Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 444 The troops are approaching the city
Wang Ziteng did not expect the King of Annan to agree to his conditions. If he agreed, that would be great. If he did not agree, the King of Annan would send troops to fight back for the sake of his own rule.

By then, Wang Ziteng can achieve the goal of luring the snake out of its hole, which is much better than leading the troops to attack on his own.

If the King of Annan pretends to be dead and refuses to agree or fight back, then we will wait ten days and march to the royal city to force the King of Annan to sign the treaty.

In short, because of the influence of the Confucian cultural circle, there are still many people in Annan who are willing to cooperate with Wang Ziteng. In this case, there is no need to kill people.

When the King of Annan received the ultimatum, he was devastated. He had to give a reply within ten days. Wasn't this a matter of life and death?

Quickly summon the ministers to discuss how to deal with it.

The situation in the Annan court was somewhat similar to that of North Korea, where domestic power was controlled by four major families: Nguyen, Le, Zheng, and Li.

The Li family that attacked the Lin family was also a branch of the Li family. The newly rich Nguyen family was also a branch. In contrast, the influence of the Zheng and Li families was in the north.

The meeting was chaired by Nguyen Thanh, King of Annan, and representatives of the four major families expressed various opinions.

There are three main ways. The first is to fight. Concentrate domestic military forces, transfer troops from the northern border to the south, mobilize the entire country, take the initiative to launch an attack, and repel Wang Ziteng.

This view was strongly opposed by the Li and Zheng families because the troops on the northern border were mainly controlled by these two families.

The Li family advocated negotiation, believing that they would definitely not be able to win by fighting. If they really had to send troops, these two families would suffer the greatest losses.

This proposal was criticized by others as treason, so the Li family representative simply kept silent and let them express their opinions. In any case, it was impossible to send troops.

The Zheng family’s attitude is that they must fight, but they cannot take the initiative. Instead, they should deploy defenses along the way, delay and consume the exhausted enemy troops, and then fight a decisive battle under the capital.

In the end, the King of Annan, Nguyen Thanh, had a hodgepodge of what he wanted. He first sent people to negotiate with Wang Ziteng and bargained for parts. As long as the other party was willing to withdraw from Annan, he could discuss it. While negotiating, he organized the army to prepare for the attack. The four families had to send 25,000 troops to form a 100,000-strong army. Finally, the defense of the royal city had to be done in advance.

In short, Annan is a small country. If the Celestial Empire's army came from the north, they could still fight a defensive war by relying on the complex terrain. In reality, they came by sea, and the south is a plain, so the risk of fighting this war is too great. It is better to negotiate as much as possible, and then fight if it doesn't work. Interestingly, the King of Annan sent an envoy again, taking the land route to Da Zhou, to file a complaint in the capital.

This action was just a sudden whim on his part. He still held on to the last glimmer of hope. Wang Ziteng acted on his own initiative to send troops.

The four big families began to gather troops reluctantly, and naturally they were unwilling to use all their elite troops. The capital did have a well-equipped elite imperial army with a number of about 30,000, which was Ruan Qing's capital to control the court. In order to get the four families to send troops, he also said that he would send 10,000 people to attack.

The Nguyen family is the royal family, and the Le family is the royal family. These two families should have worked the hardest, after all, Saigon is the territory of the two families.

In reality, the two families were unwilling to do their best and wanted to preserve their strength. At the same time, they advised the King of Annan to be on guard against the Li and Zheng families.

We must be especially wary of the Zheng family, because one of their ancestors was a king.

In comparison, the Li family was relatively active. The Prime Minister of Annan was a member of the Li family. From a military perspective, the Prime Minister was opposed to fighting, but since the king had made the decision, he had to carry it out, otherwise his position would be unstable.

The Zheng family didn't want to send troops, but there was no other way. Thinking of the various cave owners and village owners on the territory, it was a good choice to find an opportunity to draw a big pie and consume them.

The Zheng family representative asked to see the King of Annan overnight and asked for a number of official positions and money and food. He wanted to use these positions to motivate his subordinates to go to war.

Ruan Qing was somewhat familiar with the domestic situation and knew that if the Zheng family sent too many troops, the cave masters and village chiefs of the ethnic minorities under their rule might cause trouble.

Ruan Qing agreed to give him an official position, but did not give him money and food. Zheng was not disappointed, thinking that something was better than nothing, so she did not expect Ruan Qing to agree completely.

Both the king and ministers of Annan overestimated the situation in the country.

Although there are people, it is never easy to mobilize troops. What's more, Zheng has to deceive the leaders of the mountainous areas.

Even if those leaders were attracted by the official positions and led their men out of the mountains, it would take time. How would they provide food and drink for so many people? Weapons were easy to deal with. If that didn't work, they could just give them a stick.

