In the busy town of Jiangling, time flies by like flowing water. Although the official army's sphere of influence has been shrinking to the north, the rebels have not been idle in other directions.
For Zhou Huai'an, when both the business and the site are enlarged, it not only means more room for growth and development prospects, but also undoubtedly represents more fault tolerance and risk tolerance. For example, some idle hands can be placed outside the system as some kind of symbolic mascots.
And he really stayed here for a while before he could appreciate the importance of Jiangling and the convenience of its geographical location; as the saying goes, "The Wuhui is in the east, Dongting is in the south, the Wuling in Nantong, Yingsi is in the north, and Bashu is controlled. You can go out of Sanchuan and look down at the heart of Jianghan Plain and the thoroughfare of Jingluo.
In the words of Zhuge Liang in history when he first came out of the cottage, he said to Liu Bei, “Jingzhou is occupied by Han and Mian in the north, benefiting the South China Sea, connecting Wuhui in the east, and connecting Bashu in the west. The convenience of transportation and logistics in Chengshui, in this era when transportation and communication are generally underdeveloped, is enough to hit many places in the world.
The Jianghan Plain and Dongting Lake basin where Jingzhou is located, because of the fertile land, mild climate, abundant rainfall, and convenient irrigation of lakes and rivers, it is a mature agricultural production area with a long history and a high degree of development. Fertile fertile fields with fragrant rice and wheat. Historically, Li Bai's "Jingzhou Song" and Li Shen's "Crossing Jingmen" both have special descriptions.
In addition, early rice and winter wheat can be interplanted locally to achieve a harvest of two harvests a year and three harvests in two years in some areas. Although it is not as frequent as the three-season rice in Lingwai, it is far superior in single-season yield due to abundant water and soil during the same period of rain and heat.
As a result, the population base supported by developed agriculture is much higher than that of other places. For example, Kaiyuan and Zhenyuan, which have the most hukou of the eight counties in Jingzhou, are known as 300,000 to 400,000.
Now that the Taiping Army has cleared it out again, there are still more than 50,000 households, about 180,000 to 90,000. And this is only the adult men and women who need to bear the corvee tax in their books. It should be understood that according to the custom of the government, the elderly and children among the people, as well as a large number of slaves and maidservants, are never counted among them.
Therefore, although many households have been lost fluently in recent years after the war, but as long as there is time to settle down and rest, just accept the refugees from Heluo who are accustomed to fleeing from the north can easily recover in a short period of time. .
Therefore, after Cao Shixiong and others occupied Jiangling City as a partial division, they didn't bother to control the place. They just sent a collection team to sent out food on a regular basis, and then they took a tap to collect some of the property's transit; it was already a donation. The army has enough food and can still have the surplus to supply the rebel army one after another, or to help other friendly troops nearby, and even carry out trade everywhere along the water and land for profit.
Now it is the turn of the Taiping Army to operate and manage the eight counties in Jingzhou where Jiangling is located. I am afraid that there is still a lot of potential to be tapped in terms of output efficiency and stamina. However, if we want to carry out more refined management and deep-rooted resource mobilization capabilities, we need top-down cleaning and transformation work, as well as more staff to be stationed at the grassroots level.
This requires the transfer of more ready-made personnel and short-term students from Canton to enrich the at least hundreds of grassroots locations in the eight counties of Jingzhou. However, before all these human resources are in place, it can only be maintained for a while by relying on temporary military management and the Tuntian system.
In addition, there are also the well-known local tea industry, sericulture and textile industry, shipbuilding industry, and trade and circulation industries, all of which need time to slowly recover and rejuvenate. However, the corresponding priority must be ranked after the most basic realization of self-sufficient agricultural production.
But anyway, once the situation in Jiangling settles down, it means that after the Pearl River Basin where Canton is located, the second important grain-producing area and regional economic center under the control of the Taiping Army, as well as the corresponding product circulation and resource complementarity. Next, a larger risk tolerance and overall resource mobilization base have been established.
And during this period, the three-way march of sweeping the periphery of the country also had results and feedback.
The first to be rewarded was in Langzhou on the West Road (now Changde, Hunan). Former Jingnan General Leiman, who had occupied Wuling City in the prefecture for a short time, almost hurriedly withdrew from Longyang County on the west side of Dongting Lake, and sent people to contact with the rebels humbly, and transferred several carts of property as gifts. He tried his best to show that he had no intention of being an enemy of the Taiping Army.
Immediately afterwards, the rebel general Zhou Yue, who had captured Shaozhou (now Shaoyang, Hunan) from the south, also sent envoys to congratulate the victory of the Taiping Army's Great Po Shannan army, and accompanied him with a ship of native produce as a congratulatory gift. However, he was originally from the local Tu nationality in Langzhou, but in the process of vying for the city of Langzhou, he was chased by Lei Man, who also came from the Tu nationality;
Therefore, on the one hand, the people from the other side tried their best to discredit and discredit Lei Man’s past experience, and on the other hand, they were also quite vaguely trying to test the meaning of the rebels. They seemed to want to use their strength to attack Lei Man’s side in Langzhou, and were willing to pay a sufficient price for this. .
