Tiger Guards

Chapter 132: The Plan of Personal Expedition
On the south bank of the Sushui River, the open-air stone mill on the canal has begun to work day and night.

The new stone mill is still being made, and the assembled stone mill is installed on the original canal.

Driven by a water pump, captives transferred from the Hou family estate worked as slaves to grind and sift beans and wheat.

In addition to the bran being sifted out and fed to the horses, the husks are also left in.

After mixing with salt powder, add a little oil and fry it, then use a lever to increase the pressure to make it into a primitive compressed dry food.

Jia Xu led more than a hundred followers to Anyi. When he got off the boat, he saw the green umbrella carriage parked near the stone mill.

He had many followers, and some of his followers were from Liangzhou. Most of them were seconded to Jia Xu after being mobilized by Duan Wei.

Duan Wei was unable to lead his troops to resist Li Jue, but he dared to assign some capable men to help with the work.

Wei Ji accompanied them and, after leading Jia Xu aboard, pointed to the chariot covered with a green umbrella and said, "Lord Wenhe, that is Minister Zhao."

"Well, first go into the city to pay your respects to Lord Yuan Ming, and then come to see Minister Zhao."

Jia Xu was very anxious. He didn't think Zhao Ji could take much initiative, so he had to communicate with Zhao Yan.

How could Zhao Ji launch a mutiny and then quickly stabilize the situation in Anyi after the mutiny?
All of this must have been initiated by the shrewd Zhao Yan... Even among the officials and soldiers who followed Zhao Ji in launching a military remonstration, most people believed that all of this was led by the big boss in the court, Zhao Yuanming.

Zhao Yan entered the officialdom at the age of thirty due to his military merits. He traveled around the country and served in three dynasties, with a total official career of thirty-five years.

Looking through the court and local governments, there is not a single senior official like Zhao Yan!

Before his military remonstration, he was a counselor of moderate rank, participating in the discussion of court affairs and giving lectures in the Forbidden City. His background and qualifications were nothing special.

His overall influence was not as good as that of rising stars such as Zhong Yao and Dong Zhao, and even not as good as that of Zhao Guiren's uncle, Counselor Zhao Rui.

After the military remonstration was successful, Zhao Yan's qualifications began to play a role and became a legendary attribute.

The five ministers captured by Zhao Ji were basically from noble families. They were well-known in their youth and traveled to various places to study in their youth. They could teach before they reached adulthood and had hundreds of disciples.

In his thirties, he became a world-renowned scholar and was summoned to the court... He directly bypassed the recruitment process of the government and rose to a prominent position in the court within a few years.

There are only so many positions for officials, and these people take turns to hold them. The Yang family has had generations of Grand Marshals, and every generation of the Yang family is eager to hold all the positions of the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers.

The names of each family are filled up in a long list, which is quite intimidating.

Zhao Yan's life was much simpler. He narrowly avoided the Party Imprisonment and was transferred between counties before he was fifty years old. Occasionally, he was recruited into the court to serve as a palace official or court official.

Without the appreciation or promotion of any noble, he was sent to a county outside the capital.

After the Luoyang coup, there were more and more vacancies in the court, and Zhao Yancai was recruited into the court.

Even so, it was still not Zhao Yan's turn to become a minister.

The family finally had a great scholar and celebrity named Zhao Yu, who kindly entertained Zuo Rong, but was attacked by Zuo Rong and his entire family was killed.

After just a brief observation, Jia Xu concluded that Zhao Yan, who had military experience and rich experience in handling government affairs, had successfully suppressed the adverse effects of the mutiny.

The worst impact of a mutiny is that the officials and soldiers become complacent and arrogant. If they dare to mutiny once, they will dare to launch a second one.

If you can't feed yourself, you will bring disaster to yourself.

But if you want to feed them, you will have to offend and kill many people in order to plunder their resources.

The more you feed your army, the more likely it is that many of them will disband and return home; some military officers will rely on force to disregard discipline even more, and will inevitably have the idea of replacing you.

