When Han Qian memorialized requesting that the Left Vermilion Bird Army be moved out from Shuzhou, even though the various ministers of the Political Affairs Hall could all recognize this as an inevitable trend, this matter involved extremely significant ramifications, and none wished to express their position lightly, or perhaps they still harbored thoughts of delaying to see if the situation might undergo new changes.
However, this matter soon became a topic of discussion among mid- and lower-ranking officials as well as in the marketplace streets and alleys.
Li Zhigao was capable in strategy and decisive in judgment. Having grown up in military camps alongside his father from childhood, after being adopted as a son by the Marquis of Xinchang, he had established countless achievements and also rendered distinguished service in establishing the new Emperor on the throne.
Li Zhigao had served in the military for nearly twenty years, experiencing over a hundred battles large and small. When examined in detail piece by piece, one would see he had no errors or tactical failures, fully qualifying him to represent the younger generation in entering the ranks of famous generals.
Whether presiding over the siege of Jinling City or commanding various Imperial Guard units to recover Chuzhou and Chaozhou, Li Zhigao had accumulated rich experience in commanding large-scale military forces.
Aside from the older generation of commanders like Du Chongtao, Zhou Bingwu, and Zhang Xiang, among the younger generation of Personal Guard Army and Imperial Guard commanders, only Zheng Hui could stand shoulder to shoulder with Li Zhigao.
However, the world’s attention was forever fixed on the most dazzling individual, and beyond that person, everyone else was mere dregs.
And speaking of brilliance, whose radiance could match that of the Marquis of Qianyang, Han Qian?
Although the Marquis of Qianyang was so disagreeable, even detestable, when it came to distinguished military achievements, who could compare with him?
The Left and Right Five Fang Armies and Right Divine Martial Army were annihilated at Hongze Lake and Zhongli City—speaking from the heart, the responsibility lay entirely not with Li Zhigao, and Li Zhigao himself was also one implicated by the disaster.
Had Emperor Yanyou and Duke of Changguo Li Pu not fallen into the trap set by Wen Ruilin, even if Liang forces had reinforced southward to support Shouzhou’s army in the winter of the year before last, they could still have held the main cities of western Huainan like Chuzhou, Liyang, and Lujiang, and after the ice and snow melted the following spring, continued to wear down Shouzhou Army’s strength, step by step pushing the defensive line northward until completely eliminating the negative impact the Jinling Incident had brought to Great Chu.
And this was also the most secure approach, praised by Shen Yang, Yang En, and others as the true way of employing troops.
Although Han Qian had turned the tide several times, he always took risky unorthodox approaches and could never be called the righteous path.
However, common people and even mid- and lower-ranking officials longed more for miracles, and only legendary tales of risky unorthodox approaches matched the most secret expectations deep in their hearts.
Before Han Qian achieved the great victory at Wujin Ridge, the atmosphere in the capital had been somewhat friendlier toward Li Zhigao.
After news of the Wujin Ridge victory reached Jinling City, when mid- and lower-ranking officials and marketplace streets and alleys discussed the Jianghuai military campaigns during the nearly two years since Emperor Yanyou’s enthronement, inevitably some would accuse Li Zhigao of having been hesitant in deploying troops at Chaozhou initially, failing to capture Chaozhou City for over half a year, which was the root cause forcing the Left and Right Five Fang Armies and Right Divine Martial Army to take risks that ultimately led to catastrophic defeat.
Although Han Qian had deliberately delayed over ten days before transmitting news of the Wujin Ridge victory, causing Deng Tai in Shuzhou to have completely no time to react and watch helplessly as Tangyi forces immediately took control of both banks of the Longtan River, severing the Left Vermilion Bird Army from Shouzhou Army, neither Deng Tai, Li Zhigao, nor even Cishou Palace could utter the slightest complaint.
After all, when Tangyi forces had fought desperately as an isolated force penetrating deep into the Huaiyang Mountains, the Left Vermilion Bird Army on the Lujiang defense line had remained completely motionless!
Could they have the face to stand forth and complain at this time that the Marquis of Qianyang had failed to promptly report news of the Wujin Ridge victory, causing the Left Vermilion Bird Army to miss the opportunity to deploy forces?
Were they not afraid of being sprayed in the face with spit by the world—did they still want any face or not?
As for Han Qian’s memorial requesting that the Left Vermilion Bird Army be moved out from Shuzhou, the vast majority of marketplace streets and alleys as well as mid- and lower-ranking officials supported this. Combined with how the Huaixi Imperial Guards had previously failed to take Chaozhou after prolonged attacks, leading to the annihilation of Great Chu’s main naval forces, some even bitterly denounced the Left Vermilion Bird Army as a waste of state funds, merely eating their fill doing nothing.
