sweeping the world

Chapter 409 Begging for work...begging for work...

Miao Song came to Taocheng without any hindrance.

Taocheng is located on the east bank of a river system, and less than ten miles away on the west bank is Dong'a, where Li Nong stationed troops on a large scale.

After the Qihuo army arrived on the north bank of the Yellow River, they did not take any drastic actions. They would attack Dong'e and Taocheng as places to occupy, mainly because they had to have shelter from the wind and rain, instead of staying in the frozen snow in winter the wild.

To be honest, the beggar army has never been an armed force with abundant supplies. Whether during the struggle against the Hu people, or when they were defeated by the Hu people and became executioners, their situation was not easy.Poverty is used to describe families or individuals, but the beggar army is really in poverty. Not to mention weapons and other supplies, it is quite difficult to maintain even the most basic living security.

Miao Song did not come empty-handed. He was accompanied by nearly a thousand people and nearly a hundred carriages.

The carriage was loaded with some grain, cloth, and even salt, which was extremely important to people.These things were not covered up, but were exposed brightly, making the eyes of all the beggars who saw them widen.

Li Nong is in Dong'a on the other side of the river, and the owner of Taocheng will be Li Cunxiao (not the one in Tang Dynasty).

Li Cunxiao received Miao Song outside the city, pointed at the carriages full of supplies, and asked in confusion, "Is it out of personal friendship, or..."

Miao Song and Li Cunxiao can only be said to be acquainted, not very familiar.He looked at Li Cunxiao, who was wearing a thick sheepskin jacket, and asked, "Why did you cross the Yellow River?"

The early Qihuo army could be said to be able to conquer and fight well. They still fought bloody battles with the Hu people under the condition of lacking everything, and they won more times than they lost.

After Shi Le defeated the Qihuo Army, it was incorporated. The Qihuo Army was still brave and good at fighting for Shijie when it suppressed the rebellion. The agricultural system and the Ranmin system, and finally the begging army also split into three parts: serving the Hu people, resisting the Hu people, and being neutral.

Of course it was Li Nong's system who chose to continue working for the Hu people, but the reason was that Li Nong was treated and valued personally by Shi Le and Shi Hu, not how kind Shi Jie treated the begging army as a group.

"Persuasion, but..." Li Cunxiao paused, he was really not familiar with Miao Song, so it was useless to talk so much.He asked once before but didn't get an answer, so he had to ask again: "The Han army is here, isn't it?"

"Yes." Miao Song didn't mean to hide anything, and said bluntly: "Twenty-five thousand, all of them are the elite of the elite of the Han army. The Huben Army, the Habayashi Army, and the world-famous Imperial Guard Army."

"Really?" Li Cunxiao didn't feel so surprised, he pulled his cheeks and said with a half smile, "The King of Han really thinks highly of us."

The convoy had already begun to enter the city, causing bursts of cheers in the city.Listening to some clips of the cheers, people were delighted to finally have some decent food, and they were even more ecstatic at the appearance of salt.

For table salt, even after 800 years, it is still scarce, especially for people in the interior.

Salt is indispensable for human beings, otherwise it will cause various diseases, and it will even cause people to lose strength. This shows the importance of salt to the human body.

In terms of today's technology, it is not impossible to make sea salt. You must know that during the Warring States Period, Qi State was famous for making sea salt, and it also gathered the world's wealth in Linzi.However, after the Western Han Dynasty, the technology of making sea salt became officially owned, and a strict blockade was imposed on the people, which was caused by the incident of "receiving salt and iron to benefit the court".

Of course, the official blockade cannot completely prevent the spread of salt-making technology among the people, but first there were wars at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, and then there were melees among princes at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and then Sima Feichai’s family lost the Central Plains and caused continuous wars. It was lost in the flames of war.

The small imperial court of the Eastern Jin Dynasty had a long coastline, but the small court did not control even one family's sea salt production. Instead, the aristocratic families along the coast had their own small workshops to produce sea salt, but the quality could only be said to be unsightly.

At present, the society does not have too many sources of salt. There are salt lakes in the northwest, and places without natural salt lakes can only extract salt from some rock salt.

Know what is the most common way to provide salt now, even 1000 years from now?Just get a salt cloth and use it over and over again to get the salty taste.As for adding salt or something, unless it is a wealthy family, or really think too much.

