As the morning sun rose, Chen Zixiao halted his horse at the Wuzhai River and looked at the layers of the camp city rising up from the northeast cliff of Qingyi Ridge. It could be roughly distinguished that there were four layers of defense lines from the foot of the mountain to the north cliff. Each layer of defense line was connected by stone steps or plank roads.
They are all connected by cliffs and ravines, with several layers of gates blocking the way.
Even Chen Zixiao could not imagine how much the Chihu people would have to pay if Xu Huai led Chushan's elite garrison to be able to storm Qingyi Ridge from the front.
Maybe this is a task that can never be completed?
Zhang Xiongjun, Han Lurong and others came to Chushan for the first time.
Chen Zixiao had been lurking in Tongbai Mountain for several years in order to do something in the heart of Dai Viet's captive and weak territory, and to contain Dai Viet's use of troops against the Khitan. After walking through every inch of the landscape here, he knew that in his early years, under the northeastern cliff of Qingyi Ridge, there were only
A small village with ten families.
In less than two years, Qingyi Ridge Camp City was built on such a scale. It is hard to imagine how much effort and effort Xu Huai put into it.
"It's a pity that Qingyi Ridge is still too far away from the corner!" Xu Huai said with a frown as he stared at the Qingyi Ridge Camp City.
"The situation is changing," Xu Wujiang lifted his cloak back, held the sword at his waist, and said with his head raised, "When we were building the Qingyi Ridge Camp City, who would have thought that you would have to defend the three hundred miles west of Qingyi Ridge?
"
"Okay, don't come to comfort me!" Xu Huai said with a bitter smile, "If you comfort me again, I will still feel heartbroken when I think of hundreds of thousands of dollars and food being thrown into this!"
Xu Huai is about to take office as the general manager of the Chushan Camp Military and Horse Capital and knows Guangzhou. The day before yesterday, Hu Kai also proposed that the three counties in the east of Caizhou, including Queshan, Huaichuan, and Xincai, be included in the Chushan Camp Defense Zone.
In a defense area as large as three passes in eleven counties under the jurisdiction of Chushan Camp, the Qingyi Ridge camp is less than thirty miles away from the county town of Queshan in the north. From the perspective of the construction of a large defense area, this seems to be a duplication of construction.
What's more, Qingyi Ridge and Queshan are also protected by Shangcaicheng.
From Qingyi Ridge to the east to Rukou, there are small and medium-sized cities in Pingchuan, Zhenyang, Huaichuan, Xincai and other counties standing on the Hehuai Plain. There are no mountains and rivers that can stop the Chihu people's cavalry from reaching the north bank of the Huai River.
.
In winter, the upper reaches of the Huai River will also freeze, and the Red Husband's cavalry can penetrate unscrupulously into Luoshan, Huangchuan and other counties on the south bank.
In the central and eastern part of the entire defense line, there was no such complex and tight defense as the Qingyi Ridge Camp City standing on the bank of the Huai River, which made the Japanese soldiers fearful.
If he could go back in time, he would have known that he would take over Tongbai Mountain and the entire Guangzhou defense area to the east. Xu Huai would definitely have used his limited resources to defend Xincai, Huaichuan or Huangchuan, Gushi and other places that were not dangerous.
"Commander Jie's troops are limited. Even if we gather the brave local troops from Guangzhou, it is not a good idea to defend the various cities separately," Chen Zixiao said. "In my humble opinion, the defense on Huaishang should be focused on the outside and the inside..."
Xu Huai nodded and said, "This is also a last resort."
The so-called "empty external defense" means to put it bluntly: when the military strength is extremely limited, it is taboo to disperse and garrison the cities.
Not only should we not send elite troops to garrison cities such as Queshan, Huaichuan, Zhenyang, Xincai, Huangchuan, Gushi, Guangshan, and Luoshan, but we should even be prepared to give up decisively when necessary and use our limited troops.
Concentrate it on two to three core nodes on the inside.
This is imagining the outside and guarding the inside.
Under this strategic choice, the Qingyi Ridge Camp City was so tightly constructed that it could take care of Queshan to the north and Zhenyang, Huaichuan and other fortresses to the east. Naturally, it was a core node of "defending the interior."
