Chapter 7 The Golden Age (No. 11) The guard in charge of the alert had already informed the Boling Army about the arrival of Li Jiancheng and Luo Yi. Zhang Jiang, the general on duty, heard about it and quickly led a group of counselors and generals.
After welcoming him out, he searched the crowd several times but did not find Li Xu. Jiancheng grinned and asked in a pretentious manner: "Where is your general? Is he busy all night yesterday? I like him."
Everything must be done by hand!”
Zhang Jiang stepped forward, hugged Jiancheng and Luo Yi, and replied with a smile: "General Xie Yingdeng hasn't woken up yet, and the general is worried. He went to visit early in the morning, so he can't come out to greet the prince. I have sent someone to inform the general.
He'll be here later!"
"Brother Xie is still asleep?!" Li Jiancheng frowned, with a worried look on his face, "If this is the case, it is indeed a troublesome matter. Xu Maogong sent so much food and grass, and I didn't give him half a penny in return. If Brother Xie has another shortcoming... no
There's no rush, no rush, Brother Luo and I can wait slowly, but Brother Xie's healing cannot be delayed!"
"Thank you, Your Majesty, for your concern!" Zhang Jiang handed over his hand again, then took a step aside and asked Li Jiancheng and Luo Yi to go ahead. He took the Boling brothers to follow. At this moment, the guards of Li and Luo hurriedly caught up and saw the two men.
The commander had safely entered Li Xu's army, dismounted, and stood quietly outside the military tent.
Youdao is obedient. Although Li Jiancheng's face is full of smiles at this moment, the critical meaning in his words can be clearly distinguished by General Boling. These people have a friendship with Li Xu.
, for the sake of Zhen'er's face, he still retains some respect for Li Jiancheng, his uncle. Now that Li Jiancheng has figured out his identity as the crown prince, everyone naturally remembers the difference between Boling and Hedong, and laughs.
After saying hello a few times, everyone went about their duties.
There were many low-level civilian staff in the Chinese military tent immersed in business. When they saw the two distinguished guests Jiancheng and Luo Yi, the few who couldn't avoid it stopped their work angrily and bowed their hands. Most of them were focused on their own work, with their heads turned.
Li Jiancheng didn't bother to raise his head. He felt everyone's cold attitude towards him, and couldn't help but feel angry in his heart. But soon, he suppressed the unknown anger and talked and laughed with Zhang Jiang and Luo Yi as if nothing had happened.
"I heard that Brother Xie was out of action that day. Why haven't he woke up yet? There are some old men in our army who can be brought in to help!"
"Prince Xie is concerned that the doctor in the Boling Army has checked General Xie's pulse, and the decoction can be drank. However, General Xie may have phlegm in his heart, so his pulse is stable, but he is sleeping soundly, as if he is not
As if you are willing to wake up!" Zhang Jiang raised his hand and politely declined Li Jiancheng's kindness.
"I don't want to wake up, what's the matter?" Li Jiancheng frowned when he heard this. "Are you short of medicine? Are there any life-threatening medicines like ginseng, Ganoderma lucidum, etc.? I'll send someone to get it right away!"
"My general once had a warehouse on the grassland. Although the trade route has been cut off in the past two years, there are still dozens of Liaodong old ginseng shipped previously, each of which exceeds eight taels!" Zhang Jiang smiled and continued to shake his head.
"Your general is quite rich!" Luo Yi was amused and laughed and interrupted.
"My general once said that if he doesn't become a general, he will become Lord Tao Zhu!"
"Isn't that a pity! The King of Tang always regarded the general as blocking the Great Wall!" Luo Yi looked at Li Jiancheng and joked in a low voice.
"The general has always been able to hold on to what others see as wealth, but in his eyes it is just smoke and mirrors!" Zhang Jiang laughed again and called a few soldiers to make tea.
"No, I have to persuade Zhong Jian to not let him think about retiring!" Li Jiancheng held Zhang Jiang with one hand and Luo Yi with the other. He was anxious before speaking, "You two also have to help persuade Zhong Jian."
He is more than one year younger than me, how could he lose his enterprising spirit at a young age? This kind of thing really cannot be left to his temper!"
