Chapter 161 Six Years
As Taishan's army went west, they successively captured Mou County and Fenggao. On the fourth day after entering Fenggao, Guan Yu led three troops of Zuo Xiaowei to go down the Yingwen River and directly to the bottom of Yingxian County, conquering them in one day. city.
Since then, the entire Laiwu Valley has been occupied by Zhang Chong, and their Taishan Army has also occupied hundreds of miles of land from Tugu County in the north of Mount Tai to the west, Lixia of Mount Tai in the west, the entire Laiwu Valley in the west, and Yimeng Mountain in the east.
Time quickly entered the sixth year of Guanghe. No one expected that Zhang Chong's Taishan Army could stay in the Laiwu Valley for so long. In the past six months, Zhang Chong's Huzhu Manor in Wenyang had made a huge harvest, and the grain tax of the powerful people in the valley had increased. After getting up, Zhang Chong collected two million dan of grain. It can be said that for a long time, Zhang Chong's Taishan Army was not short of food.
In addition, the bandits in Lushan also defected to the Taishan army one after another due to lack of food. Here I want to specifically talk about Xi Shen’s great contribution. It turns out that there was a bandit with a thousand people in Lushan, who originally agreed to join the Taishan Army, so later the cavalry commander Xi Shen took the initiative to go to Lushan to recruit these bandits. Xi Shen entered the mountain with only ten guardsmen. Things were going smoothly at first, and the Lushan bandits also planned to find a stable backer. However, just after the banquet was over, the leader of the thieves over there returned. What should I say? It's a chicken head, not a phoenix tail.
If it were an ordinary person, this would be a mess, and if it was not handled well, their lives would be lost. But Xi Shen accurately discovered that the Lushan bandits were generally hungry for food. The key bandits all hoped to join the prosperous Taishan Army. However, the Lushan bandit leader was unwilling to give up the little power in his hands and insisted on going his own way. Then Xi Shen led his ten guardsmen to break into the bandit's tent and captured the leader of the bandit directly. Then he falsely sent a bandit order and ordered the Lushan bandits to break out of the stronghold and come out of the mountain to surrender.
After this battle, Xi Shen was directly promoted to the foreign army and served as a general. His own army was selected from the thousands of Lushan bandits. It can be said that Xi Shen got up.
Then in Jinan, Zhang Chong's senior brother Da Beard has been communicating with Zhang Chong in the past six months. At first, the Jizhou headquarters kept issuing orders, which had reached the point of expelling Zhang Chong from the church. However, as Zhang Chong won one victory after another in the Laiwu Valley, In the end, they even completely occupied the Laiwu Valley. The tone of Jizhou's side has become softer and softer. In the end, Tang Zhou, the leader of Jinan Canal, was directly transferred to the Jizhou headquarters to assist Ma Yuanyi, who came back, and was specifically responsible for the work of Taiping Road in Kyoto, while Jinan The leader of Taiping Road was Ji Sun.
After Zhang Chong heard that Tang Zhou had been transferred, he felt quite regretful. It was not that he could not bear to part with his enemy, but that if he had not been transferred, he would have personally led the team into Dongpingling to kill him. But now that Tang Zhou has gone to Hebei, and more likely to Kyoto later, this matter can only be put aside for now.
Apart from this bad news, there is good news on Taiping Road. As he established a foothold in the Laiwu Valley in central and southern Shandong, his prestige within the church has skyrocketed.
Even fellow Taiping Taoists in Jingzhou now know that Zhang Chong, a disciple of the Renguan sect and known as General Shi, the leader of Taishan Fangququ, has become the most righteous person in the sect. Although the time for the great uprising had not yet come, Taishan Fang started in the name of Taishan Bandits, but the victory of the friendly side undoubtedly greatly enhanced the confidence of the leaders of all parties. After all, anyone who launches a rebellion against the Han family, which has existed for four hundred years, is somewhat lacking in confidence.
