typeface
large
in
Small
Turn off the lights
Previous bookshelf directory Bookmark Next

Chapter 20 Tribute Road

 On the Yalu River, masts are like a forest.

The heavy-draft transport ship, towed by the iron horse, broke through the river and sailed upstream.

Huandu County will soon arrive.

Gao Zhaowang stood on the bow of the boat and looked carefully.

Huandu County is the seat of Huanzhou and the old capital of Goguryeo. It was captured by the Xia people in September last year. Afterwards, they divided their troops and plundered various places, hoarding grain, grass, and firewood to prepare for the winter.

In winter, Zhang Dingbao, who was left behind in Xijing on the Bohai Sea, led thousands of people to attack on sleds and sledges. He was defeated by two thousand soldiers and then withdrew. There was no fighting throughout the winter.

After the beginning of spring, Shao Chengjie, King of Qin in the Great Xia Dynasty, came with a large number of troops and used the Yalu River to transport grain and grass. Starting from Huanzhou, he went north to attack Shenzhou, which is Bohai Xijing - it governed the three counties of Shenlu, Shenhua and Jianmen, and had the Bohai Palace.

As the newly appointed governor of Lezhou in the imperial court, Gao Zhaowang was ordered to lead five thousand of his disciples from the north to escort grain and grass northward and join the expedition to the Bohai Sea.

If nothing unexpected happens along the way, they will probably capture Bohai, Xijing, Tokyo, Nanjing, and Zhongjing.

As for the main force, they went straight to Beijing on the Bohai Sea. The Xia people called it the "decapitation tactic."

Judging from the military strategy, it seems that the Xia people did not intend to entangle with the local forces in the Bohai Sea. Instead, they tried to destroy their center first, so that the Bohai State could not form a whole, and then slowly consolidate the local forces.

This strategy is correct! Gao Zhaowang slowly thought about the possible direction of the situation until the ship docked.

Everything within a few miles of the dock is heavily guarded.

Gao Zhaowang looked around for his nephew, but did not see him. After asking around, he learned that they had followed the King of Qin to the north to attack China.

He sighed slightly.

I don't know how many of the 5,000 people from the North can survive once they enter the brutal stage of siege warfare. The only consolation is probably that the people of Bohai are weak in will, and the elite soldiers and generals will suffer too much, making it easy to capture.

There are a large number of civilians busy near the pier, most of them are Bohai people, and there are also a few who come from Andong Prefecture.

Gao Zhaowang listened carefully and found out that they all seemed to have Hebei accents. Looking at their unruly looks, he guessed that they might be from Wei Bo.

These people seemed to be the leaders of the civilian husbands. Each of them was in charge of as few as seven or eight to as many as ten Bohai masters, constantly loading and unloading goods, and even preparing grain and grass.

"Could this be tempeh?" Gao Zhaowang walked to an open space where hundreds of jars were drying in the sun.

"Gao Changshi is here. I'm eating beans so much that I'm going to spit out the beans, but the rice from Yubei is the most fragrant." Zhou Jiying from the Yingzhou Military Academy said hello from afar and walked over.

Gao Zhaowang looked at the bright armor on his body and was a little surprised.

"Captain Zhou..." Gao Zhaowang saw him once and saluted immediately.

"He is already Vice General Zhou."

"Gao Changshi Mo wants to scream."

"Kill one of the thieves with your own hands. Jane will be in the emperor's heart. He will be promoted to deputy general. Don't call the officials wrong."

Several sergeants around Zhou Jiying said loudly, as if they were honored.

Gao Zhaowang was a little surprised and quickly asked about the situation. He learned that a partial force from the Bohai Sea took a small road to attack Huanzhou in an attempt to burn the Xia people's savings. They were discovered by Youqi. The Yingzhou state soldiers stationed here mobilized in large numbers to defeat the thieves in the mountains. Zhou Jiying took the lead.

He made a great contribution by killing one of the thieves.

After submitting the report, because the saint heard the name "Zhou Jiying" for the second time, he promoted him to deputy general with a stroke of his pen.

