Xu Huai, Wang Ju, Guo Junpan, and Xu Wujiang sent Lu Xiong out of the camp to go to Ruzhou from the western foot of Songshan Mountain. From a distance, they saw King Jing, Qian Shangduan, Zhang Xin, and Deng Gui also coming out of the camp to meet them.
deliver.
"How dare you bother Your Highness to send me off?" Lu Xiong also got off his horse excitedly and saluted King Jing.
"Master Lu worked tirelessly and dangerously for the imperial court. How could I not see him off?" King Jing Zhao Tuan helped Lu Xiong and ordered Zhou Jing and others to protect Lu Xiong's safety along the way.
Everyone slowly walked to the west side of the camp, where the official road leading from Gong County to Yanshi stopped.
Watching Zhou Jing and others surrounding Lu Xiong hurrying southward along the official road at the western foot of Mount Song, Xu Huai accompanied King Jing on horseback and rode up the embankment on the west bank of the Yiluo River.
Although the world is still bleak, if you look carefully between the branches, you can see that there are already little leaf buds peeking out, but they are not large-scale yet. It will be almost another month before the spring in the Hehuai land will become strong.
The temperature in the area between Hulao Pass and Tongguan, as well as along the Yiluo River, has risen above the freezing point half a month ago. The river ice has already cracked and broken. However, the Yellow River flows westward from the mouth of the Sishui River.
The river flows in the northeast direction, and the river has not yet thawed. A large number of ice floes are congested in the river, causing a unique freezing flood phenomenon that occurs almost every year in the Yellow River.
This year's flood season was not particularly severe, and there was little rain after the Lunar New Year in the upper reaches of the Yiluo River. Although ice dams formed on the river between Hulao and Gong counties, it did not put much pressure on the river embankments on both sides.
However, if the Western Army dares to launch an offensive against the enemy forces between Hulao and Gongxian at this time, it will still have an absolute advantage in terms of geographical location.
At the same time, due to the ice flood, although the soldiers collected a large number of boats in the northeast of Zhengzhou, they were unable to build pontoon bridges for the time being. At the same time, the ice layer became extremely fragile due to the warming weather and the impact of upstream ice floes.
At this time, the soldiers on the north and south sides of the Yellow River were actually separated.
Although the peace talks were beyond their control, Xu Huai reined in his horse and stopped on the Yiluo River embankment. Xu Huai still told everyone about the ice row, the Lingxun incident and the relationship between relying on it and using troops.
Although the weather is unpredictable, the way of using troops, or in other words, a qualified military commander, must predict the weather and combine it with the geographical advantages of rivers, rivers and ravines to arrange troops and look for opportunities.
"It's a pity that my father has no determination to fight against the Hulu. If this delay continues, Dai Viet will only become more passive!" King Jing Zhao Tuan said with deep regret after hearing Xu Huai's analysis of the war and defense situation.
Xu Huai didn't want to talk about the peace negotiation anymore, so he told King Jing that he wanted to surrender the captured soldiers and send them back to Tongbai Mountain: "The bandit rebellion in Tongbai Mountain lasted for more than half a year.
, the place was severely damaged, and five out of ten houses were damaged. Even though we brought back thousands of people from Shuozhou, they were mainly incorporated into the army to fight. We built camps and paved roads in the place, but there was still a shortage of manpower. These captured soldiers were reduced to soldiers.
, the will is broken and cannot be used for great purposes, but it can be supplemented by the lack of military strength!"
"Send them all to Tongbai Mountain, Zhou He and Zheng Huaizhong are afraid they will hate having to know about this." King Jing Zhao Tuan waved his hand and said.
After the Qingquan Gou Village was conquered, they set fire to it, forcing the remaining soldiers in the village to flee south into the northern slope of Songshan Mountain. It was actually divided into two parts:
Some of them are Cao Shixiong. Cao Shili recruited brave soldiers from the Han people of Shuozhou and the peasant households of Lanzhou. These are the most loyal to the Cao brothers and have no affection for Dayue at all. After they were driven out of Qingquaangou Village by the fire,
Some people thought of escaping back.
Most of these people were disabled, but Xu Huai also asked Ling Jian, Yu Gong and other generals to resolutely annihilate them when they encountered them.
There are also some surrendered prisoners who were captured by soldiers who went south and attacked cities and villages along the way.
These people surrendered to the Chihu people, mainly because of the situation. They were forced into the camp by the Chihu people, and the Chihu people, Cao Shili and other rebel generals treated these soldiers extremely cruelly. When attacking Gongxian, Xingyang almost surrendered its soldiers.
It was Cao Shili who drove him to the city to die.
It is impossible for these people to feel any loyalty to traitorous generals such as Chi Huren and Cao Shili at this time, but their fighting spirit has been destroyed, and their homeland has also fallen. Generally speaking, they will not be a good source of troops.
, even worse than Liu Chong’s prisoners.
When it comes to the issue of military sources, in the past, Dai Viet was accustomed to sending refugees and prisoners into the army. In addition to the difficulties in the border states, ordinary people did not need to join the army. More importantly, they hoped that this would solve local security and eliminate hidden dangers in the inland states and counties.
However, if we really want to implement a recruitment system, Dai Viet has 200 states and towns under its jurisdiction, with tens of millions of men and women, and there is absolutely no shortage of them, so no one will watch three to five thousand surrender troops and defeat them.
As for Zheng Huaizhong, Gao Chunnian and others, they really wanted to know the existence of these captured soldiers.
