A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 324 Liu Dewei is in danger

The successive victories greatly boosted the morale of the soldiers in Haozhou.

Li Yi, this young steward, is even being referred to by some as the God of War of Hedong. He is now a powerful figure in Hedong, as well as parts of Daibei and Hebei, especially the northeastern part of Hedong.

What should be done with these prisoners?

Two days, two battles, two victories, annihilating 15,000 enemy troops, beheading 3,800, and capturing 11,000. A large number of prisoners were escorted to Haozhou.

Given the precedents of Liu Liu'er and Huang Ziying surrendering and then rebelling again, Li Yi is unlikely to accept their surrender this time. Nor can he imprison them in Haozhou, as food is currently scarce.

"Quickly interrogate them, and send all those with more than a hundred men to Chang'an. As for the rest," Li Yi hesitated.

If they are released, they may return to Liu Wuzhou's army in the blink of an eye. But if they are kept or sent to Chang'an, it will consume food and manpower, which is a headache.

"Review it first, make sure you understand the name, place of origin, etc."

"Just give us a bowl of thin porridge a day to keep us going."

Li Zhongwen thought it best to just kill him.

Since Liu Wuzhou's invasion, the Tang army has suffered heavy casualties. He was ambushed in Queshu Valley, where nearly four thousand soldiers were killed.

Pei Jisuodu was defeated and retreated all the way to Yuzhou, a distance of 800 li, losing tens of thousands of men.

“You’ve reminded me that many of our soldiers have been captured by Liu Wuzhou. Perhaps we can ask the Emperor to exchange prisoners with Liu Wuzhou.”

The autumn wind rustled.

November is just around the corner, and in Haozhou, the nights are not only frosty, but snow could also fall at any moment.

The north wind howled.

Nestled between the Taiyue and Lüliang Mountains, the wind feels exceptionally strong.

Fortunately, the soldiers had no shortage of winter clothes and plenty of food.

Haozhou is not in a critical stage yet; in fact, their situation is even more relaxed than that of the southern states such as Jiangyu, Taihui, and Pu.

"Liu Wuzhou has suffered such a great loss, losing many soldiers and generals here, and the supply route to Queshu Valley is still blocked. He will definitely not let this go. The death of Huang Ziying may even provoke Liu Wuzhou to attack personally," Liu Zhan reminded Li Yi.

The Fen River will soon freeze over.

The winters in Haozhou are snowy and cold, which is actually an advantage for us who are defending the city. Li Yi was already well prepared for Liu Wuzhou's future siege of Haozhou or attack on Queshu Valley, so he was not very worried.

The biggest fear when defending a city is food shortage.
They have enough food to last for half a year, and the passage to Xizhou is still open, so Haozhou is not an isolated city.

"If Liu Wuzhou wants to take over Haozhou, I'm afraid he doesn't have the teeth to hold on. He might break one of his teeth in the process," Li Yi laughed.

His composure inspired officials like Liu Zhan and Ren Zhi, who also became less worried.

Two days later,
Li Zhongwen and Li Daoxuan returned in triumph, and their three thousand meritorious light cavalry also returned to Haozhou to garrison.

They brought back more than 10,000 prisoners.

These prisoners, bound together with ropes and shivering in the cold wind, still had to carry various spoils of war south for the Tang army.

Standing on the city gate tower,

Looking at these prisoners of war, they were quite pitiful.

In any war, ordinary soldiers are always the most pitiful.

at night,

Li Yi held a banquet to celebrate his victory.
He also rewarded the triumphant 3,000 cavalry with mutton, persimmon wine, and sesame cakes, and gave them a three-day leave.

Other soldiers stationed in Haozhou also received mutton soup and steamed buns as a reward.

At the victory banquet at the General's Mansion,

The Ren and Guo families of Xihe, as well as the Wu family of Wenshui and the Cao family of Xiaoyi, and other local powerful families made a request to Li Yi.

"You want to buy these eleven thousand prisoners?"

"General, these people are all traitors, including four thousand mountain barbarians. Haozhou is isolated in the north, and grain is precious. How can we waste our precious food on these traitors?" Wu Hongsi harbored deep hatred for Huang Ziying's troops who had raped and plundered in Wenshui City.

