The Liyang War came to a temporary end when more than a thousand defenders left the city and surrendered.
The most intense battle in this battle did not occur during the capture of Liyang City.
After the Huaixi Forbidden Army hurriedly withdrew, Wen Bo sent troops to take over the defense of Liyang City. Naturally, he was deeply aware of the strategic position of Liyang City facing Chaohu Lake and the Yangtze River. Considering that the Chu army would attack Liyang if it counterattacked on the north bank, he had to except the elite
The defenders also sent the few war weapons such as bed crossbows and other weapons they had at hand to Liyang City first, just to strengthen the defense of such an important town that stood on the east bank of Chao Lake and looked south for a long time.
Zhou Chu led his troops to attack the city. There was no way to attack Liyang City in a short time because the city was highly dangerous and surrounded by protective walls.
It took a lot of effort to just transport the parts of a dozen heavy trench bridge vehicles to the city through the river beach, assemble them, and open a passage directly to the foot of the city wall.
After all these preparations were completed, the cyclone cannons set up had not yet destroyed the west tower of Liyang City. First, the enemy troops besieged in the southeast of Ruxu Mountain were defeated, and then Wenbo was defeated. Zhao Mingting was forced to lead his troops.
Withdrew and gave up the plan to assist Liyang. Seeing that there was no hope of holding on and there were no reinforcements from outside, the defenders of Liyang finally chose to surrender. At this time, Zhou's troops lost dozens of generals in total under Liyang City, and the war was naturally far away.
Not to mention intense.
However, the capture of Dongguan Town, the siege and defeat of three thousand enemy troops in the southeast of Ruxu Mountain, and the interception of enemy reinforcements at the western foot of Fucha Mountain and along the Chu River were fierce battles and heavy losses. Compared with the Battle of Puyang River Estuary,
All are worse than others.
Compared with the Battle of Puyang Hekou, nearly a month has passed. The material conditions of the Shouzhou Army on the southern front have been further improved, and their combat effectiveness has also recovered to a considerable extent. This has caused the casualties of the Tangyi Army to be higher than those in the previous two battles.
The second war was much more severe.
In total, more than 4,000 Tangyi soldiers died in several battlefields, and more than 5,000 were injured.
Such heavy casualties greatly reduced the ability of Tangyi soldiers to continue fighting.
In order to keep the morale of his generals from falling into a low state, Han Qian had to keep pace with the construction of the Fuchashan and Chuhe defense lines, such as land granting.
However, the Shouzhou Army's 5,000 defenders in Liyang were annihilated. In addition to nearly 2,000 people, more than 3,000 people had to choose to surrender or be captured because the roads were cut off. For the Shouzhou Army, these are
net loss.
In addition, the Shouzhou Army also suffered a total of seven to eight thousand casualties in trying to break through the Tangyi soldiers' interception at Fucha Mountain and along the Chuhe River and send reinforcements southward. In addition, they failed to gain favorable terrain to continue their offensive. In a short period of time, the Shouzhou Army
There is no ability to continue attacking Tangyi Bingfucha Mountain and the Chuhe defense line.
In a short period of time, the confrontation between the two sides east of Chaohu Lake, along the Chu River and Fucha Mountain was temporarily relieved, and a new balance was formed.
At this time, the ice on the Huaihe River melted. Due to the disrepair of the dams on both sides of the Huaihe River, the cold floods formed in the upper reaches overflowed the remaining embankments, causing Yingxu, Huoshou and other prefectures on the north and south sides of the middle reaches of the Huaihe River to experience monstrous floods before the rainy season came.
was washed away.
This also made it extremely slow to transport supplies from the hinterland of Liang State to the south. This was good news for Han Qian to defend Tangyi. There was no need to worry that the Shouzhou Army would be able to launch a large-scale counterattack in a short time.
