Chapter 626: The first ping of Jiangnan

The cruelty of war lies not only in its slaughter of life, but also in its decisiveness, rapidity, and it is difficult to stop once it is launched. Once it is launched, there is no room for it. The winner will definitely plunder the loser and then let it go.

Li Qing'an planned the Jiangnan Battle for nearly half a year and waited for more than a month. When it suddenly started, it launched violently in a ruthless and unlooked manner.

On New Year's Eve, 30,000 Northern Tang cavalry surrounded 60,000 troops in Zixi County with a speed of thunder, and did not hurt one soldier and one soldier to capture them all. Then, the Northern Tang army divided into two groups, Li Baozhen and Zhao Chongjie each led 10,000 cavalry, like two sharp sharp knives, and rushed to the Jiangnan camp in Runzhou with a destructive force.

Li Lin's gorgeous Jiangnan dream was like a huge hollow building. It collapsed in a bang in the attack of the Northern Tang army like a surgical attack. In just two days, two Northern Tang cavalry brigades swept across the Jiangnan land. The garrisons in various places mutiny, tearing off Li Lin's Vermillion Bird Banner and erecting the Black-bottomed Yellow Dragon Army Banner of the Northern Tang Army.

The prefectures and counties in the south of the Yangtze River also drove Li Lin to the observation envoys stationed in various prefectures and counties. Li Lin was confiscated by local governments in various places. His Wu Palace in Suzhou was burned by an angry people in a fire, and the 500,000-stone army granary in the north of Suzhou City was snatched away by tens of thousands of people.

At the beginning, the urgent response to help flew to the Jiangnan Camp in Runzhou like snow, but two days later, there was no more letter of help. For Li Lin, the south of Runzhou was silent like death, and all his forces fell apart.

Two Tang cavalry had entered the territory of Runzhou. Zhao Chongjie's troops intercepted the garrison prepared to board the ship and escape from Jiangning County. The Jiangnan Army rushed to fight. With only three of the 10,000 cavalry, they defeated the 20,000 Jiangnan Army led by General Zhu Tao, killed 3,000 enemies and captured more than 15,000 people. General Zhu Tao was shot by Zhao Chongjie with an arrow.

In the early morning, two Tang cavalry brigades gathered forty miles south of Dantu County, Runzhou. Their next target was the last 20,000 troops in Dantu County, Runzhou, and King Li Lin of Wu was in the barracks.

The disease comes like a thread being drawn, and the disease goes like a mountain falling.

The big tent of golden silk wool was in a mess, and various documents were piled up like mountains. The land contracts and local household registration were packaged and sorted out, and they were piled up in scattered places. They were so messy that they couldn't even insert them into them.

King Li Lin of Wu sat in a wooden box in a daze, like a person who had not yet woken up, his eyes were blank and unknown, but his dream was shattered. He could never have imagined that the Northern Tang army, which could not find a boat crossing the river in Jiangbei ten days ago, had killed under his eyelids overnight. Li Qingan, who had been waiting for the bow for more than a month, suddenly shot an arrow into his face. The whereabouts of the 60,000 southern expedition army were unknown, his son was unknown to his life and death, and he himself was on the verge of life and death.

There is no doubt about withdrawing the troops. His courage to fight with Li Qing'an has long disappeared, but he is still a little confused. He still wants to reminisce about Jiangnan again, but does he still have this opportunity?

"Your Highness, go quickly! If you don't leave, the enemy will come."

The three aides who had been persuading him to stay in Jiangnan and Li Qing'an were more determined than anyone else at this time. They would run away quickly. If they didn't run away, there would be no chance.

Li Lin sighed, he looked up and saw no sign of Li Bai.

"Where is Li Taibai?"

"Have you forgotten? He went to Changzhou to urge food."

"oh!"

Li Lin felt that he had forgotten everything. Overnight, he thought that he had grown ten years older. He suddenly felt a little sad. Li Bai couldn't come back.

"Your Highness! Let's go! The enemy cavalry has reached twenty miles away."

This time it was his guard who was urging him, "It would be too late if he didn't leave."

The Jiangnan camp is still ten miles away from the Yangtze River. If you don’t leave, it’s too late. Li Lin also realized this. He stood up and looked at the wooden boxes full of the camp, shook his head and said, “I don’t want anything anymore, please order everyone to board the boat!”

