It's not just a matter of face.
Once a city is conquered under the eyes of King Yan, the rebel arrogance will inevitably rise and the momentum will be greater.
And some people will definitely seize this point, infinitely exaggerate King Yan's incompetence, and wantonly criticize and smear him both in the government and in the public.
Without too much thinking, everyone in the handsome tent could understand the seriousness of the consequences, and the atmosphere began to become anxious.
"Your Highness, General Staff, I am willing to personally lead three hundred cavalry to the rescue to relieve the crisis in Gutian!" Cao Lie volunteered.
Yes, I almost forgot that we still have cavalry.
Zhao Mengqi perked up, but Chen Wei frowned and shook his head, "Although there is an official road to Gutian, it is winding and winding. Even if you can get there with light cavalry, you will still be short of people and horses. Moreover, the cavalry in the mountainous area has no advantage. If three hundred people want to fight against the nearby All chaos and thieves have no chance of winning."
The highest speed requirement is undoubtedly message delivery. At this time, the gold medal express delivery requirement was four to five hundred miles per day. This could only be achieved with complete post facilities and constant horse changes.
The well-established cavalry can reach 1,780 miles per day when marching in a hurry. There are also particularly impressive cavalry who can run 300 miles per day and night. However, this is caused by the superposition of various favorable factors and cannot be sustained for a long time. .
For example, the Mongolian cavalry, which had the largest number of horses per capita, often traveled nearly 200 miles per day in the plains. It is said that it exceeded 200 miles when they attacked Hungary, but they were exhausted after three days.
Obviously Cao Lie's cavalry did not have this condition. Even if all the horses used in the army for communication and reconnaissance were gathered together, there would only be more than 700 horses.
Let’s talk about the infantry. The marching requirement in the Song Dynasty was sixty miles per day. Elite light-armed forced marches could reach about a hundred miles. After all, the army did not just run to the place and be done. It had to maintain a certain physical strength to fight.
As a result, the crisis of Gutian County's city destruction seemed to be unsolved. When the government troops arrived, the thieves probably ran away after looting.
At this time, Wu Qiong, who was standing behind Zhao Mengqi, suddenly said, "Your Highness, let me go."
"Huh? Let you go?" Zhao Mengqi was stunned, and then his eyes lit up, "Hey, this is really a good idea."
Chen Wei was confused, "Your Highness, what kind of riddle are you trying to make? Although your personal guard is extremely brave, it can't really be defeated by ten thousand people, so what's the point?"
Zhao Mengqi rubbed his hands and said, "Hey, I selected a group of warriors with superb martial arts skills and unique skills from all the armies, and formed a special service team. There are not many people. They may be used to perform special tasks with miraculous results. The bachelor can understand it as The Eighteen Riders of Youyun.”
Although the Eighteen Riders of Youyun is just a legend, it is also included in the "New Book of Tang", so Chen Wei somewhat understood.
"Your Highness is saying that this small group of elites will rush over first to delay the excavation of the bandits through harassment and buy time for the larger group?"
"Yes, there are only thirty of them in total. One person has three horses and four horses. They can arrive in five hours at most. If they have a chance to delay for half a day, they can then order a group of Eastern Guards to carry only the necessary weapons and throw away their armor to forcefully march. Ming We should be able to arrive in the evening and take advantage of the bows and crossbows, which will be enough to deter and stop the bandit army. The large army only needs to speed up its march slightly as planned, and then we will completely clear them out after they arrive."
Chen Wei was thinking, "Your Highness, are you sure that thirty people can complete the delayed task?"
"It should be no problem. After all, the opponent is not a real army. Once panic occurs, it is not impossible for the entire army to collapse." Zhao Mengqi rubbed his chin, which was starting to grow a beard.
Chen Wei nodded and thought for a while. Although this method was a bit fanciful, it was not completely impossible to achieve.
"Well, now I can only give it a try."
Immediately, Zhao Mengqi immediately ordered, "Without further delay, Wu Qiong, you are given a quarter of an hour to complete the preparations for departure. Upright, he sent an order to Lu Changqing, ordering the Yao Ling Yao Regiment to carry only three days of military rations, march lightly and forcefully, and set off within two quarters of an hour. Tomorrow We arrived at Gutian County before sunset and put our cameras into the battle. The core mission is to ensure that Gutian is not lost... The rest of the troops will set off on time tomorrow morning as planned!"
