Seven hundred and twentieth chapters draw the bottom line
Chapter 724: Drawing fire from under the cauldron
Bian Chongxing was slightly surprised when he saw Guanying there, and asked curiously: "Guanying, long time no see, what happened?"
Guanying also knew that Bian Chongxing didn't like small talk, so he didn't take it seriously. He stood up and said: "My lord, the latest battle report has just been sent. Our Hetao army defeated the Mandan soldiers at the foot of Black Stone City. Langxie King Yelu Cangsang and Yelu
Canghai and others died in the battle. Yelu Minghui led more than 30,000 defeated soldiers and retreated to the Mandan Palace, making a final desperate resistance. In the entire Black Rock City, only Yelu Canglang managed to escape. At the same time, Feng Shuai and Xin Shuai were there.
The 100,000 soldiers in the Yelv border area were completely wiped out at Mifeng City, and Mandan is not far from being destroyed."
Bian Zhongxing pulled up a chair and sat down, frowning and said: "You can't say that, there is still Xiao Shicheng in Mifeng City. This man is a good fighter. If we don't pull out Mifeng City, we will
Logistics and transportation will always be risky. Secondly, although the main population and economic areas of Mandan are in the central and southern regions, they still have at least three million people in the northern region. As long as they are organized properly, they can pull up a force of two to three million people.
It is not difficult to be an army. If you cut off the weeds without uprooting them, they will grow again when the spring breeze blows."
Chu Xiangcheng nodded in agreement, and this issue was also mentioned in the battle report sent back by Luo Xiang. It seems that the Hetao generals were not carried away by this victory, and were keenly aware of the risks involved.
"Luo Xiang mentioned in the battle report that now the lord wants to strike while the iron is hot and win over Beijing, so he will not devote too much attention and troops to it. Just now I was frowning, but Guanying just mentioned one thing,
I suddenly felt something strange." Chu Xiangcheng said with a smile.
Bian Zhongxing was stunned for a moment and turned his head to look at this one-armed general who was just like himself.
"Since the lord led the main army to leave the country, we only have 50,000 soldiers of the Rock Army south of the river, so there are many people in the empire who are ready to make a move." Guanying said.
"The Li family in Qinchuan, the Zhang family in Huaishui, or the remnants of the Song family?" Bian Zhongxing asked casually. Although he had only been south for half a year, he was responsible for military affairs across the country after all, so he knew the domestic situation very well.
"There are also the Liu family, the remnants of the Holy Sect of Paradise, and the Luoche Dynasty." Guanying said with a serious face. After a pause, Guanying looked at Chu Xiangcheng, who had a calm expression.
Chu Xiangcheng raised his eyelids and said calmly: "Go on."
"The Dingnan Army Corps is also quite unstable, and the Master Chu of the Mingjian Villa has been quite active recently, and often comes into contact with the Master Tianfengyu of the Jade Palace in Yaochi. In addition, we also discovered the appearance of Lord Weiming, the Nine Heavens Divine Arrow.
On Yangzhou Road near Jinwan County in Guazhou." Guanying said boldly.
Chu Xiangcheng frowned, while Guanying breathed hard, not daring to breathe. Now everyone in the world knows the relationship between Chu Jianhuan and Chu Xiangcheng, but Chu Jianhuan clearly has some problems now, who knows Chu Jianhuan
How will Xiangcheng be handled?
After a long time, Chu Xiangcheng finally snorted coldly: "The Holy Sect of Bliss, the Song family of Yizhou, and the Liu family of Qingfeng, I should have known that they could not be completely eradicated at the beginning. The Zhang family of Huaishui and the Li family of Qinchuan were too heavy."
I was so angry that I jumped out so quickly. I just didn’t expect that even the Dingnan Army would have problems.”
Guan Ying said tentatively: "Sir, I think this is the other party deliberately testing whether we know the identity of the internal agent. After all, their actions are relatively low-key. If we don't pay special attention to their actions, we won't notice it at all."
Chu Xiangcheng leaned back, leaned on the back of his chair, pondered for a while, and said, "Tell me something specific."
Guanying nodded and said: "The Qinchuan Li family is secretly contacting the old troops that we have disbanded. In the four southern states, they continue to gather strong men who have received formal military training for various reasons.
.And in the Huai River area, a lot of bandits suddenly appeared. The merchants in Huai River were very dissatisfied and recruited bodyguards to protect the courtyard. Together, they can gather at least 150,000 soldiers."
"Dingnan Army?" Bian Zhongxing asked with concern.
