Although they were recruiting craftsmen from Mi and Xu provinces to build shipyards and naval camps in Haizhou, the Eastern Front Liang forces’ raids on the southern bank of the Huai River were still primarily launched from Sizhou City north of Chuzhou.
Even the naval forces at this stage first assembled in Sizhou before launching attacks on the southern bank. Xuzhou Regional Commander Han Yuanqi had also established his headquarters in Sizhou.
In mid-June, when Wang Wenqian and Yin Peng went to Chuzhou to meet Prince Xin Yang Yuanyan, Wen Ruilin also received orders from Xu Mingzhen to rush to Sizhou to meet Han Yuanqi and discuss the strategic gains and losses of the eastern and western defensive lines.
Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang had returned to Biangjing two months ago. Before leaving, he required that both Xuzhou Regional Command and Shouzhou Regional Command not rush for quick results, but prioritize consolidating their own positions and defensive lines, accumulating small victories into great ones, continuously striking and weakening the Chu forces rather than seeking miraculous great victories.
Of course, Emperor Zhu still gave Xu Mingzhen the greatest autonomy—even when edicts were transmitted to Shouzhou, they mostly contained broad words of commendation. But the instructions given to Han Yuanqi were much more detailed and trivial.
On the day Wen Ruilin arrived in Sizhou City to meet Han Yuanqi, an imperial edict happened to arrive.
Han Yuanqi knew that His Majesty viewed Wen Ruilin as a trusted direct subordinate, which was why he had been assigned to serve beside Xu Mingzhen, so he directly showed Wen Ruilin the newly arrived edict.
This edict was a response to Han Yuanqi’s memorial from early in the month reporting on seagoing vessel construction. Wen Ruilin saw that the edict rambled on for two to three thousand words, with several circled revisions, as if His Majesty were chatting casually with Han Yuanqi. Many matters were explained in tireless detail—a completely different style from the concisely worded edicts sent to Shouzhou Regional Command.
But Wen Ruilin could understand the difference.
It was true that Xu Mingzhen had led Shouzhou’s army to join Great Liang, but the Shouzhou officers and officials inevitably harbored great wariness and worry that would be difficult to eliminate in the short term.
Under such circumstances, His Majesty couldn’t interfere too much with Shouzhou affairs. But having known Han Yuanqi as sovereign and subject for nearly twenty years, the edict written so casually and verbosely, explaining many matters in tireless detail, would only make Han Yuanqi feel close to His Majesty without having other thoughts.
Reading the edict carefully, Wen Ruilin saw it mainly discussed strategies for circuitous attacks on the Jianghuai coastal areas.
Zhu Yu told Han Yuanqi not to hope that preliminary covert operations could truly deceive the Chu court, not to pin hopes for coastal raid operations on surprise attacks. He should first conduct close-range raids on the coastal salt fields near Huai estuary held by Chu forces, train the navy and accumulate experience in coastal warfare, maintaining consistency with the strategy of naval raids on the southern bank of the Huai River, getting accustomed to dispersed operations and small-scale guerrilla warfare…
Seeing Wen Ruilin respectfully return the edict, Han Yuanqi said to him, “A portion of Tangyi forces uses Wujian Mountain as a passage to raid and plunder northern Chaozhou, Haozhou and other areas. The memorial you wrote described the Tangyi forces’ combat methods in great detail—His Majesty also said it was excellent and specially had it copied for me to see. It was very inspiring for my military operations against Chuzhou from Sizhou. Do Xu Mingzhen and Wen Bo have any good countermeasures regarding this point?”
Receiving praise from someone of Han Yuanqi’s stature excited Wen Ruilin. Moreover, His Majesty directly copying his memorial for Han Yuanqi was also His Majesty’s direct affirmation of him.