The censorial officials of the Censorate submitted memorials based on hearsay, not only transmitting opinions from mid- and lower-ranking officials and marketplace discussions in memorial after memorial, but even some censors directly submitted memorials impeaching the Marquis of Xinjin and the various generals of the Left Martial Guard Army and Left Vermilion Bird Army for passive combat avoidance.
Dragging matters to late third month, the Chongwen Hall, Cishou Palace, and the various ministers of the Political Affairs Hall reached consensus, with the Bureau of Military Affairs ordering the Left Vermilion Bird Army to relocate to garrison Suizhou, urging Li Zhigao to strengthen offensives in the Huaihe upper reaches region from the gaps in the Tongbai Mountains and Huaiyang Mountains.
At this critical juncture, no one mentioned the matter of Li Zhigao’s further advancement to Regional Commander.
Rewards for Tangyi forces in late third month were also promulgated downward.
For his merits, Han Qian was granted the regular third-rank title of Grand General of the Qianniu Guard and honorary rank of Minister of War, concurrently serving as Commander-in-Chief and Military Commissioner of Tangyi Field Headquarters, with the Field Headquarters Military Commissioner’s Office governing Huaixi military and civil affairs, permitted to recruit thirty thousand troops to form the Left and Right Commissioner Armies of Tangyi Field Headquarters, with the Commission of State Expenditures instructed to allocate military supplies and provisions according to the standard for thirty thousand regular Imperial Guard troops.
For the Wujin Ridge victory, various Tangyi generals received rewards—aside from a pile of military official titles ranging from ninth rank to fourth rank, the only substantial benefits were over nine thousand bolts of brocade and silk, four hundred fine horses, and over ten thousand palace-minted gold, silver, and bronze coins; additionally, compensation and merit payments of three hundred twenty thousand strings of cash were allocated for fallen and disabled officers and troops—this was the largest single compensation payment the court had disbursed in recent years.
For the court to squeeze out this reward and compensation money was extremely difficult, but aside from Han Daoming’s insistence, Shen Yang, Yang En, and others also advocated squeezing it from between their teeth, because only this way could the officers and troops of Tangyi Army remember they were Great Chu’s soldiers, Great Chu’s subjects.
Entering fourth month, the rotation between the Left Divine Martial Army and Right Vermilion Bird Army was also completely finished. Li Zhigao continued strengthening offensives in eastern Guangzhou and western Huozhou, occupying the important Huaishang town of Yiyang, forcing Xu Mingzhen to transfer Wen Bo to serve as chief commander in the west, making Wen Bo serve as Prefect of Guangzhou to resist Li Zhigao’s offensive, causing these two old adversaries to become entangled together again.
The main Liang forces under Liang Emperor Zhu Yu’s command, centered on Weizhou, besieged Jin’s southern strongholds of Zezhou and Luzhou, temporarily unable to turn attention southward, while Shouzhou Army, needing to block the Left Martial Guard Army and Left Vermilion Bird Army from advancing north through the eastern entrance of Tongbai Mountains, had absolutely no capacity to launch any offensive against the Huaiyang Mountains.
Xu Mingzhen’s second son Xu Sizhao ultimately withdrew his forces northward from Chaozhou City in late fourth month.
Geographically, Chaozhou City on the northern shore of Chao Lake was not located much further south than Anfeng Fort and Mopan Valley to the east; and at this time, the defensive situation on Shouzhou’s eastern flank appeared no different from before the Hongze Lake naval battle.
At that time for Shouzhou Army, Chuzhou had also fallen, and they mainly relied on Chaozhou City to confront Chu’s elite forces. They too had been driven across the river, with scarce combat supplies, and their troops’ morale and combat effectiveness were weaker than the Great Chu Imperial Guards.
However, at that time when they stubbornly held Chaozhou City, this was also a risky military strategy—they were mainly gambling that the young and impetuous Yang Yuanpu would lose patience, gambling that the mediocre and incompetent Li Pu would not be content being overshadowed by Li Zhigao.
What could they gamble on at this time—gamble that Han Qian would one day similarly fall into their trap?
Compared to two years ago, the mountain passes in the northeastern foothills of the Huaiyang mountain range now fell under Tangyi Army’s control; and Li Zhigao was leading tens of thousands of elite troops attacking Shouzhou’s western flank from the eastern entrance of Tongbai Mountains.