However, the scouts who sneaked into the northern part of Chaozhou also noticed that the Shouzhou Army was requisitioning civilians on a large scale in the south of Shouzhou to dredge the channel between the north and south Feishui River. They should have summed up the lessons of the Liyang War and wanted to use it as quickly as possible.
, deployed some of the warships of the Lou Chuanjun to the north shore of Chaohu Lake.
At the same time, the soldiers and horses of the Shouzhou Army in Chuzhou built camps and fortresses on the south side of Mopan Valley, and some of the elite soldiers and horses stationed in Zhongli went south into Shiliang County.
They obviously saw that the Tangyi soldiers had the intention to cut off the Chuzhou wings from the outside world from the east and west wings, so they intended to strengthen the defense depth on the southeast side during the stalemate to ensure that Chuzhou City and Shiliang County, Zhongli and Haozhou in the north were
The city formed one body and defeated the attempt of Tangyi soldiers.
At this time, Han Qian did not have the ability to tighten restrictions on these actions of the Shouzhou Army. On the one hand, the Tangyi soldiers were weak and in urgent need of rest and replenishment of new combat capabilities. On the other hand, he had too many things to do in a short period of time.
In addition to paying for the casualties, several camps needed to be built and improved, fields needed to be cultivated and cultivated, roads needed to be built, rivers needed to be dredged, and plans for the southward evacuation of the soldiers and civilians stranded in the Wijian Mountains to be arranged. Han Qian also worked non-stop after the war.
Traveling all over the place without getting any rest.
Han Daochang came to Liyang on behalf of the Duzhi Envoy, and did not see Han Qian in the first few days. It was not until he returned to Dongguan Town from Shiquan Camp at the western foot of Fucha Mountain that he saw Han Qian who had rushed back from Tingshan.
.
Since the Shouzhou Army withdrew from the southern foot of Wujian Mountain to the valley-shaped area between Tingzi Mountain and Fucha Mountain, more than 20,000 soldiers and civilians who had previously evacuated into Wujian Mountain were also able to withdraw south to the south of the Chu River.
There is no doubt that the refugees or the slaves who were sent to Chuzhou by the Gyeonggi family to occupy the map will be incorporated into Tangyi on the spot to fill the population of the counties. However, the placement of the more than 2,000 generals of the remaining navy is controversial.
These generals are mainly from the military households of Zuo Wuya Army. Their families are settled in the military mansions near Tanzhou and Yueyang. They are different from civilians and slaves. They are all included in the roster of the Ministry of War. There is no
Personal freedom naturally does not mean that he can be recruited into the Tangyi army.
In addition, Jinling will not give up its efforts to reorganize the navy.
Of course, Han Qian supported Emperor Yanyou to continue to rule personally, but did not completely turn to the Queen Mother, suppressing Lu Qingxia and others' control of the palace. He also led Tangyi soldiers to throw their heads and blood on the north bank, and defended the entrance to the imperial capital at all costs.
No matter what kind of calculations everyone has in their hearts, they have learned from past mistakes, at least until the situation has been completely stabilized, no one will be in a hurry to win over the meritorious general.
As the nominal commander of the Forbidden Army and the commander of all the camps of the Forbidden Army, Shou Wang Yang Zhitang was in Handaochang. The day after Han Qian arrived in Dongguan Town, that is, the fifth day of March in the third year of Yanyou, he and his son, Youlong Wujun,
Commander Yang Fan rushed to Dongguan Town, and in the name of rewarding the Tangyi soldiers for their victory in the capture of Liyang, he discussed with Han Qian the fate of the remaining navy troops and other issues.
The key turning point in this battle was the timely defeat of the enemy forces southeast of Ruxu Mountain. In this battle, Yang Zhitang and Yang Fan's father's direct line Youlong Wujun had more than 2,000 generals cross the river to participate. It can also be said that it gave Yang Zhitang a lot of face.
When Yang Zhitang and Yang Fan entered the Yuxi River by boat, they found that the Yuxi River was turbid and the water seemed to be carrying a large amount of sediment into the Yangtze River.