"Seeing that the prince is anxious, my general just said it casually, and may not take it seriously!" Zhang Jiang pointed to the bench next to Li Xushuai's case and motioned for the guests to sit down. Without Li Xu's order, he did not dare to go too far and said calmly.
After giving Li Jiancheng a blow, he then pretended to be a little apologetic and explained: "Some time ago, I was mainly busy with fighting, and many things in the six counties have been backlogged. Now that I finally have some free time, the general has arranged all the chores."
They were all moved to the army to handle. In addition, the pensions for the bereaved brothers who died in battle and the resettlement of the injured brothers were also very energy-consuming. Although we were able to defeat Ashina Gutoru with the help of General Luo this time, our Boling Army also suffered very heavy losses...
"
"The Tigers and Ben Iron Cavalry are just fulfilling their own responsibilities. They are not a helping hand." Luo Yi waved his hand gently and refused Zhang Jiang's thanks. Now that he is willing to serve as a minister, his mentality seems much calmer, and he behaves with dignity. "Brothers
If you lose your life for the country, you should handle your funeral more carefully. You can just go and do your work, and the prince and I can just sit around and drink tea!"
"General Zhang, just go to Brother Luo, I will take care of you!" Li Jiancheng breathed a sigh of relief and smiled as half the master of the Boling Army.
"This prince is quite well-educated!" Zhang Jiang secretly admired, smiled, and pointed his finger at the center of the table, "There are specific people responsible for specific things, but I am the most leisurely one. Mr. Luo and the prince eat some dried fruits first."
, this is the candied fruit sent to the labor force from Boling, it tastes really good!"
Placed in the center of the table are four vermilion lacquer plates, in which are placed in sequence the honey-made green plums, red dates, preserved apricots and lotus roots. They are colorful and very tempting. These special desserts are very attractive to Li and Luo.
, it was originally a vulgar thing that I was tired of eating, but since the chaos in the world, such vulgar things have not been seen often. I stretched out my hand to pick a few, threw them in my mouth and chewed them slowly. A hint of sweet and sour taste immediately followed.
It melts on the tip of your tongue and makes you feel indescribably comfortable
Seeing that the guests were eating deliciously, Zhang Jiang thought for a moment and introduced them enthusiastically: "These fruits are the specialties of our six counties. They are good for promoting fluid production and quenching thirst. Commander Zhang prepared them a month and a half ago. It just took a lot of time to climb mountains and ridges along the way."
As soon as it was put into the warehouse this morning, the general immediately ordered people to send more than a dozen baskets to Luo Gong and the Crown Prince. It is estimated that these dried fruits will arrive when the two adults return to the camp!"
"Thank you, General, for your trouble!" Luo Yi and Li Jiancheng put down their tea cups and handed them over at the same time.
"Why not take the water route?" In the blink of an eye, Luo Yi thought of a very strange question. He frowned and asked, but before Zhang Jiang could answer, he found the answer himself. He shook his head with a smile and whispered: "Later.
General Zhang, please send someone to my camp to get a token. With it, you can travel unimpeded across the borders of Youzhou. If military supplies are transported directly from the Sanggan River to Huairong, it will be much easier than traveling by land!"
"On behalf of Zhang, all the Boling brothers, thank you, old general!" Zhang Jiang quickly stood up and bowed his head to the ground. "I was worried about how to transport the big animals captured after the war to Boling. Since the old general is willing to use the road, he has really helped me.
The Boling Army has solved a big problem!"
"Bah! After Li Zhongjian, everyone is learning like a ghost!" Luo Yi raised his foot and made a kicking gesture towards Zhang Jiang. He had put the dried fruit in his mouth but could no longer spit it out, so he had to
Swallowing together "anger" Since last summer, there has been no large wave of business travel between the six counties of Boling and Youzhou. This time, tens of thousands of livestock are marching south along the Sanggan River to Boling.
, but it also opened up an opportunity for reconciliation between the two families.
"At all checkpoints along the way, I, the Boling Army, will pay according to local rules, and I will never let Youzhou suffer any loss!" Zhang Jiang smiled, turned his body a few feet away, and promised in a low voice.