No way, good luck!

"What are you yelling about?" Zhou Jiying turned around and scolded, then looked at Gao Zhaowang and said, "It would be more cordial for Gao Changshi to call me 'Zhou Dalang'."

"General Zhou is joking." Gao Zhaowang shook his head and said, "Is this fermented soya bean? Korean fermented fermented soya bean or Tanggan fermented fermented soya bean?"

"It's Korean soybean, and it's quite delicious. The locals like to make this stuff. It's a specialty of Xijing. According to the order of the King of Qin, a batch of it was conscripted and sent to the front line." Zhou Jiying said.

Korean fermented soybean paste and Tang Gan fermented fermented soybean paste are similar. They are made by adding fermented rice and wheat into the prepared bean paste, and then adding melon, eggplant, perilla, ginger, etc. The only difference between the two is the difference and amount of these auxiliary ingredients.

Already.

The method of making Tang Gan Gan Bei gradually disappeared, but there are clear records in Japan. When Monk Jianzhen went eastward, he brought a lot of Tang Gan Gan Fu as ship food, which later spread in Japan. And in the month of Kaishan Great Monk (Jianzhen)

Offer it in front of the throne at the time of taboo.

"Xijing is rich in soybeans." Gao Zhaowang recalled: "In the past, we traveled up the tribute road to Zhongjing and up to Beijing, and saw many soybean fields along the way. Xijing is mountainous, but the Bohai people still cultivated fields in the mountains and planted soybeans. This shows that they really love this place.

Object."

The so-called tribute road refers to the tribute route from the Bohai Sea to the Tang Dynasty.

"Yalu is the tribute road." We took a boat from the river mouth and traveled more than a hundred miles. Then we changed to a smaller boat and sailed upstream for 530 miles to Wandu City. Another 200 miles to Shenzhou.

.

Shenzhou is located in Linjiang City, Baishan City, Jilin Province today, and is also the seat of the Yalu Prefecture in Xijing. It is a water and land transportation hub, where materials and personnel can be disembarked, and then go to Zhongjing and Shangjing by land, so it is very prosperous.

"No matter what he likes!" Zhou Jiying said with a smile: "I also collected a lot of beans and made them into bean cakes and distributed them. The horses like to eat them. Xijing is a place with mountains as far as the eye can see. I thought I was extremely poor, but I searched carefully.

, but there is also a lot of oil and water. Dried fruits, wild products, fish and shrimps, beans, rice and wheat, cattle and sheep, etc. are very different from those in the Central Plains, but they are really good. The King of Qin was also very satisfied and urged us to continue searching for food and grass."

Gao Zhaowang smiled bitterly upon hearing this.

Although Xijing is not poor, it is not rich either. The reason why people have some savings at home is mainly because there are too few people to compete with you. According to the words of Xia people, it is "rich in resources per capita". But

No matter how rich you were, if you were robbed by these wolf-like soldiers, you would probably be extremely poor.

But then again, the people of Bohae are the ones who suffer the damage, what does it have to do with the people of Goguryeo?

"By the way, there are many Mohe tribes within the boundaries of Xijing, Tokyo and Nanjing. The Bohai people moved inland more than a hundred years ago." Gao Zhaowang seemed to suddenly remember and reminded: "Although the Bohai people are called 'Shu tribe', It is opposite to the 'Shengbu' in the north, but it is fierce and unruly, wild and untamed, so you still have to be careful."

"We've already robbed, what are you talking about?" Seeing him making a fuss, Zhou Jiying said angrily: "Gao Changshi might as well take a look over there."

Gao Zhaowang looked in the direction of his finger and saw a large group of Mohe people driving the black pigs to the grass. On the grass, people were already slaughtering them.

The pig skins were taken away and made into armor, the internal organs were kept locally and used as supplies for the garrison, and the meat was made into preserved meat and shipped to the front line of China.

"Didn't they resist?" Gao Zhaowang asked in surprise.