Otherwise, Xu Huai captured thousands of enemy heads in the first battle (including the subsequent elimination of the Lanzhou Han army loyal to the Cao brothers on the northern slope of Songshan Mountain), and captured three to four thousand surrendered soldiers, and the total number of soldiers and horses exceeded that of the mausoleum defenders and
Caizhou's reinforcements were more than ten times larger than those of the Western Army, but their final results in the battle against the Chihu people were not as good as this. Regardless of whether the DPRK and China were determined to negotiate a peace, how could they have any dignity at all?
In the next few days, while Xu Huai collected the prisoners on the northern slope of Songshan Mountain and surrendered them, he also coordinated with the generals of the mausoleum defenders to visit the front line of Yehuang Ridge. Relying on the convenience of the terrain, Xu Huai frequently attacked the enemy fortresses between Gongxian and Hulao.
Conduct small-scale harassment.
During this period, although the reinforcements of the Western Army left Tongguan in the west and filled in Mengjin and Yanshi step by step, Miao Yanxiong, Zheng Huaizhong, Gao Chunnian and others remained stationary. After more than 3,000 surrendered prisoners were gradually arranged to go on the road, Xu Huaicai
Finally, he led his troops to retreat south.
When Xu Huai rushed to Xuzhou and met with Hu Kai who was supervising the war in Xuzhou, the imperial court had officially sent Wang Boqian and others as envoys to enter the camp of the Japanese soldiers in Zhongmou to seek peace.
Xu Huai originally wanted to negotiate peace, but as long as there was no formal decree from the court to order a truce, they could still send troops and horses from Xuzhou into the eastern foothills of Songshan Mountain to harass the captive soldiers and surrendered rebels occupying Zhengzhou, Xingyang and other places;
They could also take advantage of the center of gravity of the captive troops to move to the west of Bianliang, and send troops to recover the walled city east of Bianliang.
In this way, in addition to training troops and familiarizing the generals of the southwestern routes who have not experienced war for a long time, it can also maintain a certain military pressure on the Chihu people and gain more bargaining chips for the inevitable peace negotiations.
Hu Kai also agreed with Xu Huai's proposal. At this time, the soldiers and horses of King Zhuluqin gathered in Xuzhou were nearly 40,000. However, the generals of King Zhuluqin, Cai, Xu local officials, and the central court sent over to attack
The officials who were restrained by Hu Kai were firmly opposed to it.
The soldiers and horses of King Qin gathered in Caizhou on the southwestern roads. In addition to the commanding officers, there were also various road supervisors and ministers accompanying the army. They were nominally under the control of Hu Kaijie, but they had considerable autonomy. Now the court was fully inclined.
Negotiating peace gives them more confidence to hold back their troops.
When Hu Kai went to Caizhou to take up his post, the only direct troops who could really be dispatched were Yang Lin's troops and the rural soldiers recruited in Caizhou. The Caizhou rural soldiers were also handed over to Yang Lin for training and control.
A month ago, in order to contain the captive troops as much as possible from the south, in addition to Xu Xin'an leading more than a thousand soldiers from Tongbai Mountain, Yang Lin led more than 6,000 soldiers and horses to follow Hu Kai and stationed in Xuzhou.
In the past nearly a month, the troops and horses gathered in Xuzhou were certainly not qualified to fight with the main cavalry of the Chihu people in an open area. However, Yang Lin also worked with Xu Xin'an to frequently harass the enemy troops and actively participated in Xu Xin'an.
Defense of the walled city in the northern part of the state.
For dozens of battles, large and small, even though Caizhou still had a large number of brave men and women who could be recruited, qualified generals and generals needed a lot of time to train, and by this time they were already somewhat unable to win.
King Qin's troops on the southwest roads were immobilized, and Yang Lin's troops needed rest and reorganization. Xu Huai had nothing to do, and he had no intention of causing unnecessary casualties to Tongbai Mountain soldiers, so in the name of rest and reorganization, he bid farewell to Hu Kai, led Xu Xin'an's troops, and retreated directly to Tongbai.
Baishan, waiting for the "peace negotiation" to finally "settle".
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It was the end of March when Xu Huai returned to the Chushan Inspection Department (Qingyi Ridge Camp), and the vegetation in the mountains and fields gradually turned green.
In the past three months, the main efforts of the newly established Chushan County have been spent on building the Qingyi Ridge Camp, and opening up the road starting from Huaiyuan, crossing the northern ridge of Tongbai Mountain, Dafu Mountain, and starting from the northern foot of Dafu Mountain.
The passage from the mouth of Chonggou to Qingyi Ridge.
The Huaiyuan-Qingyi Ridge passage crosses the northern foot of Tongbai Mountain and Dafu Mountain. There are many cliffs and ravines along the way. It requires digging out remote areas, digging holes in the cliffs, and setting down wooden piles to build plank roads. The project is more difficult than imagined.
The simple mountain road currently opened in a remote area can only be used by manpower to carry goods, but even so, this road is nearly a hundred miles shorter than the detour from Zhouqiao Station at the east entrance of Tongbai Mountain Road.
Of course, there is an official road from Zhouqiaoyi to Queshan County, and a new road will be built from the official road in Queshan County to the dock on the east bank of the Wuzhai River, which is only twenty miles away.
Simply speaking from the perspective of bulk cargo transportation, it is much more labor-saving to carry grain and grass from Huaiyuan by horse-drawn carriages, via Zhouqiao Station and around the road to the east bank of the Wuzhai River than to rely on manpower to transport grain on the Huaiyuan-Qingyi Ling Mountain Road.
However, this is the most strategic passage in Tongbai Mountain. No matter how high the cost, Xu Huai will build it.
In the battle of Qingquanzhai, more than 3,400 surrendered prisoners and soldiers were finally recruited. They were not expected to become qualified soldiers in a short time. They were all invested in the subsequent construction of fortifications such as the Huaiyuan-Qingyi Ridge plank road, but money and food were not enough.
