The camp where He Aba lived, about twenty miles northwest of Baijiegang, was a large village located in the bend of the river.

The village is surrounded by a rammed earth wall, and there is a river more than ten zhang wide, which winds north in the northwest of the village, and seems to flow in the direction of Hongzepu.

Interrogating the wounded prisoners, Kong Xirong, He Liufeng, and Lin Sheng learned that the name of this village is Qingjindu, and there is a post road built in the previous dynasty, but it was abandoned due to the war decades ago, passing through here, and turning to Shiliang County, thirty or forty miles to the west.

Because Hongzepu, Fanliang Lake and the adjacent counties of Jinhu and Shiliang have many lakes and rivers criss-crossed, even if it is not like Xuzhou, which has hundreds of miles of endless mountains, the terrain can be regarded as complicated.

It was only after Han Qian went to Dingjiagou to join the old headquarters of Zuoguang's German army that he decided to use the Taihu Lake and the Yangtze River waterway to transfer tens of thousands of women, children, the elderly and the weak to Hongzepu and Fanliang Lake to settle down.

In the early stage, they only sent people to explore the situation near Baijiegang, but even so, due to the loss of a large amount of information with the war, they were still very unfamiliar with many nearby place names, the flow of streams and rivers, and the situation of the ancient post road.

Some work can only be made up for in the later stage, and it is difficult to achieve perfection in such a short period of time.

Sometimes, it's enough for them to be better than the enemy and make fewer mistakes.

Fortunately, in the nearby villages, access mainly depends on this ancient post road.

Even in the official information, this post road is abandoned, cross the river over, there is no official road, post road connection, but Kong Xirong, He Liufeng, Lin Sheng led the troops from Baihogang to the west for a few miles, can still easily identify this ancient post road, the heavily turned roadbed is still loess bottom, the forest trees on both sides are still tall and dense.

The young and vigorous men in the village were taken away as early as when the rebels of Anning Palace retreated north from Chuzhou, and even a few fishing boats and ferries were also robbed.

There are still more than 200 abandoned old and weak women and children left in the village.

He Aba gathered a group of thousands of displaced people to escape the war from the western part of Chuzhou, ran here three months ago, and took this place as a camp, which is the largest group of displaced people within a radius of about twenty or thirty miles.

Of course, they didn't want to attract the attention of the forbidden army and the rebels of Anning Palace, He Aba and they settled here, and they didn't think of annexing the small groups of displaced people nearby and expanding their power for the time being.

The scar-faced man fled back in a hurry with more than a dozen silver halberd guards and the homeless spirits, but he expected that Chishan would definitely take advantage of the victory to attack Qingjindu after finding out the truth and truth, and would not give them a chance to stabilize their positions, so he advocated that the remaining two hundred and thirty or forty elites in Qingjindu should be transferred out first.

He Aba was captured, Huaidong was responsible for contacting the main affairs of the lurking Chuzhou eyeliner and the hidden pile, and the seven subordinates who secretly controlled this exile force with He Aba were either killed in battle or captured with He Aba, the homeless people don't know what their relationship with Huaidong is, and they don't know what the identity of the scar-faced man is, suffering such heavy casualties, he is frightened, scared, afraid and resentful, who else wants to listen to him?

Besides, the most difficult thing for the outcast forces is to separate the able-bodied men from the women and children of the family.

When Kong Xirong, He Liufeng, and Lin Sheng led more than 300 horse infantry to Qingjindu, there was still an endless debate over where to stay, and the scar-faced man saw that things were difficult to do, so he could only be forced to lead a dozen silver halberd guards, and escaped from the gap in the northeast parapet wall on horseback, and drove away.

Of the thousands of displaced people in Qingjindu, except for a few who took advantage of the chaos to flee, the vast majority of them gave up resistance and chose to surrender.

This is also the most in line with Kong Xirong's wishes.

It's not that Kong Xirong and He Liufeng are afraid of a tough battle, but they are actually worried that the battle here will be too fierce and bloody, which will attract the attention of the forbidden army in the south or the rebels in Anning Palace.

