Early next morning.
Bao Dayou stayed behind to guard the pass, while Song Che and Jiang Yuntian led a small team to escort Wang Biao back to Yancheng.
"Brother Song, what kind of official position should I seek this time?" Jiang Yuntian was full of longing.
Song Che asked, "Brother Jiang has always been free and easy with swordsmanship, so why is he pursuing an official career like this now?"
It is not easy to be an official. The older an official is, the more sophisticated he is. With Jiang Daxia's straightforward character, he is actually not suitable for being an official.
Jiang Yuntian thought for a long time and then said: "I don't really want to be an official. I just feel that I should get some reward for my hard work. Otherwise, what's the difference between it and a horse?"
Yes, people always have something to pursue. Businessmen pursue profit, scholars pursue fame, and soldiers pursue generals.
People are destined to have desires from the time they are born and have thoughts. Facing one's desires head-on is preferable to deliberately suppressing them. After all, not everyone can become a saint. In other words, no one can transcend the ordinary and become a saint.
Song Che smiled and said, "When you make great military exploits and become an unparalleled general, I will fulfill my promise that day and give you the most beautiful woman in the world as your wife."
"I believe you have this ability, but there are so many women in the world, how do you know who is the most beautiful?"
"What you like is the most beautiful."
"That sounds like a good idea."
…
In one day, three levels were broken in a row.
The good news has already spread throughout Yancheng.
The people came out of the city to welcome them, cheering for the long-lost victory and wearing flowers for the triumphant heroes.
Jiang Yuntian and the other soldiers welcomed the love with open arms, while Song Che hid in the team. He was much shorter on the donkey than on the horse, but even so, he was "a standout" in the army.
Similarly, there was a young woman standing in the sea of people. Her appearance was astonishing, and her every move and every frown and every move she made treated the others as a foil.
Ning Yehong only stared at Song Che, intending to confess with her eyes, but Song Che could not look at her from beginning to end, and never even turned his head.
The encounter that was full of expectations ended in disappointment. She sighed secretly, turned around and disappeared into the sea of people. Just at this time, Song Che turned around, trying to make up for his indifference, but there were so many people surrounding her that no matter how beautiful she was, she could not be found.
Return to the military camp.
The civil servants and military generals who originally had doubts about Song Che were completely convinced. From then on, both generals and soldiers in the army were willing to call him "White-faced Military Advisor".
Jiang Yuntian bravely won the three armies, Bao Dayou captured Wang Biao alive, and the Yangzhou army killed enemy soldiers. They all recorded outstanding military exploits. When the anti-Japanese war was completely won, they would be reported to the imperial court for official honors.
Song Che declined all credit. For a businessman, being promoted to an official position is just a false name, and the benefits are real.
The reason why he came to fight against the Japanese was to defend his country and to expand commerce.
Naturally, he wanted a piece of the lucrative business of salt.
On the day of the victory at Longkou Port, under Song Che's strategy, Yancheng sent out 8,000 horse infantry to replace the Yangzhou Army and blockaded all parts of Longkou Mountain.
Whenever the southeast wind blew, they would smoke smoke at the foot of the mountain. The purpose was to smoke away all the animals on the mountain. The Japanese pirates were defeated and fled into the mountain. They lacked food and clothing. Coupled with the cold weather, they would raise their hands within half a month at most. Surrender, even if you don't surrender, you will lose your combat effectiveness. If you then go into the mountains to sweep, you can easily annihilate them all.
The two pirate leaders who fled up the mountain, Wang Li, was Wang Biao's biological father and the brother of the great pirate Wang Zhi. The bearded man was called Zheng Tong. In the past, he and Wang Li joined the army in Xiliang, and later returned to the fields with Wang Li. Directly engaged in the shipping business, Xu felt that shipping was not as profitable as plundering, so he eventually became a pirate, causing harm to the whole party.
