"In troubled times, human life is as cheap as grass!" Lin Fu stood on the grass slope with his hands behind his hands, looking at the setting sun on the top of the distant mountain, and said with emotion.
There was only Gao Zongting beside Lin Fu, with guards scattered around.
Gao Zongting had just accompanied Lin Fu out of the medical camp to visit the injured soldiers.
In front of the injured generals, Lin Fu must inspire everyone's morale and let everyone know that being injured or even sacrificed is honorable and worthwhile; in front of officials and generals, Lin Fu must show firmness and iron-blooded will, no matter the cost
He sacrificed himself to fight for victory; but Lin Fu had not yet cultivated to the point of being hard-hearted, so he couldn't help but sigh.
Sometimes this kind of emotion is also a sign of weakness and hesitation. Lin Fu also regarded Gao Zongting as both a teacher and a friend, so there was less of a barrier and he could treat each other more candidly.
After continuing to attack Yongjia for twenty days, the Huaidong Army accumulated nearly 7,000 casualties. The New Zhejiang Southern Army and the Zhejiang Marching Army suffered the most serious casualties. The total number of generals killed on the battlefield by these two armies exceeded 1,500.
people.
Since the rise of Lin Fu in Jiangning, the Huaidong Army has never suffered such heavy casualties in a short-term local battle.
Gao Zongting looked at the blooming flowers in the mountains and fields. It was already early summer, and said: "We cannot let the war drag on until the rainy season. We must let the She family make a decision to evacuate Yongjia or reinforce Yongjia before the rainy season. We must fight like this! Yue
It's cruel, and the more intense the consumption, the more the She family's 'delay' strategy can be broken - before the war, I was worried about whether the generals would be able to withstand such a strong attack, but it seems I was worrying too much."
Lin Fu turned around, looked at the camp built around the hilltop, and said: "The situation does not allow us to calmly clean up the old mountains and rivers. The so-called strategy and tactics have a very important principle, which is to do not give to the enemy what he wants! The She family is determined
If you delay, we will naturally fight fiercely!"
After a pause, Lin Fu said again: "When it comes to running an army, clear rewards and punishments, and strict discipline will already have clues of a famous general," Lin Fu said, "But I think there are still some shortcomings - it can be done in depth.
There are still many places to work.”
Gao Zongting smiled and said: "When it comes to running an army, no one in the world can compare with you. When I led the left army from Jiangdong to the north to King Qin, I won four battles in Yannan, and the commander-in-chief was full of praise. Compared with your work, I
Plan, your Excellency, in just ten months or more, you have made the Jiangdong Left Army look like a tiger and wolf army, and even impressed the commander-in-chief - today I know that Your Excellency has another plan, but it still makes people marvel!"
How high a battle damage rate the army can withstand without collapsing is a question worth exploring.
Since a campaign is composed of multiple battles of different sizes and there is a buffer during the battle, the battle damage rate suffered by the campaign is much higher than that of a single battle.
But no matter what, there is rarely an elite army in the world that can withstand more than 30% of casualties in just twenty days without losing morale.
Compared with other elites of the Huaidong Army, the New Zhejiang Southern Army has been established for the shortest time, and the Zhejiang Marching Army has experienced the least battles, and its system is relatively complex. However, these two armies suffered more than 30% of casualties in twenty days.
After that, morale and fighting will remained at a considerable level. Moreover, the New Zhejiang Southern Army suffered nearly 2,000 casualties in the Battle of Wushanjian and the Battle of Tianshui Village.
To maintain morale, Lin Fu ordered Zhou Tong to do a lot of work, including quickly transporting the corpses of the fallen generals to Yueqing and other places for centralized burial, and quickly evacuating the severely disabled generals from the battlefield to Ouhai for resettlement and staying in the army medical camp.
Those treated on the spot were those whose injuries were not particularly serious and the number of wounded was extremely large.
Of course, the most important item is the allocation of land for pensions and military merit awards. Under the personal supervision of Lin Fu, they have been launched vigorously in late March. This has an immediate and lasting effect on morale motivation and encouragement.
