Tiger Guards

Chapter 164 The storm
In the upper reaches of Fen River, there is Jia Township on the bank.

Jiaxiang had long been reduced to ruins. On the ninth day of April, the 700th Black Flag Tiger Infantry Squadron entered Jiaxiang.
The ruins of Jiaxiang were cleared, and reconstruction of barracks and dredging of canals began.

The next day, a small Xiongnu tribe settled in Jiaxiang also migrated here.

Only the twenty-three heads of households in this small tribe came; their sons and sons-in-law had already returned to their tribe to relocate women, children, the elderly, the weak, and the animals.

Just as they were recovering Jia Township, Zhao Ji arrived here on inspection.

He brought only a hundred or so riders, and Jia Xu and Jia Kui accompanied him. The two of them came to Jia Township to worship their ancestors.

Jia Xu was a descendant of Jia Yi in the early Han Dynasty. Later, he moved to Wuwei. His family had served as a 2,000-stone official for generations and was a prominent family in Wuwei County.

In Wuwei, Jia Xu is still a well-known figure; but in Guandong, and even in Hedong, the influence of the Wuwei Jia family is just so-so.

During this ancestor worship, Jia Xu and Jia Kui united their clan and from then on they addressed each other as uncle and nephew.

After Zhao Ji left Jia Xu and Jia Kui in Jiaxiang, he headed north and arrived in Yang County.

Yong'an and Huoyi, which are located to the north of Yang County, have both sent teams of the Tiger Infantry Army to station there.

However, it was inconvenient for Zhao Ji to leave Beijiang, so he just inspected the terrain, fields and vegetation around Yang County, then took a boat downstream on the Fen River and returned to Jiangyi that night.

Troops were sent to garrison in all cities and larger towns, with an average of 500 Tiger Infantrymen per county.

They were stationed in Yong'an, Yangxian, and Xiangling on the east bank of the Fen River, and in Pingyang and Linfen on the west bank.

Only the most elite 2,500 people were left, and the Beijiang Volunteer Army was reorganized, and 1,500 people were selected to be incorporated into the Tiger Infantry Army; later plans were made to select another 1,000 people from Ma Wan and Cheng Yi.

Maintaining the Tiger Infantry Army's organization of 5,000 people will be the fist force for future wars.

But the current Tiger Infantry is fundamentally different from what it was half a month ago. Those who are good at riding horses and dare to ride horses are all organized as knights.

Xu Huang's Hedong Knight Camp was also supplemented to one thousand cavalry. Including Xu Huang's own one hundred cavalry guards, the entire Hedong Knight Camp had approximately nearly one thousand two hundred knights, equipped with one thousand six hundred horses.

The distribution of war horses does not mean that combat effectiveness has been formed. The Tiger Infantry are essentially still mounted infantry.

The real cavalry combat effectiveness is mainly composed of Hedong knights in the short term, and mainly of Xiongnu guards and volunteers in the long term. These people are developing towards the scale of 3,000 cavalry planned by Zhao Ji.

So many troops gathered in Jiangyi, and after the organization was finalized, they began to restore the new fields through military settlements.

Keep these people busy so that they don't have any random thoughts, and improve the cohesion of each team through work.

Not only in the Fenshui River Basin, various people who moved to Sushui to avoid the war either returned to their hometowns or engaged in farming in Sushui, seizing the time to plant wheat.

The boats collected from the Sushui, Huishui and Fenshui rivers were also organized. The large boats were used to transport supplies, and the small boats were combined to catch river fish.

Qubei had led the various tribes to sweep the northwest of Fenshui. The Xiongnu were very skilled at doing this kind of thing, so Zhao Ji didn't need to worry too much.

He was mainly responsible for the military and civilian settlements on the Fen River and the Su River. The horses were gathered in Jiangyi. Although they could help with farming, they also consumed a lot of fodder.

In a dozen days or so, the horse herds near Jiangyi will have to be dispersed to facilitate their search for food.

Today I went out to inspect the east bank of the Fen River to see the condition of the vegetation in various places.

