Jiuli Pass, also known as Huangxian Pass, borders Yingshan County of Suizhou to the south, Luoshan County of Guangzhou to the north, and passes Wusheng Pass (Wuyang Pass) and Pingjing Pass in Yiyang County to the west, and is also known as the Three Yiyang Passes.
Pass is the second largest passage between Jingxiang and the Central Plains after Nanyang Basin.
Huangxian Pass is surrounded by two mountains and is a natural canyon. It is narrow at both ends and wide in the middle. It is easy to defend but difficult to attack. It has been a battleground for military strategists of all dynasties.
In early February, dozens of cavalrymen surrounded several carriages and drove slowly through the Huangxianguan Canyon.
Yao Xishui sat in the carriage, opened the curtain, and looked at the mountains covered with ice and snow on both sides. There was no sign of melting yet.
"Ahead is the Lingshan Camp. My eldest brother and Li Xiu are at the Lingshan Camp at this time."
Li Qi reined in his horse and waited for the carriage to approach. He turned sideways and said to Yao Xishui through the carriage window.
Huangxianguan City belongs to Yingshan County. It has been located in the hinterland of Dachu for a long time. Not to mention it has been in disrepair for a long time. Restricted by steep cliffs on both sides, the city is very narrow. There are more than a hundred houses and more than a thousand elite troops are stationed there.
It's the limit.
Li Zhigao led his troops out of Tongbai Mountain, but failed to capture Luoshan City, which was a hundred miles away from Huangxian Pass in the north and was heavily defended. Therefore, he built a camp at the north entrance of Huangxian Pass Canyon and at the foot of the western foothills of Meihua Mountain based on the earlier Lingshan Village to facilitate the battle with Li Zhigao.
Forty miles away to the west, Yiyang City is a corner of each other, peering down at the waterways and coastal areas of the upper reaches of the Huaihe River.
Yao Xishui called to stop the cavalry. She, Chun Shisanniang and maid Ye Feiying opened the car curtains. At this time, they could already see the end of the post road, the looming rammed earth walls of the camp, and the yellow-brown earth city.
It is especially conspicuous under the ice and snow; in the valleys on both sides, you can also see newly opened mountain roads extending in all directions.
The mountains in Yiyang and Luoshan are rich in coal and iron. Li Zhigao recruited a large number of civilian laborers from the mainland to mine coal and iron in the mountains. He also built smelting and casting plants in Yiyang and Lingshan. In less than a year, it was considered
Success in the beginning.
Seeing everything in front of him, Yao Xishui was filled with emotions.
Once upon a time, the resources secretly controlled by Wan Honglou and Xinchang Houfu were many times that of the Han family and his son, but now they were suppressed by the Tangyi army. One of the main reasons was that they had not been able to control a stable resource.
’s foundation place.
Although they took over Qiuhu Mountain from Han Qian in the early days and managed it well, maintaining a maximum scale of nearly 3,000 craftsmen, they were completely destroyed during the Jinling Incident. Even though some craftsmen and craftsmen survived later,
Because of the seizure of power by Han Qian, most of these people chose to move to Xuzhou with their families and settle down after the Jinling Incident.
After the war, at Shen Yang's insistence, the supervisor finally took over Qiuhu Mountain.
The subsequent destruction of the Youshenwu Army was an even greater blow.
After Emperor Yanyou ascended the throne, Duke Li Pu of Chang State devoted all his resources to the construction of the Youshenwu Army.
In terms of cavalry alone, the Youshenwu Army not only has an independent cavalry capital, but also has more than 6,000 additional horses.
However, at the end of the day, only Li Xiu and Li Qi led the Youshenwu Army, which had the highest combat power among all the Forbidden Army divisions, to escape from Zhongli City with more than a thousand generals. Even the thousands of war horses they brought back were shamelessly killed by Han Qian
intercepted.
At present, the three elite imperial guards of the Zuowu Guards, the Zuo Longque Army and the Zuo Shenwu Army together do not have more than 5,000 horses. It is difficult to form an independent cavalry unit.