In a cruel war, no matter how wisely local forces protect themselves, it is difficult to avoid being hit.
If people flee or flee, or if they are punished or suppressed after the war, a large amount of ownerless land will be created.
The Zhejiang and Fujian armies entered southern Zhejiang aggressively. Even if they did not blackmail local forces excessively, they would divide the unowned land as war dividends that the clan forces headed by the Eighth Surnames, including the She family, should enjoy as a matter of course.
In the early years, Lin Fu led the left army from Jiangdong to the north to King Qin, and then joined forces with the Tianjin Navy to regain Hejian Prefecture. During this period, the Lin family, together with local grandsons, Zhou and other tribes, wantonly occupied unowned land. There is no essential difference between this. Because of this,
Only then did the Sun, Zhou and other tribes fully support Huaidong, and finally chose to follow Lin Fu from Jinhai to move to Huaidong.
The biggest difference is that the power of the She family is basically based on the clan power, and they can only use the plundered land as a reward for the clan power. From the early Sun, Zhou and other clans who moved to Huaidong, Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian
When everyone finally evacuated from Jinhai, Lin Fu, while restricting them from annexing fields from local areas, still found a better and acceptable way out for the large amount of capital they had accumulated, which was trade and capital expansion.
In this way, Lin Fu fundamentally prevented the Sun, Zhou, Lin, Huang and other tribes from getting involved in exacerbating local land annexation conflicts. There was almost no resistance within the Huaidong Military Division to form a unified idea to suppress land annexation.
——This point is particularly important.
Even the Lin family, including Lin Xuwen, later sold the land that had been annexed by generations on a large scale and converted it into gold and silver capital as principal to invest in Huaidong Bank for capital expansion.
Only in this way could Lin Fu obtain enough official land to carry out casualty compensation and military merit conferment on a large scale.
There is no more direct and thorough way to make ordinary generals loyal than conferring fields.
Rewards of gold and silver may make generals feel grateful, and sometimes large-scale plunder is also a way to reward merit and boost morale; but conferring fields can make generals and other families feel grateful.
In a farming society, people are attached to the land and live in groups. Betrayal of any nature and degree not only means that the land may be deprived of it again, but it will also make you and your family excluded in front of the villagers, making it impossible to hold your head high.
——To this extent, it also makes the generals who grant fields more loyal and heroic than others.
The tradition of the Huaidong Military Division must be maintained and resistance from local forces must be avoided. However, at the same time, Lin Fu needs to conduct extensive land grants to generals from southern Zhejiang in order to establish his personal and Huaidong Military Division as soon as possible.
The prestige of southern Zhejiang and the foundation of rule that cannot be replaced by others - the only way is to suddenly intensify the war in southern Zhejiang and rapidly expand the scope of casualty pensions or military merit.
Although Yueqing and Ouhai counties are located in the valley plains of the lower reaches of the Yongjia River, their territory is mountainous and the number of fields is far less than that of Hailing Prefecture, Pingjiang Prefecture and other counties.
The number of public lands that can be taken over from Yueqing and Ouhai counties has not been finally calculated at this time, but it is unlikely to exceed 150,000 acres. Even if Huipu, Wenling and Hengyang and Pingming counties in the south are added
, the total amount of official land that can be obtained from Yongjia and Taizhou may be four to five million acres - compared with Huaidong's initial acquisition of nearly 400,000 acres of official land from Chongzhou County, we can know the grain fields in southern Zhejiang.
nervous.
There are only about five counties in the eastern part of Yongjia Prefecture and the eastern part of Taizhou Prefecture. However, because the territory is widely distributed in coastal valleys and plains, it is the region with the richest land and population resources in southern Zhejiang. After experiencing the brutal war, the population of the five counties has returned to approximately
There are more than 110,000 households, which should account for more than half of the three prefectures in southern Zhejiang.
There are 110,000 households in the five counties, about 70% to 80% of which are poor and landless tenant farmers.
