Outside Dayuncang, an important transshipment town along the river in Xinzhou (now Shangrao, Jiangxi), in the battlefield that has just ended, there are still corpses all over the field and the remnants of the army are wrong. Groups of officers and soldiers armed with knives and guns roamed by, supervising many people to clean up the mess all over the ground.

Huainan vanguard crusade envoy and battalion capital soldier and horse envoy Zhang Luan, looking at the black pressure on the grass thief captives who knelt on the ground; From time to time, the identified leaders and leaders were dragged aside and beheaded and dumped, but the remaining grass thieves cowered on the ground without resistance.

He is a burly man with a bronze complexion and thick eyebrows, and he gestures under the ordinary appearance, and he has a sense of standing still and rising like a mountain; And when he stepped on the battlefield, it was a different style and bearing; Inside the sturdy body of the Fang Chief, it seems that it contains the terrifying power of the landslide city at all times.

Therefore, even if he is a little colorful, let alone those subordinate generals, even his subordinates and cronies under his direct leadership, they dare not confront and speak loudly with him.

After a long period of games, struggles, and compromises in the court, the Tang Center, which saw that it was in deep twilight, was also like a patient who was seriously ill and unresponsive; Finally, it has been eroded from Hunan to Jiangxi, and from Jiangxi to Jiangdong and Zhejiang; In various places, groups of thieves swarmed up to respond, or the traitors called themselves grass thieves, and the southeast was swaying with the officials, the army and the people, and they made sufficient responses and all-out countermeasures and deployments.

Therefore, it is said that Liu Yao, the newly appointed observer of eastern Zhejiang, has already arrived by sea and has begun to reorganize the army. Although it still can't stop the spread of erosion that is raging in all directions; But at least it also ensured that the remaining cities in eastern Zhejiang would not continue to fall.

On the other hand, in addition to stepping up urging Liu Jurong and Jiangxi to recruit Cao Quanxi's two armies, step up the attack and recover the lost territory; The imperial court has already levied more money and grain and poured all its resources to allocate "out-of-bounds grain" and "line money", and requisitioned and sent Zhaoyi (Zelu), probation (Xu Si), Yicheng (Zhenhua) and other soldiers and horses from the north to assist Huainan to suppress grass thieves;

However, the mandate and meaning from Gao Linggong is, how can such a first merit of breaking the thief and quelling the chaos be easily given to outsiders, and it is best to let the Huainan army receive it alone; After all, the princes of the court are basically the same in their stance on fighting thieves and stopping chaos, but they have their own disputes and back-ups on who will lead the process and the overall situation; And Huainan, which bore the brunt of the attack, undoubtedly took the lead.

Most of the credit for ensuring the corresponding restoration of difficulties falls into the hands of the righteous brothers who have a relationship and alliance with Ling Gong - Liu Jurong, Cao Quanyang, Zhou Bao and others. But it can't be cheap, and he has always been close to Ling Gong's important internal aid in the court-Lu Xianggong's political enemies, such as the former prime minister Wang Duo and Cui Anqian's side of the Beidi military town, and it has become the excuse and credential for the other party to take the opportunity to return to the court.

on the other hand, it is to bring out the garrison soldiers, guard soldiers, and regimental training children who have many names under this Huainan and are intertwined with the local relationship, and bring them out to consume more among the thieves;

Now, although there are 70,000 people under the command of Ling Gong, they are only used by the soldiers who have been able to bring to the left and right of Mo Yedu after many years of fighting, and the newly recruited Danyang disciples on the spot. Most of the remaining ones were the former grass thieves who had surrendered and rebellious; After eliminating the old and weak, although he is still strong and brave.

However, under the control of wealth and power, it is hoped that with the help of the power of these former grass thieves, they can deal with, squeeze and squeeze out those native forces in Huainan Town; It is also necessary to be vigilant and prevent it from taking advantage of the opportunity to sit on a big and difficult to treat; And everything is given both covert suppression and overt support, so that it and the native town and garrison have long-term mutual restraint, so that the public security can sit firmly in the southeast hub (Yangzhou) and hold the situation with great authority.

Therefore, this time when the army is dispatched, it can effectively weaken and consume these two hidden dangers in the heart under the pretense of the hands of grass thieves, and can win enough credit and qualifications, which is the best of both worlds and even a great thing in one fell swoop. For this reason, among the Huainan army he brought this time, except for the tens of thousands of battalion soldiers from this formation and the two guest cavalry from Tianping and Pinglu, the others are guards, regimental training, and garrison soldiers from all over the country, which belong to the existence that can be lost and consumed.

On the other hand, through the process of chasing down the grass thieves, waiting for the opportunity to place the subordinates and subordinates of the Ling Gong into the vacant positions that fell to Guangfu County; In order to form a big game of chess for the entire southeast under the leadership of Ling Gong to protect itself,

Therefore, it is very important to grasp the specific scale in the end, not only can the thieves be defeated in one go, but there is less buffer and room for the calm layout of the court princes and those local soldiers who are eager to make meritorious contributions; It is also necessary to maintain sufficient strength and upper hand, so as to justifiably exclude other forces that may intervene, and become an important basis and basis for Ling Gong to negotiate more pros and cons with the imperial court.

Therefore, he must fight hard against the grass thief in order to maintain enough pressure and upper hand for merit and fame; It is also necessary to let the other party linger for a moment at the right time, so as not to let the grass thief scatter from this star and let himself fall into the dilemma of having no thief to please; That's really more than worth the loss.

