Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The leaders of the peasant army in Fujian were summoned by the emperor as an exception.

Everyone was excited and vowed to serve the emperor.

Fan Jizhong, the biggest rebel leader, did not want to fight anymore, so he was arranged to move to Yusha with his wife and children and serve as the chief registrar of Yusha County in Hanyang Prefecture.

Most of the others who did not want to fight were rewarded with some money, grain, seeds, and cattle, and were sent to open up wasteland on both sides of the Jingjiang River. As long as they persist for three to five years, everyone will become a small landowner, and they are promised tax exemption for five years.

It seems that the imperial court is very stingy, but these people are actually willing.

Because their whole family can leave Fujian without fear of retaliation. All conditions for land reclamation are provided, and not only do you live a worry-free life, but you also have a lot of ambition. The emperor also promised to establish village schools in the villages where they reclaimed wasteland and arrange for scholars to teach.

The remaining people are willing to join the army.

Fan Ruwei, Ye Che, Zhang Xiong, and Yue Ji took a boat south to Yuezhou and separated from other rebel leaders. They will go to Anxiang County to receive troops and train troops there to prepare for Zhongfu's attack.

Ye Che is Ye Tie, the most powerful general of the Fujian Rebel Army. He officially changed his name after arriving in Beijing.

Ye Che also has a brother named Ye Qiong, who is also very famous in Fujian.

Yue Ji is Fan Ruwei's brother-in-law.

Historically, these people were exterminated by Han Shizhong.

But they had such a good mass base in Fujian that they had meat to eat and fields to farm, and they even instigated two officials responsible for recruitment to rebel.

Han Shizhong suffered a big loss in the process of suppressing the bandits. He was forced to break the defense and wanted to massacre the city, but it was Li Gang who persuaded him to give up.

Arriving outside Anxiang County by boat, the county magistrate Dong Sidao and the guard Xu Mengde came out of the city to greet him personally.

When they heard that Xu Mengde was Li Bao's general, Fan Ruwei and others immediately became respectful - Xu Mengde was the son of a salt merchant, and when Li Bao captured Bazhou, he took the initiative to bring his ships and servants to join him.

Xu Mengde said: "It's good for you to come. There are only two tasks. One is to eliminate the religious bandits in this county, and the other is to defend the city against Prime Minister Zhong."

"Does General Xu want to leave with his troops?" Fan Ruwei asked.

Xu Mengde said: "Except for Yuezhou, all the elites south of Jingjiang must go north to guard against the Jin people."

After the beginning of spring, small-scale fighting has occurred in Hebei and Shanxi.

Jin soldiers and puppet troops continued to go south, trying to plunder money and food, and even tried to seize the city through intimidation.

Prefecture and county officials in Hebei and Shanxi relied on rural soldiers to defend the city, and at the same time used a small number of elites to set up guerrilla ambushes.

For example, Yue Fei ambushed the enemy six times. Each time they set off with only a few hundred elite soldiers, they captured more than 300 golden soldiers and more than 2,000 puppet soldiers.

When the wheat is harvested this summer, it will be the time for the war between the two sides.

Li Bao's elite main force also had to be transferred to the north, and he really didn't have time to waste time with Zhong Xiang.

Xu Mengde led them to conduct a military handover, and left with his troops a few days later. Fan Ruwei was responsible for all the defensive pressure in the northwest of Dongting Lake.

"Fortunately, they are all Fujian soldiers." Fan Ruwei looked at the newly formed troops in front of him, at least he didn't have to worry about the language.

Ye Che couldn't laugh or cry: "They are all monks."

Not only are they monks, these more than 3,000 people are all Fujian monk soldiers!

Fujian has many mountains and little land. After Li Bao destroyed the temple, many monks could not be resettled. They simply discussed with the chief envoy and jointly reported to the court to move more than 10,000 monks to the south of Jingjiang River.

This place is also sparsely populated and was conquered only last year. Most of the people are Manichaeans, and the monks were thrown here to mix with sand.

Fan Ruwei has all the more than 3,000 monk soldiers in his hands who have changed their uniforms and been trained by Xu Mengde for two months. The armors on their bodies were all replaced by elite troops.

