The weather rarely cleared up, and the biting cold wind blew, blowing up layers of snow particles and flying all over the sky. A group of captive cavalry came slowly from the north to the north bank of the Huan River, and a group of Chushan cavalry galloped out from the military stronghold.
Divide into two teams in the snow and go to outflank the captives.
The two sides chased for a while, and hundreds of arrows were shot down on the snow. Seeing that they could not gain any advantage, the captive cavalry galloped towards the north. The Chushan cavalry who intercepted them slowly galloped towards the military stronghold.
Xu Huai was wearing armor and standing on the wall. He looked at the soldiers who were riding north and stopped not far away. It seemed that after a short rest, they would advance towards the army camp again...
It has been almost a month since the end of Ruying, and the second year of Jianji is about to pass. The Xuanwu Army on the left and the Xiaosheng Army on the left have also withdrawn from the banks of the Shuishui River. The defense line from Xiangcheng to Zhaoling has been completely taken over by the Chushan Army.
Although the Japanese soldiers did not occupy Xuchang this winter, Wanqiu launched a large-scale offensive against the cities in Zhaoling, Xiangcheng and other places, and even voluntarily abandoned Linying, Shangshui and other cities south of Yingshui, but thousands of
The elite cavalry dispersed across the Ying River and Ru River and entered Caizhou territory to harass, but this was a huge pressure that the Chushan army had to bear.
After the Battle of Ruying, a large number of war horses were captured. Chushan now has almost or even 10,000 excellent war horses. Both in size and quality, it has surpassed the Huai Prince's army.
However, sometimes good horses are easy to come by, but good soldiers are hard to come by.
When the spoils were distributed in the Battle of Ruying, Zuo Xiao's victorious army was only given a thousand horses, but Yang Lin was not dissatisfied.
After all, Zuo Xiaosheng's army only had a few thousand generals who were learning how to ride on horseback.
Yang Lin was also quite happy to take less war horses in exchange for more armor and more ordinary animals.
After winter, the supply of fodder decreases, and most ordinary livestock can be slaughtered to supplement meat. It is only necessary to retain a certain number of excellent breeding animals for breeding in the coming year.
The feeding of war horses is extremely expensive, and even when the vegetation is lush in spring and summer, the choice of forage is extremely picky.
The Chushan Army has attached great importance to cavalry training in the past two years, and only six to seven thousand people have been trained in cavalry combat. After the heavy casualties in the Battle of Ruying, the number of cavalry troops was reduced to about 5,000.
Normally speaking, with the current size of the Chushan Army, there is no condition for cavalry to serve as the main force. Six to seven thousand horses in the army can meet the needs.
However, the source of Vietnam's war horses was too limited. Xu Huai wanted to keep the extra three to four thousand war horses in Chushan, and continued to expand the breeding scale of the war horse population.
Of course, there is a huge cost behind this.
After absorbing the generals who returned to the military capital village, the Mu Ma Prison was formally established. Since Xu Sheng and He Zhenxia, there have been a total of thousands of military officials and supervisors, and it has jurisdiction over three locations: Yuhuang Ridge, Qingyi Ridge, and Yangshipo.
The military horse farm covers an area of more than 60,000 acres and is responsible for the breeding, treatment and husbandry of more than 4,000 war horses.
This part of the investment alone is enough to raise six to seven thousand more elite soldiers.
In addition, the 5,000 cavalry formally established in the army require three or four times the amount of regular armored soldiers to support the army.
Even so, the level of individual cavalry and shooting of the 5,000 cavalry in the army was far from comparable to that of the Chi Hu and affiliated Fan tribe generals who had grown up on horseback.
This is not something that soldiers can make up for through just two or three years of hard training.
In the next battle at Linying, the Chushan Army had its first large-scale head-on confrontation with the elite Chihu cavalry.
However, the Chushan Army mainly relied on infantry and cavalry for coordinated operations. Their armor and equipment were more sophisticated than the Red Husband Cavalry, which was mainly light cavalry. At the same time, they still had to defend when attacking, so they could barely draw a tie.
now
Thousands of captive cavalry dispersed to infiltrate and harass the Chushan defense area. In order to ensure the smooth progress of Zhaoling and the long embankment on the south bank of the Shuishui River, the main cavalry of the Chushan Army had to dismantle the various military villages stationed along the Shuishui River.
