In the imperial tent outside the city of Yangzhou, there is a cup of hot tea in front of Zhao Yu's desk, a plate of fried crispy dried fish, a ruler-high document beside him, and a brush stained with cinnabar in his hand. Wang De, who was waiting on the side, knew that the little emperor was 'settled' again, so he waved his hand to let the little yellow door of the attendants in the tent exit, and the guards guarded the door and did not let people disturb him.

And Wang De looked at His Majesty intently, a little nervous in his heart. On weekdays, His Majesty often goes out of his mind, but there are really not many times like today when he doesn't move for half a day, and if he can't hear the sound of breathing, he will call the imperial doctor. He realized that His Majesty was in trouble, and it was difficult for him to make a decision for a while, but he couldn't share the emperor's worries in this regard, so he could only be anxious in his heart.

Zhao Hao's mind at this time was indeed not on the official documents, 80% of which were New Year's greetings sent by officials from all over the country, and there was no substance, nothing more than greetings and loyalty. And his mind was still on the current battle situation, at this time the Yuxi Timur troops had all crossed the river, the vanguard had reached Changshu and fought fiercely with the fifth brigade of the protectors, and they had not been able to take the city as planned after paying a heavy price.

But today the enemy brigade will arrive under the city, and the pressure on Luo Datong will be doubled, and he must ensure that the city is not lost before the battle is in full swing, Zhao Yu said that he is not worried at all that it is false. After all, there is a huge disparity in the strength of the two sides, and the Fifth Brigade has to fight against the 100,000 Mengyuan Tiger and Wolf Division, even if he is not on the scene, he can imagine that the enemy army is not afraid of life and death, after all, if they can't capture Changshu City, they will face a food shortage crisis and fight hungry.

Speaking of which, Wang Yinglin made great contributions this time, and he was ordered to return to Beijing to explain to Zhu Zhizai the plan to recover the two Huai, and to prepare for the aftermath and deal with it. The scale and scope of this battle have exceeded the pre-war expectations, and the preparatory work in advance is equivalent to overthrowing all of them and redeploying them, especially since the time is urgent and the New Year is approaching, and the difficulties can be imagined. If you can't explain the stakes and significance, it will be difficult to get them to cooperate, but Wang Yinglin successfully did it.

And Lu Xiufu is indeed a minister, after learning of Zhao Yu's deployment and plan, he knew that the significance of this battle is extraordinary, once the two Huai are recovered, the south of the Yangtze River is stable, and the bridgehead of the Northern Expedition is obtained, and Lin'an is protected from the threat of Meng Yuan going south at any time. Although he knew that His Majesty had the intention of threatening each other with great righteousness, he still actively coordinated the forces of all parties and quietly did a good job in various guarantees.

First of all, in the name of Shangshu Province, on the grounds that His Majesty was on a war abroad and his affairs were complicated, the annual leave was postponed, and the household department was ordered to prepare a large amount of funds and allocate grain and grass in advance for the needs of the war; The training bases of the Ministry of War were ordered to organize the recruits who were being trained and the township soldiers participating in the winter training, distribute weapons, and stay in the battalion to be dispatched at any time; The Ministry of Industry ordered the requisitioned servants to use the idle farming to repair the city and water conservancy facilities, and concentrated them in Suzhou, Changzhou, Kunshan, and Jiankang in the name of paying wages, and prepared to fight with the army.

In addition, in conjunction with the Privy Council, an order was issued to concentrate the garrisons around Gangdong and transfer them to the canal in the name of protecting Gyeonggi on the occasion of the New Year, so that they could join the encirclement and annihilation of the enemy who invaded the south at any time. He ordered the Ministry of Officials to select officials, and to select available people from the Taixue as officials to be sent to the newly occupied lands and to form political power at all levels; ordered the Criminal Department to strictly set up card checks to arrest enemy spies; The Ministry of Rites holds various ceremonies according to the usual practice and prepares for the Spring Festival lantern festival to confuse the place.

In addition, he also secretly ordered all prefectures and counties in the predetermined war zones to do a good job of mobilization, and once war broke out, they would immediately organize the people to evacuate to safe places, take away and hide all the grain, livestock, and property, and do a good job of clearing the wilderness. At the same time, it is necessary to appease the people, not to cause turmoil, and to prevent people from taking advantage of the fire to rob and cause unnecessary losses.

Thanks to the favorable grassroots political power established by the Great Song Dynasty, although the time was very tight, from the imperial court to the most basic level of Baojia were quickly mobilized, and the edicts were strictly implemented and enforced, although some flaws inevitably appeared, they were all carried out through powerful means, ensuring that the preparations for war could be completed before the war.

This made Zhao Yu very relieved and grateful, especially the old ministers like Ying Jieyan and Ma Tingluan, who were ready to pay tribute, despite their old age, still forgot to sleep and eat to inspect, supervise and urge officials from all over the country, and deal with emergencies. Of course, there are also some officials who are dissatisfied with this, thinking that it is the best policy to live in peace with Meng Yuan at the moment, and to provoke a big war without authorization, which is a great harm to the country and the people, but these people were quickly controlled, investigated, and suppressed the voices that are not conducive to the overall situation......

