After Li Xiu and Li Chi led their troops across the Chu River, they directly circled around from the western foot of Daci Mountain and rushed to the river mouth where the Wushou River flowed into the Yangtze, waiting there for warships from Xuzhou’s naval camp to come over and then transport them to Shuzhou to rendezvous with the Huaixi Forbidden Army.
After Wei Zhen was bound hand and foot and escorted back to Jinling for prosecution, the over thousand Chuzhou officials and soldiers who had broken out of the enemy encirclement with Li Xiu and Li Chi’s cavalry troops and rushed to the foot of Tingzi Mountain were assembled in crude camps temporarily erected at the southern foot of the large stronghold at the eastern foot of Tingzi Mountain to undergo reorganization.
The Chuzhou City defenders were mainly conscripted from gentry clan soldiers who had rushed to the north bank early on to seize fields and plunder slaves. Their armor and weapons were quite excellent, and they also had an extremely rare thousand-plus warhorses.
The Jianghuai region had no pastures for raising livestock and horses. Apart from small-scale scattered raising among the common people, each year a small quantity of Qiang horses and Dian horses would also be imported via Shu Kingdom or via the Ruan River route through Qianzhong.
In recent years while Han Qian governed Xuzhou, he had continuously purchased from Qianzhong, Nanzhao and other places Dian horses that were small in stature but possessed considerable endurance. By now he had accumulated over ten thousand, but they were mainly used to supplement the draft animal power sorely needed in farming and craftsmen workshops.
As for cavalry, even counting the warhorses captured during the Jinling Incident, Xuzhou’s cavalry camp ultimately only organized over five hundred soldiers, who also concurrently served in the guard battalion protecting Han Qian’s safety.
Besides cavalry maintenance being extremely expensive, Xuzhou having many mountains and rivers unfavorable for cavalry warfare was also a main reason.
During wartime, Han Qian could of course conscript more horses from Xuzhou to serve as warhorses, but because horses as large livestock were extremely difficult to transport, earlier transport capacity still had to be freed up to transport the most critically needed supplies like soldiers and armor and war machines.
Therefore, Tangyi had previously barely scraped together a thousand cavalry. Apart from a portion of cavalry led by Xi Fa’er, Guo Que and others serving as reconnaissance cavalry, and a portion led by Han Donghu remaining behind Han Qian as guard cavalry, there was also a portion of cavalry taken away by Kong Xirong, currently stranded in the Wujian Mountain range together with navy remnants and civilians who had withdrawn from Chuzhou into Wujian Mountain.
In fact, Tangyi forces at this time no longer had a single organized cavalry unit available for assault or flanking harassment operations.
Learning that the Chuzhou City defenders who had withdrawn had over a thousand warhorses, Zhao Wuji, who had just arrived at Tangyi by boat yesterday and planned to reorganize a cavalry camp under his command, urgently rushed over with his men at noon, wanting to monopolize this batch of warhorses.
However, Feng Xuan, as well as Lin Haizheng who had led troops to garrison and establish camp at the Wushou River mouth, and Zhou Chu and Tian Cheng who remained at Puyang main camp and Tangyi, did not agree.
Feng Xuan was responsible for Tingshan main camp. Lin Haizheng, Tian Cheng, and Zhou Chu, hearing the news, also rushed over early under the pretext of discussing matters, requesting to get a share of this batch of warhorses.
Their units, based on a small number of Xuzhou elite infantry camps and incorporating former Left Guangde Army troops and refugee militia, had all rapidly expanded to three to four thousand men in scale over a short time. Apart from regular armor and war machines, they also extremely lacked a batch of warhorses for rapid reconnaissance and assault operations.
Han Qian was not convenient to interfere in such matters, letting them discuss and divide things themselves.
Apart from warhorses, Han Qian simultaneously also required them to distribute the over thousand Chuzhou defender soldiers among the various camps to deal with.
Everyone only thought about wanting warhorses, but regarding the Chuzhou defender soldiers mainly conscripted from gentry clan soldiers, they weren’t very interested and even viewed them as troublesome.