Twenty carts of salt, it looks like white grain salt, each cart should weigh 30 catties, twenty carts is [-] catties.If you use it sparingly, it will be enough for [-] people to use it for more than a year and a half.

Just [-] carts of salt is a big gift, needless to say, there are [-] carts of cloth, and [-] carts of millet, chestnut, and wheat seems a bit insignificant.

Li Nong came to the east bank from the pontoon in person. The first thing he said when he saw Miao Song was: "The king of Han wants to recruit us?"

Miao Song didn't hide anything, and told what he knew, including that Ran Min was the one who advocated the surrender, or else the left and right prime ministers of the Han Dynasty and some generals and schools actually sent a large army to annihilate them.

"I never thought about it." A mocking expression appeared on Li Nong's face: "They actually underestimated us so much."

Well, Miao Song knows that it is useless to say more. Only when Li Nong sees the Han army coming, and may still need to fight with them, will he know that the high-level officials of the Han country are really not out of inexplicable pride.

It didn't take much time, that is, on the third day after Miao Song arrived in Taocheng, a mighty Han army arrived ten miles away from Taocheng.

"Looking at the designation, it's the Huben Army, the Habayashi Army, and the Imperial Guard Army. There is no other Han army formation." Li Cunxiao and Li Nong stood almost side by side on the gate of Taocheng, and they could be seen from a distance. The Han army advancing forward: "Our scouts suffered great losses, and the results achieved were very limited."

You can probably guess what kind of army the enemy army is by looking at the number of scout losses before starting the battle. The more elite the field group is, the greater the advantage the scouts will gain in the battle. Usually, the scouts of an army can best explain the combat effectiveness of the army. That's why Li Cunxiao specifically mentioned the scout's loss.

Soon Li Nong will be able to see the Han army with his naked eyes, and he can tell what kind of army it is from the marching posture without too much interpretation.

The Qihuo Army tried their best to reinforce Taocheng, which was at the front line, during the winter. However, the degree of desertion in Taocheng was too serious. To say that any fortifications have been added is only to pile up earthen walls outside the city walls and dig some relatively shallow trenches.

The Huben army is equipped with armored riding equipment. It is impossible to wear heavy armor in the marching posture. The knights are now riding on the auxiliary horses. Boxed armor and wrapped cavalry weapons.

The Habayashi Army is a cavalry with both cavalry and close combat. Like the heavy cavalry, they have multiple auxiliary horses.Because of the nature of the cavalry, the armor of the men and horses is not too heavy. As a result, the knights are all wearing breastplates, and even the horses are half-armored. Visually, they appear to be more elite than the non-combat Tiger Army.

"It's not [-]." Li Nong turned his head to look at Miao Song at the back, and raised the corners of his mouth: "At least [-]."

"Each armored cavalryman has three auxiliary riders, and each assault cavalry has one auxiliary rider." Miao Song said expressionlessly: "Auxiliary riders are not considered soldiers within the Han military system."

That is to say, the Han army had such a system. All the countries counted one person who accompanied them as a combatant, and even thought that there were very few "titles".

Li Nong didn't know much about the Han Kingdom, which was established less than two years ago, and there may still be many fallacies in his understanding, such as the rumor that Liu Yan is a descendant of the royal family of the Han Dynasty, or Liu Yan is actually a highly Sinicized Hun. Anyway, none of them seemed reliable.

The Han army has excellent armor and equipment, and it took less than six years to grow from a small tribe living in a corner to a country that dominates two states and invades many states and counties. Li Nong did not appear to be too serious about this cognition deviation.What I want to say is that Liu Yan really started to fight in the Central Plains. In fact, it was within the past three years, not six years.

"There is no siege weapon found in the Han army." Without lowering his voice, Li Cunxiao raised his finger to the Han army who seemed to be setting up their camp. After finding something, he said, "The general flag... is moving this way." .Yong ever wanted to strike up a conversation?"

Li Nong turned silently and walked towards the aisle in the lower city. He really wanted to have a good conversation with Ran Min.

Ran Min was indeed approaching Taocheng on his Zhulong horse, and there were not many people accompanying him, only more than five hundred people.Li Tan and Qian Jiantong were among them, and Xie An also followed.

Stopping about two miles away from Taocheng, Ran Min saw the city gate of Taocheng open, and the handsome flag representing the begging army appeared first. From a distance, he could see Li Nong leading nearly a thousand people out of the city.

