Northern Dynasties

"The guilty people are waiting to pay homage to the general! They were threatened by thieves a few days ago and were unable to go out to meet the general in time. Fortunately, thanks to the general's intimidation, the thieves were eliminated. The guilty people and others began to kill the thieves in the city and dedicated the city to their righteousness. Please beg the general. Able to tolerate past sins and give life to the people of this city!"

In front of the north gate of Hefei City, all the powerful officials and officials in the city disarmed and abandoned their weapons, and walked out in large numbers. Walking in the front was an old man with gray hair, his steps staggering and trembling.

Following behind were two young men in white clothes. One was holding the head of the former governor Hu Sizhao, and the other was holding the official seal of the state government and a series of seal tokens, including maps of territories previously sealed by the Northern Qi Dynasty, etc. .

Li Tai stood in military uniform among the soldiers. When he saw the old man leading everyone to bow slowly, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart that there is indeed a tradition of respecting the elderly in this era.

He has experienced many similar surrender scenes. Basically, the people queuing up to surrender must be led by the military and political chiefs, followed by one or a few elderly people.

He has never dealt with this kind of thing. According to his own guess, the reason for this arrangement is not only that the elderly have a certain degree of seniority and reputation in society, but also deliberately to let the hostile forces who accept surrender take a look. The old man is already so old. If you don't kill him, you won't have a few more years to live. Killing him will only add some killing karma to yourself.

But no matter what these people think, as long as they are willing to surrender the city, it will be a good thing.

So Li Tai took a step forward, ordered his soldiers to invite the old man to come forward, and he took the old man's wrist and said with a smile: "Now my king's army marches here just to conquer the stubborn and disrespectful thieves. The soldiers and people in the city only need to keep themselves clean." , If you don’t join the bandits, you will be happy to be saved from that day on, and you don’t have to worry about being harmed. Since the village elder was recommended by the city people, he must also be a righteous man with good morals. Forgive me for my poor eyesight, may I ask the village elder What’s your surname?”

"Don't dare. How dare you, an old man, treat a sinner like this? How dare you praise me for your kindness! The sinner's surname is Xiahou and his humble life is Wanlong. He is a distant relative of the late Fengcheng Xiangong. He doesn't dare to falsely claim that he is in the countryside. He just knows how to do it. As a courtesy to your Majesty, I accept the soldiers and people in the city to come and pray to the General!"

After hearing this, the old man quickly bowed to one side and spoke in a humble tone.

Li Tai nodded slightly after hearing the words. The old man said that Duke Fengcheng was the Xiahou Dan of Nanliang. He and his younger brother Xiahou Kui had been in Shouyang for more than ten years. Therefore, the Xiahou family of Qiao County also became a powerful clan in Huainan. During the Hou Jing Rebellion, Xiahou Kui's son followed Hou Jing and rebelled and was eventually killed in the rebel army, while Xiahou Dan's sons resisted and died in the battle.

Li Tai also signaled to other people who were surrendering to waive the courtesy, and met them one by one to comfort them a little. Many of these people are not natives of Hefei, but have migrated here as refugees, or were gathered here by the Northern Qi Dynasty, but without exception, they are all well-known powerful figures in the township.

Li Tai was not surprised by this, because the last time Li Bomu took the initiative to give in, he entered Hefei City to search and took away many Hefei locals.

During times of war, cities with great strategic value are often hit hard. In the eyes of many people in later generations, it seemed that it would be safer to escape into the mountains and open up a paradise life than to gather in those powerful cities.

But thinking this way is often an illusion. History books will record how many times a city like Hefei was attacked, but they will not record how many times a certain mountain village was looted by bandits. Moreover, the more mountainous and desolate the place is, the less social order there is and the less life safety there is.

For a city like Hefei, even if Li Taidu had conquered it for the second time, it would only have dealt a blow to those who resisted. As for the people in the city, there was no reason or need to harm them. The so-called massacre is just an extreme phenomenon in a few cases. Therefore, it is safer to stay in the city during war than to wander in the wilderness.

This is one of the reasons why the city of Hefei had been plundered by Li Tai before and is now full of people.

Li Tai was not in a hurry to enter the city. Instead, he talked with the virtuous elders who had surrendered outside the city. While comforting everyone, he learned about the current personnel situation in Hefei, and formally transferred the power of those who would be in charge of Hefei next. Jing Xuan introduced them.

When they heard that Li Tai planned to send troops to garrison Hefei City for a long time, the expressions of these powerful countrymen could not help but froze slightly.

Of course, they don't want to have such a powerful dragon lying on their heads. The most ideal way for them is that Li Tai only controls this area in name, while they govern the city under this tiger's skin. Li Tai had traveled to and from Huainan several times before, but he usually evacuated quickly. Even if he captured the city, he did not stay there for a long time. This was one of the reasons why they were willing to surrender at the city's expense.

Now it seems that the situation seems to be a little different from what they imagined. Could it be that the Western Wei Dynasty also plans to officially join in the carving up of Huainan?

No matter how they feel about this matter, they have no say. Not to mention that they have now left the city and surrendered, even if they still defend the city without strong external assistance, it will only take Li Tai a while.

While Li Tai was communicating with these powerful villagers, the rest of the army had already settled in Hefei City and completely controlled the city. During the exchange, Li Tai also noticed that the old man Xiahou Wanlong and another middle-aged man named Zhou Zhengfang were highly respected by these powerful men and seemed to be the vague leaders of them all.