Time was so tight that there was no time to leave the camp. A carriage drove quickly from the camp gate and stopped in front of the big tent. Li Lin took a last look at the camp, gritted his teeth, and fell into the carriage.

The carriage started and was getting faster and faster, heading towards the Yangtze River ten miles away.

In the middle of the Yangtze River, more than 20 warships lined up. These were warships seized by the Northern Tang army from Yan Port. There were 25 medium-sized warships of three or five hundred stones. They were anchored in the middle of the river and you could see the movements on the south bank of the Yangtze River from afar. On the south bank of the Yangtze River, hundreds of warships began to anchor, with sails rising, thousands of sails like clouds and masts like forests. Here, the signal that the Jiangnan army was preparing to evacuate on the south bank.

At the bow of the largest warship, Li Qing'an pressed the hilt of the sword and looked calmly at the group of enemy warships several miles away. Although he was still far away from the other party, he could already feel the other party's haste and timidity. The other party was already running away. Today is the fourth day of the first lunar month of the second year of Qingping. He finally recovered Jiangnan. He seemed to see the vast rice fields and small rivers crisscrossing on this plump and fertile land. This place has been the richest area in China since the Middle Tang Dynasty.

Although the Tang Dynasty suffered heavy damage in the Anshi Rebellion and its politics was almost bankrupt, it still remained in the storm for nearly two hundred years, because Jiangnan brought it a steady stream of supplies and food. Now, this rich land has belonged to him, but his blood is not surging. It is strange that his blood is stable and comfortable, and he only feels a burst of joy, as if the day had arrived very early, and only a sentence flashed in his mind: Those who have won Jiangnan have a firm foothold in the world.

At this time, a low horn sound came faintly on the other side, which was a horn sound that every Anxi soldier was extremely familiar with. Eight years ago, Li Qing'an chose it among countless horn sounds. It was low and echoed, just a bass with a sound of sand. When it sounded, it had a shocking resonance.

Soon, the same low trumpet sounded on the warship, echoing on the river, echoing with the trumpet sounds on the other side. Only when the trumpet sounds on the other side were heard, a group of Anxi cavalry emerged majestic in a corner of the other side. Then, more and more cavalrymen appeared on the river bank that lasted for miles, and they shouted and rushed towards the Jiangnan army that had not yet been able to board the ship.

There was chaos on the river bank, and thousands of soldiers had not had time to board the boat, so the Northern Tang cavalry arrived. There was already a scattered group of soldiers on the shore, and some soldiers resisted. More people were so scared that they knelt down and surrendered.

The big ships no longer lined up and began to turn around and sailed towards the river. Just one mile away from Li Qing'an's warship, nearly four hundred warships slowly left the dock, and sailed up, taking advantage of the east wind that had just appeared, drove west along the river. At this time, the largest warship and Li Qing'an's ship passed by, and the two warships were two hundred steps apart.

Li Lin stood at the bow of the boat, staring at Li Qing'an's boat tightly. Suddenly, he saw Li Qing'an, with great surprise in his eyes. He never expected that the enemy who seized his foundation would be in front of him, only two hundred steps apart. Anger seemed to ejaculate in his eyes, and he wanted to swallow Li Qing'an in one go. The guards beside him also saw Li Qing'an and shouted: "Prince, this is an opportunity to knock him to sink with the boat!"

"Chance?"

Li Lin was a little confused. When did he have a chance? He seemed to see Li Qingan's cold smile, and suddenly became scared in his heart, and kept shouting: "Hurry! Get out of here quickly."

Li Qingan stood at the bow of the boat with his hands behind his back. He was not afraid that Li Lin's big ship would hit him. He had seen through Li Lin's cowardice in his bones.

He didn't order the arrows to be fired, but just watched Li Lin's ship sail away and left Jiangnan.

"General, did you let them go like that?"

He Lou Yurun looked at the warships that had turned into small black dots in the distance with dissatisfaction. Could it be that they really let these warships escape under their noses?

Li Qingan shook his head gently and said with a smile: "Don't worry, there is a navy army ahead of them that will intercept them."

After saying that, he waved his hand and said, "You can go to the other side."

