In early August, the weather in Huaixi finally cooled down and was no longer so swelteringly hot.
After entering August, no new flood peaks surged down from the upper reaches of the Huai River. This year’s extremely severe flood prevention situation had given people a slight respite, and in just over a month, it would be time to enter the new autumn grain harvest season.
Of the eight thousand advance troops that Tangyi had assembled in Huoqiu, a portion of elite forces had already traveled north along the Ying River in early July, arriving at Wanqiu. Initially, they were still able to evacuate military personnel and civilians from Bianjing City on a small scale, but in mid-to-late July, the scout cavalry of the Weizhou rebel army and the Mengwu forces entered the southern region of Bianjing, directly roaming on both flanks of the Chen-Bian post road.
Currently, the greatest combat mission of the advance army was to engage with enemy scout cavalry and prevent the enemy forces from organizing large-scale manpower to sabotage the Chen-Bian post road.
As for the main relief army for Bian, formed from thirty thousand elite troops transferred from the First, Second, and Fourth Regiments plus twenty thousand auxiliary troops transferred from the Fourth Regiment, they had been assembled at the South Bank Great Camp of Jiaoshan Gorge for half a month already. Currently, they had not yet crossed the Huai River in force to formally march north.
Besides constructing a pontoon bridge at Jiaoshan Gorge and rushing to repair the post roads within Xiacai County territory on the north bank, more importantly, they were waiting for the final shoe to drop in Xiangbei.
Lu Qingxia had fled into Xiangzhou with Empress Dowager Wang Chan’er and her party. According to intelligence obtained by Tangyi, Li Zhigao had not followed Lu Qingxia and the others into Xiang City but had instead directly taken his second wife Su Hongyu and his sons including Li Zhi by boat to take command in Liangzhou.
In the following days, the enthronement of the Prince of Xiang, the abolishment of the Xiangbei Defense Commissioner’s Office, and the establishment of the Jingxiang Provincial Administration Office were all single-handedly orchestrated by Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, Chai Jian, and others.
The Xiangbei army, building upon the previous foundation of the three regiments of forbidden army main forces and merging with local provincial troops, was accordingly reorganized into three campaign armies.
The main forces of the original Left Vermillion Sparrow Army followed Li Zhigao’s relocation to Liangzhou to form the Liangzhou Campaign Army. Li Zhigao personally led the Campaign Army Supreme Commander position while concurrently serving as Liangzhou Governor. The military force scale was maintained at around fifteen thousand men, responsible for garrison defense and military-administrative affairs in Liangzhou and the newly established Jinzhou.
Using two divisions of elite troops from the Left Martial Guard Army, merged with Suizhou provincial troops, they formed a ten-thousand-man Suizhou Campaign Army. Zhou Shu led as Campaign Army Commander while concurrently serving as Suizhou Governor, responsible for garrison affairs on the western slopes of Mount Dahong and blocking the mountain passes of Pingjing and Wusheng on the western slopes of the Huaiyang Mountains.
At this time, primarily using the Left Divine Martial Army, merged with three divisions of elite troops from the Left Martial Guard Army, one division of elite troops from the Left Vermillion Sparrow Army, plus provincial troops from Deng, Jun, and Ying provinces—totaling thirty-five thousand men—they established the Xiangzhou Campaign Army. This could be said to be the main force of the Jingxiang rebel army. Jingxiang Pacification Commissioner Chai Jian concurrently led as Campaign Army Supreme Commander, responsible for the defense of Jun, Deng, Xiang, and Ying provinces.
Thus Li Zhigao retreated to Liangzhou while Chai Jian became the number one military leader of the Jingxiang rebel army, stepping onto center stage.
Besides this, Lu Qingxia, primarily using the Imperial Guards who had fled west and recruiting some able-bodied men from Xiangzhou, established a three-thousand-man Personal Guard Army with former Weaving Bureau Military Officer Xu An as Chief Vice Commander to protect the Provincial Administration Office headquarters. Using the Weaving Bureau guard troops and Xiangzhou provincial troops, he established a five-thousand-man Xiangzhou Navy with Zhong Yanhu as Supreme Commander.
The Jingxiang rebel army had a total of sixty-eight thousand men. At first glance, this was quite a multitude of troops and men. They barely managed to spread out their forces and showed no signs of contracting from the outer perimeters of Ying, Sui, and Deng provinces toward the Xiang City vicinity. This meant Tangyi’s leadership temporarily did not need to worry they would desperately throw in their lot with the Mengwu people.
