Chapter 132 Thank you

Chapter 132 Thank you

Chapter 132 Thank you

The Xingzi Camp was stationed near the Baohe River, with the pretext of preventing the Nian bandits from returning. But in reality, they helped Zhang Lexing protect the elderly and weak families of the Nian Army on the other side of the Baohe River.

It was not until ten days later that Zhang Lexing, who had firmly established his foothold in Heze, sent people to take away the families of the Nian Army, and the Xingzi Camp then leisurely returned to Fengyang.

Tian Xing didn't get any credit in the Northern Anhui Campaign, but he didn't care at all.

He had no intention of receiving any rewards from the Qing court, as that would be an insult to him.

Although his subordinates did not seem to have accomplished any merit, Le Sen, who was acting as the camp manager for Wu Ziyi, acted like a fawning elder brother to Shao Quanzhong when he was counting the military merits, and he gave a lot of money to the soldiers and middle and low-level officers in the Xingzi Camp.

When Tian Xing brought the Xing Camp back to the Fengyang military camp, the Huai Army camp had changed a lot.

Thirty-four thousand five hundred prisoners worked day and night, cutting wood to build walls, diverting water and digging moats.

With more people, work is easier. The Huai Army barracks has become a stronger and larger fortress than Shaojiawei.

Shao Quanzhong, the prefect of Fengyang, sympathized with the suffering of the people of Anhui after the long war. He did not conscript young men into labor service, but directly built barracks with prisoners.

When the sturdy and bright new command center was completed, Shao Quanzhong simply moved out of the prefectural government office and moved into the barracks with his guard platoon and his most trusted Shu Battalion.

As long as these prisoners were fed, they worked very hard and there was no need to whip them.

The biggest advantage of the Huai Army is its sufficient logistics.

With the support of Jiangning Provincial Government, a land of fish and rice that had enjoyed peace for a long time, and with the strong support of his godfather who was in charge of the grain depots in the south and north of the Yangtze River, the fleet responsible for the grain transport was simply owned by Wen Fu Ji.

Grain and fodder were continuously sent to Fengyang along the Huai River. With the power to manage grain and fodder in hand, Lord Qiao gave priority to the Huai Army, while the Hunan Army and the Shanghai Army stood aside, making it easy to feed more than 30,000 prisoners.

When Tian Xing entered the camp, the prisoners were transporting food down from the boat. This time, Wen Fu Ji even delivered a large amount of saltpeter that Shao Quanzhong urgently requested. No one knew what it was used for.

Is my second brother going to make gunpowder in the barracks? There is no need. There is plenty of gunpowder in the barracks. It will only take a few days to transport it from the rear of Hailing by water.
"Angels are here!"

The rewarded eunuch angel entered the Huai Army camp, accompanied by the Governor of Grand Canal Transport Yuan Jiasan himself.

The eunuch Lu, who was familiar to Tian Xing, had been sent to Dingling Mausoleum to guard the late emperor's body and had withdrawn from the political stage.

The one who came this time was a young father-in-law, only seventeen or eighteen years old.

He has a handsome face and lively eyes. He is a favorite of the two Empress Dowagers, the sixth-rank blue-feathered eunuch An Dehai.

In pacifying northern Anhui, the court was pacified and the enemy was eliminated: Miao Peilin, a warlord who was a double-dealer and had betrayed the court many times.

Miao Peilin's head is much cheaper than that of the powerful prince of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

If the main force of the Nian Army could be destroyed, the total contribution would be comparable to that of a famous general of the Taiping Army. Unfortunately, the Huai Army only expelled Zhang Lexing, so this contribution was greatly reduced.

The person who reported the achievement to Shao Quanzhong this time was Yuan Jiasan, and Old Man Yuan went out of his way to explain to the court on behalf of Shao Quanzhong.

Zhang Lexing's troops had been stubborn bandits for many years and were very powerful. He had been stationed in Anhui for several years but had not been able to conquer it. The Huai Army had done its best to drive them away, which was quite good.

In this battle, Shao Quanzhong surrendered five thousand rebellious heads, including Miao Peilin's.

According to Shao Quanzhong's report, the Huai Army and the Yi Army fought a decisive battle with the Miao and Nian bandits in the south of Mengcheng, killing the bandit leader Miao Peilin with artillery fire, beheading 5,000 people, defeating the Miao bandits, and expelling the Nian bandits. The Yi Army was completely wiped out, and "our army" suffered 3,000 casualties, with heavy losses. It was another bitter victory.

What Shao Quanzhong reported was the truth. The 3,000 Nian Army soldiers who died in the battle were considered "our army", right? However, the court and the temporary direct leader, Lord Yuan, were so busy, so they shouldn't report the details in such detail, right?

The Miao bandits and the Nian Army together had 80,000 people, while the Huai Army and the Yi Army together had just under 20,000. It was impressive that they were able to defeat the larger force with a smaller one, and it would be unreasonable if they did not suffer heavy losses.

