Jingzikou is a small and narrow fault-type basin between mountains and rivers. It is backed by mountains and faces rapids. The Danshui Waterway and the Shang Dynasty land route all pass through Jingzikou. It has been a battleground for military strategists since ancient times. , it was also a place where business flourished during the previous dynasty.
The basin is about twelve or three miles long along the Dan River, and there is a depth of one to two miles on both sides.
Although most of the buildings were destroyed by the war and are only traces of burning, the prosperity of this ancient town in the middle and early dynasties of the previous dynasties can still be seen from the ruins. Two wooden buildings can even be seen in the town port. The ruins of the bridge.
The waterway of Danjiang River in Jingzikou is very narrow, but it is also fifty or sixty paces wide, and the water flow is fast. In the early stage, a bridge was built in this narrow basin to connect the two sides, which also shows the prosperity and prosperity of the town at that time.
Although this place is said to be an outpost defense line to guard against the soldiers and horses in the Liangguan Pass, there is no actual number of soldiers and horses stationed in the battalion. There are only more than 300 old soldiers stationed at Jingzikou.
Guard general Zhang Baonai is an old pawn from Xiangzhou, almost fifty years old, with an old face as dark as the bark of an old tree. In the heavy snow and cold winter, he led his troops to guard the remaining city, revealing the light and coldness of the sheath of his broadsword.
Even if Han Qian is a close confidant of the third prince Yang Yuanpu, before the Dragon Bird Army entered Xiangzhou and the defense was readjusted, Zhang Bao, the general of Xiangzhou, did not need to look at Han Qian's face, let alone Han Qian. Look forward with humility.
As a guest general, Han Qian led dozens of troops to a dilapidated building on the north bank of Danshui River. Even the fortress guarded by the garrison could not enter; Zhang Bao only sent his deputy out of the fortress to check Han Qian's letter and seal, but did not personally check Han Qian's letter. Invite Han Qian to a banquet in the castle to build a relationship.
Han Qian and Zhang Bao are also getting along well. After all, whether the third prince can control the defense along Danshui and whether he can lead the Longque Army along Danshui into the depths of the Qinling Mountains still depends on the outcome of Li Zhigao's negotiation with Du Chongtao.
In the early stage, they still need to map out the terrain along the route more accurately, figure out the distribution of rogue bandits in the southeastern foothills of the Qinling Mountains, and at the same time keep an eye on the movements of Liang Jun stationed in the old city of Wuguan dozens of miles away.
The southern foothills of Funiu Mountain and the southeastern foothills of Qinling Mountains were all under the jurisdiction of Dengzhou in the previous dynasties. There were once three counties, with a registered population of 16,000 or 7,000 households. Although they are not as good as those of Xinye, Wancheng, and Fangcheng counties located deep in the Nanyang Basin, they are comparable. Compared to Xuzhou, it can be said to have a prosperous population.
After all, the area occupied by the three counties in Dengxi may not be as much as a quarter of Xuzhou.
After decades of war, only one or two hundred households in the Nanyang Basin are left. The counties and towns in the three counties of Dengxi and Dengxi, which are located on the military route, have also been reduced to a state of disrepair, but they deviate from the ancient Shangyu road. The population hidden deep in the Qinling Mountains, a key place for military strategists to fight, may be much larger than imagined after preliminary investigation.
In the dilapidated house where Han Qian lived, there were still burn marks on the beams and columns, and half of the house had collapsed. Reed mats were temporarily used to block the cold wind, but snowflakes still drifted in through the gaps.
"Not counting the mountains controlled by Liang Jun, there may be as many as 40,000 to 50,000 refugees hiding in Shang Mountain!" Tian Cheng was extremely surprised after reading the compiled intelligence information.
Han Qian didn't have many surprises.
Nanyang is at the crossroads between the north and the south. Especially in the late period of the previous dynasty, there would be a big war every three to five years and a small war every three to five months. Although the land of plenty and thousands of miles of fertile wilderness, ordinary people couldn't stand such a thing. Who would be in the plains? Cultivate fields and build houses?
