1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2203
It has to be said that Lu Kangtai still has a relatively clear understanding of his own situation. After he received the news about Haihan's expedition to Hirado, he keenly realized that there was not much time left for him to act.

The channel for one's own side to obtain aid from overseas has been cut off, but the opponent has obtained Haihan's support at this time. Under the ebb and flow, Lu Kangtai is sure that the opponent will never let things go peacefully. Given time, they entrust Haihan people to train on their behalf With the formation of armed forces, the Shanshan salt merchants may not be able to withstand the opponent's attack.

Therefore, Lu Kangtai's attitude is very firm, that is, to get rid of the leading figures of the Huizhou salt merchants first before the situation reverses.

"Just think about it, what would the Haihan people do if they lost their supporters in Yangzhou?" Lu Kangtai put forward a very bold idea: "Will they raise troops to avenge the seven surnames? No! With the shrewdness of the Haihan people, They will not do this kind of thing that only has risks but no rewards, I think they will abandon the original plan and look for a new partner."

"Then it might not be us, right? After all, they had a lot of grievances with us before, and they didn't let go of this grievance so easily?" He Huan still had a lot of doubts about Lu Kangtai's opinion.

Lu Kangtai said: "Last year, we were the ones who suffered the most. The Haihan people didn't have much direct loss. At most, they lost a few lives during the fight. Now they want to sell the salt to the Yangtze River. North, then they must find a partner in Yangzhou to help them distribute, if the seven surnames can't do this, then their only choice is us."

In fact, Lu Kangtai was not absolutely sure of Haihan's position, but now he had to try to convince his companions, so he proposed such a possibility that sounded very tempting.

His inference is not completely unreasonable. Haihan chose to cooperate with Huizhou salt merchants to provide military assistance because he needed powerful local distributors to provide sales channels.If Shanxi salt merchants take the initiative to discuss cooperation with Haihan before the salt merchants from Huizhou, they may have the opportunity to become Haihan's distributors, and may even carry out in-depth cooperation.

But these assumptions are no longer valid under the current situation. Haihan has selected Huizhou salt merchants as the partner, so it must ensure that it can win the brutal competition of Yangzhou salt merchants.If Haihan just watched the situation in Yangzhou from the sidelines, then Lu Kangtai's idea of ​​getting rid of the seven surnames and replacing Haihan's partner is still possible, but now Haihan has made a move and sent someone to Yangzhou to assist The Anhui salt merchants organized defense, which is actually a clear attitude, and they will not stand idly by the battle between the salt merchants.

Now that Lu Kangtai wants to attack the seven major surnames, it is equivalent to attacking Haihan. The nature is not what he understands. As long as he does it, there is no room for resolution afterwards.

But now it is a dead end for the Shanxi salt merchants. If you do something, you will definitely offend the Haihan people. If you don’t do it, you will be suppressed by your competitors sooner or later. Therefore, for Lu Kangtai, the only way to change the situation is to fight desperately. direction.

Although He Huan and Wang Yu had doubts about Lu Kangtai's statement, they couldn't come up with a better way to deal with it.

"Kangtai, this matter involves the century-old foundation of our Shanxi salt merchants in Yangzhou, we must be cautious, and don't make any mistakes!" He Huan had no choice but to ask a few more words, hoping that Lu Kangtai can successfully carry out his plan.

"We must do our best!" Lu Kangtai replied firmly.

Before the Golden Shield troops arrived in Yangzhou, Lu Kangtai had already made a battle plan against the seven surnames, and even sent a secret letter to Yang Chengye, warning him to leave Yangzhou as soon as possible.

At that time, because there was no intervention from Haihan, Lu Kangtai was very confident in his battle plan, and he was not worried that Yang Chengye would reveal the secret.But recently, after he learned that Haihan sent people to Yangzhou, he wanted to contact Yang Chengye for more information, but found that Yang Chengye seemed to have disappeared from Yangzhou.

Lu Kangtai couldn't confirm whether Yang Chengye had listened to his advice and fled Yangzhou quietly, or hid in a relatively safe place, such as Daijiazhuang where the Haihan people settled.If it's the latter, then the Haihan people may have already learned of Lu Kangtai's intentions, and thus made some targeted defensive deployments.