"Cheng Guochi and others have had frequent contact with Gu Changfeng, the governor of Dahu Road. There is a tendency to reserve large amounts of food in Hongzhou City. Most of the blacksmiths and cobblers in the Dahu Road area have been incorporated into the military. This is a typical behavior in preparation for war." Guan
Ying replied: "There has been no change in the Luoche Dynasty for the time being, except that Wubi Cangxiong secretly met with several business travelers from within the empire four times in the past two months."
Bian Zhongxing thought for a while and said: "There should be no problem for the time being. The lord's army is winning steadily outside the Great Wall. It is impossible for them to launch a rebellion at this time. They should just be reserving strength now. If nothing happens, they will choose to join the lord's army.
After defeat."
Chu Xiangcheng said with a smile: "The purpose of raising tigers is to kill tigers, not to cause trouble. However, their strength has expanded too much. There are only 350,000 soldiers in four regular legions. Plus this miscellaneous
If you are not careful, you can piece together five or six hundred thousand troops. And our current total force south of the river is only Zhu Xigao's fifty thousand. The situation is not optimistic. By the way, how is the mood of the Eastern Army?"
"The Eastern Legion is emotionally stable. After all, this is the army led by General Xiang. Both its loyalty and morale are very good. However, Mingjian Villa, Yaochi Jade Palace and Yanyu Ninghua Palace have always been loyal allies of the Qingfeng Liu family.
The subordinates are worried that if there is a change in their senior leadership, the legion will suffer unjust injustice."
"There will be no problem with Lianfeng. If he was really ambitious, he would not have refused when I proposed to adopt him. What benefits can the Liu family give him? As long as he adopts me, he will never be granted the title of marquis or prime minister in the future."
Cheng said confidently, but when he thought of his brother, who was as stubborn as a cow, Chu Xiangcheng couldn't help but let out a long sigh.
Bian Zhongxing's eyes flashed: "Mr. Chu, the opponent's power has expanded too much. We must suppress it first, otherwise the situation will inevitably get out of control. Hmph, if I had known that they were not well-intentioned, they would definitely deliberately rebel. This is indeed the case.
"
Chu Xiangcheng said with a smile: "I also thought about this problem just now. Although the hearts of these four legions are unstable, not every soldier below has the same evil intentions as their superiors. Therefore, I am going to come to a
Recruitment is a waste of money."
After a pause, he glanced at the two Bian Guan who were enlightened, and Chu Xiangcheng said: "The Eastern Legion will first be transferred to the outside of the Great Wall, and then a new legion will be formed, consisting of Po Li, Yellow Turban, Ding Nan and Xue Lang.
The personnel recruited from the legion are mainly voluntary, and as many as they can go. Once these people leave, Li Tieming and others will immediately use various methods to mix their loyal subordinates into the military. In this way, we will not only be able to
Provide at least 100,000 well-trained regular troops outside the Great Wall, and be able to expose the opponent's hidden forces to the sun to the greatest extent. What do you think of the Commander-in-Chief?"
Bian Zhongxing nodded: "Master Chu's move is really brilliant. I think it is necessary for us to concentrate all the blacksmiths and cobblers in the empire as far as possible in the Hetao and the areas north of the river. The reason is that this is
In order to facilitate the conquest outside the Great Wall and restrict the flow of grain between merchants, the grain reserves of the local state capitals south of the river should be collected as much as possible to reduce the opponent's continuous combat capability to the greatest extent."
Chu Xiangcheng also agreed with Bian Zhongxing's opinion that war is not just a matter on the battlefield, but various economic and political factors are equally important.
"We owe Li Xiaomo a favor. It is better to let him serve as the commander of this newly established army. As for the Lingnan and Baiyue roads, they will be temporarily under military control by Li Tiezhan. Anyway, there are no citizens of the empire here. Give him a good hearing.
Let's stabilize their minds first." Chu Xiangcheng said: "My lord is planning to set up Lingbei Road in the central and southern areas of Mandan and Baijing. Let me draw up a plan. It will be possible to kill many people with one stone."
Guanying listened with sincerity. This was the top counselor in Hetao. He handled everything properly in a moment without any omissions. It was really the misfortune of Li Tieming and others to compete with such a person.
.
"Closely monitor the movements of Mingjian Villa, Yanyu Ninghua Palace and Yaochi Jade Palace. Be careful, these people are masters. Don't let the other party see it." Chu Xiangcheng shouted flatly.
"yes!"
"To the west of Xing'an Mountains, to the east of Duanhun Mountains, to the north of the Great Wall Mountains, and to the south of the Second City of Black Rock Shensha, Lingbei Road is set up. The administrative office has not yet been decided. Li Xiaomo is promoted to the prefect of Lingbei Road. The border army Flying Bear Corps is set up.
