Chapter 308: Meritorious

In fact, the sharks that smelled the bloody smell from Jingxi Province and Hedong Province were far more than Deng Ruoshui and Rao Xiang. Beginning on April 19, Bianliang's newspaper Tokyo Menghua preemptively published their follow-up report on the matter, while Deng Ruoshui and Rao Xiang were still under arduous questioning. The resistance they encountered during the inquiry, Rao was backed by the investigation team sent by the imperial court, he made them unbearable, Deng Ruoshui was injured, Rao Xiang was thrown into prison, if it wasn't for Deng Ruoshui hearing the news and finding someone to rescue him, I am afraid that he would also be escorted to a black coal kiln to dig coal.

The reports that followed were all the more brilliant and vivid because of the Confucian scholars who went to inquire at the cost of their lives, and these people all had a brilliant pen and wrote articles like a splash, and with the development of the newspaper industry, they had summed up a set of ways of reporting on the most people, neither the kind of fu that was full of nonsense, nor the kind of arguments that quoted scriptures, but the simplest colloquial vernacular. This is not contributed by Zhao and Ju, it is completely a product of the spontaneous development of this era, and when Zhao and Ju found such a simple and popular article in the newspaper, they were very emotional.

By this time, however, his main focus had turned to the war in the north.

On the second day of the fourth month of the seventh year of Yanhuang, the Governor's Office of the Hebei Military Region, which was stationed in the Daimyo's Mansion, issued an order to send troops, and the generalissimo who marched was nominally Peng Yibin, but in fact it was commanded by Li Yunrui, the deputy governor. After a series of skirmishes on the border, the Song army forced Meng Yuan to retreat to Yanjing, and the entire southern part of Yanjing, including most of Zhigu Village, was recovered by the Song army.

After several years of training, Li Yunrui has matured a lot, and like all guards, he does not have a beard, wears the uniform of the guards, and moves neatly. He has not yet married, because he is a close minister of the Son of Heaven, he has always been the target of some military attaches in Lin'an City to sell their daughters, and it is said that at most once, he had to turn down six invitations in a row. Because he is thirty years old, even Zhao Youju has asked about this matter more than once, but he has politely excused himself every time.

"Meng Yuan has not been extinguished, why should he be at home."

Listening to Li Yilao's nagging in his ear, Li Yunrui smiled and blocked his words back.

"Jingwen, I really don't like to hear what you say, I've already become a family, could it be that I just don't have big ambitions?" Li Yilao said indignantly.

"Isn't it?" Li Yunrui asked rhetorically.

This made Li Yilao speechless, originally according to his qualifications, he is now not able to be promoted to deputy commander like Li Ye and Li Yunrui, but he should also be able to mix a regular leader, but because he did not participate in several major battles after the Taizhuang War, but nested in Lin'an to accompany his wife and children, so his current military rank is still the deputy chief of artillery, although others still call him "staff leader" when they call him an official rank, but he himself understands in his heart that Wang Qinian and other leaders have left him behind.

This is also the reason why he took the initiative to ask Zhao and Ju to fight again after a few years, and the fame and deeds of his peers on the battlefield made his originally cold heart burn again, and Zhiniang gave birth to two sons for him, and he had successors, and he became his new motivation.

"That's it, I made a wrong step at the beginning, and now you all laugh at me." Li Yilao sighed, and then smiled: "However, I have experienced the joy of family in the big battle, you don't know how painful my two boys are, and they all praised him last time I went to the official family......"

"Isn't it that when the official family hugged your boy, your boy soaked urine on the dragon robe, and the official said that he was bold?" Li Yunrui snorted coldly, what he was most impatient about was that Li Yilao showed off his two sons in front of him, for a man who had not yet married a family, this was really a thing that made him very angry: "I have heard you brag one hundred and sixty-nine times, you kid still think about how to be promoted, Wu Fang was your subordinate at the beginning, and now he is the same as you, he is the deputy chief of staff...... Jiang Ye, who followed you to learn artillery tactics at the beginning, is now also an assistant staff leader, and he is only one step away from you, the deputy staff leader! ”|

Jiang Ye's promotion was slower because he had been stationed in Tamluowei to suppress Goryeo for a long time and did not make any military achievements, while Wu Fang served as the deputy chief of staff in the Loyal Guard Army. As for Shi Dasco and Song Siyi, who fought side by side with Li Yilao in the Battle of Taizhuang, because of their military exploits in the recovery of the Central Plains, they are now also the deputy staff leaders of the Guards, and they each command a mixed battalion, each with a strength of 1,600 people. Hearing this list of names and military ranks, Li Yilao's smugness immediately disappeared, and he muttered twice: "If you hadn't been in this Yanyun to eliminate Meng Yuan's main force, I would have let go of the two battles, and this district Yanjing would have won it a long time ago, and if you have made military achievements, you will have to be promoted to a full-time leader!" ”

"Blowing ......"