But even in this worst situation, Lu Kangtai did not intend to give up his plan.Judging from the information currently available, there are not many troops sent by Haihan to Yangzhou, and their combat effectiveness should not be as terrible as that of the Haihan army.

The most important thing is that Lu Kangtai believed that in the fight with the Haihan people last year, if the opponent did not sneak fast enough and was intercepted by his own troops on the canal, it was entirely possible to wipe them all out.If the match of the day is repeated, Lu Kangtai believes that the result can be changed.

After obtaining the consent of He Huan and Wang Yu, Lu Kangtai has no internal resistance and can act freely according to his own intention.After he returned home, he called together several of his leaders and made some arrangements overnight.

Lu Kangtai knew that the monitoring of the various manors where the seven surnames lived on the south bank of the canal was not enough, but the action was imminent, and he had to grasp the daily movements of these target people.So the first thing he arranged was to send people disguised as fishermen and peddlers to infiltrate the south bank of the canal, trying to find out the recent movements of the main figures of the seven major surnames, as well as the news about the Haihan people who settled in Daijiazhuang.

The second thing is to revise the previously formulated combat plan.Lu Kangtai already had the floor plans of the various manors of the seven surnames in his hands, but this kind of information was hand-drawn by insiders based on their impressions, and the level of detail must be limited, so the combat plan formulated based on these maps is actually rather sloppy.

Of course, Lu Kangtai's musketeers have a great advantage in strength, and it is not a big problem to forcibly overpower the opponent. Therefore, before that, Lu Kangtai's deployment of the battle plan was not too detailed, and he made up his mind to come to the overlord. He put his bow hard, but now that the Haihan people have intervened, he has to re-examine his battle plan, and he has to cheer up and deal with it carefully.

There are two generals under Lu Kangtai, named Xie Liang and Xun Fen. Both of them had military experience in the early years, and they fought against the peasant army in the Central Plains for several years.Later, living in Yangzhou, he met Lu Kangtai by chance.Lu Kangtai appreciated their abilities, so he hired them as his guards.

When Lu Kangtai organized the training of the Musketeers last year, these two were actually one of them, but they were lucky enough to avoid the killing that night when they went out to do errands.Lu Kangtai reorganized the Musketeers, and these two became the leaders of the new Musketeers. The battle plan against the Hui nationality salt merchants was basically the result of discussions between Lu Kangtai and these two men.

"What do you think of the troops sent by Haihan to enter Daijiazhuang?" Lu Kangtai asked.

Xie Liang took the lead in answering: "Although the Haihan people are powerful, the number of people they send is limited, and they should only be able to protect one place in Daijiazhuang. If they are dispersed and stationed in various houses, it will be even more desirable."

Xun Fen said: "But Haihan people are not stupid. They have no reason to split up their limited manpower. I think they will concentrate their manpower in Daijiazhuang. After all, Daijiazhuang is the largest and has built some fortifications before. , it will be much easier to guard than other Zhuangzi."

Lu Kangtai nodded and said: "Xun Fen's thinking is similar to mine. Although the Haihan people sent people over, judging from the scale, they obviously haven't really made up their minds to intervene in the battle between us and the Huizhou salt merchants. They just want to Use this to show our attitude and let us retreat. If they feel that we dare not do it, then it is the best time for us to do it! Only by proving our strength can we win the awe of the Haihan people!"

In places like Yangzhou, as long as they are willing to spend money, there is basically nothing that cannot be heard, so the monitoring and investigation of the seven surnames has made progress very quickly.

According to the information collected, from the second day after the Golden Shield troops arrived at Daijiazhuang, the seven surnames each issued an announcement to the clan, warning the clan members that it is best not to go to Yangzhou City in the near future to avoid accidents.Lu Kangtai believes that there can only be two reasons for this situation. One is that Yang Chengye issued a warning to the Huizhou salt merchants after receiving his secret letter, and the other is that the Haihan people will carry out some special operations in Yangzhou in the near future to avoid The family is involved.

In addition, the core members of several of the seven surnames seem to no longer live in their own manors, and have recently moved out of other places secretly.This means that if Lu Kangtai attacks these manors, it is likely to be useless.

