Chapter 677 Everyone returns together

Chapter 677 Everyone returns together

Now that the proposed finishing plan has been approved by the Chinese and Foreign Affairs Office, Li Tai no longer stays in Jiuqu City. Dangjie begins to command Wu to pack up and prepare to leave Heluo and return to Mianbei.

After Wei Xuan and other generals learned about this situation, although they felt very sorry, seeing the situation like this, they could only come to say goodbye.

Li Tai then also temporarily borrowed the palace of the Lord of Jiuqu City to host a banquet in honor of these local chiefs and generals in Heluo.

"Since returning to Yi, there has been almost no month without fighting, and the whole family has been together. Now only the last general and a few young children are left. Since the battle with the Eastern bandits, we have suffered more defeats than wins. Only those who followed the general fought twice and achieved brilliant results. ! The general has abandoned the crowd and left again. If the bandits attack again, I don’t know how many people here will be killed..."

At this farewell banquet, after a few glasses of wine, a wealthy man from Heluo village couldn't help but shed tears and said sadly.

Everyone else present couldn't help but feel emotional when they heard this. People like Li Renjie, who also had several relatives killed in battle, couldn't help covering their faces and choking.

Li Tai knew that the disadvantages and difficulties in Heluo existed objectively and could not be solved by a few sensational slogans. Moreover, these Heluo volunteers still insisted on fighting against the Northern Qi under extremely difficult circumstances. They did not need the encouragement of others' words. What they really needed was real support.

Although Li Tai was too busy to take charge of Heluo himself, he still left them with support from many aspects.

Among the several battles in Heluo, the most abundant material harvest was the Battle of Baiting City. However, because the barbarians participated in the battle, these barbarians took away a considerable amount of materials. The sum total of various seizures in other Jinyong City, Heyang Nancheng, and Jiuqu City here is quite considerable, which is more than enough to sustain tens of thousands of horses for a year.

Li Tai only deducted part of the food and grass needed by his troops and prisoners to return to Mianbei, as well as some of the battle armor, bows and other fine military equipment. The rest was all distributed by Han Xiong, Wei Fabao and other righteous leaders. .

However, these supplies cannot last for long. Their combined strength is more than 10,000. Of course, the old, weak and disabled are also inevitable. In addition, these volunteers themselves and their families and relatives add up to tens of thousands of people.

Since they cannot occupy the Heluo Plain for farming and production, and there are a large number of barbarian tribes scattered in the mountains and fields, these volunteers have very limited ways and quantities of supplies, and they are often in famine. They do not have as complete and adequate logistics as the Northern Qi garrison. .

People like Han Xiong, Chen Xin and others could previously rely on their personal connections to obtain some salt and other supplies from Hedong, and obtain some supplies through trade exchanges with the Barbarians or other parties.

However, this method has become more and more restricted in recent years. The reason is that Li Tai's previous establishment of Cebafu implemented the salt diversion method, which made Bafu's control over the salt pond resources in Hedong more and more systematic, and the outflow became less and less. Even Pei Kuan, a native of Hedong, had very limited access to salt because he did not work in his hometown.

Li Tai was also a little embarrassed about this, but this situation was unexpected before, so this time he specially requested 50,000 stones of salt for the Heluo volunteers as an investment to support the Heluo battlefield.

Although the Chinese and Foreign Affairs Bureau approved this request, it also followed the principle of "deduct, deduction, search, and search" and stated that it needed to be paid in installments year by year. As for this first year, eight thousand stone salts were given first, probably because of the fact that Li Tai, the general, said it himself. As for the rest, I don't know if they can be given before the end of the Northern Zhou Dynasty.

Although Li Tai is also good at internal production, he must have such a foundation. Now that Heluo is the front line, what the Western Wei can control is all the corners. In this regard, he can only say that it is difficult for a clever woman to make a meal without rice.

He would also like to give these volunteers a certain amount of material assistance every year, but firstly, this is not his obligation, and secondly, it is to help the urgent rather than the poor.

These Heluo volunteers have almost no hematopoietic ability. If they are used to the material assistance from Mianbei and make consumption plans, if there is any unexpected situation in Mianbei that delays the funding, it may lead to serious consequences.

Based on the demographic structure and living environment of these volunteers, Li Tai helped them develop some production methods for mountain planting and collection.

Years of war have sharply reduced their strength. Han Qinhu hunted tigers at the age of thirteen, which reflects his bravery, but also shows that even such an old boy already needs to participate in hunting, production and fighting.

It is not realistic to plant grains and grains in large areas in the mountains and fields, but it is still possible to plant some cash crops in a small area, such as tea and medicinal materials. Although the amount of labor is not small, it is much safer than hunting or venturing to the plains to cultivate land.

What Li Tai proposed is actually done by the family members of these volunteers, but the scale and output are relatively limited. After all, these outputs are not suitable for food and clothing, and there is no market where they can be traded for cash.

But now Li Tai is willing to carry out relevant transactions with them. Not to mention that he has a huge market and many channels. The Jingzhou General Manager's Office itself has a large demand for these materials. Therefore, these Heluo Yishi can not only expand the scale of production themselves, but also purchase from barbarian tribes and organize their production. Even if the output increases by ten times, Li Tai can still afford it.

