Though the families of Wang Yan, Wang Zhe, Wang Tang, Huo Li, Huo Xiao and others had successively moved to Luoyang, after Lu Qingxia’s failed palace coup last year and Prince Xin Yang Yuanyan was forced by circumstances to reduce his feudal holdings, even more Wang clan members had sold their property and gradually left Yangzhou, coming to settle in Liyang.
When Wang Wenqian and Yin Peng arrived in Liyang with their families and servants, they did not feel like strangers in an unfamiliar place.
Wang Jun had also written ahead to Liyang officials, having her father Wang Wenqian move directly into Lian Garden, which was now vacant, and had the Liyang officials deliver a letter to her father.
Wang Jun knew clearly in her heart her father’s wish to establish an academy after retirement. In the letter she mentioned that Lian Garden occupied considerable grounds with complete pavilions, terraces and buildings, all well-maintained and available for his use. But she also mentioned that Han Qian would promote New Learning more vigorously in the future. If Lian Garden was to operate a traditional-style academy, she could provide no further support in the future. She also mentioned that she hoped the half-brother born to Lady Xu could first study New Learning in Liyang.
Besides the letter, Wang Jun had also entrusted Liyang officials to deliver over a hundred volumes of books compiled since the promotion of New Learning in Xuzhou and Huaixi into Lian Garden.
These New Learning books did not yet involve Great Liang’s most confidential manufacturing techniques, but currently only a very small portion of them were publicly sold—despite Wang Wenqian’s every effort previously, he could only access some basic parts. Only teachers and students in Liyang and Luoyang academies could progressively access them all.
With this collection of New Learning books, Wang Wenqian temporarily set aside his thoughts of establishing an academy, spending each day with Yin Peng studying New Learning.
Though Wang Wenqian and Yin Peng had no official status after crossing the river, Zhao Wuji still sent over a secret transcript every few days that only mid-to-high level officials were qualified to review, so they could keep abreast of the latest progress in the Jinling peace negotiations.
Though Liang and Chu had too many disagreements and conflicts, as long as they could recognize reality and were willing to sit down and negotiate toward a common goal, disagreements were easily resolved.
The principal and interest on loans from Chuzhou forces and the Right Dragon Martial Army to the Xuzhou Official Treasury, including penalty interest, totaled over two million strings. The debt would be fully assumed by the Chu central court, but the interest rate would be reduced from twenty percent annually to ten percent, with principal and interest repaid in installments over ten years.
The Tangyi navy would withdraw from waters south of Aoshan Island. From the eastern boundary of Lujiang County to the western boundary of Tangyi County, Liang and Chu would divide rule at the river, with official and civilian vessels not crossing the center line. Liang would compensate for two hundred large and small warships sunk and burned in the Aoshan Island naval battle.
The Chu court would disband the Pacification Army and recall Zhou Bingwu to Jinling. Chu forces stationed in Jing and Xiang would be limited mainly to the two imperial guard units of the Right Martial Guard Army and Right Wuxiang Army, deployed on both banks of the Han River. The auxiliary provincial forces of Jing, Fu, Huang, Sui, Xiang, and Shu prefectures combined could not exceed fifteen thousand men.
The nearly fifty thousand provincial troops previously mobilized from Hunan, Jiangxi and other places would all be returned to their home regions.
Except for Chuzhou, Chu court naval forces must be controlled by the central court. Imperial guard and provincial forces could no longer privately establish naval camps. The total transport capacity of Chu naval warships could not exceed one hundred thousand shi.
Correspondingly, Liang naval warships stationed along the Yangtze River banks at Donghu, Liyang and other locations (including Chaohu) could not exceed fifty thousand shi in total transport capacity.
Merchant ships officially belonging to the Chishan Assembly under Liang authority must be significantly reduced before year’s end to below fifty thousand shi total transport capacity. Excess capacity must be divided within six months into twelve or more mutually independent private shipping companies to be permitted to undertake specific waterway commercial cargo transport between Chu and Liang.
