Chapter 414
The cold spring in Daliang had passed, and the weather was gradually getting hotter. The wind from the south brought news, accompanied by fast horses, galloping northward, and many battle reports entered the Privy Council every day.

The officials of the Privy Council and several prime ministers were so busy that they almost all lived in the palace.

Messenger from the south is more convenient than the north, all the way to the north along the waterway, without bumping on horseback, the waterway also makes the speed much faster, this advantage is also very big.Information is very important for decision-making.

Busy up and down, the front line is fighting together, and the rear is also busy. In contrast, Shi Congyun, who is the emperor, is much more relaxed. Although he will go to the Privy Council from time to time to learn about it, but most of the time he is sent by the Privy Council. Someone came to report to him.

More than 20 days after the war started, after lunch every day, the prime minister would come to report to him about today's war. This has almost become a routine, and Shi Congyun never tires of it.

In the past few days, the battle on the front line has been still at the stage of marching. Although the news will be delayed for a few days, it is not much different. Before going to bed every day, he will let Xiao Huanghua hold the lamp for him, and hang a On the vice president's map, carefully mark the route and location of the advance. If these are not done well, carefully review the current situation.

If he didn't finish all this, he couldn't sleep well at night. These days, he didn't even have the thought of going to the harem to indulge.

Until one afternoon, before he had eaten and let go, Fan Zhi hurriedly came to the Hall of Long Live to wait for an interview, and brought the second substantive report of the battle from the south, Dangjin had already reached Baixia in the south.

Shi Congyun immediately asked someone to bring a map to look at for a long time. He was a little surprised. Didn't he call Hezhou?
There was no detailed battle report that day, but the marching speed was too fast. The battle report written by Pan Mei arrived in the capital the next day, but it was still not detailed. As the coach, Pan Mei did not reach the front line.

It is only said that Dang Jin was unstoppable as a forward, defeated the bandit defense line one after another, and penetrated deep into the hinterland. Yin Chongke in the rear resolutely and quickly supported, allowing the forward to open up a front and stabilize it, forcing back the counterattack enemy army.

The information was still only a few words and not detailed. In the next few days, Emperor Shi became more anxious, thinking about the war in the south almost all the time, and even the beauty Zhou Xian rarely went there.

For the past few days, Shi Congyun has asked Fan Zhi to be on duty at the Zhengshitang.

As time passed, he also gradually discovered that Li Gu went to Luoyang. After Wang Pu was deposed, the situation in the court changed. He originally thought that Wei Renpu and Luqiu Zhongqing would be the heads of the Zaifu team, because Wei Renpu and the royal family had in-laws, and Lu Qiu Zhongqing is the emperor's confidant.

After a long time, he found that his temper was the worst and the hardest, and Wang Pu didn't have any ideas. Fan Zhi, who had a lot of people like Luqiu Zhongqing, was vaguely the core of the crowd. In Jian Guo, the most noticeable person was Fan Zhi, an old man who had a bad temper and had a tough temper. He contradicted him several times and made him secretly revenge several times.

It's not a theory, it's more of an intuition.

What he remembers most is that once when he had nothing to do, he went to the homes of various prime ministers. In fact, he was curious about what the homes of these high-ranking officials were like.

In the end, he arrived at Fan Zhi's house, because he brought Xiao Huanghua and more than 30 palace guards, and he didn't have enough bowls and chopsticks to eat.

The salaries of officials nowadays are not as high as those in Tang Dynasty, and they are not very much. If officials do not receive gifts and have no other income, they can live well by relying on salaries alone, but they are by no means very rich.

So it is almost the default for officials to accept bribes, gifts, and other income, with few exceptions.

As a result, Fan Zhi's family really lived on his salary, and he was simply a rare flower among many officials.

Everyone has their own personality and their own way of dealing with things, but those who are so tough in Fan Zhi are indeed rare, probably because of this, although he seldom walks around, and he is not as open-minded and friendly as Li Gu and Wei Renpu, but everyone sees him. After that, he was subconsciously respectful, and when he became serious, he became more respectful by the way.

Slowly, Fan Zhi seemed to be the core of Zaifu's gang by default. Everyone would ask for his opinion on anything, even Luqiu Zhongqing and Wei Renpu.

Shi Congyun, the emperor, had never thought of this delicate situation. He never thought that Fan Zhi, who was as hard as a stone in a latrine, would be so fragrant.

But he was at ease in this situation, and even he himself gradually felt that Fan Zhi was really fragrant, because the old man's bad temper was there, and he didn't have to worry about becoming the next Li Gu after the prime minister's prestige was too high.

As for his bad temper and his love of contradicting himself, it seems insignificant in front of these things. If you like to have a bad mouth, just have a bad mouth. Not everyone is as polite, refined and easy-going as him, Emperor Shi thought to himself.

A few days later, the detailed battle report was finally sent to Daliang.