Combined, the seven provinces of Xiang, Deng, Jun, Sui, Ying, Jin, and Liang—even though these past three or four years under Li Zhigao’s governance agricultural cultivation had recovered quickly—had a total population of only nine hundred thousand. Maintaining such a large-scale military force could be said to already be at the limit. Tangyi also temporarily did not need to worry they had the capability to break out from the mountain passes on the western slopes of the Huaiyang Mountains and threaten Tangyi’s western flank.
Of course, from the fact that the Suizhou Campaign Army was only organized with ten thousand troops, one could also see that Lu Qingxia at this time would not be anxious to expand into Tangyi territory from the northeastern flank. Currently, they mainly wanted to rely on the strategic terrain of the mountain passes on the western slopes of the Huaiyang Mountains and the western slopes of Mount Dahong to defend this flank.
The severe test they currently faced was still the Rebel Suppression Army whose vanguard forces had already arrived in Huangzhou.
Jinling, using Huangzhou and Jingzhou as assembly points and the Right Martial Soaring Army and Right Martial Guard Army as main forces, while transferring provincial troops from Jiangxi, Hunan and other provinces, planned to assemble a recruitment army totaling as many as sixty thousand regular soldiers and thirty thousand accompanying civilian laborers to suppress the Jingxiang rebels. They had now formally proclaimed this throughout the realm, appointing Minister of War and Vice Director of Military Affairs Zhou Bingwu as Recruitment Commissioner, and appointing Zhao Zhen and Zhang Xiang as Vice Recruitment Commissioners.
Military texts often say “In all warfare, one engages with the orthodox but achieves victory through the unexpected.” Jinling had mustered ninety thousand men, and in the early period, the routes for advancing to besiege the city were only four: one was for the navy to advance north along the Han River, one was for cavalry and infantry to advance north along the east bank of the Han River to attack Ying City which stood between the Han River and Mount Dahong, and one was to march overland from Jingzhou north to attack Jingmen, the southern gateway to Xiang. These three routes could also be combined into one, which could be said to be the main attack direction of the recruitment army.
Zhou Bingwu, at the end of July, had received orders to arrive at Jingling City, over a hundred and thirty li south of Ying City, to supervise the battle.
Jingling had belonged to Fu Province in the previous dynasty. When Great Chu was founded, Fu Province fell into ruin and was abandoned without being established. Jingling was incorporated into Ying Province.
Jingling bordered Mount Dahong to the north, the Han River to the southwest, and Huang and E to the east. Located in the northern part of the Jianghan Plain, it was also the city closest to Ying City. To advance along both flanks of the Han River and break open the gateway to the Xiang-Ying River valley and the Nanyang Basin, it was most convenient for Zhou Bingwu to assemble troops, grain, and military equipment at Jingling.
To facilitate the recruitment campaign, Jinling also re-established Fu Province, incorporating the three counties of Jingling (originally belonging to Ying Province), Jianli (belonging to Jing Province), and Mianyang (belonging to E Province) into Fu Province, with Jingling as the provincial capital. To facilitate Zhou Bingwu’s reorganization of military preparations and local collection of war materials, Jinling specially had him concurrently serve as Fu Province Governor.
Although Fu Province only governed three counties, these three counties were the heartland of the Jianghan Plain. Their combined population approached three hundred thousand. The thirty thousand accompanying civilian laborers planned for inclusion in the recruitment army and the initial hundred thousand shi of grain to be used were mainly to be transferred from these three counties.
Zhang Xiang, who had been garrisoning Jingzhou neither hot nor cold these years, this time to demonstrate his “unwavering loyalty” to the new emperor, immediately upon receiving the rebel suppression recruitment decree dispatched troops to press toward Jingmen. In early August, he cleared the remnant rebel forces on the southern flank of Jingmen and established his vanguard camp thirty li south of Jingmen City, just waiting for the recruitment army main forces to complete assembly. The western flank could launch an offensive against Jingmen City at any time.
Besides this route along the Han River, the recruitment army had another route through which they could attack the Jingxiang rebels.
That was to travel north from Huangzhou City along the Yun River valley on the southwestern slopes of the Huaiyang Mountains, attacking Suiyang and the Pingjing and Wusheng passes north of Suiyang from the eastern slopes of Mount Dahong.
