When the fleet returned to Chongqing Fucheng, it was already late November. As soon as he reached the island in the middle of the river outside Chongqing Mansion, Li Shuang, who was waiting on the shore, walked up to Ouyang Xuan and told him that the envoy sent by Yu Xing had been here for three days and claimed that he would not return to Jiading until he saw him. . This time Yu Xing's envoy was extremely fierce and arrogant, and kept saying that he wanted to punish Ouyang Xuan and the Pili Army. Having dealt with Yu Xing many times, Li Shuang was well aware of the sexual nature of Yu Xing and his son, and he did not ask for any property on the surface, but this accusation was actually another way of saying blackmail. For Yu Xing, there is no problem that cannot be solved with money. If there is such a problem, then it means that there is not enough money. He can double or even ten times the money.
Yu Xing's reason for this blackmail was that there was a problem with the Pili weapons, which caused the Jiading army to lose the battle with the Mongolian army. It is said that the upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked. The envoy sent by Yu Xing softened his tone a lot after accepting Li Shuang's money and goods. He told Li Shuang the price Yu Xing was asking for this time: twenty warships, one hundred artillery pieces, and five hundred horses... He opened his mouth to Yu Xing's lion, and Li Shuang resorted to procrastination wherever he dared to answer, calling Ouyang Xuan traveled far away, and he didn't dare to make the decision without authorization.
It turned out that after Ouyang Xuan and Huang Dagen sent cannon-casting technicians to Jiading Prefecture, Yu Xing ordered his craftsmen to cast cannons day and night. Cannon casting is a technical job with a strict process. In addition, although the number of blacksmiths in Jiading's army is large, their quality varies greatly. It can be imagined that the quality of cannon casting is so fast. The technicians sent by the Perak Army to Jiading were worried when they saw it. They couldn't help but complained a few times when they couldn't stop it. However, they were beaten by the supervisor of the firearms supervision department with a whip and rolled on the floor. These technicians had never experienced such arrogance. After being beaten, they naturally kept silent and allowed the Jiading craftsmen to make rough work.
Under Ouyang Xuan's example, the Pili Army respects talented people with knowledge and craftsmanship very much. As long as they work hard and work hard, they will be rewarded with good food and drink, and their outstanding contributions are regarded as military merit. According to Ouyang Xuan: "Military medals are half for combat personnel and half for military technical personnel." They never expected that they would be beaten when they came to Jiading Prefecture for technical guidance. After being beaten, the technicians of the Pili Army were naturally passive and slow in their work. As a result, the quality of the cannons cast by the Jiading craftsmen was really unsatisfactory - according to the standards of the Pili Army, they were all useless cannons.
What Ouyang Xuan can do, why can't I? Yu Xing's son Yu Dazhong was of the same age as Ouyang Xuan and was very jealous of his reputation. After having artillery, in order to improve his performance and get promoted and make a fortune, Yu Xing, instigated by Yu Dazhong, took advantage of the opportunity when Niulin went to Chongqing to attack Pengshan. "Father and son go into battle", the vanguard is naturally his son Yu Dazhong. This Yu Dazhong was a man with great ambition but little talent. His troops and horses were defeated by the Mongolian general suddenly even though the enemy was several times outnumbered. Not only the infantry were severely defeated, but the navy also suffered heavy losses. After Chengdu was attacked by the Perak Army navy, Liu Heima realized the importance of the navy and trained a navy army. The backbone of this newly formed Mongolian naval force are all the surrendered Song Army naval forces. There are also many elites among them, and their combat power is quite good. This time he went down the Jinjiang River and fought with the Meizhou Navy led by Yu Dazhong in Pengshan City, and the situation was dominated by them. If the Pili Army and Navy in Xinjin had not learned the news and set off to come to the rescue, it would have been unknown that the Meizhou Navy had been defeated.
