Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 260 Preparations before Crossing the River (Part )

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The three of them gasped when they heard this. Lu Jin was really generous. He gave away 10,000 pieces of armor as soon as he said he would. Upon hearing this, Li Shanchang hurriedly tried to dissuade him.

"General, isn't it too much to give us 10,000 sets of armor? Even if we want Li Duo to defend us for a while, it doesn't have to be so expensive, right?"

Lu Jin tapped the table with his fingers and said, "I hope they can hold out as long as possible. Based on the calculation that Tuotuo sent out his troops in September, I hope they can hold out for at least four to six months. If they have four months, we can double the number of troops.

“Even if the soldiers we just recruited are all new soldiers, we can let them guard the city. This way, we can replace the elite veterans originally stationed in the city, especially Zhu Liangzu’s 36th Army. If we can free up all the 36th Army to serve as mobile forces, then we don’t have to be so passive strategically.

"You can't catch a wolf without sacrificing a lamb. This is just like doing business. Although we have invested some money now, as long as we can delay them for a few more months, we can earn more back in Jiangnan."

Feng Guoyong knew what Lu Jin meant, but he still advised, "That's still too much. My lord, have you ever thought about this? What if these people are timid and hear that Tuotuo is going to lead the army south? Not only do they not think about defense, but they also take the 10,000 armored soldiers from the commander-in-chief and run away? Wouldn't that be a loss of both the lady and the soldiers?"

"."

Lu Jin was speechless after hearing this. "They shouldn't be so shameless, right? Besides, how could they bear to lose so many cities? And even if they moved, where could they move to? Where could they stay?"

Bao Yu's eyes turned when he saw this and he also said it.

"Now the armor we produce every month can replace one and a half regiments, and we can produce armor for three regiments in two months. The armor captured from the Yuan army is really useless to keep. At most, we can give it to the local internal guards in the future. It is not impossible to give it to Xuzhou, but we can't give it to you so easily.

“My suggestion is, first, don’t give it away for free, but ask them to exchange it for something, cloth or cotton will do.

“Although our territory is not short of iron, cotton needs land and time to grow, and we have to prepare for war and famine, so we don’t plant much cotton, but only grain.

"Besides, Luzhou Road is not famous for growing kapok. On the contrary, Guide Prefecture and Huai'an Road produce cotton. We can use this cotton to weave cloth, and the cloth can be used to make armor for ourselves, which is better than giving it to them for free.

"If they can't give us cotton, they can exchange it with something else, such as salt, which is hard currency. They probably won't give us food, but they can't let us give it away for free, so at least they can exchange it for some cattle, horses, donkeys, mules and other livestock.

"Second, these armors will be distributed monthly, with only 2,000 to 3,000 sets given each month. There are still at least three months until September. If we give them 3,000 sets each month, that would be 10,000 sets in three months. If they run away or don't follow our advice to build a city and prepare for war, then we won't give them the rest, so as to urge them to speed up their preparations for war."

The eyes of Lu Jin and the other two lit up immediately after hearing this. Li Shanchang immediately praised, "Your Excellency, what you said is very good. First, we can use the armor to keep them hanging and urge them to prepare for war. Second, we can also exchange it for some supplies that we urgently need. If we just give it to them for free, I'm afraid they won't know how to be grateful and think that our armor is easy to get."

"That's right. I think this method is feasible." Feng Guoyong also nodded in approval.

Seeing this, Lu Jin immediately made a decision, "That's it. Find someone to report Tuotuo to the military farm, and then send an envoy to warn Xuzhou Zhima Li that the original plan of crossing the river remains unchanged, and let Xuzhou try to block us for a while longer."

The three of them nodded repeatedly upon hearing this.

"can."

"I agree."

"Then let's settle it."

So the strategic direction seminar was finalized.

The reason why Lu Jin proposed to give Xuzhou some armor this time was, firstly, to urge Zhima Li to prepare for war quickly so as to buy more time for himself, and secondly, Lu Jin also had some other intentions.

Those are Mao Gui and Fu Youde whom he wanted to find, but they have not been found yet. It may be because these two people are not famous yet, so it is not a good idea to look for them rashly and in a high-profile manner.

In this case, why not take this opportunity of sending armor to make your presence felt within the Xuzhou rebel army and let them know that things are better in Luzhou. In this way, when they can't make it in Xuzhou in the future, they can think of coming to me for help, instead of like in the original history, when many people joined Liu Futong.

He did this in order to better prepare for receiving Xuzhou's heritage in the future.

There is also a third reason, which is that Lu Jin is a time traveler after all, and he still has some of the humanitarian spirit of modern people. Death in war is death in war, which is inevitable, and everyone serves his own master.

