Time flies to the end of June. In the past nearly two months, the internal affairs of the Pili Army have been advancing in an orderly manner. From an external perspective, there are not many disturbances. Since the defeat of Pengshan Meizhou, the Mongolian army's arrogance has been reduced a lot, and even the frequency of rangers harassing the Perak Army has been greatly reduced. After Dong Hu handed over Meizhou to the Jiading Army, he also led the special brigade back to Pujiang County, bringing back more than a thousand captured bandits. The Jiading Army once requested the return of Meizhou City on the grounds that these bandits were Meizhou people, but Dong Hu flatly refused. It took the boss's efforts to catch these treacherous villains. Wouldn't it be like letting the tiger go back home if they were sent back to Meizhou? In his opinion, the Qiongzhou Mine is where they should go.
In his reply, Yu Xing agreed that the Pili Army would return Meizhou City and keep Pengshan City. In his opinion, a plague had just occurred in Pengshan City, and the population had already fled. After taking over it, not only would he not receive taxes, but he would also have to spend a lot of manpower and money to restore it to its full strength. Moreover, this city is on the only way to go south with the Mongolian navy, so it will inevitably be attacked continuously. The Perak Army occupied Pengshan, which happened to help Jiading and Meizhou block the attack of the Mongolian navy. As for Ouyang Xuan's power to handle the affairs of the Yi and Tibetan people near Sichuan, although he wanted to throw away this burden, he did not want to offend Cao Zhizhou. He just told Ouyang Xuan that he would truthfully report the situation to the court and let the court decide the matter.
This time the messenger from Jiading Prefecture was a member of the "Fire Fox", and he brought a secret letter from Su San'er. The letter was about the war in Diaoyu City. Yu Xing did not mention this kind of military information to Ouyang Xuan. In the letter, Su Saner told Ouyang Xuan that in May, Lu Wende led the navy to break through the blockade of the Mongolian general Niulin, break through the Mongolian army's Fuliang in Fuzhou (now Fuling City, Chongqing), enter the besieged Chongqing city, and comfort Sichuan. Stand firm for the military and civilians. In June, Lu Wende led his fleet northward again, trying to rescue Diaoyu City, a hundred miles northwest of Chongqing Prefecture. At the beginning of the march, the Mongolian army retreated steadily. Later, Meng Ge ordered the Han army Shi Tianze to lead his army to resist. Shi took advantage of the Mongolian army's advantageous terrain in the upper reaches to attack Lu Wende's army downstream. In addition, he was bombarded by crossbows and platoon artillery along both sides of the river. After many ships, they were forced to retreat to Chongqing.
Although the Mongolian army repulsed the Song army's reinforcements, there was nothing they could do against Diaoyu City. The Mongolian soldiers had lived in the north for a long time and were unable to adapt to the hot summer climate in Hezhou. As a result, many soldiers and horses fell ill. Diseases were prevalent in the camp and morale was low. Tens of thousands of Mongolian troops garrisoned Diaoyu City for several months. Although they suffered heavy casualties, they made no progress. Not only did they kill several generals, but even Wang Dechen, the forward general who Mongolia relied heavily on, was killed by artillery. On the other hand, under the leadership of Wang Jian, the morale of the soldiers and civilians of Diaoyu City was high, and their offensive and defensive advance and retreat were well organized. They even went out of the city several times to attack the Mongolian camp at night, which kept the Mongolian army awake at night.
The news about the caravan was mixed. The good news is that the road from Wei Mao to the grassland in the direction of Songzhou is open again. After receiving the money, Wei Mao officials did not just take the money without doing anything. They first asked the Pili Army miners to blast the rocks on the Widow's Cliff road, and then organized a large number of laborers to clean them up, and finally restored the blockage. The path of the moon. As soon as the road was opened, the Pili Army's caravan set out on the road carrying a large amount of tea, porcelain, salt, iron products and other daily necessities. The grasslands north of Songzhou were in urgent need of these things.