Jinling also issued a decree to Tangyi to dispatch troops to attack the Pingjing and Wusheng passes, but Han Qian had expressed his position very early that Tangyi would use its main forces for the autumn-winter He-Huai campaign. On the western flank, they would only leave one brigade of elite troops under Zhou Dan’s command, at most able to tie down the rebel forces at the Pingjing and Wusheng passes from Luoshan and Yiyang.
At this moment, it was finally time for Tangyi’s army to formally dispatch troops for the He-Huai campaign.
Besides Kong Xirong’s advance army troops advancing north along the Ying River as a flanking force, the fifty thousand main relief troops for Bian assembled near Jiaoshan Gorge would, under the command of Tian Cheng as chief general with Wen Bo and Lin Haizheng as vice generals, directly cross the Huai River and march north through the plains region on the east bank of the Ying River.
Although traveling north from Haozhou through the Guo River to reach Guoyang, the seat of Qiaozhou, and further northwest to reach the seat of Bozhou could be connected by the Guo River, after Xu Mingzhen gained control of Qiao, Bo and other areas, he used hidden stakes, iron chains, sunken ships and other methods to set up numerous obstacles along the Guo River line to prevent Tangyi’s naval warships from breaking in.
At this time, the Left Tower Ship Army still had certain elite naval forces and warships assembled on the upper reaches of the Guo River, making it difficult for Tangyi’s navy to play a role in this He-Huai campaign.
Currently, Yang Qin was responsible for leading Tangyi’s navy to garrison the Jiaoshan-Linhuai line. Only after the cavalry and infantry captured cities west of the Guo River and cleared the obstacles in the Guo River would it be possible to advance north.
Of course, this was still the most favorable scenario for the campaign.
Before late June, Xu Mingzhen had ordered the detention of all officials appointed by Bianjing for the nineteen counties of Qiao, Bo, Song, and Su provinces, completely replacing them with direct subordinate officers from the Shouzhou army to control the counties. Even though Xu Mingzhen at this time had not yet openly pledged allegiance to Zhu Rang, in reality he now had no other choice.
The Xu clan was different from the Wen family, and it had nothing to do with vengeance.
When Wen Bo was besieged in Luoshan City, his direct subordinate forces numbered less than ten thousand men. Han Qian could even tolerate Wen Bo directly leading these ten thousand elite troops to merge into Tangyi’s army without worrying this would create a situation where the guest overshadowed the host.
Wen Bo and the Wen family also did not need to live in constant anxiety, daily worrying that Han Qian would at any moment poison them and strip their military authority.
Later, when the Right Divine Martial Army was dismantled for reorganization, the Wen family sons, nephews, and former subordinate officers could integrate well into Tangyi based on this foundation and gradually make progress.
When Xu Mingzhen led the Shouzhou army in retreat to the north bank of the Huai River, his troops together with their dependents totaled as many as over two hundred thousand people. When necessary, he could even organize another seventy to eighty thousand able-bodied troops. If Xu Mingzhen surrendered to Tangyi at this time, would Han Qian dare accept him and let Xu Mingzhen continue to command these seventy to eighty thousand troops without worrying that one day the guest would become the host?
And would Xu Mingzhen be willing, or rather, did he have the courage to disband these seventy to eighty thousand troops and completely accept Tangyi’s reorganization, leading just over a hundred family members to live at East Lake, waiting for Han Qian to give him a magnanimous disposition?
When Emperor Liang Zhu Yu accepted Xu Mingzhen’s surrender, he still had to enfeoff him as Duke of Huo and Huainan Military Commissioner, self-commanding one hundred thousand troops to defend Huaixi. Han Qian had no conditions for reaching accommodation with Xu Mingzhen. How could he dare send over fifty thousand troops to reinforce Bianjing via the extremely vulnerable Chen-Bian post road when Xu Mingzhen’s forces directly threatened the flank of the Chen-Bian post road?
Tangyi’s army had only one choice: to assemble main forces and cross the Huai River northward in a frontal attack against the Qiao, Bo and other areas occupied by Xu Mingzhen.
Either annihilate Xu Mingzhen’s forces, or drive Xu Mingzhen’s forces east of the Guo River, until they opened the passage connecting Bianjing between the Ying and Guo river systems…