, they found out that the accusation was false. Who would be responsible when the Taiwanese government investigates the crime? What's more, I plan to do this along the Luoshui River. If everyone does this, it will be chaos, and the country will not be a country!

With these few limiting conditions, the next scene was no longer chaotic. Everyone made their own selections, and then the masses judged them. Finally, four groups of gangsters were selected who were widely regarded as causing trouble.

Li Tai had a brief understanding of the situation of these bandits, and couldn't help but sigh that the bandit situation in Kansai was indeed quite serious.

The longest existing road has actually been active for decades. It has existed since the Wanqi Chou slaves rebelled in Kansai. It was first active in the southwest of Wonju and gradually moved to the southeast in recent years. It was still active after the Mangshan War last year. They fought to the south of Baishui County in the Guanzhong Plain, surrounded the county town several times, and plundered without success.

Other bandit leaders even served as state and county officials in the early years of the unification. Because they refused to obey the overlord's orders, they became bandits and controlled an area to establish county control.

Li Tai then agreed with the envoys from these counties on a date for dispatching troops to suppress the bandits, and the conversation ended only when the villagers came to report that guests were visiting.

He had just walked out of the main hall when several people came up to him with a tight face and said in a crying tone: "It's something bad about me that makes me hate you, so I called someone else to educate me and drive me away." go out?"

Li Tai was immediately confused when he heard this. He patted his head and frowned and asked, "Where did you hear these evil words?"

"Do you still need to listen to what others say? I have already seen that someone came into the school to ask about things, and asked my brother what kind of teaching you do!"

Shuofeng's tone turned angry when he said this: "I only said that we have a deep friendship with you, brother, but I didn't expect that just because I can no longer visit Lady Miaoyin for you, you will choose someone else to take my seat." !”