Wangshanjin is the ferry crossing Ru River on the northeast side of Xincai City, and is connected to the post road from Shenqiu County of Yingzhou to the south in the north.
Wangshanjin was originally just a ferry. After learning that Yue Hailou's troops had moved from Xuzhou to Chenzhou, Chushan urgently mobilized hundreds of boats and used cables to build a pontoon bridge at Wangshanjin.
The number of wooden piles erected on the north bank in a hurry was limited, and the ground was not deep enough. The Ru River was so strong throughout the summer that the pontoon was washed away three times in just two months.
However, the pontoon bridge is erected on the Ru River. As long as the refugees arrive and take a short rest, they can directly cross the river south, which is much faster than ferrying them back and forth by boat.
After all, the ferry is only a small area and cannot dock too many ferries at one time, and many refugees are fleeing south with their livestock. How many large livestock can a small boat carry at a time?
Two small camps were set up in front of the ferry on the north bank, and a porridge restaurant was set up in the open space in front of the ferry.
Xu Huai and others rushed back to Wangshanjin. It was getting dark and there were more than a hundred refugees in front of the pontoon waiting to cross the river.
Shi Zhen, Wang Ju, Du Wu and others came over and asked, "Why are you back so soon?"
Wang Ju led most of the bodyguard camp to be stationed in Wangshanjin; and the evacuation of refugees southward through Xincai was the most important thing in Chushan at the moment. Shi Zhen also left other matters at hand and made a special trip to Xincai to take charge of it.
Xu Huai asked people to send the three injured people from Liu Yueting to the camp for treatment, and told Shi Zhen about the puppet Chu army scouts who massacred the refugees from Shangshui County on the way, and Wang Ju knew about it.
"Liu Zhijing has been killed?" Du Wu asked regretfully.
Xu Huai nodded.
They had already received news that Liujiaji was attacked by the puppet Chu army, but it was close to the Ying River. The puppet Chu army had tens of thousands of soldiers and horses active on the south bank of the Ying River. Xu Huai did not plan to send troops to the north bank of the Ru River at this time. , the more specific casualties in Liujiaji were not well known before.
"Do you recognize me?" Du Wu walked up to the young man and asked.
Seeing that Du Wu was wearing armor, and his face was as thin as a knife and an axe, and his face was full of weathered color, the young man asked hesitantly: "Uncle Du Wu..."
Du Wu was originally a swordsman from Caizhou. When he was young, he traveled around the world as a knight. Later, he committed a crime and was rescued by Dengzhou tycoon Zhu Chengjun. He became a disciple of the Zhu family and followed Zhu Chengjun in the horse-trading business in Dengbian and other places.
Zhu Chengjun committed a crime and was exiled to Lanzhou. All other disciples dispersed. Only Du Wu and Zhu Chengjun's nephew Zhu Shicong followed him and joined Xu Huai's command in Lanzhou.
At this time, Zhu Chengjun served as the Supervisor of the Military and Horse Department to handle official affairs and cooperated with Pan Chenghu, while Guo Junfan was in charge of the Xiang Army; Zhu Shicong served as the supervisor of the Military and Horse Supervisor and worked as an assistant to Xu Sheng.
Du Wuze served as the commander under Tang Pan, the first commander of the Tianxiong Army, and also served as the inspector of Xincai.
Xincai is not the focus of Chushan's defense. Previously, only Du Wu's troops were stationed in Xincai.
Du Wu had traveled around the world since he was young, following Zhu Chengjun, and was familiar with powerful figures in Tang, Deng, Cai, Chen and other places. He had been a guest in Liujiaji many times.
After the attack on Taiyuan, Xu Huai returned to Chushan to take charge of the Tianxiong Army and the Chushan camp. In addition to issuing orders to strengthen the country and clear the country in Xincai, Queshan, and Zhenyang counties, he also sent people to contact areas north of Ru River and Ying River. They persuaded them to lead their tribesmen and fellow villagers to retreat southward.
Liu Zhijing was on the list of key lobbyists, and Zhou Jing even personally took the letters of introduction from Zhu Chengjun and Du Wu to the Liujiaji in Shangshui.
However, a figure like Liu Zhijing was well-known in the world, but at the critical moment he could not let go of the good land and beautiful house and hesitated until the puppet Chu army crossed the Ying River and captured Liujiaji, causing his family to be destroyed.
