In the second year of the Apocalypse, the Jiangnan region entered the hottest season of the year, and the summer harvest in various places was also unfolding one after another, but the people in the southeast region did not take this hot weather in their eyes at all, and the entire southeast region was immersed in the joy of harvest. After the land reform, the people received all the land, including the crops on the land, which was equivalent to sending a harvest to the people.

The people's support for the Tang Empire has skyrocketed, and almost any order issued by the Yamen of the Southeast Military Region will be implemented to the letter. Including the newly acquired Hangzhou area, under the auspices of Li Jipeng, the land was divided as quickly as possible, and the people were helped to finish the grain first.

However, unlike Jinling and other places that have recovered from the wounds of the war, although Hangzhou's industry and commerce have developed rapidly, because the people taken away by Qian Biao when he left were not only family members of all walks of life, but also a considerable number of Hangzhou people, so those who lost their relatives are still sad even if they get a bumper harvest.

"Marshal, the latest command order." In the camp of Xue Wanli's East Route Army on the Taizhou front, the latest order just sent from Hangzhou made Xue Wanli's brows furrow.

"The command asked us to conquer Taizhou as soon as possible and then rush to the city of Fuzhou to stop Qian Biao, and especially explained that the people who were coerced by Qian Biao must stay." Xue Wanli handed the order in his hand to Chief of Staff Li Lisan and said with a wry smile: "Hundreds of thousands of people, I don't know what this Qian Biao wants to do." ”

Xue Wanli waved his hand and said, "Let's talk about these later, let's think about how to take Taizhou as soon as possible." Is the situation in Taizhou City clear? Does Xuan Yingwei have an arrangement? ”

Li Lisan shook his head and said, "Xuan Yingwei doesn't have much arrangement in Taizhou, but the basic situation in the city has been figured out. The defender of Taizhou is Pi Guangye, the confidant of Qian Biao, who is good at defense, and the city defense of Taizhou has been strengthened before the arrival of our army, and I heard that he is preparing to fight a protracted battle with us. Moreover, Qian Biao explained before leaving that if the enemy was not able to withdraw from Guzhou by sea, Pi Guangye had nothing to fear. I am afraid that Piguang Industry may also follow Qian Biao's practice in Hangzhou and burn the city to coerce the people. ”

"If that's the case, then we can't delay, and we have to arrange it in advance, otherwise the skin light industry is small, and if there is another Hangzhou accident, I am afraid that you and I will not be able to pay in front of the emperor." Xue Wanli nodded and said, "In this way, you immediately send troops back to Linhai County, Taizhou City, and first take down all the docks in Linhai County for me, and expel Qian Biao's naval warships." I am personally responsible for commanding the siege troops, and I must take Taizhou within a time limit. ”

Li Lisan nodded and said, "This can prevent Pi Guangye from escaping from the sea, but in this way, I am afraid that the land passage may not be able to be guarded." ”

"It's okay, Tianyi's cavalry corps has already set off for Fuzhou. It's great that the people who let Qian Biao are concentrated in Fuzhou. And it is not easy for Qian Biao to take Fuzhou. They are not like our Tiance Army, which has gunpowder weapons to open the way. Xue Wanli didn't care about this and said: "You go and prepare immediately, I'll give you three days, and I'll lead the army to attack the city in three days." You're in charge of intercepting the retreating men, and we'll split up. ”

After Xue Wanli's preparations were made, he began to form a huge encirclement of Taizhou City, Li Lisan led three battalions of troops to bypass Taizhou City and appear in Linhai County, and after half a day of fierce fighting, all the Qian Biao troops stationed in Linhai were killed, and the three warships that did not have time to withdraw were captured. After taking Linhai County, Li Lisan's corps immediately began to sweep the surrounding Wenling and other places, destroying all the arrangements of Qian Biao here.

After getting the news that Linhai County was taken, Xue Wanli did not give Pi Guangye in Taizhou City any time to react, and raised troops to attack the city on the third day of July in the second year of the Apocalypse. The Tiance army has formed a complete set of procedures in the steps of siege, relying on the insolvability of gunpowder weapons, ordinary garrison troops cannot cope with it at all. A big city like Hangzhou could not be defended, although the ancient city of Taizhou had gone through hundreds of years, it was still vulnerable in the face of new weapons, and it took half a day to be approached by the demomen of the Tiance Army.

However, Pi Guangye is worthy of being Qian Biao's henchman, and his reaction to this weapon is completely different from that of his previous generals, opening the city gate and sending troops to kill the Demoman as soon as he arrives. At first, Xue Wanli was caught off guard and was almost taken away by the other party, if it weren't for the demoman's desperate resistance and even directly holding the blaster and directly pulling the lead and dying with the other party, otherwise it would really be impossible to be good.