Didn't you hear that? With the health problems of Tiangong, the daily teaching affairs have been presided over by the more capable Ren Gong. Since then, the Ren Gong group has become more popular, and some people in the church can't wait until the end of the year to start an uprising. If it weren’t for Ren Gong himself, he wouldn’t be sure. He felt that the prophecy of “the sky is dead and the world will be well” can give blessings to all parties, because the saying that the year of Jiazi has been changing since ancient times, in the year of Jiazi, actually corresponds to the saying of Huang Tian on behalf of the sky. great cause. Therefore, the enemy still made repeated orders and all parties must accumulate strength according to the original plan.
All of this was the impact of Zhang Chong's capture of the Laiwu Valley.
But to be honest, this influence was still limited to Taiping Road, because Zhang Chong stopped moving after he captured the Laiwu Valley, and instead stayed in Fenggao to train troops in the fields. Therefore, the fall of Laiwu Valley did not have any impact on the world. In fact, if Feng Gao's plan hadn't arrived in Kyoto this year, Liu Hong might not have known about it.
It turned out that when Zhang Ju led his 400 remnant soldiers to flee from the west city gate, he did not send a military report to Kyoto. Instead, he moved his army directly south, crossed Culai Mountain and stopped in Liangfu County. However, he later felt that he was still far away from Fenggao. It was too close, so we moved all the way to the westernmost mountain city of Nimeng Road, Nanwuyang, and retreated two hundred miles in a row.
Zhang Ju still has something. Although he hurriedly evacuated Fenggao, he took everything he needed to bring. Whether it was the governor's seal, the prefect's cap, or his little wife in Fenggao, nothing was lost. .
As soon as Zhang Ju arrived in Nanwuyang, he used the prefect's seal to garrison the Feixian camp at the easternmost valley entrance of Nimeng Passage, and moved the entire army to Nanwuyang. Then a message was sent to the three southern counties of Nanwuyang, namely Nanwuyang, Feiguo, and Nancheng. The county soldiers from seven cities each moved 500 troops and were all stationed in the Mengshan hills to the north of Nanwuyang. As for Liangfu, Juping, and Bo counties in the central part of the county, as well as Chi county in the northwest of the county, they can only accept their destiny.
With this arrangement, Zhang Ju settled down in Nanwuyang with peace of mind. His original idea was to organize an army of thieves in the south of the county. In addition to Fei Guo's 500 battalions and 1,500 county soldiers from the three counties south of the county, he would also recruit troops from the Yang clan in Nancheng, and then recruit three more. The county and township are brave and can build an army of 5,000 men.
But the first step in raising an army fell apart. With the exchange of letters between Taishan's powerful people, it became increasingly clear to the powerful people in the south of the county how strong the Taishan Army was. In particular, Hu's mother's family and the Nancheng Yang family have been friends for generations. Through the words of Hu's mother's family, they said this. Although they are in enemy territory and never want to return to the embrace of the Han, there is one saying. However, the talents of the prefect Zhang Ju and the local troops in Taishan were simply not enough to regain the three eastern counties of the county. Hu Muban said that the Taishan bandits this time were more ferocious and violent than Gongsun Ju twenty years ago, so we must not waste time fighting, just send them off when they come, and we must wait until the imperial soldiers from the north and south arrive, and the soldiers press the border. Catch the thief in one fell swoop. Hu Muban also said in the letter that when the time comes, he will lead Gao Haoqiang to cooperate with others and regain his homeland in one fell swoop.
What Hu Muban said was so affectionate that Yang Zhi had to treat it with caution. Therefore, it is natural that under the private connection between the three counties in the south of the county, the unanimous result of all the families was to keep calm and wait for the arrival of the North and South armies, and then carry out a thunderous blow against the Taishan bandits entrenched in the east of the county.
But in addition to the above-mentioned high-sounding reasons, the unwillingness to put out the fire for this failed prefect and consume their own troops is the most practical reason that these powerful men do not put on the table.
