Guo Rong, Feng Liao, Tian Cheng, Guo Que, Zhao Wuji and others quickly called for them.
Before they entered the yard, they were still discussing the construction progress of the Huazhujian (Feng) Plank Road.
This is also the most important task in the entire Huaiyang War Zone in the near future. Feng Liao and Guo have to rush to the Huazhujian construction site in person every now and then to check on the progress.
The principle of building a plank road on a cliff is very simple. It is to dig holes on the steep rock cliffs, insert wooden stakes horizontally, and then lay thick boards on the wooden stakes to form a trestle bridge to connect the roads separated by the steep cliffs on both sides.
superior.
In this way, you can avoid climbing over steep cliffs and can move directly along the cliffs. More importantly, vehicles and horses can pass through, creating convenient conditions for the transportation of bulk materials.
However, Huazhujian and the peaks around Tanyang Peak serve as the watershed between the Feishui River in the south and the Baishui River flowing north into the Huaihe River. As one of the main tributaries of the upper reaches of the Huaihe River, the peaks and ridges are extremely dangerous and the valleys are endless, making it difficult for apes and birds to escape.
The crossing area stretches continuously for nearly forty miles.
To build a road in this area and open a channel connecting the Nanfeishui River and the upper reaches of the Baishui River, one must either dig mountains, drill rocks, or both. The difficulty and scale of the project are not as great as those of the Xuefeng Mountains built in the Qin and Han Dynasties.
The post road is slightly lower.
Of course, it must be built. Even if it were a thousand years earlier, the world would still be able to build this plank road. After all, there is no technical difficulty on the whole.
During the Qin and Han Dynasties, it ran through the entire southwest, with a total length of more than thousands of miles. The Xuefeng Mountain Post Road was only a very small part of it, the Five-foot Post Road. Wasn't it the Central Plains Dynasty that recruited hundreds of thousands of civilians and dug it out bit by bit?
If it were anyone else, they might rather fight their way out of Wujin Ridge, defeat the enemy forces along Anfeng Village, seize the southern area of Huozhou, and then enter the mountains along the valley in southern Huozhou, rather than thinking of trying to get there.
In a dangerous place, a plank road connecting the northeastern slope and the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain was dug regardless of the cost.
But Han Qian was willing to do just that.
Han Qian runs Xuzhou, and has twice widened and renovated the Xuefeng Mountain Post Road on a large scale, opening up the passage from Xuzhou to the states in the upper reaches of the Xiangjiang River. In order to strengthen the land connections between counties in Xuzhou, he works almost non-stop in Qianyang every year.
, Linjiang, Chenzhong, Zhijiang, Quyang and other places to build roads.
After the civil unrest in Sizhou, a post road was forcibly opened on the steep slope of the southern foot of Wuling Mountain from Hujian Pass to the Wuchuan Valley of the Qianjiang River, ensuring that the cloth railway in Xuzhou could bypass the Sizhou hinterland controlled by the Yang family and pass directly through it.
The Qianjiang River leads to Sichuan and Shu, which also ensures that the well salt from the Wuchuan Valley can be continuously transported into Xuzhou.
The Tangyi Army's ability to build bridges and open roads is definitely no worse than that of marching and fighting. It has trained a group of experienced road and bridge engineers and has a large number of skilled craftsmen. They have studied dozens of ways to build roads and bridges, and also developed a
Special tools and equipment.
Can the strength or weakness of an army of soldiers and horses only be reflected in the charge?
Hundreds of thousands of generals who were transferred from Xuzhou by Han Qian were engaged in construction in the vast areas such as East Lake and Wushou. Some of them were still not accustomed to operating in the Huaiyang Mountains, and they felt more or less like a fish in water.
In the past three months, thousands of heavy troops and craftsmen have been requisitioned to build a nearly 30-mile-long post road on the upper reaches of the Yanzi River on the side near Huaiyang County. Only the last ten miles are left.
It can open up the connection with the upper reaches of Baishui River; it is even now possible to transport some soldiers, armor, weapons and medicine and other supplies on a small scale into the hinterland of the North Slope to reinforce the Honan Task Force Camp.
The advantage of building this post road is that it can also strengthen the communication between the thirty or forty villages in the dangerous and remote mountains in the upper reaches of the Yanzi River, with nearly ten thousand people, and the outside world. It can also facilitate the elimination of the two groups of bandits who occupy these dangerous mountains as their nests.