In the early period, Tangyi forces, apart from the naval camp led by Yang Qin and Lin Zongjing who came to reinforce, simultaneously at the fastest speed, based on over three thousand men from Xuzhou elite troops and Chishan Association elite members, expanded to form five capital units of infantry and cavalry.
The early period also mainly benefited from Zhou Dan’s comprehensive cooperation, directly breaking up and incorporating three thousand Jiangzhou troops into the various capital units.
Afterward, Chen Jingzhou led over a thousand Guangde Prefecture troops and three thousand Guangde Prefecture militia based on former Left Guangde Army troops to cross the river, plus recruiting several thousand militia from refugees, enabled Tangyi forces’ five capital units of infantry and cavalry to rapidly expand from nothing to over seventeen thousand troops in an extremely short time.
Whether Xuzhou elite troops, former Left Guangde Army troops, or prefectural troops Zhou Dan brought from Jiangzhou, the quality of soldiers was quite good.
Apart from Jiangzhou troops and refugee militia, seven thousand-plus officers and soldiers could be said to all have extremely deep origins and connections with Xuzhou and Han Qian.
Commanders like Lin Haizheng, Zhou Chu, Feng Xuan, Zhao Wuji, as well as Guo Que, Lin Zongjing, He Liufeng, Xiao Dahu, Dou Rong, Wei Chang enjoyed extremely high prestige among this portion of soldiers and were also quite familiar with grassroots military officers.
There was also the fact that Xuzhou had always placed great emphasis on training grassroots military officers.
Therefore, the reorganization speed of Tangyi forces was extremely fast, and more or less achieved having considerable combat capability immediately upon completing reorganization.
This was also key to being able to directly bring them onto the battlefield for combat in such a short time, catching Shouzhou forces completely off guard.
Of course, hastily incorporating six to seven thousand untrained refugee able-bodied men still had a relatively serious negative impact on the combat capability of the various units.
Last night when Feng Xuan led troops in frontal assault on the main camp at the eastern foot of Tingzi Mountain, casualties were much more severe than the defenders—this was clear proof.
Although many commanders were very clear about Han Qian’s strategic intentions, when actually commanding troops in battle, having to hastily throw too many new recruits into wars of attrition, the various commanders who spent time together with their soldiers day and night more or less found it psychologically difficult to accept.
At this time Han Qian wanted to break up and distribute to the various units those Chuzhou defenders harboring extremely strong resistance—everyone wished they could directly refuse, preferring instead to recruit more untrained refugee militia.
Zhao Wuji refused most decisively. The reorganized cavalry camp would in the future also undertake reconnaissance, protection and various other tasks, with high loyalty requirements for soldiers. They basically could only select from former Left Guangde Army troops and refugees of clear background.
After pushing back and forth, in the end these thousand-plus soldiers were all forcibly assigned to Zhou Chu and Lin Haizheng, who would subsequently undertake the main assault mission on Liyang City.
Liyang City, located at the southern foot of Qingcang Mountain and adjoining Chaohu Lake to the west, although currently had only over two thousand defenders, had high and dangerous city walls, absolutely much harder to crack than this camp at the eastern foot of Tingzi Mountain with protective walls only five to six chi high.
Liyang, positioned between Chuzhou and Chaozhou, had strategic importance not inferior even to Tangyi. When Li Zhigao led troops attacking Chaozhou City, he had also stationed elite troops in Liyang.
However, when withdrawing troops from beneath Chaozhou City, Li Zhigao at that time absolutely hadn’t anticipated Han Qian’s military power developing so rapidly in Tangyi. He had directly abandoned Liyang City, withdrawing all troops to Shuzhou southwest of Chaozhou.
Just one month ago, Han Qian also wasn’t clear when the court’s attitude toward him would soften, and hadn’t dared easily disperse his limited forces. He could only sit and watch as Wen Bo directly divided forces from Chaozhou City to take over Liyang City without losing a single soldier.
Liyang City was less than a hundred li from both Chaozhou City and Chuzhou City. Once they launched an attack on Liyang City, if they couldn’t suddenly capture it, Shouzhou forces reinforcing from other directions would also arrive quickly.
To capture Liyang City, apart from besieging and attacking the city, they also had to consider blocking enemy reinforcements from Chaozhou City and Chuzhou City from two directions.