"We are willing to share the burden for the General Manager, and transport all these prisoners to Chang'an to sell them. Then we will purchase millet, wheat, salt, soy sauce and other supplies for the General Manager and transport them back to Haozhou."

The more than 10,000 prisoners of war in Li Yi's hands were high-quality slaves, as they were mostly young and strong men, and most of them could speak Chinese. Unlike the barbarian and Qiang slaves, who could not understand Chinese and could only do manual labor, Li Yi was a good slave.

The local powerful clans like Ren, Guo, Wu, and Cao were quite shrewd. They could make a lot of money by transporting so many slaves to Chang'an, and then they could make another fortune by transporting grain back.

Moreover, once these slaves are captured, the Tang army's spoils of war will certainly be sold to them, or entrusted to them for resale, allowing them to make another profit.

In peaceful times, a slave in Chang'an could be sold for ten or twenty thousand coins, while a dou (a unit of dry measure) of rice cost only twenty or thirty coins, meaning a slave could be exchanged for fifty or sixty shi (a unit of dry measure) of rice. But now, with the war raging, a slave in Chang'an can only be sold for a few thousand coins, while a dou of rice costs two or three hundred coins.

On this frontier battlefield, prisoners of war will definitely be cheaper.

"What price are you willing to offer, and how much grain are you willing to transport in exchange?"

The group then began to quote prices to Li Yi.

Li Yi kept shaking his head; the price was too low.

"In that case, I won't force you to exchange rice for slaves. Business will continue as it comes. You can buy slaves with silk first."

It doesn't distinguish between the old, the weak, the young, the strong, the mountain people, or anything else.

Eleven thousand prisoners of war, two hundred and twenty thousand bolts of raw silk—how you distribute them is your business. As long as you don't sell these slaves to Liu Wuzhou or Liu Jizhen, the price you set them for is also your business.

However, I request that you transport a batch of grain to Haozhou to sell to me, at a price that you can set according to market conditions.

Twenty bolts of silk for one able-bodied prisoner of war—this price is considered cheap. According to the Kaihuang Wuzhu coin used previously, one bolt of silk was worth 360 coins, or one dou of rice. This prisoner of war could be exchanged for 7,200 Kaihuang Wuzhu coins, or two shi of rice.

However, if we consider the newly minted Kaiyuan Tongbao coins of the current imperial court, where a bolt of silk is worth two hundred coins and still worth one dou of rice, then this prisoner of war would be worth four thousand coins, or still two shi of rice.

“I will use these 220,000 bolts of silk to buy the grain you have traded.”

The group looked at each other and said they needed to discuss it.

"random,"

Li Yi actually supported their proposal. Whether he stayed or was taken to Chang'an, it would be quite troublesome, and exchanging prisoners was not an easy task.

It's good that someone is willing to take it on.

Twenty-two hundred thousand bolts of silk is no small amount. Whether it's used to reward the soldiers, to buy horses from the Turks, or to order grain from these powerful families, it would be a good investment.

"If Liu Wuzhou knew that each of his soldiers was only worth two shi of grain, he would probably be furious. The armor and weapons of those soldiers were worth several twenty bolts of silk, and each soldier ate six or seven dou of grain a month," Li Zhongwen said with a smile.

"You can't calculate it like that," Li Yi laughed. Maintaining a soldier certainly costs a lot of money, and training and equipment cost even more, especially experienced veterans who are more valuable. But now they're prisoners of war, and Li Yi can't use them.
Then they're worthless; the equipment they're taken from them is more valuable.

"Liu Wuzhou only has so much wealth, and he's already suffered several setbacks here. It must have been quite a blow, right?"

"At most, we suffered some losses. After all, whether it's Huang Ziying or Liu Liu'er, we've been fighting them all the time. It's always the same small group of people."

Only Huang Ziying had a few thousand elite armored soldiers under his command; the rest were either mountain barbarians or newly recruited laborers conscripted after arriving in Taiyuan. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy to defeat them.

Liu Wuzhou's elite troops numbered in the tens of thousands, with the majority of the main force led by Song Jingang and Prime Minister Yuchi Gong heading towards Jiangzhou.

The rest were mainly in Liu Wuzhou's hands, still in Taiyuan.

