Changzhou Mansion is established, and Jiang Xinghuo and his entourage can be described as a noble soldier.

On April 2 of the first year of Yongle, he had just arrived in Changshu, an important town on the border between Suzhou and Changzhou, after a little rectification.

On 4 April, in just two days and one night, thousands of infantry mixed cavalry troops braved moderate rain and rushed forward for hundreds of miles, approaching Taicang Prefecture.

Here, Jiang Xinghuo joined up with Pingjiang Bo Chen Xuan's troops and received the support of the boat division.

After waiting for another day, after the soldiers of the local guards such as Chongming Shasuo, Liuhe Fort and Wusongjiang were assembled in place, the military operation to quell the civil unrest was officially started.

Emperor Yongle did not send any famous generals to assist Jiang Xinghuo in quelling the chaos, even at this moment, in order to conquer Annan, more than 100,000 troops around Nanjing are carrying out intense combat training and preparations, and there are more than 20 Hongwu and Jing Nanxun nobles who can lead troops to quell the chaos at any time, but Emperor Yongle is stunned except for Chen Xuan, who is responsible for dredging the river.

In fact, the focus of the civil unrest in Jiangnan is not the civil unrest at all, a group of White Lotus Sect bandits, inciting the victims to rebel, in the face of the elite Yan army who have experienced four years of blood and fire in the Jingjing, what resistance can they have?

The important things are how to quickly provide disaster relief after the rebellion, how to effectively control the floods, how to take advantage of this great chaos to effectively carry out the reform in the Jiangnan prefectures headed by Songjiang Prefecture, how to snatch the population out of the hands of the gentry, and how to establish a new type of handicraft workshop area.

Therefore, Jiang Xinghuo entrusted the matter of quelling the rebellion to Chen Xuan, the highest-ranking Pingjiang Bo, with him as the main general and the second prince Zhu Gaoxu as the deputy general to quell the rebellion against the rebellious people of the White Lotus Sect.

As for himself, he came to Huating County, the seat of governance in Songjiang Prefecture, to preside over other work such as local disaster relief, grain price stabilization, and water control planning.

"You soldiers are going to do these things! I have a lot to do, and I want to focus on disaster relief. ”

In the rather dilapidated county government of Huating County, Jiang Xinghuo didn't look at the battle report handed over by the captain next to him, and said with a frown.

"This" The captain who came back to deliver the battle report made a difficulty, and gestured to Wang Bin with his eyes.

Wang Bin looked at Jiang Xinghuo, who hadn't closed his eyes for two days and was still working at the desk, and persuaded.

"Master Guoshi, let's take a look."

Jiang Xinghuo blinked his somewhat dry eyes vigorously, took the battle report and glanced at it, and then his expression was a little solemn.

The battle situation, which should have been overwhelming, encountered unexpected obstacles.

The tax guards are firearms troops, and at this time, it is rainy for days, regardless of whether it is heavy rain, light rain or moderate rain, anyway, firearms are not usable, and the bows and crossbows of ordinary guards will not last long, the bowstring will soften and lose its elasticity, and the arrow feathers will also be affected by the rain and become unstable. So combat tends to evolve into pure cold-weapon combat.

But even so, the soldiers who formed the formation relied on their overwhelming fighting will, skill, and physical strength to easily win in the face of the rebellious people organized by the White Lotus Sect.

In just seven or eight days, hundreds of thousands of White Lotus Sect rebels were compressed by more than 10,000 officers and troops in the triangular area between the three lakes of Taihu Lake, Yangcheng Lake (now Yangcheng Lake), and Dianshan Lake.

But as time passed, the advance of the officers and troops began to slow down gradually, and in the end, they were even unable to advance and suppress.

Of course, this is due to the fact that the density of the White Lotus Sect's troops is getting thicker and thicker, but it is by no means the main problem, the main problem is that the logistics cannot keep up.

It is not that there is no food, thanks to the meticulous planning of Zhu Gaochi and Xia Yuanjizhen, a large amount of grain transferred from Sichuan and Lianghu was smoothly transferred to Changzhou Prefecture, and Changzhou Prefecture also deployed transportation routes and escort soldiers.

This grain is not to say that it is for the army of more than 10,000 people, that is, hundreds of thousands or hundreds of thousands of disaster victims, they can eat for a month.

The advance amount is already full.

But the surprise was that the unprecedented heavy rain caused the water level to rise sharply, so that the grain transferred from Changzhou Mansion stagnation on the Wangting-Hushuguan line as soon as it entered the territory of Suzhou Prefecture.

But now that it has been raining for days, the grain bags are afraid of getting wet, and the roads are muddy, so it is easy to sink into the mud when transported by a wheelbarrow covered with a rain cloth or directly by horse-drawn carriage.

said a thousand and ten thousand, the rainstorm was too big, so big that it was beyond everyone's expectations.

And now the poor transportation situation, this is no longer something that can be overcome by manpower.

The grain carried by the army from Taicang Prefecture and the supplies obtained from Guancang in Kunshan, Zhenyi Town, Changzhou, Wuxian and other places along the way were also gradually depleted in the course of the battle.

"After all, what does Ping Jiangbo mean is that the reason why the final general offensive cannot be carried out is because of the lack of food?"

Chen Xuan's subordinate captain nodded a little embarrassedly, before Chen Xuan led the troops to set off, he gave Jiang Xinghuo a package ticket, and with the help of the tax guards and guards from all over the country, he could put down the thieves in ten days.

