Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 70: Financial Exhaustion

Qin Baoqing was waiting in the mountain stronghold for the people he had sent out to return.

After a while, several people came back in a panic.

One of them even ran too fast and slipped and fell flat on his face.

"Boss, Boss, it's bad, the Huaiyin bandits are attacking us, they are attacking us!"

Qin Baoqing panicked.

The Huaiyin bandits attacked the mountain?

"How many of them are there?"

The man said with trembling lips:
"Look, I can't see clearly. It's just a huge black mass of people, endless, filling up the mountain pass. There must be at least 40,000 or 50,000 people!"

"what!"

Qin Baoqing was so frightened that his face turned pale.

The other people in the village were trembling with fear.

Forty or fifty thousand people, their entire mountain village has only more than a thousand people, forty or fifty thousand people are enough to flatten the mountain.

"Brother, run, we can't beat them!"

"Why don't you surrender, brother? Send the people back!"

The subordinates made suggestions one after another.

However, before Qin Baoqing could think more, the subordinate said:

"Also, Boss, I saw those people brought hundreds of cannons and are preparing to attack our mountain gate!"

cannon!

Qin Baoqing raised his head in fear, and the next moment, he heard a loud "boom" from outside!

This was followed by continuous artillery fire.

The mountain gate shook, and countless screams were heard from outside!

In fact, there were not hundreds of cannons, only thirty cannons.

But even so, these inexperienced bandits were still thrown into chaos.

Qin Baoqing's men were defeated before they had time to organize themselves.

"kill!"

Zhou Shuan led his troops to charge towards the mountain stronghold with murderous intent.

A young leader from the mountain stronghold came forward. He was a skilled martial artist and was ready to fight Zhou Shuan!

However, the reality is cruel.

Before the young commander could get into position, the archers behind Zhou Shuan drew their bows and shot arrows, instantly turning him into a sieve.

Zhou Shuan didn't even look at it and continued to lead his troops forward.

Seeing this, the bandits along the way either fled or surrendered, and no one dared to resist.

Qin Baoqing listened to the deafening shouts and screams outside, and he realized that he was finished.

At this time, Qin Baoqing no longer wanted to resist. He hurriedly took the gold, silver and treasures and ran to the path in the back mountain, ready to escape.

But when Qin Baoqing just arrived at the back mountain, he found that several other commanders in the mountain stronghold were waiting for him with unfriendly faces.

Qin Baoqing asked in a panic:

"You, what are you going to do!?"

One person said calmly:
"Boss, you ordered the horse to be seized. If you run away now, what will the brothers do?"

Qin Baoqing was startled, not realizing that these people wanted to help him hand him over to the Huaiyin bandits.

He ran back instantly, but was quickly caught up by several people, pinned to the ground and tied up.

Qin Baoqing struggled and shouted:

"You bunch of ungrateful people, I am your eldest brother, we are sworn brothers!"

The commanders said:

"Brother, since we are sworn brothers, you as the eldest brother should lend a hand to the brothers, take the blame for us, and plead for mercy with General Fang! Don't worry, the brothers will burn paper for you at this time next year!"

Qin Baoqing wanted to speak more, but his mouth was blocked.

Shortly after,
Huaizhou.

"You are the one who stole my horse?"

Fang Yong looked down at Qin Baoqing who was kneeling below.

Qin Baoqing was shaking like a sieve, and he shook his head in fear:
"I dare not, General Fang, this is all a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding."

Fang Yong looked at Qin Baoqing indifferently.

"Misunderstanding?" Qin Baoqing instinctively felt a murderous aura and kowtowed quickly.

"Please spare my life, General Fang. How dare I steal your things?" Qin Baoqing's eyes suddenly turned and he said, "Yes, it was Kong Qinglin. He ordered me to do it!"

Kong Qinglin.

Fang Yong kept repeating the name.

Qin Baoqing said quickly:

"Yes, it was him. He is the magistrate of Fei County and a member of the Kong family. He was the one who instigated me to steal your horse!"

The Kong family.

Fang Yong thought about it, his eyes flashing.

"Take him away and keep him under good care!"

