Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 418: Spring Outing and the New Dynasty's Horse Policy

After hearing Qin Rong's explanation, Deng Shunxing nodded. He roughly understood what Qin Rong meant. The most basic training officers were in the company, and the senior ones were all the way up to the front army. Moreover, the senior training officers often convened meetings of the grassroots cadres below to arrange propaganda tasks and convey Lu Jin's instructions and spirit.

Under this system, if something goes wrong below, it is easy for the higher-ups to find out, so there won't be a situation where the military and political chiefs rebel together. Even if a general makes a mistake and kidnaps a training officer of the same level, the soldiers below will never betray him, unless the soldiers are deceived.
Then they talked about the art of war and Qin Rong's combat experience. According to Qin Rong's judgment, this attack on Ningguo was just to let Deng Shunxing and others practice. After that, they would definitely be responsible for attacking Jiande Road, so Deng Shunxing and others should be mentally prepared.

Deng Youlong was immediately very excited, and he chased Qin Rong to ask some stories about previous wars, and then the group discussed the specific tactics for attacking Ningguo County.

According to intelligence, the city of Ningguo County was built only in the past one or two years after the Red Turban Rebellion in the 11th year of Zhizheng, when the Yuan court ordered major renovations of cities all over the country. The city wall is only five meters high and three meters wide, with a rammed earth structure and no bricks on the outside. There are no large rivers or water sources near Ningguo County, so there is not even a moat outside the city, only a circle of trenches that you can walk through with a piece of plank. The defensive effect can only be said to be better than nothing.

Qin Rong had fought many small cities like this before, so he immediately talked about the infantry and artillery coordinated siege tactics invented by Lu Jin. According to intelligence, there were only a few thousand defenders in Ningguo County. Even without artillery, their six regiments could make the defenders unable to fight back with just two fists.

However, even Qin Rong did not guess the actual situation of Ningguo County. On the third day of May, when Deng Shunxing and Qin Rong led 30,000 troops to the city of Ningguo, Ningguo County surrendered before they even started to build artillery batteries. Deng Youlong, who was eager to gain experience, was stunned and depressed.
Zhang Wengui, the defender of Ningguo County, was also helpless. He was originally just a small centurion of the Yuan army in Ningguo Road. Most of the middle and senior generals such as the ten thousand and thousand households of Ningguo Road were killed in the battle when Chang Yuchun attacked Jingxuan. Only a few small miscellaneous centurions were left to defend the other cities. The few thousand soldiers in this city were newly recruited by Zhang Wengui not long ago.

Moreover, unlike the three cities of Taiping, Jingde and Shidai, those three cities were at least close to Huizhou Road. Even if they could not win, they could retreat to Huizhou Road or ask for help from the Yuan army in Huizhou Road. However, it was different in Ningguo County.

To its west is Huayang Mountain, to its east is Tianmu Mountain, to its north it faces the main force of the Fifth Front Army, and to its south are Changhua and Yuling Pass, which belong to Hangzhou Road and have long been controlled by Yang Jing's Third Front Army. There is only one road leading to Jingde in the southwest, but Jingde is now being attacked by Chang Yuchun. It is like a clay Buddha crossing the river, unable to save itself, so how can it possibly support Ningguo County?

Given the current situation, Ningguo County is surrounded on all sides and is in a desperate situation. There are no elite soldiers inside and no reinforcements outside. The city walls are not high and the moats are not deep. The commander defending the city is just a small centurion. Facing the 30,000-strong Shengwu Army, what would you choose?
He didn't know how others would choose him, but Zhang Wengui was very aware of the current situation. Instead of fighting a battle to the death, Zhang Wengui chose to surrender directly.

Deng Shunxing and Qin Rong were also very considerate and did not make things difficult for him. The army did not even enter the city. Only Gong Xiuwen, as the training officer of the 46th Army, went into the city and posted a notice to reassure the people. Then he arrested the former Yuan court officials, tried those who needed to be tried, sentenced those who needed to be sentenced, and let the newly appointed county magistrate of the Marshal's Office take office. The local intelligence station personnel in Ningguo County were transferred to become clerks of the new government to assist the county magistrate in his work and formally establish the regime of the Shengwu Army.