Although they could barely say that they had already included Xiang, Deng, and Ying states in their pockets, these states had been the most severely destroyed by wars in the past hundred years. During the Jingxiang War just a few years ago, they were massacred and plundered by the Liang army.
The population is nearly 200,000.
Although after the Jingxiang War, Emperor Tianyou forcibly recruited a group of households from Tan'e and other prefectures to fill the areas of Dengjun and Dengjun, but as of the end of last year, the Xiangbei Defense Envoy Office was officially established, and the total number of registered households in the five prefectures was only
There are 120,000 households and more than 700,000 people.
Due to the devastation caused by the war, the population of these five states has not only not increased at all in the past few decades, but has also been significantly reduced by more than 70%.
You must know that in the middle of the previous dynasty, there were 120,000 to 30,000 households in the Nanyang Basin alone, with a population of nearly one million residents.
No matter how vigilant and wary Yao Xishui was about Tangyi deep down in his heart, he had to admit that he had learned too much from the Han family and his sons over the years, and his understanding of population was much deeper than that of the so-called civil servants and generals of the time.
many.
After Li Zhigao became the capital's defense envoy, he focused on suppressing local wealthy households, recuperating people's livelihood, and alleviating the oppression of the poor at the bottom. She also persuaded Lu Qingxia to give her full support.
Even if we do not count the power and influence of the DPRK, it seems that at present, the Xiangbei Defense Prefecture controls five states, with less than 800,000 soldiers and nearly 50,000 soldiers, which is more than the three states controlled by the Tangyi Zhizhi Prefecture.
, with a population of about 600,000, and 30,000 soldiers, they were still much stronger no matter what, but Yao Xishui knew in his heart that Xiangbei was already at a disadvantage.
The navy in Tangyi only had more than 4,000 soldiers. It seemed small in scale, but the Chishan Society under Han Qian's control had more than 300 large and small merchant ships. It also borrowed Xuzhou and used the cloth iron tea medicine and tung oil produced in Tangyi.
The trade of bulk materials such as porcelain extended its tentacles to various states and counties in Dachu, employing more than 5,000 boatmen and sailors, all of whom were former members of the Zuo-Guangde Army. It was indeed a semi-armed force that could not be ignored.
Because Tangyi has relatively abundant financial resources, even if Huaidong and Prince Shou's palace were alert, they could not stop Han Qian from using money and grain to reclaim new fields and build houses in Tangyi, and sell the lost land to Jiangnan at a price far lower than the cost.
Or households with little land, refugees.
And Chishan Society secretly helped, and could even directly bypass the supervision of the state and county, and directly transport the poor and slaves from the bottom to move into Tangyi. Even if the ordinary states and counties were aware of it, who would stop the powerful Han family and the Marquis of Qianyang?
Mansion?
Although it is not as exaggerated as last year, Tangyi has an increase of about two to three thousand people every month.
In this regard, Xiangbei is far from comparable.
The Weaving Bureau supplies fabrics and satin to the palace, collects weaving tributes from local places, and has the power to monitor the world on behalf of Cishou Palace. As one of the eight bureaus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it naturally has more authority than the Chishan Society, which has no official status.
Great power.
As for Yao Xishui and Chun Shisanniang, as weaving envoys and deputy envoys, they were awarded the official titles of the fourth rank and the fourth rank. They acted under the orders of the Queen Mother, and their power was higher than that of the local governor.
However, the Weaving Bureau only has two to three hundred people available outside the imperial city. They are mainly used to spy on intelligence from various places, and they do not have the ability to help Xiangbei recruit refugees on a large scale.
As for the Xiangbei prefectures, every copper coin and every grain of rice they can squeeze out at present must be used to improve the generals, soldiers, armor and military equipment, and there is no spare capacity to reclaim wasteland on a larger scale and build villages.