It was the county magistrate Dong Sidao's turn to introduce the situation to them: "Zhong Xiang has troops stationed in Dingzhou, Chenyang, and Yuanjiang, and there are imperial naval forces in Dongting Lake. They dare not blatantly take the waterway. Zhong Xiang has sent troops twice from the west bank of Dongting Lake. Go north and try to capture the county with a surprise attack. Many people along the way have the eyes and ears of bandits, so the general must not be careless."

Fan Ruwei frowned and said, "Is Mr. Zhong very popular?"

Dong Sidao explained: "Zhong Xiang's home base is in this area. He had been preaching for more than ten years before he started his army. There are his disciples and grandchildren everywhere in the city and countryside. Cao Hou (Li Bao) conquered Zhong Xiang last year. Even though the Navy was Victory, we have taken control of Dongting Lake, but we are still struggling. From time to time, people rebel in the rear!"

"We should implement benevolent government and stop imposing excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes." Fan Ruwei said.

Dong Sidao said with a bitter face: "Last year, all taxes were exempted. This year, only the official taxes were levied. Isn't this called benevolent government? There are still many stubborn people who betray the imperial court and pursue hypocrisy."

Fan Ruwei scratched his head and said, "That's really hard to beat."

He himself started out as a rebel, and he also plays the trick of uniting the people. He knows how terrible it is to win the hearts and minds of the people at the bottom.

Historically, the Southern Song Dynasty suppressed Zhong Xiang and Yang Yao's uprising, and massacred all the water forts once they were captured. This still had no effect, and even developed to the point of destroying farmland. Wherever the officers and soldiers of the Southern Song Dynasty went, they completely destroyed the crops there.

Still unable to defeat them, the rebels fought more and more, and then Yue Fei came forward.

Yue Fei's first military order in suppressing bandits was to strictly restrain his subordinates and do no harm to the common people wherever they went.

Last year, Li Bao relied on the navy to control the Dongting Lake basin and stormed the city on the north bank of Dongting Lake. Although the benevolent government has been implemented for a year, many of the people's relatives under the rule joined the army, and many died at the hands of Ming officers and soldiers. The people were hostile to the Ming court.

Dong Sidao said: "The soldiers in the general's hands should not be transferred away from the county easily, otherwise the enemy general will soon know about it."

"I understand." Fan Ruwei nodded.

Fan Ruwei began to train troops in the county. These monk soldiers had been training in the Yuanyang Formation for two months under Xu Mengde. Moreover, they are monk soldiers themselves, so they can be used directly on the battlefield.

The main ones are Fan Ruwei, Ye Che, Zhang Xiong, and Yue Ji, and they are not very familiar with the Yuanyang Formation.

Through military training, they became familiar with the formation and the troops.

The task everyone received was to defend the county seat. As long as they were prepared and careful, the city would not be lost.

…

Yuezhou (Yueyang).

Hubei Province has been designated this year, and the provincial capital is temporarily located in Yuezhou, the forefront.

The first Hubei left governor was named Li Guang, who was from Shangyu, Zhejiang.

He was demoted to the county magistrate because he offended Cai Jing. While he was the magistrate, he arrested the evil servants of Zhu Meng's family and was imprisoned. Since then, he has been transferred frequently to different places. After finally being promoted back to the court, he angered Wang Fu again and was demoted to the magistrate of Yangshuo County.

Li Guang was in charge of civil affairs, while Bai Qi and Wang Yuan were in charge of military affairs.

Bai Qi is mainly here to hold the show, and his identity lies there. Including the recruited troops in Jiangxi, they were also nominally under the command of Bai Qi.

Wang Yuan is Bai Qi's chief of staff and is also responsible for reorganizing the new army.

Last year, Guangdong officials offered their cities to surrender one after another. Li Gong, the old Song Dynasty's economic pacifier of Guangxi, refused to surrender Guangxi because of his loyalty to Song Huizong.

Li Gong was originally a scholar. He failed the imperial examination in Beijing three times, so he took the martial arts examination and got the first place in the martial arts examination. Since then, he has been suppressing rebellions in Guangxi and Jiangxi, and due to his military exploits, he was promoted to governor, punishment envoy, and economic envoy.

He was not robbed of his merits and believed that Song Huizong treated him well, so he was determined to be a loyal minister to Zhao Song.

Last winter, the prefectures and counties in Guangxi, which bordered Guangdong, all changed their banners and submitted to the Ming Dynasty.