These two Chu military forces possessed over sixty thousand regular troops and forty thousand provincial or auxiliary troops.
Along both banks of the Huai River, Han Yuanqi and Chen Kun’s forces were pinned down by Yang Yuanyan’s Huaidong Army. In the middle and upper reaches of the Huai River, they could only mobilize sixty thousand regular troops and thirty thousand garrison or auxiliary troops—total forces already at a disadvantage.
Not to mention suffering new defeats, in the foreseeable future, Shouzhou’s supplies would again become severely scarce.
Even though they still firmly controlled the four prefectures of Guang, Huo, Shou, and Hao, after several losses, the total registered militia households and military households in the four prefectures had declined to around one hundred ten thousand households, yet they needed to maintain forces numbering ninety thousand—almost reaching the degree of one household supporting one soldier.
Moreover, with over half the able-bodied laborers having to be drafted into the military, agricultural production could rely more only on the elderly, weak, women, and children. Even though the lands of the four prefectures of Guang, Huo, Shou, and Hao were vast and fertile, grain and other material production remained extremely limited.
Bianjing transferred over fifty thousand shi of grain from Ying, Song, and other southern prefectures monthly to assist Shouzhou, but Xu Mingzhen could only barely maintain such large forces, and when confronting Tangyi forces, especially in field battles where requirements for armor and weapons were extremely high, Shouzhou Army still felt doubly strained.
Under these circumstances, they could not expect Han Qian to make elementary mistakes. Apart from contracting defensive lines, what other choices could they have?
In comparison, Yang Yuanyan in Huaidong was most relaxed.
This was mainly because after Shouzhou Army’s catastrophic defeat at Wujin Ridge, the western front situation became precarious, causing Han Yuanqi and Chen Kun to become cautious, maintaining only small-scale harassment operations daily. This also caused the military pressure Huaidong bore to greatly decrease, even taking advantage of opportunities to dispatch forces to occupy Shiliang County during Shouzhou Army’s withdrawal from Chuzhou.
The improvement in the situation, along with the court allocating fifty thousand shi of grain monthly from third month onward to provide disaster relief, enabled Huaidong to accelerate the pace of restoring military farming.
Under the promotion of Wang Wenqian, Ruan Yan, and others, Huaidong Army also established in Chu, Tai, Yang, and other places, on the foundation of the original military farming system, a garrison military prefecture system independent from the central authority, organizing nearly ninety thousand military households in total, accounting for almost half of Huaidong’s population.
Compared to Chai Jian’s lack of action when guarding the Five Finger Ridge defense line, after Zheng Hui led the Right Vermilion Bird Army southward, he began planning with Hunan Provincial Secretariat Pacification Commissioner Huang Hua and others to eliminate remnants of the Ma clan rebel army and recover Yong and Chen prefectures.
Apart from the four prefectures of Chen, Si, Ye, and Xu, when the Provincial Secretariat system was formally promoted in Hunan, Ezhou, which traditionally belonged to the Jing-Xiang region, was not included.
However, the Hunan Provincial Secretariat controlled the five prefectures of Shao, Heng, Lang, Yue, and Tan. Over these five or six years, the local military and civil administrative systems had been thoroughly reorganized, with actually registered households reaching four hundred thousand households and two million seven hundred thousand persons. The field taxes, head levies, and various miscellaneous contributions collected even slightly exceeded those from the Jiangdong prefectures.
Currently, Jiangdong (including Liangzhe within), comprising fourteen prefectures in total, with aristocratic clans possessing large numbers of slaves and bondservants, plus fugitive households sheltering in mountain forests, had vast numbers outside prefecture and county control. Currently registered households numbered only over four hundred thousand households, three million persons.
Truthfully, had it not been for the relatively thorough sorting of fields and registered persons in Hunan and E, Huang, Jiang, Chi, and other prefectures after the feudatory reduction campaigns, substantially increasing the annual revenue these regions contributed to the central authority, they might not have been able to sustain the enormous expenditures of the Jianghuai military campaigns these past two years.
By rights, with the northern front unsettled and still needing to allocate funds and grain to help Huaiyang overcome difficulties, the court truly struggled to support another large-scale military campaign. However, among the Miao warriors who had defected and fled south to Yongzhou, internal strife arose with Zhao Sheng and Luo Jia’s rebel forces. Not only Zheng Yu and Zheng Chang, but Hunan Pacification Commissioner Huang Hua and others also advocated quickly resolving these rebel forces and bringing Chen, Yong, and other prefectures back under Great Chu’s territory…