Liang forces in Deng, Jun, Jin and Guangzhou—that is, in regions adjacent to Xiang, Fan and Suiyang—could not exceed twenty thousand total troops. In the Southern Inner History Prefecture (Chaozhou, Chuzhou) territory, including naval forces, total garrison size could not exceed thirty thousand. Forces stationed in Xuzhou could not exceed five thousand.
In Huaixi and the prefectures of Deng, Jun, Liang and Jin, new land boundaries would be determined based on currently controlled territories. The Chu court would recognize Great Liang’s current sovereignty over Xuzhou and agree that the peripheral jimi prefectures nominally subordinate to the Chu court, such as Chen and Si, could maintain existing trade relations with Xuzhou without Chu court restrictions.
Simultaneously, the Chu court would allow regular waterway passage every two months between Donghu and Xuzhou and Xichuan, with transport capacity in principle not exceeding twenty thousand shi for commercial goods and personnel. However, within Chu territory, this would require full supervision by central naval warships throughout the journey.
Trade between Liang and Chu could not be completely unrestricted, but the Chu court agreed to mutual markets and to establishing trading points in regulated prefectures along the Yangtze, Han, Gan, Xiang rivers and Taihu Lake shores.
Correspondingly, Liang also agreed to open border trade at Donghu, Tangyi, Chaozhou, Chuzhou, Shouzhou, Huozhou and other places, allowing Chu commercial goods to enter.
Both sides would mutually exempt customs transit taxes and maritime trade taxes.
The Chu court agreed that Shu merchant ships from Yuzhou and other places could conduct border trade with Liang’s Southern Inner History Prefecture via the Yangtze waterway.
Liang would submit to the Chu court as a vassal, paying annual tribute of one million strings, and publicly releasing over sixty of the latest manufacturing techniques to the Directorate of Imperial Manufactories and Imperial Medical Bureau, including shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, brewing, crossbow manufacture and others. It would allow the Chu National Academy to send forty people annually to study New Learning at Luoyang Academy, and permit the Chu court to station envoys in Luoyang and the Southern Inner History Prefecture. Both sides would jointly declare war on the Meng army and Eastern Liang Army…
Han Daoming, whom Liang had appointed Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial in this crisis, rushed to formally sign the suzerain-vassal alliance treaty with Chu’s Minister of Revenue and Vice Chief Minister Zheng Yu on the eve of the Earth Official Festival on July 15th.
Besides formally recognizing Huaixi and the prefectures of Deng, Jun, Liang and Xu as incorporated into Liang, this suzerain-vassal alliance treaty also gave the court sufficient face. On the same day as the Liang-Chu alliance, the new emperor issued a decree concluding the trials of the Jinling treason case and palace coup treason case.
Empress Dowager Xu of Anning Palace was prosecuted as the principal criminal in the Jinling treason and murder of loyal subjects, and granted silk for self-strangulation. “Duke of Chu” Yang Fen, Zhang Xinchun, Chen De and sixteen others were all prosecuted as accomplices—some granted poisoned wine, some dragged to execution grounds for beheading. Empress Dowager Wang Chan’er and Prince Xiang Yang Lin were prosecuted as bewitched by demonic words, imprisoned at Yunlin Temple beside the imperial mausoleum to practice Daoism in atonement…
Yang Zhitang not only failed to prevent peace negotiations again, but could only watch helplessly as the new emperor issued a decree stripping Zhou Dun and others of their command positions, investigating their crime of losing military forces. Imperial Guard Vice Commander Zheng Xuanxi and others received orders to ascend Aoshan Island to incorporate the remnant forces, using them to establish a new Five-Tusk Army naval force directly subordinate to the Imperial Guard Command.
