On the Huai River, the boats reach the sky, and the rafts and oars are like forests. General Zhou Ben personally led more than ten thousand boatmen and stationed troops on the river to show off his power.
On the solid ground on the north bank of the river, more than 3,000 horsemen slowly dispersed, watching eagerly.
As the saying goes, northerners are good at horses and southerners are good at boats. The southern government's most powerful weapon against northerners is the navy.
The Northerners also built warships for the southern expedition, but they always suffered huge losses in frontal naval battles. They could only take advantage of the paralysis of the Southern Navy to secretly cross the river, cross the river, and obtain a bridgehead stronghold on the south bank, and only then could they have a slim chance of victory.
machine.
After Huainan was restored to peace for many years, the navy of the Yang and Wu regime became increasingly powerful, majestic and powerful, but Yang Xingmi did not completely rely on this thing.
For many years, he has been striving to reorganize the land division and find ways to improve its combat effectiveness. One of the major measures is to form a cavalry unit.
But war horses are easy to come by, but talents are rare, so he set his sights on Wang Shifan in Ziqing Town.
Ziqing is the name of the vassal town, and its military number is "Pinglu". From this famous military number, we can see that the cavalry tradition of Ziqing Town is not weak, and their horse administration is indeed very good.
Yang Xingmi has restored the horse prison established by the imperial court in Huainan before the difficult times. Through barter, he obtained many horses from Ziqing Town and also recruited many riding talents.
Recently, he had a sudden idea. When the Sui Dynasty defeated Chen, they launched troops from the sea and made a surprise attack on Taihu Lake. Yang Xingmi thought that he could develop offshore trade with Cangjing, Ziqing, Youzhou and other towns to exchange supplies.
After his vigorous rectification, Huainan's economy recovered quickly.
The flood problem during the plum rainy season that has troubled the people for many years has been greatly alleviated after vigorous renovation of Pichi. Taking Chuzhou as an example, every three to five days of east wind, sea water enters Sheyang Lake, and the lake water overflows, flooding the farmland. After the sea water recedes,
, and also leaves a large amount of salt, damaging agricultural production.
During the Dali period, Li Cheng presided over the construction of the Changfeng Weir. After its completion, it was built from Chuzhou to Yangzhou to "shield the tide and protect the people's fields." However, in the past twenty years of wars, many of the Changfeng Weirs were damaged and the people suffered a lot.
After Yang Xingmi captured Chuzhou, he spent a lot of manpower and material resources to repair the dikes and weirs, once again shielding the sea tide, restoring a large number of paddy fields, and the people were very kind.
The construction of water conservancy projects has brought about an increase in grain output year by year. Today, Huainan, Xuanshe Town, Yang, Lu, and Shu have the most abundant grain production. And the manpower required for farming is unimaginable.
After years of fierce fighting between the Xia and Liang Dynasties, the people of Henan moved south in large numbers, mostly taking refuge between the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers. Their arrival brought valuable capital, technology and the labor force itself to Huainan, which was another major reason for Huainan's rapid development.
Huainan also has tea, salt, fruits, mulberry, hemp and other agricultural products, which can be used for trade with the north, especially tea.
In addition, Yang Xingmi was still paying tribute to the court until last year. In addition to money and silk tea, he also paid tributes such as deer breasts, deer skins, white snakes, and black snake breasts. The wild deer herds in Huainan are so huge that they can be seen everywhere.
The hunt is endless.
These things can also be used for trading.
In terms of economic development, Yang Xingmi is very ambitious. He has too many plans to implement and too many fantastic ideas. Many of them have been implemented, and the people have benefited greatly. Everyone respects Yang Xingmi and always feels that he is in Jianghuai
Order was established among them and the people's lives were improved at the same time, which was of great benefit to the Yang family's descendants in ruling Jianghuai.
Thinking of this section, he turned his attention to his son Yang Wo.
Yang Wo is also a young man in his teens, but his mind is not on studying literature and martial arts, and he is not very interested in governing and fighting. He likes to play and have all kinds of fun, but he has no interest in doing serious business.
