The fourteenth day of the seventh month in the first year of the Han Dynasty.
Li Xingchen led the army and Pei Zilie's troops who broke through Wuhu met with Shi Gushu at the gate of the city.
Chen Shuying, the king of Nanchen Yuzhang, led the remaining soldiers to abandon the city and retreat to the line from Liushan to Putang in the northeast of Kushu. They echoed the Jiangzong troops in the north and formed the last line of defense to defend the west side of Jiankang Prefecture.
Li Xunchen entered Gushu, the county seat of Nanyuzhou without any bloodshed, but Pei Zilie entered the city first and was already waiting for Li Xinchen outside the government office.
"Master!" Li Xingchen was a little helpless, "It seems that someone has lost."
Pei Zilie smiled and said: "Although it was Chen Shuying who blocked Caishiji, which made the Chen people in Caishiji high-spirited. But the fact is that your highness should be willing to admit defeat."
"It doesn't matter, our in-laws here can't run away anyway." Li Xinchen couldn't help laughing. According to the bet between him and Pei Zilie, if Pei Zilie wins, Li Xinchen will betroth a daughter to the Pei family in the future. If Li Xinchen wins,
In the future, a prince will marry the daughter of the Pei family.
Pei Zilie nodded slightly and ignored the matter: "Chen Shuying runs fast..."
Li Xingchen said calmly: "There is a vast plain outside Gushu City. Chen Shuying saw the fighting situation in Wanling and Wuhu and other places, so he naturally knew what the consequences would be if he stayed here, so he might as well retreat quickly. Instead, he went from Putang to Liushan.
, the terrain is undulating, and there are swamps, which is a good place to stop us."
"In this way, all of Southern Yuzhou falls into our hands," Pei Zilie smiled bitterly, "I can't understand what Chen is thinking. If you can't resist at all levels, you can only delay time. If someone comes to preside over the war,
, it is impossible to mobilize soldiers and horses from Jiangnan or even Lingnan to directly fight us to the death. In this way, if we win, we will still have a chance to survive, and if we fail, we will be able to make a splash."
Li Xingchen looked at the map hanging on the wall and said nothing. Historically, Nanchen had obviously deployed its defenses in this way, so Li Xingchen was not surprised that the Nanchen court would come up with such a strategic arrangement.
The Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty were the ones who held on to the south of the Yangtze River for the longest time in history. The reason why these two dynasties were able to do so was because they used the line from Xiangyang to Jingzhou as the backbone and the Huaihe River as a trap. As long as the enemy could not break through Xiangyang, there was no way to threaten them.
Upstream of Jiankang Prefecture, there is no way to go down the river like Li Xinchen. As for the Lianghuai River, it seems to be very close to Jiankang Prefecture, but it is all plains and the river network is dense, making it easy to attack and difficult to defend, as the army marches
Slowly, once you choose this as a breakthrough point, you must be prepared for a long period of tug-of-war.
Especially when the southern navy had the advantage, it was actually very difficult to break through the Lianghuai defense line. No matter whether it was Cao Wei's several attacks on Soochow in the south of the Yangtze River, or the later Jin Kingdom, Mongolia's march south from the Lianghuai River was without exception.
Suffering setbacks, in the end he could only fight with the Southern Dynasty in the long water network.
Therefore, when Li Xingchen captured Jingzhou, Nanchen's national destiny was actually doomed.
Therefore, Chen Shubao, President Jiang and others could only hold on to the mentality of conserving their strength and holding on for a while, believing that as long as they could rely on the defense line to stop the enemy and cause the enemy's casualties to reach a certain level, the two sides would naturally be able to negotiate peace.
In fact, not only the Nanchen Court, but also Shen Jungao in Lingnan obviously had similar ideas. However, the Nanchen Court and Lingnan had obviously fought separately, and neither side could truly achieve the overwhelming power of the country. Therefore, regardless of Shen Jungao's defeat,
Yu Yanguan, or Chen Shuying retreated to Putang, it is actually reasonable.
Thinking of the history of the Nanchen army and civilians eating pots of pulp to welcome the Sui Dynasty army, Li Xingchen felt a little emotional. Obviously, his current treatment is similar. In the final analysis, it is because of the turmoil in the Nanchen Dynasty, coupled with the political system that has not changed, has
The people of Nanchen lost confidence in this dynasty.
It seems that the Nanchen court is constantly suppressing aristocratic families and appointing children from poor families, but it is obvious that new poor families will grow into aristocratic families, and everything is trapped in an infinite loop. Especially since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the system of moving to prefectures has made local administration extremely difficult.
Chaos - When Li Xingchen got a foothold in Xiangzhou, he already discovered that after more than 20 years of rule by Nanchen, the administrative divisions of Jiangnan and Jingnan were no better than Bashu, a place that had changed hands several times.
Take Southern Yuzhou, where Li Xingchen is now based, as an example. When the Southern Dynasties were first established, Southern Yuzhou was four times larger than the current Southern Yuzhou. The former Southern Yuzhou extended north to the south bank of the Huai River, which was actually equivalent to the area beyond the Huai River in later generations.
The entire territory of Anhui in the south, while the current South Yuzhou only corresponds to the territory of Xuancheng County in South Yuzhou.
However, as the land of Huainan changed hands several times, Southern Yuzhou has been compressed to the south of the Yangtze River. In other words, the territory of a county once bore the name of a state, and under this state, there were also Xuancheng County and Huainan County (
The establishment of the county government (Gushu, also known as Gushu County, now Dangtu) was equivalent to dividing the original county into two.
This means that the people in one county now have to be managed by officials from two counties in one state. But the problem is that after the Hou Jing Rebellion, the people in Jiangnan are poorer and have a smaller population than when the Southern Dynasty was first established. This naturally
This means an increase in exorbitant taxes and official corruption and bribery.
In other words, if the same merchant wants to gain convenience in doing business locally, he originally needed to manage one set of government teams, but now he needs three sets. In addition to the Yuzhang Prince's Mansion located in southern Yuzhou, there may even be four sets.
Similarly, the number of government teams that collect taxes under clever pretexts has also been reduced from the original one to three or four. Naturally, no matter what class you are, everyone is miserable.
And since the beginning of the Southern Dynasties, such a complicated political system has never changed, which naturally makes the government and the public long for change. As for the people, they also long for peace, food and clothing, and the rule of Wenjing and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty that have become distant history
, obviously compared to Chen Shubao, Li Xingchen is more likely to bring them this.
"Your Highness, what should be done next?" Pei Zilie said in a deep voice, interrupting Li Xingchen's thinking.
"The army will rest for two days and continue to advance," Li Xingchen said after careful consideration, "We have come this far, so let's just go to the end."
This Gushu City was Ma'anshan in later generations. It was very close to Jiankang Prefecture from here, and there was no city blocking it. This reminded Li Xingchen of the joke of later generations. Nanjing is the provincial capital of Anhui.
Jiankang Mansion is Jiankang Mansion after all. Although Nanchen's rule has been corrupted, this place is still the core of Nanchen's rule. Three hundred years of operation in the Southern Dynasties have made this stone city still a first-rate city and fortress in the world.
Especially when Nanchen had not yet regained Huainan, Jiankang Mansion was the front line against the northern army, so the Nanchen court had very careful arrangements for this place. (To be continued)