However, there are not just one or two sloppy figures like Liu Zhijing; even powerful tycoons in Xu, Chen and other places north of Yingshui River were frightened by the massacre in Chenzhou, and finally chose to surrender to Yuehai Tower to protect themselves.
Liu Zhijing refused to evacuate to the south. It is clear that deep down in his heart, he had the thought of "a good bird chooses a tree to roost in"; the local powerful people did not have much loyalty to the imperial court, and secretly did many illegal and illegal things.
However, Liu Zhijing and others did not expect that although Yue Hailou adopted a strategy to recruit local forces in Chenzhou and Xuzhou after the massacre, he had no intention of recruiting local forces south of Yingshui River.
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This is mainly because Yue Hailou does not expect to directly tear apart the Ru River defense line in the short term. He regards the area south of Ying River and north of Ru River as a buffer zone.
On the one hand, the puppet Chu army did not want the local forces in this area to be used by Xiangyang, on the other hand, its military supplies in Chenzhou were still extremely tight.
In the long run, Yue Hailou had no choice but to move north of Yingshui River to appease the people, so he could only focus on the south of Yingshui River in the near future. Naturally, he had to break down every village and village, and burn, kill, and loot.
Squeeze every grain of grain and every foot of cloth clean.
Of course, Xu Huai will need these local forces who were brutalized by the puppet Chu army and forced to flee south to be used by Chushan in the future. Naturally, the subtleties here will not be revealed again.
"The number of refugees heading south from Wangshanjin in the past two days has obviously decreased a lot, and this may have to come to an end for the time being," Shi Zhen said.
Ru River and Ying River are roughly parallel, both flowing into Huai River from northwest to southeast. Five cities are built on Ru River, from Xiangcheng, Zhaoling, Shangcai, Xincai and Huaichuan where Rukou is located.
Although the Ru River section in Xincai is only more than 50 miles long, only Chushan has built a pontoon bridge here, while Xiangcheng, Zhaoling, Shangcai and the lower reaches of Huaichuan can only rely on the help of original ferries.
Refugees move south.
During the flood season, the Ru River has strong waves. Zhaoling, Shangcai and other places only rely on a small number of boat ferries to pick up people, and the speed is extremely slow, forcing a large number of refugees to gather in Wangshanjin to cross the river south.
In the past two months, 140,000 to 50,000 refugees will have crossed Ru River from Wangshanjin.
The Chenzhou Massacre and the puppet Chu army's wanton burning, killing and looting on the north bank of Rushui also made the people in Xincai, Queshan and Zhenyang counties wake up and started to join the refugees on the north bank of Rushui River at the mouth of Jingshi River.
And the pontoon bridge of Zhouqiao went south to escape.
Most of the refugees eventually chose to continue to Jinghu, Xiangyang and other places to avoid the disaster of war, but there were still nearly 20,000 young people, plus more than 40,000 dependents, who chose to stay in Chushan.
Most of these people had relatives and friends who were killed by the puppet Chu army, so they chose to stay in Chu Mountain, hoping to contribute to the defense against the barbarians.
Of course, Chushan's financial resources at this time are still extremely limited, and there is no way to integrate 20,000 young men into the army. Currently, more than a thousand Jianrui are selected as reserve grass-roots military officials and trained into the army first, and the others are sent to Chushan.
Resettlement in Xinyang.
Fortunately, after more than two months of exploration, the one-step refined iron smelting method has begun to mature.
In addition to the two newly built Liantang blast furnaces in Shibaliwu, three private iron yards with good coal and iron resources were also purchased from the upper reaches of Baijian River and near Pingjingguan to build Liantang blast furnaces. These three places alone
It can absorb seven to eight young and strong labor force.
The emperor's younger brother Zhao Guan took control of Huainan. He only stationed 30,000 troops in Xuzhou, Suzhou and Chushan, but moved more than 70,000 troops to Shouzhou and Luzhou in the south of Shouzhou. It was clear that he wanted to control Huainan.
He is still very wary of Xiangyang as he manages his own territory.
At this time, no matter how cheap and high-quality the refined iron produced from Chushan was, there was no way to transport it into Huainan via the Huai River.
Xu Huai had no hope for this either.
There are overland roads in Xinyang via Pingjingguan and Wushengguan leading to Jinghu North Road; Tongbai Mountain Road leads to Nanyang; new mountain roads in the upper reaches of Baijian River, Yuhuangling, and Xiema Mountain south lead to Suizhou.