As for Zhang Wengui's troops, they only selected more than 400 strong men who were willing to continue serving in the army, and gave severance pay to the rest of the soldiers, and all of them were dismissed as civilians. They also transferred a company of more than 200 internal guards from Xuancheng in the back, and temporarily stationed them in Ningguo County to maintain public order. After Ningguo County was fully registered, they formed their own internal guards and let the internal guards of Xuancheng withdraw.

After all this was arranged, the main force of the 46th Army continued to advance towards Jingde without stopping to join forces with Chang Yuchun.

The other two armies in the Southern Anhui Campaign also advanced smoothly. Chang Yuchun officially launched an attack on Taiping on the third day of May. With the fire support of four main regiments and the Imperial Guard Division, Taiping County only held out for a few hours before the city was breached by Chang Yuchun. Then Shidai was directly surrendered by Zhou Xing and a regiment.

So Chang Yuchun stayed in Taiping and sent scouts to Yixian and Qimen for reconnaissance. He also ordered Pingding to lead the main force to attack Jingde. As a result, the main force of Deng Shunxing's 46th Army met at the foot of Jingde City, and Jingde was captured on May th.

On the battlefield along the river in the west, Liao Yongjian and Wang Zhiyuan led the main forces of two armies, plus the support of the Imperial Guard Division and the Navy. Nearly 60,000 troops took the water route to raid Guichi. The fighting started on the second day of May. Guichi was close to the bank of the Yangtze River and the city was still within the range of naval guns. Finally, under the suppression of firepower from both land and sea, as the heavy armored infantry of the Imperial Guards Third Division climbed onto the city wall, Guichi, an important city along the river, was declared liberated.

Then Liao Yongjian and Wang Zhiyuan split their troops into two groups. Wang Zhiyuan led the army to launch a non-stop attack on Qingyang west of Guichi, and captured Qingyang on May 5th. Liao Yongjian led a large fleet of two naval regiments to search and advance toward Dongliu and Pengze upstream, looking for an opportunity to annihilate the main force of the Yuan army navy of the barbarian Hague.

On the seventh day after the Southern Anhui Campaign was launched, the three main armies of the Fifth Front Army had already captured six cities in succession, which was a rapid progress. The Shengwu Army was now very famous. In the absence of the main force of the Yuan Army in the field, those cities trapped in various places could only be regarded as dishes on Lu Jin's table. He could eat whichever he wanted!

"Great victory! Great victory! General Liao Yongjian of the Tenth Army led the main forces of the 44th and 45th Armies, advancing by land and sea, and captured Guichi on the second day of May, annihilating all defenders!"

"Great victory! Great victory! The Fifth Front Army Governor Chang Yuchun led the main force of the 43rd Army to capture Taiping on the third day of May and wiped out the defenders. Shidai County was frightened by the might of our army and surrendered the city!

"Great victory! Great victory! Deng Shunxing, deputy commander of the 10th Army, personally led 30,000 troops to the city of Ningguo on the third day of May. The Ningguo defenders were terrified and opened the city to surrender!"

"Wow, this is all the victory news from May 3rd? This Fifth Front Army is incredible. They took three cities in one day, and two cities surrendered. The Marshal's Shengwu Army is really famous. It seems that the Yuan army dare not fight anymore."

"Who says it's not true? Our commander-in-chief has a strong military force and has never suffered a defeat since the uprising. Do you know what this means? This is destiny! Otherwise, how could he never suffer a defeat? I think at this rate, if the five armies march together, we can conquer the world and drive the Tartars away in three years at most!"

"Three years? I don't think it will take that long. Two years will be enough."

"What are you talking about two or three years? Do you know how big the Nine Provinces are? It took Emperor Guangwu three years to restore the Han Dynasty from the time he started his army to the time he became emperor, but it took him eight or nine years to conquer the world."

"So what? Didn't you say that the Marshal is destined to be the emperor? He will be the emperor in the future. So why can't our Marshal be more powerful than Emperor Guangwu?"

".I won't talk to you about this."

"Hey, you say, the victory report says that the army that attacked Ningguo should be a detachment, right? The one leading the troops is just a deputy general, but this detachment has 30,000 troops. How many soldiers were used in total for this southern expedition?"