As for Daijiazhuang, where the Haihan people settled, the entrance and exit has been closed, and it is difficult for outsiders to know the situation in the village.However, Dai Yingda recently showed up near Zhuangzi to appease the tenant farmers who rented and planted Daijiazhuang's land, so that they would not feel nervous because of the access control of Daijiazhuang. Patriarch.

These signals made Lu Kangtai only focus on Daijiazhuang. Although he knew that there was a group of Haihan people stationed in Daijiazhuang, it seemed that he had no other options to choose now.He could only hope that after destroying Daijiazhuang, he would try to capture as many Haihan people as possible, so that he would have some confidence in bargaining with the Haihan people later.

"Keep an eye on the movement of Daijiazhuang, and do it in three days!" Lu Kangtai knew that the situation at this time could no longer be dragged on slowly. Even if this battle was to be against the Shanghai Han people again, he could only choose a quick battle. .

"If the other party wants to attack Daijiazhuang, they must not come during the day, because they may be exposed before they cross the canal. Therefore, our defense focus is on the period from nightfall to dawn, especially the monitoring of the nearby canals. , can't relax for a moment!"

While Lu Kangtai was intensively preparing his offensive plan, the defense preparation meeting chaired by Yuan Tao in Daijiazhuang was also constantly revising and strengthening the defensive measures.

In an environment like Daijiazhuang, where both sides of the northwest are not far from the banks of the canal, it is not difficult to arrange peripheral early warnings. After all, if the opponent wants to attack aggressively, he must organize people to cross the river nearby.However, Yuan Tao was still a little worried that it would be difficult for personnel who have not received formal military training to maintain vigilance for a long time in the surveillance area, so every meeting must emphasize the importance of surveillance.

At present, the defense force of Daijiazhuang mainly consists of three parts. One is the main force of the Golden Shield, with a total of more than 130 fighters.The second is Daijiazhuang's own youth militia group, which also has more than 100 members.The third is the reinforcements from the seven major surnames, there are more than 200 people, but most of these people are the personal guards of important figures of various families, and they temporarily live in Daijiazhuang with the master's family. They lack a unified organization and command. How important is the group of people.

However, Yuan Tao believes that as long as the opponent's trace can be found in time, it will not be too difficult to rely on the existing fortifications to block the opponent's attack.He thinks that the only suspenseful thing is how much damage can be caused to the opponent in this fight.

Yuan Tao had asked Ji Yuanqing about the match against the Shanshan Salt Merchant Musketeers last year, and he could basically confirm that Jindun's combat effectiveness was superior to the opponent's.If we rely on Daijiazhuang's existing defense measures, the gap in combat effectiveness between the two sides will be further widened.

But the problem is that Jin Dun is on the defensive. If the opponent finds that he cannot fight and retreats, then Yuan Tao doesn't seem to have a good way to keep the opponent.

Unless all the ships he brought with him were put into battle, and the river would be cleared after the other side had crossed the river, cutting off the way back.But doing so was extremely risky, because he had no way of determining how many ships the other party would mobilize to participate in this operation, and if he was not careful, he might self-defeating and take all the ships and crews of Jindun into it.After thinking about it, he finally rejected this too risky plan.

But in this way, as long as the opponent does not love to fight, it is basically impossible for the defender to completely wipe out the invading enemy, and it is impossible to completely solve this hidden danger.However, the seven surnames don't have the obsession to do their best in one battle. Dai Yingda said that as long as he can protect Zhuangzi and severely injure his opponent, he doesn't have to work too hard.

Yuan Tao didn't quite understand the Hui nationality salt merchants' thinking at first, but after thinking about it later, the Hui nationality salt merchants have been fighting with each other for several generations, and they probably have long been used to the back and forth of winning and losing.They may very much want to drive each other out of Yangzhou completely, but when such an opportunity comes, they may not think that they can achieve the results they expect.

However, this is not a bad thing for Jindun. Since the Huizhou salt merchants do not insist, then Jindun naturally does not have to work too hard.As for how the Huizhou salt merchants will resolve their grievances with each other in the future, that is not something Yuan Tao needs to worry about.

Through this mission, the Huizhou salt merchants were firmly tied to Haihan's chariot. This is the real purpose of Jindun's trip.

(End of this chapter)