The maximum strength is 50,000, and Li Xiaomo temporarily takes the post of army commander. Chu Lianfeng's Dongfang Army marches north to Lingbei Road to assist Li Xiaomo in wiping out the remnants of the Mandan. The members of the Flying Bear Army are drawn from Dingnan, Yellow Turban and Poli Army.
The vacancies will be filled through consultation between the army commander and the local government."
After receiving Chu Xiangcheng's suggestion, Haotian issued this order without hesitation.
After seeing this battle report, different people have different opinions.
Li Tieming and others can be said to be ecstatic. Since the soldiers of the Flying Bear Legion are drawn from various legions, they can just remove all those who have feelings for the Hetao in the army, and then fill in their die-hard subordinates. Although
As a result, Li Xiaomo and Chu Lianfeng went outside the Great Wall and were unable to return to the south of the river in a short time. However, the strength in their hands increased relatively a lot. The most important thing is that the Hetao did not increase the local garrison at all.
, their total strength in the entire south of the river is only 50,000. Even if the Hetao and north of the river are included, there is only one complete Rock Legion and three legions of Golden Eagle, Canglang, and Qilin with an army of 300,000. As long as Hao
A big loss in Baijing will give Hetao a good look.
Feng Jing sighed, and Chu Xiangcheng finally started to implement this plan. According to Feng Jing's idea, in fact, the way to solve the problem does not have to be through endless killing. Since the legions such as the Yellow Turbans are not very stable, it might as well
Move all of them to the hometown of the Three Northeastern Kingdoms and temporarily serve as border guards, allowing them to wipe out the remaining forces of the Three Northeastern Kingdoms and prevent the Abate people in the north from taking the opportunity to expand their sphere of influence.
Although the Northeastern Three Kingdoms were once relatively prosperous places, after the war in Hetao, it was no longer a problem of vast land and sparsely populated areas, but of thousands of miles of uninhabited and bones scattered across the fields. The soldiers of the Po Li Corps and others were not from the north, nor were they
They know nothing about grazing. They can't get any supplies from the local area here. All materials and food must be supplied through the Hetao. In this way, military power and local areas are divided into one south and one north of the Hetao. Even if Li Tieming and others have any ideas, they can't.
It is impossible to implement it. If these people are left outside the Great Wall for ten or eight years, no matter how ambitious they are, they will not be able to threaten the safety of the Loop by then.
If they want to resist with force, that's okay. Anyway, the Great Wall defense line is in their own hands. Are they still more powerful than the Three Northeastern Kingdoms in their heyday?
But Chu Xiangcheng did not do this. Instead, he moved those who were loyal to Hetao here, leaving the vacancies left for Li Tie, Cheng Guochi and others to solve on their own. In this way, these people all became theirs.
Best friends. To put it more nicely, when they raise the flag of rebellion and send troops to suppress the rebellion in Hetao, it is quite convenient to kill people, and there is no need to judge whether he was forced.
Luo Xiang smiled slightly. He understood what Chu Xiangcheng was thinking. Their initial plan was to raise tigers and kill them. Haotian was very soft-hearted. At least when facing his own tribe and former friends, Haotian always found it difficult.
They are ruthless. However, neither Qinchuan Li Tieming nor Huaishui Zhang family are willing to lose their former power. They will definitely restore their previous glory by any means. Therefore, the long-term pain is not as good as the short-term pain, and it is better to use all their strength
Everything was exposed to the public. With this move, Chu Xiangcheng was obviously starting a plan for a big purge in the future.
No one realizes what Chu Xiangcheng is doing now. Even Wei He, Xia Houming, Zheng Chengen and others who are now Chu Xiangcheng's deputy can only vaguely guess. But Luo Xiang understands, because he is one of the makers of the plan.
one.
After the Hetao unified China, it did not implement effective governance south of the river. The reason was that the human resources reserves in the Hetao were insufficient. However, this was really just an excuse. Only one year after the Hetao launched its troops, the Second Northwest Road was recovered. In such a difficult situation,
Despite the circumstances, there are still enough manpower to serve as the local magistrate and the local governance is in order, which shows that there is no shortage of talents in the Hetao. However, now, except for the various prefects in the Hetao, the entire local governance has been handed over to local forces.
With the three major aristocratic families and the remaining forces of the Qingfeng Empire.
For those who are famous and strong-minded in the local area, Hetao has basically concentrated their family members in Tiandu Shengjing on the pretext of concentrating wealthy households and restoring the economy of Tiandu Shengjing. For those ordinary people who have a good impression of Hetao
, Hetao gave them land and allowed them to move to the sparsely populated Youyun Sixteen Prefectures area on a large scale.
