Lord of the House

(two chapters in one)

"People in troubled times are as cheap as grass!" Lin Bie stood on the grass with his hands behind his back, looking at the sunset on the top of the distant mountains, and said with emotion.

Beside Lin Fu, there was only Gao Zongting alone, and the guards were scattered around.

Gao Zongting had just accompanied Lin Fu from the medical camp to visit the wounded general.

In front of the wounded generals, Lin Fu must inspire the people and let everyone know that being injured or even sacrificed is honorable and worthwhile; in front of officials and generals, Lin Fu must show firmness and iron will, no matter the cost Sacrifice to fight for victory; but Lin Fu has not yet cultivated to the level of hard-heartedness, so he can't help but sigh.

Sometimes this kind of emotion is also a sign of weakness and hesitation. Lin Fu also regards Gao Zongting as a teacher and a friend, so there is less estrangement, and he can treat each other more frankly.

Continuing to attack Yongjia for 20 days, the Huaidong Army accumulated nearly 7,000 casualties. The Xinzhenan Army and the Zhedong battalion were the most seriously injured. The two army's generals who died on the battlefield have accumulated more than 1,500 people. people.

Since Lin Fu's rise to Jiangning, the Huaidong Army has not suffered such heavy casualties in a short-term local battle.

Gao Zongting looked at the blooming flowers in the mountains, it was already early summer, and said: "The war cannot be dragged on until the rainy season, and the She family must make the decision to evacuate Yongjia or reinforce Yongjia before the rainy season, and this must be fought! It is cruel, and the more intense the consumption, can we break the extravagant family's 'procrastination' plan - before the war, I was worried that such a strong attack would not be enough for the generals and pawns, it seems that I thought too much."

Lin Fu turned around, looked at the camp built around the mountain, and said, "The situation does not allow us to calmly clean up the old mountains and rivers. The so-called strategy and tactics have a very important principle, that is, don't do what the enemy wants! The extravagant family is determined. Delay, we will naturally fight fiercely!"

After a pause, Lin Fu said: "When it comes to governing the army, if you have clear rewards and punishments, and strict discipline, you already have the clues of being a famous general," Lin Fu said, "but I think this is still a bit lacking - it can be done in depth. There are many more places to work.”

Gao Zongting smiled and said: "When it comes to governing the army, there is no one in the world that can match the lord. When the lord led the Jiangdong Zuo army north to the King of Qin, Yannan won four battles and four victories, and the commander was full of praise. Count, in just over ten months, my lord has made the Jiangdong Zuo army like a wolf and a wolf, and even the commander-in-chief is amazed - today I know that my lord has other plans, but it is still surprising!"

How high the war damage rate the army can withstand without collapsing is a question worth exploring.

Because the battle is composed of multiple battles of different sizes and there is a buffer during the battle, the battle loss rate of the battle is much higher than that of a battle.

But in any case, there are very few elite troops in the world that can withstand more than 30% of casualties in just 20 days, and also ensure that their morale is not frustrated.

Compared with the other elites of the Huaidong Army, the New Zhejiang Southern Army has been established for the shortest time, the eastern Zhejiang army has experienced the fewest battles, and the system is relatively complex. However, after the two armies suffered more than 30% casualties in a period of 20 days, their morale and will to fight remained at a fairly high level. Moreover, the New Zhejiang Southern Army suffered nearly 2,000 casualties in the Battle of Wushanjian and the Battle of Tianshui Village.

To maintain morale, Lin Bing made Zhou Tong do a lot of work, including quickly transporting the bodies of the fallen soldiers to Yueqing and other places for centralized burial. The only people who were treated on the spot were the wounded who were not seriously injured and had a large number of them.

Of course, the most important one is that the pension and military merit award fields have been launched vigorously in late March under the supervision of Lin Fu himself. This has an immediate, lasting and profound effect on the motivation and encouragement of morale.

In a brutal war, no matter how well the local forces can protect themselves, it is difficult to avoid being hit.

