At night, in a barracks built on a hilltop on the east bank of the Lanjiang River, a fourth-grade civil servant wearing a red robe was raising a glass and looking across the river with a confident smile on his face. Behind him were a group of civil and military officials.
This person is none other than Song Zhiwen, the magistrate of Xingquan Prefecture!
After the last tragic defeat in Lanjiang, Song Zhiwen used his strong writing skills and a lot of contacts and favors to finally get things over.
After covering up the matter, he recruited and trained new soldiers non-stop, requested reinforcements from guardsmen from other places, and recruited a large number of young men. In the process, he also blackmailed many wealthy households in Xingquan Prefecture.
Of course, he will not touch those really wealthy people. He will donate whatever amount they are willing to give. His target is the nouveau riche and merchants.
It is actually quite simple to extort money from these upstarts and businessmen with little background to use as military expenses.
For no other reason than because he was born as a second-class Jinshi, entered the Hanlin Academy, and is a serious fourth-grade red-robed official. If he becomes tough, he will be able to do whatever he wants in the government.
During this process, he uprooted a family that thought they would not have to donate money if they had a family member.
First, a small trick was used to remove the family leader's civil service title, and finally, on a casual charge, the men of the family were sent away for three thousand miles, and the women and children were sold into slavery.
As for whether they committed a crime or not, it doesn't matter at all. If Song Zhiwen says he is guilty, then he is guilty.
Under three trees, what can you ask for?
In this special period, he fully explained to people what it means to "break the family and destroy the family."
Through this tough method, he finally raised enough military expenses, and by the way, he also collected tens of thousands more taels and put them into his own pocket and distributed the profits to other subordinate officials and superiors.
Naturally, you cannot keep things like making money alone. If you share some profits with your subordinates, they will work harder. If you share some profits with your superiors, it will be more convenient to do things.
After three months of preparation, he finally collected enough military expenses and raised tens of thousands of troops. Naturally, he would not worry about the generals who lost the battle last time. This time, he came to the Lanjiang Ferry in person!
He will personally lead an army to wipe out those daring puppet Tang rebels, and then take all the credit in his hands. Then he will repeat his old tricks, use some clever tricks, and give enough benefits to the adults in the capital. It is appropriate for him to be promoted.
OK, maybe I can leave this ghost place in Guizhou and be transferred back to the capital. If I work harder in the future, I might be able to live out the addiction of being a minister or even a cabinet minister in my lifetime.
As an official, who doesn’t want to climb up?
But now, the rebellion of those puppet Tang rebels is an opportunity for him to get promoted and make a fortune.
For this reason, his staff planned for more than a month, and finally came up with a way to cross the river and even annihilate the puppet Tang rebel army on the Lanjiang River.
This method can be said to be simple or complex.
To put it simply, the strategy was to send the elite main force to cross the river secretly in a detour, while leaving thousands of cannon fodder troops at the Lanjiang Ferry to attract the attention of the puppet Tang rebels in front of them.
As long as the main force can cross the river from other places, it can avoid attacking the solid beachhead fortress of the puppet Tang rebels.
When the cannon fodder here began to cross the river to attract the attention of the Puppet Tang thief army, the elite main force that had already crossed the river at night directly attacked the sides and rear of the Puppet Tang thief army. Under such a pincer attack, the Puppet Tang thief army would definitely be unable to support them.
living.
By then, a big victory will be within your reach!
However, Song Zhiwen himself did not know that the puppet Tang rebel army on the opposite side was so decisive and resolute, and had already sent troops to reinforce the No. 2 and No. 3 ferry in the middle of the night.
But even if he knew it, he would care too much. In his opinion, the reason why these pseudo-Tang rebels were able to defeat their own army of three thousand troops last time was because they occupied the river bank, not because of the versatility of the pseudo-Tang rebels.
beat.
As for the report from his subordinates that the puppet Tang rebel army's muskets were sharp and the shells were powerful, although he paid some attention to it, he still thought it was mediocre.
The firearms of the puppet Tang thief army are sharp? Even if they are more powerful, he is not without firearms. This time he brought dozens of bowl-mouth blunderbuss of different sizes. When the time comes, who has the sharper firearms?
I do not know.
However, Song Zhiwen still has no intuitive impression of what those explosive bullets are. The people below said that when fired, those explosive bullets fired hundreds of bullets at once, like thunder, and like an earth dragon rolling around. It was very scary.
But Song Zhiwen felt that the people below had exaggerated the power of the explosives, and how could they evade responsibility if they didn't make the puppet Tang rebels more powerful.
Song Zhiwen just listened to this and laughed. If there was such a thing, these pseudo-Tang rebels would have crossed the river long ago, and they would still stick to the west bank.
Tonight, whether it was the Ming army or the Tang army, they knew something about each other, but they did not understand many details.
The lack of communication and investigation means meant that they could only rely on guessing for many things on the battlefield. If they guessed right, there would be many benefits, but if they guessed wrong, they would be in big trouble.
Not to mention the reactions of the generals on both sides at the Lanjiang Ferry, Fang Xitong waited for a full hour at the No. 2 Ferry before receiving the second order from Li Xuan. This order was quite simple.
That is to let the first mixed battalion obey the command of Hao Bainian, the battalion officer of the fourth infantry battalion, to intercept and annihilate the Ming army crossing the Yangtze River.
Along with Li Xuan's order came Hao Bainian's military order.
Hao Bainian ordered Fang Xitong to immediately lead his army back to No. 2 Ferry to investigate the strength of the Ming army crossing the river. The most important thing was to find out how many Ming troops were crossing the river. In addition, if there was an opportunity, they could launch an appropriate blockade.
Combat.
Hao Bainian, on the other hand, brought half of the 4th Infantry Battalion, a total of more than 200 people, for rapid reinforcements.
After receiving these two orders, Fang Xitong's heart sank. He was not an idiot. From these two orders, he had already seen that his previous conservative decision-making had already caused His Majesty's displeasure. Otherwise,
, and Hao Bainian would not be sent here to command him.
However, he still did not regret his previous choice. His conservative choice was a bad idea militarily, but politically, it was absolutely correct.
Your Majesty may look differently at a talented general, but in the end, what Your Majesty values more is always a loyal general, and what he, Fang Xitong, wants to do is this loyal general.
Now that he had received a clear order, Fang Xitong no longer had any worries and immediately led his troops back to Ferry No. 2.
There, at least a thousand Ming troops had already landed on the beach, and more Ming troops continued to cross the river.
At the same time, at Ferry No. 3 on the other side, a battle has broken out!