The Qinling Mountains, Tongbai Mountain, Funiu Mountain, and Daba Mountain surrounding the Nanyang Basin are all thousands of miles apart, with deep mountains and dense forests. Even if survival is difficult, it is a last resort for refugees to escape and live in hiding.
In fact, in Zhai Xinping's memory, if there had been no interference at that time, the Xiangdeng and Deng areas would have been sparsely populated and suffered from banditry for decades, until the separatist situation among the various powers was finally calmed down, and the newly unified dynasty really decided to solve the problem of Deng and Deng.
During the banditry in the Xiang area, four to five million mountain people were recruited from the surrounding mountains and fields and moved into the plains to cultivate fields and settle down.
Therefore, Fan Dahei, Lin Haizheng and others investigated that there were 40,000 to 50,000 fugitives hiding deep in the mountains of Dengxi County. Han Qian was not surprised at all, and even felt that the investigation work was not sufficient.
Although there are so many refugees in the deep mountains and old forests at the southeastern foot of the Qinling Mountains that they can even organize a Dragon Bird Army, these refugees are either the remnants of Deng Xiang's defeated soldiers who fled into the mountains and old forests after losing all the battles in recent decades, or they are the victims of these remnant soldiers and defeated generals.
control.
They built strong fortresses in the deep mountains and old forests where there were no roads. They were half-farmers and half-bandits, and they were unruly and unruly. Han Qian never expected that after the third prince Yang Yuanpu came over, he would be able to rush over and join him with a piece of order.
Who knew that Liang Chu’s war on the Western Front would not be calmed down for a while, so who would be willing to come out and be cannon fodder?
What he can do now is to find out as much as possible the size and distribution of the cottages along the Danjiang Waterway. The rest will have to wait for the main force of the Dragon Bird Army to arrive before he can decide.
Of course, if he really wanted to do this, Han Qian felt that he needed to consider the attitudes of local snakes, Deng Xiang's defense envoy, and Xiangzhou governor Du Chongtao.
Even though Du Chongtao was the niece-in-law who was deeply trusted by Emperor Tianyou at this time, he was the cousin-in-law of the third prince, and he was also a general as famous as Zhang Wei. He had worked hard over the years and made great contributions to the founding of the Chu Kingdom. He had also been diligent in stationing at Dengxiang for the past two years.
There are more, but Han Qian knew that since the end of the previous dynasty, when Chu, Liang, Jin and Shu divided the world, among the many generals and warriors, there were really not many good ones.
Otherwise, the current world he lives in will not be rated as one of the three most chaotic periods in thousands of years of history.
At present, the Three Kingdoms of Liang, Jin, and Chu were first established, and the three emperors have not died yet, and they can barely control the unruly generals and warriors. Therefore, even though the three emperors continued to fight against each other during this period, it was relatively peaceful for more than a hundred years.
a period of time.
Du Chongtao, as a founding general with the same reputation as Li Yu, Zhang Wei, etc., has served as the governor of Xiangzhou, and Deng Xiang has been the defense envoy for two years. However, in his official letter to Jinling, he did not mention the mountains around Nanyang Basin City.
It contains a large amount of information on escapees.
Although Du Chongtao was in charge of Dengxiang, he rebuilt Xiangcheng in the past two years, recruited refugees between Dahongshan and Hanshui River, and rewarded mulberry farmers. His limited energy was focused on consolidating the defense line at the south entrance of the Nanyang Basin, but he did not do anything at all.
Han Qian never believed it when he noticed that there were a large number of fugitives hiding in the mountains in the central and northern part of the Nanyang Basin.
Perhaps it was Emperor Tianyou's frequent impulse to reduce the military power of generals in recent years that made Du Chongtao wary. Instead of rushing to integrate a large number of fleeing households under Xiangzhou's banner, which aroused Emperor Tianyou's fear, it would be better to take action slowly.
