To the west of Lushan County in Ruzhou, in the hilly area near Funiu Mountain, there is Songjiazhuang, which is considered famous in the entire Ruzhou.

The reason why Songjiazhuang is famous is not because of how good this place is. In fact, this place is not much different from other plain villages in Ruzhou

The reason why this place is famous is because there is a Ruzhou Song family here.

There are many Song families in Ruzhou, but in contemporary times, the only Song family that can be prefixed with Ruzhou is the Song family in Songjiazhuang, Lushan County.

This is a prominent family in Ruzhou!

During the Hongwu period of the early Ming Dynasty, some ancestors of the Song family became officials with the title of Juren. Subsequently, some people successively entered the official position with the title of Juren and Supervisor. Although the ancestors of the Song family in the early days were all middle and low-level officials, they still accumulated profound experience for the Song family.

The foundation of the family has established a scholarly family in the traditional sense of farming and reading.

By the time it was passed to Song Pinghe and Song Pinglin's generation, the Song family had become a well-known scholarly family and a distinguished family in Ruzhou.

This famous family does not mean that the Song family owns tens of thousands of acres of land, hundreds of shops, and is one of the largest grain merchants in Ruzhou. It refers to the Song family's reputation.

Song Pinghe, the head of the eldest family, was a civil servant during the Wanli period. He also served as the county magistrate of a county in Shandong in his early years. Later, he offended the eunuchs and was dismissed from office.

Song Ping and his eldest son were scholars, and they helped take care of the family business at home after their career was hopeless. The second son also passed the scholar examination and is now preparing for the provincial examination. Even if he does not pass the provincial examination, he can still go to the Imperial Academy through connections and use the Song family's connections.

Relationship, getting an official hat is not a problem.

The family lineage of the Song Dynasty family is actually quite average. One official, two scholars, and the reputation of the ancestors can support the name of a scholarly family, but it is far from a distinguished family.

What really allowed the Song family to rise and become a prominent family in Ruzhou in the past thirty years was Song Pinglin, the second head of the Song family.

Song Pinglin was one of the top three Jinshi during the Wanli period. After spending the first few years as a county magistrate, he was soon transferred back to the capital to serve. He has stayed in the capital for a long time and is now a doctor in the Ministry of Household Affairs.

Even though this person's rank is only the fifth rank, and he spent thirty years in the household ministry before becoming a doctor, he has been able to stay in the political arena for thirty years without falling, and he has also been serving as a capital official in the capital for a long time.

It can be said that he is a tumbler in the political arena.

Thirty years of career as a Beijing official allowed Song Pinglin to accumulate deep network resources and qualifications. At the end of last year, there were already rumors that Song Pinglin would be promoted to Taichang Shaoqing.

In fact, this kind of situation is relatively rare for officials in the contemporary Ming Dynasty to be promoted to li. Normally, the ministers of each of the six ministries are sent to other places, mostly as inspectors. The better ones are deputy inspectors, but Song Pinglin was directly promoted to the emperor.

Chang Shaoqing has hope.

This shows that this person has profound political energy.

With his deep connections and qualifications, as long as the situation does not change too much in the future, this person will probably be able to become the Minister of Taichang Temple in a few years, and furthermore, Ren Youshilang.

Given that the contemporary Emperor Chongzhen likes to change his ministers frequently, it is possible that this person will serve as minister or even join the cabinet in the future after the big bosses above him fall.

Such Song Pinglin is the core pillar of the entire Song family today. As long as Song Pinglin does not fall, the Song family in Ruzhou will become a famous family.

But such a famous family faced its biggest crisis in more than two hundred years on the 25th day of the first lunar month in the eighth year of Chongzhen.

A group of thieves who ran out of Funiu Mountain came to Songjiazhuang!

Song Pinghe stood on the courtyard wall of his house that was half a foot high, looking at the gray bandits in front of him with a dark face.

"These bandits are here with bad intentions!" Song Pinghe squinted at the bandits outside, with deep worry on his face.

His eldest son Song Ange also looked panicked: "The thieves in front of me are very different from those in the past. My family is in danger!"

Listening to the panic words of his eldest son Song Ange, Song Pinghe glanced at him sideways, then withdrew his gaze and looked at the bandit outside again.

The eldest son is hopeless. He can't succeed in his career, but he is not very good at taking care of the family business. He will panic whenever something happens.

Fortunately, I was smart in my early years. When I saw that I couldn't play the big one, I immediately started practicing the trumpet. My second son, who is currently studying in the south of the Yangtze River, has been smart and eager to learn since he was a child. He has a stable temperament and is promising for his career. Even if he failed the provincial examination, he was sent to the Imperial College to study for a few years.

Later he became an official, and with his temperament he was able to survive in the officialdom.

But the eldest son said that the thieves outside are unusual, which is true.

He, Song Pinghe, has seen a lot of rogues. Last year, three waves of rogues tried to attack their Song Family Village. However, those rogues were basically not very good. They didn't even have many swords or spears. They couldn't conquer Youzhang.

The courtyard wall is half high, and there are a large number of guards protecting the courtyard, and the tenant villagers protect the Songjiazhuang.

The weapons and equipment of those rogue thieves are not even as good as the nursing home in his Song Family Village.

Strictly speaking, the nursing home of his family is not the private nursing home of his Song family, but the rural nursing home of Lushan County!

But when Wang Jida formed the Lushan County Yong last year, Song Pinghe, in order to protect his own property and because private nursing homes could not be equipped with sharp weapons such as strong bows and armors, simply gave Wang Jida money and bought one for a member of his clan.

County Yonglili’s sentry hat.