In an instant, an expression of surviving a disaster appeared in Qin Baoqing's eyes.

The men took Qin Baoqing away.

Fang Yong thought that no matter whether this matter was related to the Kong family or not, as long as Qin Baoqing was in his hands, he could use it to deal with the Kong family in the future.

Outside Huaiyin City, Fang Yong built several military horse farms specifically for raising war horses and training cavalry.

The cost of these war horses was greater than he had imagined.

Not to mention other expenses, just talking about feed, war horses eat better than humans.

Unlike ordinary horses that only eat grass, war horses need to eat concentrated feed to ensure their condition and physical fitness during combat.

These concentrated feeds are mainly grains and beans, and sometimes eggs and sesame oil are added to supplement their nutrition. This level of food standard is not even met by many civilians in Fangyong.

It is true that animals are more valuable than humans.

In addition, the daily consumption of the heavy cavalry unit formed by Fang Yong is also a huge number.

These soldiers need to wear heavy armor for training every day, which consumes a lot of physical energy. If there is not enough meat to go with it, the nutrition cannot be supplied at all.

In this era, due to the lack of large-scale farming, meat is much more expensive than ordinary food.

In order to solve this problem, Fang Yong called on civilians to raise ducks in addition to farming, and would send people to purchase the ducks after they grew up.

For this purpose, Fang Yong raised two ducklings in his own house.

[Talent: Breeding (Normal)]

【Progress: 5/100】

【Benefits: The livestock will be well-fed and disease-free. 】

In the horse farm, soldiers were training on war horses.

The training of heavy cavalry mainly focuses on physical fitness and formation, followed by mounted archery and hacking.

Strong physical fitness is a prerequisite. Soldiers need to wear heavy armor to charge and carry at least dozens of kilograms of weight. Without sufficient physical fitness, they cannot fight at all.

The second is formation. The formation of heavy cavalry during charge is very important. As long as the formation is maintained well, the heavy cavalry has an overwhelming advantage over the infantry. Especially on the plains, a team of heavy cavalry maintaining formation for charge is comparable to a tank and can easily disperse and defeat the infantry.

Archery and hacking are the conventional combat methods of heavy cavalry. Some top-level heavy cavalry units can also use throwing axes and hand cannons to increase their attack methods.

However, under the excellent matching mechanism of the Daxi Dynasty, Fang Yong did not need that kind of elite heavy cavalry unit armed to the teeth. He only needed a qualified heavy cavalry unit of 10,000 people, which was enough to sweep across most of Daxi.

Beijing.

There were two memorials on Emperor Longqing's desk.

One is from Wang Ziteng.

It records Wang Ziteng’s recent achievements.

The report wrote that after Mao Cheng took office, he fought very bravely, killed the enemy bravely, achieved many results, and made outstanding contributions.

This memorial was to request credit for Mao Cheng.

But at the same time, Wang Ziteng also said in his report that the Huaiyin bandits relied on boats to launch surprise attacks on the water. Zhang Yuan, the former naval commander of Fan Lianghu and current Huaiyin bandit commander, commanded the navy to launch repeated surprise attacks. The government troops had no means of counterattack, so the attack was thwarted.

In the current battle situation, both sides have suffered losses and neither can do anything to the other, and the battle has reached a stalemate.

Emperor Longqing felt extremely annoyed when reading Wang Ziteng's report.

The daily cost of food and rations for the nearly 200,000 troops in the Huaizhou area was astronomical. Coupled with the unrest in Shanxi, the treasury of Daxi was already empty.

If this continues, the finances will not be able to sustain it.

However, Emperor Longqing could not find any reason to blame Wang Ziteng.

After all, Wang Ziteng had always won most of the battles in frontal combat, but he was forced to be passive due to the lack of warships on the water.

A good cook cannot cook without rice. It is not Wang Ziteng's fault that this situation happened.

In his memorial, Wang Ziteng requested the Fujian Navy to be dispatched for support.

However, the ships of the Fujian Navy were all seagoing ships, not suitable for sailing in inland rivers. Moreover, there was no suitable waterway from Fujian to the Huaizhou area, and forcing them to go there would only backfire.

(End of this chapter)