"Your Majesty, news just came that Jiangdu's army has captured Taixing and is marching towards Tongzhou!"
In Prince Cheng's Mansion, Zhang Shicheng had just had dinner when Li Boxheng brought bad news.
Zhang Shicheng felt a chill in his heart and asked Li Boxheng: "How long will it take you there?"
Li Boxheng said: "It will take another two days!"
Zhang Shicheng said solemnly: "Then wait for two more days. Although Tongzhou has a low city wall and not many defenders, it is connected to the coast after all. I hope Changshu Yuan soldiers will reinforce it!"
Li Boxheng nodded, hesitated, and said: "Your Highness, Brother Bian..."
"What happened to him?"
Li Boxing sighed: "After General Bian learned the news, he proposed to attack Tongzhou immediately. Fortunately, General Lu stopped him and said that he would have someone send back the news first and ask for your orders before taking action."
Zhang Shicheng was secretly glad that he had sent Lu Zhen over, and said in a deep voice: "Send an order to Tongzhou and appoint Lu Zhen as the chief general and Bian Yuanheng as the deputy general! You will never attack without my permission!"
Li Boxheng accepted the promise.
An order was sent to Taizhou, telling the army to stand still. The original two generals became one commander and one deputy.
Bian Yuanheng was greatly disappointed. He stamped his feet and sighed: "If Tongzhou is captured by Jiangdu's army, our army will have no chance to move south!"
Lu Zhen glanced at him sideways and hummed: "General Bian, I know you are eager to achieve great results, but you have to eat your food one bite at a time. Jiang Dujun wants to go to Jiangzuo, so just let them go. Dong Tuanxiao is not easy to deal with!"
”
Bian Yuanheng sighed and said nothing.
That night, Qin Lingjun left Taixing City with three thousand troops and headed towards Tongzhou City.
Attacking Taixing was easier than she thought, because she only led 3,500 troops, which was about the same as the defenders. Taixing City's "Daru Huachi" took the initiative to lead the defenders out of the city to fight.
The generals who accompanied Qin Lingjun on the expedition were Wang Da and Geng Si. When the two sides fought, Wang Da killed his opponent Daru Huachi with a stick. The Yuan army, which had been out of battle for a long time, collapsed immediately.
When a group of Yuan troops wanted to return to the city, the city gate was tightly closed. It turned out that a county captain in Taixing County had killed the county magistrate and planned to surrender to Jiangdu's army.
The soldiers had no choice but to surrender.
Qin Lingjun promoted the county captain to the county magistrate, asked Geng Si to lead 500 people to stay in Taixing, and led the remaining 3,000 people to continue towards Tongzhou.
Tongzhou is a seaside city. It used to be just a sandbank. In the Tang Dynasty, a salt pavilion was built. Later, it gradually became a small town and belonged to Taizhou.
As the salt industry developed, a Tongzhou city was eventually formed.
The population of this city is far less than that of Taizhou and Taixing, and the city walls are also very short. When Fang Guozhen came over, he captured Tongzhou without much effort, and then went to attack Taizhou.
Therefore, upon learning that Jiangdu's army was attacking, Daruhuachi and the county magistrate of Tongzhou were very nervous.
The county magistrate of Tongzhou, named Chen Ning, was a Jinshi in the ninth year of Zhizheng. He said: "Commander, the Jiangdu army is invading. With only three thousand defenders in the city, I am afraid it will be difficult to resist. We need to ask for help from Changshu quickly!"<
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Among the many prefectures and counties across the river from Tongzhou, only Changshu has heavy troops stationed there.
Daruhuachi said: "It takes at least two or three days to go back and forth. By the time the reinforcements arrive, we will have already broken the city and perished! For the current plan, we have to abandon the city and flee!"
Chen Ning said anxiously: "You and I work together to defend the city, plus three thousand defenders, can't we still hold on for three days?"
Daruhuachi hummed: "You are a civil servant, what do you know about military affairs? Taixing also has three thousand defenders, and the city was breached in one day!"
Chen Ning stamped his feet and said: "If you want to leave, you can leave. I swear to live and die with the people of Tongzhou!"
Daruhuachi sneered: "You are just a man, how can you pretend to be loyal to the country in front of me?" Ignoring Chen Ning, he beat the drum and gathered the generals, ordered three thousand men and horses, and crossed the river south.
