Although it was said that craftsmen were recruited from Mizhou and Xuzhou to build shipyards and navy camps at sea, the Liang Army's raids on the south bank of the Huaihe River on the eastern front mainly started from Sizhou City in the north of Chuzhou.
Even the naval forces are currently gathering in Sizhou first and then launching attacks on the south bank; Xuzhou Jiedushi Han Yuanqi also set up his tent in Sizhou.
In mid-June, Wang Wenqian and Yin Peng went to Chuzhou to see King Xin Yang Yuanyan. Wen Ruilin also rushed to Sizhou to meet Han Yuanqi on Xu Mingzhen's order to discuss the gains and losses of the east and west defense lines.
Emperor Zhu Yu of the Liang Dynasty returned to Bianjing two months ago. Before leaving, he asked the Xuzhou Jiedushi Envoy and the Shouzhou Jiedushi Envoy not to rush for success, but to stabilize their position, put the defense line first, and accumulate small victories to make big gains.
To win, we must continuously attack and weaken the Chu army, rather than expecting a miraculous victory.
Of course, Emperor Liang still gave Xu Mingzhen the greatest autonomy. Even if an edict was promulgated to Shouzhou, it was mostly expressed in words of praise, but the instructions given to Han Yuanqi were much more trivial.
On the day Wen Rui came to Sizhou City to meet Han Yuanqi, an imperial edict happened to be delivered.
Han Yuanqi also knew that His Majesty regarded Wen Ruilin as a direct confidant, so he arranged to serve next to Xu Mingzhen, so he directly showed Wen Ruilin the newly arrived imperial edict.
This imperial edict was a reply to Han Yuanqi's letter at the beginning of the month to report on the shipbuilding situation. Wen Ruilin saw that the imperial edict was written in two to three thousand words, and there were several corrections. It was as if His Majesty was talking to Han Yuanqi about his daily life.
Many things were explained in great detail, which was completely different from the concise edicts given to the Shouzhou Jiedu Envoy.
Wen Ruilin also understood the difference.
It is true that Xu Mingzhen led the Shouzhou army to defect to Daliang, but the Shouzhou generals must still have great vigilance and worries in their hearts, which could be easily eliminated in a short time.
Under such circumstances, it is inconvenient for His Majesty to have too many fingers on Shouzhou. However, he has known Han Yuanqi and his ministers for nearly twenty years. The imperial edict was written in such a sloppy and verbose way, and many things were explained to him without hesitation. Han Yuanqi
I will only feel that I am close to His Majesty and will have no other thoughts.
Wen Ruilin carefully studied what the imperial edict said, and mainly discussed the strategy of attacking the Jianghuai coast in a roundabout way.
Zhu Yu asked Han Yuanqi not to rely on the early covert work to deceive Chu Ting, and not to pin his hopes on an unexpected attack in the offshore harassment operations. He should first start from the Chu army's coastal salt fields near Huaikou.
Close-range attacks, cultivating naval forces, and accumulating experience in offshore operations require consistency with the navy's strategy of attacking the south bank of the Huaihe River, and they must get used to dispersed operations and small-scale guerrilla operations...
Seeing Wen Ruilin respectfully handing back the imperial edict, Han Yuanqi said to him: "Tangyi soldiers have a troop of soldiers and horses, using Wujian Mountain as a passage, to harass and plunder the northern part of Chaozhou, Haozhou and other places. You
The excerpt written was very detailed on the combat methods of Tangyi soldiers. His Majesty also said it was very good and even copied it to me. I was also very inspired by Chuzhou's military use in Sizhou - Xu Mingzhen, Wen Bo
Is there any good response to this?"
Wen Ruilin was also very excited to be praised by people like Han Yuanqi. Besides, His Majesty directly copied the excerpts he wrote to Han Yuanqi, which seemed to be His Majesty's direct affirmation of him.
Wen Ruilin suppressed his excitement and talked about the details of the Shouzhou Army's confrontation with the Tangyi Army in Chuzhou and Chaozhou: "It was the same as building a fortress along the upper reaches of the Puyang River on the south side of Mopan Valley to suppress the Tangyi Army's soldiers.