"Alas!" Yang Xingmi sighed and asked, "Dalang, after looking at it for so long, have you noticed anything?"
"This man must be a good player at polo." Yang Wo held a portrait and marveled: "He has a strong body and a powerful sword. I heard that he is good at riding and shooting. If I can play polo with him in the future, I will definitely be very good.
carefree."
The portrait shows a warrior wearing a futou and a turban uniform. He looks very similar to Shao Shude. Yang Xingmi also went to great lengths to collect information.
Yang Xingmi almost choked up and was speechless after hearing this. His son was like this, and he suddenly felt that his future was bleak.
In today's troubled times, everyone has a traitorous bone in the back of their head. Even if the world is unified, if the heirs have low abilities, they may not be able to sit still and sooner or later they will fall apart.
"Shao Shude likes hunting and polo, but he is not only good at these two things." Yang Xingmi decided to save his son again and said: "With a group of people, he wiped out the tyrants in Guanbei, and then used the court to continuously plunder and accumulate strength. He not only
Not only is he good at fighting, playing with people's hearts, and taking advantage of the general trend, he is also at the top level. Even the mess in the northwest can make him play tricks, and then go east to attack Bian Town. Isn't it terrible? Dalang, you should learn more about these useful things.
, don’t just play around, got it?”
"I got it." Yang Wo threw the scroll to his entourage and looked at it without interest. Instead, he turned his attention to the gold and silver objects in the cabin, but was not very interested in the fierce cavalry on the shore.
Yang Xingmi resisted the urge to spank the child.
He is only forty-six years old this year. He still has time. If the eldest son fails, he can still train other children.
Gao Xu, the secretary of Jieduzhang, was observing the situation on the side. Seeing that the Lord was in a bad mood, he said: "Your Majesty, our boat commander is stationed on the river, and the thieves and soldiers are afraid."
"We still have to win on land. The traitors will not dare to attack Xuzhou." Yang Xing said secretly.
This time he brought all his old friends with him.
The most elite main force under the account, two of the Zhaowu, Xiongwu and Yaowu armies formed with 30,000 "Northern Returners" (Cai Bing) as the core, as well as some state and county soldiers, native regiment soldiers, and water troops.
A total of more than 40,000 land troops and horses built a city in Suzhou on the north bank of the Huai River, threatening to attack the flanks of the Xia army in Xuzhou.
Feng Yin had no choice but to divide his troops and go south to monitor Yang Xingmi's troops.
Before leaving, he carefully studied the composition of the Huai people's army and knew that Yang Xingmi mainly relied on five troops to coerce all parties, namely Zhaowu, Xiongwu, Yaowu, pro-army Heiyun Changjiandu and Cong Heiyundu. The total number of the separated cavalry troops was only about 40,000.
These 40,000 elite soldiers can compete with the Central Plains troops, and their combat effectiveness is quite good.
In addition, the main thing is the soldiers under each governor. They have different numbers, different equipment, and different combat effectiveness. Yang Xingmi will not give money and food to the state and county soldiers under these governors. They all support their own families, such as Zhu The troops of Yanshou, Tian Yan, Tao Ya, Tai Meng, An Renyi, Li Shenfu and others.
Some of these Zhizhou soldiers are very good at fighting, not much worse than Yang Xingmi's main force, while others are just a piece of shit. Their combat effectiveness is so different that they cannot be generalized.
By the way, Yang Shihou, who defected to Yang Xingmi, accepted the mission to attack Feng Hongduo in Shengzhou and defeat him. However, Yang Xingmi did not give him Shengzhou, but ordered him to attack Qianliu. As a result, Yang Shihou set up an ambush in the suburbs of Suzhou and defeated the Yue people again.
Yang Xingmi was a little surprised by this.
It can be said that when Yang Shihou defeated Feng Hongduo before, he relied on his strong combat power, but this time he defeated the Western Zhejiang soldiers because of his resourcefulness.