The two sides soon faced each other. At the beginning, no one made a sound. It was Ran Min who kicked the horse's belly lightly, and Zhu Longma moved forward slowly. Only Xie An's horse followed, and the rest waited quietly in place.

Li Nong naturally moved forward, but Wang Mo followed him.

Wang Mo came from a family in the Central Plains. He joined the Begging Army when they were fighting against the Hu people, and gradually gained the importance and importance of Li Nong.He is an acquaintance with Ran Min, and his philosophy is actually more similar to Ran Min's. Unfortunately, his family background and burden prevent him from freely choosing the path he wants, and he can only stay with Li Nong. (Historically, this man was killed by Ran Min like Li Nong and others)

"Yong Zeng." Li Nong was only two steps away from Ran Min, looked up and down at Ran Min, and said, "Put on the armor of the Han army, but it looks even more heroic."

Ran Min raised his hand in salute, and said, "Mr. Li can do the same."

"Yong Zeng is still so impatient." Li Nong made a look of dumbfounded laughter, and burst into a 'hahaha' laugh, and asked after laughing enough: "Is Yong Zeng here to conquer XX?"

Ran Min was silent for a while, and then said: "Begging for work, begging for work... are all for survival. Mr. Li must not forget the origin of the begging army. Serving the Hu people and bringing shame to the ancestors, is it just a small favor of the Hu people?" Can it be replaced? Now my king is going to level the world, so that we and the Han people will no longer commit themselves to the brutal rule of the Hulu, and return the world to a peaceful place where people can live and work in peace. Why don't Li Gong work with Min and serve under the king's command?"

This time, Li Nong was silent for a long time. He kept looking up at the sky, the blue sky, and the white clouds of various shapes drifting by. Not to mention that the Jie people gathered in Puyang, and in the direction of Jizhou, there are also the elite frontier army of Zhao State and the Yan army who came to help, and there are hundreds of thousands of troops in the south waiting to go north at any time. Looking at the situation in the world, only the remote Xiliang The Liang State in the deserted grassland and the Dai State in the barren grassland have a peaceful relationship with the Han State, and the rest of the countries are all hostile to the Han State."

Ran Min laughed loudly, and shouted: "My king regards the hostile countries as dead bones in the tomb. Could it be a small stone in the road on the road to restore the glory of the Han family, but something that can be kicked away."

"Yong Zeng don't want to talk nonsense." Li Nong said very seriously: "Two years ago, the king of heaven could recruit millions of troops. Although the Han army has won everywhere in the past two years, it has also placed itself in the position of the public enemy of the world. Those who say that are just blocking the way. Zhishi, who gave the King of Han such arrogant confidence?"

Xie An spoke at this time. He did not salute, but looked directly at Li Nong and shouted as loudly as possible: "Marquis Mighty, look at our army."

The auxiliary troops are setting up camp, the Huben army has already put on armor, the Yulin army has also entered a combat posture, and there is no need to talk about the imperial guards.

The army that has fully entered the attack state, they arrange their formations according to their numbers, and move forward step by step.

At the forefront is the intact Tiger and Ben army. Both men and horses are wrapped in layers of armor. Five thousand heavy cavalry form a front line and slowly move forward. The sound of heavy horse hooves rolls in. .

The Habayashi Army is divided into two groups located on the left and right wings of the Huben Army, which looks like two wings from a distance, and cooperates with the Huben Army to form a large crane wing formation.

Walking at the end were [-] Imperial Guard infantry. Their advance was the loudest. The infantry walked in a neat pace, and the cavalry and horses stepped on the ground strangely.

The Han army suddenly put on an advancing stance, and Taocheng naturally beat out bursts of warning drums, and it seemed that many troops poured out to take Li Nong back?
"Mr. Li, don't be alarmed." Xie An finally did not forget to salute Ran Min, and after getting Ran Min's permission, he shouted to Li Nong: "You are not a barbarian, and we have no intention of treating you like a beast."

Li Nong didn't feel scared when he looked at it. He kept his gaze on the side of the slowly advancing Han army, and waited to look back before saying to Ran Min: "Yong Zeng thought it was easy to make someone surrender?"

Ran Min was straightforward: "My king Yan and Li Nong are pawns crossing the river. If they resist, they may win Shihu for ten and a half months, but they will not be destroyed."

Li Nong was silent again...

(End of this chapter)