All the powerful generals were very enthusiastic about the plan proposed by Li Tai. They all put aside their sadness and disappointment and rushed to raise their hands to respond. Compared with some free funding, they are naturally more willing to accept this kind of mutually beneficial cooperation, because only in this way can it be sustained for a long time and dignity can be guaranteed.

Li Tai reached a preliminary agreement with them, agreeing to send members of the General Manager's Office here to discuss the details after the year, and next year the Jingzhou General Manager's Office could provide a transaction volume of 50,000 shi of grain and 20,000 bolts of silk. Even if they can't raise enough goods, it's okay, they can pay them year by year in the future.

When everyone heard Li Tai's promise, most of their regrets and worries dissipated. Everyone was filled with gratitude to General Li and thanked him again and again.

After saying goodbye, Li Tai led his troops from Jiuqu City to the east, crossing the southern part of the Heluo Plain and arriving at Yique.

In addition to the five thousand cavalry soldiers who were brought northward, there were also many barbarians accompanying them.

People's yearning for the pursuit of beauty is irresistible. When these barbarians followed General Li to fight and heard about the superior production and living environment in Mianbei, they immediately wanted to follow him and go to Mianbei. Naturally, their rural sentiments are not deep. If the troubled times were not so terrible, they would not be willing to squat in the mountains to make a living.

In addition to these barbarians, there were also a large number of Northern Qi prisoners. Li Taiqian captured more than 2,000 prisoners of war in the White Horse Temple, and Baiting City, Heyang City and Jiuqu City made gains one after another.

Especially for Jiuqu City, because the defender Yuan Jing'an strengthened the walls and cleared the fields and focused on defending Jiuqu City, almost all the nearly 20,000 defenders in Yiyang were concentrated in Jiuqu City. However, he could not survive Li Tai's teasing and The rash battle out of the city resulted in the capture of almost all of the more than 10,000 soldiers in Jiuqu City.

Therefore, in the series of battles in Heluo, Li Tai killed more than 20,000 Northern Qi troops by killing prisoners alone. Some of these prisoners stayed in Heluo to serve as righteous soldiers, and some followed Yuan Jing'an and other captured war generals and were escorted back to Huazhou Bafu by Cai You. The rest Li Tai took them all as ordered, and together with Lin Sheng and Lin Jia and his son followed Li Tai back to Mianbei.

Li Tai did not interfere too much with the personnel arrangements in Luoshui, but the Yishui aspect was related to his advance and retreat in the Heluo Plain, so he proposed that Pei Kuan guard Kongcheng and Li Renjie go south to guard Luyang, plus When Guo Xian was guarding Xiangcheng, this area became the additional jurisdiction of the Jingzhou General Administration.

When Li Tai led his troops to Fuliu City, he met many barbarian chiefs who came to pay their respects. The two Heluo wars before and after, especially Li Tai's words of distributing the spoils to help the barbarians in the war, made his reputation among the barbarians in Yiluo skyrocket. The barbarian chiefs outside Fuliu City heard the news. Come and pay homage.

They did not come empty-handed. The two elderly barbarian chiefs at the head also presented several bloody heads. After their introduction, Li Tai learned that the owners of these heads were Mei Jichang, the former governor of Northern Jingzhou in the Eastern Wei Dynasty, and others. Several people.

Li Tai had some impressions of this barbarian king Mei Jichang. He had previously led his barbarian troops to harass Luyang Pass on the order of Murong Shaozong. Later, after Li Tai defeated Murong Shaozong in Huainan, these disturbing barbarians disappeared. Li Tai had no time to take care of both, and did not expect that he would receive such a gift when he led his troops back to the town.

So Li Tai stayed in Fuliu City for another day to comfort these barbarian chiefs and gave them some official titles in the general administration. Senior local officials such as governors and county governors cannot be directly appointed by the General Manager's Office, but there is no restriction on the appointment of left-handed officials to the barbarians. They can act expediently, as long as a supplementary report is submitted to the Chinese and Foreign Affairs Office afterwards. Can.

It was already the end of the twelfth lunar month after passing through Fuliu City. The large group of troops was nearly 20,000 strong, and the advance was naturally slow. Looking at this situation, I was afraid that they might not be able to reach Jingzhou even after the New Year. As the New Year was approaching, there were bound to be many personnel matters to deal with in the General Manager's Office, so Li Tai simply left the large army and led several hundred of his confidants to ride straight back to Rangcheng.

Not long after Li Tai led his troops to leave Heluo, news came from the north bank of the Yellow River that He Baren, the king of Anding in the Northern Qi Dynasty, was leading a mighty army southward to recover Heluo.

After learning the news, Han Xiong, who had just led his troops to retreat to Hanguan City, couldn't help but secretly rejoice. At the same time, he actively repaired the city and strengthened its defense in preparation for the upcoming Northern Qi army.

However, it was not until the spring of the following year that the organized Northern Qi cavalry activities appeared again in Heluo. Because He Baren fell seriously ill shortly after leaving Jinyang, he stayed in Jianzhou for more than a month before leading his army southward. What prompted He Baren to go south was not the recovery from a serious illness, but the knowledge that Li Boshan, who was supposed to be his opponent, actually appeared in Yiyang and drove away Qinghe King Gao Yue who had just arrived in Huainan.