Chapter 59: Borrowing Grain
Yu Ban led the army to fight to the death with the Yellow Turban Army in the city, and Jiang Shengbu also entered the city from the southeast city wall, and the entire Yecheng was inseparable. Pen | fun | pavilion www. biquge。 info
After paying the price of nearly 500 people killed in battle, Zhou Cangbu broke through the northeast corner, and at this point, all the soldiers and horses of Jiang Sheng's official army had entered the city.
He Yisuo led the Yellow Turban Army could not resist, so he retreated to the inner city, and when he was about to reach the east gate of the inner city, Yu Ban led the cavalry to suddenly kill and blocked the east gate.
There is Zhoucang in the north, Jiang Sheng in the south, and Yu Ban in the west, and there is only one way out of the city to the east. He Yi commanded the remnants to go east, trying to escape from Yecheng, and when he fled to the east gate, he found that there were already 2,000 cavalry waiting under the city gate for a long time.
These two thousand cavalry were originally retained by Jiang Sheng as a reserve, but after the city was broken, they were summoned by Jiang Sheng to guard the east gate and respond to the main force, which came in handy at this time.
He Yi led the army to fight hard, and was cut off by Zhou Cang, who caught up, and He Yi died, and the remnants of the Yellow Turban abandoned their weapons and surrendered.
By the evening, all the yellow scarves in Yecheng were cleared, and Jiang Sheng collected his troops into the city and camped in the east of the city to rest.
Jiang Sheng asked Yu Ban how he could enter the city, and Yu Ban reported to Jiang Sheng about entering the city, and Jiang Sheng thought it was approved.
"Wen Ze, it was you who saved the people of Yecheng, and I didn't make a big mistake."
Yu Ban only said that Jiang Sheng was talking about Huangfu Song's military order and the recovery of Yecheng, but he didn't know that Jiang Sheng meant something else.
After Jiang Sheng recovered Yecheng, the morale of the officers and soldiers was greatly boosted, and they successively broke Handan, Quliang, and Guangping, announcing the complete bankruptcy of Zhang Jiao's plan to march into Beijing.
Huangfu Song led the official army all the way north, conquered Quzhou and then set up a camp, and then organized the official army to launch an attack on Guangzong, Zhang Jiao personally went to the city to command the battle, repelled the seven attacks of the official army, and ordered Zhang Liang to lead the cavalry from the north gate back to the Huangfu Song army camp, trying to disturb the chaos with fire, but did not want to be discovered by the secret sentinel earlier.
Huangfu Song has been cautious since he entered Jizhou, especially Jiang Sheng's reminder to him.
The Yellow Turban Army has been victimized by Jiang Sheng's fire attack and sneak attack many times, and there is a way to learn tactics in the war, and the Yellow Turban Army also painted a scoop according to the gourd and learned the tactics of fire attack and sneak attack, but after all, it is still Jiang Sheng's apprentice, how can the officers and soldiers not guard against it?
Jiang Sheng clearly reminded Huangfu Song in the battle report of the Battle of W County that when the main force went into battle, it was necessary to spread secret posts around the camp to prevent the enemy from sneaking attack. Sure enough, Zhang Liang's surprise attack was easily defused, and the official cavalry went out to meet the enemy, beheading more than 600 Yellow Turban cavalry.
Zhang Liang led the cavalry to flee back to Guangzong in a hurry, and did not dare to attack out of the city again.
When Lu Zhi was in Guangzong, he built a camp and dug a deep trench, which was originally a siege operation, when Dong Zhuo was in charge of the Jizhou war, Zhang Jiao attacked everywhere, and Lu Zhi's iron wall fortifications were all filled and destroyed, and Huangfu Song came to this trick again, but Huang Fu Song's tactics were not only surrounding, but also set up a three-layer defense line, and the original Yellow Turban Army could also break through the siege to send supplies to Guangzong, and the three-layer defense line of Huangfu Song made it impossible for materials to pass.
In this encirclement, Zhang Jiaocai was nervous, it turned out that He Yi's combat power was relatively strong, but now He Yi was eliminated, Bian Xi was nowhere to be found, and Guangzong Yellow Turban really realized that the situation was not good.
Entering October, the autumn mood in Jizhou is getting stronger, and the continuous battle for nearly a month has exhausted both the officials and bandits, and Guangzong's material reserves can still be used for a while, but the supplies of the officials and troops cannot keep up.
