Guo Rong, Feng Liao, Tian Cheng, Guo Que, Zhao Wuji, and others were quickly found and brought over.
Before they entered the courtyard, they were still discussing the construction progress of the Huazhu Peak plank road.
This was also the most important work in the entire Huaiyang war zone recently. Feng Liao and Guo Que personally rushed to the Huazhu Peak construction site every few days to check on the progress.
Building a plank road on cliff walls was simple in principle—one drilled holes in the steep rock face, inserted wooden stakes horizontally one by one, then laid thick planks on the stakes, forming plank bridges to connect roads separated by steep mountain cliffs.
This way they could avoid climbing over steep precipitous ridges and proceed directly along the cliff face. More importantly, horses and carts could pass through, creating convenient conditions for transporting large amounts of materials.
However, the peaks and ridges around Huazhu Peak and Tanyang Peak served as the watershed between the Nanfei River and the Baishui River that flowed north into the Huai River as one of its main upper tributaries. The peaks were treacherously steep, the valleys bottomless, and areas too dangerous for even monkeys and birds to cross stretched continuously for nearly forty miles.
To build a road in this region and open a passage connecting the upper stream valleys of the Nanfei River and Baishui River, they needed either to cut through mountains, or carve through rock, or both. The difficulty and scale of the project was no less than building the Xuefeng Mountain post road during the Qin and Han dynasties.
Of course, it had to be built. Even a thousand years earlier, people would have had the capability to complete this plank road—after all, there were no fundamental technical difficulties.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, didn’t they征用 hundreds of thousands of laborers to carve out bit by bit the five-foot post road that penetrated the entire great southwest, stretched for thousands of miles in total length, with the Xuefeng Mountain post road being only a very small part of it?
If it were someone else, they might prefer to first break out of Wujin Ridge, defeat the enemy forces along the Anfeng Stockade line, seize the southern Huozhou region, then enter the mountains along the river valleys of southern Huozhou, rather than considering building at any cost a plank road connecting the northeast slope and north slope of Huaiyang Mountain in such treacherous terrain.
However, Han Qian was willing to do exactly that.
When Han Qian managed Xuzhou, he twice conducted large-scale widening and repairs of the Xuefeng Mountain post road, opening passages from Xuzhou to the various states in the upper Xiang River basin. To strengthen overland connections between counties within Xuzhou, almost every year without pause he built roads in Qianyang, Linjiang, Chenzhong, Zhijiang, Quyang, and other places.
After the civil unrest in Sizhou, he also forcibly carved out a post road through the steep southern slopes of Wuling Mountain from Hujian Pass into the Wuchuan River valley in Qianjiang, ensuring that Xuzhou’s cloth and iron could bypass the Sizhou heartland controlled by the Yang family and go directly through Qianjiang to Sichuan and Shu, while also ensuring that well salt from the Wuchuan River valley could continuously be transported into Xuzhou.
The Tangyi army’s capability in building bridges and opening roads was absolutely no worse than marching and fighting. They had trained a group of experienced road and bridge engineers, possessed a large number of skilled craftsmen, deliberated on dozens of methods for road construction and bridge building, and also developed a batch of specialized tools and equipment.
Could the strength or weakness of a military force only be demonstrated through charging into battle?
The hundreds and thousands of officers and officials Han Qian had transferred from Xuzhou might still feel somewhat unaccustomed to working on construction in the flat and open areas of East Lake and Wushou, but operating in the Huaiyang mountains gave them something of a feeling like fish in water.
Over the past three months, requisitioning several thousand supply troops and craftsmen, they had already rushed to build nearly thirty miles of continuous plank post road on the side near Huaiyang County, in the upper reaches of the Yanzi River. Only the last ten-plus miles remained before they could open the connection with the upper valley of the Baishui River. Even now they could already transport some armor, weapons, medicine, and other supplies on a small scale into the northern slope heartland to reinforce the Southern Huo Special Task Battalion.
Building this plank post road also strengthened contact between thirty to forty stockades and nearly ten thousand people in the remote dangerous mountain area of the upper Yanzi River and the outside world, and also facilitated the elimination of two bandit groups that occupied these strategic mountain areas as their lairs.
Feng Liao, Guo Que, along with Tian Cheng, Guo Rong, and others all more urgently anticipated the early completion of the Huazhu Peak plank road.