A large number of unowned lands will be created if the people flee or die, or if they are questioned or suppressed after the war.

The Zhejiang and Fujian troops entered southern Zhejiang wantonly, even if they did not extort the local forces too much, they would also divide those unowned lands as the war dividends that the clan forces headed by the eight surnames, including the extravagant family, deserved to enjoy.

In the early years, Lin Fu led the Jiangdong left army to the north to King Qin, and joined forces with the Jin Navy to recover Hejian Mansion. During this period, the Lin family, together with the local Sun, Zhou and other clans, invaded and occupied unowned land, which is not fundamentally different from this. Because of this, Sun, Zhou and other clans completely supported Huaidong, and finally chose to follow Lin Fu from Jinhai to move to Huaidong.

The biggest difference is that the power of the luxury family is basically based on the power of the clan, and it can only use the plundered land as a reward for the power of the subordinate clan, and from the early Sun, Zhou and other clans moved to Huaidong and Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian. When everyone finally evacuated from Jinhai, Lin Bie restricted them from merging fields from local areas, but still found a better way for them to accept the large amount of capital accumulated in their hands, that is, commerce and capital expansion.

In this way, Lin Fu fundamentally avoided the Sun, Zhou, Lin, Huang and other ethnic groups from mixing in and aggravating the contradiction of local land annexation. There is almost no resistance within the Huaidong Military Division to the formation of a unified idea of ​​suppressing land annexation—this is especially important.

Even the Lin family, including Lin Xuwen, sold off the land acquired by several generations on a large scale in the later period, and replaced it with gold and silver capital as the principal to invest in Huaidong Bank for capital expansion.

Only in this way can Lin Fu obtain enough official land to provide compensation for casualties and grant land for military merit on a large scale.

There is no more direct and thorough means in this world than the granting of fields to make the common generals allegiance.

Rewarding gold and silver may make the generals grateful, and sometimes plundering troops is also a way to reward merit and boost morale; but granting fields can make generals and other families feel grateful.

In a farming society, people are attached to the land and live in groups. Betrayal of any nature and degree will not only mean that the land may be re-deprived, but it will also make oneself and family members crowded out in front of the villagers and completely unable to lift their heads. ——From this extent, it also makes the field generals more loyal and heroic than others.

The tradition of the Huaidong Military Division must be maintained, and it is also necessary to avoid causing local influences. At the same time, Lin Fu needs to give extensive land to the generals from southern Zhejiang, so as to establish himself and the Huaidong Military Division as soon as possible. The prestige of southern Zhejiang and the ruling foundation that cannot be replaced by others—the only means is to make the war in southern Zhejiang suddenly intensify, and to rapidly expand the scope of casualty compensation or military merit.

Although Yueqing and Ouhai counties are located in the valley plains in the lower reaches of the Yongjia River, they are mountainous and the number of fields is far from that of the counties in Hailing Prefecture and Pingjiang Prefecture.

The number of public land that can be taken over and checked out from Yueqing and Ouhai counties has not yet been finalized at this time, but it is unlikely to exceed 150,000 mu. Even if Huipu, Wenling, Hengyang, Pingming and other counties in the south are added, the total amount of official land that can be obtained from Yongjia and Taizhou may be 400,000 or 500,000 mu. As far as the acquisition of nearly 400,000 mu of official land, you can know the tension of the grain fields in southern Zhejiang.

The eastern part of Yongjia Prefecture and the eastern part of Taizhou Prefecture add up to only five counties, but because of the wide distribution of coastal river valleys and plains in the territory, it is the area with the most abundant land and population resources in southern Zhejiang. After the brutal war, there are still more than 110,000 households in the five counties, which should account for more than half of the three prefectures in southern Zhejiang.

Of the 110,000 households in the five counties, about 70-80% are landless and poor tenant farmers.

This time, there are more than 6,000 households of poor families from southern Zhejiang who are directly involved in the pension and military merit award fields for the generals of the New South Zhejiang Army, and the total number of granted fields is about 90,000 mu of water and dry fields.