In that case, the subsequent development of the situation may not be under their control.

Not to mention anything else, even if the forbidden army in the south is more vigilant, the blockade of the northward water and land passage is strengthened in the south of Chuzhou, and the state and county between Taihu Lake and the Yangtze River are ordered by the imperial court to strengthen supervision, how can the ten thousand women and children at the Chishan Society be transferred?

Of course, there are dozens of displaced forces gathered in Shiliang County, large and small, with intricate contradictions, and it is extremely normal for them to fight each other for territory and food sources, and even hundreds of people are fighting with each other.

The guards led by Kong Xirong, in such a hot weather, had no choice but to wear a robe in addition to the armor and scale armor to cover up, but if they really wanted to participate in the fight, there would definitely be no way to take care of too much.

The current result can be regarded as a great joy - not to mention Kong Xirong and He Liufeng, Lin Sheng is not uncommon to rely on killing and injuring the homeless people to show his outstanding military exploits.

With the elite combat force composed of veterans of the old German army in Zuoguang, it is really a bit of a bully to encircle and suppress the outcasts who are still at a disadvantage.

In order to prevent other accidents, as well as to facilitate the control of this group of displaced people and further clean up the hidden piles lurking in Huaidong, Kong Xirong, He Liufeng, and Lin Sheng briefly discussed, and decided to detain these people to the Baijiegang camp overnight.

Although the houses and camps on this side of Qingjindu are relatively complete, there is a complete wall on the periphery of the village, and there are three or four thousand acres of normally cultivated fields, but there is no direct waterway communication with Fanliang Lake, and it is also a little far away from Baijiegang.

In the future, more congregations, women and children will move north in Chishan, but it is possible to settle some people to live here, but now it is impossible to disperse the limited elite forces and occupy this place.

Although Qingjindu was more than 20 miles away from Baihogang, Kong Xirong and the others still tossed until the second half of the night before returning to the Baihogang camp.

The torches were burning high, and the full moon above the sky was unusually bright, which brought great convenience to the night march.

Han Qian stood in the sentry tower next to the suspension bridge, looking at the captives passing through the suspension bridge in turn, most of the old and weak women and children were yellow and thin, and their faces were frightened.

He Aba and the other three Huaidong secret piles were interrogated, and he also confirmed that Huaidong's control over this group of homeless forces was far less deep than Tan Yuliang and Zhao Zhixian's control of Osprey Village, and he also confirmed that they had not been infiltrated by the rebels of Anning Palace, and the vast majority of people could be directly absorbed into the Chishan Society, or dispersed to the periphery of Baihogang to settle down, and control them as peripheral subordinate forces.

The problem is that there are suddenly more than 1,200 people in the camp, and the supplies brought in the early stage are also nervous.

In particular, more than 90 wounded prisoners were treated, and 50 or 60 of the more than 200 elite prisoners who returned from the overnight prisoners had more or less minor injuries and needed treatment, which meant that the medical materials they had carried before for bandaging and the medicines used to treat external injuries and stop bleeding continued to be consumed in large quantities, and at most they could last for half a month.

Maybe we can't wait for the second batch of wound medicine and dressing materials to be replenished, and we will almost have to consume them first.

Wound medicine and dressing materials are relatively easy to smuggle over, after all, the volume occupied is small, and the medicinal materials transported by one or two horses and camels can be used for a month or two.

The target is not obvious, and it is easy to find a gap in the south of Chuzhou and smuggle it over.

However, even if the follow-up personnel do not increase, only nearly 2,000 people in the camp, and the follow-up needs to replenish thousands of stone of food every month, it will not be easy to smuggle it over.

If tens of thousands of old and weak women and children are transferred, before farming near Baihogang is restored

Even if you can catch fish and shrimp for food, you need to replenish two or three thousand stone of food every month to survive the famine in a year.

The main reason why the so-called homeless people of He Aba's organization are weak is that most of them are so hungry that they are yellow and thin, and they are not strong at all, let alone rigorous and hard training.

