Chapter 1767： Rangers

Chapter 1767 Rangers

Sending away pig teammate uncle Zhu Shouren and his party solved a hidden danger, and Zhu Pingan suddenly felt a lot easier.

It is not in vain to use some means to show them a few well-prepared stories. I thought I would show them a few more stories, but I didn't expect their psychological endurance to be so poor, so I couldn't bear it.

Watching his uncle and the others disappear into the distance, Zhu Pingan smiled and returned to the school field to check the riding skills of the soldiers.

The Zhejiang army has stepped up their riding skills for two days, but the cavalry is not so easy to practice. The veterans of the Zhejiang army have been familiar with horses for a long time, and they are very proficient in riding horses, but that's all. If they want to become qualified cavalrymen, in Liu Mu's words, it will take at least two months to become qualified.

Cavalry is not as simple as riding a horse and galloping. It takes at least three months to practice riding and shooting to a qualified level, not to mention the necessary cavalry skills such as equestrianism, formation, and horse fighting. It takes about half a year to train a qualified cavalryman.

There is a shortage of horses in the south of the Yangtze River, and the recruits in Yiwu are all rural people. They have hardly touched horses before. After two days of intensive training, most of them can only ride on the back of a galloping horse without falling off.

However, this also met Zhu Pingan's expectation.

Zhu Ping'an didn't expect to be able to train a cavalry in such a short period of time. He only needs to be able to ride a horse. Riding a horse is much faster than walking. This will greatly improve the mobility of the Zhejiang Army.

In order to deal with the coming Japanese pirates, Zhu Pingan made slight adjustments to the Zhejiang Army.

A team of veterans of the Zhejiang Army who are skilled in horseback riding and a team of Yiwu recruits who are unfamiliar with horseback riding form a ranger.

Zhu Ping'an sent fifteen such rangers to Suzhou in all directions, returning to camp every two hours for a rotation, so that they wandered around Suzhou. On the one hand, he exercises equestrian skills, and on the other hand, he monitors Japanese pirates.

In addition, Zhu Pingan also rode around Suzhou and carefully selected fifteen highlands, all of which were Gaogang and Qiufu, which were suitable for looking at each other. They built simple beacon towers on them. A total of fifteen beacon towers were built on the highlands.

Fifteen beacon towers are distributed in three rings with Suzhou City as the center, each ring has ten beacon towers, and each ring is separated by eight miles.

In ancient times, beacon towers were generally spaced ten miles apart. Zhu Pingan was worried that the distance would be too far to be observed, so he changed it to eight miles.

As for the incineration materials of wolf smoke, wolf dung is hard to find. There are many horse dung camps, which are half-dry and half-wet horse dung to dry, mixed with grease, dry firewood, wet firewood, reeds, wormwood, and dry grass. The fire was lit with grease, followed by half-dry and half-wet horse manure and wet wood. Once ignited, thick black smoke billowed up, clearly visible eight miles away.

Of course, the beacon tower relies on smoke during the day, and the smoke is billowing, so it is easy to see during the day; If the beacon fire is lit at night, reeds, mugwort, dry firewood and oil are used as fuel.

Each ranger who goes out to swim is in charge of a beacon tower. When they swim, they must stay at the beacon tower with five people.

Once the whereabouts of Japanese pirates are found, the beacon fire will be lit as soon as possible to warn.

All the rangers cruising outside saw the beacon fire, galloped on horses and beat gongs to warn the people in the surrounding villages and towns that the Japanese pirates were coming.

Zhu Ping'an also specially told the soldiers that if they encountered rainy or foggy days, the visibility was low and the beacon smoke could not be seen clearly, after lighting the beacon fire, they should ride horses to the next beacon tower as soon as possible to warn.

Zhu Ping'an was still in the Zhejiang Army camp, and specially arranged for two soldiers to look in the direction of the Beacon Tower. Once a beacon is lit, the side must detect the beacon as soon as possible in order to prepare for the deployment.