After years of war, the total population south of the river has dropped to a little more than 30 million. Even if the original population of the Hetao is included, the total population of the entire China does not exceed 50 million. Compared with 618 years ago,
The population of the Qingfeng Empire dropped by two-thirds. Hetao organized the people to move north this time. Because the treatment was quite generous, even though the people of China had a deep-rooted hometown complex, in just one year, there were still more than 500 people.
Thousands of people moved to the Youyun Sixteen Prefecture area. Li Tieming and others did not notice at all that these people strongly supported the Hetao regime and were not in harmony with their original rulers.
In the view of Li Tieming and others, the Hetao was showing favor to those who tended to them. Moreover, migrating people to enrich the border was something that all dynasties had done, so naturally they did not take it to heart. Therefore, the vigorous organization in the Hetao
Next, this is the first time since the reign of the King Lin Tianxia dynasty that there has been a wave of southern people migrating northward in China.
Li Tieming and others are all old foxes, but they still did not see clearly the intention of Hetao. The main reason is that they did not expect that Hetao could be so ruthless. The meaning of Chu Xiangcheng and Luo Xiang was already obvious.
The people who are loyal to Hetao have all moved to Youyun Sixteen Prefectures, and the local people with some reputation and integrity have all gathered in Tiandu Shengjing. Once the situation goes wrong, they can easily cover their supporters and return.
North of the river. When the Hetao army moves south here, there will be a merciless massacre.
Luo Xiang was smiling proudly when a voice suddenly came from behind: "Sir, why do you always have to use such bloody methods to solve problems?"
Luo Xiang was frightened for a while, but he quickly came back to his senses. Today, there are only two people who can bully him without him noticing, and the Yingwu layman should still be on the Bloody Plateau. Naturally, this person is only two people.
Xin Jiao.
Luo Xiang turned around, met Xin Jiao's eyes and said: "Because we want to create peace for all eternity, we must eliminate all bad factors. The Lord is too soft-hearted, and these people clearly have bad intentions, so he kept them
, there will be trouble in the future. You should raise cats instead of tigers, and dogs instead of wolves. Mistress, you should understand this."
"Sir, are you worried about raising tigers?"
Luo Xiang nodded: "Yes, my lord is raising tigers. If we don't make preparations in advance now, it will inevitably cause greater disasters in the future. There should be great governance after the chaos, but if these people don't die, China can't really do it.
Great governance."
Xin Jiao was speechless. She didn't like to participate in such intrigues, and she hated this feeling. However, she still criticized Luo Xiang and others for killing tens of thousands of people at every turn.
"Sir, whether it is the Li family in Qinchuan or the Zhang family in Huaishui, there is no successor. There is only one Li Xiaomo who can be of great use. But we in Hetao are full of talents, like you, sir, and Xueshuai, any of them,
Li Xiaomo can't stir up a big storm, so why bother killing everyone?" Xin Jiao sighed.
Looking at Xin Jiao's compassionate expression, Luo Xiang sighed: "Mother, do you think we are really so keen on killing? It's just that these people are ambitious people. If they don't die, there will be no peace in China. Now is the time
After the great chaos, if they attack now, they can at least minimize the disaster. If they recover in another ten or eight years, and it happens to be the period of peace, the damage will inevitably be greater. If you want to make the empire
Long-term peace and stability must be beyond the reach of ordinary people."
After a pause, Luo Xiang turned around, looked up at the stars in the sky, and said with emotion: "Mother, do you believe in the existence of providence?"
Xin Jiao was stunned for a moment. She didn't know why Luo Xiang suddenly turned to this topic. After thinking for a long time, she said: "I don't believe in the existence of God's will. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people in China who have died."
, there won’t be so much injustice.”
Luo Xiang did not turn around, but just turned his back to Xin Jiao and said: "But I believe that the way of heaven does not favor ordinary people, so the way of heaven is always there. It will not survive for Yao or perish for Jie. However, when a person's actions exceed a certain
After reaching the limit, you will inevitably suffer divine punishment.”
Xin Jiao's heart moved and he blinked: "Sir, what do you mean?"
"Killing millions of people at every turn, even if there is a legitimate reason, is after all a massacre of living beings, an act that goes against the will of heaven, and will be punished by heaven. The layman Guitian said that day, unless he is a person who is extremely good and evil or has a stubborn destiny, it will be absolutely difficult for him to do so.
Escape the punishment of God. What I am worried about is that when our generation passes away one after another and the empire is in decline, some accidents will happen in the south. In order to avoid the smooth transition of the empire, we still have to be the villains and solve all these problems first.