Unfortunately, this goal has not been achieved at the moment.

Fortunately, Jiang Xinghuo is not Zhu Youzhen, and he was so excited that he didn't hear about "five years of recovering Liao", and when Jiang Xinghuo formulated a series of plans to quell the chaos, disaster relief, and water control, he fully took into account the interference factors of his subordinates drawing a big pie.

"Then if I send him enough food to the front, can I quell the chaos? Can we rescue these more than 100,000 people and not cause killing to ordinary people? ”

The lieutenant naturally didn't dare to answer on behalf of Chen Xuan, but his expression had already shown that what was lacking on the front line now was food.

How to get food? How to transport to the front?

Jiang Xinghuo got up, and behind him hung a map of Kanyu covered with a black cloth that could not be easily shown, and the mountains and rivers of the Jiangnan Prefectures were all in it. Although the painting is a bit abstract.

Looking at the Kanyu map, Jiang Xinghuo fell into deep thought.

The army cannot fight without food for a day, although it has tried its best to draw all the food that can be mobilized along the way, but it is still not enough at this time, if the grain route is blocked by heavy rain, then the best result of the army is to stand in place and confront, and the worst result is the collapse of the whole army.

The tricky point at the moment is that the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is already the most usable inland waterway, and the waterways extended by the other three lakes, including Taihu Lake, are either silted up and blocked, or have long been abandoned.

Now it is not that the Yangtze River and the sea cannot be transported by water, nor that there is not enough food, but that the inland waterways cannot play a role and cannot be transported to the front line, and land transportation is basically scrapped.

Jiang Xinghuo's thoughts drifted in other directions.

"Whether the grain is concentrated in Changzhou Prefecture, which is closer to Nanjing, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which is the most convenient according to the original plan, or simply transferred from the Yangtze River waterway to Songjiang Prefecture, it will face the problem of a period of land transportation difficulties."

"The army is running out of food."

"However, there are more than 100,000 chaotic people instigated and coerced by the White Lotus Sect, what are they eating?"

A cold air swept over from the open county government, and Jiang Xinghuo shivered.

No, we can't wait any longer, the current chaos is peaceful, and the peace is not only chaos, but also saving countless people!

The White Lotus Sect's control over the people is definitely not as strong as imagined, and the people follow them to rebel, which is nothing more than floods for many years, and this year there is a spring drought and then a summer rain, and it is really impossible to survive.

But the people are also human beings, and when the food gathered together in the end is eaten, the White Lotus Sect will not be able to control them, and it will naturally collapse on its own when the time comes.

But is it better to let the rebels surrender completely, or wait for them to collapse and then grasp them next to each other?

The former, of course!

Moreover, if the latter happens, it means that a large number of rioters have starved to death.

In the caliber of the Ming Dynasty, they were called the rebellious people, but in Jiang Xinghuo's heart, they were living people, and they were also the most important and indispensable existence for the development of large-scale handicraft workshops.

In the past, how could hundreds of thousands of people be freed from the fields on a large scale?

Therefore, he had to find a way to transport food to the front.

Jiang Xinghuo looked at Kanyutu, and gradually, his eyes lit up.

His gaze focused on another place in Songjiang Mansion.

-- Shanghai County.

Shanghai was a town in the Song Dynasty, and because of the continuation of merchants, the city and the freight yard were established for trade.

When it came to the Yuan Dynasty, that is, in the fourteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols set up the City Ship Division in Shanghai Town, which was called the Seven City Ship Divisions together with Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Qingyuan (Ningbo), and Lupu (Haiyan).

In the same year, Huating County was upgraded to Songjiang Prefecture, and in the twenty-seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty, some townships of Huating County were separated and Shanghai County was newly established.

Therefore, now the area under the jurisdiction of Songjiang Prefecture has Huating County (Fuzhi Office) and Shanghai County, as well as Jinshanwei and Qingcun Zhongqian Office, as for Qingpu County, it was added in the history of Jiang Xinghuo's previous life in the Jiajing and Wanli years.

"There's a way."

Jiang Xinghuo muttered.

"Huh?"

At this time, Song Lifang walked in and asked in a daze, "What is the method that the National Teacher said?" ”

"The way to transport grain."

Song Li naturally knew how difficult the grain transportation was now, put down the paperwork in his hand, and asked in surprise: "How to transport grain?" Is the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal passable again? ”

Jiang Xinghuo shook his head, pointed to the map and said: "Raise food locally from Huating County, go north to Dahuangpu by waterway, and go to Shanghai County for transit, but it does not enter the sea, but turns west into the Wusong River, and it can be transported between Yangcheng Lake and Dianshan Lake." ”

Dahuangpu, that is, the planned Huangpu River, this is one of the water control paths that Jiang Xinghuo had discussed with Song Li before, and Song Li naturally knew about it.

But at present, this solution that works on the map is facing all kinds of practical difficulties.

Song Li asked repeatedly: "The grain we prepared is all in Changzhou Mansion, and now the local gentry are hoarding goods, the price of grain has risen sharply, and there is not enough food in the official warehouse, how can we raise enough food for 10,000 or even 100,000 people to eat?" ”

"Even if the funds are raised, how can we open up the line of Dahuangpu?"

Jiang Xinghuo picked up the coat next to him and said, "Solve the first point first, and I have my own way to solve the second point." ”

"Now let the prefect of Songjiang convene the gentry near the left side of Huating County, and set up a banquet for the national division in the evening."

(End of chapter)