Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

Just as Jiangling armies were rushing to sell their prisoners of war to Xiakou, Yingcheng on the south bank of the river was finally captured. Hou Jing's generals Song Zixian and Ding Hequan were captured, and tens of thousands more prisoners of war were also captured.

At this time, selling prisoners of war to Xiakou had become an open secret, so shortly after the Battle of Yingcheng, except for a few enemy general leaders and other important prisoners, all other prisoners of war passed through the Xiakou camp.

At this time, Wang Sengbian had already felt that the two sides had lost a sense of boundaries due to too frequent exchanges. If he continued to let things go on, even if King Xiangdong did not reprimand him, other unexpected things might happen.

So Wang Sengbian reported the military situation here to Jiangling and asked the King of Xiangdong to make personnel arrangements for the newly recovered Yingzhou as soon as possible. When the King of Eastern Hunan had just appointed Changsha King Xiao Shao as the governor of Yingzhou, and before he even entered the country, Wang Sengbian led his troops to continue eastward, taking advantage of Yingzhou's victory, went straight to Jiangzhou, and captured Huancheng in one fell swoop. .

As the main battlefield left Yingzhou, the deal between Xiakou and the Jiangling armies also came to an end. The final transaction results were also very gratifying. The number of prisoners of war exchanged from the Jiangling armies reached more than 13,000, including the 15,000 that Li Tai had given to Wang Sengbian before. Including stone grain, it only cost more than 50,000 stone grain.

Even if you don't take into account the skills of these prisoners of war, this deal is an absolute profit.

Jiangling's armies were gradually running out of food and grass, and facing the temptation of the great success of the Eastern Expedition to quell the chaos, they sold off the captured personnel at half-sale, half-free prices, in exchange for precious food and the ability of their troops to continue fighting. In their view, as long as they can counterattack to Jiankang, both meritorious service and prisoners will be everywhere, and there is no need to worry about it now.

If it were a different time and place, it would probably be difficult to conclude such a deal.

Because he only needs to travel one step further to Jiangzhou, Chen Baxian will take his 500,000 stones of food and grass to share with the Jiangling armies, thus gaining the acceptance and recognition of the Jiangling generals, and having the same status as Wang Sengbian in the coalition army. , and even after the attack on Wang Sengbian in the future, Zhou Tiehu and some other Western Army generals led their troops to join Chen Baxian, allowing Chen Baxian to receive part of Jiangling's personnel legacy.

After these rebel prisoners were exchanged, they exerted extraordinary value before they had time to undergo detailed reorganization.

Before, Wang Sengbian's envoy sent Wang Lin's boat. Li Tai was still too young and inexperienced, so he just had fun at the time. However, when he used the big ship for drills afterwards, he discovered this. A large ship can only go straight forward and retreat, but it cannot turn around if it wants to.

After some investigation, Wang Cao, Xu Wensheng and others determined that there was a problem with the rudder in the rear cabin of the big ship. It should be that the people from Jiangling deliberately destroyed the rudder before delivery, so the big ship was allowed to maneuver. The reliability is greatly reduced, and the actual combat performance is also greatly reduced.

Although Xiangyang also has experience and technology in maintaining large ships, its largest ship is still several feet shorter than the Jiangling ship. The rudder is a relatively sophisticated ship accessory, and different ship types have different sizes and structures. , many boatmen are also at a loss what to do.

But among the rebel prisoners, there was a group of Jingkou garrison. Jingkou is not only an important town for Jiang defense, but also a large shipyard, where many Liang Jun boats were built and repaired.

Therefore, this group of soldiers stationed in Jingkou has many people who are very familiar with various types of warships. One of the soldiers, together with more than a dozen shipwrights, solved this problem from inspection to maintenance in just a few days. , the rudder of this large ship was restored to its original state, so that the large ship could flexibly turn forward and retreat in the waterway.

Li Tai was overjoyed when he learned about this, and directly took out a Gao Aocao to reward this ship repair team. Such an astonishing reward immediately shocked everyone, especially those among these prisoners of war who had a talent and skill, and all showed it enthusiastically, hoping to gain favor and reward and directly improve their own situation.

The talents of these prisoners of war are also diverse, some are good at boats and carts, some are good at smelting, and they display various industries. It can be said that all kinds of manual production techniques in Jiangnan are included.

Li Tai was both happy and sighing about this. Hou Jing's rebels only knew how to destroy but did not manage or build. The craftsmanship possessed by these craftsmen can be said to be the essence of hundreds of years of technological development in the Southern Dynasties. However, they were also driven to the battlefield without any screening and used as cannon fodder. .

I don't know how many journeys these people took and how many dangers and tortures they encountered before they got here. The number is still quite considerable. It makes people feel heartbroken to think about how many people have sacrificed in this process. Hou Jing's Rebellion not only destroyed production technology and the environment, but also destroyed the entire social structure and people's livelihood in Jiangnan.

Li Tai initially only exchanged these people as human resources for developing the navy, but after getting to know them more deeply, he discovered that the value and connotation of these people far exceeded the original imagination.