About half of the more than 6,000 children of the poor family are the generals and soldiers of the former resistance army in southern Zhejiang. A considerable part are village braves recruited from local areas after the formation of the southern Zhejiang army, and a considerable part are Tianshui, Wudi and Zhangdu three. Village soldiers who surrendered. They have a characteristic. They don't have much identification with the extravagant family and the Zhejiang and Fujian army. Although they have a sense of identification with the Huaidong Military Division before, they are not too profound.

Compensation for casualties and granting land for military merit are extra important at this time.

With these more than 6,000 households and other poor tenants who have benefited from the new policy of rent reduction and tax exemption, the foundation of Huaidong Military Division's rule in southern Zhejiang will be directly consolidated, and at the same time, other poor children from southern Zhejiang will be encouraged. Naturally Will also compete to serve in the Huaidong Army and Huaidong Army Division.

The only way to achieve this is that Huaidong has the basis for further long-term tug-of-war with the luxury family in southern Zhejiang and a war of attrition.

Lin Fu had nothing to do, and told Gao Zongting about his experience in the land revolution of later generations, plus his own experience over the years.

"After granting the land and occupying the southern part of Zhejiang, the income of the public land will be greatly reduced!" Gao Zongting said with emotion.

Huaidong's current public land income accounts for a considerable proportion, and the Huaidong Army's military expenditure is increasing rapidly. If there is no financial constraints, Huaidong's income in all aspects should increase rapidly.

Gao Zongting and the people of Huaidong all hope that the number of public fields and the income from renting will continue to increase with the expansion of the Huaidong Army, and should not stagnate.

"In the past, increasing the source of income from the newly expanded areas mainly relied on taxes and rent collection of public land," Lin Fu said, "Our thinking should be changed, and we should focus on restoring local production - issuing Huaidong copper coins, no doubt we are At the same time, we import a large amount of iron, salt and other materials to ensure that Huaidong copper yuan has a return channel to ensure the stability of the currency value, but at the same time, iron salt can be imported on a large scale, and we can also share this part of the income. Even if you don't consider long-term and short-term income, it will not be much less than the traditional way..."

Huaidong's bronze yuan ornaments cast by innovative technology are exquisite, easy to accept by the public, and difficult to imitate, but the cost is lower than traditional casting money.

Most importantly, the value of Huaidong copper coins is ten times or even dozens of times that of traditional copper coins, and the profits of Huaidong copper coins are naturally extremely high. The only thing we need to pay attention to is to prevent the blind pursuit of coinage income and the indiscriminate and crazy creation, resulting in uncontrolled crazy inflation of prices.

The active import of salt, iron and other materials, on the one hand, is to ensure the stability of the currency value of Huaidong copper dollars, on the other hand, the import of bulk materials will bring a lot of benefits to Huaidong at the same time.

Hearing Lin Fu say this, Gao Zongting smiled and said, "Speaking of Yan Tie, the special envoy sent by Zhang Yan has already arrived in Yueqing, so you can't keep avoiding it!"

The current salt-iron franchise, especially the Lianghuai salt tax, is currently the most important source of income for Jiangning, and Jiangning will never let go of a financial power to the local government.

The war in southern Zhejiang was going on like fire, and lost ground was frequently regained. Zhang Yan couldn't wait to stretch out his tentacles.

Lin Fu smiled and said: "Let Hu Zhiyong drive the people back - let's just say that the Huaidong Army's military expenditure in southern Zhejiang costs 200,000 taels of silver every month. When will Jiangning make up for this gap to Huaidong? Come on, send someone to talk about the salt and iron tax..."

"Salt is a big benefit," Gao Zongting said with emotion. "After the emperor ascended the throne in Jiangning, he was determined to clean up the broken mountains and rivers and rectify the defense line. The first thing he cared about was to raise money. When the new emperor ascended the throne, he could not use a knife to impose additional levies. , I don't fight for financial power with the local government for a while, but I can only pin my hopes on Zhang Yan..."