He felt that he had found a treasure, so he immediately appointed Yang Shihou as the governor of Suzhou to help him block Qian Liu. Qian Liu had basically cleaned up the miscellaneous separatist forces in eastern Zhejiang, either defeated them or made them surrender, and began to slowly transfer the main force back to western Zhejiang. , we must think about taking back Su, Run and other states. The position of Yang Shihou, the governor of Suzhou, is not easy to sit in. Continuous wars are inevitable.
"Your Majesty, the Huaining army of the traitor commander Zhe Si Lun has gathered more than 10,000 troops. They have fought several battles with Zhu Shijun of Luzhou. Our army is at a slight disadvantage. This road can be said to be barely maintained, but the Dinghui headquarters is making rapid progress. After conquering Lishan, Pingjing and other passes, Qu Zhang and others could not control them, so they could only huddle up and defend the city. If things go on like this, it will be very difficult." Gao Xu admonished: "If Ding Hui is allowed to defeat An, Huang, Qi and other states in succession, then Our army's western front is in danger. A large group of Xia thieves are pouring in. Once they penetrate directly into Shu, He and other states, they will be too passive..."
"I know what you want." Yang Xingmi stopped what Gao Xu was saying and said, "But this time Zhu Jin and Zhu Wei have invited each other to join forces to fight against Shao, so we can't let them down. Besides, Xuzhou has gained something new, and I really can't bear to throw it away." .”
Xuzhou is a martial arts country and everyone fights fiercely. In the past, the silver sword was famous, but Pang Xun's rebellion shook up the foundation of the Tang Dynasty and forced the court to mobilize heavy troops to encircle and suppress it. This place can recruit elite soldiers, how can Yang Xingmi give it up?
Zhang Tingfan, the governor of the Probationary Army, had single-handedly formed the Shenwei and Yanwei armies, which totaled more than 16,000 people. The Yanwei army had been almost defeated in Suzhou. More than 2,000 people were beheaded by the Xia people and 3,000 were captured. Only a few were defeated. Returned to Xuzhou and was incorporated into the Shenwei Army.
After Yang Xingmi took control of Xuzhou, he reorganized the 10,000 Shenwei Army and distributed generous rewards, which made the army feel at ease.
He also attaches great importance to this unit and feels that the foundation is very good. In order to win over the army's morale, he stayed there for a long time and spent a lot of effort.
Recruiting the remnants of Sun Ru's army had always been his favorite. This time, he planned to repeat the old trick and slowly annex and digest the Shenwei Army. It's amazing to say that Yang Xingmi relied on him to become the core force of Qiancheng, and he didn't start it.
The old foundation is to surrender the troops.
This may be related to the process of his rise: the old brothers brought their soldiers and horses to conquer the world with him, which was regarded as a partnership, and they regarded him as their leader.
But it was embarrassing for the leader to have no troops. Yang Xingmi realized this problem and now he is slowly making up for it.
"There is no need to say more, Gao Zhangji." Yang Xingmi said: "The Shao thieves are too powerful to conquer Bianzhou and must be curbed. Today, the four towns of Yun, Yan, Qing, and Yang have combined forces of 400,000. If they still can't stop the Xia thieves,
Then the situation is over. If I attack Suzhou, I can at least contain a large number of Xia soldiers. As long as we don't waste the battle and fight steadily, there is nothing the Xia thieves can do against us."
The meaning of this sentence is that as long as you don't waste the battle and are annihilated by others, your existence itself is a major threat, which will attract and contain the enemy and reduce the pressure on your allies.
What's more, he has a boat division to go up the river and move forward and retreat freely. The cavalry that the Xia thieves are famous for cannot intercept his food route and cannot even threaten the Huai army's infantry brigade marching along the river, so this battle must be fought.
Building and defending the city, advancing along the river, avoiding wave battles, and fighting steadily were Yang Xingmi's main tactics.
"That's fine." Gao Xu smiled bitterly and said, "But the matter of seeking relief from Shao still depends on Li Keyong. The Jin army has a favorable geographical location and is in a commanding position, overlooking the Xia army. It would be a pity if it does not make good use of it."