Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 6

The rule of sharing accounts was agreed with Zhao Xingde a long time ago, Wang Hengzhi nodded hastily: "It's fairer to fight more." He looked to the left and right, and said with a smile on his face: "Brothers, come here, let's chat in Kaizhou village. As a landlord, I deserve more of the [-] shi army rations." Pu Tieyan thought that he was sincerely giving in, and said anxiously: "Master, in order to support the army rations, our village has no more winter rations."

Zhao Xingde also said with a smile: "The great leader is righteous, but brothers can't let the good people suffer, right? Wang Da is the leader, so you don't want to refuse." He looked up at the Han army chiefs, and said loudly: "All the masters, If there is no objection, you can come in first and count the food, grass, money and food." The Han generals who strictly guarded the defense zone were naturally elated, not only did they get an extra [-] guan, but also got [-] guan for each head, which added up to the village. small income.The Han generals who left the defense area without authorization and rushed into the city to plunder were a little jealous. After looking at each other, Cao Gan, the head of the Fengzhou village, shouted: "It's not fair, it's not fair!"

"Oh?" Zhao Xingde turned his eyes slightly, landed on him, and asked with a smile: "What does the village master Cao have to say?" Cao Gan felt a chill behind his back, and forced himself to say loudly: "This head is fifty-five Guan, without prior notice, I also killed many Khitan people, but didn't cut off their heads. It's not fair!"

"Really?" Zhao Xingde's face turned cold, and he said slowly, "At Zhengmao, our army began to attack the city. At the moment of Mao, we captured the northern city wall of Kaizhou. All ministries, must strictly guard the defensive line, intercept the fleeing Khitans, behead the enemy and cut off their heads for credit. Mr. Cao, you should have been outside the south gate of the city. Since you have not been notified, then Mao Shi Where are you at three quarters? Yeluyuan, the guard of Kaizhou City, escaped from Nancheng."

"This..." Cao Gan's dark face turned into the color of a pig's liver, and he was speechless.

"Brothers, everyone raised the uprising flag, and what we did was the great achievement of expelling the captives and Xinghan." Zhao Xingde didn't argue with him any more, turned to the crowd, and said loudly: "The Liaodong righteous flag was lifted, and the eight states and counties responded. The world shook. Scholars hit the festival Admired, the common people rushed to tell each other that our Liaodong Han army is a righteous man who stands up to the sky. Since the siege of Kaizhou, the Han army has grown in momentum, and the people of Liaodong regard our Han army as a benevolent and righteous army who saved the people from fire and water. The imperial court is like a thorn in the back, and regards us as a thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh. The Han army is not what it used to be, and the difference before and after, you all feel the same. Kings and generals, would you rather have a kind? Starting with today's conquest of Kaizhou, we Han The army made it clear that the chariots and horses were going to fight the Liao court. Most of the village owners are generals. They must also know that the two countries are not fighting alone. They are talking about military orders like mountains and military discipline like iron. Although there are mountains of knives and seas of fire, they will not avoid them, and they will retreat when they hear gold. No one can escape alone. Instead, they abandoned the defense zone and swarmed into the city, causing most of the Liao army in Kaizhou to flee."

Many generals of the Han army showed embarrassment, Zhao Xingde slowed down his tone and said: "Now it's just letting the Khitan people go, it doesn't matter, there are only hundreds of thousands of Khitan men who can ride horses to fight. We can’t kill them, we’ll keep a few thousand heads for the time being, and we’ll kill them next time.” He said it easily, and many soldiers of the Han army laughed, as if the Khitan cavalry were really vulnerable, and Zhao Xingde’s tone changed. Lin said, "However, if the enemy's army has a gap because of lax military orders, which in turn puts our army in danger, we brothers in the Han army will have to shed blood and lose their heads in vain. Therefore, Zhao It is suggested that the past should not be blamed, but from now on, the military order will be strictly enforced, the army will fight, and anyone who violates the military order such as abandoning the defense line will be punished without mercy!"

After finishing speaking, he looked around at the army and asked again: "From today onwards, meritorious deeds will be rewarded and mistakes will be punished. Is there anyone who is unwilling?"

The surrounding area of ​​the prefectural office, which was still noisy with people just now, was silent at the moment, and the northern style of September [-] was extraordinarily harsh. At this time, many people remembered stories that they had almost forgotten for a long time.A long time ago, the Han army was indeed a powerful army that swept Liaodong with military orders like mountains.It's just that the past is so long that everyone is a little indifferent to military discipline.Most of the village owners only want to eat, drink and scatter for the whole village to preserve their strength.As for defeating the Liao Kingdom, seizing wealth and fame from the battlefield, princes and generals, and enfeoffing their wives and sons, it is just a distant dream.But now that Kaizhou has been conquered, the Han army has besieged the city for more than two months, and the Liao court was unable to rescue them. The five thousand Khitan cavalry were only huddled in the city and beaten, and finally fled in a hurry, leaving tens of thousands of Khitan old and young under the swords of the Han army. beg for mercy.Maybe the world has really changed.So, should the Han army also change?Jinlin is not a thing in the pool that will turn into a dragon in a flash. Perhaps, the time that generations of the Han army have been waiting for is right in front of us!

Wang Heng stood under the state government office, looking at Zhao Xingde, with mixed feelings in his heart.The commander-in-chief of the Han army was determined to conquer the south of Suzhou, and then seized Fuzhou, Ningzhou, Hue City, Zhenhaifu, and Muzhou, and waited for an opportunity to capture Liaoyang. Therefore, most of the elite soldiers who were originally scattered in the Hanzhai of Taibai Mountain were dispatched. Went to Guannan, Suzhou.Most of those who remained were old, weak and exhausted generals from the stockade.Therefore, Wang Hengzhi always held the mentality of sharing the pressure for Suzhou, but he did not expect to really conquer Kaizhou.In the Battle of Kaizhou, the Han army defeated [-] Liao soldiers majestically and captured more than [-] Khitan old and weak women and children.Under this encouragement, the mentality of the soldiers in the Han village has undergone subtle changes.