"On the one hand, salt merchants wantonly mix private salt with official salt and sell it," Lin Fu said, "but even if the imperial court can vigorously crack down on private salt, the price of salt will increase significantly, forcing the public to eat bland food. , it is difficult to make a comprehensive change in the income of the salt tax..."

"It's not necessarily a good thing to drive away the people sent by Zhang Yan," Gao Zongting thought for a moment, then said, "I'm afraid that other vassals will follow Huaidong's example, and Huaidong will be notorious, but will not benefit much..."

"According to what the ancestral court saw, what should be calculated?" Lin Fu asked.

"As for the salt in southern Zhejiang, Huaidong still depends on the issue of the 'military family'!" Gao Zongting offered advice, "It is suggested that Master Hu should negotiate with the people sent by Zhang Yan, and the matter of the general's salt should be assigned to the Huaidong Army. It is within the scope of the company's exclusive supply; in addition to the salt matters in southern Zhejiang, it will be returned to the salt and iron envoy department..."

"..." Lin Fu thought about Gao Zongting's suggestion.

Gao Zongting continued: "The price of salt is high, and salt is a heavy burden on the poor people. Therefore, the poor families usually rely on bland food. Huaidong supplies salt to the military, even if the current salt price is further reduced. Half, there is still a profit of 40 yuan for every pound of salt provided. While making up for the shortage of military resources, the most important thing is to consolidate the military households' dominant position in the local area, so that they will be more loyal to Huaidong, and at the same time, they can also attract more attention. The poor children in southern Zhejiang join the Huaidong Army..."

"This is feasible..." Lin Bie nodded. Governing the army and governing the locality is a complex knowledge that draws people's hearts. In simple terms, it is nothing more than giving favors and benefiting them.

But treating each other equally is not necessarily the best.

When ordinary people in southern Zhejiang were forced to eat high-priced official salt, military family members were able to get a supply of cheap salt—by comparing the two, the military family members could more truly feel the benefits and benefits that Huaidong brought to them.

Gao Zongting also said: "The supply of salt to the military will be carried out with the Huaidong army generals and soldiers, and even this standard can be raised a little more - these can be discussed with the officials of the salt and iron envoys, presumably Jiangning has nothing to say about it. can be said."

Lin Fu looked up at Gao Zongting.

Gaozongting's policy was very poisonous, but the poison was poisonous to Jiangning's salt administration, but it was beneficial and harmless to Huaidong.

The standard of supply for generals in Huaidong is six catties of salt a year, but how can the poor local people afford so much salt? Usually, we mainly eat bland food. We only eat more salt during the busy farming season. A family of young and old together may not be able to afford six catties of salt a year.

If Huaidong supplies salt to military relatives at a standard of six jins per person per year or even higher, in fact, a large amount of private salt will flow to the place semi-openly through this method. It is one thing for Huaidong to benefit from it, and more importantly, this approach will publicly destroy the local foundation of Jiangning's salt administration.

If no one in Jiangning realizes the trap, in a short period of time, Huaidong will return the salt of the newly occupied land in southern Zhejiang to Jiangning, but in the long run, when this method is widely promoted in the area controlled by Huaidong. , Jiangning's salt tax revenue from Huaidong will drop significantly - and all this is done on the basis of Jiangning's formal consent, Jiangning will not regret it.

Other vassal commanders would not succeed if they wanted to learn from Huaidong. After all, only Huaidong could control the salt field and even buy a large amount of private salt from the Haidong area.

"Compared to driving people away directly, Zong Ting's strategy is very good!" Lin Fu said, "The specific details will be discussed by you and Zhiyong..."

To be honest, Lin Fu has always been worried that Gao Zongting will be deeply influenced by Li Zhuo, and that when the conflict between Huaidong and the Yuan clan intensifies in the future, Gao Zongting's position will become hesitant again.