As the party advanced, Yin Chongke fought south for nearly [-] miles a day and a night, smashing more than ten enemy camps, capturing and beheading more than [-] enemy troops, and had already approached the city of Hezhou, an important town in the Southern Han Dynasty.

At the beginning, Shi Congyun was stunned by the battle report that the party had 1000 forwards, and [-] were captured and killed. He once thought that Pan Mei and others lied about the military situation.

He knows the ferocity of that guy Dang Jin, after all, he is also the fierce general he brought out. He still vividly remembers the ferocity of the guy who took the lead in fear of Jianmen Pass, but no matter how powerful Dang Jin is, 1000 people lead the way and fight a day, breaking the battalion one after another. Capture five thousand!He didn't believe it anyway, after all, he had fought too many battles.

But after reading it in detail, I found that it was very true. Pan Mei explained in detail later that the reason why they wrote about more than 42 captives and beheaded was that they had investigated clearly last year, starting from the border of their own country, and arriving at Baixia. There are a total of [-] Han sentry posts and military strongholds, including two large camps, with about [-] garrisons.

However, Dangjin fought all the way, and his record was to kill 70 people, capture [-] people, and the rest were defeated and fled. ,

There are still many camps where their army has not yet arrived. The soldiers of the Southern Han Dynasty heard that the northern army was going to fight over. In addition, the country owed wages, so no one was willing to work hard. Survival of the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled.

It is also because of this that Dangjin fought smoothly all the way, but it was not easy to count the actual number of people. As the coach, Pan Mei, in order to inspire morale, simply followed the well-known 5000 people when publicizing his military exploits. Many people wrote, because the situation is well known to the southern army, and everyone has worked hard to find out.

The actual situation was only clarified in the memorial to the emperor. Based on the Dangjin report and his own speculation, he estimated that the total number of defenders along the Southern Han Dynasty was less than half.

Shi Congyun suddenly realized when he saw it, and at the same time he was very happy. Although it was a hardship for Nan Han who was ill, he wished that the ruler of the Southern Han Dynasty owed more military pay, which would save a lot of trouble.

And judging from this first battle, the Southern Han army had no morale at all, and the whole army was dissatisfied. This is great news.

The memorial also said that by the time the battle report was sent out, tens of thousands of troops had already used Baixia as their camp and surrounded Hezhou in the south.

Pan Mei also said in the letter that on the first day after the siege of Hezhou, he sent the surrendered general of the Southern Han Dynasty to persuade Hezhou governor Chen Shouzhong to lead his troops to surrender, but Chen Shouzhong refused to surrender.

However, he felt that Hezhou could not hold for too long, because the morale was not high, and because they were far away from the center of the war all the year round, their city was not well built, and it was far inferior to a strong city like Shouzhou.

He also clearly stated in the letter that the main reason for the siege of Hezhou was to attract reinforcements from the Southern Han Dynasty, waiting for work with ease, and the classic siege to fight for help.

Shi Congyun agreed with him very much, because the geographical environment in the south is full of mountains and rivers, with ravines and ravines, and the routes for the army to enter and exit are almost fixed.

There are only a few avenues that can be walked, and there are too many people, a huge logistics supply force, and the difficulty of marching, etc. It is destined that a large number of people will gather to face the barriers of mountains and ravines, and the routes that the main force can take are almost fixed. Sometimes it is much easier to surround the spot and fight for aid than in Hebei and other places where the terrain is flat.

Experienced generals like to fight for reinforcements in the mountains.

After getting this battle report, Shi Congyun was in a good mood, and went to find Zhou Xian that night.

The development of the war was even smoother than he had imagined. According to his original estimate, it would take at least half a month to reach Hezhou. He did not expect that he could reach Hezhou City in one day and one night just relying on the party's advanced forward.

Once the Chinese army has gained a firm foothold near Hezhou, his follow-up overall deployment can be gradually rolled out.

The morning sun shone on Zhou Xian's ruddy and smooth shoulders, and the lazy beauty hugged his neck in a daze like a baby. Emperor Shi wished that he would never go to bed early, but finally he got up with difficulty.

The front line was still fighting, so he didn't dare to go to sleep all day, so he could only gently take the beauty's slender hand and climb out of bed with difficulty.

Gentle Township, Hero Tomb, if you really want to climb out, it is more difficult than fighting.

Emperor Shi thought in his heart, and reluctantly glanced at Zhou Xian who was still in a drowsy sleep, before he left the hall and asked the maids outside to wash up.

It's so cool to be an emperor, he couldn't help thinking.

Guizhou, Jingjiang Junzhen, people come and go along the river, and boats in the river come and go in an endless stream.

A large ship by the river, with military flags everywhere, surrounded by many soldiers, looks like an ordinary place. On the wide deck at the bow, Li Chengjin, the governor of Guizhou, is listening to the battle report from the east.