Zhang Lan is not from a famous family, just an orphan born in the military camp, but he was valued by the fledgling Ling Gong in his early years, and since then he has embarked on a magnificent life of Rongma. It can be said that from the beginning when Ling Gong was still young and prime, he took him with him since he was caught stealing food from the account, and Ling Gong is the most credible person in the world to recreate his parents and the world.

Therefore, even if he is now an official to the general of the Protector Army, the squire of the military department of the inspection school, the vanguard of Huainan (town) to attack the envoy, the soldiers and horses of the southeast battalion, and the lord of the three hundred households of Haimen Zi (Jue); But for him, the righteousness of the imperial court is not even as good as Ling Gong's temporary likes and dislikes. In a sense, this is also his biggest obsession and weakness.

It is said that Ling Gongrong Ma has served hundreds of generals under his command, but the most trusted ones are Zhang Phosphorus and Ryazan, who are known as the right-hand men and the "high-door double horses", so he also feels that he has a long way to go and resolutely does not dare to live up to it.

Therefore, in this period of rapid progress, even the slightest discord and strange voice in private was quickly suppressed and turned into a hall of words that Zhang Xuan said and forbidden.

"Report, there is a grass thief Chang Hongbu who led troops to attack. ."

At this time, a small school with a flag on his back galloped to the road.

"I am engaged in a battle with the former Luzhou Thorn Shi Yang Xingshu's department. . . ."

。。。。。。

When Zhou Huai'an led the reinforcements by land and water, it was already two days later when they set off again from Changsha City in Tanzhou. In such a short period of time, he also quickly disposed of many aftermath matters and leftover hand tails, and at the same time completed the corresponding supply and maintenance work;

Finally, according to the ratio of 1:3:5, after arranging the garrison forces of the corresponding garrison battalion, provisional battalion and newly recruited battalion; The force under his command grew again to more than 28,000 men; It is mainly due to the incorporation and reorganization of the remnants of the armed forces of the righteous army in Tanzhou City.

You must know that the original three military orders in Tanzhou City add up to more than 17,000 personnel; plus the five other men and horses who came to eat, recruit troops, and repair; On paper, there were at least 30,000 horses; But because of this sudden civil strife and the heavy losses of the sudden attack of the official army; In the end, there were no three or four of them, and after the old and the weak, and the wounded, there were only four or five thousand people left, who were still fit for purpose;

And Zhou Huai'an can't let them stay in the original station, he needs to take them all on the road. Otherwise, if there is not enough external force to suppress and supervise, the suspicion and resentment caused by this turmoil among them may become a new source of vendetta and continue to circulate locally under external influence and incitement.

That week, Huai'an's efforts and painstaking efforts to lay a relatively stable rear and supply line were in vain.

At least on the Gangneung side, there is also their common enemy, the official army, to divert the internal contradictions and the overall hatred. In this way, as long as a few battles are fought, the color and traditional imprint left over from the original old-fashioned volunteer army system with many drawbacks can be effectively diluted. It's also a cliché to solve internal problems externally.

However, this requires the ability to control the rhythm of the battlefield and the marching formation. However, before leaving, Zhou Huai'an had just received a piece of good news from Lingwai.

However, Liu Xun, the former Guangzhou Sima and now the head of the Agricultural College, who led people to Yazhou on the big island of Hainan to solicit local slang liao tuntian fields and carry out agricultural development and production practices, has succeeded in promoting cotton planting in the local area. To say that this old-school bureaucrat has all kinds of problems, but in the field he focuses on, there is still a stubborn energy to seek results.

Of course, the cotton varieties that can be obtained in Lingnan or Guangzhou are mainly grass cotton from overseas Kunlun country/Africa, short-staple cotton from Tianzhu/India, and local varieties of kapok from Hainan Island. As for the upland cotton, which occupied the world's main cotton varieties in later generations, it was imported from the Western Regions; And the best quality of the other long-staple cotton native to the Americas, this will not be able to reach it.

On the one hand, whether it is the displaced people who fled from Fujian, or the people of the Guiguan generation in Lingxi, there are many folk experts who are good at weaving white stacks (cotton cloth); on the other hand, in the area where Hainan slang liao is inhabited, another cotton fabric called Jibeibu is also produced;

You must know that it was here that the later generations of Huang Daopo learned the cotton-making process, and popularized the churning wheel (cotton gin), cotton bow, spinning wheel, loom and other equipment in Songjiang and other places in the Jiangnan region.

Therefore, coupled with the natural power bonus provided by the construction of water conservancy workshops, as long as there are enough sources of raw materials, it is quite easy to explode production capacity.

It is important to know that cotton planting and its derivative products are good things, which can not only provide a large number of high-quality textiles to meet the needs of people's livelihood, but also serve as the fist products of domestic and foreign trade and the interest growth point of new cash crops; It is also quite useful in industrial raw materials, for example, after different degrees of nitrification treatment, you can obtain military products such as digestive explosives from nitrocellulose launches.

Therefore, another cornerstone of the early firearms industry has been solved, which is undoubtedly gratifying and exciting, but it is a pity that Zhou Huaian has not been able to confide in anyone for the time being, but can only hold it in his heart.

But before he left Changsha, he still took the time to go to a sandbar full of orange trees in Xiangshui, and specially left a tablet and a poem, which can be regarded as a souvenir and inscription of his visit.

(End of chapter)