As soon as Yan heard Tang Tong's arrangement, he knew that Tang Tong was going to take his entire family as hostages. Regarding this, Yan had no objection. As a person in a higher position, it was reasonable for him to use such means. Yan knew that what he had to do was a heavy responsibility, and any normal person would do the same.
After bidding farewell to Tang Tong, Yan went to prepare for his undercover work as a counter-espionage agent. Tang Tong did not interfere too much in these matters and tried to let his subordinates make their own arrangements. However, Tang Tong secretly arranged several disciples from his own Yunshan Sect to be among the one hundred people who would go undercover with Yan as a counter-espionage agent, as his own spies for secret surveillance.
Afterwards, Tang Tong gave another courtyard to Yan and sent people to clean it up, decorate it with lights and colorful decorations, and prepare for Yan to take a concubine. Although Yan was not a lustful person, he was very satisfied after seeing the two charming women. Lust is very important to men, except for those mentally abnormal people.
After more than one hundred people were selected, their families were also arranged. These people's families were refugees before, and it was Tang Tong who gave them a job to survive. These people themselves had attended Tang Tong's school for a few years and had also received military training. This time they were gathered together for intensive training.
A month later, the members of the Yan family were also relocated to Changzhou. Tang Tong arranged several talented members of the Yan family to serve in the Nanyang army, and also arranged a large plantation for the Yan family in Nanyang. A small number of Yan family members went to the plantation to manage their own property. The area of thousands of hectares was a great temptation for the land-loving people of the Ming Dynasty. Yan was also very satisfied with this. At least, because of him, the entire Yan family would have a good life in the future.
It was not until Su Cui and Yang Yuexiang became pregnant with Yan's child that Tang Tong arranged for Yan and his group to go to Shanxi to seek refuge with Gao Yingxiang. These people brought 300 guns and some food, and recruited about 1,000 refugees on the way with food. At that time, many people in the north were facing the situation of starvation. In order to have a meal and to allow their families to have some food to continue fleeing south, these refugees naturally enthusiastically joined Yan's team.
Yan himself was a very talented person, and the hundred or so men under him were well-educated and had received military training. They trained these refugees along the way. When they arrived in Shanxi, this team of about a thousand people already looked like soldiers. Moreover, compared with those in the rebel army, these people who did not receive muskets still had some regular cold weapons in their hands, and were considered an elite team in the rebel army.
Gao Yingxiang was not dead at this time. Although the rebel army did not have the glory as it had in history due to the butterfly effect of Tang Tongzhi, Gao Yingxiang did have some talents. He led his troops to fight everywhere, and the Ming Dynasty could not do anything to him for a while. However, before the arrival of Yan, the entire rebel army was heading towards a trough.
Gao Yingxiang welcomed Tang Yan's surrender and was very interested in the 300 advanced muzzle-loading matchlock rifles in Tang Yan's hands. He also had doubts about Tang Yan's origins. However, information was not well-connected at that time, and Tang Tong had already arranged a false identity for Tang Yan. Later, the person Gao Yingxiang sent to investigate only got one piece of information: Tang Yan was from a small landlord family in Changzhou. Because they offended an official, the entire family was killed and their family was destroyed. In order to seek revenge, Tang Yan took more than a dozen disciples in the family and spent all their family wealth to buy weapons, recruit soldiers and start a rebellion.
To this end, Tang Tong not only arranged a conflict, but also forcibly relocated all the people in a village with the surname Yan in Changzhou to Nanyang. At that time, no one knew about this large-scale counterfeiting method. After getting this investigation result, Gao Yingxiang put aside his doubts, arranged for Yan to become a larger leader, and separated the people brought by Yan and assigned them to other people.
Gao Yingxiang thought that after this move, it would not matter if there were any problems in Yan. However, he did not know that this was exactly what Tang Tongzhi had in mind. After the one hundred people were dispersed into various rebel forces, they became small leaders because of their talents. Later on, most of the junior officers in the rebel army were people arranged by Tang, thus marginalizing more than half of the entire rebel army.
After learning that this advanced muzzle-loading matchlock rifle was available for purchase, Gao Yingxiang arranged for Yan to contact a so-called arms smuggler and purchase 3,000 muskets from Tang Tong, greatly increasing the strength of the rebel army. However, Yan and the spies did not follow Tang Tong's instructions and did not disclose Tang Tong's soldier training methods. As a result, these muskets did not produce their maximum effect, and were only slightly stronger than the Ming Dynasty's musket troops.
After Luo Yan's own men were disbanded, Gao Yingxiang assigned him a thousand old and weak soldiers. However, Gao Yingxiang did not suppress Luo Yan blindly. He also gave Luo Yan the power to recruit soldiers on his own. Luo Yan used this power to place a group of people that Tang Tong had later arranged in his own team. This whole process took several months, because the Ming army was temporarily free from the harassment of the Jiannu, and its main force was concentrated on dealing with Gao Yingxiang and his men, which caused the rebels to suffer more heavy losses and a sharp reduction in troops, giving Luo Yan the opportunity to face his first battle with the Ming army.
;
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