This time, the pensions and military merit awards for the generals of the New Zhejiang Southern Army directly affected more than 6,000 households from poor families in Southern Zhejiang, and the total number of farmland granted was about 90,000 acres of paddy and dry land.
There are more than 6,000 children from poor families, about half of whom are former generals of the Southern Zhejiang Resistance Army, a considerable number of whom are local warriors recruited from the local area after the formation of the new Southern Zhejiang Army, and a considerable number of whom are from Tianshui, Wucuo and Zhangdu.
The rural soldiers who surrendered to the village had a characteristic. They did not have much identification with the She family or the Zhejiang and Fujian Army. Although they had a sense of identification with the Huaidong Army before, it was not very deep.
Casualty pensions and military merit awards are of extra importance at this time.
With these more than 6,000 households and other poor tenants who benefited from the new policy of rent reduction and tax exemption, the Huaidong Military Division's rule in southern Zhejiang will be directly consolidated, and at the same time, other children from poor families in southern Zhejiang will be encouraged. Naturally,
He will also compete to serve the Huaidong Army and the Huaidong Army Division.
Only by achieving this step can Huaidong have the basis for further long-term tug of war with the She family in southern Zhejiang and a war of attrition.
Lin Fu had nothing to do, so he talked to Gao Zongting about his experiences in the Agrarian Revolution and his own experiences over the years.
"After conferring land and occupying southern Zhejiang, the income from public land will be greatly reduced!" Gao Zongting said with emotion.
Currently, Huaidong's public land income accounts for a considerable proportion, and the Huaidong Army's military expenditures have increased rapidly. If the finances are not to be tight, Huaidong's income from all aspects should increase rapidly.
Gao Zongting and everyone in Huaidong all hoped that the number of public fields and the accompanying rental income would continue to increase with the expansion of the Huaidong Army and should not stagnate.
"In the past, increasing sources of income from newly expanded areas mainly relied on taxes and rent collection from public land," Lin Fu said. "Our thinking needs to change and focus on restoring local production - issuing Huaidong copper coins. There is no doubt that we are
We can earn huge income. At the same time, we import a large amount of iron, salt and other materials to ensure that Huaidong copper yuan has a return channel to ensure the stability of the currency value. But at the same time, iron salt can be imported on a large scale, and we can also share this part of the income.
Even if we don’t consider the long term, the short-term income will not be much less than the traditional method..."
The copper coins cast by Huaidong using innovative techniques are exquisitely decorated, easy for the public to accept, and difficult to imitate, but the cost is lower than traditional castings.
The most important thing is that the currency value of Huaidong copper coins is ten times or even dozens of times that of traditional copper coins. The profit of Huaidong copper coins is naturally extremely high. The only thing to pay attention to is to prevent blind pursuit of coinage profits and reckless manufacturing.
This has led to uncontrolled and crazy price inflation.
Actively importing salt, iron and other materials will, on the one hand, ensure the stability of Huaidong's copper dollar value. On the other hand, importing bulk materials for trade will also bring a lot of benefits to Huaidong.
Hearing Lin Fu talk about this, Gao Zongting smiled and said: "Speaking of salt and iron, the special envoy sent by Zhang Yan has arrived in Yueqing. You can't keep avoiding him!"
The current salt and iron monopoly, especially the Lianghuai salt tax, is currently the most important source of income for Jiangning. It is a financial right that Jiangning will never let go to the local government.
The war in southern Zhejiang was going on like a raging fire, and lost ground was frequently regained. Zhang Yan couldn't wait to extend his tentacles.
Lin Fu smiled and said: "Ask Hu Zhiyong to drive the people back - let's just say that the Huaidong Army's military expenses in southern Zhejiang cost 200,000 taels of silver every month. When will Jiangning make up for this gap with Huaidong?
Go ahead and send someone to discuss the salt and iron tax..."
"Salt is great profit," Gao Zongting said with emotion. "After the emperor ascended the throne in Jiangning, he was determined to clean up the broken mountains and rivers and rectify the defense line. The first thing he focused on was to raise money. When the new emperor ascended the throne, he could not use the knife to increase conquests.