Another core node is Xinyang City, which is backed by the three passes of Jiuli, Pingjing and Wusheng.
The so-called "virtual foreign affairs" not only limit the scale of troops deployed in Queshan, Zhenyang, Huaichuan and other places, but also evacuate the people in these places to Jinghu, Nanyang and other places in advance instead of waiting for the enemy troops.
They marched south in large numbers and watched as tens of thousands or even two to three hundred thousand people were massacred before they had time to evacuate.
However, this will also create another contradiction.
That is, if people evacuate to Jinghu and other places on a large scale in advance, the agricultural production in Guangzhou will be abandoned on a large scale. It will be difficult for the Chushan camp to directly obtain sufficient grain from the local area, and it will not be self-sufficient.
However, in the current situation, Xu Huai cannot expect to cover everything.
"Mr. Shi, Lord Crow and the others are here!"
At this time, a dozen cavalrymen galloped out of the camp city and converged here. Wang Zhang, who was leading people on guard outside, rode over and said.
After half a stick of incense, Guo Junpan, Shi Zhen, Xu Wukun and others rode their horses to the bank of the Wuzhai River, dismounted and came to greet them and asked, "Why did you gallop back from the north all night?"
"Your Highness has gone to Xiangyang. In order to prevent the disturbance from the Japanese soldiers, I marched eastward from Xiangcheng to expel the Japanese soldiers and scouts. Yesterday evening I learned that Your Highness had entered Tangzhou, so I went south from the north overnight!" Xu Huai said.
"His Royal Highness arrived in Tangzhou yesterday. If he kept going, wouldn't it be possible that he would have arrived in Xiangyang by now?" Guo Junpan asked happily, "I hope no more accidents will happen!"
Although Xu Huai trusted Guo Junpan, Shi Zhen, Xu Wukun and others, it was impossible to send people back to Chushan in advance to inform King Jing Zhao Tuan, Zhou He and others of their itinerary.
The strategy proposed by Pu Ban is still top secret at this time.
However, with the old fox Shi Zhen, Guo Junpan, and Xu Wukun, it is not difficult to imagine why King Jing Zhao Tuan went to Xiangyang at this time.
Although the situation is bad, their support plan has reached this point, which can be regarded as a satisfactory result.
Only when King Jing came to Xiangyang to ascend the throne and proclaimed himself emperor could they get real support from Jinghu and other places in Chu Mountain, instead of continuing to bite the bullet and insist on building defense lines along Tongbai Mountain.
Of course, everyone's gloomy mood for many days was swept away, and they were all in high spirits.
"Now we can finally get an official position, right?" Xu Wukun said with a smile.
"Let's talk about the camp first!" Xu Huai said, "We drove through the night without stopping, and we are very hungry!"
"Are you anxious to see Miss Liu?" Guo Junpan said with a smile, "But I didn't expect that you would come back from the north. Miss Liu is still in Huaiyuan and sent someone to deliver the message immediately. It has to be very late.
Came over to see you..."
…………
…………
"Your Highness is quite interesting!"
Everyone returned to the public hall of Yingcheng and listened to Xu Huai's introduction to the contents of the two meetings in Puban and Xiangcheng. In particular, they learned that King Jing had handed over the defense and military and political power of Tongbai Mountain and Guangzhou to Xu Huai's hands.
Even the judge couldn't help but smacked his lips and shouted.
Since the previous dynasty, the names of local chief officials at the state level have undergone four changes: Jiedu Envoy, Defense Envoy, Governor, and Zhizhou.
The Jiedushi had the most authority, especially in the middle and late periods of the previous dynasty. The Jieduzhi inherited the position from father to son, eventually forming a situation where vassal towns were separatist.
At the beginning of the Dai Viet Dynasty, in order to get rid of the shortcomings of the previous vassal and town separatism, the post of Jiedushi became a virtual title and was no longer actually awarded. The local magistrate was in charge of military and political affairs. At the same time, he had checks and balances and the power to supervise and refute the magistrate.
general judgment, record of affairs
Military service and other positions were also held by officials appointed by the imperial court.
This basically eliminates the possibility of Zhizhou specializing in local areas.