It's sad to say that in the past year, they even had to squeeze out their limited money and food to purchase hundreds of thousands of cotton cloths and millions of jins of lint from the Chishan Society to improve the Zuo Longque Army, Zuo Wu Wei Army, and Zuo Shenwu
The army has nearly 50,000 generals
Soldiers wear cold clothes to enhance the field combat capabilities of soldiers and horses in the cold season.
The chaos in Heshuo and the disturbance of Liang Guo may be the biggest opportunity for them to suppress Tangyi in one fell swoop and gain the upper hand again, right?
But how can they better seize this opportunity without benefiting the fishermen in Tangyi?
Thinking of this, Yao Xishui had a severe headache.
After the Battle of Wujinling, the Weaving Bureau sent more elite spies, pretending to be hunters and medicine farmers, and sneaked into the depths of Huaiyang Mountain.
By this time last winter, the Tangyi Army had launched riots among the poor in the upper reaches of the Baishui River, Guan River, Bailu River and other water systems, and they were also clear about the construction of plank roads between the upper reaches of the Baishui River and the Yanzi River.
Chu, but Tangyi's army was too capable of fighting in the mountains and quelling the riots of the poor.
Not to mention their dozen or so elite spies, even if the Shouzhou Army had been aware of it for a long time, in the cold winter when the mountains were covered with heavy snow, there was nothing they could do against the Tangyi Army.
Once the Liang Army suffered a heavy setback on the northern front or the situation reversed, forcing the Shouzhou Army to shrink its defense line again, no matter how you look at it, the Tangyi Army took advantage of the situation and left Huaiyang Mountain, giving it a geographical advantage.
How can we divert Han Qian's attention?
Yao Xishui didn't have any good ideas for the moment. He thought that after meeting his eldest brother, maybe they would have some good ideas, right?
…………
…………
Yao Xishui and the others had just entered the Lingshan camp, and the carriage team had not yet reached the tent. Through the car window, they saw Feng Yi looking at him furtively, frowning slightly, and asked Li Qi: "Why is he here?"
Li Qi was previously sent to Lishan County on official business by Li Zhigao. Just as Yao Xishui and Chun Shisanniang came over, he went with them. He had left Lingshan Camp for two or three days, but he didn't know that Feng Yi would be here at this time.
Seeing Yao Xishui's half-flowered face emerging from the carriage, Feng Yi came over to greet him with saliva, bowed and said: "Master Yao Zhizao, I haven't seen you for a while, but I miss you so much."
Although Feng Yi has a cheerful personality and is not as diligent in his work as others, he is mostly responsible for any important contacts between Tangyi and the outside world.
And the outside world also recognized that he could represent Han Qian's opinions.
Seeing Feng Yi at the Lingshan camp, Yao Xishui naturally subconsciously guessed that Han Qian had something urgent to do and wanted to see his elder brother.
Feng Yi also just arrived at the Lingshan camp, not much earlier than Yao Xishui and the others. He had not seen Li Zhigao yet, but he did not play any charades with Yao Xishui. He accompanied them to Li Zhigao's tent and said as he walked: "Mr. Yao Gong is the
Aren't you very curious why I came to Luoshan for nothing? The Weaving Bureau has sent too many spies to Huaiyang Mountain during this period. Yao Gong asked you not to be restrained at this time, or not to inform us.
"If someone is accidentally injured, everyone will be embarrassed. When I came here this time, we caught more than ten suspicious people in the mountains on the upper reaches of Guanhe River, Bailu River, and Baishui River, and specially sent them here for Li Du Defense Envoy to identify them."
One or two, to avoid accidentally killing the generals who are loyal to our great Chu..."
"Hmph..." Yao Xishui snorted softly. Now nearly half of the population on the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain is under the control of the Tangyi Army. When Han Qian was in Xuzhou, his ability to control and investigate the mountainous area was extremely high.
This also makes it increasingly difficult for spies from the Weaving Bureau to infiltrate Huaiyang Mountain.
Faced with Feng Yi's covert threat, Yao Xishui felt very unhappy, but he had to rescue the dozens of people who fell into Tang Yi's hands, but kept a cold face and remained silent.