Blockade and intercept the captive soldiers.
The Chushan cavalry relies on military strongholds to fight. Compared with the long-distance raids and the long-term stranded cavalry in the ice and snow, it can be said that they have an advantage. However, counter-infiltration and counter-attack harassment operations are still not optimistic. No matter whether it is war horses or generals, they will be damaged.
Even worse than the Luqi, there is no way to keep all the Luqi north of the Juishui River.
Zhaoling New City and the embankment on the south bank of the Suishui River are the core fortifications that Chushan must build in the coming spring. Therefore, after the Xuanwu Army on the left and the Xiaosheng Army on the left withdrew, Xu Huai could only station the main force of Chushan in
Xiangcheng, Zhaoling, Wuyang and other places.
In addition, the cities of Shangcai, Xiping, Xincai and Linying, Shangshui and other cities located on the Ruying Plain, as well as Linying and Shangshui on the south bank of the Ying River, even if the enemy has already withdrawn, and even if the enemy is unable to attack within three to five years,
Xu Huai also had no ability to divide his troops to take charge.
We can only let these cities lie abandoned on the Ruying Plain, let alone restore the county governance.
In addition to Yexian, Wuyang, Zhaoling and Xiangcheng, which controlled the upper reaches of the Shuili River and were closely related to the western part of Ruzhou where Zuo Xiaosheng's army mainly defended, the Chushan army finally held positions at the northern foot of Tongbai Mountain, Dafu Mountain, and Jin
Apart from Dingshan and Dengtaijia Mountains, only Suiping and Queshan were chosen to restore county governance.
The restoration of county governance in these two places mainly involves the construction of villages in the mountains and valleys south of the two cities of Suiping and Queshan, and close to the main line of Jinding Mountain and Dengtaijia Mountain to the west, where they are not easily disturbed by enemy cavalry.
Reclamation of sloping mountain fields.
In other words, Xu Huai, as the general manager of the Chushan camp, also knew Caizhou, and his nominal jurisdiction more than doubled the Caizhou area. However, the real essence of the original Caizhou area can only be used as a buffer zone between the enemy and ourselves for the time being.
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Of course, since the Battle of Ruying, the Chu army has accepted more than 20,000 soldiers and civilians from the south, and the total number of soldiers and civilians has increased to 500,000, which is only one-third of what it was before the war; the flat and fertile but dangerous terrain on both sides of Ruying is full of dangers.
Land, desire, need are not yet so urgent.
The destruction caused by the war was too tragic.
The limited population not only limits the scale of Chushan's agricultural production, but also limits Chushan's potential for further military expansion.
The imperial court gave the Chushan Army a strength of 30,000 regular soldiers and 20,000 state soldiers. During the Battle of Ruying, the Chushan Army, after extreme mobilization, including Nanfu soldiers and horses, once had more than 60,000 troops.
However, after the Battle of Ruying, in order to ensure that next year's spring plowing would not be affected, and to give Chushan soldiers and civilians more time to rest and recuperate, Xu Huai couldn't wait to disband the second-line troops and return them to production.
In the end, the Chushan Army only retained 30,000 regular soldiers and 10,000 state soldiers.
If the Red Husband had not formally established the General Administration Office of the Four Prefectures in the West of Beijing and organized 20,000 elite Red Husband cavalry under the banner of the West Beijing Army, Xu Huai would have even wanted to further reduce the number of troops on staff.
We are really short of money and food.
Even though the battle of Ruying resulted in huge harvests, there was not much left after tens of thousands of casualties were paid out.
Although the imperial court promised to give the Chushan Army 3 million guan of money and food every year, perhaps during the Ruying Battle, there was a balance of more than 600,000 guan of money and food transferred to Wuyang from Xiangyang. Emperor Jianji used a stroke of his pen to directly use it as a personal reward for Xu Huai.
It was left to Chushan, but in fact it was only enough to provide daily supplies and pay for 30,000 soldiers.
Of course, this does not include the rent reduction and exemption given by Chushan to the generals of the Tianxiong Army.
The cost of raising an elite army of soldiers and horses is too huge.
