Anti-Qing: Starting from the Jintian Uprising

Chapter 316: War Horses for Arms

Of course, it’s just a show, but Li Yi’s promise to exempt the disaster-stricken areas from taxes for three years will really be fulfilled.

He is a man with a sense of shame, and would not swallow back what he said.

Before this, the main sources of fiscal revenue for the Tang Dynasty were Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, and customs duties.

Now we have to add taxes from fertile areas such as Jiangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu.

In other words, Shandong was not actually the main source of tax revenue for the Tang Dynasty.

In addition, Shandong had just suffered a disaster, a major one being the Yellow River bursting its banks. In order to win over the hearts of the people, it was a very normal move for Li Yi to exempt Shandong from three taxes.

The people were already living a hard life, and now they have been hit by a disaster. If the court does not exempt them from taxes for a few years to give them a break, there is a high probability that the people will be forced to rebel in order to survive.

For example, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters during the Little Ice Age were already severe, and disasters occurred frequently in local areas.

But even so, the Ming court continued to urge the payment of the three taxes in order to suppress the rebels and resist the invaders.

The people were already having a hard time due to the disaster, and now they were forced to bear heavy taxes. In order to survive, they had no choice but to rebel.

This is also the reason why there were more and more bandits in the late Ming Dynasty.

Li Yi, who is well-versed in history, would naturally learn the lesson of Chongzhen in the late Ming Dynasty. It is only natural to reduce or exempt taxes for the disaster-stricken areas.

In fact, the disaster-stricken prefectures of Henan and Zhili are not in the hands of the Tang Dynasty now, otherwise Li Yi would not mind exempting the disaster-stricken prefectures of Henan and Zhili from taxes for three years.

Well, who calls him Li Yi a benevolent monarch?

Just as Li Yi was posing for photos with everyone around him, a servant came over from a distance and reported to him.

"Your Majesty, Magistrate Li and the envoys of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have arrived and are waiting for your summons."

When Li Yi heard this, his expression froze, but he still asked.

"Oh, is it so?"

"Bring the person to me!"

After he finished speaking, the attendant clasped his fists and left.

Soon Li Hongzhang and Huang Yukun were brought over.

The two men came in front of Li Yi and bowed respectfully.

"Your humble servant/foreign minister, I pay my respects to His Majesty!"

"Your Majesty, your Majesty!"

Li Yi waved his hand, signaling the two to stand up.

"Mr. Li, please don't be polite, Mr. Huang. Please stand up quickly."

After the two of them stood still, Li Yi said to Huang Yukun in front of him with a smile.

"Mr. Huang, it's been a long time since we last met, Kindaichi, you're still as charming as ever!"

Back then, we all started an uprising against the Qing Dynasty in Jintian. Although we were not very familiar with each other, we knew each other at least.

Now that they met, Li Yi also greeted them with a smile.

He has always been like this. As long as his bottom line is not touched, Li Yi will smile at everyone.

Huang Yukun heard this and said with a slightly flattering expression.

"Your Majesty is now a dragon and a phoenix, heroic and unrivaled, with extraordinary bearing..."

Huang Yukun racked his brains to think of something to compliment him, but his writing was not good enough, which made Li Yi feel a little embarrassed.

However, Li Yi waited until Huang Yukun finished speaking before speaking.

"Mr. Huang, you and Li Qing have come all the way from Caozhou. You must have had a hard time on the journey."

"Let's find a place to sit down and talk slowly!"

As he spoke, Li Yi raised his hand and signaled his servants to help find a place.

Soon, Li Yi took Li Hongzhang and Huang Yukun to a nearby pavilion.

Sitting down in the pavilion, Li Yi asked someone to serve tea while speaking.

"I am roughly aware of Mr. Huang's purpose of coming here."

"But the Tang Dynasty now has to focus on disaster relief and the battle at Dagukou. I'm afraid it may not be able to provide reinforcements to the Heavenly Kingdom."

Li Hongzhang and Huang Yukun had almost finished discussing the peace talks. The main purpose of Huang Yukun's coming to Jining to see Li Yi was to seek help.

Therefore, Li Yi did not beat around the bush with him and spoke directly about the matter.

Huang Yukun's expression was a little solemn when he heard this, but he still spoke.

"Perhaps your Majesty does not know."

"The bandits in Gansu and Shaanxi are all a bunch of lunatics. It's ok that they fought and killed our Taiping Army without fear of death, but after occupying the place, they deliberately slaughtered the Han people in Gansu and Shaanxi."

"Now, I don't know how many people have suffered from his murderous hands."

"I hope that the king will lend a helping hand to the Kingdom of Heaven because we are all descendants of the Han and Miao people."

"If the Heavenly Kingdom loses the war, the Han people in Gansu and Shaanxi will probably be wiped out..."

After listening to Huang Yukun's explanation, Li Yi's expression became conflicted.

Finally, he took a deep breath and said.

"Mr. Huang has said so much, so it seems that I really have no choice but to help Heavenly Kingdom..."

Huang Yukun heard this and quickly stepped up to speak.

"Your Majesty is righteous, and I, the ministers, admire you."

But Li Yi didn't appreciate it and just waved his hand and said.

"In view of the past relationship between the Tang Dynasty and the Heavenly Kingdom, and for the sake of national justice, the Tang Dynasty can provide a batch of arms for the Heavenly Kingdom."

"But this munitions won't be given for free!"

