Chapter 205 Tiger General Xia Gui

After listening to Lu Xiufu's analysis, I also felt very reasonable, and thought about it and said, "Master." ”

"The old minister is here."

"Order the forbidden army, ready to go to the Huainan West Road at any time, the Privy Council, the Ministry of War, immediately consider the commander of the army."

"Yes, your ministers obey." Jia Rudao, Fan Wenhuan replied,

"In addition, the government offices around Luzhou Prefecture were ordered to be vigilant, especially the counties, towns and villages between Luzhou and Anqing, and the walls were clear, but first of all, it was necessary to ensure the safety of the local people, and those who could be transferred to the county seat should be arranged by the county government, and those far away from the county government should temporarily take refuge in the neighboring mountains, and Anqing Mansion sent rangers to assist in dealing with it, and other war zones also paid close attention to the movements of the Mongols at the same time.

"Yes, Your Majesty, rest assured." Jia Rudao also got up and replied, "The ministers will arrange the affairs of the Privy Council and the Ministry of War. ”

"Okay, as for the battle in Luzhou, I will make a decision when I have further news."

Back in the palace, I hurriedly finished lunch and summoned Lu Xiufu and Wen Tianxiang in the imperial study.

"Song Rui, the Gunpowder Division is currently on the right track, recently you are responsible for the reform of the provincial system, and after the basic plan is formulated, you will go to Fujian Road, and solve the problems encountered while supervising the trial."

"Yes, I obey."

"Regarding the implementation of the provincial system, the most important thing is to choose the governor of each province, oh, that is, the system envoy, if there is a suitable system envoy, then the province can go first."

"Yes, the minister understands."

"Junshi, there are two things that you need to do as soon as you go back, one is to formulate a plan for the Dragon Tooth Intelligence Department to go north, and the other is to repair a letter and notify Li Tingzhi to let him secretly enter Beijing to see me."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Sir, do you have any suitable candidates to recommend to Junshi?"

Yuan Jian thought for a while and said, "Your Majesty, the Ministry of Security recently included a chivalrous warrior named Lu Wu, who lived in Hebei when he was young, and the minister turned around to discuss with him. ”

"Okay, I have always been committed to the reform of internal affairs, and it seems that the reform of this army also needs to be mentioned in the future, Junshi, you can tell me about the current situation of our army."

"Yes, Your Majesty, our dynasty currently has about 100,000 forbidden troops, all of which are stationed near the capital, and about 200,000 town border troops, distributed in various major war zones, including Chengdu Mansion and Yucheng Mansion with 60,000 town border troops, Yangzhou Li Daren commands about 50,000, Xiangfan Lu Wende Lu Da commands about 60,000 horses, and there are 30,000 border troops on Huainan West Road, and the original box army in each theater has about 100,000 people, and it has not yet been completely disposed of, it is expected that 30,000 to 50,000 horses can be selected, a total of 350,000 horses, in addition, As for the Mongolian side, it is expected that the number of troops should be more than 500,000, including about 200,000 Mongolian warriors, about 300,000 soldiers of the Jin State and the army of the Han people in the north, and among these 500,000 horses, more than 100,000 are in the northwest border to prevent the Northwest Khanate, and about 100,000 are in expeditions to distant other countries, so the available troops in its territory are about 200,000 to 300,000. ”

"In terms of numbers, I have slightly more fighters than opponents."

"Yes, Your Majesty, it's just that most of our Korean armies are good at defense, and they are weaker than their opponents in field battles."

"Well, the rectification of the army is also going to be carried out in advance, Junshi, you have been in the military department for a while, what do you think of the generals of our dynasty."

Without waiting for Lu Xiufu to reply, he heard Wen Tianxiang preemptively say: "Your Majesty's intention is to select the generals who will go on the expedition?" ”

"Well, what, Song Rui, you also want to lead the troops."

"Back to Your Majesty, the minister has had the ambition to join the army since he was a child."

"Hehe, Song Rui, you can't get out of your body for the time being, and I will let you go to the battlefield when I have a chance later."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Wen Tianxiang said excitedly,

"Okay, you can tell the truth."