The strategy offered by Gao Zongting can be said to have the effect of pulling money from the bottom of the Jiangning Salt Administration, but what makes Lin Fu even more gratified is the position that Gao Zongting showed with the interests of Huaidong as the fundamental.

Fundamentally, if Huaidong wants to take the opposite road, it is necessary to weaken the Jiangning regime in every possible way while strengthening Huaidong.

However, under the current situation, Huaidong had to implement the strategy of defending Huai and attacking Fujian, and had to maintain the stability of the Jiangning regime, avoid conflicts with Jiangning, provoke new contradictions, and even be forced to retreat in some matters, weakening the Jiangning regime. On the other hand, we can only resort to some more subtle and deceptive means.

Qin, Cao, Fu and others were more specialized in military strategy, while Lin Mengde, Sun Jingxuan, Hu Zhiyong and others were good at government affairs, but when it came to using tricks, digging holes for opponents, and setting traps, they were not as good as Gao Zongting.

Thinking of this, Lin Fu thought of Song Jia who was staying in Yueqing at this time. When it comes to the level of tactics, Song Jia is not inferior to Gao Zongting, but she doesn't know what kind of character Song Fu is, who raised Song Jia's daughter?

"Okay, Master Hu will go to Ouhai tomorrow, so I'll go to Ouhai." Gao Zongting didn't know that Lin Fu's mind had already wandered around the world, but he replied calmly, some things can only be tacitly announced for the time being conduct.

At this time, Zhou Tong came over on horseback, handed the horse to his squire, climbed up the grassy slope, and asked from a distance, "What are the adults discussing with Mr. Gao? No one was seen for a long time."

"I'm discussing the salt issue in southern Zhejiang," Lin Fu replied, "Why are you here to join in the fun?"

"Salt thing?" Zhou Tong asked back in doubt, and then said, "The people sent by Jiangning, just rush back, Jiangning won't give any benefits, but I want to grab the benefits, how can there be such a cheap thing in the world?" As Lin Fu If you personally visit the main general in southern Zhejiang, Zhou Tong naturally knows that Zhang Yan, the envoy of salt and iron, sent people to southern Zhejiang.

"We have a plan for this matter, so don't worry about it," Lin Fu asked again, "Has the military conference come to a conclusion? What's the next step?"

"The casualties have been high these days. Continuing such a high-intensity tug-of-war will be a lot of pressure," Zhou Tong said. "Do you think the generals will slow down?"

"I'm used to fighting against the wind in the past. This time, all the divisions have suffered a lot of casualties. I can't get used to it for a while. It's normal for everyone to have thoughts in their hearts, but the tug-of-war still has to go on," Lin Fu said, "We can't hold it, Zhejiang The Fujian army can't hold it anymore; the tug-of-war will continue at least until the Zhejiang-Fujian Army Daxing reinforces Yongjia or the defenders withdraw from Yongjia. At night, you let Tang Fuguan, Chen Dingbang, Zuo Guangying, Liu Zhenzhi, Zhang Jiheng, Mao Tengyuan, Chen Kuili and others come to my university. From the tent, I will personally do ideological work for everyone... If it really doesn't work, I will take some soldiers ashore from the Jinghai battalion to ease the pressure on each department."

"Sometimes, the method seems clumsy, but it is effective, and there is no solution," Gao Zongting said, "Last year, Yanhu surrounded Jinhai, and it was the same way of fighting that the Tianjin Navy finally had to give up Jinhai and withdraw... I estimate that it is more likely that the Yongjia defenders will retreat, and our army should be prepared to inflict heavy damage on the defenders when they retreat."

"It is naturally good that the defenders can withdraw. The Zhejiang and Fujian troops give up Yongjia, and they cannot defend alone when they return to Pu and Wenling. The Taizhou defenders will inevitably withdraw to Xianju and Linhai, which are more dangerous and closer to Dongyang County," Zhou said. Tong said, "Of course, if the Zhejiang-Fujian army massively reinforces Yongjia, and its strength is less than 10,000, it will drag them down. Now I just hope that the luxury family will make a decision quickly, but our life is really bad."

