Chapter 2203
It has to be said that Lu Kangtai still has a relatively clear understanding of his own situation. After he received the news about Haihan's expedition to Hirado, he was keenly aware that there was not much time left for him to act.
Our side's channels for obtaining assistance from overseas have been cut off, but the opponent has gained the support of Haihan at this time. Under the circumstances, Lu Kangtai is convinced that the opponent will never be able to settle down. In time, they entrust the Haihan people to train them. Once the armed forces are formed, the Shanshan and Shaanxi salt merchants may not be able to withstand the attacks of their opponents.
Therefore, Lu Kangtai's attitude is very determined, that is, he must take action before the situation reverses and kill the leading Huizhou salt merchants first.
"Just imagine, if the Haihan people lose their support object in Yangzhou, what will they do?" Lu Kangtai put forward a very bold idea: "Will they raise troops to avenge the seven surnames? No! With the shrewdness of the Haihan people, They will not do something with only risks and no rewards. I think they will give up their original plan and look for a new partner.”
"It doesn't have to be us, right? After all, they had a lot of trouble with us before. They can't let go of this grudge so easily, right?" He Huan still has a lot of doubts about Lu Kangtai's views.
Lu Kangtai said: "In last year's incident, we were the ones who suffered a big loss. The Haihan people did not suffer much direct losses. At most, they lost a few lives during the fight. Now they want to sell salt beyond the Yangtze River. Bei, they must find a partner in Yangzhou to help them distribute. If the Seven Surnames cannot do this, then their only choice is us.”
In fact, Lu Kangtai was not absolutely sure about Haihan's position, but now he had to try to convince his companions, so he proposed such a tempting possibility.
His inference is not completely unreasonable. Haihan indeed chose to cooperate with Huizhou salt merchants and provide military assistance because he needed powerful local distributors to provide sales channels. If the Shanshan-Shaanxi salt merchants take the initiative to discuss cooperation with Haihan before the Huizhou salt merchants do, there may be a chance of becoming Haihan's distributor, and there may even be an in-depth cooperation.
However, these assumptions are no longer valid under the current situation. Haihan has chosen Huizhou salt merchants as its cooperation partners, so it must ensure that it can win in the brutal competition from Yangzhou salt merchants. If Haihan just stood by and watched the situation in Yangzhou, then Lu Kangtai's idea of getting rid of the seven surnames and replacing Haihan's partners is still possible, but now Haihan has taken action and sent people to Yangzhou to assist The Huizhou salt merchants organized a defense, which actually made it clear that they would not stand by and watch the battles between salt merchants.
If Lu Kangtai wants to take action against the seven surnames now, it is equivalent to taking action against Haihan. The nature is not what he understands. As long as he takes action, there will be no room for resolution afterwards.
But now it is a dead end for the Shanshan and Shaanxi salt merchants. If they take action, they will definitely offend the Haihan people. If they don't take action, they will be suppressed by their competitors sooner or later. Therefore, for Lu Kangtai, the only way to change the situation is to make a desperate move. direction.
Although He Huan and Wang Yu had doubts about Lu Kangtai's statement, they could not come up with a better way to deal with it.
"Kangtai, this matter involves our Shanxi Salt Merchant's century-old foundation in Yangzhou. We must be cautious and make sure nothing goes wrong!" He Huan had no choice but to give a few more instructions, hoping that Lu Kangtai would be able to smoothly implement his plan.
"We will do our best!" Lu Kangtai responded firmly.
Lu Kangtai had already formulated a combat plan against the seven surnames before the Golden Shield troops arrived in Yangzhou, and even sent a secret letter to Yang Chengye, warning him to leave Yangzhou as soon as possible.
At that time, because there was no intervention from Haihan, Lu Kangtai was very confident in his battle plan and was not worried that Yang Chengye would leak the secret. But recently, after he learned that Haihan sent people to Yangzhou, he wanted to contact Yang Chengye to inquire about the news, but found that Yang Chengye seemed to have disappeared from Yangzhou.
Lu Kangtai could not confirm whether Yang Chengye followed his advice and quietly fled Yangzhou, or whether he hid in a relatively safe place, such as Daijiazhuang, where the Haihan people settled. If it is the latter, then the Haihan people are likely to have learned of Lu Kangtai's intentions and made some targeted defensive deployments.