At this time, Xu Huai was in charge of the defense area from Tongbai Mountain to the mouth of Rushui River with the title of Commander-in-Chief of Chushan Camp and Military and Horse Capital and Zhizhou Yizhou. Although he was still known as Zhizhou, he had no control over the personnel, finances, military and political matters within the defense area.
By Xu Huaijue, this was actually granted authority similar to that of a Jiedushi envoy.
Only in this way can one be qualified to be called "Jie Shuai".
Xu Huai was not as happy as Guo Jun in judging them, and even felt a little bitter.
In the past, he led troops to fight and achieved great successes. The key point was to avoid the truth and exploit the weakness.
There is no place that must be defended, and soldiers and horses come and go like the wind.
Shuozhou can be given up; it raided Lanzhou City, and Lanzhou City gave up immediately; after attacking Taiyuan, it took out 100,000 soldiers and civilians, and Taiyuan gave up accordingly. It was always careful to avoid confrontation with the elite combat forces of Chihu, which is why it earned this false name.
Although he has now become the "commander" of one party, he can no longer come and go like the wind, and during the battle of Taiyuan, it will be difficult for the Chihu people to ignore his existence.
Once the Red Husband's troops turn south, Chushan will surely be the center of gravity for other attacks.
Although Hu Kai currently advocates that Yang Lin lead the right and heroic army to defend Shang Cai, which can still slightly protect the flanks of Chushan, but when the Chi Hu army moves south and the front is difficult to contain, in order to ensure that Nanyang and Xiangyang are safe, he will
At this time, Hu Kai will still shrink the Right Xiaosheng Army to the southwest.
Xu Huai didn't know how much flesh, blood and corpses would be needed to build a towering Great Wall on the upper reaches of the Huai River that the Red Husbands could not cross.
At this time, Xu Huai was not in a hurry to discuss the distribution of Chushan camp and prefecture and county positions, but wanted to first determine the core strategy of Chushan defense.
"What Mr. Chen said is true. Even if we recruit the soldiers and horses under the jurisdiction of the Yizhou Military and Horse Supervisory Department, it is far from enough to defend the cities separately. We can only defend with Huaiyuan, Xinyang, and Qingyi Ridge as the core.
Inside,"
Shi Zhen also agreed with Chen Zixiao's proposition and frowned and said,
"We must also make preparations in advance to abandon all the cities except Xinyang, Huaiyuan, Qingyi Ridge and Jiuli, Wusheng and Pingjing Pass if necessary. Therefore, the first step for Jieshuai to take over Yizhou is to immediately move Yizhou
The state governance was moved from Huangchuan to Xinyang, and the Chushan camp tent was also moved from Qingyi Ridge to Xinyang. However, Yizhou belonged to Huainan West Road, and His Highness went to Xiangyang to open a government office, and Jingnan Road included Xiangyang Prefecture.
He should be convinced by His Highness soon. However, an envoy was sent from Xiangyang to Shouchun (Huainan West Road Administrative Office, also known as Shouzhou) to negotiate. I don’t know how long it will take to complete the delivery..."
The upper reaches of the Huaihe River east of Tongbai Mountain, including Xinyang and other cities, were under the jurisdiction of Huainan Road at the beginning of the dynasty. Later, Huainan Road was divided into Huainan East Road and Huainan West Road, and came under the jurisdiction of Huainan West Road.
However, the three passes of Pingjing, Jiuli and Wusheng south of Xinyang and Huangchuan are located between Huaiyang Mountain and Tongbai Mountain. They are the key points from Hehuai to Jinghu North Road and Jingxi South Road.
Therefore, from the overall balance of the construction of the Jianghuai defense line, Guangzhou must be demarcated from Huainan West Road and merged into Chushan Camp.
To put it bluntly, if King Jing Zhao Tuan wants to ascend the throne in Xiangyang, he must see that this line of defense can be directly controlled by Xiangyang.
Now it is obvious that Xu Huai and Chushan camp are the direct troops of King Jing Zhao Tuan, not Huainan West Road.
Hu Kai even suggested that Huainan West Road and Huainan East Road, except Guangzhou, should be divided and ruled by King Lu's family in exchange for their recognition of King Jing Zhao Tuan's ascension to the throne in Xiangyang...