And because of hunger, most of the homeless people eat fish, crabs, shrimp and snails, and they are not particular about eating and drinking, and many of them have been infected with schistosomiasis (water plague); And other minor illnesses and disasters, let alone seeking medical advice.

An elite combat force has always been inseparable from excellent logistics supply and management.

There were landless peasants in the Jiangnan area one after another, and when they crossed the river and wanted to enter the northeast of Chuzhou to reclaim wasteland, the government and garrisons along the road could turn a blind eye.

However, if you want to organize and transport grain and grass on a large scale, organize thousands of people to cross the river, and gain a foothold in the northern part of Chuzhou, you need to open up and down all links, and you need the acquiescence of someone above the court.

Just like at this time, the clan lords of Gyeonggi and nearby prefectures and counties, as well as some of the princes and ministers of the imperial court who had taken the lead, had already sent people to occupy the fields near Chuzhou City or in the southern part of Chaohu Lake and along the river in the south of Chuzhou, which was recognized by a large number of government and opposition officials from the imperial and opposition bureaucracy, such as Yang Zhiyuan, the king of Yuzhang County, Li Pu, the Marquis of Xinchang, and Wei Zhen.

Otherwise, how could the government and garrisons along the road pretend to be deaf and dumb and ignore the organized and large-scale forces that are advancing north across the river of unknown origin?

Not to mention the Jinyun Division, even if the Privy Council Department sent a horse scout to investigate, it was easy to find clues and trace it to Guangde Mansion.

If most of the old headquarters and families of the German army in Zuoguang have not been transferred, this matter will alarm the princes of the court and Yang Yuanpu, and it is difficult for Han Qian to predict what kind of changes will occur in the future.

Thinking of this, Han Qian turned to Feng Yi and said, "He Aba and the other Huaidong Secret Pile and the other four captured Silver Halberd Guards will send someone to Yangzhou early tomorrow morning!" ”

…………

…………

By the end of July, the siege of Chaozhou City by the forbidden army had lasted for two and a half months.

Li Zhihe fought extremely steadily in Chaozhou City, and he did not rush at all.

Even if he had an absolute advantage, Li Zhihe still did not completely encircle Chaozhou City, but left a gap several miles wide in the north to facilitate the defenders to abandon the city and flee north, and at the same time, it was also to break the fighting spirit of the defenders.

However, on the front of Chaozhou City, Li Zhihe built one camp after another and tried his best to strengthen it.

The frontal attack on Chaozhou City is mainly based on the whirlwind cannon bombardment of the city wall, and there is a great attitude that even if the confrontation is until next year, it does not matter.

In this case, anyone can see that the rebels have no chance of turning defeat into victory in Chaozhou, and it is only a matter of time before Chaozhou City falls. And even if the Liang army recruited the rebels of Anning Palace, it would never be possible to rashly send troops to cross the Huai River and go south under such circumstances.

Yin Peng was also ordered to take several entourages and Guo Xiao, Han Qian's liaison who stayed in Zhuyu Bay, into the Baihogang camp after the situation of the imperial court's recovery of Chaozhou was completely clear.

At this time, it had been more than half a month since Han Qian sent people to send He Aba and other hidden prisoners back to Yangzhou.

The attack on the Baihogang camp, Yangzhou did not send people to participate, and they didn't even know in advance, it was Han Qian's side who sent people to send He Aba and other wounded prisoners over, Wang Wenqian and Yin Peng knew that King Xin personally dispatched people to attack the Baihogang camp and failed.

Although Wang Wenqian and Yin Peng were so anxious in Yangzhou that they could only take care of He Aba and others first, and then send someone to Chuzhou to clarify the matter, and everything continued to wait for King Xin's decision.

It was not until the day before yesterday that Yang Yuanyan, the king of letters, sent an envoy to Yangzhou, and Wang Wenqian was fully responsible for the contact with the Chishan Society.

At this time, the camp of Baihogang has erected fences along the inner side of the north-south ditch and the direction of the mountain ridge, and the eastern slope of Baihogang and this narrow strip of land that is two miles long from north to south and more than 400 steps wide from east to west are all encircled as the camp of the Chishan Society.

