Chapter 298 Xingyang
"Whoosh!" An arrow flew out and hit the straw man a hundred steps away.
Is it true that a hundred steps can pierce the Yang? Everyone was dumbfounded.
But they had no time to continue to marvel. As the war drums beat, tens of thousands of private soldiers lined up in an arrow array and marched in the direction of Chen Hou's arrows.
The formation was a bit rough, the soldiers were not very skilled, and there were many mistakes during the advance. But fortunately, no big chaos was caused, and they successfully advanced to the designated location and completed an attack on the straw man.
"The private soldiers of the family are good at fighting on a scale of a thousand people. With more than a thousand people and less than 5,000 people, they may be able to barely fight a dozen. When there are 10,000 people, they may need to form a formation that they are not familiar with. At this time, there were many mistakes and mistakes, and I was at a loss. Write it down." Shao Xun stood on the high platform, looked at the private soldiers of various tribes who were conducting the last exercise, and ordered.
The clerk recorded it on the spot.
Jin Zheng, Wang Queer, Man Yu, Tang Jian and others stood by the side, each thinking.
They have watched the private soldiers of aristocratic families train many times and found that their basic skills are not too bad. Some elite troops are proficient in various martial arts, dare to fight, and are extremely brave.
This made them wonder, with such strength, why did they not dare to fight with Wang Mi, Shi Le and others?
After practicing for a few times, they gradually understood that, as Chen Hou said, the more people there are, the less effective they are in fighting, and they don't know how to fight.
The defeated soldiers and veterans hired back by the aristocratic families are mostly lower-level officers and soldiers. The military inheritance is not comprehensive, and they can no longer teach after a certain level.
The gentry family may also have military strategies in their own families - if the family started out with Confucianism and metaphysics, and has never produced a general, it may not necessarily have one - but they may not often practice large-scale battle formations.
One is that it consumes a lot of money, and the other is that it is unnecessary.
Over time, it became like this.
Compared with the Yuzhou gentry, the Jiangnan aristocratic and powerful families are really an anomaly.
This may be related to the political status quo of Soochow. This country relied more on the power of aristocratic families than Cao Wei, resulting in a unique political ecology. In the end, the main body of the army even became noblemen and powerful armed forces.
"After the training is completed, I will give you a piece of silk." Shao Xun ordered after seeing tens of thousands of armed troops beginning to gather their troops.
Without any surprise, the cheers were very enthusiastic.
After a while, the leaders of dozens of Qu family soldiers brought people over to receive the reward after getting the permission of the master.
"Thank you, Marquis Chen, for the reward." Everyone thanked him one after another.
Shao Xun took the opportunity to encourage him.
He had even carefully memorized the names of some tribe leaders. When they were called out in public, the people whose names were called were very excited.
This method may not seem very clever, but it is really effective. As long as you are willing to spend time and energy to do it, it will always be effective. Prestige and popular support are often accumulated bit by bit like this.
After giving out rewards to the sergeants, he did not plan to take all the remaining wealth.
After having a rough understanding of the He family's wealth, he only planned to withdraw 30,000 bolts of silk, and the rest would be divided among the participating clans, including those shops.
As for the land, tribes and food, Shao Xun naturally accepted them.
In addition, the matter about the He family members is also being excavated in depth.
There are many powerful landowners who are attached to the He family. It just so happens that they can take care of them together this time. It is estimated that they can get a lot of money and food.
Money and grain have three uses.
The first is to resettle the soldiers, their families, and tribes. The expenses for the first year must be at least covered.
This part is mainly food expenses. You may need to buy some more cattle and farm tools, but they are not many. The He family even has them ready-made.
The second is to use part of it to buy horses and recruit soldiers. Wu Qian is responsible for this.
The Liangzhou soldiers are leaving soon.
Shao Xun asked Wu Qian to bring another batch of gifts to Liangzhou to thank Zhang Gui for the horse. Let's go over there to buy some horses and recruit some soldiers.
He planned to take out 20,000 bolts of silk, 5,000 guan of money, plus some gold, silver, jade, goods from the Central Plains, etc. copied from He Mansion, and return to Liangzhou with Bei Gongchun and others.
As for when to come back, we have to wait and see.
Shao Xun felt that Liangzhou soldiers would probably come again next year, so it was a good time to return together to avoid being robbed along the way.
Thirdly, if there is still something to gain from looting the members of the He family, Shao Xun plans to exchange land with the Chenjun gentry and try to gather the land as much as possible to house the auxiliary troops.
Ideally, a stable ruling area should be formed in Chen County, Ninh Binh City, and Xiang County.
After all, the tribes and lands of the aristocratic families are their own and can be transferred to others at any time without many restrictions.
But the area under my control is different. The land is relatively even and governed by military law, so it is not so easy to rebel.
In early April, Shao Xun, who had been lingering in Chen County for a long time, finally received the imperial edict: to lead his troops north and garrison Xingyang.
In addition, he also received two letters.
The first letter was sent by Le Mo, the prefect of Dunqiu, saying that Shile stormed Dunqiu, all counties fell, and many thieves surrendered on the fortress wall.
So far, he has only managed to keep the county seat and is unable to regain the lost territory.
There are less than 4,000 soldiers in the city, which were expanded with hundreds of Nanyang Yue tribe and hundreds of Hebei warriors as the base. The battle has been fought to this day, with many casualties and insufficient food and equipment. There is enough, so please lead the army and civilians to withdraw southward.
Shao Xun wrote back asking him to persist.
But he didn’t say anything. If it doesn’t work, I won’t blame him for retreating.
