Chapter 510: Lightning Attack on Yongjia
Chapter 510: Lightning Attack on Yongjia
Xiao Xia immediately appointed Wujun Sima Lu Heming as the governor of Dongyang County. Although Dongyang County was not as prosperous as Wu County, the governor was much higher than Sima.
Ten days later, Xiao Xia led his army back to Qiantang County with 15,000 prisoners of war, and the 15,000 prisoners of war were also involved in the widening and dredging of the canal.
At this time, most of the people who had fled to Qiantang County had returned to their homes, the wheat was turning yellow, and in another month it would be the summer harvest season.
At this time, Li Chun, the official in charge of craftsmen, also came to Yuhang County to instruct the workers on how to dredge the canal.
The Yuhang County Canal is not long, only about 60 miles, and the Guantang River connecting Yuhang County and Qiantang County is also dredged, which is about 40 miles, so the entire Yuhang County Canal project is nearly 100 miles long. More than 100,000 people can complete the dredging in one year.
The longest section of the canal is Wu County, with a construction area of 300 miles. Together with the construction area from Piling County to Jingkou, it is about 250 miles. For a construction area of 550 miles, Xiao Xia only planned to recruit 200,000 laborers and complete the dredging and widening in three years.
He was not like Emperor Yang Guang. He wanted to complete the Yongji Canal within one year, which was simply a waste of human lives. He did not take into account the public resentment caused by the Tongji Canal and wanted to do the same. He did not care about the lives of the people at all.
The next morning, Xiao Xia, accompanied by Gao Jiong and Li Chun, inspected the canal excavation in Yuhang County.
The canal was extremely busy. The 20-mile-long canal was divided into two parts by mud bags. The water on one side had been drained. Prisoners of war were working in the river like ants, carrying baskets of silt ashore.
Half a month ago, these laborers were rebellious soldiers, charging on the battlefield with weapons in hand, but in the blink of an eye they had all become gentle again. As long as they were not cruelly oppressed, they would work honestly without any second thoughts. No one would think of escaping, and no one wanted to implicate their family.
More importantly, the Sui army was relatively tolerant of them. They were able to eat enough, sleep in large tents, and each person had a military blanket. There were also people to help them write letters. They worked for five hours a day, and the rest of the time was spent eating, sleeping, and recovering their strength.
If one can complete one year of labor honestly, everyone can also receive a reward and be exempted from one year of taxes and two years of labor.
There were both punishments and rewards, and kindness and severity complemented each other, so the Sui army only needed two thousand people to guard and make more than 100,000 prisoners of war work honestly, and no one escaped.
Gao Jiong asked with a smile: "Didn't your highness ask Jian'an County to send elephants here? Why is there no news?"
Xiao Xia shook his head. "The elephants had already headed north, but Yongjia County was gathering troops to rebel, and it was unsafe. The officials had no choice but to send the elephants back. Let's wait until the rebellion in Yongjia County is completely quelled!"
Li Chun introduced: "Your Highness, according to our investigation, the Jiangnan Canal was often blocked before. On the one hand, it was due to siltation of the river, and on the other hand, it was due to poor management. We found that there are many private docks along the way, almost every town has one, and there are more than one. This leads to the slowdown of ship speed and congestion of the river once the private docks start unloading.
I think that on the one hand, strict management should be implemented to prohibit the arbitrary construction of private docks, and on the other hand, the canal should be widened as much as possible when passing through county towns. "
Li Ye agreed with Li Chun's idea. He himself had experienced the situation in Piling County where the salt merchants Lin family unloaded goods, which resulted in the blockage of the entire river. Private individuals should not be allowed to build docks on the canal. If private docks were to be built, they could only be built on tributaries.
Xiao Xia thought for a moment and asked again: "How do we build a bridge over the canal?"
Li Chun nodded, "This is a big problem. The bridge is the shortest board in the bucket. If the bridge is not properly managed, no matter how deep the canal is, it will not be able to carry large ships. The key is that the emperor wants to take a dragon boat to tour the south. Your Highness has a large ship of 20,000 stones, which was the dragon boat of the previous emperor, but the dragon boat that the emperor is building now is a large ship of 30,000 stones. There are two palaces on the ship. The ship is 30 meters long, 80 meters wide, and 60 meters high. The general bridge is only 20 or 30 meters high. If a bridge is built, the dragon boat cannot pass. Therefore, there is no bridge on the Tongji Canal, and ferries are used.
