Zhao Hu was seriously injured and to avoid being disabled by an arrow in his right hand, Gao Zongting ordered the wounded soldiers to retreat to Dengzhou City to recuperate. Ge Changgen led three battalions of infantry to camp at Qijiaji to guard against possible approaches from the west.
of enemy troops.
Chen Zhihu's partial divisions were repulsed, and it was difficult to regain their strength in a short period of time. However, the main force of Chen Zhihu's troops was farther west of the Jiaolai River, 400 miles away. The soldiers and horses stationed at Qijiaji had more time to surround Qijiaji.
Build a trench camp.
Due to the enemy's pressure, there was no time to build a fortification, so they cut down the trees and erected a fence, and dug trenches under the fence to form a trench.
Although the trench camp cannot be said to be very strong, it is far better than being directly exposed to the impact of enemy cavalry in the wild.
Since Gao Yi led the remaining troops to wander southwest of Buling, Huaidong was unable to have enough troops to encircle and suppress Dengzhou, and could only watch helplessly as the channels with Laiyang and Haiyang were cut off.
Gao Yi led his troops to attack, after all, they had to fight far away. Gao Zongting did not expect that the battle in Qijiaji would be so brutal. Zhao Hu only narrowly won, and the process was also thrilling.
Chen Zhihu led his troops to the north after the disbandment of the East Fujian Army. Whether he was clearing out the bandits, defending Datong, or going out to control Henan, transferring Qin Wang from the north, or storming Qinyang after surrendering the captives, he experienced many tough battles and bitter battles, and the elimination rate of his generals was naturally very high.
, in the later period, new soldiers were continuously recruited from the north to maintain the scale and combat strength of the army, but after all, a considerable part of the troops were old soldiers from Eastern Fujian.
Thinking back on the past when they fought side by side, but today they drew their swords against each other, Gao Zongting felt very uncomfortable.
Although we miss the old feelings, the most important thing right now is to evacuate people and materials from Dengzhou.
This was the second night after landing in Dengzhou. Gao Zongting had not slept for three consecutive nights. He was very sleepy and could not help but take a nap at the table. He listened to someone talking in a daze. He suddenly woke up and saw Zhao Hu and Hu Yu'er.
Sitting there talking quietly, he asked, "How long have I been sleeping? Why didn't you wake me up?"
"A stick of incense will take more time, and I wanted you to sleep a little longer, so I whispered to Captain Hu, but I didn't expect to wake you up." Zhao Hu's hands were wrapped in gauze, and his arms were hung around his neck. Except for the back of his hand, which was shot by an arrow,
The other three arrow wounds that penetrated the outside were all very serious. Time was so tight. How could he recover leisurely? When he returned to Dengzhou City, he also took up defense to prevent Gao Zongting from being distracted by this matter.
"Oh, I'll feel better after taking a short nap," Gao Zongting said with a smile, then looked at Hu Yu'er and said, "Huaidong had already predicted that Liu Ye Fei would be unstable. Before I crossed the sea to Dengzhou, my family had said that we would prevent Dengzhou from falling into a big disaster.
It is difficult, so we can only win the support of the naval generals, and we also attach great importance to Colonel Hu... Yanhu has a strong force in Shandong. Although it has defeated its front edge, in a few days, its main force will come from the east, and we must avoid its edge.
.What are Captain Hu’s plans for this trip south?”
Although Hu Yu'er was somewhat unprepared for these changes that occurred in less than two days, Hu Yu'er had also considered the future after retreating south.
Zhao Zhen stayed at Pingdu, but Gao Yi did not retreat from the southwest of Buling. It would be difficult for Zhao Zhen to withdraw safely from Pingdu.
It's not that Zhao Zhen didn't have many soldiers and horses in hand, the key is that Zhao Zhen retreated to Pingdu with more than 7,000 soldiers and horses, about 4,000 of them were infantry Liu Yefei recruited from Dengzhou, and most of the generals were Liu Yefei's cronies.
After the news of the Dengzhou Incident spread, who knows what drastic changes will occur in Pingdu? It is possible that the generals may mutiny or Zhao Zhen may be coerced into surrendering to the enemy.
At least for now, the Huaidong reinforcements are powerless against Zhao Zhen's troops who are three hundred miles away. In the end, it is likely that Hu Yu'er will lead the remaining 400 to 500 Dengzhou Navy troops to retreat south with the Huaidong Army.
Hu Yu'er boasts that he has some ability to lead troops in war, but he is not good at opportunism and has no power to rely on in Jiangning. He has four to five hundred generals and more than sixty large and small warships. If he is incorporated into the Jiangning Navy, Hu Yu'er will
I understand the greedy officialdom and know that I will most likely be swallowed up by others, even to the bone and dregs.