, in view of the Tangyi soldiers led by the enemy general Kong Xirong in Wujian Mountain, they mainly chose the pass valleys where it is relatively easy to get out of the mountains, built fortifications and camps, and restricted their activities. However, this was extremely expensive. Wen Bo currently advocated combining it with reclamation
They got up and built a blockade network with endless villages - Shouzhou had experienced wars for a long time, and farming was abandoned. Even with Bianjing's support of grain and fodder, supplies were extremely tight. Wen Bo advocated this, but it was a sound method, but it was
It’s a pity that the previous battles failed to inflict heavy losses on the Tangyi soldiers.”
Wen Ruilin was very excited to receive approval from His Majesty, Han Yuanwen and others, but he had to admit that they had no effective way to break the deadlock between the Tangyi soldiers on the Western Front.
"Wen Bo's military skills are delicate and steady. He was taught by his father Wen Muqiao. He also knows how to apply the knowledge of managing the world. Your Majesty also values Wen Bo very much. As for Chu River and Fucha Mountain, he failed to achieve success in several battles. Wen Bo is not responsible for the failure of the battle. It is really surprising that the new Tangyi soldiers have such fighting strength. If Wen Bo had not led his direct lineage to fight bravely, Chuzhou City might not have been defended." Han Yuanqi said. He was the commander-in-chief of the Xichuan Battle. He was the first to suffer a big loss at the hands of Han Qian. At the same time, because he had suffered a big loss at the hands of Han Qian at the beginning, he had learned from it over the years. At this time, among the young generals in Daliang, he was the most famous general. At this time, he could naturally look at the gains and losses of the Shouzhou Army and the Tangyi Army with a calm mind. At the same time, he also reminded Wen Ruilin that there were still some differences between Wen Bo and Xu Mingzhen in the eyes of His Majesty.
Wen Ruilin thought the same thing. Neither Zhao Mingting nor Wen Bo made any obvious mistakes in those battles. The elite members of their direct line also dared to fight. However, the new Tangyi soldiers had such strong combat effectiveness. To everyone's expectation, Han Qian took control of Chuhe River, and was also deprived of Liyang and other places.
Tangyi soldiers controlled the only river channel of Chao Lake and the high ground on the east bank of Chao Lake. As a result, the warships of the Zuolou Fleet Army were suppressed in the river channel on the north bank of Chao Lake, losing control of Chao Lake, let alone entering the Yangtze River water channel. .
Wen Ruilin also talked about some recent situations in Han Qian's management of Tangyi.
At present, Xuzhou has a surplus of money and food, and they are mainly trying their best to build new armor, weapons, and warships to send to Tangyi. Tangyi can directly get money and food, except for the central government of Chu Ting, which pays 40,000 shi per month. In addition to grain, the Han family also sells land and houses, and can raise an additional 40,000 to 50,000 yuan a month and give it to Han Qian for expenditure.
It is not difficult for Wen Ruilin to collect this information in Chuzhou.
However, the money and food currently are not only enough for Han Qian to continue to strengthen the camps in Puyang, Tingshan, Wanshou, Shiquan, Donghu and other places, but they are also only enough for Han Qian to support the army.
The military pay earned by the generals was not enough to support his family, so Han Qian had to spend some extra money and food for relief.
In a short period of time, except for several mines and a shipbuilding yard in East Lake, Wen Ruilin has not seen any signs of large-scale construction in Tangyi.
However, because Han Qian occupied a large area on the south bank of the Chu River, there were tens of thousands of houses in Liyang and Tangyi cities alone, and there were also a large number of villages between Dajing Mountain, Qingcang Mountain, and Ruxu Mountain. Since the people were threatened by Shouzhou and fled north during the earlier war, most of them were left vacant.
It had not been abandoned for long, and these village houses had been slightly repaired and used by Han Qian to house nearly 100,000 generals, soldiers, families and their families. The nearby fields had not been abandoned for long, so it was not difficult to reclaim them. It has been directly assigned to farming.
Wen Ruilin also noticed that this was obviously the key reason why after the Tangyi soldiers suffered such heavy casualties in the early battles, their combat effectiveness and morale did not decline, and they could even continue to actively attack the north bank of the Chu River in the past two or three months.