After the Chongwen Hall court deliberation, numerous Vice Censors and Investigating Censors of the Censorate took turns submitting memorials impeaching Prince Shou Yang Zhitang for disregarding his lord and father’s enmity and secretly colluding with barbarians. Yang Zhitang was also forced to submit a memorial begging forgiveness, claiming illness and requesting to resign.
Also on the same day as concluding the Liang-Chu suzerain-vassal alliance, the new emperor agreed to Yang Zhitang’s resignation from the Privy Council to recuperate at home, simultaneously appointing Minister of War and Jing-Xiang Pacification Commissioner Zhou Bingwu to return to court as Chief Military Commissioner.
Han Daoming, Feng Yi, and Wen Ruilin delayed until early August. Only after the suzerain-vassal alliance document formally sealed with Great Liang’s lord’s seal arrived in Jinling did they carry the suzerain-vassal alliance document sealed with the Great Chu emperor’s seal to be stored by Liang, crossing the river to Donghu.
The day before them, Tian Cheng and Wei Xu led generals and soldiers demobilized from Xuzhou plus a group of mid-to-high level craftsmen—over four thousand people total—arriving at Donghu.
At this time, Xuzhou’s importance was still undeniable, but not as critical as before.
To further reduce the Chu court’s vigilance, besides reducing garrison forces and gradually transferring Xuzhou’s precision casting and heavy war equipment and warship production to Donghu and even Luoyang, Han Qian finally appointed Qiao Weiyan as Xuzhou Administrator. Other generals and officials were also mainly personnel whose reputations were not very prominent but sufficiently reliable, including Han Dong, the stepson of Han Laoshan, Tan Qiu, the eldest son of Tan Yulin, and Pei Xiu, a medical apprentice Zhao Zhixian had taken in his early years in Xuzhou.
Such an arrangement of generals and officials in Xuzhou would definitely make surrounding jimi prefectures and Chu prefectures feel much more at ease than having Tian Cheng or a general of equivalent rank stationed there.
Tian Cheng would remain in Donghu, replacing Zhao Wuji as Administrator of the Southern Inner History Prefecture.
According to the suzerain-vassal alliance, besides Lin Zongjing, Wei Xu, Zhao Qi, Chen Mu and other generals subsequently leading two naval brigades and two infantry battalions to garrison the Southern Inner History Prefecture, they would also organize three reserve brigades. The three reserve brigades would normally maintain only military officer organizational frameworks of three hundred to five hundred men. Approximately twenty thousand troops would transfer from active duty to reserve status, keeping Southern Inner History Prefecture garrisons at around twenty thousand, seemingly maintaining no military threat toward Jinling and Yang-Chu regions.
Zhao Wuji led Feng Zhang and He Liufeng’s units north, meeting with Li Xiu, Cao Ba, and Zhao Ci’s three cavalry brigades advancing north simultaneously, garrisoning Xuzhou. The new Xuzhou Field Army was established, with Zhao Wuji appointed Field Army Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander, Li Xiu appointed Deputy Supreme Commander and Deputy Commander, responsible for the war zone defense line stretching nearly six hundred li along the western bank of the Ying River’s middle and upper reaches through Chen, Xu and southern Yingzhou.
In mid-August, the Chu court also formally disbanded the Pacification Army. Provincial troops crossed the river to begin their journey home to their prefectures. Minister of War and Pacification Commissioner Zhou Bingwu returned to Jinling to assume the post of Chief Military Commissioner, signifying that Liang-Chu peace negotiations had substantively reached fruition.
At this time, hundreds of merchant ships resumed traveling along the Yangtze River banks. Cotton cloth, iron goods, lamps and candles, paper, coal and other commercial goods that had accumulated for half a year flooded from production areas like a great river through opened gates toward border markets in major prefectures and counties along the river.
Han Daoming, Feng Yi, and Yin Peng—whom Han Qian had issued a decree recruiting as an official of the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau—carrying their families, only then began their journey to Luoyang.
June and July were also the season of abundant rainfall in the Songnan region, but continuous road construction had never stopped.