The ten permanent servants of the court and the central government instigated Emperor Ling to sell his official position, and the officials of various prefectures, counties and counties only cared about looting the people's wealth and buying officials, so they could not participate in any Jizhou war.
Huangfu Song sent ten consecutive reports to the court urging grain and grass, but all of them were shelved. The war in Jizhou had to be temporarily stopped, and Huangfu Song sent envoys to Youzhou, Qingzhou, Jizhou, Bingzhou, Yanzhou, and Sili Lieutenant Department for help, but it was a drop in the bucket, which could guarantee daily needs, and if the war started, it would be defeated. Half of the grain and grass Jiang Sheng obtained from Yecheng had been transported to Huangfu Song, but it was a drop in the bucket.
At Jiang Sheng's suggestion, Huangfu Song sent someone to borrow grain. Huangfu Song disagreed, in his opinion, it was impossible for the people to lend grain to the officials and soldiers.
The war in Jizhou was indecisive for a long time, and the imperial court was in a miasma, and the borrowed grain could not guarantee when it would be returned.
In fact, Huangfu Song did not fully understand what Jiang Sheng meant, this borrowing grain was not borrowing grain from the people, but "borrowing grain" from large landlords. Jiang Sheng is in a humble position, so naturally he will not explicitly say that he is looking for big families to borrow grain, these big families either have an old relationship with local officials, or there are people in the court, but it is not that he Jiang Sheng can afford to offend, and Huangfu Song is different, no matter how he says it, he is also a third-grade member.
Although Jizhou has been war-torn for a long time, this year's harvest is much better than that of other prefectures and counties, and the large landlords have a lot of grain in stock, and although the Yellow Turban activity area has been forcibly requisitioned a lot, there are still many large households in the huge Jizhou that have not been affected.
Jiang Sheng saw that Huangfu Song had not moved for many days, and he couldn't bear it anymore, so he took twenty guards to Quzhou (belonging to Handan) to meet Huangfu Song.
Jiang Sheng saw Huangfu Song after getting straight to the point, and directly persuaded Huangfu Song to collect grain from the landlords, if he encountered obstacles, he had already sent an IOU to the landlords as a general, and asked the government and the court to pay it back in the future.
These big landlords are really for the rich and unkind, and Huangfu Song led the officials and troops to fight bloody battles for the pacification of Jizhou, not to protect their interests.
Huangfu Song was also ruthless, and he didn't leave with his own guards, and those landlords had no choice but to open a warehouse to release grain, but then they wrote to the ten permanent servants of the court to report Huangfu Song.
Ye County is the hometown of Zhao Zhong, Huang Fu Song arrived in Ye County and found that Zhao Zhong's manor was comparable to Huangzhuang, but the family refused to lend grain to Huang Fu Song, Huang Fu Song committed two crimes, Emperor Ling said that Zhao Zhong's manor exceeded the standard of Huang Zhuang and should be confiscated for military use.
Huangfu Song held tens of thousands of officials and soldiers, and had great achievements in suppressing thieves, so Emperor Ling had to approve Huangfu Song's report and reprimanded Zhao Zhong. Zhao Zhong held a grudge, so he sent someone to ask Huangfu Song for compensation of 50 million yuan, but he was refused, and this Liangzi was settled.
The big landlords in Jizhou, who were connected with the Ten Standing Servants, jointly filed a petition asking for the removal of Huangfu Song, but Zhang Rang, Zhao Zhong and others considered that the Jizhou Yellow Turban Army still wanted Huangfu Song to solve it, so they put up with it for the time being, and also persuaded the "gentleman" in Jizhou to take revenge, and it was not too late for ten years.
After such a fuss, Huangfu Song collected millions of stones, grains and grass, enough for the official army to use for half a year. Unlike Huangfu Song's forced conscription, Jiang Sheng's grain and grass came easier.
When the people in the southern counties of Jizhou heard that Jiang Sheng's officials and soldiers were short of food, they took the initiative to contribute the surplus food at home to Jiang Shengjun, because the people were emotional, Jiang Sheng had a stable life for them, and they knew how to be grateful.
Jiang Sheng deeply felt the public opinion, but after all, the living conditions of the people were not good, so Jiang Sheng sent someone to register the amount of grain and grass sent by the people, and then converted it into gold and silver, and paid from house to house.
This move touched the people of Jizhou, and those who had young and middle-aged laborers in their families were sent to Jiang Sheng's military camp by their families, asking to follow Jiang Sheng to fight against the Yellow Turban Army.