Li Yunrui sneered.

They were arguing, and suddenly several horsemen and horses came from afar, Li Yunrui saw the dust, raised the clairvoyant mirror to look, and when he found that it was the herald, his spirits perked: "There is news from Wufang!" ”

After a while, the herald came to the two of them, led by an allegiant military academy, and gave a military salute on the horse: "Governor, Counselor Wu ordered me to report, I have already clashed with Mengyuan Liu's Black Horse Department, the other party has an artillery battalion, our army has conquered the enemy at the beginning, and has captured the enemy's artillery!" ”

According to the tactics they formulated, there are two keys to attacking Yanyun this time, one is to seize Linlu Pass before the enemy army retreats north in Yanyun, blocking the retreat of the 200,000 Mengyuan army, and the other is to besiege but not attack, attracting Mengyuan to draw out the troops of Liaodong to rescue, and then defeat Mengyuan's reinforcements on the way.

If these two goals are achieved, then the 200,000 Mengyuan troops near Yanjing can only surround them, and sooner or later they will surrender, and the Mengyuan in the Liaodong regions will no longer have troops to defend, so that the thing that Zhao and Ju fear the most will happen: chaos will be a disaster.

Although facing extremely cruel exploitation, Li Quan hoarded the field and Li Rui opened the way, in the past few years, Meng Yuan has developed Liaodong quite well, and Zhao Heju can be sure that even if he personally sits in Liaodong, he will not be able to achieve their results. The reason is very simple, Meng Yuan has no price for using the people of all ethnic groups in Liaodong, and those who do not obey will only die, if Zhao and Ju do it, they will have to pay millions of laborers for wages and wages, which is a big expense.

Thanks to the efforts of Li Quan, Li Rui's uncles and nephews, more than 20 million mu of grain fields have been opened up in Liaodong, more than 4,000 miles of roads have been built, and the original people, plus the population driven and plundered from the Jin State in recent years, have a total of 2.17 million households and nearly 10 million people. In addition, there are more than 200,000 male and female herdsmen of various ethnic groups in the grassland fields near Liaodong, if it were not for the artillery competition with the Great Song Dynasty, Liaodong would have been considered rich. Naturally, these achievements were achieved in the midst of extreme cruelty and bloodshed, as in the process of opening up the fields and building roads, the number of dead people and laborers was 100,000, and the total population of the 2,170,000 households was only on paper, and in fact the population that still existed was only more than 1.7 million households.

It is precisely because Mengyuan is building quite well that Zhao Heju hopes to pick a ripe fruit, rather than a sparsely beaten Liaodong. In addition, he didn't want Menghu to be broken into pieces and flee into the mountains and snowfields of Liaodong, which meant that it would take him longer time and energy to pacify Liaodong.

Meng Yuan guarded the Linlu Pass, is the general Liu Heima, this person is a Han general, originally had more than 100,000 people, in the war with Jin and Song over the years, now there are only 50,000 people left, but they are all veterans, quite combative, the most important thing is that in the Mengyuan army, they are good at artillery.

"What are the casualties of our army, Wu Fang, this kid is the most unreliable to speak." Li Yilao muttered, Li Yunrui glared at him, and also asked, "How are the casualties of our army?" ”

"Our army suffered 600 wounded and 150 killed, all of whom were killed in hand-to-hand combat."

At the mention of casualties, the Affiliated Military Academy, who was still very proud, immediately became heavy, he lowered his voice, and at this time he paused deliberately, and then said: "Dudu, Menghu has become more and more cunning, and has dug many holes in the slopes of the mountain, and they are hiding in them, and the holes are twisted and turned, and they have taken advantage of this terrain to send dead soldiers to defend them with spears, and our army was unprepared at the beginning, and they have been killed and wounded by surprise attacks, so they have suffered heavy losses. Wu Counselor specially ordered the officials to ask the governor for guilt, and he did not know the enemy, so he should be fully responsible. ”

"Well, Judge Advocate General, write this down in advance." Li Yunrui said expressionlessly.

When it came to choosing Wu Fang as the main general of the attack on Linlu, it was because Li Yunrui felt that he was cautious and strategic, and when it came to war experience, this veteran of the former loyal and righteous army who was full of "this can't be done" was rarely comparable in the line of the Guards. However, even he had the "unpredictability of the enemy", thinking that the cunning of the enemy army was far beyond their expectations.