Now the imperial court is mobilizing the Hunan Army to besiege the Guangdong bandits led by Chen Yucheng and Chen Decai in Tongcheng and Lujiang. These are definitely the toughest nuts to crack. Even Yuan Jiasan's son Yuan Baoheng has gone to join the battle with 5,000 Linhuai troops.

The Huai Army did not collapse even though more than 20% of its troops were killed. Instead, they won the battle, making them the strongest army in the world. However, they suffered heavy casualties and it would take several months for them to recover their combat effectiveness. Unfortunately, they could not participate in the siege of Chen Yucheng and could only rest in Fengyang first.

Yuan Jiasan was already very satisfied. His new subordinate was really good at fighting. After pacifying northern Anhui, the Linhuai Army led by his son no longer had to defend against the Nian Army and monitor the Miao bandits, but could be sent to besiege Chen Yucheng. Shao Quanzhong's contribution to the Qing Dynasty was already not small.

Yuan Jiasan accompanied Tian Shi to inspect the Huai Army camp, and indeed did not see that many Huai Army soldiers.

Ahem, the main force of the Huai Army was sent out by Shao Quanzhong to build insurance teams in Yingzhou Prefecture, Fengyang Prefecture, Lu'an Prefecture, Sizhou Prefecture, Chuzhou Prefecture, Hezhou Prefecture, as well as Sanzhou and Bozhou in northern Anhui.

The Huai Army was very familiar with this job. They went deep into the countryside, dismantled the militia settlements, selected places where real ordinary people, young and old, lived to build new settlements, found good people to manage the insurance teams, and established the Huai Army's base and reserve forces in northern Anhui.

All the muskets, swords, spears, bows and arrows captured on the battlefield were equipped to the insurance teams. In addition, the weapons obtained from disbanding the militias in various places were added. Each insurance team was equipped with three to seven quick guns and five or six horses. This investment was quite large.

The Huai Army no longer had enough retired wounded soldiers, so they had to temporarily retire active soldiers to run the insurance team. The organization was retained and double pay was given, so there were still people willing to go.

As a result, the Huai Army was indeed short of manpower, and the reinforcements selected from the insurance teams that had been trained for a long time in various places in the Jiangning Provincial Government in the rear were coming by boat, but they had not arrived yet.

So, the Huai Army looked like it had more than 10,000 people, but it was always more than 10,000 people, hiding its troops among the people, and its reserve force was almost unlimited...

How could the local militia leaders in Anhui be willing to be disbanded? However, the Huai Army went with the regular army and had evidence of the militia leaders' collusion with the Nian bandits. If you don't disband, will you rebel immediately? One by one, they went home to become rich.

As for the evidence that Song Qing surrendered to the enemy on the battlefield, Shao Quanzhong unceremoniously sent it to the capital along with Miao Peilin's head through Yuan Jiasan.

The kind and righteous prefect Shao Quanzhong submitted a memorial along with the victory report. Considering the hard work of the Yi army before surrendering to the enemy and Song Qing's many years of military exploits, he hoped that the court would be considerate and not kill the meritorious official to chill the hearts of the soldiers. He begged to allow Song Qing to join the Huai army to redeem himself for meritorious service.

The bigwigs in the court and Yuan Jiasan all felt that Shao Quanzhong was too righteous and should be given face.

The first imperial decree that An Dehai announced when he arrived at the military camp was to demote the rebel general Song Qingyi to the bottom, strip him of his flower feather and the title of Baturu, and send him to the Huai Army to serve and make meritorious contributions while serving his sentence.

Song Qing knelt down to receive the order and had no way to defend himself. He was pretending to surrender, but he had no chance to fight on the battlefield and was captured by the Huai Army anyway. Who would believe him? However, the evidence of surrendering to the Nian bandits was irrefutable.

Shao Quanzhong was very kind to me, giving me money and guns, who should I blame for not being able to save myself? It was Shao Quanzhong who killed the Miao bandits, expelled the Nian bandits, and rescued me from the Nian bandit camp.

Hearing that it was Shao Quanzhong's first memorial after becoming an official that saved his own head, Song Qing burst into tears of gratitude, "Sir, I am willing to serve as your personal soldier. Thank you for your great kindness."

Shao Quanzhong said righteously, "How can a warrior like General Song be a personal soldier? I believe that you are pretending to surrender, and you will never betray the Qing Dynasty. Others don't dare to use you, but I will use you! I will increase the third battalion of the left wing of the Huai Army Infantry and make you the battalion commander. If others dare to say something, let them come to me!"

Song Qing was so grateful that he prostrated himself. In this world, only Magistrate Shao understood and trusted him. He fell to the ground and said, "I am willing to sacrifice my life for you, my lord, until I die!"

Shao Quanzhong personally supported him and said, "You have been doing hard labor for more than ten days. It is really exhausting. Go and take a rest."

Song Qing's eyes welled up with tears as he walked away. After he walked a long way, he turned back and said, "My lord, thank you."

(End of this chapter)