After all, Xu Mingzhen and Wen Bo have nothing to do with Tangyi soldiers in the near future.
As the defense line built by Tangyi soldiers along the Chu River and Fucha Mountain was gradually improving, even if the Shouzhou army could capture this defense line regardless of casualties, the casualties would be extremely heavy. At that time, there would be no way to stop Li Zhigao from leading the Huaixi Forbidden Army to kill from Shuzhou. out.
Comparatively speaking, Han Yuanqi personally took charge of Sizhou. Whether he was managing Sizhou or Haizhou, or constantly detaching small groups of troops to launch raids on the Chu River on the south bank, he was more proactive and more effective than the Western Front.
Of course, Han Yuanqi was in charge of Sizhou. In addition to Sizhou and Haizhou, the two remnant states were under his jurisdiction and required a large amount of resources to be hoarded and looted to colonize the civilian population. Xuzhou, which had always been an important town in the southeast of Daliang, and Mizhou in the north were all under his jurisdiction.
He was temperate and had plenty of money, food and materials at his disposal.
A large number of newly built river warships were originally consumables. He did not even consider that wooden shipbuilding without sufficient drying was easily deformed and leaked, so he built small and medium-sized warships on a large scale to penetrate and invade the river network on the south bank of the Huaihe River, forcing him to
After the war, the Huaidong Army had no time to repair the river embankments and resettle the refugees. It carried out repeated attacks and destroyed the farming, reclamation and water conservancy along Chuzhou.
As a result, Han Yuanqi commanded 60,000 horse infantry on the eastern front. Although the size of the troops and horses was only half of the Huaidong Army on the south, they were able to take the offensive and take the initiative.
"Your Majesty learned that Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi was terminally ill and led his troops back to Bianjing in advance. At this time, is there any further news coming from the north?" Wen Ruilin thought of something and asked Han Yuanqi respectfully.
After the fall of the previous dynasty, Shi Chongsi established the Jin State in Hedong and Hebei. In the early years, the military strength was so strong that the Liang army had to retreat.
However, in addition to the endless battles with the Liang State on the north bank of the Yellow River for many years, the Jin State was also under military pressure from the increasingly powerful Mongolian people in the north. The official founding of the country was less than 30 years ago. Yun Youyan and others were captured by the Mongolian people ten years ago.
The state lost control of the Yanshan Mountains, and the country became increasingly weak.
In addition, Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi was suffering from illness in his later years and had no energy to take care of the government. As a result, when the Liang Dynasty was in chaos, the Jin army failed to take the opportunity to do anything.
Zhu Yu returned to Bianjing two months ago. Except for Huaidong and Huaixi, there were no more favorable fighter opportunities. The main reason was that spies returned from the Jin Kingdom with the news that the Jin Emperor was critically ill.
The internal situation of the Jin State was more complicated than that of the Chu State in the later years of Emperor Tianyou. Shi Chongsi and his disciples were all weak, while the generals held heavy troops, which were too big to lose and difficult to control. The Jin Emperor was critically ill or even died. It is difficult to imagine that the Jin State could be stable.
transition.
In any case, Zhu Yu had to return to Bianjing in advance to make preparations.
It's just that two months have passed since the incident, and Wen Ruilin wanted to know if there was any follow-up news.
"The Jin State has blocked Chidao, and the border towns are also on alert. No further news has been released for the time being, but looking at the situation, Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi is very likely to have passed away. Maybe some people are afraid of the situation being turbulent, or having the opportunity to plot, so they keep the mourning secret
..." Han Yuanqi said.
Wen Ruilin thought about the unpredictable situation in Chu State in recent years, and he didn't know what kind of turmoil would be caused in Hedong and Hebei after the death of Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi.
Of course he hopes that Daliang will have the opportunity to occupy Hedong and Hebei. Even if he cannot do so, he hopes to weaken the Jin State as much as possible this time. Only when Daliang has no worries in the north can he concentrate on troops, horses, money and food, and continue to expand the attack on the Chu army on the southern front.
strategic advantage until they completely captured Huaidong, Huaixi, Jingxiang and other places.
Only at that point can Daliang truly possess the power to dominate the world...
