Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 113: Second Surrender to the Imperial Court

The court discussed the issue of the Huaiyin thieves for a long time but could not reach a conclusion, so Emperor Longqing had no choice but to withdraw from the court.

The real war only began after the court session ended.

Upon learning of the situation, Li Ni immediately began to contact various forces in the court. He wanted to pass the news here back to Lianghuai and hand it over to Fang Yong as soon as possible.

The most important things at this moment are two.

One point is why Guo Bai stands with the Kong faction.

Another point is why King Zhongshun chose to fight.

Li Ni immediately sent people to investigate. Guo Bai did not hide anything from Li Ni and told him the reason directly. In contrast, King Zhongshun made things difficult for him.

Li Ni went to visit him personally, but was turned away.

Fortunately, Li Ni later slowly found out the truth of the matter through some details.

Fang Yong received the news on the eighth day after capturing Chuzhou.

The situation on Guo Bai's side is relatively simple.

The Kong family gave Guo Bai 50,000 taels of gold and asked Guo Bai to speak for them in the court.

Fang Yong sent a letter, asking Li Ni to give Guo Bai 10,000 taels of gold, and promoted Guo Bai's second son Guo Shuo from his hometown to join the Huaiyin Army as the chief of the army.

There is only one condition, which is that Guo Bai must remain neutral.

Fang Yong believed that Guo Bai knew what to do.

The situation with Prince Zhongshun is more troublesome.

It turned out that the Zheng family, one of the eight major salt merchants in Yangzhou, had a daughter who was the concubine of Prince Zhongshun. Over the years, the Zheng family had been providing money to Prince Zhongshun. The private salt in the capital was also controlled by Prince Zhongshun and the Zheng family.

Now that the Zheng family has been exterminated by Fang Yong and King Zhongshun has lost his purse, it is no wonder that he is hostile to Fang Yong.

Fang Yong had no good solution for this.

He could only try to let Huang Wenzhou negotiate with King Zhongshun on behalf of the Yangzhou salt merchants to see if he could find a way to replace the Zheng family.

Nowadays, various forces in the capital are intertwined, the situation is unpredictable and it is really troublesome.

Especially at this critical juncture, the Kong family has gotten involved.

I clearly did not attack Shandong, but the Kong family used my name to want to "depose Shi and establish Mu" in Shandong. It's really hateful!
Fang Yong kept this matter in mind, and when he had time, he would definitely repay the Kong family for their kindness!

The situation is not favorable for him now.

If the imperial court really chose to mobilize the entire country to send troops against him, he would not be afraid, but it would be very troublesome.

By then, a large number of troops will have to be deployed to defend Xuzhou and Zhongwu, and all the plans Fang Yong is preparing now will be delayed.

This is a situation that Fang Yong doesn't want to see.

It is said that those who achieve great things do not care about trivial matters. Fang Yong said that he could follow the example of last time and endure a little. As long as Daxi was willing to maintain peace and not use force against him, he would have no problem paying tribute to the court again.

He then wrote a letter of permanent humiliation, in which he stated that he had been instigated by the Jin traitor Wu Sheng to rebel against the court, and that he himself had great respect for the Emperor and had absolutely no intention of rebelling.

He currently has a million soldiers, all of whom are very powerful. His subordinates all advised him to go north, but he has not made up his mind because of his respect for His Majesty the Emperor.

Now that the Jin thief has been killed, he is willing to negotiate a ceasefire with the court.

Now that he had occupied Huizhou and Suzhou (actually not completely), as long as the court agreed to cede Jiaxing to him and confer the title of Duke of Yonghuai on him, he would agree to pay tribute to Daxi and reluctantly ask to marry the princess of Daxi as a concubine to show eternal peace.

After the letter was written, Fang Yong sealed it solemnly.

It would be best if this thing succeeded, but it didn't matter if it didn't, as long as it could buy him some time. In order to show how serious he was about this matter, Fang Yong chose to send a heavyweight figure as an envoy to Daxi to deliver the letter and meet the emperor.

That is his sworn brother, Wang Lun!
Of course, that being said, Wang Lun did not have any real power as an envoy when delivering the letter. He was more of a mascot to show Fang Yong's respect for the emperor.

The real envoy was named Yin Li, who was recruited through a talent recruitment list when Fang Yong had just captured Huaizhou. His main job was an artist who "used contemporary technology to paint ancient calligraphy and paintings". After joining the Huaiyin Army, he worked as a clerical worker and a military staff officer.

Later, Yin Li volunteered to go to Chuzhou as an envoy to persuade the enemy to surrender, which shows his loyalty.

Now Fang Yong ordered Yin Li to be the envoy and take Wang Lun to Daxi to meet Emperor Longqing.

At the moment, what lies before him is to attack Hefei, Chaozhou and other areas in Huizhou as soon as possible.

In fact, after capturing Chuzhou, Fang Yong's territory had covered the entire Lianghuai region. Both Huaibei and Huainan were his territories. With Xuzhou in the north as a gateway and Chuzhou in the south as a guarantee, it was already very safe.

According to his original strategic plan, the battle plan had been basically completed at this time. He could return to Suzhou, lead his troops down the river, occupy areas such as Changzhou and Taihu Lake that had little resistance, and that would be the end of it.

However, he did not expect that the confiscation of salt merchants in Yangzhou would allow Fang Yong to make a fortune. This wealth was enough for him to occupy the entire Huizhou in one go, saving him the effort next time.

Fang Yong stayed in Chuzhou for twelve days.

The first is to stabilize the local situation, and the second is to dispatch troops.

As Fang Yong's original army conquered cities and territories along the way, they needed to leave troops to garrison in various places. If they continued to disperse like this, the number of troops would become insufficient.

It is necessary to dispatch troops from the rear.

As mentioned before, Fang Yong trained a large number of militiamen in the countryside during his time as Duke of Huaiyin. Now, after receiving the conscription order, these people put on military uniforms, took up weapons, and soon became official soldiers of the Huaiyin Army.

Although there is still a certain gap between him and the veterans, he can be considered qualified among the new recruits.

During this period, something significant happened.

When Fang Yong attacked Chuzhou before, he implemented military settlement in Chuzhou in advance.

The favorable policies attracted many disaster victims from Chaozhou and Hefei areas, and they made great efforts to help Fang Yong capture Chuzhou.

Now Fang Yong has successfully captured Chuzhou and is preparing to attack Chaozhou and Hefei soon. He then sent people to notify the people to return to their hometowns first, and he will lead the army there soon.

This was originally just an ordinary order, and Fang Yong did not think much about it when he gave it.

Let these people go back first, and then lead the troops to attack, capture Chaozhou and Hefei, and directly implement military settlements there, isn't that enough?

However, after these words were spoken, they immediately caused great panic among the people.

Many people actually thought that Fang Yong could no longer support them and wanted to trick them back.

When they returned to Chaozhou and Hefei, Fang Yong's army had not arrived yet. At that time...

The rumors became more and more intense, and a large number of people knelt in front of Fang Yong's temporary residence in Chuzhou, begging that they could work more and only wanted half of the previous food, and only begged Fang Yong not to drive them away.

Fang Yong couldn't understand the people's thoughts at first.

They obviously admire me very much, so why are they unwilling to believe me now and feel that I am deceiving them?

In distress, a man came in and said:
"General, I think it's because they...can no longer afford to lose."

Fang Yong saw the person coming and said in surprise:

"Bo Yan, you're here! You gave me a big surprise about Jinling!"

Zhai Xun smiled embarrassedly when he heard this.

"General, let me handle the people's affairs this time!"

(End of this chapter)