Li Gong was afraid of instability in the rear, so he personally returned to Guizhou to take charge.

After Xiang Zhong heard the news, he immediately ordered the southern front troops to attack and successfully entered Guangxi to force Li Gong to surrender.

Li Gong's situation was extremely embarrassing. He led troops and was stationed in Guilin, with Prime Minister Zhong in the north and Li Bao in the south. Both sides sent envoys to persuade him to surrender.

Bai Qi held a meeting today and announced with a smile: "There is good news from Guangxi. Li Gong has surrendered. He surrendered on the ninth day of last month. Cao Hou (Li Bao) has led his troops to the north after Li Gong surrendered. After all, His soldiers are not used to the Lingnan climate and must leave early before the intense heat."

Wang Yuan asked someone to lay out several maps and analyzed: "The Huainan New Army that occupied Zhejiang transferred 30,000 troops to the Hubei front line. Counting the rest of the troops, there are 60,000 people in Hubei. After Jiangxi was reorganized, there were also 30,000 new troops. It’s unclear how many soldiers Li Gong has… Prime Minister Zhong’s territory is surrounded by at least 150,000 of our soldiers…”

"It's a pity that all the elite troops have been transferred to the north. These hundreds of thousands of soldiers are all new troops, otherwise the Puppet Chu would have been wiped out this year." Bai Qi sighed.

Li Guang said: "There is not enough food. Hubei is vast and sparsely populated, and His Highness the Crown Prince managed to immigrate countless people to reclaim wasteland. Last year, there was a big flood in Jingjiang. Fighting and relieving the victims have exhausted the food. Jiangxi and Guangxi have also been fighting against Zhong Xiang for many years. There are also not many grains left. This year’s grain from Huainan must be transported north to be used as military ration, and it is impossible to transfer it to us. If we want to wipe out the puppet Chu this year, we can only transfer grain from Sichuan.”

Wang Yuan said: "Just bear with it for another year. Zhong Xiang doesn't have much territory left now, but he has to support hundreds of thousands of troops. He will only be more short of food than us. If he presses for food too hard, the people will definitely be devastated. It will be much easier to crusade then.”

Li Guang nodded and said: "In the counties south of Jingjiang and north of Dongting Lake, after a year of benevolent government, most of the people have returned home. Since the beginning of spring, no people have been incited to cause chaos. Next year, people's hearts and minds will definitely be completely stabilized."

The three of them were discussing military and political matters, when suddenly a sergeant stood outside the door and shouted: "Generalissimo, there is a man asking to see you, claiming to be from Puppet Chu!"

Bai Qi's current position is "Generalissimo of the Southern Provinces in the Attack on Chu".

"Bring him in!" Bai Qi ordered.

Not long after, a young man about twenty years old walked over with his head held high, but his weapons were confiscated.

Bai Qi asked: "Who are you?"

The young man raised his hands and said, "My name is Yang Zaixing, and I am a general under General Cao Cheng."

Wang Yuan's eyes lit up: "Cao Cheng, the new general recruited by Prime Minister Zhong last year?"

Cao Cheng lives at the border of Hunan and Guangxi. There has been a lot of trouble in the past few years, and he was forced to surrender to Prime Minister Zhong last year.

Bai Qi became more enthusiastic and asked: "Your Excellency, are you here to serve the imperial court?"

Yang Zaixing said: "Xiang Zhong has gone back on his word and started levying heavy taxes this year, which is no different from the Zhao and Song Dynasties. All the ministries in Jingnan are dissatisfied with Prime Minister Zhong. I not only represent General Cao, but also all the ministries in Jingnan. If we can reach an agreement, we Just surrender to the Ming Dynasty. If we can't reach an agreement, we will fight with Zhong Xiang ourselves."

Li Guang asked: "What are your requirements?"

Yang Zaixing said: "It is no longer allowed to impose exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes on various ministries, and official taxes must also be reduced!"

What a simple request...

The people in the southern states in Zhong Xiang's territory are probably thinking of rebelling, especially after the Ming Dynasty regained Guangxi!

Bai Qi and Wang Yuan looked at each other and felt that they could destroy Zhong Xiang this year.

Surrounded on all sides, blooming in the center, Zhong Xiang is surrounded by enemies everywhere.