Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Chapter 197: Each person's choice before the war
At that time, Chongqing included not only the main urban area of ​​Yuzhong, but also the urban area of ​​Jiangbei.

A department is a supplement to a state, but compared to a state which has administrative powers and may even have jurisdiction over multiple counties, a department is often just a military fortress, guarding a pass or ethnic minorities.

Jiangbei Hall was developed to cooperate with Chongqing's main city to control the Jialing River waterway.

In the third year of Emperor Qianlong's reign (1738), Chongqing Prefecture set up a special Tongzhi Office to handle Jiangbei Town affairs. In the 1754th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign (1759), the Tongzhi Office was moved to Jiangbei City, and Jiangbei Town in Ba County was divided to set up Jiangbei Office, which is located in today's Jiangbei City. In the th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign (), the area of ​​Jiangbei Office was expanded and established independently, under the jurisdiction of Jiangbei Tongzhi, which is known in history as the "Jiangba Division".

So at this time Chongqing was actually composed of two cities, Yuzhong and Jiangbei. This greatly increased the difficulty of defending the city for Han Yuanxiao.

There is only one or two days to arrange the defense. If the two cities are defended at the same time, Chongqing's current miscellaneous military force of less than 10,000 will inevitably have loopholes everywhere and will not be able to withstand the attack of more than 10,000 elite troops of Fu Cha Mingliang.

Finally, Han Yuanxiao had no choice but to concentrate his forces in the main urban area. Fortunately, the first wave of support from Jiangjin County arrived that afternoon. Although there were only a 2,000-man joint defense team and 200 new troops, their combat effectiveness was still considerable.

The one who led the troops to support was Chen Qi. After discussing with Han Yuanxiao, Chen Qi took over the defense of Jiangbei Hall.

In order to increase the defense force, Chen Qi recruited more than 10,000 boatmen stranded in Chongqing and formed a mercenary army of more than 10,000 at the sky-high price of five taels of silver for five days.

As long as you are willing to stay on the city wall, you will get one tael of silver per person per day, and you will be given enough dry rice and meat soup. Each person will also get half a pound of meat per person every day. If you kill an enemy, you will be rewarded with five taels of silver, and if you die, you will get fifty taels of silver as a pension. If you survive, you can become a Chongqing citizen, and you can join the army or settle down and get land.

As the saying goes, there will always be brave men when there is a big reward. If they are going to fight in the wild, these trackers will definitely not be willing to do so. But if they are just going to stand on the city wall to defend, then these trackers are willing to give it a try.

After all, the reason they came out to work as trackers was because they could not survive in their hometown and ran away to make a living. Now that such good conditions are in front of them, if they don’t work hard, then how long will they wait?

If it was the imperial court recruiting soldiers, everyone might still hesitate, fearing that the court would not keep its word, but the Huaxia Tribe has an excellent reputation. In the past six months, all rumors have shown that the Huaxia Tribe is indeed very good to ordinary people and is truly fighting for their interests.

It's worth working for the Huaxia Department.

Besides, the current situation is clear. Regardless of whether the battle in Chongqing can be won or not, the secession of Sichuan by the Huaxia Tribe is a foregone conclusion. Joining the Huaxia Tribe now can be said to be the last chance. Although the risk is a little greater, the benefits are also great.

Han Yuanxiao saw that Jiangbei Hall had increased its military strength by more than 10,000 in an instant. Although their weapons were simple, their morale was high. So the Han family also took out 50,000 taels of silver and offered the same conditions to recruit 10,000 young and strong men from the canal transport and gangs in the main urban area to defend the city.

Although the Han family had been severely exploited by Shangguan in recent years, they could still easily take out tens of thousands of taels of silver.

This increased the total military strength in Chongqing to 40,000. Although they were all ragtag troops and ordinary young and strong men, they could also play a role in defending the city. At least they could scare people by standing on the city walls.

The next day, after everything was arranged and Han Yuanxiao looked at the crowds of people on the city wall, he felt a little more at ease.

In the afternoon, Fu Cha Mingliang's fleet arrived in Chongqing almost at the same time as Wu You's fleet.

In order to avoid the bombardment of the city defense artillery, Fu Cha Mingliang got off the boat upstream in advance and planned to attack the main city of Chongqing from Tongyuan Gate in the west of the city.

The scouts under his command had already learned the news that Jiangbei Hall had recruited more than 10,000 trackers to help defend the city, and with the support of Jiangjin County, the difficulty of attacking the city was not small. Although the main city also added 10,000 young and strong soldiers to defend the city, the total force reached more than 20,000, but after all, they were all some miscellaneous troops, and there were only so many people standing on the city wall, so the difficulty of attacking the city on both sides was actually similar.

In this case, it would be better to just attack the main city of Chongqing. Moreover, after Han Yuanxiao took over Chongqing, he did not purge the forces in the city. Who knows, there might be some unexpected surprises during the siege.

After all, Chongqing is a big city and it is the gateway to the southwest. There are countless government offices, officials, and wealthy families in it.

Such as the East Sichuan Circuit Office, Chongqing Prefecture Office, Ba County Office, Chongqing Town Office, the left and right Dusi Offices, the Mobile Tax Office, and the Garrison Office.

There are also various guild halls, such as Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shaanxi, Huguang, Shanxi, etc. Basically, there are guild halls built in Chongqing along the Yangtze River.

After all, Sichuan is a huge market with tens of millions of people, and Chongqing is the gateway to Sichuan and occupies the intersection of the Yangtze River and Jialing River waterways. Therefore, provinces along the Yangtze River will build guild halls in Chongqing to exchange what they have with other places.

As a result, the power structure in Chongqing’s main city is actually very complex.

Now that the imperial court controls the world, and Chen Gu's attitude towards officials and wealthy families is very bad, Fu Cha Mingliang believes that those forces in the city will definitely make the right choice at the critical moment.

Especially the forces outside Sichuan, they are still under the rule of the imperial court.

It's not that Han Yuanxiao didn't consider this point, but he didn't dare to touch the guild halls built by various provinces in Chongqing. After all, a provincial guild hall represents all the top dignitaries in that province. Who can do business across provinces without powerful support behind them?

If these guilds were touched, it would be tantamount to declaring war on all the powerful people in the world.

Although Chen Gu was rebelling, the imperial court was the imperial court and the powerful were the powerful; they were two different groups.

Although Chen Gui's attitude towards the powerful and wealthy is bad, as long as their interests are not touched, the powerful and wealthy will not retaliate too strongly.

But if they took direct action against these guilds, forcing the powerful outside the province to completely turn to the court and fully support the court's attack on Sichuan, I am afraid that no matter how powerful Chen Gu was, he would not be able to withstand it.

Although the forces in Chongqing are complicated, Han Yuanxiao is not too worried. After all, people who do business know how to make choices. As long as Fu Cha Mingliang has not broken into the city, the forces in the city will not move.

And after Fu Cha Mingliang broke into the city, it didn’t matter what the forces in the city were like.

At that time, Han Yuanxiao would only consider how to escape.

Fu Cha Mingliang chose to dock upstream of Tongyuan Gate, but Wu You chose to dock at Chaotian Gate. The steps in front of Chaotian Gate were wide enough to allow the 1,000 new soldiers to enter the city as quickly as possible.

Secondly, Wu You himself did not want to enter the city. Instead, he planned to guard the Jialing River with his warships. If necessary, he would sink the ships he brought into the river to block the Jialing River waterway to prevent Fu Cha Mingliang from continuing to escape along the river.

(End of this chapter)