We were running smoothly all the way, and we could hardly see a single soldier. If you asked why we couldn't see any soldiers, then you have to ask how many troops Lao Zhu still has.
During the camp in Zhengzhou, there were newly recruited left and right Longwu troops, Ge Congzhou and Tingzidu, with a total of more than 18,000 people.
When they camped in Suzhou, they had Feisheng's powerful army led by his uncle Cong. In addition, his uncle Cong's personal army controlled Hedu, with about 21,000 people.
During the camp in Caozhou, Zhu Zhen had under his tent the left and right surprise generals, the left and right yamen, the left and right Desheng, the five armies of his own cavalry, and the captured troops, plus the two capitals of Tabai and Yingwu, a total of 27,000 people.
On the Xuzhou front line, Pang Shigu's group has the largest force, including the Feilong, Jianrui, Changjian, Kuangwei, Jiama, and Youguo armies. Currently, there are still 70,000 combatable troops.
The above are the more capable troops under Zhu Quanzhong, but after fighting for so many years, they have been replenished as they go, and many new soldiers have come in, so their combat effectiveness has declined compared to a few years ago.
In Xuzhou City, there are still more than a thousand remnant soldiers from Poxiadu, a thousand from Luoyandu, plus 15,000 from the Zhongwu Yamen Army, for a total of 17,000, of which nearly half are newly recruited.
Caizhou has more than 6,000 Zhongwu troops from Yang Shihou and 5,000 Fengguo Zhenya troops from Zhang Quanyi, totaling more than 11,000 people. The latter is still a new recruit.
There are ten thousand people in the right wing of the Changzhi Army in Bianzhou City, which are relatively capable elites. In addition, Zhang Guibian recruited and trained, and now Xie Yanzhang took over the Shenwu, Tianwu, Longxiang, Longhu, Tianwei, Guangsheng,
Shenjie and Tianxing's Eighth Army totaled about 50,000 people, collectively known as the "Bianliang Eighth Army".
It's a pity that they are all new recruits who have only been trained for more than a year and cannot be put to great use. Moreover, Zhu Quanzhong did this without caring about financial pressure. He was really aggressive and aggressive, which also shows that he was impatient.
The only ones who can really fight are more than 100,000 regular troops. In addition to the troops guarding core cities such as Bianzhou and the troops fighting with the Xia army on the front line, how many mobile troops does he have? They are all squatting in the front line and cannot move.
"dead things".
Is it enough for the 40 to 50 thousand people of Zhu Zhen and Shi Shu Cong to defend the front of the great plain that is nearly 900 miles wide on the eastern front?
To put it bluntly, since the defeat of Luoyang, Liang Jun, who has become increasingly short of troops, has found it difficult to maintain the front line. The more than 100,000 regular troops are not as capable as those in the second and third years of Dashun. Otherwise, do you really think these six
Was the seven-year Xia-Liang War in vain?
Therefore, the Feilong Army marched along the Yingshui River and collected grain, grass, horses and mules in the countryside. Not a single Liang Army yamen soldier was seen. The local prefecture and county soldiers were weak in combat effectiveness and were far less numerous than the yamen army. They could only guard the city and let loose.
Their activities in the wild looked a bit like the time when Zhu Xuan lay flat and dealt with Zhu Quanzhong.
On the third day of December, the army suddenly detoured westward, crossed Ru River, broke through Shenqiu, which had only 300 county soldiers, and entered the county seat.
"Now the thieves can mobilize soldiers and horses to pursue our army. Only Dai Siyuan's troops in Chenzhou and Yang Shihou's troops in Shangcai." In the county government office, Qi Banzhang summoned the generals to discuss matters. He only heard him say: "Yang Shihou, I think
I don’t really want to fight, and he only has more than a thousand cavalry, which is nothing to worry about. Even if he wanted to catch up, he couldn’t catch up with us, and if he caught up with us, he couldn’t defeat us with just those cavalry. The most dangerous thing is the thousands of people in Dai Siyuan.