Outside Anyi City, cavalrymen went out of camp for training, and some infantrymen also gathered to train in marching columns; the people nearby were also working in the paddy fields. The military and civilians lived in peace, which showed that Anyi had become stable, and Zhao Yan had successfully controlled the army after the mutiny.

Jia Xu felt much more at ease. He was afraid that Zhao Yan would not be able to control the army. In order to suppress the mutinous army, he tried to request reinforcements from other places.

Foreign troops have come from afar, so naturally they won't be polite to you.

By then, the larger the number of armies, the more different their affiliations, the greater the conflicts, and it will be common for fighting to break out and for them to annex each other.

He had no time to bathe and change into new clothes, so he settled the more than one hundred people who followed him outside the city, and he and Wei Ji went to see Zhao Yan.

Now the government affairs of the DPRK are basically in order, and the communication with the outside world is not smooth, so there is no need to deal with many foreign affairs.

Zhao Yan will be able to leave Menxia Province in the afternoon and rest at home.

Although he said he was resting, he was just working at home and handling various affairs in Hedong.

Zhao Yan personally went out to greet Jia Xu, took Jia Xu's hand and walked into the courtyard, feeling relieved: "The court is in trouble now, and Wenhe is able to cross the river and come to help. I have nothing to worry about now."

He understood military affairs, and Jia Xu also understood military affairs. Both of them had an objective and materialistic side.

This objective mentality is a valuable quality that the ministers understand, but they are unwilling to submit to.

Jia Xu didn't say anything polite. He saw that the mansion where Zhao Yan lived was not large and there were no decent servants, but there were many guards inside and outside.

After leading Jia Xu to the living room and sitting him down, Zhao Yan asked, "How is Guanzhong?"

"Lord Yuanming, when I was crossing the river, the Pingling Su clan sent envoys to Duan Zhongming for help." Jia Xu sat upright, leaning forward slightly as he spoke. "I have discussed this with Duan Zhongming and determined that the Su clan cannot hold out for long and will be defeated in a month or so. If the Su clan is merely a facade, then Li Jue and Guo Si will question the Wei clan's treasury, and the decision to send troops to Hedong will be uncertain."

If the Su family, who were only a thin layer of skin, were to be devoured, even if Li Jue and Guo Si wanted to launch an expedition to Hedong, the various small warlords in various places would not have the motivation to do so.

If the Su family was extremely wealthy and had stored a large amount of money, grain and supplies, Li Jue and Guo Si would be able to recover their strength immediately, and the small warlords who came to help would also become bloodthirsty and brave.

By then, even if Li Jue and Guo Si were unwilling to come to Hedong, these small warlords would most likely nominate a leader and form an alliance on their own... There was even the possibility of turning against Li Jue and Guo Si.

Therefore, as long as the Su family is rich enough, Li Jue and Guo Si will definitely lead the coalition forces to invade Hedong.

Jia Xu was being conservative, suggesting that the probability of the coalition forces of Li Jue and Guo Si invading Hedong was between 70% and 80%.

Zhao Yanxin?

Zhao Yan said with a smile, "Ever since the emperor and the imperial court moved east, the two thieves Li and Guo have been on the verge of death. Now that we have the opportunity, how could we let them go? Wenhe doesn't need to coax me. The people of Hedong are united."

He stood up and fetched some letters from the wall bookshelf, handing them to Jia Xu. "Cheng Yin and Cheng Yi, who crossed the river at Zuo Fengyi, have led their troops westward and will join Ma Wan in strengthening the Fenyin defense line."

Jia Xu picked up the letters and placed them on the table, then asked directly, "Can I appoint a hostage?"

"More than ten sons and nephews of the chiefs of various tribes have been recruited as palace officials and will arrive soon."

Zhao Yan suppressed his smile. "Even so, Aji is worried that Cheng Yin and Cheng Yi will collude with Li Guo. I have already sent a letter, asking the young and strong men from all tribes to garrison Fenyin, and the women and the elderly to move to Wenxi."

Once the war breaks out, the entire Fen River basin will be in chaos.

Scattered Huns would sweep south to plunder people and property. They would not dare to target the imperial treasury, but it was inevitable that they would rob the people like bandits.

