All Heavens and Worlds Modified History System

Chapter 306: Leaving Hedong and Threatening Guanzhong

"I am a man of my word."

Outside the gate of Youzhou City, Chen Ran, who was on horseback, spoke generously, "Unfortunately, Mr. Zhang died. I just entered Youzhou City to avenge him."

Everyone around him praised the general's loyalty.

After entering the city, we walked all the way to the gate of the Jiedushi's government office.

At this time, more than a hundred people were tied up and pressed to the ground, surrounded by soldiers.

"You have committed treason and murdered the governor, Zhang Xianggong. Your crime is unforgivable!"

Chen Ran didn't waste any words and came over and directly ordered, "Deal with it according to military orders!"

A group of swordsmen quickly stepped forward, one of them pulled the hair and stretched the neck, while another raised the sword and axe and chopped down hard.

These hundreds of heads have put an end to the turmoil in Youzhou City.

In fact, more than a hundred people died in this turmoil.

Zhang Gongsu's gang was completely wiped out, and thousands of people were killed or injured in the battle to block the city gate.

Afterwards, Chen Ran lured the soldiers in the city to surrender, and a fierce battle broke out between the Youzhou garrison soldiers, which resulted in heavy casualties among the people in the city, at least tens of thousands.

As for deaths and injuries due to various other reasons, there is no way to count them.

According to preliminary statistics, Youzhou City, which had a population of more than 100,000 before the war, now has at least a quarter less population.

This is already very peaceful.

If Chen Ran followed the traditional tactics to attack the city, and then engaged in massive killing and looting after breaking the city, it would be considered merciful if only one in ten survived.

For example, when the Tartars carried out a massacre in the city, it was so cruel and inhumane.

"Congratulations, General." Zheng Ting had not left yet, and even followed him all the way to the Jiedushi Yamen. "After conquering Youzhou Town, we have the foundation to conquer the world."

At this time, Chen Ran occupied Youzhou Town and several states to the north of Henghaijun Town. Whether in terms of strength or land, he was already the number one town in the world.

Of course, he himself would not admit that he was a vassal.

Zheng Ting was very impressed with his own vision. He was right in choosing the right person. This man really had the ability to conquer the world.

"Mr. Zheng." Chen Ran looked at him with a half-smile. "I've said before, I don't need the services of aristocratic families, and I certainly won't accept the imperial court's offer of amnesty. You'll get nothing from me."

"General."

Zheng Ting replied sternly, "If we don't accept noble families to serve us, then do we accept individuals to serve us?"

"Ok?"

Chen Ran raised his eyebrows. "You want to join us yourself?"

"That's right." Zheng Ting responded respectfully, "In fact, my family is just a concubine of the Zheng family in Xingyang, and cannot be considered a direct descendant."

"Do you have sons?" Chen Ran simply asked, "How many?"

"I have a son named Zheng Ningji. If he is lucky enough to follow the general, I will write a letter to invite him to Youzhou now."

"If you want to serve me," Chen Ran said with a smile, "how about your descendants never being allowed to serve as officials?"

Zheng Ting was stunned by these words.

The foundation of aristocratic families is to monopolize official positions, and then use the power brought by official positions to provide benefits for themselves, their families, and their own families.

If one cannot serve as an official, it is equivalent to having one's roots dug out.

"Not only your lineage." Chen Ran laughed again, "your brothers, descendants, and even your Xingyang Zheng family will never be allowed to serve in the government."

"So, do you still want to serve me now?"

Zheng Ting left in a daze. He now needed to think carefully about his next step.

Chen Ran didn't care and called all the generals to discuss the next development and actions.

"All the land, including government land, land owned by temples and monasteries, and land owned by officials and wealthy families, will be confiscated. Some will be given to the landless people to cultivate, some will be used as military settlements, and the rest will be kept as rewards and reserves to reward soldiers who have made military achievements."

In the agricultural era, land is the foundation of everything and the most important means of production.

The main reason for the change of dynasties is that the land was consolidated into the hands of a very small number of people, and the vast majority of people became tenants similar to slaves.

No individual would accept such cruel exploitation, and a change of dynasty would naturally follow.

So the first thing is to redistribute the land.

"From now on, all attacks on other places will be handled in the same way."

Chen Ran took a sip of water and continued, "Encourage agriculture and sericulture, gather blacksmiths from all over the country to work together, and recruit good family children to join the army."

Agriculture and sericulture mean food and cloth, which are the basic conditions for survival. No matter who is in power, they must attach great importance to this.

The purpose of concentrating blacksmiths is to create economies of scale.

Chen Ran plans to adopt a division of labor and cooperation model for production, which is to divide the blacksmiths into several parts, specialize in making a certain component, and then assemble them.

As for the products produced, they are mainly agricultural tools and weapons and armor.

The purpose of recruiting good families was to improve the structure of the army. After all, there were too many guards and non-guards from various towns in the army.

There is nothing wrong with the conscription system, but the recruited soldiers must be regularized while ensuring their combat effectiveness, rather than relying on force to act lawlessly.

"Gather intelligence from all over the place and prepare for the next military deployment."

Unlike Europe, which is divided into pieces and each country lives its own life.

Here in the Middle-earth, ever since Zulong unified the country, every dynasty has been dreaming of unification.

Even if you are unwilling, your subordinates will push you to unify the country.

If you go against the tide of the times, you will be submerged immediately.

Therefore, outward expansion is inevitable. Before sending troops, gathering information is inevitable.