, and for the time being, we are not competing with the local government for financial rights, so we can only place our hopes on Zhang Yan..."
"On the one hand, salt merchants mix private salt with official salt and sell it," Lin Fu said. "But even if the court can vigorously crack down on private salt, the price of salt will rise significantly, forcing the people to eat light food.
, it is difficult to see a comprehensive improvement in salt tax revenue..."
"It may not be a good thing to directly drive away the people sent by Zhang Yan," Gao Zongting thought for a moment and said, "I am afraid that other vassals will imitate Huaidong, and Huaidong will gain a bad reputation and not benefit much..."
"Based on what Zongting sees, what should we do?" Lin Fu asked.
"On the salt matter in southern Zhejiang, Huaidong still needs to hold on to the issue of 'military dependents'!" Gao Zongting offered advice, "I suggest you let Mr. Hu negotiate with the people sent by Zhang Yan. The general's salt matter should be assigned to the Huaidong Army.
It is within the exclusive scope of the Secretary; other than that, the salt affairs in southern Zhejiang still belong to the Salt and Iron Envoy Department..."
"..." Lin Fu thought about Gao Zongting's suggestion.
Gao Zongting continued: "The price of salt is high, and salt is a heavy burden on the poor people. Therefore, poor families usually eat light food. Huaidong supplies salt to the military, even if the current salt price drops further
Half, each pound of salt still yields forty yuan. While making up for the military funding gap, the most important thing is to consolidate the superior position of military households in the local area, making them more loyal to Huaidong, and at the same time, it can also further attract
Poor children from southern Zhejiang joined the Huaidong Army..."
"This is feasible..." Lin Fu nodded. Running an army and governing a place is a complex knowledge that attracts people's hearts. To put it simply, it is nothing more than extending favors and benefiting them.
But treating everyone equally is not necessarily the best.
While ordinary people in southern Zhejiang are forced to eat high-priced official salt, military families are able to obtain cheap salt supplies. Only by comparing the two can the military families more truly feel the benefits and benefits that Huaidong has brought to them.
Gao Zongting added: "To provide salt to the military, the Huaidong Army's generals should be compared to Huai, and the standard can even be raised a little higher - these can be discussed with the officials of the Salt and Iron Envoy Department. Jiang Ning must have nothing to say about this.
It can be said."
Lin Fu raised his head and glanced at Gao Zongting.
Gao Zongting's policy was very poisonous, but it was poisonous to Jiangning's salt policy, but it was beneficial to Huaidong without any harm.
The supply standard for Huaidong generals is six kilograms of salt a year, but how can the poor people in the local area afford so much salt? They usually eat light food, and only eat more salt during the busy farming season.
, you may not be able to afford six pounds of salt in a year.
If Huaidong supplies salt to military families at a standard of six kilograms of salt per person per year or even higher, a large amount of private salt will actually flow semi-openly to the local area through this method. It is one thing for Huaidong to benefit from this, but more importantly
This approach will openly destroy the local foundation of Jiangning's salt policy.
If no one in Jiangning realizes the trap involved, in the short term, Huaidong will return the salt affairs of the newly occupied land in southern Zhejiang to Jiangning. But in the long term, when this method is generally promoted in the area controlled by Huaidong
, the salt tax revenue that Jiang Ning can obtain from Huaidong will drop significantly - and all this is done on the basis of Jiang Ning's formal consent, and Jiang Ning cannot go back on it even if he wants to.
It would be impossible for other vassals to imitate Huaidong. After all, currently only Huaidong can control the salt fields and even purchase a large amount of private salt from the Haidong area.
"Compared to driving people away directly, Zongting's strategy is very good!" Lin Fu said, "The specific details will be discussed between you and Zhiyong..."
To be honest, Lin Fu had always been worried that Gao Zongting would be too deeply influenced by Li Zhuo, and that when the conflict between Huaidong and the Yuan family intensified in the future, Gao Zongting's stance would become hesitant again.