When he heard that the Northern Army had reached the city of Hezhou, he felt relieved after being frightened.

He was not gloating, but when he first heard that the army from the north was coming, he thought that he must bear the brunt, because Guizhou is where Jingjiang Town is located, and all the warships of the country are manufactured here, and a large number of naval forces are stationed there. One hundred thousand, but there are actually more than 3 people.

He originally thought that if the Qin State wanted to fight south, it would probably follow Qin Shihuang's marching route, from the north road of Guizhou, to attack Guizhou directly, so he was afraid that he would drag his family and his mouth to live on a boat by the river. If the situation is not right, run away immediately.

It's not how timid he is, but that Guizhou has no conditions for resistance at all.

The Lord Zeng ordered Wu Huai'en, the recruiter from the northwest, to manage the warships in Guizhou and train the navy.As a result, Wu Huai'en was eventually killed by his subordinates.

In the memorial, he wrote that Wu Huai'en was killed by angry subordinates because of the harshness of Wu Huai'en's control, "the supervisors are strict, the talents are not equal to those who are good, and the system is lax, and the system is sloppy".

But the situation is far more complicated than that. Wu Huai'en is indeed harsh, but most of the generals who serve as soldiers are harsh. It's more because he doesn't respect the local conditions and wants to force the soldiers to be trained as he expects. The punishment is also very harsh. , Offended the locals.

There are many local clans in Guizhou, and there are even cases where the pronunciation is different for ten miles. One or a few villages can unite with each other and exclude outsiders. In this case, the government can only use force to deter them from paying taxes. .

It's like when someone commits a crime, they don't know how to report it to the officials. Usually, the elders in the village, or the clan, or someone with authority make the decision, and then use lynching to solve it.

If there is a conflict between the villages, it is not reported to the officials, but it is resolved privately, basically helping relatives but not helping relatives, and paying more attention to blood relatives.

Therefore, during the spring plowing every year, there will be large-scale brawls caused by competition for water sources and other issues. In the past, the government's army could not solve the problem, but only maintained order and prevented bloodshed from spreading.

Under such circumstances, the situation here is very special. The local people can pay taxes and allow them to participate in hard labor, but they must not forcefully implement the royal law of the court, trying to make them change their customs and abolish lynching, otherwise it will attract big Scale backlash.

He, Li Chengjin, understood this, so he won over the leaders of all parties, the elders of the clan, and became the governor of Guizhou.

However, Wu Huai'en, the recruiter from the Northwest before, was assassinated by the locals because he didn't respect the local customs and wanted to forcefully implement what he had done in the army.

Because of this, it is impossible to unite the small army and the people to fight against the unified dispatch of the north. The army like a wolf and a tiger is simply impossible. The young and strong from many villages pull together, and the old and new enemies may not have fought against the northern army. I started fighting myself first.

Based on this situation, Li Chengjin never thought about how he would organize resistance if the Qin army came over, he only thought about how he would escape if the Qin army came over.

When the news that Qin Jun was going to Hezhou was confirmed, he breathed a sigh of relief, but he still didn't dare to disembark, so he could only say happily: "Thank God, Bodhisattva bless you, it seems that they want to fight south from Hezhou."

But he still didn't dare to disembark. If the Qin army suddenly turned around and attacked westward, or if Hezhou was too difficult to attack and could not be attacked for a long time, the Qin army might also turn around and head west to attack Guizhou first.

"No matter what, send more people to the west, and don't stop for a while. You must find out the news about the Qin army, and you will be rewarded for doing it well!" He ordered again.

"Yes, Li Inspector, don't worry." His subordinates were overjoyed and got off the boat at a cheerful pace. To him, Qin Jun hadn't been seen yet, but the reward in front of him was real.

Li Chengjin thought in his mind that he could mobilize a few generals in the navy. In fact, in order to win over the various clan villages, he basically gave the officers to the children and relatives of the clan elders over the years, and recruited troops by themselves.

In this way, not only can the local people be wooed by the military salary, but also the prestigious local elders can recruit troops for him, but the bad result of this is that there are more than 3 navy troops in Guizhou in name, but in fact there are not many commanders he can mobilize. , There are not many naval forces that can be mobilized.

Moreover, the local people are responsible for recruiting and training soldiers. Ninety-nine percent of them have never been outside in their lives, let alone fighting, they don’t know what a large-scale water battle is, and they have never even seen the army in the north. If you don't know anything about it, it's no wonder that the trained soldiers can fight.

The only thing he thought about was to mobilize all he could to protect himself and his family.

He really wanted to run back to Panyu, but he didn't dare to run for fear of being killed by the king.

He thought he could only go to the Guanyin Temple to worship in the afternoon, and pray to the Bodhisattva to bless the Qin army from Hezhou to the south and not to the west.
(End of this chapter)

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