Inheriting a Taoist temple, the story begins with Wu Zetian offering incense.

Chapter 386 No Goguryeo plank allowed to go into the water! [Seeking monthly votes]

The Paesu River, which later became the Taedong River in North Korea, is wide enough for boats to easily navigate. When passing the island in the middle of the Paesu River, Liu Rengui used a drone to discover the water fortress set up by the Goguryeo navy.

They immediately switched to small warships and, taking advantage of the reduced visibility due to nightfall, quietly approached the water fortress. With the assistance of drones, they launched an attack on the Goguryeo navy within the fortress.

This water fortress is located on an island in the middle of the river, and its defenses are not tight; in fact, they are somewhat lax.

For decades, the Goguryeo navy had been bullying Silla and Baekje from time to time, and occasionally harassing the Japanese navy. On the peninsula, they were like a force to be reckoned with, with Silla, Baekje, and Japanese ships unable to even reach the Paesu River. Over time, the Goguryeo navy developed an arrogant attitude.

This gave the Tang navy an opportunity to storm the water fortress. After entering the fortress, they used flashlights and drones to target and eliminate the Goguryeo navy inside. Meanwhile, the surrounding warships circled the island in the middle of the river, smashing any small boats that tried to escape into the river, feeding the Goguryeo people on board to the fish.

Before discovering the Jiangxin Island water fortress, Cheng Mingzhen originally planned to head straight for Pyongyang, determined to take it down even if it meant hardship.

But now there is a river island fortress, which stores a large amount of military equipment, supplies and food. Cheng Mingzhen immediately changed his strategy and prepared to occupy the river island fortress, then blockade the Paesu River to prevent Goguryeo ships from entering the sea.

In addition to the blockade, we also need to take advantage of the Tang Dynasty's naval forces to target and eliminate satellite cities near Pyongyang.

During the Tang Dynasty, Pyongyang, the capital of Goguryeo, was located at the confluence of the Paesu River and the Putong River. They called it Chang'an. It was divided into an outer city, a middle city, and an inner city. The middle and inner cities were all located on mountains, making it a strategically important and easily defensible city.

Around Pyongyang, there are nearly ten cities of varying sizes. Taking advantage of their geographical location, these cities form the Pyongyang urban cluster, supporting each other. If any one city is attacked, the other cities will actively come to its aid.

The closest city to Jiangxin Island is Huangzhou City, which is located on the south bank of the Paesu River and adjacent to the Huangzhou River, a tributary of the Paesu River. If they went upstream, the Tang warships could sail directly to the outskirts of Huangzhou City and attack it with the ballistae on board.

Once this obstacle is removed, the lower reaches of the Pae River will be unobstructed for the Tang Dynasty's navy.

After Liu Rengui led his men to clear out the water fortress on Jiangxin Island, they searched the island inside and out until there wasn't a single Goguryeo person left on the island, at which point they decided to stop.

Cheng Mingzhen ordered his men to take inventory of supplies and provisions overnight and begin to estimate the duration of the Tang Dynasty's naval presence. After taking inventory, they found that the navy could easily sustain itself for three months without any reinforcements.

This news immediately boosted the morale of the entire army. With food and weapons, what were they waiting for? Let's go and get them!

Qiu Xiaozhong, deputy commander of the naval forces, said:
"If we can hold out here for several months, it will definitely have a huge restraining effect on the Liaodong war situation. We should try to contact Li Weigong and inform him of the military situation here."

Cheng Mingzhen felt that it was indeed necessary to report this, otherwise, if they went too far into enemy territory alone, they might ultimately be defeated. Relatively speaking, it was better to advance alongside the army.

He was about to order someone to set sail immediately to the Liao River front to report on the military situation when, unexpectedly, Liu Rengui pulled out a walkie-talkie:

"Sir, don't be hasty. Let's first try to see if this item can be used to contact the Liaodong camp. If it can, then we'll save a lot of trouble."

