Lu Mengzheng, who received Cao Rui's letter, was also surprised. I originally thought that Guangnan West Road was the rebels’ home base. When the government troops enter Guangnan West Road, the rebels are bound to resist desperately. Who dares to give up in this fundamental place? But he didn't expect that Jingjiang Mansion, the base of the rebels, would be captured by Zhao Wuye's troops who went south in such a short period of time. This was beyond his expectation.
Lu Mengzheng, who had received the imperial edict, knew that the now empty treasury was in urgent need of money from the traitorous palace to make up for it. Even after receiving it, the rebel king had already transferred most of his property overseas. But Lu Mengzheng knew that the wealth accumulated by the Guilin County Prince's Palace for more than a hundred years would definitely not be able to be transported away in a short time. There will definitely be great gains from searching the Guilin County Prince's Mansion.
What's more, this kind of big family is never of the same mind. As long as there are enough methods, enough things can still be found. Although you may not be able to have too much property, you may not be able to get nothing. In addition, Lu Mengzheng, who was the deputy prime minister, knew very well that as the first contributor to the founding of the country, he was also the richest family in the Qi Dynasty for more than a hundred years, and had great influence among the officials, gentry and common people in the world.
It can even be said that almost all the nobles in the court, including the gentry, wealthy businessmen, and scholars in the entire Jiangnan area, were watching how to deal with this matter. Especially since the counter-insurgency has reached this point and is already involved in this matter. Therefore, these royal sects must be handled with caution. This is why the emperor has repeatedly issued imperial edicts to protect the princes of Guilin County.
If someone wanted to disrupt the imperial court and gain prestige among the officials and common people in the world, he would take the opportunity to carry out mass killings. Or among those military officers, they are just motivated by money. In order to rob money and silk, he deliberately sent troops to kill people. This would have a huge impact on the imperial court. Thinking of this, although Lu Mengzheng had received a secret order from Huang Qiong to slow down his journey, he still rushed to Jingjiang Mansion with his men.
In order to rush to Jingjiang Mansion as soon as possible, Lu Mengzheng had to change horses but not people during the starry night. After arriving in Jeonju, we simply abandoned our horses and took a boat all the way down the river. Hurrying slowly, Lu Mengzheng rushed to Jingjiang Mansion with a group of civil servants on the twentieth day after Zhao Wushu occupied Jingjiang Mansion. At this time, except for leaving Zhang Tiande behind to guard Jingjiang Fucheng, Zhao Wushu had already moved his entire army south.
Although Zhao Wushu had served as the commander-in-chief of Hulao Pass, he was an authentic military attache after all. The civil affairs of Hulao Pass have always been under the jurisdiction of Dutong Tongzhi. When it comes to handling civil affairs, he knows everything but knows nothing about it. When the original officials of Jingjiang Mansion fled with the puppet emperor, they were blocked by him again. But Zhao Wushu could not distrust these people who had served as officials in the puppet dynasty.
It's a trivial matter for these bastards to take advantage of the opportunity to make money, but who knows if they will cause anything while raising food and fodder for the army. Or is he an official in the imperial court, working for the false emperor? Now that he has military orders, he can't have any problems behind his back. But he doesn't trust those people, and if he is asked to take care of the eating, drinking, and drinking of these people, he doesn't have the ability or the patience.
And his subordinates are also generals. Although these people are all military attaches selected from the best among the Jiangnan West Route Guards, they know nothing about politics. Those local military attachés who had close ties with local civil servants and knew how to handle government affairs were either beheaded because they were afraid to move forward on the battlefield, or they were impeached and dismissed from office. Nowadays, the military attaches in his army are basically promoted by low-level military attaches.
One of the few who was transferred from the military service department. He himself lacked qualified mid-level military attachés, and it was impossible to let them go. Although Zhang Tiande was also a serious military officer, in any case, he could be regarded as a local official in Nan'an Mansion. Therefore, before fleeing, Zhao Wushu ignored Zhang Tiande's resentful look and left Zhang Tiande with two thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry to take charge of the military and civilian affairs of Jingjiang Mansion.