"I'm not sure about that, but it's probably at least 100,000 or 200,000. This is just one front. If all five are added together, I'm afraid there will be more than a million troops. My goodness, how many people that is, I really can't imagine it."

"Not only that, there are also the local internal guards. If the internal guards are included, I'm afraid there will be more than two million troops."

One victory report after another was sent back to Jiankang, and the blotters along the way kept stimulating people's attention. Six cities were captured in seven days! Such a speed of advance was like a replica of the Eastern Expedition, and this was just the result of one front army.

It is hard to imagine that if the five armies of the Shengwu Army were to move out together, people would have no doubt that within half a year at most, Lu Jin would be able to annex half of China, with an overwhelming momentum!
The morale of countless soldiers and civilians was high, only the powerful gentry who were brutally suppressed by Lu Jin were secretly sad. However, there were also some knowledgeable people who saw the general situation of the world from these battle reports.

The tide of history is unstoppable. Those who go against it will perish, and those who follow it will prosper!

Instead of fighting against Lu Jin's nine-tier tax system and being a stubborn rock swimming against the tide of history and getting crushed by the raging waves, it is better to go with the flow, prepare early for the autumn imperial examination in September this year, and become a rising star of this new dynasty!

The people who are happiest about these good news are probably the Jinshi who were on the list of Jinshi in the imperial examination this spring. As long as a city is captured on the front line, they will be able to take office as local officials immediately. This is the first local official of the new dynasty. As long as they make political achievements, it is not far away for them to serve in high positions in the government in the future!
They wished that the troops could march faster and faster! There were a bunch of newly-qualified officials waiting to take up their posts!

While the soldiers on the front line were fighting bloody battles and the military and civilians in the rear were excited, what was the supreme commander of the Shengwu Army, who they said was destined to be theirs, doing?

Well, Lu Jin saw that the weather in early May was good, neither too cold nor too hot, and there were no mosquitoes. Moreover, his son Gongshu Tan was more than nine months old and had some resistance. Zhang Yunxiu stayed in the palace all day to take care of the baby, which was a bit boring. So he took his wife and children, as well as the civil and military officials of the Marshal's Mansion, out of the city to go for an outing in the suburbs of Jiankang.

Outside the east gate of Jiankang City, the banks of Yanque Lake are lush with aquatic plants and rippling with blue waves. It is the place where Zhu Yuanzhang later filled the lake to build the imperial palace. At this time, Yanque Lake has not been filled yet, and it is a great place to visit.

Lu Jin took the initiative to take over the responsibility of holding the baby, allowing Zhang Yunxiu to relax for a day. She held her son and sat by the lake with a group of ministers, some fishing and some chatting, while guards were on guard and releasing horses nearby.

Zhang Yunxiu also formed a group of noble ladies, and took a group of generals and high-ranking officials' wives and daughters to have fun by the lake.

Zhang Wen's wife Qin Shumin also gave birth. In the twelfth month of last year, when Zhang Wen was still on the eastern expedition, she gave birth to a son for Zhang Wen. The son is the younger cousin of Lu Jin's child. He is five months old now. They were brought out together this time, and the two sisters-in-law were exchanging parenting experiences.

Fan Qiuchan and Fang Guozhen's wife Dai were also invited. They recited poems, painted, played the zither and the flute with a group of young ladies from official families. The folding fan 'invented' by Lu Jin last year also became popular. Several women who were good at painting were there learning to paint on fans, hoping to make a few folding fans as gifts.

Ma Xiuying and Chang Yuchun's wife, Lan Yu's sister Lan Caiyun, were preparing food for everyone and directing a group of cooks to cook. Zhu Liangzu's wife Zeng was in charge of the logistics of the outing, purchasing various ingredients. The group of women were busy.

Lu Jin moved a chair and sat by the lake, wearing a pair of large sunglasses on his face and holding a folding fan in his hand to shade his son from the sun. His nine-month-old son sat in his arms, holding a paper windmill in his hand. He watched a mother duck with a group of furry ducklings swimming in a line on the lake, and then waved the windmill in his hand, pointing at the ducks and signaling to Lu Jin, while quacking.

Li Shanchang glanced at the noble ladies over there, then looked at Gongshu Tan in Lu Jin's arms, and then he advised, "My lord, you should take in a few more concubines as soon as possible and have more children. Otherwise, with only this one, the population will not be prosperous and the country will be unstable."