After giving the order, the war machine started immediately.
Each member of the special service team was originally equipped with a good horse. Cao Lie selected another 120 horses from the right army, plus ten horses.
A school lieutenant who is good at managing horses is deployed for tasks.
In less than a quarter of an hour, Wu Qiong took the lead and led the cavalry out of the camp. They stepped onto the official road along the Minjiang River at lightning speed, rolled up smoke and dust in the sky, and soon disappeared in the distance to the northwest.
In the river near the south bank, there were a few fishing boats floating seemingly randomly. One of the fishermen saw what was happening on the north bank and quickly moved to the shore.
As soon as he reached the shore, the fisherman hurriedly abandoned the fishing boat, swung his legs and got into a forest, and then zigzagged to an inconspicuous shack. After a while, he came out carrying a pigeon cage. Just as he was about to open the cage door, two pigeon cages came out. One person jumped out from behind the banyan tree and pushed the fisherman to the ground.
"Hey! I've been targeting you for a long time, and you want to tip off the news!?"
The fisherman struggled and shouted, "Let me go...I don't know what you are talking about..."
A ball of rags with a fishy smell was immediately stuffed into the fisherman's mouth, blocking his next words and blocking his chance to commit suicide.
"Haha, after you have seen the methods of the Military Intelligence Department, you will naturally understand everything. Lin Fa, search the inside of the shack."
After tying up the fisherman, the man took out a piece of Sky Monkey and lit it. Then a long roar flew into the sky and finally exploded.
On the river, three naval speedboats immediately rushed towards the remaining fishing boats.
At this time, the gate of the military camp opened again, and groups of Eastern Guard soldiers trotted out of the camp and rolled toward the northwest.
One thousand four hundred men were able to attack in less than two quarters of an hour, which greatly amazed Chen Wei. Only a strong army with hundreds of battles could order and prohibit people like this. They could come and go as soon as they were called. If it were an ordinary forbidden army, they might not even have a complete team. .
Originally, he was a little worried. After all, the new Dongwei army was too immature, but judging from its current performance, it was still relatively reliable. No wonder King Yan was full of confidence.
The two troops set off one after another, but not many changes occurred in the camp. Everyone was still doing what they were supposed to do, without being curious or nervous.
Later, at the invitation of Zhao Mengqi, Chen Wei stayed in the camp to have lunch, which was a personal experience of what it meant to "eat better."
After eating and resting for a while, he was about to return to the city when he received another good news from Quanzhou and a personal letter from Uncle Xie Fang.
The victory report said that thousands of bandits appeared outside Quanzhou City half a month ago. Seeing that Quanzhou City was deep and well-defended, they retreated without trying to attack. However, they did not retreat far, but instead tried to plunder the towns outside the city. .
Quanzhou is a maritime trade city, and there are many places such as ports, warehouses, shops, shipyards, workshops, residential areas for merchants, etc. that are not protected by the city wall. However, if these places are damaged, it will definitely seriously affect Quanzhou's economy. .
Therefore, even though Uncle Xie Fang was short of troops in the city, he sent 500 left-wing troops to cooperate with the navy to drive away the bandits.
Although there were many bandits, they still did not dare to confront the officers and soldiers when they saw them, so they fled in all directions. The officers and soldiers followed Uncle Xie Fang's order and only pursued them for seven or eight miles before slowly retreating into the city.
After all, with all parties in chaos and limited troops, Uncle Xie Fang was worried that he would be transferred away from the mountain, leaving Quanzhou City's defense empty and giving the rebels an opportunity to take advantage.
Although after being driven away, the bandits no longer came too close to Quanzhou City and only raided rural markets and towns slightly further away, they still posed a threat to the bustling areas outside the city.
So a group of merchants and big local businessmen in Quanzhou applied to Uncle Xie to form a militia to protect their goods and property.
Uncle Xie Fang agreed to this request after careful consideration and the rule that militia groups were not allowed to enter the city.
Doing business at sea these days is very dangerous. Not to mention natural disasters such as storms, pirates are often encountered. Therefore, ships are basically equipped with armed forces, and the government also acquiesces to this. As long as the armed personnel do not come ashore, they will Just pretend you can't see it.