Fifty years ago, Han Daoming had traveled to study in the current imperial capital Chang’an. At that time, young and spirited, enthusiastically wanting to tour the mountain and river scenery, he forsook the water route for mountain paths, bringing attendants over mountains and ridges from Mount Song to Luoyang. He had extremely deep impressions of the rugged roads between Songyang and Ruyang, thinking that this journey north, even traveling by horse at his advanced age, would require suffering considerably to reach Luoyang quickly.
After crossing the Huai River, the Ying River flooded. With no other waterways directly reaching Ruzhou territory, they needed to switch to overland post roads.
Locals prepared several wide-bodied carriages for everyone and women and children to ride. Yin Peng, Lu Ze and others, with strong physiques, still preferred to ride horses with their attendants.
Han Daoming had thought that after reaching Ruzhou City, women and children would all need to ride horses. But unexpectedly, upon entering Ruyang County territory, he saw post roads over three zhang wide cutting across mountain ridges, sufficient for two heavily loaded horse carriages to pass each other.
The wide-bodied carriages manufactured in Donghu essentially connected two traditional two-wheel carriage frames with movable vertical axles, then placed the carriage body atop the vertical axles, maximally solving the turning difficulty problem of traditional four-wheel carriages.
This principle was explained in the New Learning books Wang Jun had sent to Lian Garden, and currently in Great Liang could no longer be considered top secret. But actually trying out this new-style carriage, Yin Peng felt that even when the carriage moved quickly, vibrations were much less than traditional carriages. Yin Peng had initially chosen to ride horses largely because he disliked the violent shaking and jolting of traditional carriages during rapid travel.
Hearing Lu Ze’s explanation, he learned that carriages newly manufactured in Donghu had spring plates added between the carriage body and vertical axles—a shock-absorbing structure using multiple thin steel plates fastened together—maximally reducing vibration. Not only was passenger riding comfortable, but the carriage body also minimally wore down.
“Don’t think that the over sixty new technologies we publicly released to the Chu court this time represent a considerable number. The carriage Lord Yin is riding in incorporates more than sixty new technologies,” Lu Ze said. Though in recent years he had been responsible for guard work at the Han manor on the surface, secretly he was also responsible for part of the Secret Service’s affairs in Jinling. Many details that Han Daoming and Feng Yi did not fully understand, he knew crystal clear. Smiling, he explained to Yin Peng: “Our lord has always wanted to use refined iron to cast long-range war crossbows, but for several years made no progress. The Engineering Academy deliberated on new carriage manufacturing techniques, trying twenty or thirty methods to reduce carriage vibration. But limited by smelting and casting levels, none were sufficiently ideal. Finally someone thought of tightly fastening multiple layers of curved thin steel sheets together to make spring plate shock absorbers—the effect was satisfactory. When the Engineering Academy applied for commendation for this craftsman, our lord saw the spring plate structure and said this method could be used for crossbow manufacture. The Engineering Academy deliberated for over a year. Only last year could they mass-produce Divine Machine Giant Crossbows with four-hundred-pace range. Unfortunately, the quantity of Divine Machine Giant Crossbows produced so far is still too small. Previously they mainly equipped main warships and were not used in the early year’s Heluo warfare. Otherwise casualties would never have been so severe…”
In the Battle of Aoshan Island, many people with good eyesight standing on the shore could vaguely see the entire process clearly. At that time, Yin Peng and Wang Wenqian had also observed the battle from the river bank.
At bottom, besides the Aoshan Island naval camp having huge structural defects, another point was that the commanding general Zhou Dun had withdrawn all warships into the naval base before battle began, never imagining that Tangyi naval war equipment range far exceeded their imagination.
Of course, Yin Peng had been too far away at the time, only able to generally confirm that Tangyi naval war equipment had longer range, but had no accurate concept of specifically how much longer.
Hearing Lu Ze mention this now, Yin Peng was greatly shocked.