After entering the upper reaches of the Yuxi River, Ruxu Mountain stretched before them like a screen. They saw several boats in the nearby river, towed by hundreds of trackers on both sides of the river, struggling to swim upstream. The sterns of the boats brought a wave of
In the turbid black water, Yang Zhitang curiously asked Feng Liao, Han Daochang and others who rushed to the river mouth to greet them on behalf of Han Qian:
"The water in the Yuxi River has been quite strong these days. These boats don't seem to be very clumsy. The draft shouldn't be particularly deep. Why is it so difficult to sail down the river?"
Han Daochang also looked confused. He crossed the river from the Wushou River mouth this time and only arrived at Dongguan Town yesterday. Seeing these situations, he was still curious.
"This is a plow boat specially built by Xuzhou for dredging river channels,"
However, Feng Liao did not hide anything and directly answered the doubts of Yang Zhitang and others, saying,
“The bottom of the boat itself does not touch the river bed, but a giant plow is attached to the tail and is embedded in the river bed mud. Therefore, it requires the cooperation of trackers to drag it forward step by step to bring up the river bed mud. In the past few days, there have been several heavy rains around Chao Lake.
Spring rains cause the water level of Chao Lake to rise and the flow speed of Yuxi River to increase. Dredging the river channel in this way is the most labor-saving method. When the water level rises further, several large sail boats can be used to drive plow boats, which will be more trouble-free!"
In today's world, if you want to dredge rivers on a large scale, you usually have to wait until the dry season in autumn and winter, and recruit people to intercept the flow and dig the river bed deeper.
If you do this, the amount of work will be very huge.
Han Qian used this method to build diversion weirs and dredge river channels in Wuliu River. Thousands of young men were recruited at one time, and the movement was huge.
It has been more than 20 years since the founding of Da Chu, and few states and counties have the ability to organize and build such large-scale water conservancy projects during the off-season.
Maintenance and dredging of rivers mainly involves using long-handled ladles to travel in the water by boat and dig up the silt from the bottom of the river little by little.
This efficiency is unimaginably low and can only be used for the maintenance of a small number of key lakes and waterways, and it certainly cannot be used for the development of large-scale water conservancy and dredging projects.
Han Qian was in charge of political affairs in Xuzhou, building water conservancy projects, and preventing and controlling floods, which had always been important matters. However, the main river channels could not be cut off casually even in autumn and winter, and the traditional method was too inefficient.
Fortunately, the Xuzhou generals and officials have become accustomed to thinking and solving problems from the perspective of engineering equipment.
Plow boats and some special dredgers are some of the more useful river dredging tools built in Xuzhou in the past two years.
The pear boat is the simplest. A large cast-iron plow is attached to the stern of the boat. It is dragged to stir up the riverbed silt, and then uses the rapid water flow to carry it away. It is the most efficient, but it is only suitable for rivers with rapid water flow and there is no need to worry about siltation downstream.
There are also some dredgers in Xuzhou, which mainly imitate the principle of vehicles and ships, except that the wheel plates that drive the hull forward are replaced by chain-type iron scrapers that reach the river bed. Small scrapers can use human power
For larger ones, animal power is used to drive the winch, and the mud at the bottom of the river is dug out through chain scrapers and poured into the mud ships on both sides to clear the river.
This kind of dredger is complex to manufacture, but in flat rivers without rapid currents, dredging in this way can be more trouble-free than investing hundreds of people in dredging at one time - after all, Xuzhou has a shortage of young and strong labor.
The excavated riverbed silt can also increase the fertility of the fields on both sides, which can be regarded as a gain and a loss.
Yuxi River is the only river channel downstream of Chaohu Lake. During the rainy season, the pressure of flood discharge is extremely high.
