Tang Dynasty Mingyue Song Dynasty Pass

Chapter 833: Stabilizing Huainan
While the Song Dynasty court was still mobilizing troops and deploying troops, Su Chen was not idle either. He led his troops northward, starting from Yangzhou and sweeping all the way.

Taking advantage of the fact that it would take some time for the reinforcements of the Song army to arrive, Su Chen and Pan Mei led their troops to advance quickly, capturing cities and villages, and occupied Zhenzhou next to Yangzhou. They then led their troops northward to defeat the local garrisons in Dayi Town and Shiliang Town. In a month, they occupied half of Sizhou, pushed their troops to the south bank of the Huai River, and approached the city of Xuyi.

This was an established military goal. As long as Xuyi City was captured, the entire Sizhou south of the Huai River would be lost.

At this time, Lin Renzhao's Eastern Army had completely occupied Taizhou and then confronted the Gaoyou Army.

Gaoyou is located at the confluence of the Bian River and the Huai River, and has an outstanding strategic position. Therefore, it controls the Huainan Canal. It is not only a must-pass place for the northern army to advance southward, but also a logistics support base for the front-line state armies such as Yangzhou. Zhao Kuangyin once set up a navy here to attack the Southern Tang. Now it has been promoted from a county to a military to enhance its combat effectiveness.

There were 20,000 naval forces here, with many large ships. However, they were nothing compared to Lin Renzhao, the first naval general of Southern Tang. He led the warships transported from Wu State and defeated the 20,000 naval forces of Song Army with only 10,000 naval forces, forcing them to flee in defeat.

After Lin Renzhao achieved this victory, he continued to move northward, entered Chuzhou, and headed straight for Chuzhou City on the south bank of the Huai River. Another important city in Chuzhou was Yancheng, and Lin Renzhao sent his deputy general Lin Juyi with 10,000 troops to occupy Yancheng, which was an important base for producing sea salt.

At first, Southern Tang relied on sea salt from Chuzhou, which provided one-third of its tax revenue. But since the Fourteen Prefectures in the north of the Yangtze River were occupied by the Later Zhou Dynasty, Southern Tang retreated to the south of the Yangtze River and lost its salt fields, and its finances suddenly became stretched.

Coupled with the loss of taxes and population from the fourteen states, the economy of the Southern Tang was reduced by more than half. This shows the importance of the fourteen states in Jiangbei and Huainan.

Pan Chongche, leading the Western Army, had already captured two states in a row, and also occupied Hezhou and Chuzhou, which happened to be connected with Zhenzhou, Yangzhou, and Sizhou in the east, forming a connected area and avoiding being isolated and helpless.

The task that Su Chen gave to Pan Chongche was to block the reinforcements from Haozhou and Luzhou in the west, so that the main force could effectively fight against the Song army in Huaibei.

Next, Su Chen asked Pan Mei to lead 50,000 troops to attack Xuyi City, while he began to lead his men to deploy the Huaihe River defense line, because the real threat came from the imperial troops moving south from Bian Jing, which were said to have 400,000 people.

Moreover, according to intelligence, Zhao Kuangyin will personally lead the army to fight, and at the same time mobilize all states to allocate food and manpower to supply them to the front line continuously. This war is equivalent to entering the level of a national war and will be a protracted war.

Su Chen also wrote a battle report to the capital of Wu State, and asked the rear to continue to dispatch 100,000 troops to cross the river to guard the newly conquered cities. He did not want to leave elite troops to guard the cities. However, if they did not guard the cities, the conquered cities would also turn against the Song people and be taken away again. Therefore, there were not enough troops to fully digest the new territory in Jiangbei.

The Wu court was shocked. They didn't expect Su Chen to suddenly lead his troops to the north and achieve such a fierce victory. In just one month, they captured seven states in northern Jiangsu. This boosted the morale of the Wu State. Many able-bodied men from the former Southern Tang and Qian Yue actively joined the army, wanting to fight in the north, thinking this was a good opportunity to make meritorious service.

"We must stabilize Huainan as soon as possible and win the hearts of the people!"