Cheng Mingzhen was somewhat surprised:
"This place is at least a thousand miles away from the Liaodong camp. How can we contact them?"

Liu Rengui dared not make any guarantees:
"The information on the walkie-talkie says that increasing the power can make the signal travel further. We might as well turn it on to the maximum and try it. If we can make contact, Li Weigong can make arrangements in advance."

Cheng Mingzhen said:
"If we cannot contact Li Weigong before dawn, we will set sail there."

Standing on a high point in the water fortress, Liu Rengui turned the walkie-talkie to maximum power and tuned it to channel 101, where Li Jing was, and called out repeatedly.

I tried for more than ten minutes, but received no response.

Undeterred, Liu Rengui ordered his men to sail away from the island in the middle of the river and onto the sea. Under the moonlight, he climbed to the top of the mast, turned on the walkie-talkie again, and continued to try calling channel 101.

Just when he thought he was going to fail again, the walkie-talkie's indicator light suddenly turned green, followed by an old voice:

"I am Li Jing, who are you?"

In his excitement, Liu Rengui nearly fell off the mast. He grabbed the rope beside him to steady himself and said excitedly:

"Reporting to Lord Li Wei, I am Liu Rengui, the naval clerk. We have just arrived at the island in the middle of the Paesu River estuary and occupied the Goguryeo water fortress. The supplies on it can last for three months."

Upon hearing this, Li Jingteng in the Liaodong camp immediately stood up:
Will this battle go smoothly?

"Successfully, there are no more Goguryeo people on the island, only our Tang Dynasty navy. We are currently taking stock of all strategic supplies, and the drones will soon begin reconnaissance of Huangzhou City. Next, we will remove this thorn in our side and then attack Pyongyang, the capital of Goguryeo."

Inside the central army camp, Li Jing turned on the camping lamp, looked at the map of Pyongyang, and felt that Cheng Mingzhen's attack route was fine. If Huangzhou was not captured, the navy in the city would continue to harass the Tang navy by going down the river.

"But simply taking Huangzhou isn't enough," Li Jing said in a deep voice.
"After capturing Huangzhou, set the city ablaze to put pressure on the Goguryeo people in Pyongyang. During the attack, send a naval force to launch a feigned attack on Pyongyang. If there are any water fortresses along the way, destroy them all. After this battle, make sure that Goguryeo will never be able to go into the water."

Cheng Mingzhen's strategy was to blockade the Paesui River, preventing Goguryeo from sailing out to sea. Now Li Jing has escalated it to prevent them from even getting on the water, effectively cutting off one of Goguryeo's legs.

Upon hearing Li Jing's order, Liu Rengui felt a surge of patriotic fervor: "Rest assured, Lord Li, even if I die, I will carry out your command!"

Li Jing laughed heartily:
"No need for that. We'll leave the Pai River to you. We'll set off tomorrow to attack Wugu City and help relieve your burden. At that time, we'll be more than 500 li apart, and we can communicate with each other every morning and evening to exchange military information."

Originally, they planned to advance steadily, but now that Cheng Mingzhen and his men have captured the Jiangxin Island water fortress, they should quickly advance into the heart of Goguryeo. This way, the two sides can not only support each other from afar, but also devise a feint attack tactic against Goguryeo.

However, today was too rushed, and Li Jing only had a general idea in mind. The specific battle plan still needed to be carefully considered.

Finally, Li Jing said to Liu Rengui:

"Tomorrow morning, Minister of War Li Maogong will be the first to depart. At that time, you can contact Channel 102, which is Maogong's exclusive channel."

"The general will obey the order!"

After ending the call, Liu Rengui excitedly climbed down from the mast and ordered the ship to quickly return to the island in the middle of the river to relay Li Weigong's orders.

Cheng Mingzhen stroked his beard and said:
"This plan is quite ingenious. In that case, we will split our forces into two groups tomorrow: one to take Huangzhou and the other to launch a feigned attack on Pyongyang."