If the Yuxi River cannot be dredged in time and the Yuxi River channel cannot be widened as necessary, when the rainy season comes, not only will the water from Chaohu Lake be released rapidly, causing flooding on both sides of the Yuxi River, but also due to the flood discharge efficiency of the Yuxi River.
If it is low and not timely enough, it will cause the water level of Chao Lake to rise rapidly, which can expand the lake area several times in a short period of time. In fact, it will also submerge the surrounding beach land that can be reclaimed.
If there is no rush to reclaim the lakeside beach land, this is certainly not an urgent issue, but Han Qian has already started to build a polder north of Ruxu Mountain, and will reclaim new land on a large scale within the polder to resettle the generals and their families.
Small.
At this time, if the issues of flood discharge and water level in Chao Lake during the rainy season are not considered, the newly built polder will be under great pressure when the rainy season comes.
The consequences of dike collapse, flooded fields, and loss of life were obviously beyond what Tangyi could bear at this time.
Therefore, after several dredging ships were transferred from Xuzhou, they were first used to clean up the eight or nine miles of the upper reaches of the Yuxi River between Qibao Mountain and Ruxu Mountain.
In addition to the dredging boats, there are more than 2,000 people along the river who are working non-stop on the river beach to widen the waterway to increase the discharge volume in summer and autumn.
Another great benefit of doing this is that this autumn and winter, when Chaohu Lake and the Yangtze River enter the dry season, large warships will not be unable to freely enter Chaohu Lake due to the shallower river channels, thereby losing the strategic advantage of controlling Chaohu Lake.
This is also the key to Han Qian's priority in resettling the refugees evacuated from the south to Liyang County, and even considering establishing a new county based on Dongguan Village. These things require a large amount of manpower to be done.
Facing Feng Liao's explanation, Yang Zhitang smacked his lips without saying anything. From the turbid river water downstream, it can be seen that this method is extremely effective. Every day, an unknown amount of sedimented sediment is stirred up and washed away.
The Department of Duzhi Envoys, the Department of Salt and Iron Transport Envoys, and the Department of Hubu were able to take charge of the wealth of Chu and serve as officials, and they all prided themselves on mastering the art of managing the world.
Han Daochang joined the Department of Envoys and was appointed as a doctor. He usually prides himself on himself, but at this moment, too many concepts in his heart were subverted...
He heard that the Shouzhou Army was also widening the channel between the North and South Feishui River in order to send the warships of the Louchuan Army into Chaohu in the near future. But even so, he couldn't help but think that the warships of the Louchuan Army would come over.
Later, in addition to guarding several key estuaries on the north shore of Chaohu Lake, even in autumn and winter, there was still no way to compete with the large warships built by Xuzhou in Chaohu Lake.
This is no longer just a battle between generals and soldiers using swords, swords and halberds to fight for victory.
If this kind of plow boat was used for desilting and dredging the Chu River and other north bank rivers, and was effective in a short period of time, Han Daochang could not imagine what means the Shouzhou Army would have to rely on to suppress the Tangyi soldiers' superiority in the navy.
Of course, Han Qian had another plan. Feng Liao would not follow Yang Zhitang, Yang Fan pointed out, but Han Daochang knew about it.
That is the focus of Han Qian's subsequent management of Tangyi counties. For a long time to come, it will be focused on Liyang in the west instead of Tangyi in the east.
Tangyi is surrounded by flat plains and lacks sufficient defense depth. At the same time, it is also necessary to guard against someone in the court who may be interested in seizing the fruits of their construction in the future. It faces Jinling City across the river and is too close.
However, in the lakeside area in the west of Liyang, there are Ruxu Mountain to the south, Qibaohua Mountain to the southwest, Qingcang Mountain, Fucha Mountain, Wuyu Ridge to the north, Liyang Jiancheng to the east, and hundreds of mountains to the west.
The deep and wide Chao Lake is a favorable terrain for the defense of Tangyi soldiers.
