Though the Shouzhou Army held absolute numerical superiority and rode the momentum of great victories at Hongze Marsh and Zhongli, receiving large quantities of grain and supplies from Liang to rapidly restore their combat effectiveness and morale, the troops initially assembled by Tangyi forces consisted primarily of former Left Guangde Army remnants and Xuzhou elites. Their combat effectiveness was even stronger, their armor and war equipment more excellent. Fighting along the river in the early stages, they still held strategic advantages. Achieving several small-scale campaign victories in the early period presented no problems whatsoever.
However, as the scale of warfare expanded and time stretched on—particularly when reaching the middle and late stages requiring advancement northward along the Chu River’s northern bank tributaries to achieve the intent of reverse-encircling Chuzhou—they would need to massively incorporate untrained able-bodied men from among the northern bank refugees into the battalions. With armor and war equipment supplies spread thin due to the dramatic expansion in troop numbers, the situation would become bloody and brutal.
The subsequent settlement and organization of refugees had to be done with extreme meticulousness to ensure maintaining high fighting spirit among Tangyi soldiers and troops during brutal warfare.
More brutally and realistically speaking, only by properly settling refugees would their young men have the opportunity to mature into qualified military recruits, becoming the reserve supplementary forces for Tangyi troops.
Currently, the court permitted the Tangyi Command Post to organize twenty thousand regular soldiers. Han Qian planned to recruit two thousand elite troops from Xuzhou and two thousand elites from the Chishan Association, with the rest temporarily recruited from able-bodied men among refugees received into Tangyi—as for the naval remnants still remaining in the Wujian Mountains at this time, Han Qian treated them as non-existent, as they at least didn’t occupy his scarce troop quotas.
The Jiangzhou troops led by Zhou Dan and the Guangde soldiers and militia led by Chen Jingzhou all served as provincial troops and civilian laborers, with annual corvée duty lasting three months. Though combat needs could extend their service period, this would be deducted from future corvée duty. At the latest, once the military situation stabilized, they would return home. Consolation payments and merit rewards would then be petitioned to the court by provincial military offices for bestowing noble ranks and allocating fields and residences from county public lands as rewards.
Moreover, the vast majority of them had families and livelihoods in Jiangzhou and Guangde. Even feeling grateful for Han Qian’s kindness, for most ordinary people it was very difficult to reach the point of abandoning family to face death repaying this gratitude.
To ensure the Chishan Association members’ loyalties didn’t scatter, Han Qian wouldn’t even temporarily seek justice for them from the aristocratic clans that had seized their fields and residences.
As for former Left Guangde Army remnants besides Chishan Association members, Han Qian could only recruit a portion of elites with aspirations for meritorious achievements to enter the battalions as military officers. They would also bring along a group of veteran soldiers to join Tangyi forces, but he couldn’t expect to restore numbers to the Left Guangde Army’s peak strength—even after Chen Jingzhou was eventually transferred from Guangde Prefecture, this would ensure Han Qian’s influence in Guangde wouldn’t be weakened.
Of course, with Zhou Dan and Chen Jingzhou’s assistance, soldiers from mountain stronghold backgrounds would also become one source for recruiting Tangyi military officers and troops, though again the numbers couldn’t be expected to be too large.
Currently, the only source for truly large-scale recruitment remained the over eighty thousand refugees who had evacuated south to Tangyi in time. They had no retreat, no choice. If they and their families wanted to eat their fill and not starve, over twenty thousand able-bodied men would have to risk their lives fighting.
Considering the Shouzhou Army wouldn’t give him the opportunity to leisurely expand his forces, and he had to contest control of the Chu River under the very noses of the Shouzhou Army, the subsequent pace of warfare couldn’t possibly slow down—indeed, it would only become increasingly brutal. In fact, the large quantities of supplies Liang was transporting across the Huai southward into Huo, Shou, Chao, Chu, and Hao required time and process to fully convert into combat effectiveness.