It has the ability to severely damage our army. We must find a way to eat this one to avoid future troubles."
"I think Yang Shihou has some thoughts. He is not a direct descendant of Quanzhong, and he was thrown into the Zhongwu Army. Zhao Jue does not trust him. In recent years, he has led thousands of people to fight abroad, sometimes in Ruzhou, sometimes in Caizhou, etc.
After a while, in Heluo, I think those six or seven thousand cavalry have almost become his private army."
"Yang Shihou was superior to Empress Cai. His actions were slow and clueless. He didn't look like he was fighting a good war."
"Weisheng's army broke through Langshan and sent troops to Zhenyang. The rebels retreated without a fight. Cui Hong of the Huaining army attacked Baoxin County again. Caizhou has been captured by our army in three counties. Counting the new information, that is
Four counties. With four of the ten counties in hand, how can the thief not panic?"
"If the thieves don't come, the territory will be occupied by Zhe and his son. This is not only the case in Caizhou, I'm afraid it will be the same in Yingzhou. Are there soldiers in Yingzhou? If it's not state and county soldiers, I'm afraid they won't be able to do anything."
"Avoiding the real and turning to the weak is the right way to fight. Isn't it unhealthy to confront others head-on? I think Xiaozhe Sikong's strategy is good."
Qi Banzhang listened with a smile on his face.
Zhu Quanzhong's original strength was only 200,000 at most. But how many troops have been annihilated in recent years? He also lost the ten states of Meng, Huai, Luo, Ru, Chu, Si, Hao, Shou, Guang, and Shen.
At present, there are only thirteen states of Bian, Song, Bo, Ying, Chen, Xu, Cai, Xu, Su, Cao, Dan, Hua, and Zheng. The population, money and food have been greatly reduced. They can support the current scale of troops and horses, and they are already resorting to military warfare.
Internally, killing troops by pulling out troops led to the common practice of soldiers fleeing and becoming bandits; the winds and winds at the top of the Yellow River were stinking for ten miles, which greatly disappointed the scholars; in order to support the army, they imposed excessive taxes and excessive taxes.
Along with the Yellow River, it will never return.
Now being besieged on three sides, the troops are stretched thin. The towns of Xuanwu and Xuanyi are extremely empty. All the troops that can be mobilized have been transferred to the west to block the holes in the north. Even if Han Xin is resurrected and Bai Qi is reincarnated, it will be difficult to recover.
"The important thing now is to attract the thieves, gather them and annihilate them." Qi Binzhang raised his hand to block everyone's discussion and said: "As long as one of Dai Siyuan or Yang Shihou is eliminated, the situation will be very different."
…
On the frozen ground east of Heyin County, a large group of cavalry roared towards them.
They came across the ice of the Yellow River and raced horses across the vast territory of Zhengzhou.
These are the thousands of native villagers recruited in Heyang.
Yes, they are Xiangyong!
It is extremely rare for Xiangyong to shoot arrows on horseback in the Central Plains. Especially when there are thousands of them at once, it simply subverts people's perception.
But that's the truth.
The production structure in rural areas has changed. They are no longer farmers with their backs to the sky and their backs to the sky. Many people raise large livestock, including cows, camels, and of course horses.
In addition, there is a government-run ranch in Heyang, and the horses in it were replenished in the second half of the year. The number is huge and can fully meet the consumption.
This may be a "ridiculous" scene that subverts the history of wars from ancient times. In ancient times, other imperial courts did not have private horses, but they were mostly concentrated in border counties, and the number was not very large.
For example, during the Xuanzong Dynasty, 760,000 horses were raised across the country, of which less than 500,000 were from government-run ranches, and the remaining 200,000 to 300,000 were raised by private individuals, mainly in Hexi and Longyou Town. This was encouraged by the
According to the figures obtained after the horse-raising policy, without this stimulus policy, I am afraid that only wealthy private households would raise horses, while ordinary people would rather raise sheep.
There are less than 70,000 households in Heyang Town. Under the three-crop rotation system, most people choose to raise sheep. Twenty acres of alfalfa fields can feed 300. However, many people still choose to raise at least one horse. This number is
It's huge.
