∷Shuha Novels: Novels∷

and follow the leader

The Wei City is dozens of miles west of Guixiang County, and continue to travel west along Yongji Canal, and a hundred miles later is Huanshui Town.

Wei City has a long history and was the capital of Wei during the Warring States Period. Huanshui Town is not famous, but its history is also long. At that time, Su Qin was the leader of the six kingdoms in Shandong, and the place where the Six Kingdoms united to fight against Qin was in the ancient town of Huanshui. Two ancient cities of vicissitudes were located between mountains and plains, lying across the river, Yongji Canal and Zhang River. They have loyally guarded and protected the creatures on this land for thousands of years.

When the morning sun rushed out of the horizon and the ancient town of Huanshui was bathed in the red sun, Wuyang County Chief Yuan Baozang and the imperial guards Yueqin Captain Jialan rushed over with their army.

This is a vast army, with hundreds of thousands of hungry people.

In order to solve the survival of hungry people, Galan needs to win more support from local counties and counties. For this reason, the people in the northwest and the hungry people must be closely "bound" to form a joint force to the outside world. Of course, the hungry people cannot be placed in Guixiang. This is the "bottom line" of Guixiang people and Wuyang County Government. For this reason, Yuan Baozang and Wei Deshen not only opened warehouses and released grain, but also personally led the township group to advance westward with the people in the northwest and hungry people on the grounds of rushing to support Huanshui Town. To put it bluntly, it is to lead the people in the northwest to the battlefield of Huanshui and lead the hungry people to the boundary between Wei and Wuyang County, so as to relieve the threat of the hungry people to the Wuyang capital area.

Huanshui Town is located on the border between Wuyang County and Wei County, and this border is the Baigou Canal. Now Taihang thieves are rampant in Wei County, cutting off the water and land routes. The bureaucrats from Wei County are worried and anxious, and have to do their best to suppress the thieves. But Wei County, like Wuyang County, also lacks army, and coupled with the secret constraints of local counties, suppressing the thieves is basically a self-deception. It is good to be able to defend the city.

The Taihang thieves attacked Huanshui Town, plundered Yongji Canal, and burned the war to Wuyang County. This was good news for the Wei County bureaucrats. Finally, reinforcements were available. The two counties joined forces to join forces for more or less hope. They just waited for a few days to hold on to Liyang to supervise the transportation of grain and grass in the east, and Wang Zhongbo, the general of the Huben Mansion of Zuoxiaoweifu, who was guarding Liyang, had to send troops to rescue him due to the severe situation.

The reinforcements from Wuyang County finally arrived. In addition to the many village groups led by Yuan Baozang, there were also the imperial guards led by Jialan, and the Hejian, Xindu and other county town groups heading south. The largest team was hungry people, and rushed to the ancient town of Huanshui like water.

The guards and Huanshui Ling, who were guarding the ancient town, were both surprised and happy, and hurried out to welcome him.

On the other side of the canal, the Taihang Rebels were battalions for several miles, with flags flying and drums running all over the sky, with magnificent momentum. The river surface was sparkling, and there was no passing ship. The busy scene of thousands of sails competing for flow suddenly disappeared. On the river bank, teams of rebel soldiers stood in line. Under the river bank, there were transport ships ready to go. Obviously, the rebels were preparing to cross the river to attack, and reinforcements were at the right time.

It is a good thing that reinforcements come, but officials gathered, including the Censor General Changzhi, the Censor You Yuan, the Chief of the Wuyang County, the Imperial Guardian Yueqin, and the Huanshui Defense Commander Bai Meng. Who controls the battlefield command? Who commands the army? Who will take responsibility?

You Yuan remained silent as always. Yuan Baozang was so secretive about this. It can be seen that he was willing to take charge of the battlefield and control the overall situation.

Although Yuan Baozang was the chief executive, his merits were all obtained on the battlefield. Whether it was the unification war against Jiangzuo or the expedition to the northern Turks, he participated. For the children of aristocratic families, "If you leave, you will be the general and enter, you will be the prime minister" is the basic pursuit of life, so both civil and military is also the basic requirement of the noble families for their descendants. Yuan Baozang is fully capable of taking command of the battlefield. His current identity is the deputy chief of the administrative officer of Wuyang County, and the law allows him to lead the army under special circumstances. However, at this moment, the strongest military commander Long Guard and the largest number of Hebei Township Group were controlled by Jialan and You Yuan. Without the support of these two people, Yuan Baozang could not get command.

Jialan made a quick decision and bowed to the Huanshui defender Bai without hesitation, "Xiaoguolong Guardian Tong, only guards the leader of the guarder horse."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone was surprised.

In the imperial system, there were generals in the town, garrisons had garrisons, and garrisons had orders. Now the prefecture was abolished as a county, deprived the governor of the state, and gave the local army the right to command the military, and gave the new commander to the newly established commander, and set up a guard master, which was equivalent to the border town general. The local commander and the defense master both obeyed the emperor and the center, and were controlled by the local generals of the Guards.

The purpose of this reform is to further separate military and political affairs, so as to concentrate military power and stabilize Middle-earth. This strategy can give full play to its advantages in peacetime, but its disadvantages are completely exposed during the war period. For example, after the Shandong rebels swarmed up, the first task of suppressing thieves was the local army. The local army was mainly composed of temporary recruitment civilians, local towns, clan groups, etc. The requisition of these people will inevitably touch or even endanger the interests of local governments, and the contradiction between the two systems of military and political systems. What's more serious is that these people have poor combat effectiveness and are closely related to the rebels, so they are unable to suppress thieves at all.