The supplies Liang initially transported consisted primarily of grain, cloth, and silk, mainly alleviating the once extremely severe hunger and cold among Shouzhou’s military and civilian population. However, the Shouzhou Army’s equipment levels in armor and military equipment remained in quite low condition.
When Wen Bo led Chaozhou’s elite forces to attack the northern bank camp, the offensive was extremely fierce the first few days. But by the last two days before withdrawal, the attacks they organized saw soldiers even lacking essential arrows. Casualties naturally unavoidably exceeded Tangyi forces by far.
Han Qian necessarily had to seize and fully utilize this rare opportunity period, not delaying until Tangyi troops were completely trained and mature before launching offensives.
Though brutal, this destined the following to be a series of terrible wars of attrition.
Wars of attrition favored Tangyi forces overall. After all, Tangyi’s early attrition warfare meant using new recruits to wear down Shouzhou Army’s elite veterans—if this series of destined battles were delayed over half a year, allowing Liang’s massive supply inputs to enable Shouzhou forces to forge large quantities of armor, military equipment, and war chariots while raising their troops even more robust, Tangyi forces’ advantages would cease to exist.
The following warfare had to be fought—and fought like beating urgent drums. But with only twenty thousand-plus able-bodied men among northern bank refugees, this was far from sufficient for attrition.
Han Qian still needed more ample military recruitment sources to supplement Tangyi forces’ insufficiency.
The conditions he now offered were either for the Privy Council to allocate fourteen thousand-plus military households from the currently scarce garrison military offices throughout the land as recruitment sources specifically for Tangyi forces’ conscription, or permit him to recruit another fourteen thousand-plus households of servants and refugees from various regions to reclaim wasteland for cultivation on the northern bank…
He currently had no spokesman in court and didn’t want to bind himself too deeply with Lu Qingxia’s faction, so he needed Han Daoming to fight for various favorable conditions for Tangyi forces in court.
Naturally, the Han family exerting full effort to fund construction of distant embankments and reclamation of new fields on the northern bank could also be viewed as a condition he could discuss with other court ministers.
For Han clan members within five degrees of mourning kinship who had the courage to relocate north with their entire families, they could serve as officials or establish livelihoods in Tangyi, Puyang, Tingshan, Liyang, and Wushou. Those wishing to continue remaining in Xuan and She prefectures, after separating from the clan, would only be given grain fields.
All the Han family’s fields and residences in Xuan and She prefectures had to be converted into money and grain to bring out, fully supporting the northern bank’s warfare. The Han family’s current thousand-plus servant households also had to be the first batch relocated to the northern bank.
This process had to be fast. The more fierce the early offensives Tangyi forces organized, the more obvious their advantages. Once the Shouzhou Army recovered their strength and had sufficient supplies to construct fortifications on a large scale along the northern bank tributaries of the Chu River, Tangyi forces’ military edge would be contained.
The speed of converting fields and residences might not be fast enough—they could well mortgage them to borrow money and grain from wealthy households, particularly aristocratic clans with offspring detained at Tangyi who should be relatively easy targets to persuade.
Even laying cards on the table with the court—the Han clan guarding the northern gate for the imperial capital, staking everything on Tangyi with their entire fortune—some methods being somewhat aggressive had not a trace worth criticizing.
Han Qian had other officers and officials temporarily withdraw, leaving only Feng Liao and a few others in the command tent. He patiently explained his thoughts on subsequent warfare from these days one by one to Han Daoming and Han Daochang, finally saying, “To achieve this step requires nothing less than the Han family’s full support. Otherwise, I may find attacking Liyang extremely difficult. At that point, I might consider constructing Wushou city at the southwestern foot of Daci Mountain to maintain a confrontational posture as sufficient, and won’t rashly advance further!”
Han Daoming pondered for a long while before raising his head, his pupils fixing on Han Qian as he said, “I have only one requirement: Chengmeng and Zhiyong must remain at Tangyi as officials.”