If the Heyang shogunate introduces some policies, such as allowing all families to keep at least one horse, there will be at least 70,000, or even more than 100,000 horses in the town.
There is a huge gap in the amount of livestock maintenance between pure farming and mixed agriculture and animal husbandry.
And if we only talk about raising horses and other livestock, the grassland cannot be compared with the Central Plains. Even if the Central Plains does not cultivate land and is turned into pasture, it is a top-quality pasture that is a hundred times better than the grassland. In later generations, places like Ukraine were like Southern Russia before they were developed.
This part of the grassland is full of cattle and sheep. After development, it will become the granary of Europe, full of wheat.
Once horses are raised in an agricultural or industrial society, how do dry grasslands compare? In 1813, Napoleon ordered a search for horses, and the results were 3.5 million. For no other reason than farmers have a tradition of raising livestock, and they also farm
It is a mixed system of animal husbandry and animal husbandry, unlike China where almost all farming is farming.
As for Tsarist Russia, there were even 35 million horses during World War I. Once the traditional farming and agricultural areas were fully activated, the horse breeding capacity could explode across the eight streets of the grassland.
Shao Shude's various sites in the Central Plains. Heyang Town, which was originally a piece of white land, is the one that implements the three-crop rotation system most thoroughly. It has been replenishing livestock for several years. It is conceivable that after a few more years of development, this will become a northern agricultural zone.
Alternative.
Now Henan Prefecture is also gradually promoting this agricultural production model. Will we see it in five years?
Song Le, the governor of Heyang Jiedu, once calculated that if Henan Prefecture was restored to 100,000 households, Ruzhou had 50,000 households, and Heyang had 100,000 households, and if the horses were all in place, I am afraid that it would not be possible to raise 300,000 to 400,000 households.
Horses. And this is not just a matter of horses. Farmers who raise horses will definitely learn to ride horses in their spare time. When participating in rural bravery training, they may even learn multiple subjects: riding and shooting.
Xiangyong of Mianchi County has this kind of training, and the county does not force horses to be raised, but it is not a problem to pull out two thousand cavalry.
For hundreds of years, the great khans of the grassland have easily controlled hundreds of thousands of people. I wonder what they thought when they saw millions of warriors from the Central Plains riding horses and shooting arrows.
Of course, Song Le also knew that this would probably only happen in the early days of the dynasty when the politics were clear. Over time, farmers would be unwilling to raise horses, and due to various frauds, the number of horses in the country would probably drop significantly. But no matter what,
In this way, it is not a problem to accumulate more than five times the number of horses in the Xuanzong Dynasty in the country, and most of them are located in the northern states. This is a very huge force. When fighting against the barbarians in the grasslands, it has no shortcomings.
More than 3,000 cavalrymen flashed past east of Heyin County.
Ge Congzhou stood at the top of the city and watched them leave.
"Is this the Great Khan of the Grassland or the Jiedu Envoy of the Central Plains?" Even though he had known that Shao Shude had united many grassland tribes, when he saw these cavalrymen wearing their own clothes and looking like local braves heading east, he still
I couldn't help but scold my mother.
He even wanted to suggest that Liang Wang learn the agricultural farming model under Shao Shude. But when he thought of the complicated land rights in Henan, he could only sigh and it was difficult to distinguish.
"Zhengzhou! Alas, we have hit the fatal point again." Ge Congzhou was very angry.
Zhengzhou's troops were insufficient and most of them were infantry. How could they catch up with these Xia warriors on horseback?
Since I am a local warrior, I am definitely not as good at fighting as the yamen army, and correspondingly I am less courageous and will be very slippery in battle. If I can't fight, don't fight, just run away. You can't catch up with me anyway. If you meet those who can fight, there are more than a thousand people.
If more than 2,000 cavalrymen rush forward together and defeat hundreds of local warriors transporting grain and grass, the chances of winning are still very high.
He suddenly felt that his fate was likely to be similar to that of Huo Cun.