It's just that the fence wall is not particularly high, only more than one person high, and the scattered trees on the inside and outside have not been removed, and they are deliberately retained, if you don't go closer, it is difficult to find the existence of the fence wall from a distance.

In addition to the side of Baihogang Gang, Yin Peng came along the way, and also saw that there were one or two small-scale homeless camps in the south and southwest, which were very heavily guarded, and it was obvious that the Chishan Society was using the small-scale homeless camps on the periphery as sentry posts and blockade lines to prevent the eyeliner and dark piles of the forbidden army and the Anning Palace from directly penetrating into Baihogang to see what was going on.

Chishan will delay the discovery of the core camp of Baihogang as much as possible, obviously to transport as many people and supplies as possible before the imperial court and the forbidden army have not strengthened supervision and blockade.

Walking into the camp through the drawbridge, you can also see the reeds near the shore of the lake in the beach along the lake, and a row of half-man-high wooden stakes are laid on the periphery, which is to prevent boats from approaching the camp directly from the outer lake when the lake rises.

Of course, in addition to the plank road wharf, in such a short time, a simple small shipyard has been built near the south fence, and four small canopy oarboats are about to be launched.

Although it is said that without a long period of cellaring and drying, the ship board is very easy to deform and seep after launching, but it is not so much attention to build a group of fishing boats to catch fish and shrimp nearby in a short period of time; As a merchant ship or warship for medium and long-distance transportation, it will definitely not work to do this.

Of course, there is a real need for three or five sturdy cargo merchant ships or warships here, and Yin Peng believes that Chishan, which has the support of Xuzhou behind it, will have its own way to get it.

On the contrary, the Chishan Society has a foothold here, and the number of small fishing boats that need to be able to catch fish and shrimp in Fanliang Lake and nearby streams and rivers is very large, and maybe one or two hundred are far from enough, so there is no way to directly transfer them from other places on a large scale, so they can only be organized and built in the camp.

I saw that the fields inside and outside the camp had also been cultivated, but in any case, even if the new fields of two or three thousand acres were planted with grain, even if there was a harvest, it would be far from enough to maintain the daily consumption of the two thousand people already in the camp at this time.

Secretly estimating the population gathered in the outer camps, Chishan would have gathered about 3,000 people in the vicinity in a short period of time, and Yin Peng was also secretly surprised, that is, he didn't know how many of the displaced forces were recruited from the vicinity, and how many were transferred from Guangde Mansion to the old headquarters of the Zuo Guangde Army.

"Sima Yin, I'm sorry for you to make this trip...... Feng Yi walked out of the courtyard to greet Yin Peng and his entourage.

"The Marquis of Qianyang has been staying in Baihogang all the time?" Yin Peng didn't know in advance who he would meet and negotiate with after he came over, but he thought that Han Qian should have returned to Xuzhou from that meeting in Zhuyu Bay, and he would not always risk staying in Jianghuai.

Seeing Feng Yi, he realized that he had thought wrong from beginning to end, and secretly felt that the Chuzhou side had personally instructed people to attack the Baihogang camp before, and it was not unjust to suffer such a big setback.

Walking into the reconstructed conference hall of the ancestral hall, Han Qian stood in front of the newly drawn map, and was calculating with Xi Ying the amount of subsequent dredging of the Qingjin Crossing Canal.

The river that went north through Cheongjindo was confirmed to be the Sanglim River, which leads directly to Hudang in the southern part of Hongzepo.

In the early period of the former middle of the dynasty, Shiliang County organized the people to dig a seven-eight-mile long horizontal canal directly next to the north of Qingjindu, connecting the Shanglin River and Fanliang Lake in the east of Baijiegang, making Fanliang Lake and Hongzepu have an additional title in Shiliang County

Water connections.

However, in the last years of the previous dynasty, the Jianghuai Zhuxiong competed for hegemony, and the water conservancy fell into disrepair for many years, and after the founding of the Great Chu, Huainan Zhuzhou County was regarded as a buffer zone between Liang and Chu, and several floods and the horizontal canal had long been silted up, and the connecting waterway between Fanliang Lake and Hongzepu in Shiliang County was thus cut off.