After the mid-period of the previous dynasty, feudal military governors proliferated, occupying territories in endless warfare. In the past fifty years especially, warfare in He-Huai, Jiang-Huai, Yong-Shu-Heluo as well as Hedong and Heshuo had been intense and frequent.
While military men dominated, various powers placed extreme importance on weapons and equipment casting.
Yang En could be called a master in this area, having been demoted by Emperor Tianyou to serve as historian in the Right Workshop of the Directorate of Imperial Manufactories for many years. But the elite bed crossbows Chu forces manufactured had an effective range of only two hundred paces, at most reaching two hundred fifty paces with weakened force unable to penetrate thin plates. The Divine Machine Giant Crossbows manufactured in Huaixi could reach four hundred paces range—placed on city walls, they could almost precisely shoot enemy siege trebuchet positions.
Of course, Yin Peng did not doubt what Lu Ze said.
First, the Aoshan Island naval battle had already proven that Great Liang mastered higher-level energy-storing material casting techniques. Second, he and Wang Wenqian over the years had also hired craftsmen to trial-manufacture refined steel bows with iron cores in Chuzhou. Through traditional tempering and quenching treatment, it was truly too difficult to control the overall strength and toughness of refined steel crossbow limbs just right. As a result, manufacturing one usable bow with iron core not only could not exceed traditional hardwood strong bows in performance, but cost far exceeded hardwood bows.
He also knew Han Qian had tried very early to manufacture bows and crossbows with iron cores, with some finished products equipping the army. But in range and penetration power, they were not necessarily superior to traditional bows and crossbows. He never imagined that Great Liang had actually used spring plate structures—fastening multiple layers of relatively easily tempered elastic long steel sheets—to nearly double the range of traditional heavy bed crossbows.
Yin Peng had been recruited as an official of the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau. Moreover, he was a veteran general who had long achieved success. These military matters of ordinary secrecy level naturally need not be concealed from him.
Furthermore, Lu Ze merely explained the principle. From knowing the principle to mass-producing actual items required these ten-plus years of continuous accumulation in New Learning craftsmanship, which could not otherwise be achieved.
However, the cost of these new spring-limb giant crossbows was still too high, currently not yet suitable for ordinary single-person bow and crossbow manufacture. But like the trebuchet, in the cold weapon era, four-hundred-pace range spring-limb giant crossbows could be called heavy war equipment.
Even with high costs and great waste of iron materials in the manufacturing process, they were worth mass production.
Han Qian currently ordered the two weapons and equipment workshops at Donghu and Huaiyang to manufacture new crossbow equipment at full capacity, but could only produce several dozen annually.
Currently the best news was that when these spring-limb giant crossbows became mass-producible last year, Han Qian decided to prioritize equipping naval forces. Now that Liang-Chu peace talks succeeded, not only would subsequently produced spring-limb giant crossbows prioritize equipping northern front main infantry brigades, but when Zhao Wuji led He Liufeng and Feng Zhang’s forces north, they directly dismantled and hauled away thirty of the fifty spring-limb scorpion crossbows and spring-limb bed crossbows the Tangyi navy currently had from the warships.
The New Learning books formally named the counterweight trebuchet as the trebuchet. Though it could hurl stone projectiles and oil jars four to five hundred paces, the trebuchet’s structure was enormous and cumbersome, unable to be used in field contact warfare or rapid siege operations.
Previously, though Tangyi had strived to modularize trebuchet manufacturing components for more convenient transport, installation and disassembly, enabling broader battlefield application—this was also the focus of imitation by various powers in recent years—there was still no way to completely overcome its cumbersome nature, immobility once deployed on battlefields, and vulnerability to destruction by enemy assault forces.
Yin Peng could not imagine that this winter, in the frozen ice and snow on the Ying River’s eastern bank, when the Eastern Liang Army encountered Great Liang’s main combat brigades with formations equipped with spring-limb scorpion crossbows and spring-limb bed crossbows that could be rapidly moved when towed by light war wagons, how bitter their hearts would be.