"Although I am poor, I don't look down on your little money!" Luo Yinie looked at Zhang Jiang with squinting eyes. The more he looked at Zhang Jiang, the more he felt that this kid had sincerely set a trap for himself. It was not his character to be taken advantage of by others.
, after a moment of pondering, he found a way to make up for it. "The harvest in the counties of Youzhou was very poor last year. You transported the livestock and asked the caravan to transport more grain and sell it to me at the price in Boling. I ordered someone to do it."
Trade you with salt and iron.”
"No problem, there happens to be a batch of military rations that need to be delivered to Huairong. I will order 30% of the troops to be sent to Youzhou. The old general can arrange for people to receive it nearby by the Sanggan River!" Zhang Jiang agreed without hesitation without thinking.
Although Youzhou and the six counties of Boling are close neighbors, due to various reasons, the price difference between the two places is quite large. The grain is transported all the way to Youzhou and then sold at the market price in Boling. After careful calculation of this transaction,
Luo Yi made a lot of money, but water transportation is far less labor-intensive than land transportation, and the quantity transported at one time is also much larger than that of land transportation. After taking into account the losses and transportation time saved by the people on the way, this deal is a big deal for Boling.
Didn't suffer any loss
When it comes to money and food expenditure, no one in the Chinese army's account at this moment is more accomplished than Li Jiancheng. After thinking about it for a moment, he has already calculated clearly that this is a deal that is beneficial to both Boling and Youzhou.
In terms of the current situation, Youzhou and Boling shook hands and talked happily, which would be of great benefit to the Li family in Hedong. However, the battle near Zhangjiabao had already been fought, and there was no news from Hedong. Li Xu was still traveling all the way to the east of Hedong.
What was he doing transporting food to the front line? Could it be that he had other plans that no one knew about?
Thinking of this, Prince Jiancheng felt more and more that there seemed to be countless mysteries hidden in Li Xu's Chinese army tent, and almost everything was against him. He barely suppressed the annoyance in his heart, ate a few green plums, and then he asked inadvertently,
"Didn't we divide a lot of food, grass and baggage the day before yesterday? Why do we have to send food from Boling to the front line? Once the food is delivered, there is no war to fight. The consumption of going back and forth will be huge!"
"Your Majesty, you don't know!" Zhang Jiang had long expected that Li Jiancheng would ask this question, and didn't want him to have too much misunderstanding. He cupped his hands and explained with a smile: "Those more than 100,000 captives who were captured a few days ago had nowhere to stay.
, my general was afraid that they would cause trouble near the Great Wall, so he handed them all over to Wang Xuba and Guo Fang to escort them to the water. Although those guys are not my race, they are still alive after all. We can't just watch them starve.
So he squeezed out some grain from the treasury and transported it all the way to rescue the emergency."
"Your general is quite kind-hearted!" Luo Yi shrugged his shoulders, somewhat disapproving of Li Xu's actions. "Since we know that they are not of my race, why should we care about his life or death? Why don't we just dig a hole under the Great Wall and bury them alive?"
Is it a favor to them? If you provide them with food to survive, aren't you afraid that you will raise a bunch of wolf cubs and suffer the consequences in the end?"
"My general once said that the wider a person's mind, the wider the place he can manage!" Zhang Jiang glanced at Li and Luo, and continued to add with a smile, "After all, there are one hundred thousand living beings, let them fend for themselves."
, I’m afraid there is a way for grassland people to survive. As long as you help them eat gruel this summer, in autumn, the cattle and sheep will naturally be able to catch autumn fat, and wool and fur goods will be transported continuously.
Go back to Central China!"
Li Jiancheng was moved when he heard that there was something in Zhang Jiang's words. There were two main reasons why he looked down on the Boling Army today. One was because the merger of the two Lis was still unresolved, which always made people worried.
Secondly, due to Luo Yi's sudden attachment, Li Xu's importance to him dropped several times. The Hedong Left Army had always lacked famous generals who could calm the military's morale. Li Jiancheng had always been interested in Li Xu and Luo Yi.