Lu Jin heard this and said, "There's no rush. Let's talk about it later."

Li Shanchang urged, "My lord, you should be anxious. After the Southern Anhui Campaign is over and before the Jiangxi Campaign begins, even if you don't ascend the throne directly to be emperor, you must take the title of king. Otherwise, when the army meets Xu Song, Xu Shouhui has already proclaimed himself emperor and established a system. He is also a righteous army. He sent envoys to recruit you before, but you rejected them all because your official title was too low.

“If he fails to appease the lord this time and instead offers high positions and generous salaries to our frontline generals to recruit them, we will be in a very passive position. If the lord declares himself king, Xu Song will no longer have any chance of success. He cannot offer a higher title than the king, so he can only admit that he is equal to our army and cannot recruit our generals to surrender.

"Besides, your becoming a king is what the people want and what everyone expects. It is in accordance with the will of heaven and the people. I wonder how many soldiers and civilians are looking forward to your becoming king. If you keep delaying, it is inevitable that the military commanders and local officials on the front line will be uneasy and make wild guesses.

"I'm going to say something that may hurt your heart. The generals below followed you to conquer the world, and they all hope to be awarded titles for military merit. If your lord doesn't make further progress, how can they make further progress?" It was difficult for ordinary officials to say such things, but Li Shanchang was the chief civil servant of the Marshal's Office, so the responsibility of admonishing Lu Jin fell on him.

Lu Jin naturally understood what he said. At this point, the Shengwu Army had grown to such a large scale that it could no longer keep a low profile. As for becoming king, he actually did not reject the idea.

So he said, "I can agree to give you the title of king after the Southern Anhui Campaign is over. You can also discuss what title is more appropriate. But what does being a king have to do with whether I take a concubine or not?"

Feng Guoyong, who was standing by, immediately followed suit and advised, "Of course it matters. If you want to become a king, you must have at least one principal wife and two concubines. This is the etiquette, and it cannot be abolished!"

Li Shanchang also hurriedly stroked his beard and nodded, "That's right."

Lu Jin looked at the two suspiciously from behind his sunglasses, thinking that they were conspiring to trick him.
These two people were indeed fooling him. What about one principal wife and two concubines? This kind of configuration was required for the emperor to ascend the throne in ancient times. There was no such rigid requirement for making a king or establishing a crown prince. They just simply felt that Lu Jin had few offspring, with only a nine-month-old baby in her pregnancy. It was too unsafe, and he should take more concubines and have more children.

Although the two men belonged to the civil and military ranks respectively, they had the same attitude in this regard. They also knew that although Lu Jin was fluent in reciting scriptures and could talk about some Confucian fallacies from time to time, he was not very clear about the Confucian ritual system.

Lu Jin said perfunctorily, "Then we'll talk about it when I become king."

Li Shanchang and Feng Guoyong looked at each other, and they both sighed at the same time.

A group of officials secretly complained when they heard this. Their lord was good in every way, except that he was not so lustful that he made a group of officials worry about Lu Jin giving birth to a child. It was true that the emperor had no family affairs. Even Lu Jin giving birth to a child had now become a political task.
Oh, ah, ah, ah————

Not far away, by the shallow water of the lake, two majestic horses, one red and one chestnut, were playing and frolicking in the water. Occasionally, they would nibble on the fresh water plants, startling a group of gulls and herons hiding in the water plants.

Tan'er was immediately attracted by the sight, and waved the windmill and pointed over there to signal Lu Jin, "Ah, ah!"

"That's a horse. Learn from Dad, a horse."

"Horse!" Taner immediately pointed at the horse and started to learn.

Yang Xian, who was fishing nearby, quickly flattered him, "Young Master is truly a rare talent. He is less than a year old, but he can already recognize objects and speak. He is truly a child prodigy!"

Lu Jin burst into laughter upon hearing this, but did not scold him.

The old man Qin Conglong beside him also stroked his beard and said, "As the saying goes, like fathers, like mothers, if the two horses of the Marshal can give birth to offspring, they will definitely be top-quality horses."

Lu Jin thought to himself, that’s not necessarily true, you probably don’t know that there is such a thing as recessive genes.

