Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 110: Conquering Chuzhou

The wax trees and silver mountains shine brightly, while the north wind howls alone and quiets the three rivers.

With the implementation of Chuzhou’s military settlement policy, more and more people came here to visit.

Most of them were people from Chaozhou and Hefei who were displaced by the new policy. When they heard that they could survive here in Fang Yong's place, they traveled across mountains and rivers to seek refuge here.

Some of them even escaped from Henan.

To say that these people are starving and naked is already a compliment to them.

Are disaster victims still considered human beings?
This statement has been fully verified here.

There is definitely not enough land in Chuzhou area for them to share, and Fang Yong cannot share any land with them.

Following Wu Yuan's suggestion, Fang Yong asked the people to cooperate in the siege; or go to the forest to cut wood and build siege equipment; or to work and open up new fields.

As a reward, Fang Yong would give them a small amount of food to survive.

Such harsh conditions still made the people ecstatic.

At least they had hope of survival.

Fang Yong also promised that as long as Chuzhou was captured, he would lead these people back to Hefei and Chaozhou, set up military settlements like in Chuzhou, and give them land for cultivation.

After receiving this promise, the people were all willing to follow Fang Yong and work hard without complaint.

With the help of a large number of civilians, the Huaiyin army's offensive became more fierce.

The people used their lives to help the Huaiyin army build an earthen platform more than 20 feet long and more than 20 feet high under the city of Chuzhou.

This earthen platform made it easier for the Huaiyin army to climb the city wall, and the defenders in Chuzhou City had no way to deal with it.

This was built bit by bit by countless civilians under hail of bullets, using a bucket of soil and a piece of wood, and its height is still constantly rising.

Chuzhou can no longer be defended.

Perhaps the long period of fighting had caused the morale of the defenders in Chuzhou City to be too low, and they urgently needed some outside assistance to boost morale.

The previous food route was reopened.

The governor of Huizhou secretly sent people to transport the supplies, and they set out quietly at night, preparing to secretly transport them to Chuzhou City to relieve the urgent needs in the city.

Under the cover of night, the soldiers transporting supplies carefully pushed aside the grass and moved slowly towards the path.

while walking.

Suddenly, a large number of arrows were shot from both sides, smashing the grain transport troops into pieces.

Rolling stones and falling trees blocked the way,

The fully armed scouts rushed out from both sides.
The soldiers transporting the supplies were terrified, and before they could pick up their weapons to fight back, they were shot through the chest by a crossbow arrow.

The next day, Fang Yong hung up the bodies of the soldiers transporting grain and displayed them to the defenders in Chuzhou City.

Upon learning that external aid had failed, the morale of the defenders in Chuzhou City dropped again.

The Huaiyin army took advantage of the situation and launched a fierce attack, and Chuzhou City was almost captured.

Two more days passed.

After a long and bitter battle, the morale of the defenders of Chuzhou had almost collapsed.

During that day and night, two tunnels were opened in the city.

In fact, the tunnel had been dug a few days ago, but because it was too narrow, it was difficult for a large number of soldiers to pass through. To be cautious, Fang Yong ordered the Hu brothers to widen the tunnel before using it.

Now, the two tunnels have been widened a lot, and a large number of Huaiyin soldiers are coming out of the tunnels at night.

Soon, thousands of soldiers entered Chuzhou City without anyone noticing.

The soldiers were divided into two groups and launched attacks from within Chuzhou City.

One group used fireworks to send out signals and cooperate with the main force of the Huaiyin Army outside to capture the city wall.

Another group set fire to the military camp in the city, causing chaos.

The defenders of Chuzhou City had never expected that the Huaiyin Army would appear behind them, and were caught off guard and suffered heavy losses. The Huaiyin Army outside the city received the signal and immediately began to attack the city with all their strength.

The flames were so bright that they illuminated half of the clouds red.

The city at night was as bright as day under the cover of flames.

Niu Jin finally felt proud and led his soldiers to the city wall and cut off the flag.

More and more Huaiyin soldiers rushed forward and successfully occupied Chuzhou.

Upon seeing this, Chuzhou prefect Wu Gui quickly led the remaining several thousand defenders back to the inner city.

The inner city is the location of the Chuzhou government office and also has the residences of some dignitaries. It is not a large area and although it has some defensive capabilities, it cannot be compared with the outer city.

Therefore, Wu Gui was just making a last-ditch effort.

The unrest in Chuzhou City lasted for a long time.

Fang Yong sent people to control the city and capture the chaotic government troops, and he also needed to put out the fire.

After a busy night, the city was finally stabilized.

The next day, Fang Yong did not rest for long, but chose to lead his army to line up outside the inner city, preparing to capture the inner city in one go.

Niu Jin stepped forward to ask for orders.

When attacking the outer city before, he led his troops to charge bravely, but was repeatedly frustrated. Although he finally succeeded in breaking through the city, a large part of the credit was due to the tunnels.

Therefore, this time, Niu Jin planned to lead his troops personally to capture the inner city to prove his ability.

"General, please give me five thousand soldiers and I will capture this city within one day!"

Fang Yong nodded and was about to agree when suddenly, the inner city gate opened from the inside.

Wu Gui, carrying a bramble on his back, walked out with the Huaiyin army envoy who had been under house arrest.

"I, the criminal official Wu Gui, was deceived by others and blocked the general's army for many days. It was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot. My crime is unforgivable. I now apologize for my crime and hope that the general will punish me!"

Niu Jin: ...

Fang Yong really didn't have a good face towards Wu Gui.

This guy was too cunning. He waited until the very end before leading his troops to surrender.

He simply still has illusions about the imperial court.

But it's not easy for me to kill him.

After all, Wu Gui still has several thousand soldiers guarding the inner city. If they must defend it to the death, they can still resist for some time.

Now that the other party has chosen to surrender with their troops, it can be regarded as an indirect reduction of the losses on our side.

In the end, Fang Yong accepted Wu Gui's surrender with a gloomy face, then stripped him of his military power and put him under house arrest.

Afterwards, Fang Yong and Ma Laohei joined forces and began to clean up the entire Chuzhou area.

Some of the wealthy officials who had previously helped the government troops resist the Huaiyin army had their property confiscated and their families exterminated without mercy.

In addition, in order to quickly meet up with Fang Yong as planned, Ma Laohei did not have time to make detailed arrangements for the cities that he had captured.

For example, military settlements have not yet been implemented in Fengyang, Xuzhou and other places.

Now all of these need to be started as soon as possible.

Talent is no longer enough.

All the talented people who had passed the imperial examinations before are now promoted.

For example, Zhang Wen was directly sent by Fang Yong to a prefecture to temporarily manage government affairs.

Although in these newly conquered cities the main power over the running of various affairs is still concentrated in the garrisoned troops, for a rookie like Zhang Wen, it is definitely a great blessing to be promoted to the position of prefect so quickly!
In addition, due to the shortage of manpower, those talents who had previously been arranged to serve as instructors in the army were also promoted and assigned to various counties to serve as county magistrates, county magistrates and other positions.

(End of this chapter)