Su Chen knew the importance of Huainan. If Huainan could be stabilized quickly and the people could be attached to him, he could recruit soldiers from Huainan.

Therefore, Su Chen started to wage a propaganda war, mobilized the propaganda group in the army, and began to print newspapers. He first reiterated that Wu was the continuation of Yang Wu, Huainan belonged to Yang Wu, Wu was the real country of the Huainan people, and it was occupied by the Later Zhou and Northern Song for more than ten years. Today, it finally returned and was considered liberated. Moreover, Su Chen focused on promoting the public opinion that Huainan was destroyed by the Later Zhou, so that the people of Huainan had a sense of belonging to Wu, and promoted the deeds of Yang Wu, so that the local people could regain their identity in Wu, instead of recognizing themselves as Song people and then worshipping the ancestral temple of the Yang Wu regime.

Secondly, after establishing a close relationship with each other, they began to give benefits, such as announcing that more land would be distributed to the people, taxes would be reduced, warehouses would be opened to provide food, refugee camps would be set up, and daily necessities from Wu would be brought in, such as cotton-padded jackets, sweaters, soap, glass, celadon, Longjing tea and other daily necessities, which were of good quality and low price. This allowed the people in the towns in Huainan to feel the advancement and sincerity of Wu, which instantly changed their mindsets and made them feel more inclined towards Wu and away from Song.

As expected, food is the most important thing for people. The State of Wu opened its granaries to provide relief to refugees from all over the country and announced a three-year tax exemption, which was recognized by the people of the seven states in Huainan. In addition, many fresh supplies were previously rare in the Northern Song Dynasty, which greatly stimulated the people of Huainan. As a result, they became more yearning for the State of Wu.

"The Wu army is very friendly to the people, with strict military discipline. They did not touch a needle or a thread of the common people. They are truly an army of justice!"

"That's right. Back then, the Northern Zhou army invaded our Huainan region and burned, killed and looted for three days. Many wealthy families were plundered and many civilians suffered."

"The situation in Shu was even worse. I heard that the commander of the Song army, Wang Quanbin, allowed his soldiers to burn, kill and plunder. As spoils of war, they burned and killed people in every city they entered. They stayed in Chengdu for a year and committed all kinds of atrocities. In the end, they forced Shu to rebel."

"Yes, I have heard about this as well. The Song army has committed many atrocities in Shu and Southern Tang. Although our Huainan was occupied by the Northern Zhou, it later became the army of the Song State!"

"Compared like this, the Wu army is still more reliable!"

Many people were talking about it, and the news spread in the streets and alleys of many cities in Yangzhou, Zhenzhou, and Chuzhou.

This was due to the instigation of Wu's intelligence personnel and the public disclosure of examples after the notice was posted. Therefore, public opinion quickly turned positive in favor of Wu, allowing the people at the bottom to begin to accept Wu's identity and resist Song.

Because this was the end of the chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the people had no strong sense of belonging to any one dynasty. Dynasties changed frequently, countries fought each other, and the regime was unstable. So the people didn't care who would be the emperor in the end, or who would really come to power. In the end, they only looked at who gave them more benefits, who was truly loyal to them, and who gave them a way to survive.

Su Chen understood too well the importance of public opinion, so in addition to the propaganda war, he was also working hard to benefit the people, not interfering with them, allowing them to have a way to make a living and gaining more support.

"In the seven states, we will start recruiting soldiers. We need good local citizens. We must carefully check those who want to join the army to prevent spies from the Song State from sneaking in!"

Su Chen began to issue orders, asking all states and counties to start recruiting soldiers, to make achievements and avenge their elders who had suffered more than ten years ago, to march into Huaibei together, and to inspire the enthusiasm of the people in Huainan to join the army.

Sure enough, the effect was good. In just half a month, a total of 100,000 new troops were recruited from the seven states and gathered in Xuyi Town, 20 miles outside Xuyi City. They assembled and reorganized here, which increased Su Chen's military strength again, waiting for the next showdown with the Northern Song army.