After a moment of silence, someone said loudly: "Master Zhao is right!" People, veterans began to talk about ancestral stories in a hurry, and put on the prestige of the year, the recruits were taken aback for a while, and they had some yearning for the future out of thin air.The leaders of the villages had to be more practical, and quietly told their subordinates to quickly collect the heads of the enemy troops inside and outside the city, and at the same time led their own soldiers into the state government.This treasury piled up like a mountain of money and food is not common, and all the generals of the Han army are amazed.

Although the account sharing rules proposed by Zhao Xingde are simple, the calculation of rewards and the final distribution of money and food are delicate tasks.These are the military divisions and personal soldiers in each village.Zhao Xingde and Wang Hengzhi called the generals of the Han Dynasty to discuss more important matters in the state office, dividing the defense areas, that is, dividing the territory.After the matter of dividing money and food and establishing rules, Zhao Xingde's opinion suddenly became more important in the Taibai Mountain Han army. With the joint efforts of him and Wang Hengzhi, it seemed that he was able to dominate the situation.Therefore, the site division meeting went very smoothly.

Since the Han army besieged Kaizhou with great fanfare, the Liao State concentrated its forces to defend Kaizhou, and the Khitan officials and people in nearby counties fled one after another. Many nearby counties such as Yanzhou, Muzhou, Zhengzhou, and Hengzhou have become landless In these places, the Han army and the Liao army took the people away twice, and now they are sparsely populated.The stockades of the Han army are all in the mountains, and it is too late to take over. If there is any further delay, the Jurchen Jin Kingdom may take the opportunity to expand its power southward.That's why Zhao Xingde asked Wang Heng to call all the generals, and divide these counties into defense zones on the map according to the distance from each village.

Most of what the Han army villages got was the original flat and fertile land, and it was the prefectures and counties that had been operated and cultivated in the past.The new defense zone is more likely to be harassed by the Liao and Jin forces.Zhao Xingde asked them to leave the old and the weak to farm in the mountains, and use some elite soldiers and young adults to graze and farm on the flat land.Xia Guoying got the mountains and forests along the Yalu River and its main tributaries, most of which were inaccessible and wild places in the eyes of the Han army.

Xia Guoying will rely on logging to feed the coerced people.Not only did they have to cut down the big logs used for shipbuilding, but they also sold ordinary logs to the Song Dynasty for burning charcoal.Most of Xia Guoying's felled trees are huge trees that have grown for decades or even hundreds of years. The quality of the charcoal produced is far better than that of miscellaneous wood.In the Song Dynasty, the Central Plains and the South of the Yangtze River were deforested by successive dynasties, and there were very few forests left. The border forests in Hebei could not be felled because of the relationship with the Liao Kingdom. All parts of the Song Dynasty needed firewood.Although charcoal can partially replace fuel charcoal, charcoal burns with unpleasant smoke, so wealthy businessmen still prefer high-quality charcoal, which drives the price of charcoal higher and higher.So that two catties of high-quality charcoal can be exchanged for one catty of grain.Now Xia Guoying not only uses Han people to cut wood for charcoal, but even the Jurchen tribes along the Yalu River are also attracted to do this charcoal business.Xia Guoying also assigned more than 1000 Khitans, and they planned to move all of them to Laiyuan County to build a city with the captives of the Communist Party.Li Sihai allowed the big family of the Communist Party to give grain to redeem the captives, which not only eliminated the hidden dangers among the captives, but also exchanged nearly [-] shi for grain.Zhao Xingde plans to build fortresses in the various bays of the Yalu River in the future, not only to guard the timber yards, but also as shelters for loggers.He had already written to the Huguo Mansion together with Li Sihai, requesting that naval gunboats be built in Liaodong to patrol the river to protect the storage yards along the coast.

Although there were some small disputes in the account sharing meeting of the Hanzhai generals, it was a happy situation in the end.In the evening, Wang Hengzhi, who got Kaizhou as a defense area, held a big banquet to entertain the Hanzhai village masters who rushed to the states and counties to grab the territory. Everyone was drinking, some were drunk, and many of them knew it from the bottom of their hearts. It is close to Zhao Xingde.

"General Zhao is very good at fighting, and the benefits are shared fairly. I, Dong Renwang, will follow you to fight the world from now on!" A drunken general said with his tongue out.

Zhao Xingde raised his glasses and said with a smile: "Zhao also wants Brother Dong to take care of him." Dong Renwang was already half dead drunk, and dragged his body down.Another Han general next to him said again: "General Zhao is such a capable man, but he is respectful to the corporal." The village master was full of compliments, Zhao Xingde only smiled and talked to them, reminding himself inwardly, don't get carried away with complacency, you must know that most of these words are beyond count.Even if you are lifted up to the sky, and the listeners get carried away, I'm afraid they will fall harder in the future.

A distance away from him, Wang Heng looked at many generals of the Han army clustered around Zhao De with a complicated expression.Sitting next to Wang Hengzhi, Liu Qinhu, the owner of Jiming Village, sighed: "The prime minister's idea is that the division of meat can satisfy everyone. I think General Zhao's actions are broad-minded and strict, and he is enough to slaughter the world. "Wang Heng said regretfully: "It's a pity that I am not a member of the Han army."