And in the territory of Jiaozhou in Annam, on the banks of the Zhuluan River; Zhou Huai'an was still dealing with some finishing work after the war, mainly the success of the night counteroffensive, which actually captured An Youquan, the general of the enemy's leading army.

Judging from the surname alone, this is a descendant of the Lite people, so although it is no different from most Tang people in appearance, it still has some residual features of curly hair. Of course, such people are not uncommon in the former Guangzhou City, but those who can join the army and obtain the corresponding position are a bit of a flair.

It is said that he was good at making a pair of double swords like snow and there was no enemy on the left, so in a short time of the battle that night, he was hacked to death and wounded more than ten people; was almost reversed by him who took the lead.

Fortunately, Ge Congzhou, who personally led a team of crossbowmen to reinforce him, also arrived on the spot, and immediately joined forces with Huo Cun to drag him with all his might; After the opponent's tear fight gradually exhausted, he used a repeater to shoot him in the legs and feet that he did not have enough protection, and was able to knock him down and capture him. And at the moment when he heard the simple description, Zhou Huai'an could even make up some kind of battle scene in which the two echoed each other, fought fiercely for dozens of rounds, and finally fell to the ground with all their strength.

It's just that according to the confessions of other captures, he is also one of the hardcore cronies and guest generals that Zeng Gon brought to Jiaozhou, and there is basically no possibility of persuasion and appointment; It's just that after the torture was fruitless and made him scold a few more times, "I don't share the sky with the thief", he pushed out to the riverside to sacrifice the military flag.

But the other one who was captured was not so simple, he was Shi Fanqiu, the adjutant general and marching commander of the temporary formation of the official army; This is a well-known and well-known figure in the local area, and he is a staff member of Cai Xi, the former envoy of Annam.

As early as November of the third year of Hamtong (862), Nan Zhao led a group of 50,000 barbarians to invade Annam (now Hanoi, Vietnam) again. The capital protector and the economic strategy made Cai attack urgent, and sent 2,000 soldiers from Jingnan and Hunan, and 3,000 children from Guiguan (now Guilin, Guangxi) to rush to Yongzhou, and Zheng Yu was under the command of Lingxi Jiedu to reinforce them. In December, Nanzhao besieged Jiaozhi City, and Cai attacked the city to hold on, and then asked for more troops.

Thousands of archers from the south and east of Efa Mountain (now Xiangfan, Hubei) went to help. In the first month of the fourth year, the rescue army did not arrive, and the city of Jiaozhi had fallen. Cai attacked left and right and died, attacked with his bare hands, was hit by ten arrows, and drowned in the sea. Jingnan's general Yuan Weide led 400 soldiers to die in battle. Only the remaining staff member Fan Xuan was ordered to take the capital to protect the Fufu Liangjiang River and go away.

Later, Gao Biao recovered Annam, and Fan Xuan contributed a lot of strength to the army and participated in the army, which belongs to the type that is willing to dedicate himself behind the scenes without seeking scenery; After Gao Biao was transferred to the mainland, he stayed to help govern the local area as the governor of Fengzhou, and continued to collect and compile local geographical features;

The "Book of Nanban", also known as the "Yunnan Chronicles", which he finally completed, became an important reference and basis for the study of the historical evolution of the Indochina Peninsula through the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and even in later dynasties. To be honest, Zhou Huai'an didn't expect to capture him here. In the words of later generations, this is at least an expert at the level and level of social science academicians.

You must know that there are a lot of scholars in the world who have done scholarship in these years, but there are too few people who can be attentive to these side-gate miscellaneous applied disciplines and basic disciplines; So it's not easy to catch one.

Although he and his colleagues in the past belonged to the camp of the imperial court, they still had something worthy of respect and courtesy in the position of the family and the country and the nation that shared the foreign captives; It's like the sentence engraved on the Monument to the People's Heroes:

"Going back to the year 1,840, since then, the people's heroes who have sacrificed their lives in all struggles in order to oppose internal and external enemies and fight for national independence and the freedom and happiness of the people are immortal!"

Therefore, Zhou Huai'an immediately gave Qu Chengyu a task, that is, to find a way to persuade him to provide assistance to the rebel army. Even if you can't change for a while, you must try to stay in the rebel army and never let the opposing camp take advantage of it; Otherwise, I don't know how many variables and resistance will be added here in Jiaozhou.

The other is Jing Xian, a high monk who has been sent to Nanzhao and has been quite courteous. He was also a diplomatic representative sent by Gao Biao after the Battle of Xichuan to persuade King Shilong of Nanzhao to surrender his troops and rejoin the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, in the local prefectures and counties of Annam, which also generally worship Buddhism, and even among the caves of the Tuman, it is also quite prestigious and appealing. Therefore, although Zhou Hui has no time to pay attention to him for the time being, he can be detained in the army as a mascot to see the after-effects.

The last one is the head of the Zhang family, a local wealthy family from Fengzhou, and Zhang Biao, the commander of the Fengzhou regiment who is nicknamed "No Barbarian".

"The villain is willing to do it anyway, and drive for the army to redeem it."

He was rough and athletic, but as soon as he was dragged in, he knelt on the ground and cried out.

"Jiaozhou has been suffering for a long time. I just hope that the righteous army will come to rescue the upside down."

This guy speaks as if he has been rehearsed countless times, and I believe that if it were other officers and soldiers, he would have said the same thing. He is also the most powerful leader of the Tu Regiment in this army, and he claims to have more than 1,000 regiments under his command. It's just that the performance at night can only be described as a pig teammate who can only lag behind.