"Your Majesty, the minister also wants to make a report to Your Majesty on this matter." Lu Xiufu said, "The minister has read all the war records of our dynasty in the military department, and has also had contact with many generals of the military department and the forbidden army, and has a lot of new understanding of the generals of our dynasty. ”

"Yes." I felt a little surprised, but also a little excited, could it be that there are other famous players in my court,

Lu Xiufu asked, "What does Your Majesty think of General Xia Guixia?" ”

"Xia Gui, it seems that he is greedy for life and afraid of death, so he escaped from the battle." In my memory, Xia Gui was defeated by the Mongolian marshal Ashu in the battle to rescue Xiangyang, and later met Boyan, and fled without a fight, and finally surrendered to Mongolia.

"Your Majesty, listen to the ministers slowly." Lu Xiufu smiled and said, "General Xia Guixia can be regarded as a soldier who has been promoted step by step from the lowest level by virtue of his military exploits. ”

"Battle exploits."

"Exactly, Your Majesty, after the minister read the records of the Ministry of War, he also asked the veteran Zhao Kui of the Ministry of Agriculture to verify that General Xia was once General Zhao Fan's personal soldier, and won the love of General Zhao Fan because of his bravery, and the minister introduced his military exploits to His Majesty, the first emperor Duanping first year (1234), General Xia followed Zhao Fan General Keluo, promoted to a general, and gradually showed his prominence and became a fierce general at that time, Jiaxi three years (1239), General Xia led the army alone to relieve the siege of Shouchun, and made great contributions again, When General Zhao Fan supervised the two Huai, General Xia was ordered to aid Gaoyou, save Yangzhou, to know the Huaiyuan army and Henan to recruit the envoy, the first year of Kaiqing (1259), the Mongolian army that attacked the two Huai concentrated forces to storm the two Huai towns Huaiyuan, General Xia was ordered to take measures to defend Huaiyuan, the wall to resist, the Mongolian army besieged the city for a hundred days, in the case of our army Anhui Fengyang northeast reinforcements arrived, the Mongolian army was forced to withdraw the army, in April of the same year, the imperial court gave General Xia 30 acres of Liyang Tian to praise his merits, in November, and summoned General Xia to see, In February of the first year of Jingding (1260), after the siege of Ezhou Kublai Khan withdrew his troops to the north, the remaining troops Zhang Jie and Yan Wang made a pontoon bridge in the southeast of Xinzhou, Hubei, and the northwest of Ezhou, Hubei, and responded to the Wuliang and Taiwan divisions to cross the river, General Xia was ordered to move to block the attack, engage with the Mongolian army, get more than 300 boats, and then fight Huangshi Port, and then defeat the Mongolian army, to the Huangzhou Tuanfeng, the Mongolian army did not retreat because of a temporary defeat, and the felt tents on the north and south banks of the Yangtze River were full, facing the Song army, General Xia with the boat division array Xinsheng Zhou pontoon bridge down the river, at that time, the south bank of the Yangtze River battle is fierce, the leader of the battle Jia Rudao hopes that Xia Gui will fight on the south bank, as soon as possible to drive the Mongolian army across the Yangtze River, Xia Gui believes that the north bank of the enemy's materials, attack its must be saved, can force the Mongolian army to retreat automatically, within three days, the river can be cleared, so Xia Gui command post department into Bailuji by night, break the pontoon bridge, kill more than 700 Mongolian troops, the next said, the Mongolian army all retreated north, Song Sui heard the world with a great victory, in April, Jia seems to be on the road to ask for merit, to General Xia in Xinshengzhou, Bailuji and other battles are meritorious in the war, the imperial court awarded General Xia Zuo Jinwu General, Zhihuai Anzhou, and Huaidong pacification deputy envoy, Jingdong Zhaofu envoy and other positions, give gold coins, Liyang Tian 30 hectares, Jingding two years (1261), General Xia moved to Huaidong, repeatedly thwarted the Yuan army attack, recovered Lianshui Army, East Navy and Haizhou and other places, the imperial court gave the official will be million, a gold belt, re-give Liyang Tian 30 hectares, Jingding five years (1264), Sichuan war is tight, Li Zong Yao promoted General Xia to pacify the envoy and know Yucheng, Transferred to Sichuan, defeated the Yuan army many times, and was added by the imperial court to 500 households, and then gave a gold belt to show praise. ”

"Outstanding achievements and no defeats." I really didn't expect Xia Gui to have such a record, of course, I believe that Lu Xiufu would never make up his exploits to deceive me,

"Your Majesty, General Xia is a tiger general, and there is Xia Qing, the son of General Xia, Xia Song is also a two-member tiger general, but this old General Xia has a quirk, every time he fights, he asks for the most money, and the old general has good money, and he gives his subordinates the most military salaries and rewards."