Compared with Jiangning, not to mention that Hu Yuer and Gao Zongting were old acquaintances. Ever since the construction of the Tianjin-Sea Grain Road to raise emergency grain for the capital, Dengzhou Navy General had had close cooperation with Huaidong. Maritime merchants who moved south, including Zhou Guangnan
, brothers Zhou Guangdong, Sun Fengyi, Sun Shangwang, and Zhou Guitang who went to Jeju, Hu Yuer have all dealt with each other, and the relationship is not bad...
Later, when the Goryeo Navy attacked the coast of Shandong, Hu Yuer also led the Dengzhou Navy to fight side by side with the Huaidong Navy.
Where to go, Hu Yu'er has already weighed in his mind. As for the discord between Huaidong and Jiangning, Hu Yu'er also knows a little bit. He prefers Huaidong's approach. Besides, it is not the turn of a small person like him to care about that matter. How many people in the world are there?
Not going with the flow?
Hu Yu'er was still worried that there was no way to surrender, but when she heard Gao Zongting's intention to recruit Huaidong on his behalf, she immediately saluted and said: "I, Old Hu, are a rough man, and I can't speak much truth. I can't fight other people's tricks in Jiangning.
Some of my skills are fighting the wind and waves at sea, and I don’t want to be a rich man trapped in the house. Mr. Gao didn’t mention it, but I was about to shamelessly ask Mr. Gao to make some plans for me..."
"Hu Xiaowei still wants to fight the waves at sea. There are many places to go, such as Jinwei Island and Jinghaihai Camp. It is also possible to cross the ocean and see the exotic customs." Gao Zongting heard that Hu Yu'er was willing to join Huaidong.
He took a reassurance. As for how to use Hu Yu'er, this matter had to be decided by Lin Fu. As a counselor, he could not do it for him. He said, "For the time being, we have to ask Lieutenant Hu to assist in the evacuation..."
If Hu Yuer was unwilling to surrender to Huaidong and insisted on going to Jiangning, Huaidong would not be able to forcibly detain Hu Yuer's four to five hundred generals and more than sixty warships. Since Hu Yuer was willing to defect to Huaidong, Lin Fu came forward to support her.
If he was allowed to serve as a general in the Jinghaihai camp, could Jiangning stop him? Naturally, the generals and warships would have no chance to go to Jiangning.
After Hu Yuer's matter was settled, Gao Zongting was worried about other things and discussed with Zhao Hu: "Go to Xin Chongzhou and transfer commercial and civilian ships from Huaidong to assist in the evacuation. No matter how fast it is, it will take ten days for ships to arrive one after another. There is only the city in front of us.
There are more than 50,000 people, including supplies, and hundreds of thousands of stone ships are needed. Huaidong can't get so many ships at once, so it can only evacuate in batches, and Chen Zhihu obviously won't give us too long. I
The plan was divided into several steps. First, build a few small forts from the east of Dengzhou City to Tangzi Bay to avoid enemy cavalry infiltration and harassment during the evacuation process; second, evacuate some supplies to Daoyu Village first. In addition, Dengzhou
It is easy for households in the city to evacuate, but farmers outside the city may not be willing to evacuate while they are farming. Forced evacuation can easily cause chaos, and our troops here are seriously insufficient..."
Gao Zongting was one of the best advisers in the world, so he was naturally thoughtful. Zhao Hu's mind was not as fast as his, but he knew that everything he said was of great importance, so he nodded and agreed frequently. When he heard this, he also responded.
, said: "Yes, farmers are tied to the land and the land cannot be moved. They may not be willing to leave their hometowns, and some of the landowners will also be unwilling to leave. For them, they would rather escape into the mountains and wait and see the situation, but it is more difficult to move thousands of miles away.
Some, this is troublesome..."
"I thought that the Dengzhou Prefecture had some money. I could use the money to recruit soldiers just in case something happened. Maybe I could withdraw an extra ten or twenty thousand men. What do you think?" Gao Zongting said.
Gao Zongting was cheating in the name of recruitment, but war is cruel - if these young men were allowed to stay, even if Yan Hu would not recruit them to join the new vassal army in the southern invasion, the farming in the fields would still be a contribution to Yan Hu
Land tax, corvée, and tax.
The basis of everything is to weaken the military potential that Yanhu can gain after occupying Shandong. Whether it is deception or force, they try to remove as many young workers as possible from around Dengzhou. Gao Zongting and Zhao Hu
There is nothing womanly about what must be done.
Of course, Gao Zongting's suggestion was a bit covert. Zhao Hu nodded and said more directly: "Recruiting brave soldiers is a feasible solution. In addition, we can also recruit some civilians from the surrounding areas and evacuate them together in the end."
, Huaidong will not be able to bear the extra ten or twenty thousand people..."
Gao Zongting smiled, nodded and said: "This arrangement is the best..." He didn't have much contact with Zhao Hu, and he couldn't understand Zhao Hu's temper. He was also afraid that Zhao Hu would be too upright and appear pedantic, so he didn't say anything at first.