But even in this worst situation, Lu Kangtai does not intend to give up his plan. Judging from the information currently available, there are not many people sent by Haihan to Yangzhou, and their combat effectiveness should not be as terrifying as the Haihan army.
The most important thing is that Lu Kangtai believed that in last year's battle with the Haihan people, if the opponent did not slip fast enough and was intercepted by his own troops on the canal, it would be entirely possible to annihilate them all. If the match that day happened again, Lu Kangtai believed that the result could be changed.
After obtaining the consent of He Huan and Wang Yu, Lu Kangtai had no internal resistance and could act freely according to his own intentions. After he returned home, he summoned several of his leaders and made some arrangements overnight.
Lu Kangtai knew that the monitoring of the various estates where the seven surnames lived on the south bank of the canal was not enough, but the action was imminent, and he had to grasp the daily movements of these target persons. So the first thing he arranged was to send people disguised as fishermen and traders to sneak into the south bank of the canal and try to find out the recent movements of the seven major surnames, as well as the news about the Haihan people who settled in Daijiazhuang.
The second thing is to revise the previously formulated combat plan. Lu Kangtai already had the floor plans of each manor of the seven surnames. However, this kind of information was hand-drawn based on impressions by insiders, and the degree of precision was definitely limited. Therefore, the combat plans based on these maps were actually relatively sloppy.
Of course, Lu Kangtai's Musketeers have a greater strength advantage, and it is not a big problem to forcefully defeat the opponent. Therefore, Lu Kangtai's deployment of the battle plan was not too detailed before, and he made up his mind to become the overlord. But now that the Haihan people have intervened, he has to re-examine his battle plan and brace himself to deal with it carefully.
Lu Kangtai had two generals named Xie Liang and Xun Fen. Both of them had military experience in the early years and had fought against the peasant army in the Central Plains for several years. Later, he lived in Yangzhou and met Lu Kangtai by chance. Lu Kangtai appreciated their abilities and hired them as his bodyguards.
When Lu Kangtai organized training for the Musketeers last year, these two people were actually one of them, but they were lucky enough to avoid the killings that night when they were out on business. Lu Kangtai reorganized the musketeers, and these two people became the leaders of the new musketeers. The battle plan against Huizhou salt merchants was basically the result of Lu Kangtai's discussion with these two people. "What do you think of the troops sent by Haihan to station in Daijiazhuang?" Lu Kangtai asked.
Xie Liang was the first to answer: "Although the Haihan people are powerful, the number of troops sent is limited, and they should only be able to protect one place in Daijiazhuang. If they disperse and settle in various families, it will be even more undesirable."
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Xun Fen said: "But the Haihan people are not stupid. They have no reason to divide their limited manpower. I think they will concentrate their manpower on Daijiazhuang. After all, Daijiazhuang is the largest and has built some fortifications before. , it will be much easier to guard than other Zhuangzi.”
Lu Kangtai nodded and said: "Xunfen's idea is similar to mine. Although the Haihan people sent people over, judging from the scale, they obviously have not really made up their mind to intervene in the battle between us and the Huizhou salt merchants. They just want to This shows our attitude and allows us to retreat. If they think we dare not take action, then it is the best time for us to do so! Only by proving our strength can we win the respect of the Haihan people!"
In a place like Yangzhou, as long as you are willing to spend money, there is basically no information that cannot be found, so the surveillance investigation on the seven surnames quickly made progress.
According to the information collected, starting from the second day after the Golden Shield troops arrived at Daijiazhuang, the seven major surnames issued announcements to their tribes, warning the tribesmen that it was best not to go to Yangzhou City in the near future to avoid accidents. Lu Kangtai believes that there are only two reasons for this situation. One is that Yang Chengye issued a warning to the Huizhou salt merchants after receiving his secret letter. The other possibility is that the Haihan people will carry out some special operations in Yangzhou in the near future to avoid My own family was involved.
In addition, it seems that the core members of several of the seven major surnames no longer live in their own manors and have secretly moved to other places recently. This means that if Lu Kangtai attacks these manors, it will probably be a useless effort.