Ten days passed in a flash. The King of Annan collected information from various sources and found that there were indeed 100,000 troops, but most of them were on the way. Only 20,000 of them arrived at the royal city. They were mainly from the Li family. The Nguyen and Li families only had 5,000 people together. There was not a single soldier from the Zheng family.

The negotiating representatives were sent out and returned safely, but nothing was accomplished because Wang Ziteng refused to negotiate at all. His conditions were just those: if you agree, then peace will prevail, otherwise he will attack you.

Ruan Qing was so angry that he called everyone over, scolded them, and told them to speed up and that there should be enough troops within three days at most.

Then, Ruan Qing issued an order to put the royal city under martial law. The imperial guards guarded the city gates, and the people of the four major families were not allowed to leave the city without the king's order.

This is an attitude of overturning the table. You usually enjoy the benefits brought by power, but are unwilling to contribute at the critical moment. Then when Zhou Jun attacks, please leave first.

This move was quite effective. At least the Li and Nguyen families sped up their actions and successively transferred 10,000 troops. Together with the 10,000 troops transferred by the Nguyen family, a total of 50,000 troops were gathered.

The problem arises again. With so many people in the royal city, food and drink will cost a considerable amount, and military discipline is another big problem.

Ruan Qing was so annoyed by these things every day that she felt several times that Wang Ziteng should call her as soon as possible.

Wang Ziteng waited patiently for ten days. During this time, he reorganized the vassal army and launched a powerful weapon - dividing the land!
All the land owned by the Nguyen and Le clans around Saigon and their allied families was confiscated, and all the vassal soldiers were given ten acres of land each.

Wang Ziteng did not accept everyone, and screened those who came to join the army. He did not accept those who were too old, too young, or weak, etc.

In the end, a group of troops were laid off and another group was added, making the total size of the vassal army 30,000. It was not that they did not want to have more, but they really did not have the time.

The division of land is nothing new, and that's how the Fubing played it. The Fubing of the Tang Dynasty was invincible, as is clearly recorded in history books.

If it were in China, Wang Ziteng would definitely not dare to do this, as he would offend too many people and would probably be crushed to ashes.

In Annan, Wang Ziteng didn't have this worry, so he just divided it first and talked about it later.

Of course, during this process, those local tyrants who had surrendered to Wang Ziteng also did all kinds of things. Wang Ziteng was too busy to deal with them for the time being, so he just took note of them first.

Wang Ziteng only needs to ensure that each of the 30,000 soldiers can get ten acres of land.

As for the officers and soldiers who came with Wang Ziteng, if they are willing to stay in the future, are they still afraid of having no land to share? Now, they are still officers and soldiers of the Great Zhou. Ten days is still too short, but fortunately the basic organization is in place, and there are 30,000 Zhou troops as ballast. Wang Ziteng is confident of fighting the Annan army.

As for food and fodder, because of the large-scale house raids, the harvest was very rich and there would be no shortage of food within half a year.

In order to resolve the Annan war as soon as possible, Wang Ziteng ordered his troops to march out as soon as the ten-day deadline came. He led a part of the vassal army as the vanguard and marched towards the royal city.

Wang Ziteng had requirements for military discipline for the Zhou army, but he had no requirements for the vassal army.

How should I put it? The people here, especially the men, seem to be lazier than each other. It is too difficult to discipline them with military discipline.

After setting out, various problems of the vassal army were exposed, especially the fact that the officers came from many local powerful families and there were many conflicts among them.

The vassal army had poor discipline and an incident occurred on the first day. The vanguard razed a town. A general in the army was a relative of the town.

The two sides started a quarrel, and the lawsuit was brought to Wang Ziteng.

Wang Ziteng issued a strict order that from now on, except for the properties of the four major families, no looting would be allowed along the way. The matter was suppressed, and the seeds of conflict were planted.

Did Wang Ziteng not know about this situation beforehand? It's a small country with so few places to go, so it's normal to see relatives everywhere.

Wang Ziteng deliberately did not mention this in advance so that these people could not unite with each other and there would be conflicts between the generals and commanders of the vassal army, making it easier for him to check and balance them.

With Wang Ziteng's military order, the subsequent march became much smoother. When they encountered towns that dared to resist, they would bombard them with cannons and the vassal army would charge in and they would basically be able to take them down.

Since you have rebelled, you must bear the consequences. It is impossible to keep the knife in place for three days, but if you are in a hurry, you can still keep the knife in place for one day.

According to Wang Ziteng's military order, no one was allowed to keep the spoils of war privately. They must be handed in and distributed uniformly. Violators would be severely punished.