Too transparent.
Although Lin Fu ordered Gao Zongting to take charge of the affairs here, Gao Zongting also knew how important Zhao Hu was in Lin Fu's mind. He planned for Li Zhuo all the year round, and also participated in official circles for Li Zhuo. He also developed a cautious attitude to avoid
The temperament of conflicting with others - Gao Zongting thought that the Dengzhou matter could be solved perfectly, so there should not be too much conflict between his and Zhao Hu's views on how to solve the matter.
The brutal wars in eastern Zhejiang and southern Zhejiang have severely reduced the local young and strong labor force, so much so that it has seriously affected farming and even led to the abandonment of farmland.
Including Huaidong, which has been actively promoting land reclamation and planting in the area under its jurisdiction over the years, and increasing reclamation efforts on Yizhou Island, both of which require the recruitment of a large number of young and middle-aged labor.
Last year, Huaidong evacuated nearly 400,000 people from Tianjin and Hainan to the south. It only took one year to absorb most of it. This time, at most, more than 100,000 people were evacuated southward, and the pressure they bear is far from being unbearable for Huaidong.
Once the relocated people are effectively resettled, they will quickly transform into Huaidong's military potential.
Even if we limit our focus to Hailing and Huai'an, before Lin Fu implemented the New Deal and resettled displaced households on a large scale, there were about 300,000 Ding households registered. But today, Suyu, Suining, Huaiyang,
Yudong and others were the latest to be directly included in Huai'an. Counting the Ding households in the four counties under Hailing's jurisdiction, the number of registered Ding households in the two prefectures has increased to more than 530,000. The total number of registered fields has also increased since then.
The area of paddy and dry land increased from less than 8 million acres to nearly 15 million acres.
This is partly due to the implementation of the New Deal and the inventory of hidden households and hidden fields. However, in the past few years, Huai'an and Hailing prefectures have newly reclaimed land, and the number of newly enclosed fields is close to 2.5 million acres. Most of these are newly resettled.
The contribution made by the displaced households. At this time, Huaidong was able to indirectly or directly provide Huaidong with a tax income of about 500,000 tons of rice and grain from the newly reclaimed and newly enclosed acres.
The official tax paid to the county officials by the Hailing and Huaidong prefectures before was equivalent to rice grains and did not even reach the figure of 500,000 dan.
The influx of a large number of migrants has provided Huaidong with a large amount of necessary labor force for the relatively concentrated workshops in Chongzhou, Hecheng and other places - making the urban households in Huai'an and Hailing counties change from the previous ones.
The number of households increased from more than 20,000 to more than 100,000.
Even excluding the factories under the direct jurisdiction of the Huaidong Military Division, the newly increased income from industrial and mining, municipal parking taxes, and gold in the area controlled by Huai'an clearly has a tendency to catch up with land tax.
Even if we don't consider the issue of recruiting soldiers and horses, just from the perspective of taxation, population is also the most important and core resource. Yanhu's troops are strong, and Huaidong must temporarily avoid the edge, but the resources that can be taken away should never be
Leave an extra point for Yan Hu.
Gao Zongting discussed a lot with Zhao Hu. In addition to young men, they should also buy and sell cattle, mules and horses from surrounding areas as much as possible, buy them from Dengzhou City and slaughter them for meat, which would further weaken the farming potential of the Dengzhou area.
As for the recruitment and redemption expenses, Huaidong does not need to pay for them.
Liu Yefei was not good at running the army, but he was very greedy for money. He invaded the state treasury and confiscated the wealth of Liu Yefei and his confidants. The gold and silver alone amounted to more than 300,000 taels - this amount of money is currently being watched by officials such as Yuan Zhixing.
, Yuan Zhixing and other officials were all from the official imperial examinations of the imperial court. After retreating to the south, they were still successful in their official careers, so they would naturally be loyal to the imperial court. Therefore, this money could not be spent urgently in Dengzhou. Jiangning had to settle the accounts with Huaidong.
, there is really no excuse to take advantage of this money.
Before the rise of the Tianjin-Sea Grain Road, Dengzhou was a seaport center with the largest concentration of maritime trade on the northern coast. There were also large salt fields along the coast of Shandong. There were Salt and Iron Department offices in Dengzhou and Jimo, and Dengzhou was also one of the gathering places for salt merchants.
.These two points have made many wealthy businessmen in Dengzhou City extremely wealthy.
When the army passed by, there was no one else but them who liked to rob the most. For them, even if they had fields and houses in Dengzhou, they would never dare to risk their lives and property to stay if they could evacuate south.
But it was obvious that Gao Zongting had no intention of letting them evacuate south comfortably. First, they had to pledge donations for the huge expenses of tens of thousands of people to evacuate south. Second, Huaidong Bank's money had been tight and needed constant fundraising.
The principal, Dengzhou rich businessman is naturally a target not to be missed.