The policies proposed by Gao Zongting had the effect of sweeping the salt policy in Jiangning out of the water, but what made Lin Fu even more gratified was that Gao Zongting showed a fundamental stance based on the interests of Huaidong.
Fundamentally, if Huaidong wants to take the opposite path, it must strengthen Huaidong while doing everything possible to weaken the Jiangning regime.
However, under the current situation, if Huaidong wants to implement the strategy of defending Huaihe and attacking Fujian, it has to maintain the stability of Jiangning's regime, avoid conflicts with Jiangning, and provoke new conflicts. In some cases, it is even forced to retreat in order to weaken Jiangning's regime.
Therefore, we can only adopt more covert and deceptive methods.
Qin, Cao, Fu and others were better at military strategy. Although Lin Mengde, Sun Jingxuan, Hu Zhiyong and others were good at government affairs, they were not as good as Gao Zongting when it came to using tactics, digging holes and setting traps for their opponents.
Thinking of this, Lin Fu thought of Song Jia who was staying in Yueqing at this time. When it came to the level of tactics, Song Jia was not inferior to Gao Zongting, but he didn't know what kind of person Song Fu was who trained Song Jia.
"Okay, Mr. Hu will go to Ouhai tomorrow, so I will go to Ouhai." Gao Zongting didn't know that Lin Fu's mind had been wandering all over the world, so he just replied calmly. Some things could only be tacitly understood for the time being.
conduct.
At this time, Zhou Tong came over on horseback, handed the horse to his subordinates, climbed up the grass slope, and asked from a distance: "What are you discussing with Mr. Gao? No one has been seen for a long time."
"We are discussing the salt issue in southern Zhejiang," Lin Fu replied, "Why are you here to join in the fun?"
"Salt matter?" Zhou Tong asked in confusion, and then said, "The people sent by Jiang Ning rushed back. Jiang Ning did not give any benefits, but wanted to grab the benefits. How can there be such a cheap thing in the world?" As Lin Fu
After personally meeting the general in southern Zhejiang, Zhou Tong naturally knew that Yan and Iron Envoy Zhang Yan had sent people to southern Zhejiang.
"We already have countermeasures for this matter, so you don't need to worry about it," Lin Fu asked again, "Has the military meeting reached a conclusion? What's the next step?"
"The casualties have been high these days. If we continue such a high-intensity tug-of-war, we will be under a lot of pressure," Zhou Tong said. "Do the generals think it's time to slow down?"
"I'm used to fighting downwind battles in the past. This time, all the ministries suffered heavy casualties. It's hard to get used to it for a while. It's normal for everyone to have thoughts in their hearts, but the tug-of-war will still continue," Lin Fu said, "We can't hold on, Zhejiang
The Fujian army is even more unable to hold on; the tug-of-war will continue at least until the Zhejiang and Fujian army rises to reinforce Yongjia or the defenders withdraw from Yongjia. At night, you ask Tang Fuguan, Chen Dingbang, Zuo Guangying, Liu Zhenzhi, Zhang Jiheng, Mao Tengyuan, Chen Kuili and others to come to our university
Come to the tent, I will personally do ideological work for you... If it doesn’t work, we will take some soldiers from the Jinghaihai camp and go ashore to relieve the pressure on various ministries.”
"Sometimes, the methods may seem clumsy, but they are effective, and there is no solution," Gao Zongting said. "Last year, Yan and Hu attacked Jinhai with this method. The Tianjin Navy finally had to abandon Jinhai and withdraw...
I estimate that the Yongjia defenders are more likely to retreat, and our army should be prepared to inflict heavy damage on the defenders when they retreat."
"It is naturally good if the defenders can withdraw - the Zhejiang and Fujian troops abandon Yongjia and return to Pu. Wenling cannot defend it alone. The Taizhou defenders will inevitably withdraw to Xianju, Linhai, which is more dangerous and closer to Dongyang County," Zhou
Tong said, "Of course, if the Zhejiang and Fujian troops massively reinforce Yongjia, even if they have less than 10,000 troops, they will be dragged down. Now I just hope that the She family will make a decision quickly, but our life is really uncomfortable."