Feng Liao, Guo Que, Tian Cheng, Guo Rong and others all eagerly look forward to the early construction of the Huazhufeng Plank Road.
At present, the defense line of the east flank of the Shouzhou Army has been completely reduced. To the north of Huaiyang Mountain, the main troops and horses are gathered in Anfeng Village. By blocking the upper reaches of the Nanfeishui River valley, the Tangyi Army can be blocked. Defense is relatively easy.
But on the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain, there are four or five larger streams that pass through Huozhou and lead directly to the Huaihe River.
Once the Huazhu Peak Plank Road is built and the Tangyi Army opens the passage to the north slope of Huaiyang Mountain, the Shouzhou Army will guard the four or five river valley passages out of the north slope on the outside of the north slope to prevent the elite Tangyi soldiers from entering the Huaiyang Mountains.
In the hinterland of the state, drinking from the Mahuai River cannot be any easier than currently mainly guarding the upper reaches of the South Feishui River valley.
This means that they may not need to send troops to launch a large-scale battle in the future, and they may directly defeat the Shouzhou Army.
As time went by, the situation in Huaixi developed and became more favorable to the Tangyi army.
As long as Li Zhigao is a little more powerful on the western front, Tian Cheng, Feng Liao and others feel that it is not an unimaginable prospect to completely expel the Shouzhou Army from the south bank of the Huaihe River within three to five years.
After all, they control the northeastern slope of Huaiyang Mountain. After the northern slope, Huozhou, Shouzhou, and Haozhou controlled by the Shouzhou Army can be said to be undefeated.
"What's the matter, your lord called us here?" Guo Rong asked as he walked in.
As the Chief Secretary, he is in charge of the Department of Capital Affairs. His actual duties are similar to that of Secretary-General. It is just that the standards for setting up the Imperial Envoy's Office are slightly lower than those of the Imperial Envoy's Office and Jiedushi's Office. He does not have the position of Secretary-General, only a recording office.
Handle confidential documents and draft memorials with the Registrar.
Han Qian told everyone about the news report just returned from Dingzhou and Wang Jun's many speculations, and said to Guo Que with special emphasis:
"If something like Wang Yuankui defected to the Mongols, and the Mongols drove straight in from Hengzhou and attacked Weibo, what kind of alarm would be caused to Liang Jun and the hinterland of Liang State, and how would it affect both sides of the Huaihe River?
Due to the situation, the Military Intelligence Staff Department must come up with corresponding deductions and response plans as soon as possible..."
This is not to say that Wang Yuankui will definitely defect to the Mongol people, but once this happens, it will not only cause earth-shaking changes in the power structure north of the Yellow River, but will also directly affect the development of the situation in the Jianghuai region.
This will be very different from the development of the situation in Jianghuai they previously judged. At the same time, their response plan will also be greatly changed, or corresponding response measures will need to be added so that they will not be in a hurry.
"We still have to prepare for the possibility of Liang Guo losing the two states of Wei and Bo. Especially as Mrs. Jun said, the late Honglou has been secretly colluding with Wang Jingrong, an internal official of the Chengde Army, for many years. Li Zhigao may have been secretly prepared in Yiyangji.
, if we are careless again, we may have to sit back and watch the entire upper reaches of the Huaihe River fall under Li Zhigao's control..." Feng Liao pondered for a while and said.
It is already early February, and the ground is about to completely thaw. Both sides have relatively strong naval forces. At this time, it will be difficult to harass and attack the lake areas controlled by the other side.
The busy season for spring sowing and reclamation is after February and March. Before the rainy season, digging ditches and building roads is much more convenient than in the cold winter.
According to the established plan, Tangyi will release a considerable part of the heavy troops from the fortifications, expand the settlement, continue to build, improve the water and land channels between the frontier fortifications and the inner hinterland, and dredge the rivers and canals.
However, if the situation in the northern part of Liang State that would be attacked by Mongolian cavalry was used to deduce the development of the situation in the Jianghuai River, they would not only be unable to relax their military readiness, but would even have to further strengthen their military readiness. Only then would they be able to take advantage of the chaos in northern Liang State to seize the opportunity for expansion.
Chance.
"Since the Jinling Rebellion, the situation of the generals of the Shouzhou Army has been in dire straits. Even with the help of the Liang Army, it has not improved much. The reason why it still has a strong combat effectiveness is that Xu Mingzhen has accumulated great prestige in Shouzhou and supports his direct lineage.