As the sun was setting, when Zhao Ji returned to Jiangyi, the Han army and Xiongnu volunteers who had been working in Xintian had already begun to return to the camp.

Not only them, a town called Zhenqiang also recently sent more than 300 Qiang and Hu volunteers to participate in the restoration and cultivation of fields.

Under the suppression of the Huns over the years, these Qiang people had a very hard life, so this was a volunteer army composed mainly of infantry. They had no horses and not enough armor, and their main combat weapons were spears, javelins, and large shields.

Zhao Ji rode Yuelihei straight into the central army camp. Xu Huang, Hou Xuan, Li Kan, Wei Ji, and Liu Fu came to greet him. Even Wang Zhi, who had been suppressed, arranged his position and mixed in with the crowd, standing in the second row and showing his face.

After greeting each other, the people in charge of key projects surrounded Zhao Ji and entered the hall.

As Zhao Ji sat down, Wei Ji brought a tray of bamboo slips to him. "Minister, the hostages from the families of Fenyin have been sent to Anyi. Anyi has also replied. Lord Yuanming has designated land south of the Yu Temple and dispatched over 500 men to build houses for the Imperial Academy."

Zhao Ji took the bamboo slips handed to him by Wei Ji, flipped through them quickly, and asked, "Are the three tribes of Ma Wan, Cheng Yin, and Cheng Yi willing to come to Jiangyi for reorganization?"

A hundred-man Tiger Infantry Army requires three Tiger Guards. Allocating five hundred Tiger Guards to control the Tiger Infantry Army is a management limit, and it is also the current limit of Hedong.

Hou Xuan had already taken his seat behind Xu Huang and spoke, "According to Cheng Yi's report, Ma Shiwan is concerned about Ma Shizhi's past and is unwilling to let his troops and hidden households belong to the imperial court, so he is hesitant. Now that Generals Cheng Yi and Cheng Yin have stationed their troops in Fenyin City, they are holding firm. Ma Shiwan has no choice."

These people grew up in chaos and are refugee leaders. They are fundamentally different from powerful leaders like Ma Wan who have grown up through generations of industrial accumulation and development.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Ji looked at the candidates and said, "Tomorrow I will divide my troops into two thousand. I will appoint Wen Ze as the commander of Fenyin and send him to take over the defense of Fenyin. I will order General Cheng Yi and his three men to join me. I will settle them in the fertile land of Pingyang and select the best and strongest to join the Tiger Infantry Army."

Pingyang must be vigorously developed. After Pei Mao's mediation in the past few days, Zhao Ji's reward has been basically confirmed.

He was appointed as the General of the Central Guards, concurrently the Governor of Taiyuan County, and was granted the title of Marquis of Pingyang, with a fief of 7,000 households and a reward of 20 million yuan. Zhao Yan was appointed as the General of the Central Guards, concurrently the Governor of Taiyuan County, and was granted the title of Marquis of Jinyang, with a fief of 8,000 households and a reward of 10 million yuan. There is no record of the General of the Central Guards establishing a government. The Governor of Taiyuan County recruited mainly scholars from Taiyuan and established the Taiyuan County Government.

The status of several Taiyuan scholars in the army also rose rapidly, with Sun Zi as the leader, and they would soon become the backbone officials of the future Taiyuan County Government.

Therefore, Zhao Ji was blocked and was not given the power to recruit scholars and form a military shogunate.

Given the current situation, it is no longer necessary. Zhao Ji has captured the five tribes of the Huns, and seems to be using them to gain power.

The people of Hedong finally stabilized and no one wanted to fight the Huns again.

The scholars of Hedong who had experienced the Battle of Jiangyi naturally cherished the current situation.

Zhao Ji made his appointment to Hou Xuan, who stood up and bowed deeply: "I will obey your orders."

Zhao Ji looked at Wei Ji and said, "The Fenyin Commandery will be incorporated into the Hedong Commandery and will be considered the Western Commandery. Immediately cast and engrave the Western Commandery seal for use tomorrow."

There is no need to ask other people about military deployment, and the main ships of Fenshui are also in hand.