Your Highness, many things cannot be achieved at the same time. If Your Highness wants ships to go directly to Luoyang, then don’t build the bridge for the time being.”
Xiao Xia shook his head, "We can only say that we won't build a bridge for now. We still have to build a bridge after the emperor's southern tour. We can't connect the north and the south while dividing the east and the west. There are also cities along the way. If all sea vessels go directly to Luoyang, how can the counties along the way prosper? The transfer warehouse is meaningless." Gao Jiong beside him smiled and said, "We can build a Gaoping Bridge and a floating bridge to cooperate. When a sea vessel arrives, the floating bridge can be pulled up like a suspension bridge, and the sea vessel can pass smoothly. Then it will return to normal, and ordinary ships can pass through the bridge hole, and it will not affect vehicles and pedestrians passing on the bridge."
Xiao Xia pondered for a long time, and still shook his head. "Mr. Gao's idea is good, but this is a chess game for the whole world. It doesn't make sense for Jiangnan alone to do this. Moreover, building such a bridge is very expensive, and the local finances can hardly afford it. Forget it, don't build a bridge for the time being, just use large ferries. Jiangnan is mainly based on boats, and it doesn't make much sense to build a bridge specifically for ox carts and horse carriages."
Xiao Xia finally accepted Li Chun's suggestion. He couldn't take care of the Tongji Canal, and it was meaningless to build a bridge in the south of the Yangtze River. It would be better to use a ferry and increase the frequency of the ferry. It would not affect ordinary people much if they waited for a cup of tea. There could also be freight ferries that were specifically used to transport large trucks.
In addition, a floating bridge can be designed. It is not used in normal times, but it is very convenient to build a temporary floating bridge if the army is crossing the river or large amounts of goods are crossing the canal.
This requires that there must be pontoon columns on each dock and hook rings must be installed on each small boat as a standard for ships. Whenever necessary, any boat can be used to build a pontoon.
Xiao Xia stayed in Qiantang County for three days while the army continued to move north. Thousands of cargo ships loaded with taxes, seized wealth from powerful people, etc. moved north. The war easily filled the deficit in the charity granary.
After receiving supplies from the fleet coming from the sea, Luo Shixin's 10,000 troops continued to march south and launched a surprise attack on Yongjia County.
The county seat of Yongjia Commandery was Kuacang County, but the rebellious lair of Shanyue warlords was in Yongjia County. The Yongjia County of the Sui Dynasty was not today's Yongjia County, but today's Wenzhou. It is adjacent to Yongjia Bay in the north and is very convenient for going out to sea. It is very important for Shanyue warlords who followed the principle of "a cunning rabbit has three burrows" and moved their property and families overseas.
Three days later, the team used a pontoon bridge to cross the Yongjia River. When they were still twenty miles away from Yongjia County, Luo Shixin ordered the army to rest and sent scouts to investigate the situation in Yongjia County.
According to the intelligence they currently have, the rebels still have more than 25,000 troops, but the rebel leader has changed from Lan Zhaotian to Ming Zhongtian.
Lan Zhaotian fled to Yongjia County with a few hundred people. His army, wealth and family members were all lost. Although he also left 5,000 troops in Yongjia County, they were far from comparable to the Ming family with 20,000 troops and hundreds of large ships. Lan Zhaotian had no choice but to give the seal of the King of Yue to Ming Zhongtian and surrender.
Half an hour later, the scouts brought an important piece of information that the Shanyue warlords were transferring personnel and supplies at the bay dock.
Luo Shixin made an immediate decision. He personally led 5,000 cavalry to attack the seaside dock, while Wang Bodang led 5,000 infantry to ambush the enemy's support coming from the city.
Luo Shixin led 5,000 cavalrymen and rushed towards the bay pier along the official road.
Hundreds of large ships were anchored in the bay outside the northern city of Yongjia County, and countless laborers were loading supplies from dozens of large warehouses onto the ships. Coincidentally, the day they chose was the same day that the Sui army arrived in Yongjia County.
At the dock, thousands of laborers were resting and drinking water, and two thousand soldiers were gathered in groups of three or four to chat. They had just loaded tens of thousands of stones of grain onto the ship and were waiting for the property in the city to be delivered.
At this moment, everyone felt the ground shaking. They were at a loss and stood up and looked around.
Suddenly someone shouted, "The cavalry is coming! The Sui cavalry is coming!"
(End of this chapter)