When Zhu Pingan sent the rangers, he specially emphasized to them:

"Your task is to warn the police. I don't ask you to stop the Japanese pirates, let alone kill the Japanese pirates. When you encounter Japanese pirates, your first priority is to warn the police. As long as you warn the police in advance, I will give you a great credit."

"After the warning is completed, then harass and stop the Japanese pirates to buy time for the common people to evacuate."

"It is necessary to take advantage of the flexibility of firecrackers and horses to avoid close combat with Japanese pirates."

Zhu Ping'an's orders to the Rangers are mainly warnings, supplemented by harassment and blocking. The Japanese pirates are fierce and powerful, and the rangers sent out are not good at riding and their numbers are small, so they are not the opponents of the Japanese pirates.

After Zhu Ping'an gave careful instructions, he dispatched fifteen rangers to Suzhou in all directions.

When the sun was setting in the evening, Zhu Pingan went to Suzhou City to meet Shang Wei, the prefect of Suzhou.

Although the government has been released and all the bureaucrats and officials have gone home, the prefect is still working in the government office.

"The next official pays homage to Mr. Shang." After Zhu Pingan entered the Yamen, he was led to the study of Shangzhifu, and he went forward to meet Shangzhifu with his hands folded.

"Excuse me, excuse me, Zihou, please don't make these false rituals. I haven't congratulated Zihou for his great contribution at the sea sacrifice site. With this contribution, Zihou will remove the deputy envoy. It is possible to use the word 'generation' even further, and the above-mentioned decree is estimated to be within a few days. At that time, I am afraid that I will salute you." Shang Zhifu smiled and held Zhu Ping'an's arm , cordially invited him into the study.

Entering the study, Shang Zhifu invited Zhu Pingan to sit down, poured a cup of hot tea for Zhu Pingan himself, and Zhu Pingan took it with both hands.

"Zi Hou, your camp has enough food, supplies, armor and military equipment. If not, don't be too polite. I'll send someone to deliver them to your camp."

Shang Zhifu asked enthusiastically, and the attitude of a rich local tyrant was immediately exposed.

"Enough is enough. I have not yet thanked the prefect for his strong support, so that our Zhejiang army has no worries. There is nothing to repay the peace and the Zhejiang army. We can only throw our heads and blood to keep Suzhou safe."

Zhu Ping'an sincerely stood up and bowed to thank Shang Zhifu.

The Zhejiang army has just arrived, and in the past few days, the support given by the Suzhou government is more than that issued by the imperial court since the formation of the army.

Although the wealth of Suzhou Prefecture is the highest in the world, the most important thing is the full support of Shangzhifu. Otherwise, other people's wealth belongs to them, so what does it have to do with you.

Zhejiang army stationed in Suzhou is a matter of its own duty, and the Suzhou government is not obliged to provide food, grass and supplies for the Zhejiang army.

Generally speaking, the place where the garrison is stationed will provide a certain amount of support for the garrison, and show some kindness in exchange for the garrison being loyal to their duties, protecting the safety of the place, and not harassing the local people. Of course, their support is relatively limited, and places with such strong support as Suzhou Mansion are rare.

"You are too polite. To be honest, since I took office, I have made a lot of achievements. The civil affairs are not worth mentioning. There are some minor achievements, but the military is ashamed. I don’t understand military affairs, and meddling a few times made things worse.”

"Zihou, I am very happy to have you here. Zihou, you are young and promising, and you are proficient in military affairs. Especially since your Zhejiang army was stationed in Suzhou, you have never committed any crimes against the common people. This is very rare. I am not afraid of you poking my spine. I have also sent people to visit your army many times. The discipline of your army is greatly admired. It is true that Qiu has committed no crimes. Not a single soldier has harassed or bullied the people. Since your army has been stationed, the only things you have done are training, Patrolling and deploying defenses, such an army is the one that can truly protect Suzhou."

"I, Suzhou, don't support an army like yours, who do I support?!"

Shang Zhifu said with a smile.

(end of this chapter)