Xue Wanli, who had suffered a loss, immediately competed against each other, sent his own guards to escort the demomen forward, and concentrated ten groups of demomen at one time to act collectively, and at the same time ordered the mechanical crossbow of the artillery battalion to follow forward, as long as the opponent ventured to open the city gate and shoot immediately, and the field troops also began to attack the city wall under the cover of explosives bags and archers. In this way, the method of the skin light industry did not play a role in hindering. After the two sides spent half a day under the city of Taizhou, the Tiance army finally prepared and blasted open the gate of Taizhou with a blaster. Xue Wanli immediately commanded all his men and horses to rush into the city and engage in street battles with the enemy.

This fierce battle lasted until the morning of the next day, Pi Guangye simply fought to the death after being blocked by Xue Wanli on the back road, more than 30,000 people defending the city and the Tiance army fought all night, and were killed, but the Tiance army also paid considerable casualties, even after the field hospital in the rear did its best, there were still thousands of people killed directly, nearly 5,000 people were injured. In a fit of rage, Xue Wanli directly killed the last captured Pi Guangye and other more than a dozen generals of the Qian Biao Army, and the bloody heads were directly hung on the tower of Taizhou City, which made everyone tremble, and the entire Taizhou City was immersed in the horror after the war.

After Xue Wanli took Taizhou, he originally planned to let the army rest for a while, but the news from the front shocked him, and almost at the same time as he took Taizhou City, Qian Biao had also conquered Fuzhou. His strategist Luo Yin devised a clever trick to deceive the Fuzhou guards into going out of the city to fight, and took advantage of the gap to break into the city, and Fuzhou was lost.

"Chief of Staff, you take the wounded and damaged three battalions to stay in Taizhou temporarily, wait for the support of the logistics department, and stabilize the situation in Taizhou by the way, and the rest of the manpower will follow my actions and immediately set off for Fuzhou." After Xue Wanli handed over Taizhou to Li Lisan, he led his army to set off urgently to catch up with Qian Biao.

At this time, on the wharf outside Hangzhou on the Qiantang River, the six search warships of the Tiance Army and Navy were ushered in from the canal all the way south. "Chongtao, can you do it, this is the sea, not the Yangtze River before you, don't do it." Yang Tiancheng looked at Guo Chongtao and said a little worriedly: "According to the local chronicles, in July, the sea surface of Fuzhou was strong and windy, and there may even be a big storm. ”

"Please rest assured that our Navy Department is confident that it will overcome any difficulties." Guo Chongtao saluted: "The emperor said that a navy that does not experience wind and waves is not a navy, and we should have the determination and courage to conquer the sea as an imperial navy, and we are not afraid of sacrifice or wind and waves. Besides, the hundreds of thousands of people in Qian Biao's hands are enough for us to venture into the ocean to rescue them. ”

Yang Tiancheng and Wang Houchun glanced at each other, and they both saw a trace of inexplicable brilliance in each other's eyes. Yang Tiancheng nodded and said, "It seems that the emperor chose you as the head of the Navy Department in the right place." Go, I hope you come back safely. ”

A loud horn came from the Fuxing, and the rumbling sound of the steam engine driving the battleship to spew billowing black smoke, and the six search warships began to move towards the ocean outlet one after another, and above the battleship, the bright yellow imperial military flag fluttered high, which seemed to symbolize the prosperity of this thousand-year-old empire.

"Houchun, do you think this trip to the Navy can be successful?" The figure of the Fuxing has long disappeared into the sky of water and sky, but Yang Tiancheng, the supreme commander of the entire Southern Theater of the Tiance Army, is still thinking about looking into the distance, as if he wants to see the figure in the distance clearly.

"When the eagle grows up, sooner or later it will have to go through wind and rain. The navy is not called a navy if it does not experience wind and waves. Wang Houchun looked at his partner and brother in front of him and said with a smile: "I believe that no matter what the results of Chongtao's trip are, the navy will really mature, and it will no longer be the fleet that helped the army attack the city in the canal in the past, but can really fight the sea and sail to the extreme skyline sea." ”

"Okay, don't be emotional, we're all old. Let's also rush to Chuzhou, to see how Chen Yu is doing, after taking Chuzhou, all areas of Zhejiang Dongdao have basically been taken by us. It's time to plan the next step in your battle plan. Yang Tiancheng said with a smile, pulled Wang Houchun on the horse and began to set off from Hangzhou towards Chuzhou, and the two discussed this matter while walking.