To be honest, Zhou Huaian didn't want to leave such a number that looked particularly soft on his knees. If it is really a so-called pig teammate, no matter which side of the negative effect is thrown, it will be the same result; But although he is a little strange, he is also the first party to take the initiative to jump out and join the party, and he is actually an old acquaintance with that Qu Chengyu; So after weighing and thinking about it again and again, Zhou Huaian still pinched his nose and reluctantly accepted his "sincerity".

However, as a surrender and a price, his men and other subjugated Tutuan soldiers must be used as a precursor and guide to clear the way for the army to clear out the remaining recalcitrant forces and bandits and barbarians who take advantage of the opportunity to make trouble on the outskirts of Jiaozhou.

But with the destruction of such an active army of officers and soldiers, there was no longer a decent existence in the local area that could stop the rebel army; Everywhere they passed, they were almost invincible and there were people competing to vote, and some people even regarded them as the liberation military horses sent by the imperial court, and the eyes came to cry and beg for something.

Zhou Huai'an also learned about some local people's livelihood situations; For example, among the people living on the Red River Plain, those who wear bamboo hats or scarves are generally Han surnames, and those who wrap their heads are mostly Tu, and the more bright and complex the color, the higher the status, the more abundant the property, and then from which different ethnic groups and types, as well as the rank of 369 and so on.

As an indigenous ethnic group that has been engaged in cattle farming and agriculture for a long time and has developed economically and culturally, they are mostly known as "Li Shu is very popular, and there is abundant grain storage". And the influence of the degree of sinicization is also more obvious than the same ethnic group in the mountainous areas, and even in some customs and language has been tolerated, and it is not taboo to marry all year round.

After all, since the Qin and Han dynasties, the Han people have thrived in this land for more than a thousand years and the righteous army.

If it weren't for the descendants of immigrants such as Ding Bu, Li Huan, and Li Gongyun in later generations, and if they encountered my iron-blooded Great Song Dynasty, which would only tolerate and condone the separatist forces of the country, and could not even keep the land of Guanlong, where it originated, a different kind of national consciousness would have been born; Perhaps, according to this trend, it has gradually become a part of China since ancient times, just like Yunnan, Guichuan and other places.

Two days later, when Zhou Huai'an had strengthened the army of tens of thousands of people and approached the city of Jiaozhou again, there was good news. However, it was a partial division led by Zhong Yi that he sent to successfully capture Haimen Town, an important stronghold on the coast of Annan. Under the persuasion of Zhong Yi, the 100 soldiers and 300 native soldiers stationed in Haimen Town surrendered bloodlessly; Among them, except for dozens of people, including the town general, who asked to be disarmed and returned north by boat, the rest of the soldiers changed their courts.

The change of hands in Haimen Town also means that another important passage to and from Annam has been brought into control.

Because, in addition to the traditional cross-sea navigation, there is actually one between Guangzhou and Jiaozhou, which runs through various ports and cities in the coastal areas, from Haimen Town in Annam in the south (near Haiphong in Vietnam today) to the Baiteng River Estuary in Qinzhou in the north (near Crescent Bay, Fangchenggang City, Guangxi), the Grand Canal on the Sea - Tan Peng Canal, also known as "Tianwei Yao" and "Xianren Yuan", is mainly named after the great difficulty of the project and claimed that only the immortals can complete it.

It was first derived from the waterway dug by the general Fubo when he aided Pingrinan and Jiuzhen County; After knowing that more than ten years after Qian Gaobiao recovered Annan, he felt that from Annan to Yongzhou and Guangzhou, there were many reefs on the sea route, which caused the ship to run into the reef and sink; Therefore, in order to consolidate the rule of the imperial court in Annam and ensure the transportation of military resources, Jinghai Jiedu asked Gao Biao to recruit craftsmen to dig reefs and connect several coastal routes through artificial canals filled with seawater, so that the sea transportation was unhindered and protected from the danger of wind and waves.

It also benefited from Gao Yu's vigorous development and dredging of waterway transportation. Since then, the sea transport connecting the mouth of the Baiteng River to Haimen and running through the coast of the Beibu Gulf has become the only route to transport large quantities of grain and taxes at that time. Water transport also facilitates the transshipment of products through Haimen: through the river network and the Ling Canal, it can reach Yongzhou, Guangzhou and Yangzhou; If you use sea transportation, you can reach Guangzhou, Fuzhou ports and related trade networks.

In addition, there is also a "Tianwei Trail New Digging Sea School Tablet" to commemorate that the boulder blocking the channel was broken by the thunder attracted by Gao Biao's spell; Although it sounds a bit supernatural, it also echoes Gao Yu's penchant for pretending to be a ghost, such as driving the Rokko Divine Soldiers to boost morale; However, what interested Zhou Huai'an was that the description of "phosphorus fire, loud noise, and rock bursting" in the process of going to the reef boulders of the channel was very similar to the earliest use of gunpowder blasting.

After all, Gao Yu's subordinates have provided a lot of Danshi. Prior to this, the ancestors of China in all dynasties used the method of "Dieliao Wo Acid" to open mountains and break stones, that is, to heat the boulders first, and then dig holes, pour vinegar or water to crack the stones; For example, the ancient Shu plank road, which is known as difficult to get into the blue sky, was opened up in this way;

And coincidentally, in this era, there were already descriptions of similar gunpowder products. Because in the same period of Gao Biao's Dan Sutra "Zhenyuan Miao Dao Essentials" admonished alchemists: "There are those who combine sulfur and realgar with saltpeter, and burn them with honey, and burn their hands and faces with flames, and those who have ember houses." Gao Biao even wrote "Ode to the Golden Liquid of Sex", which describes and records the chemical reactions and derivatives between some minerals; As a by-product of monastic alchemy.

This is simply a half-chemist who has inadvertently cultivated immortals.

(End of chapter)