But in his opinion, the massacre was too cruel. After all, the people of Xuzhou were his compatriots, so he wanted to save the people of Xuzhou. He hoped to take this opportunity to change the fate of Xuzhou. Xuzhou was a big city with a population of 400,000 to 500,000.
After this strategic meeting, the strategic plan for the next six months and even until next spring will be finalized.

The meeting determined the following things: First, continue to strengthen the defense system of Anqing Road to prevent the Yuan army in Jiangxi, especially Yang Tongguan's Miao army, from going down the river and raiding Anqing or Luzhou.

Second, they avoided the envoys from Xu and Song who came to recruit them and resolutely refused to respond, forcing them to attack Hangzhou, draw away the Yuan army in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and try to create favorable opportunities for the Shengwu Army to cross the river.

Third, we must continue to strengthen preparations for crossing the river, including military training, weapons, ships, etc., and we must ensure that if we attack, we will win.

Fourth, submit a memorial to Tuotuo, tricking him into farming in Dadu ahead of time, and try to delay the time for the Yuan court's central army to move south, so as to buy more time for Xuzhou and himself. Fifth, support the Xuzhou righteous army, and try to make them hold out for a few months longer than in history, so as to buy more time for Lu Jin to cross the river and expand the army.

Sixth, the strategic deployment after crossing the river remains unchanged, but emphasis should be placed on accelerating the pace of development. Delaying and buying time in the north is one thing, but we must also make full use of our time on our side and not waste the time we have finally gained. In a nutshell, improve work efficiency!
After the plan was set, the several people started to get busy with their respective tasks. Li Shanchang continued to prepare supplies for crossing the river, while Feng Guoyong rushed back to Anqing to continue repairing his bastion, striving to complete it before September so as not to affect his crossing of the river with Lu Jin.

Bao Yu was responsible for intelligence work, and he was also responsible for reporting the matter to Tuotuo.

Lu Jin was also busy. He was preparing to move and send Zhang Yunxiu to Chao County. He also summoned all the generals of Yang Jing's 37th Army to hold a river crossing combat meeting for them and deploy the tactics of the river crossing campaign in advance.

After the meeting, after seeing off Feng Guoyong and Li Shanchang, Lu Jin called Bao Yu over. When they were the only two left, Lu Jin asked.

"Submitting a petition to Tuotuo to promote military farming is not as simple as bribery. Fang Guozhen paid someone to speak well of him. What are we? We are rebels. We are submitting a petition to persuade Tuotuo to establish military farming in Dadu. Isn't this rebelling against Tiangang? We don't even have a reason. It is not our business at all.

"So even if we offer bribes, it's probably hard for anyone to submit petitions on our behalf. Have you thought about what to do about this? Who is the right person you mentioned?"

Bao Yu immediately said with confidence, "I understand what the lord said, so I plan to follow the path of Li Qi, the prefect of Gaoyou in the Yuan court, and submit a memorial to Tuotuo. If it is done properly, it may not even cost any money."

"Hmm? Tell me in detail, can you get through to the prefect of Gaoyou?" Lu Jin immediately became interested.

"Yes, this is also the information we just got from our intelligence station in Jiangbei area recently." Bao Yu introduced immediately.

"This matter has to start from the uprising of Liu Futong and his people last year. There was a man named Wang Kerou in Taizhou, Yangzhou Road. This man was from a wealthy family and was usually kind and generous. He liked to help the poor and made friends with knights. After Liu Futong's uprising last year, Wang Kerou immediately joined the uprising in Taizhou to respond, but was soon suppressed by Li Qi, the governor of Gaoyou, and was arrested and taken to Gaoyou.

"But Wang Kerou was usually kind and generous, and many knights had benefited from his kindness. When they heard that Wang Kerou had suffered, two people who had benefited from his kindness in the past, one named Li Huafu and the other named Mian Zhangsi, conspired together and gathered a group of people to break into Gaoyou prison and rescue Wang Kerou.

"Later, the plot was exposed and was known by Gaoyou prefect Li Qi. Li Qi had no choice but to transfer Wang Kerou to Yangzhou in advance, and then tried to appease Li Huafu and Zhang Si who were preparing to break the prison, and finally succeeded in appeasing the two.

"Now this Li Huafu is the judge of Taizhou, and that Mian Zhang Si has been recruited to become a captain of Taizhou. After the people below reported this situation to me, I immediately felt that these two people could be won over. They were both rebels in the past. If we take the initiative to contact and win them over, it will be easy to make them rebel again. This is simply a God-given internal response.

"But I haven't done this yet. I am planning to use these two key roles in the future when I conquer Yangzhou Road. Maybe I can take Taizhou without bloodshed by then."