Meanwhile, at the Liaodong camp, Li Jing summoned Li Ji and informed him of the latest movements of the Tang navy, as well as Cheng Mingzhen's walkie-talkie channel:

"His personal channel is 055, which he says is related to a large ship. I haven't looked at any information about online trolls, but I feel that these code names are quite meaningful."

Li Ji wrote it down, planning to call out to Cheng Mingzhen when they arrived at Wugu City, so that they could launch a pincer attack.

The next morning, after the army had a hearty meal, they set off under the leadership of Li Ji, while Xue Wanche stayed behind to begin sweeping through the cities on the east bank of the Liao River.

Every time a city was captured, Goguryeo soldiers were executed on the spot, and the Goguryeo people in the city were escorted to Tang territory as slaves.

Li Jing devised this strategy to dampen the enthusiasm of Goguryeo people to join the army, to crush their courage, and to make them better servants of the Tang Dynasty.

As for posthumous fame, the old general no longer cares.

Meanwhile, inside the Hunyuan Palace, Zhou Yi had just gotten up when he saw Gongsun Da Niang rushing over. This girl had been idle lately, so she led the brothers Li Chengqi and Li Chengyi to find a lot of abandoned farmland in Guanzhong.

Li Longji was furious about this matter in court, and then took the opportunity to introduce the decree on wasteland:
Within the Tang Dynasty, regardless of whether one was a member of the imperial family or a noble family, if one neglected their land, one-third of their land would be confiscated immediately, and those with official positions would have their promotions suspended; if land was neglected for two years, half of their land would be confiscated, and those with official positions would be demoted three ranks; if land was neglected for three years, all of their land would be confiscated, and the entire family would be demoted to commoners.

In addition, for scholars who participated in the imperial examinations, if their families had uncultivated land, their ranking would be automatically postponed until they failed the exam.

Once the decree for wasteland was issued, everyone in the Tang Dynasty felt threatened and began racking their brains to reclaim wasteland and cultivate the land, daring not to be careless in the slightest, because everyone knew that the emperor had a token bestowed by the gods, and disobedient officials would be struck dead on the spot.

When Gongsun Da Niang saw Zhou Yi, she asked with a smile:
"Taoist Master, I've been working myself to the bone over there to earn merit for you. Now that I've finally come all this way, what's so fun about it?"

The Book of Changes says:

"We're going to the provincial capital later to handle a family dispute. You should come with me and broaden your horizons."

Upon hearing this, Granny Gongsun immediately nudged Zhou Yi on the shoulder with delight:

"I told you we're a great team, so this kind of job is naturally my responsibility... Just the two of us? What about Sister Meiniang and Sister Xishi?"

The Book of Changes says:

“Xi Shi is going too, while Meiniang and Zhao’er will stay and look after the house… Our new house is under renovation, and we can’t do without anyone.”

After everyone had breakfast together, Zhou Yi led Xi Shi and Gongsun Da Niang down the mountain in a car. They drove all the way to the highway entrance, turned onto the highway, and headed straight for Zhengzhou, the provincial capital.

Sitting in the carriage, everything was new and exciting to her, especially the cable bridge. She pressed her face against the window and stared intently at it.
"Taoist Master, is it possible for our Great Tang Dynasty to build this kind of bridge?"

The Book of Changes says:

“A regular bridge will do. Right now, Hunyuan Palace has a pile driver, right? I’ll buy some cement piles, and you can drive them into the Wei River. Then, lay bridge planks on top, and you’ll have a big bridge. If you think it’s not sturdy enough, when winter comes, you can first seal the riverbed with soil and then petrify it to build a giant stone bridge.”

Gongsun Da Niang was quite tempted by what she heard:

"Let's make it a stone bridge. When the time comes, my brother Li Bai and I will use the stone-removing talisman to turn the entire bridge into stone. The people will be absolutely amazed and will regard it as a miracle!"

(End of this chapter)