When Xu Huai learned that Emperor Jianji was critically ill, he rushed to Beijing with a secret edict and rested in Nancai for a night. Then he continued to set off on the road. The next day after arriving in Jianye, Emperor Jianji passed away. Xu Huai set off overnight on the day after the funeral ceremony, and returned to Nancai four days later.

Half a month ago, Xu Huai was physically and mentally exhausted. At this moment, he stopped on the south embankment of Xiaoqueling, which was more than twenty miles long, looking at Qianbanpu with rippling lights on the south side.

After the flood season, rainfall in Jingbei decreased sharply, water from the Han River and the upper reaches of the Han River water dropped sharply, and the water level of Qianbanpu Lakes dropped, revealing large areas of beach land.

In order to ensure that Nancai has a certain flood storage capacity and reduce the pressure of the dike during the flood season as much as possible, the South Dike of Xiaoqueling and the lakes still remain in a buffer zone ranging from two to three miles. When the autumn and winter seasons begin, the water will recede and reveal the muddy and rifts and crisscross the beach.

Late September is the season when reeds are fully grown, and the white reeds are all covered with white reeds; shuttled among the reeds, the reed team organized by the villages—

In addition to fur clothes, wealthy families in the world mainly use cotton and velvet to fill them, and sew jackets to keep the cold. However, for middle and lower-class poor peasants, reed velvet is a more affordable and cheaper cold.

The cut reed poles can repair the roof or fence the cattle shed; cutting a few more new reeds in spring can also be used as feed to feed livestock, and the reed buds can also satisfy hunger.

Nancai has recruited more than 200,000 hungry people in total, but the newly reclaimed grain fields are currently less than 80,000 mu. Even if the construction of Meidu, Jindu and other large hamlets is completed, it is expected that the total grain fields that can be reclaimed will not exceed 300,000 mu, which will be difficult to carry so many people.

Therefore, in the next long period of time, in addition to continuing to import a large amount of food from the outside, Nan Cai also did everything possible to organize the people to compete for more food from this world.

In addition to the Cailu team, in addition to the built hamlets, Nancai also organized people to plant the beach after the water receded by villages, and strive to achieve some harvest before the flood water comes next year. The water surfaces of Qianbanpu Lakes are also fishing teams organized by villages.

Although the people of Nancai are mostly thin and weak and ragged, they have a good mental outlook.

After all, in the past year, in addition to reclaiming the fields of the hamlets, Chushan has made every effort to build hamlets to ensure that every hungry person can have a habitat and not be affected by the wind and sun. At the same time, it also ensures the most basic food supply for all the elderly, weak, women and children. At least in Nancai, hungry people can see the living conditions improving little by little, rather than constantly falling into a more tragic situation.

Sometimes, hope is always more important.

Listening to the vague songs coming from deep in the reeds on the lake, Xu Huai's fatigue for many days could not help but evaporate. He said to Wang Ju, Han Gui, Guo Junzong, Wu Chihai and others around him: "I went to Jianye for this time, and I even asked myself secretly if I had done anything wrong, but the scene in front of me completely wiped out the doubts in my heart. Do you know why?"

"It's not difficult to guess. Jishuai just means that the Zheng father and son will never do these things in front of him. Jishuai's ambition to control the enemy and the people is as solid as a rock, and the Zheng father and son are definitely not like-minded people. Since one day they are destined to go against each other, what's wrong with them?" Han Gui bowed and said.

"It was said before that Mr. Shi was a roundworm in Jieshuai's stomach. Now it seems that he will add Han Langjun." Guo Jun said with a smile.

"Jingshou," Zhou Jing, Fan Zongqi, Jiang Xie, Xu Sheng and others came over and asked, "Jingshou is moving westward without stopping, why did he stop here?"

Xu Huai went from Jianye to Chizhou, Qichun, and Huangpi westward, and kept working his horse. He almost stopped except for food and changing horses. Instead, he fell into Nancai, but his speed slowed down.

Zhou Jing, Fan Zongqi and others couldn't wait in Nancai City, so they drove their horses twenty miles away to welcome them.

"Only by seeing these, I can be more sure that the Nancai army is available!" Xu Huai pointed to the situation inside the causeway and said to Zhou Jing, Fan Zongqi and others.

"Jings coach is so sure?" Fan Zongqi asked with a smile.

For more than a year, Fan Zongqi was not only responsible for the defense of Nan Cai, but also responsible for the transformation of prisoners of war and training of village soldiers. To be honest, he was a little lacking in confidence at this time.

He was not worried that the ten thousand village soldiers who had completely assembled were not trained enough at this time.

The ten thousand soldiers gathered together have never been on the battlefield much, so they will definitely not be able to compare with the old soldiers in the hundred battles, but they are all well trained at this time.

Fan Zongqi was worried about whether the final recruitment order would be issued, and the Nancai troops, who were mainly transformed from hungry prisoners of war, learned that their goal was to attack the Dongjing coalition forces that occupied Jingjiang and Dongting Lake and came from the same source as them, would the morale of the army be shaken and how much morale would be available in the end.

"You are not sure enough now, that is because your work is not meticulous enough," Xu Huai asked with a smile, "How is the assembly of boats?"

The mobilization and assembly of troops and the transportation of tens of thousands of sets of weapons and armor from Wuyang and other places are not a big problem. Xu Huai is mainly worried about whether the number of boats gathered in such a short time is enough.

Although he had no plans and had no plans to directly enter Dongting Lake and compete with the main force of the Dongjing bandit army, large-scale boats and ships were also indispensable.