Zhao Ji will make a decision to mobilize two thousand men, then select the troops and arrange the boats. Then tomorrow morning the candidate will be able to lead his troops down by boat and head straight for Fenyin.

The army still appears to be in disarray, and personnel layoffs and promotions will take time to settle.

But as long as the main force here in Jiangyi is stable, the various fulcrums spread out will not be in chaos.

The next most troublesome thing is to deal with the imperial court and the Henei soldiers, and during this period, they have to quickly take over Jinyang City.

Seize several key cities in Taiyuan County, and after the court leaves, repel Li and Guo's rebellious armies and attack the people of Taiyuan.

The grain reserves in Hedong...will be exhausted by mid-May, so we must take action against the big families and powerful people in Taiyuan in late April.

It would be best to force the imperial court to go to Taiyuan, so that the scale of the rebellion launched by the big families and powerful people in Taiyuan would be limited, which would help reduce the difficulty of suppressing the rebellion.

Zhao Ji quickly processed the various official documents that had accumulated over the day. Now, the only most independent powerful family left in Hedong was the Ma Shiwan family.

Allowing him to live was already a sign of Zhao Ji's kindness and generosity, and Ma Shiwan had no room for bargaining.

Zhao Ji did not even shy away from appointing the injured Hubenlang as the county magistrate of the surrounding counties, and directly appointed them as the county magistrate of Xiangling, Yangxian, Yong'an, Pingyang, and Linfen.

These Hu Ben Lang were wounded in the battle that night when the Xiongnu king attacked. As long as they were able to handle official documents, Zhao Ji dared to let them serve as county magistrates.

These five counties existed in name only, and the remaining powerful people were all very weak. The children of these powerful people generally joined the Huben Army.

Therefore, this is the private territory of the Huben, and the difficulty of the position is very low. All you need to do is implement orders and mediate conflicts between the Han and the Xiongnu.

These Huben were generally transferred to the Three Departments as Huben Assistant Ministers for a short period of time. Two or three days later, they were sent out as county magistrates as Langguans of the Three Departments. There was no problem with the procedure.

After the meeting, when he was alone with Xu Huang, he asked him, "Brother Gongming, who can rush into Taiyuan and take up residence in Jinyang?"

Xu Huang expressed his apprehension, saying, "Minister, I'm afraid there's no other good choice besides me. However, the Henei troops are approaching, so we must be on guard."

With Xu Huang's qualifications, merits and abilities, it would not be difficult for him to lead his troops into Taiyuan and seize Jinyang.

But if the court gave Xu Huang a promotion, Xu Huang would be worried about that.

His Hedong Knights Camp always expanded in small, planned steps, but the army remained well-ordered, without any bloat or congestion.

The premise is not to replace the main general in the short term, as changing the general will cause the Hedong Knight Camp to become impetuous.

It can be said that after Qubei left, the Hedong knights in Xu Huang's hands were the iron fist that suppressed the various armies in Jiangyi.

If he took the Hedong knights to seize Jinyang, then when the Henei soldiers arrived, they would probably not be easy to deal with.

Zhang Yang had fought many battles throughout his life, so he could naturally see the problems of the various armies in Jiangyi at a glance.

Now, just one strike will cause chaos among the armies in Jiangyi.

It’s not that the Hu Ben soldiers are disloyal, but they are young after all. It will probably take another month to stabilize the morale of the army.

If the imperial court leaves, people's hearts will waver further, which will cause more trouble.

When Zhao Ji didn't respond, Xu Huang suggested, "Since the troops from Henei haven't arrived yet, why not order Li Bocheng to lead a thousand soldiers up the river to Zhongdu City and, under the pretext of building the Emperor's camp, urge the counties in Taiyuan to gather manpower, money, and food."

At present, only Zhao Ji, Jia Xu and Zhao Yan knew about the plan to take action against the powerful people in Taiyuan. Xu Huang was well aware of the grain reserves in Hedong, so he also had a premonition.

He had no feelings towards the Wang family of Taiyuan, but letting some people die so that more people could survive did not conflict with Xu Huang's philosophy of life.

(End of this chapter)