Currently the Shouzhou Army’s eastern flank defense line had comprehensively contracted. On the north side of Huaiyang Mountain, their main forces were concentrated at Anfeng Stockade, blocking the upper river valley of the Nanfei River, which could seal off the Tangyi army. Defense was still relatively easy, but on the north slope of Huaiyang Mountain, there were four or five larger streams and rivers passing through Huozhou territory leading directly to the Huai River.
Once the Huazhu Peak plank road was completed and the Tangyi army opened the passage to the north slope of Huaiyang Mountain, for the Shouzhou Army to defend the outer perimeter of the north slope and guard the four or five river valley passages out of the north slope, preventing Tangyi elite forces from killing into the Huozhou heartland and watering their horses at the Huai River, would in no way be easier than currently mainly defending the upper river valley of the Nanfei River.
This meant that subsequently they might not even need to dispatch troops to launch large-scale pitched battles—they could potentially directly exhaust the Shouzhou Army.
As time passed and the situation in Huaixi developed, conditions would become more favorable for the Tangyi army.
As long as Li Zhigao was somewhat effective on the western front, Tian Cheng, Feng Liao, and others felt that completely driving the Shouzhou Army from the south bank of the Huai River within three to five years was not some unimaginable prospect.
After all, once they controlled the northeast slope and north slope of Huaiyang Mountain, the Shouzhou Army’s controlled Huozhou, Shouzhou, and Haozhou would have essentially no natural barriers to defend.
“What matter has brought us here, my lord?” Guo Rong asked upon entering.
As Chief Clerk, he controlled the Administrative Bureau. His actual authority was similar to that of Chief Secretary, except that the Pacification Commissioner’s office had a slightly lower rank than the Regional Commander’s office and Provincial Military Governor’s office, so instead of establishing a Chief Secretary position, it only had Recorders and Chief Clerks to handle confidential documents and draft memorials.
Han Qian told everyone about the intelligence report just transmitted back from Dingzhou and Wang Jun’s various speculations, especially emphasizing to Guo Que:
“If something like Wang Yuankui submitting to the Mongol Uighurs were to happen, allowing the Mongol Uighurs to borrow passage from Hengding and the two states to drive straight in and assault the two states of Wei and Bo, what kind of shock would the Liang army and Liang Kingdom heartland experience, and how would it affect the situation on both banks of the Huai River? The Military Intelligence Staff Bureau must quickly produce corresponding projections and response plans…”
It wasn’t saying that Wang Yuankui would definitely submit to the Mongol Uighurs, but if this matter were to occur, it would not only cause earth-shattering changes to the power structure north of the Yellow River, but would also directly affect the development of the situation in the Jianghuai region.
This would produce greatly different changes from their previous judgments about the development of the Jianghuai situation. At the same time, their response plans would also need to undergo major modifications, or they would need to add corresponding countermeasures to avoid being caught off guard when the time came.
“We still need to prepare according to the possibility of Liang Kingdom losing the two states of Wei and Bo. Particularly as Lady Jun said, the Wanhong House and Wang Jingrong, an internal official of the Chengde Army, have been secretly colluding for many years. Li Zhigao in Yiyang has quite possibly already made secret preparations. If we are careless again, we might sit and watch the entire upper Huai River region fall under Li Zhigao’s control…” Feng Liao said after pondering for a moment.
It was now early in the second month, and the earth was about to completely thaw. With both sides possessing relatively strong naval forces, launching raids and strikes on the lake and marsh areas controlled by the other side would become difficult.
After the second and third months came the busy season of spring planting and land reclamation. Before the rainy season arrived, digging ditches and building roads would be much more convenient than in the cold winter.
According to the established plan, Tangyi’s side would release a considerable portion of supply troops from the defense fortifications to expand military farming and continue building and perfecting water and land passages between forward defensive stockades and the interior heartland, and dredging rivers and canals.
However, if they were to project the development of the Jianghuai situation based on the scenario where Liang Kingdom’s northern region would be attacked by Mongol Uighur cavalry, they not only could not relax military preparations but would even need to further strengthen military preparations to possibly seize the opportunity for expansion by taking advantage of great chaos in Liang Kingdom’s northern region.