Because Shouzhou forces garrisoning Chaozhou City and surrounding fortifications numbered as high as over fifty thousand, if they all came to reinforce Liyang, even if Tangyi forces fought to annihilation they couldn’t possibly block the enemy’s military might. At this time it would require Li Zhigao to deploy troops from Shuzhou to pin down Chaozhou defenders.
If possible, it might even require Wang Wenqian and Zhao Zhen to deploy troops from Yangzhou to draw a portion of Shouzhou forces away from Chuzhou.
In short, this operation would be much more complex than the previous two camp seizures, but Han Qian required Feng Liao, Gao Shao and others to formulate a complete battle plan within twenty days, and required all units to simultaneously prepare for troops reaching beneath Liyang City walls.
After all, if they delayed further and Shouzhou forces transported large quantities of combat supplies into Liyang City from the rear, when they wanted to capture Liyang City again, the difficulty would multiply.
However, without controlling Liyang City and Fucha Mountain to the north in their hands, there would also be no way to cut off the connection between Chuzhou City and Chaozhou City from the east.
To ensure the combat mission of frontally assaulting Liyang City, Lin Haizheng and Zhou Chu’s two units would temporarily expand to five thousand troops, while Feng Xuan would expand the camp at the eastern foot of Tingzi Mountain to deceive enemy forces.
…
…
After a full day of military council, near dusk Han Qian finally returned with Xi Ren, Feng Liao, Guo Rong, Han Chengmeng, Chen Zhiyong and others to the south bank main camp to rest.
Although he hadn’t rested properly for over ten consecutive days, each day only able to squeeze out small scattered bits of time to nap and restore energy, even though the battle situation had temporarily come to a pause at this time and they returned to the south bank when it was already dark, Han Qian, accustomed to handling affairs at intense pace, still didn’t feel sleepy.
Han Qian recalled that when Yin Peng left before noon, he said Wang Wenqian had this time sent over a dozen books through him, so he had someone bring those books over.
A thick large stack of books was wrapped in silk cloth. Xi Ren helped unwrap them, and saw that the dozen-plus books were actually an ancient history work recording miscellaneous history from before the Wu-Yue Warring States period called “Records of Yue.”
“Why is Wang Wenqian sending me this set of miscellaneous histories—does he have some intention?” Han Qian felt somewhat baffled. He took a book and pillowed his head on Xi Ren’s lap, casually flipping through it, also treating it as rest.
Xi Ren also idly picked up a rather old book volume to flip through, also not knowing what the intention was.
“Oh…” After a long while, when Xi Ren thought Han Qian had fallen asleep pillowed on her, she heard him emit a sound of realization. Curious, she looked down and asked, “What did you see?”
“These books were entrusted by Wang Jun to Yin Peng to send over. Yin Peng couldn’t conveniently say so directly, which is why he said they were sent to me by Wang Wenqian. I was wondering where Wang Wenqian and I would have the friendship to gift books!” Han Qian said.
“What does Wang Jun mean by sending this set of books?” Xi Ren widened her beautiful eyes, still puzzled as she asked.
Han Qian raised the book in his hand high, pointing to a passage he had just turned to for her to see: “…Now the teaching of naval forces, compared to the methods of land forces, can thus be used. Large wings correspond to heavy chariots of land forces, small wings correspond to light chariots of land forces; assault vessels correspond to ramming chariots of land forces, tower ships correspond to mobile tower chariots of land forces, bridge ships correspond to light swift cavalry of land forces—this passage describes the situation of Wu Kingdom’s navy forming battle arrays during the Spring and Autumn period. At that time, Wu and Yue kingdoms competed for supremacy in the Jianghuai region. The navy was not limited to inland river combat but also contested for control over surrounding sea areas. When Wu Kingdom was strong, during northern expeditions against Qi Kingdom there was once an instance of using a flanking force taking the sea route to raid Qi Kingdom’s coastal fortresses…”
“Wang Jun thinks that with Zhu Yu establishing a major naval camp in Haizhou, he might possibly attack Jianghuai coastal areas via sea routes?” Xi Ren asked in surprise.