In fact, because Guo Chen's army, which originally fought on the Huguang battlefield, accepted 10,000 elite rebels, they were now transferred to the Central Guizhou Road in an organized manner. Guo Chen was also transferred from the Huguang South Road Jiedu Envoy to the Qianzhong Road Jiedushi Envoy. He then entered the Huguang South Road battlefield with an army of 10,000 elite rebels who had been captured from the Jiangxi battlefield, preparing to cooperate with Cao Rui's main army and advance to Guangnan West Road together.
He was not familiar with the officialdom of Huguang South Road, and he did not bring any civil servants with him when he went south. Because he didn't expect that his progress would be so smooth. It was only after he occupied Jingjiang Mansion that he discovered how troublesome it was when it came to civil affairs. Today one family stole someone else's chicken, and tomorrow the other family said they bought the meat, and the butcher gave him a few taels less, which made Zhao Wushu extremely annoyed.
Therefore, after leaving Zhang Tiande behind, he took the rest of the army and horses and hurried south to fight. This is not entirely to get rid of the trouble in his eyes, it is also the need of the war situation. While staying in Jingjiang Mansion, he had received orders from Cao Rui many times, asking him to immediately march west to the border of Dali Kingdom to cut off the land connection between the puppet emperor and Shanchanhou Mansion of Dali Kingdom.
Completely cut off the Shanchanhou Mansion in Dali and the replenishment channel for the puppet dynasty's weapons and horses. As a general with specific command on the front line, Cao Rui had long discovered the close connection between the puppet emperor and the Dali Kingdom from the large quantities of refined ordnance captured by the Dali Kingdom and the large number of Dali horses during the battle against the rebels. For a commander like Cao Rui, he must make an accurate judgment on the overall situation.
Don't be careless about any possible accidents on the battlefield. Even on the battlefield, only Dali's weapons and horses appeared, but not a single soldier of Dali Kingdom. But Cao Rui was also worried that the relationship between the pseudo-emperor and the Shanchan Marquis was not simply a relationship between buyers and sellers. He had always been worried that the other side would intervene at the last moment.
And in terms of orders, Cao Rui also clearly told him that after entering the border of Dali, he must be prepared to deal with Dali's troops and horses at any time. Because according to existing information, after the imperial troops entered Guangnan West Road one after another. The Shanchanhou Mansion of Dali State mobilized tens of thousands of troops under its jurisdiction and took frequent actions on the border between the two countries. The elite elephant army of Shanchanhou Mansion was also deployed on one side of the border between the two countries.
I am worried that the Shanchanhoufu of Dali Kingdom will intervene in the final battle. Therefore, Cao Rui has been urging Zhao Wuye not to be involved in the messy things in Jingjiang Mansion and to immediately supervise the army to advance westward. At the same time, the grain and grass seized in Jingjiang Mansion were transferred to part of the main force. On the one hand, under Cao Rui's urging, on the other hand, I really couldn't deal with those things.
So, let’s just have a second master who doesn’t bother with anything. And Zhang Tiande, who was left behind by him, was also facing a lawsuit against the things that once annoyed Zhao Wushen. It was not until Lu Mengzheng arrived with a group of civil servants at night that Zhang Tiande escaped. It's just because of the important status of Jingjiang Mansion now that he can only stay behind even if there is a civil servant to take over.
Zhao Wushu ignored Zhang Tiande's reluctance and directly led his troops all the way west, passing through Liuzhou Prefecture and Qingyuan Prefecture, and headed directly for the border of Dali Kingdom. Along the way, the rebels did not organize any decent resistance at all, and almost collapsed at the first touch along the way. First, they surrendered to Liuzhou without a fight, and then the large quantities of grain, grass, and baggage that the rebels had hoarded in Qingyuan Prefecture fell completely into Zhao Wusha's hands.