“Since the rebellion in Jinling, the circumstances of Shouzhou Army officers and soldiers have been dire. Even though they received relief from the Liang army, conditions haven’t improved much. The reason they still have considerable combat capability is that Xu Mingzhen has accumulated great authority in Shouzhou, and has many direct loyalist supporters,” Guo Rong said. “But in the battle at Wujin Ridge, Xu Mingzhen’s direct subordinates suffered extremely tragic casualties, which will inevitably directly affect his control over the Shouzhou Army. Regardless of whether turmoil occurs in the north, especially with the Huazhu Peak plank road about to be completed, we should maintain even stronger military pressure on the Shouzhou Army!”
Guo Rong was originally a direct member of Anning Palace and was extremely familiar with the internal situation of Anning Palace and the Xu family.
Contemporary armies had natural deficiencies in internal cohesion. At least before Han Qian, a strong army relied more on winning the loyalty of a small number of elite direct troops, then using these direct elite forces along with severe, nearly cruel military discipline to maintain larger-scale forces.
From the mid-to-late periods of the previous dynasty when regional military governors began controlling local areas, the importance of personal guard armies within military governorships could never be overlooked.
This continued into the establishment of the Liang, Shu, Jin, and Chu kingdoms, all basically constantly strengthening the position of guard personal troops and imperial guards, then using guard personal troops and imperial guard elites to control provincial, county, and local forces.
Xu Mingzhen’s governance of Shouzhou fundamentally never departed from this model.
When Han Qian previously penetrated deep into Huaiyang Mountain with isolated forces, the reason the court and public were so nervous was that, frankly speaking, people’s view of Tangyi troops had not fundamentally changed—they had not distinguished Tangyi troops from other elite strong armies.
The entire court and public still worried that if Han Qian’s direct elite subordinates suffered too tragic casualties or were completely annihilated, it would directly lead to the collapse of the entire Tangyi defense line.
When Xu Mingzhen attacked Wujin Ridge last year, although his direct elite forces had not really gone to battle during the month-long preliminary attrition warfare, during the ice dam assault on the enemy camp, Xu Mingzhen’s direct elite forces did not escape catastrophe.
And when Han Qian previously led raiding forces to strike at reinforcements around Anfeng Stockade, the forces Xu Mingzhen first led to reinforce outside Anfeng Stockade were mainly his guard cavalry elites, who also suffered heavy losses.
Adding these two tragic blows together, the direct elite forces Xu Mingzhen could directly control had already dropped to an extremely low level. Currently he had no choice but to mainly concentrate them at Anfeng Stockade to prevent Han Qian from making any moves in the mountains.
This actually also meant that Xu Mingzhen’s control over the Shouzhou Army, which seemingly still had ninety thousand troops, had actually long since secretly declined to an extremely low level.
Regardless of whether the northern situation would experience unexpected turmoil, Guo Rong advocated maintaining even stronger military confrontation and pressure on the Shouzhou Army. He believed that if they continued the confrontation, the Shouzhou Army would experience large-scale mutinies and desertions among officers and soldiers, and might even choose again to pledge allegiance to the court…
It was said that good warriors achieved no glorious victories. Since the Tangyi Pacification Army held advantages in all aspects, they should use these advantages to crush and disintegrate the Shouzhou Army, achieving the goal of subduing the enemy without battle.
“Besides the Yiyang direction, the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau should in the coming days send several more groups of scouts north into the Wei and Bo states line, constantly monitoring changes in the battle situation north of the Yellow River. Whether Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang is vigilant toward the Chengde Army and the Mongol Uighur forces in Youtan and other states, whether the Liang army’s troop deployments in the Henei states and Wei and Bo can respond to the worst situation, and even the choice of Zhao Yi Regional Commander Zhang Wenli will all have enormous influence on the northern situation,” Han Qian said. “Furthermore, the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau and Administrative Bureau must carefully weigh the impact of different response plans on Tangyi’s overall development.”
Any adjustment to plans involved extremely wide scope. For example, last year they transferred so many engineers and craftsmen into the deep mountains west of Huaiyang County to build the plank road, causing many pending construction tasks at East Lake, Liyang, Longtan, and other places to stall accordingly.
If plans needed adjustment this time, it would extremely likely involve the allocation of thirty to forty thousand able-bodied men, with even greater impact on Tangyi.
Currently Tangyi was not a field army that could receive the court’s unreserved support. Besides considering military confrontation with the Shouzhou Army, they also had to consider complex entanglements with the court, with internal forces like Huaidong, Wanhong House, and the Zheng clan. The problems became even more complex and dangerous…