Twenty-five warships pulled up their anchors and slowly sailed towards the south bank of the Yangtze River.

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Five days later, on the ninth day of the first lunar month, in Jinling County, Changzhou, today's Changzhou, more than 200 prefectures and county officials from more than 40 counties including Yang, Chu, Xuan, Run, Chang, Su, Hu, Hang, Yue, Ming, etc. gathered together to attend the Jiangnan New Year's Meeting held by Li Qing'an.

Everyone is full of expectations for this meeting, which is related to the imperial court's positioning of Jiangnan and the development direction of Jiangnan in the next few decades.

Everyone believes that Li Qing'an's heart has painted a future picture for the development of Jiangnan.

The meeting was held in the lecture hall of the Imperial College in Changzhou. The lecture hall is a hall, the most magnificent building in Changzhou. It can accommodate 3,000 students to listen to the study here. At this time, the hall was filled with black people, not only more than 200 officials came to participate, but also nearly 500 representatives of wealthy merchants and gentry from various states also attended the New Year's greeting.

This is not a banquet, a bit similar to the tea party in later generations. Each two people had a table with melons, fruits, tea, and some desserts and candy. According to the official qualifications, the prefects sat in the first row, such as Han Huan, Han Huan, Xuanzhou Prefect Di Fifth Qi, Suzhou Prefect Li Xiyan, Changzhou Prefect Wei Huangshang, Yangzhou Prefect Ji Guangchen, etc., followed by the chief Sima, then the county magistrate and county magistrate, and then the local gentlemen with titles or honorary officials.

Before Li Qing'an came, the atmosphere in the venue was warm, and everyone whispered and there was a lot of noise.

Hangzhou prefect Han Huan and Jianghuai Transportation Commissioner Cui Ning sat at the same table. Although Cui Ning had just come to Yangzhou to take office, he had met Han Huan several times in Chang'an and was quite familiar with each other.

Han Huan was about 40 years old and was a Jinshi. He had been in the imperial examination for nearly twenty years. He went from the chief clerk to the prefect step by step. He had been the prefect for seven or eight years, and served in several states with outstanding official reputation. According to normal promotion, he would either go to Beijing to be promoted or be a local observer. It can be said that Han Huan was an official leader in the Jiangnan region. In addition, he was also a master of painting and a famous painter in history. He was famous for painting cows.

Han Huan deliberately sat with Cui Ning. He wanted to learn something from Cui Ning what Li Qing'an's plan for the Jiangnan region.

He smiled and asked first, "I wonder how prepared the Prime Minister Cui is to clear the Caohe River?"

Although Cui Ning was not officially appointed as the Left Prime Minister, he had already obtained the qualification to be Pingzhangshi in the Secretariat of the Secretariat. The Left Prime Minister was empty and everyone knew that it was set up for Cui Ning. Now Cui Ning was temporarily appointed as the Jianghuai, Henan Transportation Envoy, Censor, and was responsible for clearing the Caohe River and building a warehouse. He led more than 100 Caohe officials to inspect the front line from Henan to Yangzhou for more than a month, and accumulated a large amount of data and artworks. This time he arrived in Changzhou to discuss specific construction matters with Li Qing'an.

"The preliminary investigation has been completed. Now it is mainly about labor and capital and food. As long as these two problems are solved, I will be sure to complete the clearance of the Caohe River in half a year."

"Well, is there a solution?"

"There's it!" Cui Ning stroked his beard and smiled: "Last night, His Highness Zhao, discussed the labor force for a night. Li Lin's army's prisoners of war, with a total of more than 80,000 people. In addition, the new army recruited by Yangzhou will also be responsible for the river channel clearance from the Yangzhou to the Huaihe River. Before spring plowing, another 200,000 people will be mobilized to participate in the construction of the river channel. As for the funds, Yangzhou still has 800,000 guan of salt tax and 450,000 guan of commercial tax, which can be invested in the river channel improvement. In addition, the general agreed to allocate half of the two million stones of grain transported from overseas for river management. All people, money and property will be complete, and construction will be officially started after the Spring Festival."

Cui Ning talked freely, but Han Huan was not very concerned about the river channel at this time. He was concerned about how Li Qing'an would attack Jiangnan and whether he would use Jiangnan as the defeated side to plunder.