"Isn't the Heavenly Kingdom able to connect to the Hetao? The Tang Dynasty just happens to be short of horses, so the Heavenly Kingdom can use its war horses to exchange for arms."

Out of consideration for national justice, Li Yi was originally prepared to help Shi Dakai.

Otherwise, if Shi Dakai was defeated, Li Yi couldn't imagine what kind of disaster would happen to Gansu and Shaanxi at the hands of that group of rebels.

He thought that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was founded on religion, was extreme enough. Unexpectedly, there was something even more extreme than the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

The most the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did was burn books, destroy temples, and smash statues of Confucius, but those people wanted to humanely destroy all pagans and heretics.

Extreme people like this must never be allowed to succeed and must be suppressed.

Upon hearing this, Huang Yukun hesitated for a moment, and then quickly agreed.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty, this should be possible!"

"The Heavenly Kingdom's territory is now connected to the outside world, and we can communicate with the Tartars outside the Great Wall, so we have no shortage of good horses."

"As long as the Tang Dynasty needs it, the Heavenly Kingdom will certainly provide the Tang Dynasty with an endless supply of the best war horses."

Li Yi nodded slightly, then changed the subject and talked about other things with Huang Yukun.

The two sides had a very pleasant conversation!

Li Yi is the one in a higher position. All he needs to do is to finalize the general strategy of things. As for the specific details and their execution, Li Yi does not need to worry about them.

For example, how much military equipment a good horse could be exchanged for, Li Yi would not care about such matters and would leave it to his subordinates to handle.

If Li Yi really had to take care of everything and worry about everything, he would be exhausted to death no matter how much energy he had.

……

Outside Dagukou, the Tang army fleet was still drifting on the sea.

Wu Quanmei summoned all the generals to discuss matters on his own ship.

"Generals, according to the information we have so far, the Qing government has already responded to our capture of Tianjin."

"He has sent Imperial Envoy Sheng Bao and Zhili Admiral Cai Bingwen to lead troops, and they are heading towards Tianjin."

"Everyone, tell me, how should we fight the next battle?"

Before the Battle of Dagukou began, the original goal of the Tang army was just to capture Dagukou, then build a military fortress at Dagukou, and use the advantage of the naval fleet to restrain the Qing court from moving south.

Who could have thought that the Qing army would be so unable to resist fighting.

In one battle, the Tang army not only successfully captured Dagukou, but also captured Tianjin in one go.

But the problem is that before this battle, the Tang Dynasty had never thought about taking Tianjin.

Naturally, there was no preparation for the defense of Tianjin in advance.

Now that the Qing army has begun to counterattack, they can only discuss strategies.

Chen Guotai, who was standing by, heard this and spoke.

"Commander, in my opinion, the most important thing we need to consider right now is whether to hold Tianjin firmly."

Zhang Biao frowned when he heard this.

"Although our army did not formulate a combat plan for Tianjin before the war, I believe that under the fire cover of our fleet's naval guns."

"It shouldn't be a problem to hold Tianjin."

Going upstream from Dagukou, you can directly reach the city of Tianjin via the Haihe River.

In other words, if the Tang army planned to hold Tianjin, they could pull their own fleet to the outskirts of Tianjin to provide fire support.

Therefore, Zhang Biao advocated defending the city.

He was quite confident that the Tang army could hold Tianjin.

Upon hearing this, Chen Guotai also nodded.

"If that's the case, then we have to prepare for Tianjin's defense in advance."

"In order to prevent the Qing monster from counterattacking and killing us, we would be caught off guard."

Generals around spoke one after another, and most of them supported defending Tianjin.

Seeing this, Wu Quanmei finally made a decision.

"That's fine. Since Tianjin can be defended, let's defend it."

"We have just captured Tianjin and reported our victory to the court. If we lose the territory so quickly, it will be difficult to explain to the court..."

After thinking for a while, Wu Quanmei spoke.

"In the upcoming Tianjin battle, our army will not only start to arrange the defense of Tianjin, but our fleet will also be ready to fight deep into the Haihe River and provide fire support for the land forces."

"According to the intelligence we have so far, the Qing army's counterattack this time mainly came from Wuqing and Yangliuqing."

"We are preparing to attack Tianjin from two directions."

"Therefore, our troops must deploy in these two directions in advance and prepare to engage the enemy..."

……

Riding on horseback, looking at the Qing troops marching along the official road in front and behind him, Cai Bingwen couldn't help but sigh.

There was some resentment in his eyes.

He was puzzled. He had been defeated in battles since he started from Xunzhou, and kept losing cities and territories to the bandits, but how come his official position became higher and higher?
From the prefect of Xunzhou, to the prefect of Changsha, to the Minister of Jiangxi Tuanlian, to the Governor and Minister of Henan Tuanlian, and now to the Governor of Zhili...

Even a possible future Governor-General of Zhili!

Cai Bingwen felt that if the Qing Dynasty had not fallen, he might have reached the highest position in the country.

If it were during the heyday of the Qing Dynasty, Cai Bingwen would naturally be happy if he could jump so many levels in just a few years and even reach the highest position in the country.

However, the Qing Dynasty is now almost on the brink of collapse.

It is not a good thing to be valued by the court at this time.

If you climb too high, you might be buried with the Qing Dynasty!

However, once the emperor's order was given, he could only obey it.

Nerjing'e, who was standing by, saw that Cai Bingwen looked unhappy and asked.

"Why does Lord Cai look so unhappy?"

"But what's on your mind?"

(End of this chapter)