However, gathering boats in Nancai was also their difficulty this time.

After moving the capital to Jianye, Zhufeng Hall opened up a shipping route from Xiangyang to Jianye; Nancai County was established in northern Hubei, and Zhufeng Hall further expanded the scale of medium and long-distance shipping.

However, in recent years, in addition to the Dongjinghu bandits ravaging Jingjiang, Dongting Lake, Ezhou, Yuezhou, Jingzhou and other places, there has been an urgent need to form naval troops. The construction of the Huaihe River and Yangtze River defense lines is the top priority to resist the Chihu people's invasion from the south of Huainan.

This has enabled the Jianghuai, Jinghu and other places to have the ability to manufacture large boats and ships, basically all requisitioned by the court or various supervisors or made every effort to build various warships, and they were directly purchased by the navy of various routes.

Nancai County also started to build a large-scale new dock in Suolonghu at the beginning of the year, but it will not be put into use as early as the end of the year. It will take some time to truly build the first medium- and large boat.

In addition to the capture of the Panlongzhai Victory and the acquisition from various places in Jinghu, the boats currently owned by Zhufengtang and Nan Cai were mainly transferred from Xinyang, Zhouqiao and other places.

Zhufengtang currently has only twelve merchant ships with a load capacity of more than 400 stones.

The fishing teams organized by the villages, mainly small black-shanged boats and small sampans with a load of more than 20 stones, were mainly seized from the Panlongzhai victory, with a total of 1,200 ships.

This part of the boat seems to be quite large, but it is completely useless.

However, after the establishment of Nancai County in the overseas Chinese, the twelve township departments (Penlong, Dongban) were successively established under the jurisdiction of Xiaoqueling, Panlong, and Dongban. The township soldiers were organized as a unit to train, and also organized fishing teams that mainly entered the Jingjiang and Han River for fishing operations and took into account defense. There were a total of more than 400 medium and large sledge ships, sloops and oar-rolling warships.

These boats were mainly transferred from Xinyang through Huainan and other places.

In addition, the Nancai County Weishi also specially formed a naval force of 500 people, with a total of more than a dozen red horse boats, eight oar-rolling warships, and two ferry warships, all of which were transferred from Xinyang.

However, after learning that Emperor Jianji was critically ill, he hurriedly wanted to transfer a large number of boats from Xinyang. Except for the Huaixi Camp, it would not be too late to let it go easily.

From Xinyang to Nancai, more than 2,000 miles of waterways were traveling through Hongzepu, which had a shallow and gentle flow and the Shanyangdu Canal divided by many dams, and after entering the Yangtze River from Yangzhou, it had to go upstream.

Even if there is no obstacle along the way, it will be impossible to walk such a long way without two months.

Zhou Jing stayed in Nancai and, with Fan Zongqi, Jiang Xie, Xu Sheng and others for such a short time, could only gather more than 400 boats under the jurisdiction of Zhuxiangsi fishing boats for backup. These boats were unable to add combat equipment and transform, and could only be used as ordinary transport ships; at present, only the twelve medium and large merchant ships belonging to Zhufengtang were transformed accordingly.

"I received a letter sent by Jishuai yesterday. We had a preliminary draft of the article. The army directly crossed the Han River from northwest of Hanchuan and went to Hualing County, or go further. We accompanied Jishuai directly to Jiangling!" Zhou Jing said.

Although the recruitment order issued by the Privy Council did not grant Xu Huai the power to control the troops in Jingbei, Xu Huai led his troops into the west of the Han River to fight the bandits. Who dared to stop the troops in Nancai from entering? Xu Huai had a temper and sent someone to tie up the guards and beat them up. No one dared to say that he was not.

Xu Huai led his troops into Hualing or Jingzhou to Jiangling City. Even if there were other defenders in the city, the principle of one city not establishing two generals must be accepted by Xu Huai's control.

In addition to the defender Kong Changyu, the commander of the Jinghu North Road, who brought the platform to the platform, he was qualified to compete with Xu Huai.

"Let's go to Hualing first. Should we go to Jiangling? Let's wait until Hualing to see the situation!" Xu Huai said.

Hualing City controls the key node of turning into Changlin River to Bailu Lake through Hualing River. Even though Zhu Zhi was the magistrate of Hualing, on the one hand, Zhu Zhi had no soldiers or horses in his hands, and on the other hand, Zhu Zhi finally just obeyed his father Zhu Han. Xu Huai was about to beware of the King of Huai and woke up, and directly issued an order to the Jingbei Supervisor Gao Junrong lead his troops to Hualing to block their retreat.

By then, they may not be able to swallow the fat meat from their mouths completely into their stomachs.

Zhou Jing next talked about the specific deployment plan. In addition to Xu Huai's own troops crossing the Han River and going directly to Hualing by land, Xu Huai will also conduct the Wenjinghu North Road System and the Military and Horse Deployment Department in the name of the Chushan Camp. He requires that the Nancai naval army will fully take over the Hualing River and Changlin River waterways, and will also block the Han River west of Nancai and the estuary of Hualing River. Xu Huai will also conduct the Wenyang Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture in the name of the Chushan Camp. He will mobilize a group of troops from Wuyang and other places to ensure that the logistics channel starting from Wuyang, passing through Nanyang, Xiangyang and Yingzhou enters Hualing, and always be under the control of the Chushan Camp. It will ensure that the food and supplies gathered from Rucai are continuously transferred to Hualing to Hualing, supporting the Nancai army's troops against the Dongjing coalition.
Chapter completed!