Lu Jin was quite surprised when he heard this. He didn't expect that such a thing would happen in Taizhou. Those who dared to risk their lives to break into the prison and save their benefactors in order to repay their kindness were all ruthless people with feelings and loyalty. Now this man named Li Huafu was actually recruited to become the magistrate of Taizhou. It would be easy for him to become an insider.

What Lu Jin didn't know was that this man named Li Huafu was indeed an insider in the original history and rebelled again, but why didn't he leave any famous name in the history books? It was because he died too early.
Zhang Shicheng was offended in his business, so he took 18 carrying poles and killed all his enemies in Yancheng. The matter became a big deal. With so many murders, the government would definitely not let him go, so Zhang Shicheng decided to go all out and directly raised the flag of rebellion. He recruited tens of thousands of salt workers in Yancheng as soldiers, and the first city he captured was Taizhou on the Yangzhou Road.

The reason why Zhang Shicheng was able to capture Taizhou was because he had Li Huafu as an insider. These two people must have known each other, otherwise, without Li Huafu's cooperation, how could Zhang Shicheng have easily captured the city.

But after taking Taizhou, the Gaoyou prefect Li Qi mentioned above once again used the trick of appeasement to try to recruit Zhang Shicheng. Zhang Shicheng had no intention of rebelling against the Yuan Dynasty. He just committed a murder and was afraid of being caught by the government. Now that the government was willing to recruit him, why not? So he wanted to agree to the recruitment.

But at this time Li Huafu disagreed. He and Zhang Shicheng were in a cooperative relationship, not a subordinate relationship, so a conflict arose between the two over this matter.

In order to successfully be recruited by the Yuan court, Zhang Shicheng had a fight with Li Huafu in Taizhou City. Eventually Li Huafu was killed by Zhang Shicheng, and the rebel army under his command was completely wiped out, either dead or annexed by Zhang Shicheng. Zhang Shicheng finally got his wish and was successfully recruited by the Yuan court.

However, it did not take long for Zhang Shicheng to realize that being recruited was not so easy. Since he had become a member of the Yuan court, he had the obligation to fight for the Yuan court. The Gaoyou prefect Li Qi, who had recruited him before, actually ordered him to lead troops to fight the Red Turban Army in Haozhou. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang had already surrendered to Guo Zixing in Haozhou.

Zhang Shicheng thought this was wrong. You are driving a tiger to eat a wolf. Once you destroy the Red Turban Army in Haozhou, will you let me have a good time? So he rebelled again, and in his later life, he jumped back and forth between the Yuan court and the rebel army.
This is all the record of Li Huafu in the original history. One can only say that it is such a pity that such a brave man who valued loyalty and trust took the initiative to open the door and let Zhang Shicheng into Taizhou City, but finally died so miserably at the hands of the treacherous villain Zhang Shicheng. Otherwise, he would definitely be a famous figure in the late Yuan Dynasty.

However, Lu Jin did not know that Li Huafu had such a connection with Zhang Shicheng in the original history. All he knew about Li Huafu was what he had just heard from Bao Yu.

"So, you plan to contact Li Huafu now, and then go through him to the prefect of Gaoyou and make a report to Tuotuo?"

"Yes." Bao Yu nodded. "After all, this Li Huafu was born a rebel. We can contact him in advance. After all, he was recruited by Li Qi, so he has a history with Li Qi. It should be safer to make suggestions to Li Qi through him and then let Li Qi submit a memorial to Tuotuo. We can use the reason that by pleasing Tuotuo, we may even be able to gain meritorious service, which may impress Li Qi."

Lu Jin frowned and thought for a while before nodding, "It is feasible to a certain extent, but is Li Huafu reliable? How do you plan to win him over? You should know that we have no plans to attack Yangzhou Road in the next year or so. If we attack Taizhou, we have to wait until we take over Jiqing Road and Zhenjiang Road."

Bao Yu immediately said, "This Li Huafu is so brave and righteous that he risked his life to rescue his benefactor. I think it would be better to be honest with him directly. Even if the negotiation fails, we won't lose much. At most, we can find another way. What do you think, Marshal?"

After hearing this, Lu Jin thought about it again and again, and then nodded and said, "Let's do it this way. We have to try everything we can. After all, there is no other way."

"Yes, then I will do it. I plan to go to Chuzhou to personally deploy this matter, otherwise it will be too slow to transmit messages back and forth." Bao Yu said immediately.

"Okay, then you should be careful. Also, tell Li Huafu and Zhang Si clearly that if they surrender to us, they can be a civil servant or a military general, but they need to be patient for the time being. In at least half a year and at most a year, we will definitely be able to fight our way to Yangzhou, and we will not treat him unfairly then." Lu Jin reminded again.

"Yes."

(End of this chapter)