Daijiazhuang, where the Haihan people have settled, has now closed access, making it difficult for outsiders to know the situation inside the village. However, Dai Yingda has appeared near Zhuangzi recently to appease the tenant farmers who rent the fields in Daijiazhuang, telling them not to be nervous because of the access control in Daijiazhuang. He is also the only one of the seven surnames to appear in public in recent days. The head of the house.
These signals forced Lu Kangtai to focus on Daijiazhuang. Although he knew that a group of Haihan people were stationed in Daijiazhuang, it seemed that there were no other options available. He can only hope to capture as many Haihan people alive as possible after destroying Daijiazhuang, so that he can have some confidence in bargaining with the Haihan people later.
"Keep an eye on the movements in Daijiazhuang and take action in three days!" Lu Kangtai knew that the situation at this time could no longer be dragged out slowly. Even if this battle was against the Han people in Shanghai, he could only choose to fight quickly. .
"If the opponent wants to attack Daijiazhuang, they must not come during the day, otherwise they may be exposed before they cross the canal. Therefore, our defense focus is on the period from nightfall to before dawn, especially the monitoring of the nearby canal banks. , can’t relax for a moment!”
While Lu Kangtai was intensively preparing the attack plan, the defense preparation meeting chaired by Yuan Tao in Daijiazhuang was also constantly revising and strengthening defense measures.
In an environment like Daijiazhuang, where both northwest sides are not far from the canal bank, it is indeed not difficult to arrange peripheral warnings. After all, if the opponent wants to attack in a large scale, they will definitely have to organize manpower to concentrate on crossing the river nearby. However, Yuan Tao is still a little worried that it will be difficult for personnel who have not received formal military training to maintain long-term vigilance over the monitoring range, so he must emphasize the importance of monitoring in every meeting.
At present, Daijiazhuang's defense force mainly consists of three parts. One is the Golden Shield troops as the main force, with a total of more than 130 combatants. The second is Daijiazhuang's own young militia group, which also has more than a hundred people. The third is the reinforcements from the seven major surnames. There are more than 200 people. However, most of these people are personal guards of important figures from various families. They temporarily live in Daijiazhuang with their masters. They lack unified organization and command, so it is difficult to count on them when the battle starts. What a role these people play.
However, Yuan Tao believes that as long as the opponent's traces can be discovered in time, it will not be too difficult to rely on the existing defenses to block the opponent's attack. He believes that the only thing that is more suspenseful is how much damage he can inflict on the opponent in this confrontation.
Yuan Tao had carefully asked Ji Yuanqing about the situation with the Shanshan Salt Merchant Musketeers last year before setting off, and he could basically confirm that Jindun's combat effectiveness was superior to the opponent's. If we rely on Daijiazhuang's existing defense measures, the gap in combat effectiveness between the two sides will be further widened.
But the problem is that Jindun is on the defensive. If the opponent finds that they can't beat it and retreats, then Yuan Tao doesn't seem to have a good way to keep the opponent.
Unless he puts all the ships he brought into battle and clears the river channel after the opponent completes crossing the river, cutting off his way out. But the risk of doing so is extremely high, because he has no way of determining how many ships the other party will mobilize to participate in this operation. If he is not careful, he may be self-defeating and involve the Jindun ships and their crews. After thinking about it, he finally rejected this risky plan.
But in this way, as long as the opponent is not willing to fight, it is basically impossible for the defender to completely wipe out the invading enemy and completely solve this hidden danger. However, the Seven Great Surnames are not obsessed with completing the victory in one battle. Dai Yingda said that as long as they can protect Zhuangzi and severely injure their opponents, there is no need to work too hard.
Yuan Tao didn't understand the idea of the Huizhou salt merchants at first, but then he thought about it again. The Huizhou salt merchants had been fighting with each other for several generations, and they were probably used to the back and forth of winning and losing. They may really want to drive each other out of Yangzhou completely, but when such an opportunity does come, they may not think that they can achieve the results they expect.
But this is not a bad thing for Jindun. Since the Huizhou salt merchants don't insist, Jindun naturally doesn't have to work too hard. As for how the Huizhou salt merchants will resolve their grievances with each other in the future, that is not something Yuan Tao needs to worry about.
Through this mission, the Huizhou salt merchants were firmly tied to Haihan's chariot. This was the real purpose of Jin Dun's trip.
(End of chapter)