Apart from the resources to support the army, apart from the construction of the Kuanshui Long Causeway and Zhaoling New City, Xiangcheng, Wuyang, Yexian, Suiping, Queshan and other cities, even if the city is intact, the too low city wall is not conducive to defense, and subsequent city walls
There is an urgent need to widen and heighten, to add towers, war sheds and other ancillary defensive buildings, to dig internal and external trenches, to build sheep and horse walls...
These all mean that money needs to be spent urgently.
The Battle of Ruying also proved that the status and role of the navy cannot be ignored.
Xu Ling initially led 2,000 naval officers to escort Xu Xin'an's troops into the Yingshui River, but finally abandoned the ship and landed ashore. A total of more than 1,200 generals were reduced before and after, and all the warships were destroyed.
Xu Huai, Zhou Luo and others who were from Yanling, Weishi and other generals of the southern rebel army in the watery land were all incorporated into the Chu Shanshui Army, which expanded to 3,000 people.
Building more and stronger warships, and having three thousand men and horses training day and night, are all bottomless pits that swallow up money and food.
Han Changfu, Zhou Xuyi and other rebel generals led thousands of rebel soldiers to retreat into Songshan Mountain to establish a foothold. The imperial court granted Han Changfu and other generals the title of Marquis of Yu, making it clear that the Songshan Rebel Army was subject to the control of Chushan's camp.
Even if the imperial court wanted to appease the rebels and other resistance forces who persisted in fighting the enemy, they only gave them official positions and general titles, but ignored the money and food and allowed them to raise funds accordingly.
However, Chushan could not sit idly by completely. Fortunately, in the early stage, they only agreed to supply armored bows and crossbows, and a large number of armored bows and crossbows were seized during the battle of Ruying.
Shi Zhen, Su Laochang and others were very busy with this, and every money spent on food and supplies was calculated over and over again, but it was difficult to make more requests to the court in a short period of time.
The left and right Shenwu armies under Zheng Huaizhong were reduced to 40,000 soldiers, and the court only paid three million dan for food every year. However, millions of people in Heluo moved south to resettle, so the court needed to spend a large amount of extra money and food.
Moving the capital from Xiangyang to Jianye allowed Emperor Jian and his ministers to save money, which was also a huge expense.
The naval forces in Jianghuai, Jinghu and other places need to be expanded and trained on a large scale. The roads north of the Yangtze River need to be strengthened. We cannot completely rely on the defense of the Huai Palace Army along the Huaihe River.
These are all the money that the court needs to spend in the near future.
In recent years, in order to cope with the war in the north, the Jianghuai, Jinghu, and Zhejiang roads have been repeatedly levied. Millions of refugees have flocked to the south. Without land to make a living, groups of bandits have invaded and plundered places.
Civil unrest is gradually emerging in various places, and currently Jinghu South Road is the worst.
On the eve of the Battle of Ruying, the fleet escorting Qiu Fu from Jinghu South Road to Xiangyang was robbed at the mouth of Dongting Lake.
Millions of stones of money and grain fell into the hands of the great bandit Kong Yanzhou. The Sun thief was so powerful that he claimed to have tens of thousands of naval troops in Dongting Lake. Even if the letters sent by all parties were bluffing to a certain extent, it was still enough to call him a serious problem.
In the end, Emperor Jianji did not interrupt the plan to move the capital. In addition to various factors, it was also to better strengthen his control over the Jianghuai and Jinghu roads. In the end, he did not impose any restrictions on Zhou He, Gao Chunnian and others who had tried their best to obstruct the Northern Expedition in the early stage.
Punishment mainly considers the orderly rule of the Jianghuai, Jinghu and Sichuan-Shaanxi roads, and cannot be maintained without the system of officials headed by Zhou He, Gao Chunnian and others.
When leaving Wuyang, Zhou He, Gao Chunnian and others recommended Xu Wei as the envoy of Jinghu South Road, and mobilized an elite group from Zuo Xuanwei Army to go to Tanzhou to suppress the great bandit Sun Yanzhou.
Xu Huai considered that Xu Weinan had been in poor health since his return, so he suggested that Emperor Jian succeed in selecting another worthy person. However, Xu Wei himself was more worried about the delay. The thieves in Jingnan were so powerful that no one could control them, so he tried his best to comply with it...