In fact, whether it is Zhao Heju in Lin'an or Li Yunrui on the front line, they all understand one thing, that is, when it comes to commanding operations, they are far inferior to Meng Heng and other former forbidden army generals, nor can they compare to their opponents, those Menghu fierce generals with countless combat experience. However, they have an absolute advantage among the lower-level officers, and the system of the Guards makes the lower-level officers of the Guards also make the same judgment on the battlefield situation as the commander-in-chief, so as to take the initiative to take corresponding countermeasures on the battlefield. This is a very important thing on the battlefield where it is inconvenient to convey military information and the battle situation is changing rapidly. In addition, it has an absolute advantage in weapons, the range and power of the cannon, and the use of muskets, are far more powerful than the gunpowder weapons that Meng Yuan obtained from the Jin Kingdom.

These are enough to offset the gap in the command of the generals on the spot, and the gap between the commanders is constantly narrowing as the combat experience increases.

Just when the military justice staff officer recorded the merits and demerits of the front line according to his words, Wu Fang was scolding at Linlu Pass.

"The cheap breed of the dog's day, the turtle son of Ge Laozi, the thief bird, the ...... of the spicy mother"

A series of expletives poured out of his mouth, and he cursed them in various accents, each of which was vivid. The guards and marching staff officers around him stared at him with admiration, their mouths still wriggling, apparently learning his swearing.

"You elm braincase, at this time, you are still learning to scold people from Lao Tzu, first think about how to take away the Linlu Pass!" When Wu Fang saw them like this, he was even more angry.

"You can break through any time, and learn to participate in scolding, but you can't miss the opportunity and don't come again." A marching staff officer grinned.

In the last battle of the Central Plains, Zhao Heju and the front-line generals both felt that although the Military Counselor's Office was necessary, they could not help the front-line generals on the spot after all, and the military system of the Guards made the front-line generals not like the generals of the original forbidden army who had a large number of staff to give advice. Therefore, it became the consensus of the Great Song military to send military counselors to the front line, so the marching staff system was first implemented among the departments of the Guards and the Loyal Guards, including military law staff officers who were responsible for rewards and punishments, operational staff officers who were responsible for assisting in command, and logistics staff officers in the case of large-scale troops.

"Fart, you bastards, you know that you learned Lao Tzu to scold people and then scold the loyal guards, Lao Tzu still doesn't know your plans, and you lost the fight with people last time, aren't you convinced?" Wu Fang lost his temper again, he was no longer the lowest junior officer who only knew how to say "this has never been", and now he roared vigorously, scolding those staff officers one by one.

After more than 600 casualties, he used grenadiers to blow up the hidden soldier holes dug by Meng Yuan one by one, so as to approach Linlu Pass, but under Linlu Pass, he faced a dilemma, that is, the terrain was too dangerous, Meng Yuan did not show his head at all, but just used rolling logs and stones to beat his first round of offensive back. Although there were no casualties, his own thermal weapons unit was frustrated by the enemy's cold weapons, which made him somewhat unhappy.

Naturally, artillery is the best way to deal with this kind of enemy army, but because of the steep terrain, heavy artillery cannot be transported, and light artillery is helpless.

"Leader, why don't you try fire attack, I see that the enemy army has piled up a lot of wood on the mountain, just burn it up, and there will be no people hiding on the mountains on both sides. If the weather is good, you can use an airship to make the grenadiers drop bombs from the air......"

One of the marching staff officers suggested that, in their opinion, this little thing was not difficult at all.

"The fire attack should also be able to burn the fire, you see halfway up the mountain, Liu Heima has already cut down the trees, as for the airship...... Are you willing to give half of the credit to the airship team? ”

As soon as these words came out, the staff officers giggled.

"I remember that the artillery had fire oil bombs, which could be used to ignite fires, and they hit the enemy directly, so they didn't have to set fire from the bottom of the mountain." Another staff officer suggested: "It's just that I don't know whether or not I brought this fire oil bomb." ”

"Ask the artillerymen, these disciples and grandchildren of Li Da's bald head, I will be angry when I see them." Wu Fang snorted, now he has no respect for Li Yilao, not because the two are now of the same military rank, but because Li Yilao has lived a peaceful life in Lin'an for several years, which is quite despised by people like him who are fighting on the front line.

The artilleryman's answer disappointed them, because the artillery did not carry it this time because it was more troublesome to save and transport the oil bombs. If it was supplied from the rear, it would take at least a day, and Li Yunrui's order was to take Linlu Pass before dark.

"Find a way for Lao Tzu to blow up those Menghu, if it doesn't work, Lao Tzu will go and rush it himself." There was really no way, Wu Fang had to roar.

Note 1: Linlu Pass is the Shanhaiguan after the Ming Dynasty.