There is also a Mohe tribe in Xubei, which has always been a headache for them. They do not pay taxes and often loot, and they are simply not a good citizen. Children are brave and fierce when they are born, and they become even more powerful when they grow up. The counties in Xubei have always turned a blind eye. Don't worry, just pretend they don't exist and both parties will be at peace with each other.

If we had to choose a group from the Central Plains to correspond to, then the only one would be the "Cai Thieves".

Cai thief usually farmed, but when money was tight, he went out to rob. To the north are Luoyang and Bianzhou. Although they are rich, they have strong military strength. For example, Xuanwu Jiedushi always raises 100,000 troops. Wouldn't it be fun for you to fight them? So Cai thieves appeared in large numbers in Xiangyang, Eyue, Jiangxi, and Huainan, looting everywhere, and their bravery was difficult to control. So much so that the Tang Dynasty had to join forces with various towns to form special troops to encircle and suppress them, and this was able to slightly curb their arrogance. .

These people look so much like Thief Cai.

"What's the use of resisting?" Zhou Jiying seemed to have heard something funny and said: "We have already picked out a few small tribes. If you dare not pay tribute, you will have to die. But these people are really ruthless, brothers. It took a lot of effort to subdue them."

On the way to Lenovo, Gao Zhaowang saw many corpses floating down the water from the bow of the boat, and he suddenly shuddered.

The land of etiquette in the Central Plains is rich in ruthless warriors, alas.

"The court has good tactics. However, we still have to use gentle tactics to deal with these ignorant and stubborn barbarians. Even if we rob all their tribes, we won't get much, and we might still lose money." Gao Zhaowang laughed twice. Finally getting down to business, I heard him say: "I have transported 30,000 hu of rice and wheat from Yubei. Please deliver it."

"You have to find Du Fuyin for this." Zhou Jiying said, "He is in the city."

"Okay, I will go find him now." Gao Zhaowang cupped his hands and said.

At this time, several riders came from the north of the city and shouted: "Great victory! Great victory! The Wei Sheng army attacked the city for ten days and repeatedly defeated the rebel army. On the sixth day of June, the traitor Zhang Dingbao left behind in Xijing opened the city to ask for surrender, and Shenzhou was restored. .”

Gao Zhaowang subconsciously stopped and listened silently twice. After confirming that it was correct, he sighed repeatedly.

The Bohai Sea is really in ruins. At sunset, it looks like it is in ruins.

Xijing has jurisdiction over four prefectures, namely Shenzhou, Huanzhou, Zhengzhou and Fengzhou.

Huanzhou was captured last year, Shenzhou was captured just now, and only Zhengzhou and Fengzhou are left.

Zhengzhou is located to the west of Huanzhou, sandwiched between Shen and Huan. It has a small army and few generals, and no one is there to take care of it for a while. Is it time to surrender at this time? Anyway, when the Xia army crossed the border last year, they did not stop them at all.

I guess it's almost there.

There is still a fight for Fengzhou. After all, this is the gateway to Zhongjing Xiande Mansion and cannot be abandoned easily. But it can only be delayed a little, and the final outcome will not be any different.

Zhou Jiying also heard it and laughed heartily.

"Is the general going north?" Gao Zhaowang asked, no longer in a hurry to find Du Guangyi.

"No." Zhou Jiying sighed and said, "The bandit army in Xijing has been destroyed, but there are always troops in Nanjing and Nanhai Mansion heading west to watch. I'm afraid I won't be able to leave."

"General, the pirates in the South China Sea are weak..." Gao Zhaowang was moved in his heart and said: "If we send a partial force to the east and cooperate with me, Xubei Erlang, we may be able to capture it."

"Xinbei has already contributed five thousand local warriors, and we still have to send troops. It's very hard." Zhou Jiying said with a smile: "This has to be decided by the King of Qin. It's useless for you to tell me."

Gao Zhaowang smiled to himself and said: "I am wise, so I will report to the King of Qin now. Bohai is already a withered bone in the grave. If you don't seize the opportunity to make meritorious deeds now, you will only regret it in the future."

After that, he bowed and left.


This chapter has been completed!
Previous Bookshelf directory Bookmark Next