To the east of Youzhou Town is the sea, to the north is the grassland, to the south is Chengde Town, and to the west are Yiwu Town and Hedong Town.

You need to think carefully about which direction to attack next.

Chen Ran entered a temporary period of recuperation. Things in Youzhou Town gradually calmed down, and the people lived by farming and doing business.

The banner of recruiting soldiers was raised, and many heroes from the north came to join.

There are many smart people in the world, and Zheng Ting is not the only one who can see that Chen Ran has a bright future.

The number of soldiers and horses under Chen Ran's command also began to expand rapidly.

The most direct impact of the increase in the number of troops is a significant increase in military spending.

Adequate food and wages can stabilize military morale, but it puts enormous financial pressure on the army.

What to do when supplies are scarce?
The answer from the grassland tribes was simple, which was to go south to rob the Han people.

Now it was Chen Ran's turn to be short of supplies. He carefully learned the habits of the grassland tribes and sent troops north to rob the tribes.

When Chen Ran led more than 20,000 soldiers and crossed the Yanshan Mountains to the north, the Khitan tribes who had suffered defeat before became afraid and quickly retreated eastward to the Baishan Heishui.

However, the other tribes were unwilling to give up their pastures and chose to fight hard.

As for the result of resisting head-on, Chen Ran also learned the methods of the grassland tribes and dealt with all the men taller than the wheels.

However, the soldiers under his command were sometimes not very obedient, and the wheels that were originally upright often fell to the ground.

Women were distributed to meritorious soldiers as rewards to alleviate the problem of too many bachelors.

In addition, the most important gain was the seizure of a large number of livestock.

Cattle, sheep, horses, and camels were sold to the soldiers at a discount, offsetting a large part of the military expenses.

In addition to looting supplies, there is another important reason for sending troops to the grassland, which is to weaken the forces on the grassland and prevent them from gathering and threatening to move southward.

Chen Ran will do this kind of thing frequently in the future, and may even write it into the law, so he will do it several times every year.

He has no interest in being a Sky Khan or anything like that, he only likes physical destruction.

At this time in the south of the Tang Dynasty, Huang Chao's army marched south into Fujian and then into Guangdong.

The military strength of the Tang Dynasty in the south was not strong, so Huang Chao got a chance to catch his breath in the south and his strength expanded rapidly.

After resting for several months, Huang Chao called himself "a million-strong army" and began a vigorous Northern Expedition.

In the Jiangling and Xiangyang areas, they defeated the imperial troops, defeated the military governors and provincial governors who were blocking the road, and returned all the way into the Central Plains.

The climax of Huang Chao's uprising is about to come, that is, entering Chang'an.

Upon hearing the news, Chen Ran began to make preparations.

Gather troops, stockpile supplies and prepare for the expedition.

Huang Chao was preparing to enter Chang'an, so of course he had to go too.

Chen Ran led tens of thousands of troops into the Yiwu military town and defeated the Yiwu army in succession, forcing the Jiedushi Cui Jikang to flee to Chang'an City in a panic.

Soon the army continued to advance westward and entered Hedong Town along the various passes of Taihang Mountain.

Hedong Town was one of the three major towns in the Tang Dynasty.

With rich resources and a large population, Li Keyong used this place as his base and defeated Zhu Wen's Liang State.

Chen Ran attacked this place before Li Keyong, who was still blocked outside the continuous mountains in northern Dai.

After fighting with Hedong Town several times, Chen Ran was a little surprised: "Are the soldiers of Hedong Town so weak?"

The soldiers of Hedong Town were not bad, but compared with the strong armies such as Wei Bo Town, Henghai Army, Youzhou Town, etc. that Chen Ran had fought before, the performance of the Hedong soldiers was indeed not very outstanding.

Obviously there are quite a lot of them, probably as many as 70,000 or 80,000.

The equipment was even better. Chen Ran even encountered thousands of cavalry troops, all equipped with horse armor.

But their fighting spirit was not high, and they would often fall into a situation of defeat when Yinqiang Xiaojiedu and Zhuangshandu launched a desperate charge.

"General." Liu Xun explained to Chen Ran, "Hedong Town is too wealthy."

Chen Ran suddenly realized, "So that's it."

There are mountains on both sides of Hedong Town, but the basin between the two mountains is very fertile.

When life is good, the desire to work hard will naturally fade.

"That's good." Chen Ran said with a smile, "It saves us a lot of trouble."

The Tang Dynasty court was in a panic at this time and was at a loss as to what to do. Chen Ran and Huang Chao, one in the south and one in the north, echoed each other, leaving them at a loss as to how to respond.

The emperor, who only enjoyed cockfighting and dog fighting, even planned to escape before Tongguan fell.

Although they were finally persuaded by the eunuchs, the morale in Guanzhong was still low.

Zheng Ting, who returned to Chang'an City, proposed a practical and effective solution.

"Li Guochang of Daibei, Li Keyong and his son will lead Hedong Town, and use the Shatuo people to deal with Chen Ran!"

"Call the troops from Zhaoyi, Shuofang, Xiasui and other places to enter Guanzhong and block Tongguan!"

At this time, the most capable people on the grassland were the Shatuo people. Li Guochang and Li Keyong, father and son, rebelled for several years, and the imperial court failed to suppress them despite repeated expeditions.

In this case, we can simply use Hedong Town as bait to lure the two rebel forces into fighting each other.

The imperial envoys quickly set out to various places to convey the imperial edict.

At this time, Chen Ran was receiving the envoy sent by Huang Chao.

(End of this chapter)