“Tangyi’s military lacks two staff officers. Second Brother-in-law is idle in the capital and can directly remain to take office without any hindrance. As for Elder Brother’s side, only a single letter to Administrator Huang is needed to settle this matter.”
Han Qian didn’t mind Han Chengmeng and Chen Zhiyong remaining at Tangyi as the Han family’s representatives. Without hesitation, he nodded in agreement.
Chen Zhiyong’s temperament was somewhat lazy, disliking officialdom and fond of poetry and verse. He matched well with Feng Yi. If willing to stay at Tangyi, he could be given a prestigious but leisurely assignment. As for Han Chengmeng, among brothers of his generation he ranked eldest at nearly forty years old, proficient in administrative affairs. During the Sizhou civil unrest, he had even intentionally passed information to them secretly. If he remained at Tangyi, Han Qian could even rely on him as right-hand support—he certainly wouldn’t refuse.
Speaking to this point, Han Qian glanced again at Han Duan and said:
“If Fourth Brother wishes to come to Tangyi, he may select any one of the five county magistracies. Even if remaining in the capital, he should deeply engage in administrative affairs within the ministerial offices as primary—in the future there will be great use for him…”
Han Duan stood to one side. Though his grand-uncle Han Daoming hadn’t mentioned his name, Han Qian naturally knew this was from fear he still harbored resentment toward Han Duan. However, with various people proposing to castrate Han Jun and fabricate evidence he’d been impotent since childhood to eliminate hidden dangers, Han Qian needed someone to attract Han Jun’s hatred.
Han Qian still needed someone who could help him keep watch over Han Jun, preventing Han Jun from harboring resentment and working mischief in the shadows, or being bought over by interested parties.
Han Duan was obviously the suitable candidate.
Once his grand-uncle Han Daoming made the decision, Han Duan had thought he would be pushed aside because of past events, with Han Chengmeng, Han Jianji, Qiao Weiyan, Chen Zhiyong, and others representing the Han clan stepping to the forefront instead. Just as his spirits were dejected, he never expected Han Qian would actually grant him a county magistracy position or cultivate him within the Six Ministries’ offices.
Of course, these past days observing the battle from the southern bank had left Han Duan terrified with alarm.
He didn’t know how many rounds of fighting it would take before Tangyi forces could possibly establish a firm foothold on both banks of the Chu River.
He had no expectation of serving as county magistrate of Tangyi, the northern bank’s most important city. He lacked either the courage or capability to organize military and civilians to construct new cities at Puyang, Wushou, or Tingshan, much less participate in the subsequent campaign to attack and seize Liyang.
For him, the most suitable path was naturally remaining to develop within the Six Ministries’ offices.
Han Duan carefully expressed his willingness to remain at Jinling to provide support.
“Second Uncle, what do you think?” Han Qian looked toward Han Daochang and asked.
Seeing Han Qian bore no grudge over past events, Han Daochang naturally felt invigorated. But considering Han Duan’s development, he also felt he should remain in the Six Ministries’ offices.
On one hand, Han Qian’s command already had elite troops and capable generals in abundance—serving as a general outside, Han Duan couldn’t amount to much. On the other hand, with Han Jun about to be “abolished” and the eldest approaching sixty, the court needed to cultivate a successor within court halls—naturally keeping Han Duan in the Six Ministries’ offices was best.
Only thus could the Han family maintain a stable pattern of “inner minister, outer general” in Great Chu for the long term.
Han Daochang then suggested that after Han Jun returned to Jinling he should directly claim illness and recuperate at home. Publicly they would claim that with Han Qian wielding military authority on the northern bank, the Han family deliberately made these arrangements to avoid suspicion. Afterward, they would further have Han Jun resign from his position as Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guards. In reality, Han Jun could use this opportunity to nurture hidden injuries.
“I’ll return directly to Jinling today. You go to Tangyi to see Jun’er and arrange all matters!” Han Daoming suddenly seemed to age several years, saying bleakly…