No one is a fucking fuel saver.
"You guys go down and have a rest. Tomorrow you will go to Shaoxi Mountain. Xiongyu will keep an eye on Liang Jun's movements over there. If there is any abnormality, report him at any time." Han Qian briefly looked through the information collected in recent days and called Fan Dahei.
, Lin Haizheng went down to rest first, leaving only Tian Cheng, Zhao Wuji and Xi Rong, who had followed him after leaving Jinling disguised as a man, to stay with him to talk.
The money shop was first established, and there were still many things to do before the workshop. Han Qian left Zhao Ting'er in Jinling to take charge of these things this time. In addition, Gao Shao also stayed in Jinling to inspect the ovary and take charge of liaison between the two.
Fan Dahei and Lin Haizheng were originally in charge of the barracks, inspection room, crafts workshop, etc., but were suddenly reduced to ordinary leaders under the barracks and under the jurisdiction of Tiancheng. It is understandable that they felt complicated.
However, the scouts they led were all veterans selected by Han Qian from the military villages. They did not accept their jurisdiction for a few days before following Han Qian westward to Xuzhou. There were several months in Xuzhou where Han Qian personally trained him.
Yes, if they still can't stay on their own, their positions as ordinary leaders in the barracks will be replaced by other elite scouts.
"Zhang Bao led a battalion of veteran soldiers to settle in Jingzikou for more than a year, and three to four hundred refugees gathered in Jingzikou to farm. You go see Zhang Bao tomorrow and say that we will hire more than a hundred civilians to tidy up the remaining town."
Han Qian said to Tian Cheng.
Although the Xiangzhou Army built a fortress using the ruined city at Jingzikou, it could only accommodate three to four hundred soldiers for garrison. Even if the main force of the Longque Army was not stationed, it would not be possible to guard against Liang Guanzhong's Guanzhong troops coming south from Wuguan.
Five hundred soldiers can resist.
Considering the need for long-term garrisoning, Jingzikou still needs to build a larger-scale defense fortress.
Han Qian did not have the power to directly recruit civilian laborers on a large scale, but since he had arrived, he had to make a lot of preparations immediately. He planned to take care of Zhang Bao first, and hire some civilian laborers from Jingzikou to work first.
Clean up the dilapidated towns and ports.
"I have arrived at Jingzikou, and there will be no fighting in a short time. In a few days, Yang Qin will send the first group of Xi's children to Yingzhou. You can take people to pick up these young people, and first go to the mountains.
Let's start training between Ze." Han Qian ordered Zhao Yuanji again.
When the money shop first started, it could only raise less than 2 million yuan in half a month, which was still far behind the original plan of 30 million yuan. However, once the loan raising was publicized, as long as the money shop could pay interest normally
, with the greedy nature of people, the funds raised will snowball and get bigger and bigger.
Therefore, in the first half of October, the scale of loan financing has further expanded.
However, these funds were still misappropriated by Han Qian to fill Zuosi's bottomless pit deficit.
Of course, the redemption of the Xi family's children is also in full swing, and the cost is quite high.
Although the market price of a dignified young and middle-aged slave in Xuzhou is 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, which is very high, Han Qian must directly redeem the potential young Xi family for rigorous training in the early stage, and at this time, he must avoid premature alarm.
The four surnames cannot openly go to the village where the children of the Xi family are slaves and directly redeem the children of the Xi family by name. They can only secretly bribe the middlemen to do the work, and the cost of redemption is difficult to control.
Currently, the redemption of sixteen Xi boys costs millions of dollars, which is currently one of Zuo Si's largest expenses.
However, these Xi boys, and the five people selected by Zhao Wuji before, will not be included in the military room list for the time being, nor will more people, even named Tian Cheng, Gao Shao, know about this matter, except that they are divided at this time
In addition to the military room and the inspection room, there is also a sense of shock.