He has many cronies," Guo Rong said, "but in the battle of Wujinling, Xu Mingzhen's direct followers suffered extremely heavy casualties. This will inevitably directly affect his control of the Shouzhou Army, regardless of whether there will be unrest in the north, especially in China.
As the Zhufeng Plank Road is about to be completed, we should all maintain stronger military oppression on the Shouzhou Army!"
Guo Rong was originally a direct descendant of Anning Palace and was very familiar with the internal situation of Anning Palace and the Xu family.
There are natural flaws in the internal cohesion of the current army. At least before Han Qian, a strong army was more about winning the loyalty of a few direct line elites, and then using the direct line elites and strict and almost cruel military discipline to maintain a larger scale.
Soldiers and horses.
Since the vassal towns were segregated in the middle and late dynasties of the previous dynasty, the importance of Yajun in the vassal towns has never been ignored.
Continuing to the founding of the Liang, Shu, Jin and Chu states, they basically continued to strengthen the status of the bodyguards and imperial guards, and then used elite guards and imperial guards to control prefectures, counties and local soldiers.
Xu Mingzhen's governance of Shouzhou did not fundamentally deviate from this model.
When Han Qian went deep into the Huaiyang Mountains alone, the reason why the government and the public were so nervous is that the world's view of Tangyi soldiers has not fundamentally changed, and they have not distinguished Tangyi soldiers from other elite and powerful armies.
The government and the public were still worried that Han Qian's elite direct lineage would suffer too many casualties, or that the entire army would be destroyed, which would directly lead to the collapse of the entire Tangyi defense line.
When Xu Mingzhen attacked Wujinling last year, although in the early month-long tug-of-war of attrition, his elite lineage did not go to the battlefield very much and fought hard, but when the ice dam hit the enemy camp, Xu Mingzhen's elite lineage did not escape.
Great calamity.
Han Qian had previously led a surprise attack on the outskirts of Anfeng Village for reinforcements. Xu Mingzhen immediately led the reinforcements outside Anfeng Village, mainly his elite cavalry guards, and suffered heavy losses.
Adding together these two brutal blows, the elite direct lineage that Xu Mingzhen can directly control has dropped to an extremely low level. Currently, they have to mainly gather in Anfeng Village to prevent Han Qian from doing anything else in the mountains.
action.
This actually means that Xu Mingzhen's control over the Shouzhou Army, which currently seems to have 90,000 troops, has actually secretly dropped to an extremely low level.
Regardless of whether the situation in the north would be unexpectedly turbulent, Guo Rong advocated maintaining a stronger military confrontation and oppression against the Shouzhou Army. He believed that if the confrontation continued, the Shouzhou Army would have large-scale mutiny and flight.
He may even choose to serve the imperial court again...
It is said that those who are good at fighting have no great achievements. Tangyi has advantages in all aspects of setting up the army. It should use these advantages to crush and disintegrate the Shouzhou army, so as to achieve the goal of defeating the enemy without fighting.
"In addition to Yiyang, the Military Intelligence Staff Department has recently dispatched several more groups of scouts to go north to Weizhou and Bozhou to pay attention to changes in the war situation north of the Yellow River at any time. Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang Dynasty dealt with the German army and the Mongol people.
Whether the soldiers and horses in Youtan and other states are vigilant, whether Liang Jun's troops and horses in the Hanoi states and Weibo can cope with the worst situation, and even the choice of Zhao Yidu's defense envoy Zhang Wenli will have a great impact on the situation in the north.
"It will have a huge impact," Han Qian said. "In addition, the Military Intelligence Staff Department and the General Affairs Department must weigh the impact of different response plans on the overall development of Tangyi."
Any adjustment to the plan involves a wide range of areas. For example, last year, so many engineers and craftsmen were deployed into the mountains in western Huaiyang County to build plank roads. Many construction tasks to be executed in East Lake, Liyang, Longtan and other places followed.
Come to a standstill.
If the plan is to be adjusted this time, it will most likely involve the rationing of 30,000 to 40,000 able-bodied men, which will have an even greater impact on Tangyi.
At present, Tangyi is not a field army that can receive unreserved support from the imperial court. In addition to the military confrontation with the Shouzhou Army, it also has to consider complex entanglements with the imperial court, Huaidong, late Honglou, Zheng family and other internal forces.
, the problem becomes more complex and dangerous...