On Guangnan West Road, where the rebels are based, the rebel regular army, although not small in strength, did not bring as much trouble to Zhao Wushu as the local miasma, complex terrain, and the rebellious Yi tribes along the way. . There are not even poisonous snakes and diseases, which bring a lot of trouble. The casualties caused by fighting the rebels along the way were not as many as those who were bitten by venomous snakes or fell down due to infectious diseases.
For Zhao Wushu, Guangnan West Road was too fucked up. In addition to the beautiful mountains and rivers, there is miasma everywhere. Everyone was gibbering, no matter whether they were Yi people or Han people, and I couldn't understand them. Everyone is thin and small, and there are venomous snakes almost everywhere. If it were not for the officers and soldiers under his command, who were mainly locals from Jiangnan West Road, they would have collapsed due to disease and miasma.
Compared with the main force of the rebels, they retreated again and again, and were defeated in one blow in several battles. On the contrary, several barbarian tribes who cooperated with the rebels in fighting resisted very tenaciously. When Zhao Wuhe went up the Hongshui River and entered Sicheng Prefecture, preparing to seize the last Zhili Prefecture near the border of Dali, he encountered several Yi tribes who cooperated with the rebels to fight, and concentrated 5,000 troops to fight against more than 10,000 rebels. The army joined forces to resist.
The two armies fought a bloody battle on both sides of the Hongshui River, and this battle was also the most brutal battle that Zhao Wushu fought on his way westward. Among the 15,000 opponents, the 10,000 regular rebels collapsed as soon as they engaged in battle. But the remaining five thousand barbarian tribes formed a tribal coalition. Although they were in disarray, the weapons in their hands were also quite inferior. But the intensity of the resistance was far stronger than that of the rebels.
Despite this, the Yi tribes who usually fight each other more often than not within each tribe have no tactics on the battlefield. The attack has always been a swarm of swarms. What kind of frontal attack, combined with attacks from both wings? There is no outflanking or any key direction. But when it comes to fighting, they are not afraid of death. Under the cover of blowing darts, they launch attacks desperately.
They even dispatched officers and soldiers to fight south to quell the rebellion, encountering the elephant soldiers for the first time. Although there were only five or six of them, it still put a lot of pressure on Zhao Wushan's subordinates. If not on various battlefields, everyone has captured elephants used by the rebels to transport baggage. Zhao Wushan's subordinates would probably be frightened by this huge monster with a particularly long nose, rough skin and thick flesh, and it didn't take him seriously even after being hit by several arrows.
But even so, Zhao Wushan's left wing was almost overwhelmed by these war elephants. If the army had not carried more than twenty copper-core iron cannons, the loud sound of the cannons when firing would have frightened these war elephants. When he turned around and fled, he overran his own rear team. The outcome of the battle at Hongshui River was really hard to say. In this battle, although Zhao Wushu defeated more than five barbarian tribesmen, he also suffered heavy losses.
After this battle, several of Zhao Wushu's generals were chasing the remnants of the army. Because he suffered heavy losses during the war, he wiped out several tribes that participated in the Battle of Hongshui River. Except for the young women who were tied to the army, all the food and livestock were looted. The rest of the people can be said to be like chickens and dogs. Not even the elderly or children were left behind.
The tribe's village was also burned down. And the beheaded heads were made into a spectacle on several official roads. Zhao Wushu, who was stationed in Sicheng Prefecture, sighed softly and frowned for a long time after receiving the report from his subordinates, but he did not pursue any of the generals. It was just an understatement. After saying that tribes who did not participate in the fight against the official army should not do this, they did not say another word.
However, after the defense was completed, Zhao Wushu had a headache. Knowing that today, Zhao Wushu will punish the officers and soldiers extremely severely for disturbing the people. I also know that this kind of thing must not be hidden. After hesitating for a long time, he still wrote a note about the matter. In the brochure, Zhao Wushu not only reported the incident, but also wrote in considerable detail the causes and consequences of the massacre of the barbarian tribes.