He asked carefully: "Cui Xiangguo, I heard that the reason why His Highness Zhao took the lead in attacking King Wu was because of the soaring prices in Chang'an and the shortage of materials. Li Lin had retreated westward. I don't know that His Highness Zhao's next plan is......"

Seeing that Han Huan had an unconcealed worry in his eyes, Cui Ning knew his concern, so he smiled and said, "Is Han Jun worried about Jianghuai's tomorrow?"

Both of them were straightforward people, without any implicitness or temptation, and every sentence was said to the point. Han Huan nodded and sighed in a low voice: "Li Lin was a powerful soldier and was recruiting troops and grain in Jiangnan. The population in Jiangnan was sparse, and he could not withstand his troubles. It had already hurt a lot of energy. If the court transported a large amount of supplies from Jiangnan like in the Kaiyuan period, I was very worried that the people in Jiangnan could not afford it."

"The envoy Han was a little worried. I was the prefect in Qizhou and had a deep conversation with His Highness Zhao, and he also talked about Jianghuai."

"Oh!" Han Huan was very interested and asked quickly: "What did he say?"

"He only said one thing, saying that he would teach Jiangnan to fish instead of taking it."

Cui Ning wrote two different words "fishing" and "fishing" on the table with tea. Han Huan's eyes lit up, and then he was a little confused, "Can Cao Guo talk about it in detail?"

"I can't say it specifically, but I know a little about His Highness Zhao's ideas."

Cui Ning picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea, then smiled and said, "In my experience, the first thing His Highness Zhao should do in Jiangnan should be to resolve the land conflict."

"land?"

"Yes! Land."

Cui Ning nodded affirmatively and said, "The land problem is the root of all wars and conflicts. Emperor Jingzong forced the land collection in Guanzhong. Although he paid the price of his life, the land merger problem in Guanzhong has been basically solved, laying a good foundation for us. Then His Highness Zhao used the method of redemption to collect the land in Henan, and achieved results. The land in Jiangnan is not serious, and most of the self-cultivated farmers are concentrated in this area. Therefore, His Highness Zhao should set the land rules first and then consider other things."

"I wonder what rules he will set?"

"One is to redeem the over-occupation of land by large investors, second is to freeze land transactions, third is to exchange land for commercial tax reductions. This second is Yan Zhenqing's suggestion, and the third is Pei Min's suggestion. I guess I will do a pilot first in Jiangnan."

"Reduce and exempt business tax?" Han Huan pondered for a moment and said, "Does His Highness Zhao want to develop business in Jiangnan?"

Cui Ning smiled, "This is inevitable, but not complete. Yangzhou's commercial development is the first in the country. It can be extended by extension. At the Daxing ports of Run, Su and Yue prefectures, we will develop overseas trade and inland river trade, improve the status of merchants, and encourage the people to develop handicrafts. At the same time, the land in Jiangnan is rich, which can migrate a large number of northern people to the south, improve agricultural and sericulture skills, cultivate rice fields, and increase grain production. In this way, after five to ten years of development, the Jiangnan region will surely become the commercial and agricultural and sericulture center of the Tang Dynasty. My trip to the south this time is to strengthen the exchanges between the Jiangnan region and the Central Plains region, and not to plunder the materials from the Jiangnan region."

Han Huang breathed a long sigh of relief and laughed in a low voice: "If this is true, I can guarantee that the officials in Jiangnan will firmly support His Highness Zhao."

As soon as he finished speaking, a guard at the door shouted loudly: "His Royal Highness Zhao is here!"

The lecture hall suddenly became quiet. Li Qing'an, wearing a first-class purple court robe, hurried in from outside the gate. Several guards were around him. He smiled and walked straight to the chairman, bowed to everyone and said, "Everyone, I'm one step late, please forgive me!"

There was a burst of applause in the lobby. Many people saw Li Qingan for the first time. Seeing that he was young and upright, heroic, and completely without the legendary ferocious appearance. Most people fell in love with this young powerful minister of the Tang Dynasty for the first time.

Changzhou Prefect Wei Huangshang secretly gave Suzhou Prefect Li Xiyan and whispered: "It has the style of Taizong!"
To be continued...