Whether it is connecting Fanliang Lake and Hongzepu, or helping to irrigate farmland, or to channel and drain the flood water from the upper reaches of the Shanglin River to a greater extent, the role of this horizontal canal is very important.

Even if some things can't be done immediately at this time, Han Qian still hopes to help Han Donghu and Su Lie determine the later work plan.

The horizontal ditch has the previous foundation, and the blocked places are mainly located at the two ends, so it is relatively easy to re-excavate and dredge.

Once the horizontal canal is dug through, the strategic position of Qingjindu will be more prominent, and it will not even be under the white hoof.

After all, the area facing the lake on the east side of Baijiegang is too narrow, and it is impossible to control the ships sailing into the Fanliang Lake, which is 140 or 50 miles deep.

In contrast, after the horizontal canal was dug through, Qingjindu was a more important strategic node.

Han Qian put down the charcoal pen, rested on the map, and turned to look at Yin Peng: "His Royal Highness King Xin, he has a letter this time, and he won't do any more tricks to attack Baihogang at night?" ”

Yin Peng smiled embarrassedly, Huaidong couldn't make up his mind to tear his face, and he broke up with Xuzhou, but he was beaten and his face was swollen when he played this kind of small action, and he was speechless.

Even this kind of thing, hosted by Yangzhou, will not be so embarrassing.

"The Chishan Society secretly has a foothold in Shiliang County, and Yu Huaidong has the worry of raising tigers, but there are no visible benefits," Yin Peng cleaned up his embarrassed look, and according to the rhetoric he agreed with Wang Wenqian, Zhengse said, "Huaidong can turn a blind eye, and it is enough to be worthy of the Marquis of Qianyang, but the Chishan Society wants to use the ditch to transport materials and personnel through Yangzhou, and it may not be too difficult, right?" ”

Obviously, after Li Zhihe recovered Chaozhou, the situation would be unfavorable to Huaidong, but it was impossible for Huaidong to not only tolerate the Chishan Society to gain a foothold on the west bank of Fanliang Lake because of this, or because of Han Qian's intimidation, but also to condone the ships of the Chishan Society to pass through Yangzhou.

If that's the case, then King Xin won't have any face?

"Huaidong is in the area controlled by Haizhou, don't you really wonder if the new salt drying law I said is true or false?" Han Qian stared at Yin Peng and asked.

The Huaidong Salt Farm, which is directly under the jurisdiction of the Salt and Iron Envoys, is located on the vast beach between the Jianghuai estuary, but at present, most of the state border in Haizhou, north of the Huaihe estuary, is still under the control of the Huaidong State.

The eastern part of Haizhou is also connected to the sea.

Part of the salt belonging to Huaidong was obtained by secretly organizing people to fry the sea in the tidal flats in the eastern part of Haizhou.

However, boiling sea salt is not an easy task.

The Salt and Iron Envoy has more than 40,000 households, nearly 300,000 stove households, 3,000 salt soldiers, and thousands of large and small salt officials in the Huaidong Salt Farm, so as to maintain the annual output of more than 1 million quintals of sea salt in the Huaidong Salt Farm.

Haizhou has always been a barren land, with three counties, and the population was only 1450,000 in the former dynasty.

By the middle and late dynasties of the former dynasty and on both sides of the Huai River in the Liang-Chu Battle, although Haizhou was located on the edge of the main battlefield in the east, there were constant battles of all sizes, a large number of people either died or fled, and large tracts of land were abandoned.

At present, the area under the direct control of Huaidong in Haizhou has a population of just over 2,000 households, except for the garrison of troops.

Even if we don't consider the possibility that the Liang army may infiltrate and attack at any time, and even if we don't consider the supervision of the salt and iron envoys, how many people can Huaidong organize in the past along the beach at the mouth of the Huai River to take seawater to decoction and make salt?