"Houchun, why hasn't this kid Xue Yang made any big moves recently, it stands to reason that he shouldn't, with his character, I'll be sorry for him if he doesn't break the sky." Yang Tiancheng walked as he walked.

"It was still news ten days ago that Li Yang's department successfully took Yuezhou and sent Du Hong to Chang'an. Xue Yang led a large army to fight Ma Yin near Tanzhou, and after hearing that Ma Yin had retreated back to Tanzhou City. Wang Houchun smiled: "Don't worry, I understand this kid, what he is most annoying about is to fight siege warfare, and he is probably thinking about how to calculate Ma Yin." Don't worry about him, with his character, few people in this world can calculate him. ”

In fact, what Wang Houchun said was right, Xue Yang's army had been outside Tanzhou City for almost half a month, except for Li Yang's meeting after taking Du Hong, other things basically didn't move much. This made his old partner Xu Ying wonder: "What happened to you during this time?" Can self-cultivation and self-cultivation confront Ma Yin for so long? Is it some kind of idea? ”

Xue Yang nodded and said: "Because I don't want to fight siege warfare, I thought about it for several days before I came up with a way to mobilize Ma Yin out of the city for a field battle, and I was thinking about discussing it with my brother, and the result was seen by you." ”

Xue Yang beckoned to Xu Ying, Li Yang, and Li Shenfu, and began to plan the strategy he had come up with in the past few days. At the same time, in order to recruit more ships, it was announced that all the ships of more than 1,000 materials in Fuzhou would be forcibly expropriated. In addition, in order to raise food and other materials, he simply let go of his hands and feet and robbed all the reserves of the big households in the city, the government treasury and the homes of ordinary merchants to make up for his losses. This completely angered all the strata in Fuzhou City. Even though Qian Biao's butcher's knife was stained with blood, riots still broke out one after another. And because of the rush of time, Qian Biao only took Fuzhou City, and did not experience the conquest of the subordinate counties, so a large number of people fled through various means.

Just when Qian Biao took Fuzhou, in fact, Hu Xiaosi had already arrived in Quanzhou City, but there were not many means arranged by Xuan Yingwei before Quanzhou, so there was no good way to connect with Chen Yan, the Fujian town guard, for a while. When Hu Xiaosi was pondering this matter, Chen Yan could no longer support it and died. On his deathbed, he summoned Wang Chao to take over as the guard of Fujian Town. While Hu Xiaosi was surprised by this news, the biggest reaction was Chen Yan's son-in-law Fan Hui, who had just returned from the front line of Jianzhou. With the support of civil and military forces at all levels, Fan Hui directly violated Chen Yan's last orders, announced that he would be appointed as the envoy of Fujian Town, and sent troops to Zhangzhou and other directions to defend Wang Chao.

This news made Hu Xiaosi nod thoughtfully, and suddenly thought of a way to leave Quanzhou City that night. In Hu Xiaosi's view, if Qian Biao does not fight Fujian's idea in the short term, and if the Tiance army stops after defeating Qian Di, then Wang Chao and Fan Hui will inevitably fight, and at that time, Fan Hui's ability will definitely not be Wang Chao's opponent, and the Tiance army may be able to take Fujian without much effort.

However, Hu Xiaosi's thinking like this does not mean what Qian Biao thinks at this time. Qian Biao almost screamed out loud after hearing Fan Hui's actions, and at the same time secretly hated his bad luck, if it wasn't for the Tiance Army chasing him too quickly, then Fujian at this time must be in his pocket.

Thinking of this, Qian Biao no longer hesitated and began to actively prepare for going to sea. The preparations were gradually made public, and even in order to take away all his strength, Qian Biao even ordered the Wusheng army in Chuzhou and other places to resist step by step, and retreated to Fuzhou one by one. And with a large number of seized and looted supplies, the preparation of Qian Biao went much smoother. At this time, July happened to be the monsoon season, and several ships sent by Qian Biao to explore the way had even returned, and according to the records of ancient navigation charts, the big island seemed to be faintly in front of Qian Biao's eyes.

"Qian Biao, you rabbit cub has finally caught up with you." Just when Qian Biao was wholeheartedly preparing to go to sea, Li Tianyi's cavalry corps finally arrived outside Fuzhou. Li Tianyi looked at the Qian Biao army banner in the city and couldn't help but laugh and said: "This south is really not suitable for cavalry operations, and our horseback almost can't outrun their infantry." ”

Li Tianyi's personality was hot enough, so after seeing that Qian Biao didn't leave, he came directly outside Fuzhou City non-stop, and actually relied on the power of cavalry to directly take down all the other party's strongholds outside the city.