Hearing Zhou Tong complain, Lin Fu just smiled, as long as he could understand Huaidong's overall strategic vision.

The army suffered so many casualties, Zhou Tong as the main general, the pressure on his body is not light, he can only run to Lin Fu to complain twice.

Zhou Tong said again: "Everyone has found that the oil tank is very useful when sieging the city. Can the military commander supply more..."

In combat with cold weapons, the use of fire has almost become a conventional tactical choice. In water battles dominated by wooden boats, the use of fire and fire prevention is the most important tactical choice, but the main attack equipment, tents, and ships are the main ones.

When soldiers are fighting, there is very little direct use of fire. After all, when fire is mainly used in the world, oil-soaked rockets are mainly used. When shooting enemy soldiers, the fire head is easy to put out, and it is difficult to provide additional damage.

The kerosene tank has almost become a standard Huai battle tool in Huaidong Shuiying. The thin-mouthed pottery bottle was filled with kerosene, and the mouth of the bottle was stuffed with cloth. In wartime, it was lit and thrown at the enemy ship.

In this siege, Zhou Tong borrowed a batch of kerosene tanks from Shuiying for the siege, and found it to be very useful. It's just that the number of kerosene tanks that were put into the battle was limited, and they were mainly used to attack the equipment of the defending city. Although it was useful, it did not show its might.

The defenders were soldiers of the Ba Fujian war, and they wore more armor and more shield soldiers, which could effectively prevent the arrows from being covered. Even if the arrow is wounded, it is difficult to be fatally injured. Using a kerosene tank is very different. As long as you can rush to the vicinity, throw the kerosene tank on fire, and the tank will be smashed with oil. To a large extent, it caused confusion in the enemy formation.

Especially the armor with strong protection, if you hit the kerosene tank, it is easier to directly smash the kerosene tank~www.wuxiaspot.com~ and be splashed by the kerosene.

Once a soldier's body is extensively burned, it is several times more difficult to treat than ordinary knife wounds and arrow wounds.

The improvised incendiary bombs filled with white phosphorus in later generations were even used by civilians to fight armored vehicles. Lin Bing followed the improvised incendiary bombs of later generations and advocated the use of flammable oil tanks in the army. How could it not be used well? Just the cost is higher.

One is that the cost of firing easy-to-carry ceramics is not low in this world, and the other is that liquid kerosene is rare in this world at room temperature.

The cost of making a kerosene tank is worth nearly a hundred arrows.

But since it is easy to use, and since it is a battle of attrition, Lin Fu has no reason not to support it. After thinking about it, he returned to Zhou Tong and said, "You report the number to me, let's start with the water camp..." Lin Fu thought more, How to make more and better improvised incendiary bombs. Before gunpowder was practical, it was relatively easier to improve the performance of kerosene, and it was easier to use in actual combat.

"First come 10,000, I plan to organize a group of soldiers to practice throwing and use them in the offensive array!" Zhou Tong said, "Specially hit the tough iron-clad pawns in the opponent's array! Those who wear iron-clad armor in the defending army It is really difficult to deal with the fierce soldiers, the knife can't hurt, the arrow can't shoot through, maybe let them taste the taste of the tinderbox."

"It's really easy for you to open your mouth!" Lin Bie said with a wry smile, "Okay, you prepare first, and I'll coordinate other things."

When it comes to kerosene tactics, it's easiest to imitate.

Using fire or pouring hot oil to defend the city is also a conventional method of warfare. Yongjia Chengtou even used a large iron pot to hold feces mixed with lime to boil and splash the soldiers in the city, but after all, the scale of use is not large. .

However, large-scale consumption is the most difficult to imitate.

It is impossible for the Yongjia defenders to compare with the Huaidong Army in terms of kerosene supply. My QT room is open! More vulgar official QT room number [9167] Click to enter