The local army could not handle it, so they could only mobilize the Wei army. However, the empire launched an Eastern Expedition, and all the Wei army from Shandong, including local troops, went to Liaodong. At this time, the county prefect and other local administrative officials were helpless because they had no military power and could only defend the city and let the rebels run rampant. At the end of last year, the emperor wanted to exert a second Eastern Expedition. Considering the dangers of the Shandong rebels, he temporarily granted the local administrative chief a certain amount of military power. But no one knows how to use this military power and what the consequences will be. Judging from the emperor's attitude of reform, it is a taboo to exercise military power. Once it is not grasped well, if it crosses the "line", there will be a disaster for death, so everyone is waiting and watching. Only Zhang Xutuo, the county magistrate of Qi County, is brave and the county magistrate dares to do things. He dares to do. When he gets military power, he forms a local army of 20,000 people, kills Wang Bo, Meng Rang and other rebels and flees.

Zhang Xutuo was brave and dared to take "jiá as an arrow" and "excessively" exercised military power without restraint. Those who were unclear thought that he was strong and had no scruples. Those who knew the secret could guess his purpose. Yuanbaozang could guess the reason why Zhang Xutuo snatched military power from the county magistrate and magnified it infinitely. The emperor did not warn or stop Zhang Xutuo's "snatch" military power, which made some local administrative officials braver. The greater the power, the greater the strength, the greater the benefits, which is inevitable. Yuanbaozang faced the upcoming storm, if he wanted to get a glimmer of life, he had to gain greater power to strengthen his strength.

If Yuan Baozang spoke, he would definitely get the military power, and others really couldn't find a reason to refuse. You Yuan was a central inspection official and had another mission. Jialan needed food. As for the defense leader of Huanshui Town, everything would depend on the local county government, and of course there would be no conflict with Yuan Baozang. However, Jialan "prominently" actually pushed Bai Meng to the position of the battlefield commander on the grounds that Bai Meng was familiar with the battlefield.

Huanshui is an important city, and the guard is the sixth rank. It is on the same level as the Yueqi Celestial Commander in the official rank. However, one is the local garrison army and the other is the central imperial guard. Moreover, Jialan also has Chaosan Duke, a scattered official position of the fifth rank, and there is a difference in status. Under normal circumstances, Jialan should be commanding Bai Meng, but in special periods, Bai Meng can also command Jialan.

It was precisely because of this that Galan decisively "taken" to control the development of the situation. Yuan Baozang immediately understood Galan's intention and was extremely angry.

The importance of the battle in Huanshui Town is well known to You Yuan, Yuan Baozang, Jialan and others. This battle is very difficult to fight. The reason why it is difficult to fight is because the situation is unclear and because the interests of all parties are all entangled here. Whether to win, lose, or stalemate must be determined based on the development of the situation, and must start from the interests that benefit one side.

Yuan Baozang was determined to wait and see, so he wanted to drag the battle indefinitely. You Yuan wanted to push Li Yang to rebel, and for this reason he wanted to use this battle to put enough pressure on Li Yang. Galan needed to unite all the forces that could be united to expand his strength so that after Li Yang's rebellion, he could quell the rebellion as quickly as possible and minimize the harm of this storm to the empire.

Jialan decided to support Bai Meng and let Bai Meng control the military power, to form an alliance with the Hebei family and to ease the tension with You Yuan, and then get the support of Hebei Township Groups such as Su Yong, Su Dingfang.

Bai Meng comes from the Bai family in Nangong, Hebei. The Bai family has a long history and can be traced back to the famous minister of the Wei State in the Warring States Period. Bai Gui is famous in history. Although his achievements are not enough to be comparable to Lu Buwei, he also assisted the king to strengthen the kingdom as a master. The Bai family has been passed down for thousands of years and is still one of the prominent families in Hebei. Due to its geographical location, the Bai family is closely related to the Li family in Zhaojun, the You family in Renxian, the Wei family in Julu, the Liu family in Jicheng, the Cui family in Qinghe, the Fang family, and the Zhang family in Zhang.

Jialan supported Bai as the commander of the battlefield, which was actually showing goodwill to the people of Hebei and distanced himself from Yuanbaozang, who was also Guanlong people.

Jialan didn't know whether Yuan Baozang had participated in Li Yang's rebellion, but judging from Yuan Baozang's voluntary pulling him to the Huanshui battlefield, he could only maliciously speculate that he was Yang Xuangan's accomplice, so he tried to stop Yuan Baozang from controlling the army at any cost. However, for the sake of the food of hungry people, he could not turn against Yuan Baozang into enemies. After weighing the trade-offs, he could only support Bai Meng.

As soon as Jia Lan's attitude became clear, You Yuan, Wei Deshen, Wei Zheng, Fu Duanyi, Travel West, Su Yong and others immediately understood his intention. Of course, Hebei people strongly supported him, and even You Yuan, who had always remained silent, said "very good". Military power can be given to Jia Lan and the Northwest people, but we must never give Yuan Baozang, the Guanlong people. This is You Yuan's "bottom line". Now, under the crisis, Jia Lan has to "deow" to Hebei people, which makes You Yuan finally get a kind of revenge pleasure after a long period of depression.

A county magistrate of Wuyang County, a fifth-rank official, and the emperor issued an order to control military power under special circumstances, but lost this power due to unanimous opposition from the generals of the army. Yuan Baozang was very angry, but did not put his anger on his face. He suddenly realized something that Jialan was Pei Shiju's man, a man-eating wolf sent by the emperor himself to Hebei. Now this wolf does not eat Hebei people anymore, so who do he want to eat?
Chapter completed!