If we really want to follow the salt cooking efficiency of the Huaidong salt farm, Huaidong needs to organize at least more than 4,000 households and nearly 30,000 stove households to harvest firewood and boil sea salt in the tidal flats in eastern Haizhou, so as to meet the salt needs of millions of soldiers and livestock in Huaidong.

As a matter of fact, the scale of Huaidong's secret salt production in the tidal flats in the eastern part of Haizhou is only seven or eight thousand quintals per year, which is less than one-tenth of what Huaidong needs.

This also ensured that the Huaidong Fan Kingdom could obtain more than 300,000 yuan of salt profits every year.

Huaidong can currently maintain 120,000 soldiers and horses, mainly relying on the plundering of Changrun and other states during the Jinling Incident, but the one-time plunder cannot last long.

The consumption of soldiers and horses is extremely huge, not only the food and salary of the soldiers, but also the construction of the barracks in the garrison, the preparation of armor and combat equipment and vehicles, the feeding of livestock and horses, the preparation of four sets of military uniforms per person in the cold and summer every year, the preparation of a total of 480,000 sets of military uniforms for the whole army, and the rewards given during the New Year's holidays.

Huaidong maintained a military garrison of 120,000 horses, and in just one year, most of the goods plundered from Changrun and other states were consumed.

Next, without the pressure exerted by the imperial court, Huaidong itself had a plan to reduce the standing army and horses to 60,000, vacate 60,000 horses and horses to organize the formation of troops, and organize the cultivation of land to make up for the lack of military supplies.

Even so, Huaidong's financial expenditure is inseparable from the annual salt income of up to 300,000 yuan.

Therefore, in any case, Huaidong must try his best to weaken the control of the salt and iron envoys over the Huaidong salt works and prevent the imperial court from carrying out fundamental reforms and changes in salt matters.

As for whether what Han Qian said about the new method of drying salt was true or false, when Yin Peng went to Chuzhou to explain the matter, Ruan Yan and the others did not dare to easily assert that it was false.

"......" Han Qian took out a booklet from his desk, handed it to Yin Peng, and said, "Hedong Salt Pond has a history of hundreds of years, but it is not used along the coast, it is not that it has not been tried before, but in the past, drying salt on the seaside is not necessarily advantageous compared with boiling salt." I collected hundreds of years of salt books, and carefully discerned the pros and cons of various methods, and concluded that along the beach flats, the leakage of drying grounds, tidal invasion, salt and brine turbidity, and wind and rain are all disadvantages. Some drawbacks are difficult to overcome, but some drawbacks are still easy to overcome, so the methods of building salt pan dams, testing salinity, irrigation, and leaching brine are all in this booklet. It's just that the new law hasn't been tested on a large scale, and there may be a lot of room for improvement. But I don't know if Huaidong took this method to Haizhou to verify one or two? I believe it's always better than getting the Huaidong Salt Field for verification, Lord Yin, don't you say? ”

Yin Peng stared at the pamphlet handed over by Han Qian, he didn't believe that Han Qian would really ask Huaidong to easily get this new method of drying salt.

Han Qian stuffed the pamphlet into Yin Peng's hand and said, "My conditions are very simple, in a few days, there will be two merchant ships stationed in Yangzhou in Xuzhou, and when the time comes, please raise your noble hands and ...... Lord Wang."

Xuzhou is the state of Fanzhou, and the merchants enter the hinterland of Dachu, and they also need to go to the designated area to trade after the lottery and purchase.

Theoretically, the merchant ships of Xuzhou can enter Chuzhou, but under the supervision of the Salt and Iron Envoy, it is obviously impossible to trade with the displaced forces in the northeast of Chuzhou, and the territory of Yangzhou, which is subordinate to Huaidong, is a blind spot under the jurisdiction of the Salt and Iron Envoy.

The Chishan Society wanted to gain a foothold on the west bank of Fanliang Lake and keep in touch with the outside world, as well as to obtain different supplies, and the most stable passage was also Yangzhou......

Han Qian did not put forward higher requirements at this time, Yin Peng could take away the new method of drying salt and verify it first, but at this time, he would allow the two ships of materials from Xuzhou to sail into Baihogang through Yangzhou.

。 Sogou