The situation has developed to this point, Zhao Yu understands that his plan has been successful for most of the time, even if there may be variables, but the general trend has been achieved, the Yuxi Timurid Department has already been caged tigers, and there are no more big waves, and it is only a matter of time before it is annihilated. And Yangzhou City is also in the bag, the Lie Capital that lured the enemy outside has been defeated by his own troops, and the remnants of the army are far away fifty miles away. The enemy in the city is the turtle in the urn, and he can break the city at any time and annihilate it.

It is said that the victory is in hand, Zhao Hao should be full of joy, but he can't be happy. Because he was troubled by something, Zhao Yu knew that after a big victory, a large number of prisoners would inevitably be captured, especially this kind of siege and annihilation battle, and how to deal with these prisoners was also a big problem. In the past, after captives were captured, officers were generally put to death, and soldiers were selected to be sent to hard labor camps to use as cheap labor.

In the war to recover Jiangnan, Zhao Yu adopted a policy of severe suppression, punishing the Mongols, Semu people, and those who collaborated with the enemy and treason, and the soldiers were assigned to serve in the baggage army. However, the current situation has changed, and most of the Yuan troops stationed in Jiangnan at that time were Han troops and new annexed troops, and they also belonged to the same ethnic group anyway. Most of the troops stationed in the Lianghuai and Central Plains were formed by the Mongol and Yuan subduing armies, who were Mongols and the Khitans, Jurchens, and nomadic people from Central Asia.

Zhao Yu knew that it was not uncommon for large-scale prisoners to be killed in ancient Chinese wars, and only the historical records contained in the historical books were in addition to Bai Qi, in fact, they happened from time to time in Chinese history, such as Xiang Yu in the Qin and Han communication eras, who had "the Chu army attacked at night and pit more than 200,000 Qin soldiers in the south of Xin'an City". During the Three Kingdoms and Northern and Southern Dynasties, pit killings also became a common means of dealing with untrustworthy pawns or retaliatory massacres. For example, in the battle of Guandu between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, Cao Cao killed 70,000 Yuan Shao's surrendered troops.

According to the "Zizhi Tongjian", Cao Cao "killed hundreds of thousands of men and women in Surabaya" in Xuzhou, and the water did not flow. Although this data is suspected of being exaggerated by Sima Guang, it also proves that the act of pit killing is at least in Cao Wei's camp. In the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, it became a fairly common behavior to kill enemy prisoners. For example, in the Book of Jin, it is recorded that Shi Le, the founding monarch of Later Zhao, "galloped like martial arts, and more than 10,000 people died." After the battle between the Later Yan and the Northern Wei Dynasty, Tuoba Jue also "exhausted" tens of thousands of Houyan prisoners of war.

In the north during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, pit killing was a popular means of dealing with enemy prisoners of war. After the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the phenomenon of killing prisoners of war also occurred from time to time. So what's the point of killing prisoners of war? In fact, this method has two main functions, one is to eliminate the surrendered troops who have surrendered but are really difficult to trust and cannot be incorporated into their own army through pit killing. Pit killings can greatly reduce the logistical difficulties caused by the large number of troops. Another very common intention of pit killing is to deter the enemy army, so as to break the opponent's will to continue fighting.

However, after all, it is an extremely wasteful behavior of human resources. Zhao knew that in Europe at the same time, the general method of dealing with prisoners of war was to use them as slaves and force them to perform intensive labor, or sell them. Generally, captured knights and other nobles with noble titles will be protected and exchanged for ransom through them, while ordinary soldiers will also be sold to Genoa or Venice if their families cannot afford to pay the ransom, and through them they will be sold to *** as slaves. What is more interesting is that at that time, the Middle East *** was also this kind of operation, and the nobles who were captured in this way were undoubtedly golden eggs that could be exchanged for a lot of money.

It's just that during the Crusader Wars, both the Crusaders and the *** would choose to kill prisoners of war instead of taking them as slaves or in exchange for ransom. , and since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in China, there are not many cases where people can be ransomed with money, but for the captured soldiers, as long as they are not killed because they are not distrusted by the opposing generals, there are few cases where they will be sold as slaves.

In fact, the more common method of dealing with prisoners of war in China is to integrate these soldiers into their own army. Therefore, in ancient times, the more prudent and non-wasting way to deal with prisoners of war was to devote them to some wars that had nothing to do with the overall situation, but were equally large-scale. For example, after Qin destroyed the Six Kingdoms, he threw a large number of prisoners of war from the Six Kingdoms into the war of attacking Baiyue, allowing these soldiers to conquer and pioneer the land at the same time, which consumed a large number of prisoners of war and greatly expanded the territory of the Qin Dynasty. During the Mongol and Yuan dynasties, Kublai Khan's two expeditions to Japan also sent a large number of prisoners of war from Goryeo, the Jin Dynasty, and the Southern Song Dynasty.

Zhao Yu was also aware of this practice, which was often used in the Ming Dynasty's wars against the Mongols. Especially in the case of the lack of cavalry in the Ming army at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the captured Dayuan soldiers were undoubtedly the best source of cavalry. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding monarch of the Ming Dynasty, was extremely disgusted by the indiscriminate killing of prisoners of war by his generals. In the campaign at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Ming army that surrendered to the Qing Dynasty also had the opportunity to become the vanguard of the Qing army's elimination of the Dashun and Southern Ming regimes. But it is also quite dangerous to place prisoners of war in the front-line troops......