"Fight for money."

"Your Majesty, so to speak, General Xia has also lost several battles, all because the military salary promised by the imperial court at that time was not in place."

"I see, what Lu Xiufu said may be correct." I said secretly,

According to the original historical process, at the beginning of the Xiangyang War, the economy of the Southern Song Dynasty political axe had reached the verge of collapse, the treasury was basically exhausted, and there was no financial resources to "give money and excite rewards" to Xia Gui.

For Xia Gui and his troops, the salary is the most important, whoever gives food is the father and mother, as for the emperor's kindness and the concept of the country, they are just a fart, just like the current wage earners, the boss will not work if he does not pay his salary,

In other words, the military soul of this army is money, of course, money is very important, soldiers charge at the front line, if they can't even eat, how can they fight, but blindly only know money, it is no different from mercenaries,

If compared with Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu and others, Xia Gui can be said to be of bad character, no nationality or country is as important as a copper coin.

The soul of each army comes from their commander, Xia Gui loves money, so the soul of his team is money, and the Yuejia army also needs military salaries, but their leader Yue Fei has the ideal of "recovering the rivers and mountains", so Yue Fei's ideal has become the military soul of the Yuejia army, and the concept I instilled in the young guard is "Zhongxing the Great Song Dynasty and recovering the mountains and rivers." This has become the military soul of the young guard, the general of the naval division Li Beiyang wants to surpass the exploits of his ancestors, so the military soul of the fleet he leads is invincible in the water.

The current 400,000 troops of the Great Song Dynasty basically do not have their own military soul, they don't know why they are fighting, they don't know who to fight for, such an army is easy to fail, after all, everything can not be done for money, soldiers are also people, and people have faith is the most important thing, in the same way, an army with faith can be invincible,

"Junshi, you go on."

"Your Majesty, among the main generals of the forbidden army, General Xia Gui has the most outstanding military achievements, others such as Fan Wenhuan, Fan Wenhu is very general, but Fan Wenhu's son and nephew, Fan Tianshun, who is now the general of Fancheng, is quite brave, among the middle-level generals, Xia Jiangang, the nephew of General Xia, Long Zaitian and others are also very common, only Wu Songhan and Wang Shengzhi are strict and orderly, as for the three border armies, His Majesty Lord Li already knows, his subordinate generals Jiang Cai, Shi Zhong and others are loyal and righteous people, and they went to Chengdu Mansion to General Gao, General Zhang Jue of Yucheng Mansion is a famous general of our dynasty, and His Majesty already knows it, while Xiangfan Guard General Lu Wende, Lu Wenhuan brothers and General Xia Gui are somewhat similar, they followed General Zhao Kui in their early years, and they were also promoted step by step by virtue of their military exploits. ”

From the fact that Lu Wenhuan has been alone in Xiangyang for six years, it can be seen that his military talent is very extraordinary.

"It's a pity that these two brothers, like Xia Gui, are Jia Nidao's henchmen."

"Your Majesty, there is still a difference between this Lord Xia and the two Lord Lu."

"Oh, what do you mean?"

"Your Majesty, Lord Xia Guixia is not completely dependent on Jia Nidao, according to the minister's understanding, this person is greedy for money, and he doesn't care about the government, and Jia Nidao is only a superficial friendship, but in fact, he has no friendship, and it can even be said that Lord Xia has no friendship with anyone in the court, only he loves his sons Xia Qing and Xia Song, and Xia Qing and Xia Song are friends with Ouyang Jianqing, so the minister can know."

"Ouyang Jianqing."

"Yes, does Your Majesty remember him?"

"Of course I remember, by the way, you asked him to enter the palace to see me when he said that he would meet in the court, and I happened to have something to look for him, so I called Li Beiyang to the court with me."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Xia Gui, Tiger General." After Lu Xiufu and the others left, I silently said,