Now there are abundant young people in Chushan. As long as the cost of smelting refined iron is low enough, even if it is carried on shoulders, it can be transported out of Chushan and sold.
Biyang has Tang River water transportation connected to the Han River. Now there are abundant young people, and a larger transportation team can be formed to transport the smelted refined iron to Biyang for shipment, and then be sold by water transportation to Jinghu and even Jianghuai and other places.
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Xu Huai initially set the goal that Chushan would export 500,000 kilograms of refined iron every month, and use this to feed the newly absorbed population of nearly 50,000; and the transportation team of 5,000 people would also be directly managed in a paramilitary manner;
There is even a plan to organize a transport fleet under the name of Zhufengtang to transport refined iron and other products from Biyang to Jinghu, Jianghuai and other places for sale.
In this way, in addition to maintaining the Tianxiong Army's 10,000 regular troops, 5,000 Xiang troops, and the prefecture, county, and township bureaus totaling 1,000 yamen, Chushan will also have 3,000 construction troops and 5,000 heavy supply troops.
Reserve establishment; in addition, the Iron Supervisor, the Horse Supervisor, the Craftsmanship Institute, etc. are all directly subordinate to the Gongcao, and the tens of thousands of craftsmen and mine workers can also be regarded as the reserve soldiers of Chushan.
Only with this foundation, Xu Huaiyou had the confidence to defend Tongbai Mountain impregnably.
Xu Huai went into the camp to rest for a while, thinking that after nightfall he would go with Zhou Jing, Shi Hu and others to Shenqiu, Taihe and other places to spy on the enemy. However, he did not expect that as soon as it got dark, an urgent message would arrive from the south bank.
"..." Shi Zhen handed the urgent letter to Xu Huai and said, "Zheng Tu urgently sent someone to send the letter back. King Huai sent an envoy to Xiangyang the day before yesterday to express his feelings and wanted to transfer Han Shiliang's troops to Sizhou!"
"This grandson is going to give up Xuzhou and Suzhou without fighting?" Wang Ju asked in disbelief with his eyes wide open.
Xu Huai took the letter, glanced at it, and handed the letter to Jiang Xie in the reporter's office for filing with a calm expression.
Xuzhou controls the Si River and Suzhou controls the Bian River. They are two important towns on the north bank of the lower reaches of the Huaihe River. The cities are strong. And because there is the Sishui River and the Bianshui River leads to the Huaihe River, they are not afraid of being surrounded by the enemy and the reinforcements will not be able to reinforce them. It should be said that they are defending the lower reaches of the Huaihe River.
The two most important nodes.
Of course, Sizhou is also on the north bank of the Huaihe River, but it is close to the Huaihe River. Just guarding the Sishui River, there is no way to bring the large area on the north bank of the lower reaches of the Huaihe River under Dai Viet's rule.
Of course, the reason why Xu Huai was in a calm mood was that he had expected this; and the King of Huai sent an envoy to Xiangyang to express his love, apparently asking Xiangyang for instructions, but this was only a superficial respect for Xiangyang.
Even if Emperor Jianji disapproved, King Huai would still take matters into his own hands.
This is also one of the main reasons why Chushan initially adopted the strategy of imagining the outside world but making the inside reality reality.
If only Zhao Guan, Yan Shiyong, Ge Boyi, Wang Boqian, Yang Maoyan and others had the courage to actively resist the Red Husbands.
If they dare to occupy important towns such as Xuzhou and Suzhou without retreating, they will inevitably occupy cities such as Bozhou and even Yingzhou on both sides of the Wo River to the north of Shouzhou as a barrier in the upper reaches of the Huai River.
In this case, Xu Huai certainly dared to use Xincai as a bridgehead and take more active military actions against the north bank of Ru River.
Precisely because it is expected that the Huaiwang line will completely shrink to the banks of the Huaihe River, it means that the Pingyan army of the Chihu people has enough spare power to send elite troops to the banks of the Yingshui River, and even has the ability to occupy the entire territory of Yingzhou.
If Xu Huai still deploys the main force of his troops in Xincai City, which is isolated on the Huaibei Plain, the only outcome will be that he will most likely be surrounded by an enemy army several times larger than his own, with a large number of elite red cavalry...
Now, if the situation goes wrong, they can simply abandon Xincai City and withdraw their few troops to Qingyi Ridge and Zhouqiao.