With no reinforcements outside and being alone in the north of the river, how can you make people persist? The situation in Jijun is slightly better, but it is also very difficult. It's just that my father-in-law has been an official there for a long time, has won several battles to defend the city, and has made sufficient preparations, so he can persist longer.
The second letter was written by Concubine Pei.
Shao Xun was sweating on his forehead after reading it. This was too...
******
"Summer April, floods. Yanzhou earthquake."
The Suiyang Canal was dug manually.
In the seventh year of Jian'an (202), Cao Cao went to Junyi to "regulate Suiyang Canal".
In fact, it is to organize the rivers, lakes and wetlands between Junyi (Kaifeng) and Chenxian (Suiyang) to form a complete canal.
North-south rivers such as Suiyang Canal, Bian Canal, Woishui, Yingshui and Sishui are very important. Because the Yellow River and Huaihe River run roughly parallel and both run east-west. If you want to connect the two, you must By these north-south natural or artificial canals.
The same principle applies to the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River, which also require north-south river communication.
The entire water transport network was built on these east-west, north-south rivers.
The Suiyang Canal is not wide and the water volume is not very abundant. It has always been relatively "gentle".
But in the summer of the fourth year in Yongjia, with the continuous heavy rains, the water rose sharply, and the artificial canal Suiyang Canal also showed a bit of ferocity.
The trackers shouted slogans and walked hesitantly on both sides of the Suiyang Canal, pulling one heavy-laden ship after another upstream.
Five or six sergeants stood on each deck of the ship, carrying swords and bows, looking majestic.
They are the soldiers of the Silver Spear Army. This time going north, I no longer need to walk on two legs, I just take a boat, which is very easy.
The cabin was full of bags of grain, some of which were seized from the He family, and some of which were supplied by the Yuzhou nobles.
After the severe drought last year, it was difficult for Yuzhou to go up and down, and food was not very abundant. Raising food this time really cost them their lives.
But the world is like this, what can we do? The Huns are coming and they may demand more.
No matter how insufficient food is, military supplies must be given priority. As for whether someone will starve to death because of this, that's out of my control.
This is the cruel reality, the bloody reality in troubled times.
On the post road on the west bank of Qushui, more soldiers, chariots and horses are marching.
They mainly came from Yingchuan, Chenjun and Qiaoguo, totaling 7,000, including 500 cavalry and more than 6,000 infantry.
Except for the cavalry, most of the 7,000 soldiers serving the Silver Spear and Yi Cong armies served as auxiliary troops
To put it simply, the troops and horses commanded by Shao Xun included the Silver Spear Army There were 6,000 soldiers, more than 800 soldiers from the Yi Congjun, 500 cavalry provided by the nobles from the three counties, plus his personal soldiers, about 7,500 soldiers.
There are also 2,000 auxiliary troops commanded by Hao Chang and more than 6,000 auxiliary troops from the three counties.
The total strength is about 16,000 people.
There are not many soldiers, but the quality is relatively high. Especially the six thousand Silver Spear Army soldiers, they are the well-deserved backbone of the battlefield.
Without these six thousand people, the remaining ten thousand are just chickens and dogs.
On the sixth day of April, the army arrived in the western suburbs of Junyi County.
A large group of cavalry appeared in sight, took a peek and then left.
They are not enemies, in theory they are even friendly forces: the Wuhuan cavalry of the Beggar Army.
Guangzong, Junyi, and Liang Guo all had a large number of Wuhuan and other miscellaneous Hu refugees, who followed the beggars to eat everywhere.
They can ride horses and shoot arrows, but many of them have been reduced to infantry. After all, you have gotten so low that you are begging for food, and you still want to ride a horse?
On the grassland, if it is not necessary for daily life, herdsmen are not willing to raise horses at all. It is too uneconomical!
The hundreds of cavalry in front of me are probably the only established cavalry unit that the beggar commander Chen Wu can handle.
After resting for a few days in Junyi, the army continued its journey, heading west.
At this time, Shao Xun received news that Shi Le had built a pontoon bridge at Dunqiu and seemed to be crossing to the south. Sima Yue relieved the siege of Baima and stationed in Puyang.
While conveying this military message, Pan Tao also added a line of small words.
Shao Xun felt heavy after reading it.
Sima Yue fainted again.
After waking up this time, I had a very bad temper, beating and killing servants at every turn, and forgetting many people and things.
Shao Xun is not worried about Sima Yue, but is more worried about the tens of thousands of troops following him. He is also worried that after Sima Yue's death, Chen Wu, Qi Ji, and Wang Pingping will no longer obey orders and will do their own thing. The friendly forces fighting against the Xiongnu became "wild monsters" that were difficult to distinguish between ourselves and the enemy.
On April 15th, the army arrived in Xingyang.
Li Zhong led two thousand Yamen troops to join together and delivered a batch of military supplies and vehicles to deal with the cavalry. Then he returned to Changshe. He wanted to organize the remaining troops in the rear.
On April 20th, the first batch of watercraft departed from Hefei, intending to enter the Yellow River via Qiaoguo, Chenjun, Chenliuguo, and Xingyangjun before heading to Luoyang.
Guangling Duzhi Yamen was restored, but the food and grass had been burned and it was difficult to raise it for a while.
Almost at the same time, Liu Cong arrived in Hanoi with tens of thousands of people to take charge of frontline military affairs.
The Han and Jin Dynasties faced each other across the river on a front line of hundreds of miles from Hanoi in the west to Dunqiu in the east. A war over water transportation was about to break out.
(End of this chapter)