"That's not a small amount either. We even beat Liu Jizhen of Lishi so badly that he was left standing on the fence and watching. Doesn't that count as cutting off one of his fingers?"

Everyone had a relaxed chat.

"Duke Rongguo,"

Lu Chisong came over and said, "My brothers are interrogating prisoners of war. Liu Liu'er's son gave some information, which hasn't been confirmed yet, but it's quite important."

"Oh?"

Li Yi followed him to the side.

"Liu Liu'er's son confessed that when Liu Wuzhou issued the decree to Liu Liu'er, the messenger revealed that Liu Shishan of Xizhou had already accepted Liu Wuzhou's conferment of titles..."

After listening, Li Yi's expression turned serious.

Liu Shishan was a local powerful figure in Xizhou and a member of the same Qihu tribe as Liu Jizhen. However, his family had served the court since the Northern Wei Dynasty and had been border generals for generations.

Unexpectedly, this guy was secretly turned against his own side by Liu Wuzhou, who appointed him as the Prince of Longquan and the Grand Governor of Xizhou.

Liu Wuzhou even promised Liu Shishan that if he could eliminate Liu Dewei's 15,000 men who had entered Xizhou, he would be promoted to Prince Ning, ranking alongside Prince Peng, Liu Jizhen.

"Liu Dewei is in grave danger,"

Li Yi quickly calculated the days. After the Battle of Xiaoyi on the third day of the tenth month, Liu Dewei began leading his army to Xizhou a few days later. It had already been more than ten days.

The distance from Xiaoyi City to Shilou County is 230 li.

"Have you been in contact with Liu Dewei's unit these past few days?"

"We only contact each other every three to five days,"

"When was the last time?"

Li Yi quickly found the relevant people to inquire, and found that the last time Liu Dewei Jun contacted them was five days ago.

Li Yi suddenly felt uneasy.

Please, please don't let anything happen. Xizhou is the only passage connecting Haozhou to the south.

"Perhaps Liu Liu'er's son was just talking nonsense?"

“Since he even mentioned that Liu Shishan was granted the title of Prince of Longquan and Grand General of Xizhou, and said that he would be granted the title of Prince of Ning as long as he annihilated Liu Dewei’s troops, then this matter is most likely true.” Li Yi frowned.

"Immediately dispatch several light cavalry squads to Xizhou to find Liu Dewei's troops and quickly inform him of Liu Shishan's possible rebellion."

"What if this is Liu Wuzhou's scheme to sow discord?" Lu Chisong warned.

"Liu Liu'er was beheaded in our surprise attack on the mountain, and his son was captured by us. How could he have foreseen all of this? Was he deliberately captured by us to be a suicide spy?"

Lu Chisong shook his head, "But perhaps Liu Shishan didn't rebel at all, and Liu Wuzhou just gave Liu Liu'er a false message to trick him into obeying orders to send troops?"

"It's possible, but it concerns Liu Dewei and his 15,000 men, and even more so, the safety of Xizhou. We'd rather believe it's true than not. We must immediately inform Liu Dewei and warn him to be cautious."
It would be best to detain Liu Shishan first, and then investigate the matter thoroughly. If Liu Shishan is truly innocent, I am willing to apologize to him.

“The Duke of Rongguo is indeed very thoughtful. I will make the arrangements right away.” Lu Chisong thought for a moment, “I will also go there in person.”

“If Liu Shishan really dares to collude with Liu Wuzhou to rebel, I will personally cut off his head.”

Li Yi nodded.
His biggest worry now is that Liu Dewei's troops, whom he hasn't contacted for five days, have been ambushed by Liu Shishan.

This war really knows no bounds. His victory celebration hasn't even ended yet, and he's already facing this crisis.

Li Yi informed Li Zhongwen, Liu Zhan, and several other generals of the situation, and they were all greatly alarmed.

"If Liu Shishan of Xizhou rebels like Liu Jizhen of Shizhou, then we will truly be surrounded on all sides and fight alone."

"This Liu Shishan is also a Buluoqi Hu, a descendant of the Xiongnu. He is not of our race, so his heart must be different!"

"I haven't heard from Liu Dewei for five days. Could it be such a coincidence?"

(End of this chapter)