Then he took advantage of the situation and incorporated all his nursing homes into this post.

Of course, the name of County Yong is just a name that allows legal and compliant equipment to be equipped with sharp weapons. On weekdays, you should do whatever you should do, at least the government cannot mobilize the Song Family Nursing Home.

Therefore, the Song Family Guards can also be equipped with powerful bows, armors and even guns.

This is also an important reason why several groups of thieves tried to attack Songjiazhuang last year, but were eventually repelled.

However, now, after Song Pinghe saw the gray thieves outside, he felt extremely worried about the military preparedness and combat power of his nursing home.

These thieves not only have large groups of infantry, but also more than a hundred elite cavalry. They arrived here in advance yesterday. He twice arranged for people to rush out to Lushan for rescue, but they were killed one by one by these thieves' elite cavalry.

.

It's quite acceptable to have fine cavalry, after all, many powerful bandits also have cavalry.

But what the hell are the dozen artillery pieces pulled out by these bandits...

Song Pinghe counted it himself and found that there were at least twelve artillery pieces he saw, including two long-barreled artillery pieces that he could tell at a glance were not easy to mess with.

At the same time, these thieves also have a lot of guns.

Moreover, there were a lot of armor among the thief army. Not to mention the armored elite cavalry, Song Pinghe saw that many of the infantry in the thief army were also wearing armor.

No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like a bandit, but more like an officer or soldier, or the kind of battalion sentinel soldier.

In the face of such rogue thieves, can our Song Family Village be able to stop it?

He doesn’t know!

But he knew better that he had to stop it, otherwise hundreds of members of his Song family would be doomed.

There is no hope of escaping. The bandit army has more than a hundred elite cavalry. They can directly hunt down and kill as many people as they escape.

Surrendering is unreliable. Song Pinghe is very clear about the ferocity of the bandits. Last year, bandits attacked Lushan County. Some wealthy families wanted to donate food and surrender because they were inferior to others, but the bandits still did not

Let them go, grab them all, kill them all, and burn them all.

Therefore, it is unreliable to talk about surrender to these thieves, and they can only carry it to death.

If you can survive, you will have a way to survive. If you cannot resist, you will be exterminated. There is no third way.

With such a heavy heart, Song Pinghe came down from the courtyard wall and took his eldest son, housekeeper and several other clan elders to inspect other courtyard walls and arrange food, weapons and city defense supplies.

To fight against such rogue thieves, it is not enough to rely on his family's nursing home of less than 200 people. Hundreds of young and strong people must be added to it. Yesterday, when I learned that a large number of thieves were coming directly towards their Songjiazhuang,

, Song Pinghe has already begun to recruit young people from the entire Song family village.

Anyway, these people are tenants of the Song family, and they dare not not come under the Song family’s orders.

Naturally, these young men who were recruited cannot be allowed to fight against the bandit army hungry.

Although Song Pinghe usually kept things in check, he also knew that now was not the time to save money. He had ordered the granary at home to stock up on food since yesterday, and all the young men who participated in guarding the village would be well fed. He also promised to the nursing home and the young men that as long as they

Reward promises such as five taels for each person who kills a thief, and ten taels for each person who kills a small boss.

While Song Pinghe was urgently organizing the defense of the courtyard and Qingzhuang, Luo Zhixue was also observing the situation in Songjiazhuang on the top of a low hill about six or seven hundred meters away from the courtyard wall.

Just like the map of Songjiazhuang that Huang Guangmao drew from memory, the terrain around Songjiazhuang is generally flat, with only a few small hills no more than tens of meters high, and multiple streams passing through it. The entire surrounding area of ​​Songjiazhuang is full of mature and high-quality fertile farmland.

There are also some dilapidated houses of ordinary villagers scattered between heaven and earth.

These dilapidated houses, and the entire Songjiazhuang manor in the center, are rising and falling every day.

Even if you look at the entire Song family manor from the outside, you can tell that it is a high-level mansion. The courtyard walls are four to five meters high, and there are towers at the four corners.

And you can also see the last three artillery pieces placed on the wall of the courtyard in the early stage. Visual inspection estimates that they are only one or two hundred kilograms of light artillery.

There are now crowds of people on the courtyard wall. It is estimated that there are at least four to five hundred people. Most of them are equipped with weapons, strong bows and muskets, and some are even wearing armor.

No wonder several groups of thieves failed to capture Songjiazhuang last year. In terms of defense power, Songjiazhuang, except that the courtyard wall is not as thick as the real city wall, is even stronger than the current Lushan County in terms of military strength and armament.<

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However, for Baoxiang Camp, Songjiazhuang's seemingly high courtyard wall, but not as thick as the city wall, is a fatal flaw.

Because there are two 600-pound cannons in the artillery post of Baoxiang Camp, the solid shells fired by them are enough to destroy such tall and thin courtyard walls.

After climbing the short mountain and carefully observing the surrounding terrain and the situation of Songjiazhuang, Luo Zhixue did not hesitate and said directly to An Yongduo beside him: "Send the order to the artillery sentry, first attack the courtyard wall where the enemy artillery is located with a 600-kilogram long artillery!"<

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"The light artillery comes forward, wait until the light artillery on the enemy's courtyard wall is destroyed and then open fire to cover the enemy with fire!"

"The musketeers and archers of each sentry came forward in turn, waiting for the light artillery bombardment to move forward to suppress the firepower of the remaining enemy city walls."

"The armored soldiers at each sentry stand ready to carry out the assault on the city after the enemy's firepower weakens."

After issuing a series of orders, Luo Zhixue took another look at the prepared troops in front of him, took a deep breath and said:
Chapter completed!