Yi's reputation and military ability are only greater than that of Li Xu, but not smaller than that of Li Xu. In other words, even if Xu Zi is not included in his account now, Li Jiancheng feels that with Luo Yi in hand, the generals under his younger brother are no longer afraid.
"How broad a person's mind is, how wide a place can be managed." Repeatedly chewing Zhang Jiang's words, the resentment in Li Jiancheng's heart slowly began to melt away. He knew that he would not be satisfied with being a harvest prince. He looked forward to building a legacy that surpassed his father's.
His achievements made people finally understand that he, the crown prince, was not a loser who relied on his father's shadow, but a hero who could carry forward the Li family and the Tang family. In order to achieve the goal in his heart, he must correct himself.
His position does not care about trivial details, so that more heroes like Li Xu and Luo Yi are willing to serve for him.
Li Jiancheng couldn't stand Zhang Jiang's explanation anymore, and there was no need to trust Li Xu and treat others with sincerity as before. This was enough. As for Luo Yi and Zhang Jiang's discussion about the Hu people in the fortress, everything was as follows.
The spring breeze passed through his ears, and he could hear the sound, but he didn't notice anything.
"I heard that the thirteen tribes of the Lin tribe once elected your general as Khan. Now you are driving more than 100,000 old and young people from all ethnic groups to settle near Suotou water. Isn't it taking away the grassland of the Lin tribe? Once the two sides conflict, let
How does the general deal with himself?" Luo Yi did not notice that Li Jiancheng was distracted, and discussed with Zhang Jiang the possibility of smoothly settling the prisoners. "And among the more than 100,000 prisoners, there are people from all ethnic groups, ranging in age, male and female, old and young.
Once they conflict with each other, can General Wang be able to suppress them with the few troops he has?"
Zhang Jiang and others have discussed this matter almost every day in the past three days. They have already come to a conclusion. After thinking about it, they responded in a low voice, "Suotou Water is still several hundred miles away from the traditional pasture of the Xi people. The pasture originally belonged to a group of Xi people.
Later, the Suotouxi group was exterminated by the Turks, and both sides of the Suotou River became the territory of Ashina Queyu. Gutuolu took over the land from Queyu and ran it for several more years, moving to dozens of places.
This time, General Wang of the Turkic tribe took the prisoners to Suotoushui for resettlement. One of his goals was to seize pasture from the Turkic tribe. Therefore, the first conflict would definitely not be with the tribes of the Min tribe, but with the vitality after the defeat.
The severely injured Turks and the Pei people will become a surprise force secretly ambushed by the general, and they can catch the Turks off guard!"
Lowering his head and taking a sip of tea, he continued: "As for the prisoners, General Luo can rest assured that before there is no way to ensure that he can survive, they will definitely stay together and wait for the threat of the Turks, so they should
Those who marry intermarry, those who should have children, those who should have children, it’s hard to tell them apart!”
"There is a truth!" Luo Yi was familiar with grassland affairs. After some consideration, he understood that Zhang Jiang was not just wishful thinking. "But if these 100,000 people unite into a rope, it will be a huge monster."
In the end, who can guarantee that they will not become the second Turk?"
"If you drive them to the grassland and leave them alone, within three years, someone will definitely step forward to fill the void left by Ashina Gutuoru. But if you control them from the beginning, these people will not become a big problem in the Central Plains.
My general once said that you cannot imagine that there will be no human beings on the grassland. Only active participation can ensure that the counties of Dongsai will be safe for a hundred years!" Zhang Jiang smiled and answered with a bit of pride.
Li Xu's original words were actually that no one can guarantee that another Ashina Gutuoru will not emerge on the grassland, so instead of leaving the opportunity to the next person who takes advantage of the chaos, it is better to become the next Great Khan himself and at least put Dong Se
It is much safer to control the Hu people under your own command than to control them in the hands of native Hu people.
In the eyes of Zhang Jiang and others, successfully managing the East Fortress is equivalent to doubling the living space of the six counties in Hebei Province. In the future, if there is an opportunity, the Boling Army can not only command the flag to the south, but also command the troops to the north, regardless of advancing or retreating.