In order to absorb all these people, properly place them and fully utilize their value, a more systematic plan is undoubtedly needed. So he sent a message to the General Manager's Office and ordered Commander Pei Xia to come south to make more detailed arrangements for these personnel.

Of course, in these troubled times, the military industry is the top priority for development.

Before Pei Xia arrived, Li Tai ordered Li Quji to select 2,000 boatmen with shipbuilding experience, provide them with food and supplies, and then led these boatmen north to Xingzhou in the upper reaches of the Han River, that is, It was later that Danjiangkou built boats.

Whether for military or civilian use, it is necessary to have enough ships to make full use of water resources. Take the current situation as an example, because there is not enough naval force, although Li Tai's power has developed to the Yangtze River, he does not dare to set up water conservancy facilities such as large water conservancy spinning wheels on the riverside. His right to speak on the river is still not as loud as Jiangling Military Palace.

As the main battlefield to quell the rebellion in Nanliang continued to advance eastwards to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the foundation and development framework of the navy's river defense was established here, Li Tai no longer wanted to stay here and summoned the generals here to give an explanation. After reviewing the personnel details, he led his troops northward and returned to Mianbei.

Not to mention other personnel changes, in terms of Nanliang alone, since Hou Jing raised his troops from Shouyang in 548 AD and started a rebellion, to the middle of 551 AD, the Hou Jing Rebellion, which lasted for nearly three years, finally ended. After Hou Jing defeated Baling, he ushered in a new turning point.

Although Hou Jing still fled eastward and returned to Jiankang City, the various arrangements he had set up along the river were defeated and dismantled one after another. In particular, his generals such as Ren Yue and Song Zixian were captured one after another, which greatly reduced his power.

In the first half of Hou Jing's Rebellion, the Jiangling Military Mansion, which had been busy cutting off clans and killing each other, finally got on the right track to counter the rebellion. After successfully defending Jiangling through a series of battles such as Baling, the Jiangling generals headed by Wang Sengbian also The counterattack finally kicked off.

Jiangling's army first recaptured Yingzhou, which had been captured by the rebels. Soon after, Wang Sengbian led his forward troops to recapture the important town of Huancheng in Jiangzhou.

At the same time, Chen Baxian, who became famous in Lingnan, also led 30,000 troops from the Lingnan allied forces to march north to Luling County and temporarily stationed troops at Baqiu in the Gan River Basin.

Between Wang Sengbian and Chen Baxian is the Yuzhang County of Jiangzhou. The person who now occupies Yuzhang is Hou Qi, the subordinate of Xiao Fan, the clever Poyang King of the Northern Qi Dynasty who took the initiative to give up Hefei.

Prince Poyang and his son died one after another. Hou Qi turned to Hou Jing and was treated as a fellow clan member by Hou Jing. Now seeing that the situation of suppressing the rebellion was good, Hou Qi also raised troops in the county and refused Hou Jing's troops to enter the city in Qing. According to this, the county The city expressed its surrender to Jiangling Military Mansion.

Although all the people and horses are nominally under the control of Jiangling Military Mansion, there are also many undercurrents inside. Naturally, Wang Sengbian was the leader of the Jiangling headquarters. However, Wang Sengbian had no independent experience as a military general for a long time, except for the battles of Baling and Yingcheng. Therefore, when it comes to prestige and prestige, it is far inferior to Chen Baxian, who defeated the rebellion in Jiaozhou and shocked Lingnan.

The Jiangling armies considered themselves direct descendants, and they had just completed the most difficult reversal of the war, so they were feeling arrogant. Facing the Lingnan armies led by Chen Baxian, they could not help but feel wary and resentful, thinking that Chen Baxian led his troops north to compete for victory after seeing that the war had turned for the better.

Chen Baxian originally wanted to lead his troops north to meet with Wang Sengbian in August, but he sent a letter to the north to inquire about the military situation but never received a positive response. He could vaguely guess what the Jiangling troops were thinking.

"These Westerners are really narrow-minded. Just because they support the king, they don't allow other divisions and brigade to share the credit!"

After successive submissions were met with indifference, Chen Baxian's subordinate general Zhou Wenyu and others could not help but complain.

Chen Baxian was nearly fifty years old, tall, with a swollen forehead and long arms. When he heard the complaints from his generals, he laughed and said: "In the current national crisis, a man of righteousness should go forward bravely. Why bother to care about the merits? What's more, Wang Zhengdong and others After many hard battles, the arrogant thieves were finally curbed, and things finally turned around after the disaster. The Jing Mansion deserves to be the first military mansion in Zhenjiang. For this achievement, everyone in our country should congratulate me if you doubt me. You should resolve your doubts with your heart, this is the attitude that can help each other, so how can you be angry with yourself and harm others!"

Due to the resistance of the Jiangling armies, Chen Baxian was not in a hurry to lead his army northward. Instead, he ordered his troops to transport the grain and grass northward to help the Jiangling armies.

After Wang Sengbian received the food and grass sent by Chen Baxian, he couldn't help but sigh: "Chen Xingguo is really a righteous man, and I am ashamed of myself!"

But after a moment of emotion, Wang Sengbian thought of what happened in Xia Kou, and he sighed with regret, stroking his palms and saying, "I just regret that I'm late..."