So when the army sent word that the city was under control, Li Tai asked the two men to go into the city with Quan Jingxuan to calm the people and restore order to the people's livelihood in the city as soon as possible. In the name of rewarding everyone for killing thieves and dedicating money to the city, Li Tai The other powerful men were left in the military camp tent to host banquets.

After Quan Jingxuan entered the city, he inspected the city accompanied by two powerful representatives. At the same time, the accompanying soldiers posted notices along the way and publicized the regulations for the management of the city after the Jingzhou Army entered the city. As for the main content of the regulations, it was nothing more than security. The personal and property safety of the people in the city.

But in addition to the relatively simple three chapters of the agreement, the article also stated another content, that is, during the occupation of the city by the Northern Qi Dynasty, if the residents in the city had any property disputes or were involved in murder cases and had objections to the previous judgment, they would be punished from now on. You can directly file a lawsuit with the state government, and the state government will change the sentence as appropriate according to the actual situation and the laws of the Western Wei Dynasty.

The two powerful men who accompanied Quan Jingxuan on the city tour did not have any feelings about this. They only said that they wanted to eliminate the remaining influence of the Northern Qi Dynasty and sort out the majesty of the Western Wei Dynasty's criminal laws.

But if they understand the behavior of the Jingzhou General Office, they will probably be able to see that this is a preparation for mobilizing public opinion and preparing to launch a public trial. Since the biggest target that should have been subject to a public trial has been cut down by them, then they will naturally be the ones to be put on trial next. .

However, Li Tai did not want to be impatient and kill the donkey. He just did not want these powerful people to continue to exist in Hefei City by relying on the prestige they had established under the rule of Northern Qi. Hefei City already had no stable authority. As for the social relations in the countryside, as long as these recently established authorities are demolished, a new management order can be established in accordance with the laws of the Jingzhou General Office.

As for these powerful people, they still contributed a lot to the city, so at the banquet for them, Li Tai also carefully described the current development situation of Mianbei.

If these people are willing, they can even take advantage of the current military deployment in Huainan to lead the clan members along the military passage of Jingzhou Military Palace to move to Mianbei to settle down in a safer manner and start a new life.

But if these people are stubborn and still have dreams of swaying around and ruling the roost, then there is no need to leave, and they can stay and show off for the young and old men in Hefei to appreciate. As for whether a virtuous person will be killed by mistake, Li Tai is not worried about this. In troubled times, the moral bottom line is not high. The only truth is to become bigger and stronger. If he cannot be the biggest, he himself will die. !
In addition to these powerful people in Hefei City, Li Tai also focused on communicating with the Lu brothers.

It has been a while since Lu Xida returned to Jingzhou, but before that he only sent his brother Lu Guangda to visit and contact Mianbei. As for Li Tai, this was the first time he met him.

Originally, in his imagination, Lu Xida should also be a cunning and short-sighted tycoon in troubled times who took advantage of the situation. His previous defection to Mianbei was only due to the gradual expansion of Northern Qi in Huainan.

But after talking to Lu Xida this time, he found out that he was a calm-minded, quick-thinking person who also had a good sense of the overall situation. This made Li Tai feel quite happy even though he was surprised.

Although there are many generals under his command, there are still not many who are familiar with the personnel of the Southern Dynasties. Since Lu Xida has such talents, he does not need to stick to local appointments, and can be placed on a larger stage.

After the situation in Hefei initially stabilized, Li Tai planned to send a group of troops to Liyang to assist Wang Sengbian. Although the relationship between them will inevitably become hostile in the future, for now, Northern Qi is the greater threat. If Liyang is still in the hands of Northern Qi, Hefei will not be safe.

However, reinforcements have not yet been dispatched here, and the latest news came from Liyang. Wang Sengbian, who originally sent troops to Liyang while Li Tai was attacking Hefei, withdrew his troops and returned to the south bank of the river, giving up the attack on Liyang directly.

Along with this news came the news that Duan Shao of the Northern Qi Dynasty defeated the troops of Houyi and Zhang Biao of Nanliang in one fell swoop outside Xuyi City. In addition, Wang Sengbian also sent a message, telling Jiangling that an envoy was urgently sent to order Wang Sengbian not to attack the Northern Qi cities without permission, so he had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

After learning this situation, Li Tai couldn't help but sigh to himself. Wang Sengbian was indeed one of the few generals in the late Southern Dynasties who was good at fighting, but his weakness in character could not be concealed. This was why Li Tai could not help but sigh. One of the reasons why we are willing to deepen cooperation with it.

Now I just hope that Chen Baxian in Guangling can withstand the pressure of Duan Shao of the Northern Qi Dynasty. If Chen Baxian cannot bear it and evacuates, then he will have to meet Duan Shao's army here in Hefei.

He is not afraid of fighting Duan Shao, not to mention that now that Hefei has been won, he already has the advantage of home court. But Duan Shao's status in the Northern Qi was unusual after all. If this attracted more of the main forces of the Northern Qi, and there was no Chen Baxian to attract the firepower of the Qi people in Guangling, it would be a bit deviating from Li Tai's vision.

So he quickly sent people east to pay close attention to the situation in Guangling. If Chen Baxian also withdrew, then he would have to prepare to continue to lead his elite cavalry to set up ambushes on the way, and could not allow the Northern Qi army to approach Hefei to besiege and fight.