Jia Xu flipped through the silk book, his expression heavy. "It will be very difficult for them to separate the women, the elderly and the weak, and move them elsewhere."

"The imperial court allocates food according to the population."

Zhao Yan answered calmly, and Jia Xu believed him. He asked curiously, "How much money and grain does the court have now?"

"Not counting the Wei family's treasury, we currently have hundreds of millions of gold and silver, over 70,000 bolts of cloth, and even the grain reserves are difficult to audit. Just the Beiguo family's granary alone has so much rotten grain that it's difficult to count. I estimate, not counting this year's summer harvest, we'll have 400,000 dan."

Four hundred thousand dan, one soldier eats two dan a month, which is enough to feed 20,000 soldiers for ten months.

Even during the famine of the past two years, one stone of grain was enough to feed three people for a month, provided they did not starve to death.

With the addition of summer grain, fish, and wild vegetables, the imperial court was able to undermine the rule of the northern commander-in-chief by relying solely on food.

These people took advantage of the chaos and took their followers with them, all motivated by the desire to survive.

Cheng Yi and Cheng Yin led their troops to leave Fenbei. One reason was to avoid the Huns, and another reason was to wander to Weibei in search of food.

It sounds nice to say that he is the Marshal of Death or the Migrant Marshal, but in fact he is just a wandering garbage man.

Anyi has food, Zhao Ji is good at fighting, and the court has righteousness... It is really possible to make these northern commanders surrender with just one imperial edict.

Recruiting them is to give them the opportunity to serve the country.

Jia Xu then asked, "How many clan commanders are there around the Fen River, and how many troops do they have?"

"There are no fewer than six families. The smallest family has over a thousand households, and the largest has nearly three thousand households."

Zhao Yan made no secret of the situation: "Except for the young and strong, all the idle civilians are evacuating to Wenxi and Anyi. They will soon move south of the Fen River to avoid the Xiongnu. Many boats on the Su and Fen rivers are already stranded upstream."

At least 5,000 people were recruited remotely, and once their families realized the situation and moved in, these troops were under control.

Jia Xu asked again, "How many soldiers are there now?"

"Fenyin has three thousand, Beijiang has three thousand, and Puban also has three thousand."

Zhao Yan dipped his finger in the wine and sketched a diagram on the table: "8,000 new Anyi Tiger Infantry, 700 Hedong Knights, 700 Palace Guards, 300 Yulin, 300 Huben, 500 Xiongnu Volunteers, and 500 garrison guards. I've already written to Zhang Yan, and he's replied, saying he'll send 500 elite troops to protect the emperor."

Jia Xu knew that what Zhao Yan was talking about was reliable armed data, not a fictitious number of 100,000 troops.

He asked, "Why not ask for troops from Henei?"

Zhao Yan chuckled upon hearing this, and Jia Xu also smiled in relief. He said, "If we hold on for too long, we will lose. Most of the troops in Hedong are new troops, and I'm afraid they are no match for the fierce and fierce forces of Li Jue and Guo Si. If we engage in battle and there are any disturbances in Henei, what will we do?"

Zhao Yan dipped his finger in the wine and drew a line from Anyi to the north. "Five days from now, the emperor will march north to attack the Xiongnu north of Fen. What do you think?"

Jia Xu lowered his head to study the crude map and asked, "Lord Yuan Ming, are you trying to lure the Xiongnu into an attack and relieve the difficulties at Fenshui?"

Although there are two garrisons in the Fen River Basin, the Fen River is abundant, and there are Huns in the north. If Li and Guo invade, and the Huns cooperate in the attack, the two cities will be isolated.

On the contrary, here in Puban, we only need to deal with enemies from one direction.

"Yes, I have spread rumors among the Xiongnu through Qubei, saying that the emperor's northern expedition is fake, and he is using the pretext of personally leading the expedition to take the Wei clan's hidden gold and flee through the Chenguan Pass into Henei."

Zhao Yan raised his hand and pointed near Beijiang: "This is the first battle."

(End of this chapter)