Yu Dazhong, who was cowardly and greedy, obviously would not admit his incompetence, so he passed the blame to the Pili Army. He attributed the failure to gun blast. Artillery is a high-tech branch. It not only requires qualified artillery, but also requires qualified gunners with certain mathematical knowledge to shoot accurately. But Yu Dazhong was as stingy as his father, and all his artillerymen were rough. In order to save money, he didn't even let the artillery train with live ammunition. Therefore, when fighting the Mongolian army, although the sound of its artillery was very lethal, it was worrying. As for the explosion, it was because he saw that the artillery did not kill many Mongolian troops, so he asked the gunner to increase the charge. Originally, the quality of the barrel was of concern, but now it was packed with gunpowder, so it would be strange if it didn't explode. It is said that four of his twenty cannons exploded in one round of firing, which indeed affected morale.
After hearing Li Shuang's words, Ouyang Xuan no longer walked to the Perak Army headquarters, but went straight to the guard company and asked Dong Hu to be called over to discuss countermeasures. He would definitely not agree to Yu Xing's blackmail, but before driving away the messenger, he had to have a foolproof strategy - to rescue the Pili Army's cannon-casting technicians. When returning from Diaoyu City and passing through Jiading Fucheng, Huang Dagen sent someone to contact "Fire Fox" in advance in order not to be troubled by Yu Xing. With the support of "Fire Fox", the fleet passed Jiading City in the middle of the night without any danger. It's just that rescuing the hostages is more dangerous than passing through Jiading Mansion. First of all, the location of the cannon-casting craftsman must be known, and he must be brought back quietly without revealing the identity of the operator. It's just that no matter how dangerous this thing is, it must be done, not only to prevent the leakage of artillery technology, but also to make a promise-the Thunderbolt Army will not give up its own people easily. The reason why Dong Hu was called was because his special forces were the first choice for this matter.
Although he believed that Li Shuang, Lu Dezhi and other top leaders of the Perak Army could perform their duties and promote the advancement of various undertakings under their rule, Ouyang Xuan was still uneasy after being out for nearly a month. He was originally a person with a strong sense of mission and responsibility, but now that the anti-Mongolian cause has just entered the right track, he really cannot afford to be careless. Immediately, people were notified that a joint military and political meeting would be held two days later. In order to prevent Yu Xing's envoy from discovering that Ouyang Xuan had returned, Dong Hu sent someone to put him under house arrest in a guesthouse. In the past, the messenger refused to leave, but now he cannot leave even if he wants to. Of course, the Pili Army would also let him go back, but that would only happen after the detained cannon-casting technicians returned safely from Jiading. When Yu Xing from Jiading Prefecture saw that the envoy had not returned, he just said that Ouyang Xuan was deliberately delaying and not agreeing to his conditions, so naturally there was another roar of thunder.
After receiving the notice, the joint meeting members rushed to Chongqing Fucheng. Although the Hexin Island outside Fucheng is the headquarters of the Perak Army, these top brass of the Perak Army did not stay in comfortable rooms. Instead, they traveled to various villages, Wubao Fortresses, factories and mines under their control. This is also Ouyang Xuan's requirement for Pili Army officials, that is, to master first-hand information on the spot and go deep into the grassroots to solve practical problems. In this regard, he is of course a model and role model. Due to different combat missions, the four brigades of the Perak Army have their brigade headquarters in different places. The Navy Brigade is in Xinjin City, the Internal Guard Brigade is in Chongqing Prefecture, the Field Brigade is in Qiongzhou, and the Garrison Brigade is in Hengyuan Fort. In fact, on the Hexin Island where the Perak Army headquarters is located, apart from the staff department, the only military personnel is the security company, and the rest are personnel handling government affairs.
At the joint military and political meeting, Ouyang Xuan and Huang Dagen reported their trip to Diaoyu City, and Li Shuang, Lu Dezhi and others also reported on their respective affairs. During this period, the Pili Army's various governance efforts were not neglected. Attracted by the stable environment and land policies, refugees continued to come; the construction and reclamation of various settlement sites continued; in industry, due to the factory buildings moving down the mountain, Production, including military industry, has declined, but this is only temporary. It is estimated that after the new factory buildings and equipment are put into operation in January next year, production capacity will gradually increase or even explode; in terms of mining, due to the development of several mining areas such as Qiongzhou, Dayi, and Baizhang , the output of coal, iron, lead, copper, sulfur, etc. has increased significantly. However, because the supporting refining facilities have not yet been put into operation, it will take some time to convert them into finished products.