More importantly, there are nearly 200,000 acres of low-lying land in the lakeside area, which can be reclaimed into new fields, providing the necessary land resources to house tens of thousands of families of generals, soldiers, and their families, build cities, and develop craftsmen; and the lime mines in the surrounding mountains
, iron ore, timber, and coal resources are sufficient, providing the necessary foundation for the development of industry and mining.
It is surrounded by low ridges, hills and mountains, and intertwined streams and rivers. There are enough gaps, which also provide convenience for large-scale development and the use of hydraulic equipment.
This is the best place to copy the early Qiuhushan and later Xuzhou models.
Han Qian's next plan is to first build a dike in the Linhu area west of Liyang City, reclaim new fields, build a water camp, and then build a shipyard, shipyard, iron foundry, and weaving yard to develop this area.
Chengtangyi is the real military, economic and even cultural and political center.
Dredging the Yuxi River, the only waterway connecting Chaohu to the river, has become even more important and urgent.
There is a lot of construction going on north of Ruxu Mountain, which is the main reason why Han Daochang came here this time.
Han Qian has too many things to do now. The fierce battles in the early stage have almost exhausted all the wealth that Xuzhou has accumulated in the past few years. In the future, he can only concentrate on ensuring the construction of several key camps and concentrate on the construction of several key camps first.
It is necessary to build a shipbuilding yard, an iron foundry and an ordnance foundry, but it is difficult to take into account other aspects, so it is necessary to attract forces from all aspects to participate in the subsequent construction.
Thousands of years of tradition have made it a habit for both aristocratic clans and emerging elites to focus on hoarding land, but industry, commerce and other industries have not been suppressed and have no voice at all.
In the early years, the ancestors of the Feng family took advantage of the convenience of the salt and iron transshipment envoys in the Jianghuai River to operate cargo farming through warehouses and shipping. There were also many wealthy families in Jinling and other states who were engaged in winemaking or iron casting. The Han family mined, processed, smelted, and cast iron.
Bronzeware has also long been famous.
It’s just that the old system was conducive to families occupying land and raising slaves. Whether it was the Feng family, the Han family or even the Zheng family, they made huge profits from industry and commerce, but in the end they were transferred to the hoarding of land, houses, and slaves, instead of being used for industry and commerce.
the development of the industry itself.
Even if it is to promote the further concentration of the population on the North Bank, Han Qian must strive to attract more forces to develop industry, mining and other industries on the North Bank - of course, the follow-up will also require the various places to further weaken the physical confinement of slaves, otherwise there will be insufficient demand.
The ceiling in the industrial and mining industries will be extremely low.
Of course, Han Qian has made great achievements again, but the new system he wants to implement in Tangyi is still essentially against the interests of the family clans. However, the current situation is such that the princes and ministers who represent the family clans in the court are forced to have no choice but to
Just make a compromise.
Otherwise, it would be impossible for Han Qian to organize Tangyi soldiers through a recruitment system.
Han Qian did not expect that his high moral character would win the general support of the family clans. However, unless the Han family made up their mind and invested all their resources in the future, he would later recruit a group of industrial and mining owners from Xuzhou who were gradually becoming famous.
In addition, the Qiao family in Shezhou where Qiao Weiyan was born, and the Chen family in Chizhou where Chen Zhiyong was born, are both from a wealthy family, as well as Han Jun and Han Duan's wives. They are all wealthy in the local area, and there are even some descendants of the Han family from the Analytical family.
, can you fight for it?
In contemporary aristocratic families, the system of inheritance is still practiced by legitimate sons, so the children of common people naturally have the desire to find a way out.
Han Daoming wanted to fight for more benefits for Tangyi above the court, so Han Daochang needed to take on some extra and complicated work.
Although Han Qian would later restrict aristocratic clans from occupying fields on the North Bank and raising slaves, as long as they paid taxes, they would be encouraged and protected to hire workers to mine mines, develop craftsmanship, and even cultivate plantations on the North Bank.