There are two divine horses on the lake in the distance. The chestnut one is Yaoguang, Lu Jin's mount, and the other red one is a Ferghana horse that Zheng Yong and Zhang Huzi seized from Yesu, the son of Yuan Ting Taiwei, during the Jiangbei Campaign last year.

When Qin Conglong learned about the origin of Lu Jin's horse Yaoguang, he catered to his preferences. Therefore, the horse's hair was red, and its mane was like rising flames when it ran. He then helped Lu Jin think of a name and named the horse Chixiao.

Chixiao is the name of the big Mars in the Vermillion Bird position among the twenty-eight constellations, and Lu Jin's Yaoguang is taken from Yaoguang, the Pojun star in the Big Dipper. They are also the names of constellations, which makes Lu Jin very satisfied.

It just so happened that the captured Chixiao was a mare, perfect for mating with Yaoguang, so in spring, the season of revival, Lu Jin asked the guards to bring both horses out for mating.
Moreover, in late April of this year, Bao Yu had already sent Fang Mingqian and a shopkeeper sent by the Shen family, with the 160,000 dan of grain that Fang Guozhen had seized from Lianyungang last year and the 5,000 taels of silver that Lu Jin had extorted from the Shen family, to go north to Dadu and Goryeo to buy horses. Calculating the date, they should be arriving in Dadu by now.

April and May are the time when there is a shortage of food in northern China. Last year's stored grain has almost been eaten up, and this year's summer grain has not yet been harvested. People in northern China may have reached the point of cannibalism. This should be the peak time for grain prices in the north.

Lu Jin waited patiently until Dadu was in dire straits before he asked the Intelligence Bureau to go to Dadu to buy horses in the name of Fang Guozhen, exchanging life-saving food for war horses. The person who bought the horses was Fang Guozhen, the Minister of Shipping of the Yuan court. The reason for buying the horses was of course to train cavalry to fight against the rebel Lu Jin, so as to raise food for Dadu. Otherwise, if you don't give me horses, how can I help you find food?

Using food as a threat, I'm sure the Mongolian princes and nobles in Dadu will not refuse!
The five thousand taels of silver were used to buy horses in Goryeo, bribe officials, establish connections, and set up intelligence stations.

For these two horse purchasing deals, one is from Dadu and the other is from Goryeo. He needs to buy at least 10,000 horses this year so that he can form two more cavalry regiments.

Seeing that everyone was talking about the two divine horses, Chen Yu on the side also asked curiously, "These two divine horses are both extraordinary, but I don't know the art of judging horses. I can only see that the horses are tall. Some people also rumored that the Chixiao horse is a sweat-blood horse from the Western Regions, but I can't tell that its sweat is like blood. My lord, do you know the art of judging horses?"

Hearing this, Lu Jin shook his head. "I have heard that a six-foot-tall horse is a horse, a seven-foot-tall horse is a 騋, and an eight-foot-tall horse is a dragon. And based on the color of their coat, they can be divided into piao, liu, and so on. But as for the horse-judging technique you mentioned, I have never learned it. I have learned the biology of Gongshu since I was young. If it is classified according to biology, there is no such classification."

"Oh? Then according to the biology that the master has learned, how should this horse be classified?"

Lu Jin said immediately, "The foundation of biology is 'Evolution and Ethics' (theory of evolution) and 'genetics'. The specific classification has eight ways of division: 'kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, and variety'. With these eight methods, all animals and plants in the world can be included, and it can be regarded as a separate discipline.

"If we classify it this way, then the classification of horses should be the animal kingdom, phylum chordata, class mammalia, order perissodactyla, family equidae, genus equine, which is also the domesticated horse. As for the Ferghana horses, Mongolian horses, Gansu-Qinghai horses, and Yunnan horses you mentioned, they should be considered as horse breeds, and they are all domesticated horses, to distinguish them from wild horses.

"As for the saying that six feet is a horse, seven feet is a 騋, and eight feet is a dragon, I think it is extremely imprecise. I can only say that the ancestors of the Zhou Dynasty were too ignorant and had not seen how many varieties of horses there are in the world."

"Oh? Why do you say that? In your opinion, what's wrong with this statement?" Qin Conglong asked curiously.