As for another Shimen barbarian leader Xiangzhu who occupied Lizhou in the northwest (now Lixian, Hunan), he was separated by more than half of Langzhou because of the longer distance. In addition to being entrenched by a group of local soil groups, it bordered Yuezhou. Outside of the corner of Anxiang County, there is no chance of formal contact for the time being;
According to the news collected by Zhou Huai'an in the local area, this family also has a bad relationship with the previous two and conflicts and frictions continue. Therefore, if nothing else, these three local forces, each entangled with grievances, would be the main neighbors of the Taiping Army in the west of Hunan.
In contrast, in the process of small-scale armed investigations, infiltrations, and penetrations along the river to the north, they accidentally and are stationed in Xiazhou, Guizhou and other places, and are under the control of the West Road. Only the remnants have obtained formal contact and channels of water communication. Among them were the elders and related households of Chai Ping and all the troops gathered by Ge Cunshu, a veteran of the rebel army.
This is really a pleasant surprise. Although Zhou Huaian did not expect the combat effectiveness of these remnants of the rebels, or the role of containment and response at critical times; but these theoretical friendly forces are based on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and are relatively threatened by the downstream from the middle of Shu. In other words, it is at least a barrier and warning in disguise.
The main offensive direction of Yongzhou and Daozhou to the south is even simpler. Surrounded by the sphere of influence controlled by the rebels on all sides, whether it is the remnant area of Yongzhou or the whole area of Daozhou, it can almost be decided by watching the wind to descend and surrender. To describe. Therefore, it is more troublesome and troublesome, but it is those local forces that are relatively well-preserved, as well as the powerful and powerful people behind them.
So here, Zhou Huai'an could only adopt a two-legged walking strategy that was more special.
On the one hand, in accordance with relatively mature experience, methods and procedures, in the cities and towns where the Rebels have strong control, the crimes of the gentry, wealthy, wealthy and wealthy are well liquidated and publicly tried as a way to propagate the rebels’ “replacement for the sky”. The proof of the proposition of “walking the road” and “rebuilding peace”.
On the other hand, among the rebels along the way, members who have been engaged in unprofitable business and vigorous rural groups were selected; after short-term assault training and teaching and indoctrination, they were sent to the countryside in batches to be responsible. I started to "weed" for all kinds of powerful households in the countryside outside the city.
This is also an authentic role play for them. After all, in this troubled world, it is common to be a wealthy and unscrupulous dog family, and things like being killed by bandits and bandits passing by are also commonplace; only the peace elders who arrange during the period will prohibit and restrain them from meaningless killing and destruction. Behavior, and prohibits abuse of women.
As for the corresponding collective plundering income under the organization, individuals can be divided into one-third to one-half; and the garrison within the city will carry out finishing and repair work for them in the name of recovery, and can also appease and buy in disguise. Human heart.
And responsible for leading the "dirty work" was the teaching Sima Gao Jichang under the new cast, and another leader of the rebel army named Li Xiang; it was also a combination of mutual restraint and supervision.
In the end, on the contrary, the partial teacher who had moved eastward to Ezhou encountered some trouble. This is because a large number of local forces claiming to be left-behind rebels or under the banner of rebels are rushing into a pot of porridge; when they encounter foreign forces, they join forces to fight and exclude them.
As a result, Lieutenant Wu Xingchen, who was the leader of the team, also didn’t know the enemy and us for a while, and suffered a few losses. He was also deceived and attacked by others, and lost a lot of materials and personnel; so after learning lessons, he stopped to repair and supplement , Simply indiscriminately attacked the city in one fell swoop.
As a result, it broke through dozens of walled cities and towns, and advanced to the bottom of Zhijiang Xiacheng in Ezhou Prefecture. Only under the hostility and vigilance of the "other rebels" guarding the city head, he slowly retreated to Pu with a large number of captured and captured prisoners. Within Qi County.
Of course, this encounter may not be a good thing; at least after proper internal propaganda, most of the Taiping soldiers can be better understood and distinguished;
Among the so-called large numbers of volunteers, those who can fight for and cooperate, help, and recreate; those are black sheep that need severe cracking down and punished; even the spies and traitors who deliberately infiltrate the volunteers to harm the great cause.
With this initial understanding as a pavement, in the future, the forces headed by Huang Chao will be further separated, and there will be no unnecessary resistance and psychological obstacles. Then, in this consideration, Zhou Huaian suddenly received an unexpected news.
"The General's Mansion has sent a messenger to Jiangling?..."
(End of this chapter) (End of this chapter)