Chen Ning looked up to the sky and sighed. When Qin Lingjun's army arrived, he led all the county officials out of the city to surrender.
Like Taixing in Tongzhou, the ordnance, supplies, and grain in the city have all been moved, leaving the treasury empty.
However, according to Chen Ning, there is a coal mine east of Tongzhou.
Qin Lingjun knew that Zhang Yangquan had been looking for merchants to buy coal recently, and then asked the Ordnance Bureau to refine the coal into coke.
So a centurion was temporarily appointed as the county magistrate, and Chen Ning was appointed as the county magistrate. He left five hundred soldiers to garrison, led the army back to Jiangdu, and told Zhang Yangquan the good news.
Zhang Yangquan was indeed overjoyed. In order to protect the coal mine, he sent an additional 1,500 soldiers to Tongzhou, and then sent an order to Tongzhou to expand the scale of coal mining.
He did not know at this time that the change of ownership of this coal mine would have a great impact on Taizhou Fang Guozhen.
Although Fang Guozhen also had Taizhou as his base, he was strong in water warfare. Whenever the Yuan army attacked, he would flee to sea, often staying for several months.
When sailing on the sea, fire is indispensable, and charcoal must be burned, which is far less durable than coal. Moreover, since the Northern Song Dynasty, coal has also been used to smelt weapons.
Therefore, Fang Guozhen's fleet has extremely high demand for coal.
Not long ago, when Dong Tuanxiao captured and killed Xiang Pulue in Jiangzuo and defeated Peng Yingyu, Fang Guozhen was a little scared, so he sent people to sneak into Dadu and bribed the powerful officials in the court. He was successfully ordered to peace by the court and obtained a sea route to transport thousands of households.
Since then, he has been buying coal mines from Tongzhou by sea.
Now that Tongzhou has changed hands, he has no source of coal mines. Although he can buy it from other places by land, the road is far away and there are many bandits along the way, so it is far less safe than shipping by sea.
So he summoned the generals to sit in a boat and discuss it. Someone suggested conquering Tongzhou, but Fang Guozhen immediately refuted it.
The reason why he was able to repeatedly jump between the rebels and the court was because he never attacked the rebels.
Over at the imperial court, no matter how much local officials hated him, they only needed to bribe the powerful officials in the capital and they would be able to sit back and relax.
The rebel army is different. Once one is defeated, it will no longer tolerate other rebel armies. Fang Guozhen does not want to attack the rebel army unless it is absolutely necessary.
So another general proposed to show favor to Zhang Yangquan and ask him to continue to allow him to buy coal in Tongzhou.
Fang Guozhen frowned and said: "I have no contact with Zhang Yangquan, and he occupies the most prosperous land in Yangzhou. How can I make friends with him?"
His general Li Desun smiled and said: "Brother, why worry? We have something in our hands. If Zhang Yangquan gets it, he will definitely be happy."
Fang Guozhen asked quickly: "What?"
Li Desun said with a ferocious smile: "Zhang Mingjian's head!"
After hearing this, all the generals laughed in unison.
Fang Guozhen's ship was twenty-four feet long and more than nine feet wide. He ordered three hundred shipwrights to build it. Except for the imperial court's nine-thousand-stone grain ship, there was no other ship along the coast that could compare with this ship.
Big.
In order to prevent others from building a ship like his, he drowned all three hundred shipwrights after the ship was completed. The people in eastern Zhejiang both hated and feared him. Children heard his name and did not dare to cry at night.<
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Moreover, Fang Guozhen has a strange appearance, with a dark complexion but a body as white as a gourd. His eyebrows are long and slender, and his mustache is more than half a foot long. Everyone who sees him is afraid.
Many of his generals were all wearing black sharkskin armor, and either had bald heads or shaved hair. They all looked ferocious and laughed loudly, like a group of demons dancing wildly.
Fang Guozhen stretched out his hand to touch his beard and grinned: "I actually quite like this guy Zhang Mingjian. He's so sinister and ruthless and ambitious. As soon as he joined my army, he went around wooing generals. He's too good for my liking!"<
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Li Desun smiled and said: "Then let this kid live?"
Fang Guozhen said with a smile: "It is indeed a pity to kill, but compared with coal, it is not worth mentioning. I see that the rebel army has been quite active recently. Let's wait and see. If the court cannot hold on, we can go back to it."
I’m good at my old job!”
Li Desun whistled and said with a smile: "Then let me handle this matter!"