Once the powerful people in the south of the county clearly rejected Zhang Ju, Zhang Ju knew that his career was over. In the end, he had no choice but to report the fall of Fenggao to the country.
But it just so happened that when Taishan County's fast horses arrived in Kyoto in July, the country was dealing with the Banchen barbarians in Ba County. This powerful force of the Han Dynasty had served the country several times as a loyal soldier against the Qiang rebellion. No longer able to bear the torture of local county officials, he finally rebelled.
To be honest, neither the former Qiang people nor the current Banzhen Man were ambitious and subversive people, but they had no choice but to rebel against the pressure of local county officials.
Loyal and righteous soldiers like Banchenman, who had served the country many times, were not treated with due kindness and support. They were not treated as human beings, and servants of Chu Chu were more than slaves. The banzhen barbarians' military service was already heavy, and they had to receive heavy taxes from them. Originally, they were selling their blood to gain peace for their family, but what about now? Even selling wives and children is not enough to satisfy the desires of county officials. What to do?
To this extent, these Banzhen barbarians have no intention of rebelling. After all, they are loyal soldiers of the Han court. They have lived and died for the Han court for generations. So they went to the prefect to redress their grievances, but the prefect of the Han family was just a sitting prefect. The powerful officials were in charge, and they were standing prefects. So what’s the use of redressing injustice, as it’s not about getting retaliated in the end?
So when the country Liu Hong had a headache for Banzhenman from Bajun, Zhang Changshi, as his father, naturally felt sorry for Liu Hong's son, so he thoughtfully withheld the memorial from Taishan County.
In Zhang Rang's opinion, these Taishan people can't defeat the disease of ringworm and scabies. This Taishan person is born to be rebellious, and he doesn't know how many times he has rebelled. But so what? When the imperial soldiers arrived, they melted into the sky and earth like frost and snow. So, this thief can't be killed all the time, so why rush him?
Therefore, the imperial court did not care about this mess in Taishan County, and this made the prefect Zhang Ju suffer. He could only continue to be the prefect, fearing that Taishan soldiers would climb over Mengshan Mountain and kill him.
Well, by the end of this year, Taishan's plan failed, and Liu Hong finally found out about Taishan's situation. Liu Hong originally planned to let Zhang Ju take the blame and perform meritorious service. After all, it is better to perform meritorious service than to perform meritorious deeds. However, some court officials objected at that time, saying that the prefect had already lost integrity if he failed to die with the city, and how could he be allowed to lead the army again. Some people objected, but Liu Hong did not insist, so he gave up Zhang Ju. After that, Zhang Ju bicycled back to his hometown in Yuyang, getting rid of the vortex of Mount Tai.
Although the imperial court finally discovered that the Taishan bandits were causing trouble in the prefectures and counties, no matter what, Taishan still cultivated and cultivated in the sacred land of Laiwu Valley for half a year. During this process, although Zhang Chong's military strength did not increase greatly, his overall strength did. There have been earth-shaking changes.
There are 6,000 soldiers in the army, and the armor rate has reached 50%. The additional armor is partly from the captured Fenggao soldiers, and more is made by the Taishan Army's craftsman battalion in the past six months. Thanks to the addition of Dongpingling craftsmen and the use of water rows, the speed of forging iron sheets has increased tenfold. This production capacity increased immediately, and two thousand pairs of two-crotch armor were produced in half a year. After equipping the entire army, the armored team of the entire army reached 50%. Now all the sergeants and horses are well fed and they are all veterans who have stood on the battlefield for a long time. Now that their fighting equipment has been replenished, it can be said that the current Taishan soldiers can really fight against the imperial encirclement and suppression troops.
Of course, what is more important to Taishan is that Zhao E gave birth to a son to Qu Kui Zhang Chong. This was the inheritance of their Taishan army, so Zhang Chong named his son Zhang Cheng.
Then the last day of the five years of light and harmony ended in a heavy snowfall, and the magnificent six years of light and harmony came.
(End of chapter)