Listening to Zhou Tong's complaints, Lin Fu just smiled, as long as he could understand Huaidong's overall strategic vision.
The army suffered such heavy casualties. As the commander-in-chief, Zhou Tong was under heavy pressure. He could only run to Lin Fu and complain twice.
Zhou Tong added: "Everyone has found that fire oil cans are very useful during sieges. Can the military department supply more..."
In cold weapon warfare, the use of fire has almost become a conventional tactical choice. In water battles dominated by wooden ships, the use of fire and fire prevention are the most important tactical choices, but the main attack equipment, tents, and ships are the main ones.
When soldiers were fighting, direct use of fire was rare. After all, the main types of fire used today were oil-impregnated rockets. When shooting enemy soldiers, the fire was easy to extinguish, but it was difficult to provide additional damage.
The kerosene jar has almost become a standard war tool in Huaidong Shuiying. The narrow-mouthed pottery bottle is filled with kerosene, and the mouth of the bottle is plugged with cloth. During war, it is lit and thrown at the enemy ship. The broken bottle and oil are splashed, causing a fire. It is difficult to
put out.
During this siege, Zhou Tong borrowed a batch of fire oil cans from Shuiying to use in the siege, and found them to be very useful. However, the number of fire oil cans used in the battle before was limited, and they were mainly used to attack the defenders' city walls.
Although it is useful, it does not show its great power.
The defenders were soldiers from Fujian. They mostly wore armor and were equipped with shields, which could effectively protect them from the rain of arrows. Even if they were injured by arrows, they would hardly be fatally injured. The use of kerosene tanks was very different. As long as they could rush to the nearest
He set fire to the fire oil can and threw it away. The broken oil from the can was splashed, and large areas of the bodies of the Fujian soldiers were immersed in oil and burned. The skin of the soldiers would be peeled off even if they died, which would cause chaos in the enemy's formation to a great extent.
Especially if the armor has strong protective power, if it is hit by a kerosene tank, it is more likely to directly smash the kerosene tank and have the kerosene splashed on your body.
Once a soldier's body is burned over a large area, treatment is several times more difficult than ordinary wounds caused by swords and arrows.
Later generations of simple incendiary bombs filled with white phosphorus were even used by civilians against armored vehicles. Based on the later generations of simple incendiary bombs, Lin Fu advocated the use of kerosene tanks in the military. How could it not be used? It's just that the cost is relatively high.
First, the cost of firing portable ceramics was not low at the time, and second, liquid kerosene at room temperature was rare in the world.
The cost of making a fire oil jar is worth nearly a hundred arrows.
But since it is easy to use, and since it is a war of attrition, Lin Fu has no reason not to support it. After thinking about it, he replied to Comrade Zhou: "Give me the number, and adjust it from the water camp first..." Lin Fu thought more,
How to make more and better simple incendiary bombs. Before the practical use of gunpowder, it is relatively easier to improve the performance of kerosene and easier to use in actual combat.
"Ten thousand are here first. I plan to organize a group of soldiers to practice throwing and use them in the offensive array!" Zhou Tong said, "Specialize in attacking the troublesome armored soldiers in the opponent's array! Those armored soldiers in the defenders
The fierce soldiers are really difficult to deal with. They can't be hurt by swords and can't be penetrated by arrows. Maybe we can give them a taste of fire oil jars."
"It's so easy for you to open your mouth!" Lin Fu smiled bitterly, "Okay, you prepare first, and I will coordinate other things."
When it comes to fire tank tactics, they are the easiest to imitate.
Using fire or pouring hot oil to defend the city is also a common method of warfare. At the top of Yongjia City, large iron pots were even used to hold excrement mixed with lime, boil it and pour it on the soldiers. However, after all, the scale of use was not large. Once it was used on a large scale, it would really become a waste of money.
.
But when it comes to large-scale consumption, the fire oil tank tactic is the most difficult to imitate.
There is no way the Yongjia garrison can compare with the Huaidong Army in terms of kerosene supply.