Wen Ruilin suppressed his excitement and described in detail Shouzhou Army’s situation confronting Tangyi forces in Chuzhou and Chaozhou: “Just as we built fortifications along the upper reaches of Puyang River on the southern side of Mopan Valley to suppress Tangyi Army’s offensive edge, regarding this portion of Tangyi forces led by enemy general Kong Xirong in Wujian Mountain, we mainly select relatively accessible mountain passes and valleys to build defensive fortifications and camps, limiting their activities. But doing so is extremely costly. Wen Bo currently advocates combining this with military farming, weaving a blockade network with continuous garrison settlements. Shouzhou has long experienced warfare with agriculture abandoned—even with Biangjing’s support for provisions, supplies are extremely tight. Wen Bo’s advocacy is a prudent method, but regrettably, in several previous battles, we haven’t been able to deal heavy blows to Tangyi forces.”
Though receiving praise from His Majesty and Han Yuanqi excited him, Wen Ruilin had to admit they had no effective way to break the stalemate on the Western Front confronting Tangyi forces.
“Wen Bo’s command is meticulous and prudent, learned from his father Wen Muqiao, and he deeply understands practical statecraft. His Majesty values Wen Bo highly. As for the several battles at Chuhe and Fucha Mountain not achieving merit—that’s no fault of the warfare itself, the responsibility doesn’t lie with Wen Bo. That Tangyi forces, newly organized, possess such combat strength is truly astonishing. If not for Wen Bo leading his direct forces with daring and fighting spirit, Chuzhou City might not have held.” Han Yuanqi had been the commanding general at the Battle of Xichuan and was the first to suffer major losses at Han Qian’s hands. Precisely because he initially suffered at Han Qian’s hands, through years of painful reflection, he now possessed the most distinguished bearing among Great Liang’s younger generation of commanders. He could naturally view the gains and losses of Shouzhou Army’s several battles with Tangyi forces with equanimity, while also reminding Wen Ruilin that Wen Bo and Xu Mingzhen were viewed somewhat differently in His Majesty’s eyes.
Wen Ruilin thought this was true—in those several battles, neither Zhao Mingting nor Wen Bo made any obvious mistakes, and their direct elite forces fought with daring and determination. But the newly organized Tangyi forces possessed unexpectedly strong combat capabilities beyond everyone’s expectations, resulting in not only Han Qian controlling the Chuhe, but also seizing Liyang and other areas.
Tangyi forces controlled Chao Lake’s only waterway to the Yangtze, controlled the heights on Chao Lake’s eastern shore, causing Left Tower Ship Army’s warships to be suppressed in the waterways on Chao Lake’s northern bank, losing control of Chao Lake—much less entering the Yangtze waterway.
Wen Ruilin went on to discuss recent developments in Han Qian’s administration of Tangyi.
Currently, Xuzhou had surplus money and grain, mainly fully devoted to crafting new armor, weapons, and warships to send to Tangyi. The money and grain Tangyi could directly obtain, besides the forty thousand shi of grain the Chu court’s central government allocated monthly, came from the Han family selling fields and estates—they could additionally raise another forty to fifty thousand strings of cash monthly to hand to Han Qian for his use.
This was information not difficult for Wen Ruilin to collect while in Chuzhou.
However, this money and grain currently, besides being enough for Han Qian to continue strengthening garrisons at Puyang, Tingshan, Wushou, Shiquan, Donghu and other places, was only enough to maintain his army.
The military pay soldiers received wasn’t sufficient to support their families—Han Qian had to additionally provide money and grain for relief.
In the short term, besides several mines at Donghu and one shipyard, Wen Ruilin hadn’t yet seen signs of large-scale manufacturing operations within Tangyi territory.
However, because Han Qian occupied a sufficiently large territory south of the Chuhe, in Liyang and Tangyi cities alone there were over ten thousand buildings. Between Daci Mountain, Qingcang Mountain, and Ruxu Mountain there were also numerous villages and settlements. Because residents had been coerced north by Shouzhou forces during earlier warfare, most were now vacant.
Not having been abandoned long, these village buildings with slight repairs were all used by Han Qian to settle nearly a hundred thousand soldiers’ family dependents. The nearby fields also hadn’t been abandoned long—the difficulty of recultivation wasn’t great, and they had now been directly allocated for cultivation.
Wen Ruilin also noticed this was clearly the key reason why, after suffering such heavy casualties in early battles, Tangyi forces’ combat effectiveness and morale not only hadn’t declined, but over these two or three months they could even continuously launch active strikes north of the Chuhe.