Entering the mountain region where the southern foothills of Mount Song intersected with the northern foothills of the Funiu Mountains, seeing iron-beam bridges newly erected along the way, then hearing Han Daoming recall the difficulty of traveling this road during his youthful journey north to study, Yin Peng could more profoundly appreciate the deep meaning of what Wang Wenqian said about conquering Guanzhong and the realm being unified under Great Liang.
It was not that Great Liang at this time lacked the foundation to unify the realm. Rather, without taking Guanzhong, Heluo’s situation was too awkward, causing limited forces to be dispersed in too many directions, with almost every direction in a passive defensive posture.
Only by seizing Guanzhong could there be broader strategic depth, allowing limited elite forces to concentrate on attacking and seizing territory in two or three limited directions.
Early this year, Han Qian’s defense of the Yi-Luo River mouth regardless of casualties was mainly because Heluo had no strategic depth to spare. If Hulaoguan and Gong County fell and they retreated to Yanshi and Luoyang, besides allowing enemy forces to gain a foothold at the Yi-Luo River, more importantly Heluo’s agricultural production would suffer devastating blows.
Currently, never mind the seven to eight hundred thousand common people in the Heluo region—just the Heluo garrison, generals, officials and their families numbering over a hundred thousand required over a million shi of grain annually. If all this needed to be transported from the southern front via extremely high-cost overland post roads, it could very possibly destroy Great Liang’s currently precarious financial balance.
Though currently military expenditure overdrafts were severe, when Han Daoming and Yin Peng entered Yichuan County, seeing crops in fields along both Yi River banks slightly yellowing, about to enter harvest season in ten days to half a month, their hearts eased considerably.
Now the significance of defending the Yi-Luo River mouth early this year could be better appreciated.
Not only did agricultural production in the over eight to nine million mu south of Mengjin and Yanshi not cease, but after autumn grain harvest, it could provide approximately over ten million shi of grain to the Heluo region over the next year (Heluo agricultural planting was mainly single-season harvest, with high per capita land occupation but lower household grain production than the south). After implementing new systems, vastly reducing local powers like clan magnates and large and medium landlords monopolizing massive resources in between, the central authority could directly requisition over two million shi of grain from the Heluo region through taxation and state purchasing, basically satisfying grain supply for Heluo garrison forces and Luoyang city residents.
Additionally, keeping enemies outside the Yi-Luo River mouth allowed nearly one million mu of soldier family allotment fields to be completed before May. Combined with two defensive battle victories, Heluo military morale had stabilized.
More remarkably, a batch of new mines and workshops were built on both Yi-Luo River banks. Luoyang’s industrial and mining production had currently largely recovered to pre-Heshuo crisis levels. Subsequent more refined development to comprehensively elevate Luoyang’s industrial and mining production to levels on par with Donghu and Xuzhou would still require two to three years.
Great Liang’s First Savings Bureau, having tied its fate together with Han Qian and Great Liang, the more severe the current overdrafts, only represented everyone being bound more deeply together.
Even without aspiring to unify the realm, as long as Han Qian could stabilize the current situation, Great Liang First Savings Bureau’s overdrafts could quickly be compensated, ensuring everyone’s interests remained undamaged.
Currently most critical was that internal grain, coal, iron and other material production could not be interrupted.
As long as internal material production supply was sufficient, even if the method of borrowing money from Great Liang First Savings Bureau to expand military supply purchases became ineffective due to severe overdrafts exhausting the First Savings Bureau’s deposits and capital, with one state decree from Han Qian, given his current power and prestige, having the Official Treasury manufacture currency in cheaper ways, and comprehensively increasing levies on commerce, industry and agricultural production within the territory, implementing stricter and more comprehensive monopoly sales systems to ensure Great Liang’s resources comprehensively tilted toward the military—this was not particularly difficult.