Because the distribution was relatively fair, there was no trouble for the time being.

In order to be safe, Wang Ziteng did not advance very quickly. It took him a month to reach the vicinity of the royal city.

Along the way, all the towns along the way that resisted were destroyed. This group of vassal soldiers were really cruel to their own people.

There are no detailed statistics, but it is estimated that at least tens of thousands of people were killed along the way. In the end, the towns along the way were often deserted, with only the elderly and weak who could not escape.

A large number of refugees either fled to the surrounding areas or fled to the royal city, seeking their needs.

Over the course of a month, hundreds of thousands of refugees continued to pour in, and more than a thousand security cases against refugees were reported every day. Many more were simply ignored, let alone reported. This made it difficult for Ruan Qing to cope with it. He could not afford to feed them, nor did he have the energy to shelter them, so he could only order them to be forcibly dispersed.

This order had serious consequences. The troops that came together from all directions had no military discipline at all. Before the order to disperse was issued, they had to do bad things in secret. After the order to disperse was issued, they just ran wild.

Vicious incidents such as robbery, murder, and rape reached a peak within just one day. Seeing the bad situation, a large number of refugees fled to other places.

The refugees were successfully dispersed, and the soldiers from the four major families also made a small fortune. But before they could be happy, Wang Ziteng's army arrived.

To be honest, Wang Ziteng remained calm when he saw the fleeing people along the way. However, as he got closer to the royal city, he saw corpses lying on the roadside from time to time. Some women were naked. Wang Ziteng was shocked.

He hurried to understand the situation and found out that this was the work of Annan officers and soldiers. Wang Ziteng was not surprised by such things. He had suppressed "mobs" in China before. His subordinates did even more ruthlessly in the Western Regions. However, Annan would be the home of the Wang family in the future, so they had to be restrained. Wang Ziteng ordered to set up camp, clean up the roads, and bury the bodies to prevent the outbreak of plague.

Wang Ziteng called all the local generals and asked them to send people out to spread the news, mainly to spread the fact that the officials and soldiers in the royal city were driving away the refugees.

And issue an announcement to let the entire army know what happened in the royal city.

Fighting a war of public opinion is something that must be done at any time. As I said before, this is not the Western Regions. There, let alone the language, even the writing is incomprehensible.

Annan is different. It is a formal Confucian cultural circle with many people who can speak Chinese. The further north you go, the more obvious this is.

The army camped twenty miles outside the city. Under Wang Ziteng's strict military order to prevent night attacks, the troops were afraid of military discipline and were able to follow the orders, but they did not execute them very well.

Wang Ziteng still overestimated the Annan army. They had no intention of launching a night attack at all.

Speaking of night attacks, an army that can fight night battles is synonymous with elite in this era.

Wang Ziteng judged others by himself. The 30,000 elite troops under his command had been trained for many years and were well served with good food and drink. They were really capable of fighting at night.

The Royal City had thought of a night attack, but Prime Minister Li rejected it. He was a military commander and knew what was going on with his men. It was fine during the day, but if ten out of a hundred people could reach the destination at night, they would be considered elite. Most of the Annan soldiers were from the bottom of society and didn't live well. Prime Minister Li even judged that even if the Imperial Guards launched a night attack, it wouldn't be much better.

Therefore, night raids do not exist.

Of course, Wang Ziteng’s work was not in vain. At least after dawn the next day, the troops assembled in a relatively orderly manner, deployed their battle formations, and approached the royal city.

Ruan Qing asked his generals in the city: "The enemy has just arrived. Is there any brave general who dares to attack them? We should kill them before they can gain a firm foothold and weaken their fighting spirit."

The imperial guards ordered Nguyen Tien, a member of the royal family, to lead his 5,000 men to attack! Nguyen Thanh immediately ordered Nguyen Tien to lead his troops to attack, and at the same time ordered the Li and Zheng families to each send 10,000 men to guard Nguyen Tien and to be ready to help him retreat if the situation turned bad.

When Wang Ziteng learned that there were troops charging out of the city, he couldn't help but get excited and hurried to a high place to watch the battle.

Out of respect for the purpose of importance today, Wang Ziteng did not send his vassal troops to lead the charge. Instead, a lieutenant general of the Zhou army led 3,000 troops as the vanguard.

Along the way, they fought against local armed forces. Wang Ziteng could send his vassal troops to fight. Today, they have arrived at the royal city. It is a matter of success or failure, so they cannot be careless.

As a veteran, Wang Ziteng never dared to underestimate any opponent, even though the Annan army had performed extremely poorly so far.

Wang Ziteng’s point of view is that it is not that the Annan army is incapable of fighting, but that it lacks good generals and appropriate tactics.

(End of this chapter)