In addition to the grasslands north of Songzhou, the Pili Army caravan also opened up business routes in the direction of Weizhou with the help of Weizhou and Maozhou. Traveling three hundred miles west from Weizhou, you can reach another Tibetan grassland. This grassland is vaster than the grassland north of Songzhou, and the demand for Han products is also greater, but the road is more difficult and dangerous. But this is not a problem at all for the caravan. After all, the more difficult the road, the higher the profit. What's more important is that in this vast grassland, there are also horses and other large livestock that the Perak Army is eager for. Although the Pili Army now has no shortage of war horses, they can be resold to the Song Army in Chongqing Prefecture, Luzhou and Xuzhou, and the profits are extremely lucrative. These Song troops could have purchased war horses from the Dali Kingdom, but since the Mongolian army occupied the Dali Kingdom, their sources were cut off. As for large livestock such as cattle, mules, and donkeys, they are good helpers for industry, mining, and agriculture, and can greatly improve production efficiency. There is still a huge gap in various industries of the Perak Army.
Heading to the trade route to Lizhou and Diaomenguan, due to the retreat order issued by Cao Zhizhou, the trade between the two places has not yet recovered. It's just that Qian Bao has sent people through the small road to get in touch with Zelang and other merchants in Fan District, and has checked the demand lists of both parties. Once the checkpoint is cleared, large-scale transactions can begin.
The bad news came from the Yi tribe southeast of Jiading Prefecture. Because he heard that there were copper and fire salt mines in the Mahu Department, Boss Qian sent a caravan there. Although he was mentally prepared for the dangers of this new trade route, he did not expect it to be so dangerous. There were more than 100 people in the caravan going to Mahu, including two platoons of more than 70 escorts. They were not only equipped with muskets and grenades, but also light artillery. As soon as they entered the Yi District, the bandits here swarmed in one after another, killing them all. Although a large number of bandits were killed and injured, they also lost more than 20 people, which can be said to be heavy casualties.
After finally arriving at Mahu, we found that although there were many copper ores and saltpetre ores, there were not many finished products. Although the profit per unit of the remaining products is astonishing, the transaction volume is too small. Because the ammunition was almost exhausted when they arrived, the caravan did not dare to return the same way. In desperation, they had to detour to Xuzhou and return to Qiongzhou by water. The painful experience of this trip told the Pili Army that it is almost impossible to conduct commercial transactions with the Yi District at present, and it is unrealistic to open mines there. Copper is a scarce thing and can be minted into coins. If it can be developed, Yu Xing, who is closer to Yi District, will naturally not let go of this piece of fat.
In addition to the Yi area, Boss Qian also sent three caravans to the direction of Dali. These caravans mainly explore commercial routes and prepare for large-scale transactions. However, two of the caravans returned shortly after entering the territory of Dali due to the activities of the Mongolian cavalry. After the Mongolian army destroyed the Dali Kingdom, although it did not have strong control over its territory, its control over the border areas of the Southern Song Dynasty was tightened with the help of the Dali soldiers. Therefore, only one caravan of the Pili Army went deep into the Dali Kingdom to find the copper origin mentioned by Ouyang Xuan. However, it has been more than two months since they set out, and there is no news.
Also temporarily missing from the news was the messenger team heading to Lin'an. After they arrived at Luzhou along the waterway, they were unable to move forward due to the fighting, so they had to go to Banzhou to prepare to detour to Hubei Road. More than a month ago, the messenger team sent someone to return a letter. The letter stated that they had arrived in Bozhou, and visited Bozhou officials with an official letter from the Yongkang Army, and stayed there for several days. However, they did not see the leader Yang Wen. At that time, he was leading the Bozhou soldiers to fight against the Mongolian army under Lu Wende. The person who met them was the young master Yang Bangxian.
Yang Bangxian also heard about the deeds of the Perak Army. After seeing the power of the firearms carried by the messenger team, he also became interested in firearms. He also heard that the power of the Perak Army's artillery could cause mountains to collapse and the ground to split. He was even more surprised and shocked, and immediately decided to send a caravan to Chongqing Mansion to discuss the purchase. The messenger team, led by Yang's guide, continued towards Lin'an.