After Uncle Xie Fang's permission was issued, in just one day, a militia group with 3,000 troops was assembled, and the weapons were quite sophisticated, including swords, guns, bows and crossbows. They even removed torsion ballistae and small stone stone cannons from the ship. "Heavy weapons" such as cannons.
Seeing this, Uncle Xie Fang felt a little uneasy, but he could only let it go. He just watched the city defenses tighter, hoping to hold on until King Yan's reinforcements arrived.
in him
When he was nervous, the maritime merchants sent representatives to find him and said that if they could be given a certain tax reduction as a reward, they would be willing to let the militia take the initiative to eliminate the nearby bandits.
This matter is beneficial to Quanzhou, so Uncle Xie Fang naturally has no reason to refuse. He only hopes that the militia can drive the bandits farther away.
So the militia was dispatched and soon found a group of more than a thousand bandits near Luoshang Mountain. They showed strong fighting power. They beat the bandits in one encounter and made them cry for father and mother, and fled to find other bandits. Convergence.
The militia then chased the thieves all the way. As more and more thieves gathered, the people in the militia became more and more excited, because the rich men offered a reward of ten guan for their heads.
After chasing for two days, they finally returned after passing through Tong'an County, carrying carloads of heads.
Uncle Xie Fang sent someone to count the heads. There were more than 4,000 heads in total. He couldn't help but be overjoyed. He also believed that the existence of the militia would make Quanzhou City more stable, so he petitioned King Yan to give him a commendation to encourage the maritime merchants to work harder.
After reading the good news and the letter, Zhao Mengqi did not feel happy, but frowned, "Bachelor, what do you think of this matter?"
Chen Wei's face didn't look very good either. "The killing was a bit excessive. It's easy to force such bandits to surrender. Hey... most of them were just ordinary people."
Zhao Mengqi was indeed unhappy about this, but it had already happened and could only be pursued later. Now there were more important things to pay attention to.
"Maester, I'm talking about the vigilantes!"
Chen Wei immediately reacted, "If you think about it carefully, there is indeed something strange here. Normally, it is understandable that businessmen pursue profits and protect their own property, but how can they spend their own money to actively suppress thieves?"
"Haha, now the Quanzhou Shipping Department cannot collect 50,000 yuan in taxes a year. Even if it is reduced or exempted, it will not be enough to cover the expenses of the merchants." Zhao Mengqi curled his lips.
The way the shipping department collects taxes is generally to extract and buy it. To put it simply, after a ship arrives at the shore, it usually takes one-tenth of the goods as tax. In addition, according to different types of goods, it is sold according to a certain proportion. To the Shipping Department.
However, this city shipping tax is only collected on imported goods, but does not care about goods sold overseas. In other words, it only collects import taxes and no export taxes.
Later generations often did not charge export taxes in order to maintain the market competitiveness of their own export goods. However, Song Dynasty's goods actually had no competitors abroad and could actually be charged.
The current situation is due to the financial constraints of the Song Dynasty, which increased shipping taxes, which resulted in maritime merchants reducing their willingness to sell goods. Even if they came, they would try to evade taxes, which inevitably involved colluding with local officials and gentry.
Relatively speaking, they are more willing to sell the goods of the Song Dynasty. This is beneficial to private manufacturers, mainly the local powerful people who control the supply of goods, but the government does not get much benefit.
Nowadays, the Dashi area is also under invasion by the Mongols. Therefore, most merchants prefer to stay in the Song Dynasty and not return to the war-torn areas. However, they still have to do business, so it is a better choice to go to Korea, Japan and northern China. choose.
However, Zhao Mengqi set up the Donghai Company, which monopolized trade with the Japanese country, and also sent navy to patrol the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea to seize smuggling, which invisibly blocked many people's way of making money.
Zhao Mengqi also understood this in his heart, "It stands to reason that the maritime merchants in Quanzhou are probably against me..."
"Moreover, they are even more afraid that His Highness will change the maritime trade pattern of Quanzhou. In this case, their intention of forming a militia is worth exploring."
Chen Wei narrowed his eyes and continued, "If Mr. Xie loses his guard, something might go wrong."