According to Wang Biao, there are now three big pirates. One is named Xu Tao, who is causing harm to Hebei and Jingdong; the other is named Zeng Qi, who is causing harm to Fujian and Guangdong; and the third is Wang Zhi, who is entrenched in Huainan and Zhejiang;
Among the three pirates, Wang Zhi is undoubtedly the most powerful. The pirates he raises are enough to rival any navy in Daliang. He is cunning and cunning, and his whereabouts are changeable. He is not only good at disguising his identity, but also secretly colludes with merchants and ronin to carry out robbery and smuggling. Both black and white prevailed, and in its heyday it almost monopolized the entire Jiangnan shipping;
For this reason, Daliang sent troops many times to fight against pirates and issued a sea ban. Although it curbed the development of pirates in a short period of time, it also greatly reduced the living space of the people on the seaside;
Wang Zhi took advantage of the chaos to revolt, recruited seamen and rogues, and colluded with Japanese soldiers. He transformed from a pirate into a warlord with a fleet and organization. He burned, killed, looted, and captured ports in coastal areas, thus triggering the current "Japanese pirates" chaos".
Wang Zhi's whereabouts are extremely secretive. His fleets are distributed on various sandbanks overseas. There is no precise positioning in the current era, and his planning for the coastal archipelago is incomplete.
If you want to take the initiative to find out the pirate leader, it is not promising based on the current situation, so letting him show up himself is the only way.
Wang Li and Wang Biao are relatives of Wang Zhi. If we can use them as hostages to make some articles, we may be able to lure the snake out of its hole.
But no matter what, if you want to completely eliminate the Japanese pirates, building a navy more powerful than them is the only way.
Now that the war in the northwest of Daliang has ended and the war situation in the north has stabilized, it is really not difficult to shift the strategic focus to the coast and rely on the power of a big country to exterminate a group of Japanese pirates.
If you want to build a strong navy, the quality of sailors, weapons and equipment, and strategic policies are all indispensable.
About military training——
The strategy given by Song Che was that the entire military camp, including officers and generals, should follow suit and practice physical fitness for ten kilometers in the morning and evening. Instructors such as Jiang Yuntian would be responsible for teaching fists, kicks and fighting skills;
Various competitions are also held specifically in the military, including high jump, long jump, sprint, long-distance running, and Cuju. There is motivation only when there are rewards. Whoever wins the championship will be rewarded with a fat pig, and so on.
All in all, in the era of cold weapons, as long as soldiers are not afraid of hardship, fatigue, and death, and improve their physical fitness and fighting spirit, it will be difficult to defeat the battle;
About equipment——
In addition to the mass production of muskets and the artillery that Song Che was developing, warships were also indispensable;
Nowadays, Japanese pirates are raging along the entire coast of Daliang. Even if several major shipyards work day and night, it is difficult to meet the needs of the war;
Song Che adopted the strategy of "military-civilian cooperation", with government funding and private shipbuilding. He also used his authority as the president of the Chamber of Commerce to connect the army with major shipping and freight companies in Jiangnan.
In this way, he, the president, fulfilled his promise to bring members wealth, and also filled the loopholes in the military industry. To put it more noblely, he further strengthened the determination of the military and civilians to fight against foreign enemies.
About strategy——
The first step is to wait for the Japanese pirates to subside in Longkou Mountain and rebuild Longkou Port. The Chuzhou Navy will send troops south to assist Taizhou and Tongzhou;
In the second step, the two Zhejiang naval divisions move north along the coast, echoing the Huainan navy from the north to the south, and clear the entire defense line along the Jiangnan coast;
The third step is to spread out from the coastline, expel the Japanese pirates entrenched on the sandbars and archipelago, and build an inland island chain.
War strategy is only one of them, and people's livelihood strategy is more important.
Only by lifting the maritime ban, opening up customs, and returning the jobs of seafarers to them can the fundamental contradiction be resolved.
However, this matter has become a matter of national policy and depends on the emperor, Song Che and a businessman. Even if Gao Chen responds, the officialdom is unstable and the parties are changing. Some things may seem clear, but in fact they are dark and deep, making it difficult to make a final decision.