When all was said and done, Xu Mingzhen and Wen Bo had no way to deal with Tangyi forces in the near term.
As Tangyi forces’ defensive line along the Chuhe and Fucha Mountain grew increasingly complete, even if Shouzhou Army could capture this defensive line regardless of casualties, the losses would be extremely heavy—and then they would have no way to stop Li Zhigao leading Huaixi’s Imperial Guards from striking out from Shuzhou.
In comparison, with Han Yuanqi personally commanding from Sizhou, whether administering Sizhou and Haizhou or continuously detaching small forces to launch raids on Chuzhou’s southern bank, he was much more proactive and effective than the Western Front.
Of course, with Han Yuanqi commanding from Sizhou, besides the two devastated prefectures of Sizhou and Haizhou under his jurisdiction requiring massive resource investment to settle plundered civilians for military farming, both Xuzhou—traditionally Great Liang’s southeastern stronghold—and Mizhou to the north were under his command, giving him extremely abundant money and material resources to deploy.
Large numbers of newly built river warships were essentially consumables. He didn’t even need to consider that insufficiently seasoned timber made ships extremely prone to warping and leaking—he massively built small and medium warships for infiltrating and harassing the river networks on the Huai River’s southern bank, forcing Huaidong’s army after the war to have no time to repair embankments or settle refugees, repeatedly striking and devastating agricultural reclamation and water conservation along Chuzhou’s lines.
Thus, though Han Yuanqi commanded sixty thousand cavalry and infantry on the Eastern Front—only half the size of Huaidong’s army to the south—he could adopt an offensive posture and seize the initiative.
“After His Majesty learned that Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi’s illness had reached a critical stage, he led forces back to Biangjing ahead of schedule. Is there any further news from the north at this time?” Wen Ruilin thought of something and asked Han Yuanqi respectfully.
After the previous dynasty’s fall, Shi Chongsi occupied Hedong and Hebei territories to establish the Jin state. In early years, his military might was so strong that even Liang forces had to yield ground.
However, besides years of unceasing warfare with Liang on the Yellow River’s northern bank, Jin also faced increasing military pressure from the increasingly powerful Mongol tribes who had formally established their state less than thirty years ago. Ten years ago, the Mongols seized Yun, You, Yan and other prefectures, and Jin lost control of the Yan Mountain range—from then on, the state’s power gradually weakened.
Moreover, as Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi suffered from illness in his later years without energy to manage state affairs, Jin forces did nothing to take advantage when Liang descended into internal chaos.
Zhu Yu returned to Biangjing two months ago not only because no more favorable opportunities were visible in Huaidong and Huaixi, but mainly because secret agents transmitted news from Jin of the emperor’s critical illness.
The internal situation in Jin was even more complex than Chu under Emperor Tianyou in his later years. Shi Chongsi’s sons were all weak, while border commanders held heavy forces beyond control or restraint. With the Jin emperor critically ill or even deceased, it was hard to imagine Jin could transition smoothly.
Regardless, Zhu Yu had to return to Biangjing early to make preparations.
But two months had already passed, so Wen Ruilin wanted to know if there was any follow-up news.
“Jin has sealed off imperial highways and border garrisons are on high alert like startled birds—no further news has emerged for now. But judging from the situation, Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi has most likely already died. Perhaps someone fears chaos and disorder, or has opportunities to scheme, and is keeping the death secret…” Han Yuanqi said.
Thinking of Chu’s unpredictably changing situation these past years, Wen Ruilin wondered what turmoil would engulf Hedong and Hebei with Jin Emperor Shi Chongsi’s death.
He naturally hoped Great Liang would have opportunity to seize Hedong and Hebei. Even if that couldn’t be achieved, he hoped this time they could weaken Jin as much as possible. Only with Great Liang’s northern border secure could they concentrate forces and resources to continuously expand strategic advantage over Chu forces on the southern front, until completely seizing Huaidong, Huaixi, Jingxiang and other regions.
Only reaching that point would Great Liang truly possess the momentum to unify the realm…