Lu Jin said immediately, "In western Europe, there is a small island country founded by yellow-haired Semu people, called Britain. Its king was originally the Norman Duke of Europe, and was granted a fiefdom to this island to establish a country. This country has a kind of heavy horse called the Shire horse. The shoulder height of an adult male horse is eight feet, or even more than nine feet, and the weight is about two thousand catties. A Mongolian horse weighs only more than six hundred catties, and a Shire horse weighs as much as three or four Mongolian horses combined. It can be called a giant among horses, and one horse can pull a cart weighing ten thousand catties.

"Even the mares of this breed have an adult height of more than seven feet. If we follow the saying that eight feet is a dragon, then these Shire horses are all dragons. Do you know how many of these horses there are in Britain?"

"Is there really such a mythical beast in the world?"

"how many?"

Everyone became curious upon hearing this.

Lu Jin immediately said, "The British country has at least millions of these Shire horses. Could it be that the country has millions of dragons?"

Everyone was stunned. Li Shanchang frowned and stroked his beard and asked curiously, "My lord, I wonder what kind of horse policy the British island country implements. How big is its island? Why can a barbarian island country afford to raise millions of dragon horses? Can our new dynasty's horse policy be imitated?"

Lu Jin thought to himself, I really want to learn about the horse policy of capitalism, but I'm afraid you won't agree. Lu Jin himself also has some concerns about this. Seeing that all the senior officials in the Marshal's Mansion were around, Lu Jin simply started talking to them about the European horse policy.

Horse management is a state's top priority, and the Imperial Household Department, which is responsible for horse breeding, has been listed as one of the Nine Ministers by successive dynasties. Horses are the cornerstone of the empire's military power and transportation. Even if Lu Jin had invented the train before his death, the role of horses could not be replaced within one or two hundred years. So how to effectively raise a large number of good horses in a long-term manner is really worth studying.

The horse policies of various dynasties in Chinese history can be roughly divided into two types. Horses imported for foreign trade are not counted, only those raised domestically are counted, which can be divided into private animal husbandry and official animal husbandry. The Han Dynasty had both. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han in the early period of his reign, Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing accumulated hundreds of thousands of war horses for Emperor Wu of Han. After Emperor Wu of Han conquered the Hexi Corridor, Huo Qubing personally built a Shandan Military Horse Farm in Hexi and served as the first director.

The Tang Dynasty was similar, with both officials and civilians using horses. The Song Dynasty lost the horse-breeding land in the north and could only import horses through the tea-horse trade. It did not have many pastures of its own, and in order to satisfy the appetites of the literati, the few horse farms in the south were all used to raise sheep.
During the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang implemented the policy of civilian animal husbandry in the early Ming Dynasty and encouraged people to raise horses. Households raising horses were exempt from taxes, which made many people suffer. It’s not that Zhu’s policies were bad, but farming and horse breeding was originally a losing business that no one could avoid.

During the reign of Zhu Di, state-run ranches were introduced again, and many good horses were raised. After all, Zhu Di had no shortage of horses during his five expeditions to the northern desert. However, this state-run system was extremely costly, and was equivalent to the state spending a lot of money. If Zhu Di had not asked Zheng He to make seven voyages to the West to make money for him, how could he have had so much money to raise horses?

In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, due to financial constraints, the system was changed to private animal husbandry, and the people were forced to adopt official horses and raise horses for the government. The ownership of the horses was not their own, and the people were required to pay compensation if the horses were injured, sick, or died. In the end, the horse breeders were made miserable, and during the reign of Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, just one hundred years after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the Liu Liu and Liu Qi uprisings broke out. The rebel army traveled across several provinces and almost brought down the Ming Dynasty more than a hundred years ahead of schedule.

Because these rebels were all persecuted horse breeders, they had horses themselves, and many of them knew how to shoot arrows. They were simply natural cavalrymen. How could the government troops defeat them when a group of rebels knew how to shoot on horseback?
After the establishment of Lu Jin's new dynasty, a large number of horses would certainly be needed. In addition to importing them from abroad with real money, how to deal with the horse policy in his own country would also be a big problem. Lu Jin did not want to create a group of horse bandits who could ride and shoot in the country.

The name of Shandong bandits was created during the Liu Liu and Liu Qi uprising in the Ming Dynasty.
(End of this chapter)