On April 18, Hecheng was very lively, the Eastern Expedition fleet had already arrived at Changshan Island, and the sentinel ships entered the port first, so there was no need to block the news, and the people of Hecheng already knew that the envoy would lead the Eastern Expeditionary Army to Hecheng today.

Ordinary people were confused and did not care about state affairs, but those who moved to Hecheng suffered from displacement, and finally settled down, and were quite sensitive to war.

In the past ten years, the Dayue Dynasty has been so oppressed that they can't even breathe, and the Huaidong Military Division was able to cross the sea to the east, and the Goryeo people who treacherously surrendered to the East lost their armor, and the people of Hecheng naturally had a great sense of arrogance.

From the moment the news spread, the inside and outside of Hecheng were like a festival, filled with an irrepressible excitement and jubilant atmosphere.

The letter boat arrived at noon and entered the river port to report the news, but there is a yellow sand road in the eastern sea area of Hecheng, and the fleet has to pass through the narrow yellow sand spit waterway, which takes a lot of time, and Lin Mengde, Qin Chengzu, Sun Jingtang and others can only wait patiently on the pond embankment.

Zhu Ai and Zhang Gou happened to return to Hecheng on business today, and they also went to the port with Han Caizhi to welcome the return of the Eastern Expeditionary Army.

When the sun was setting in the west, I finally saw the sail mast out of the sea, and the crowd shouted jubilantly, and the sky suddenly became lively.

It was a southeasterly wind, and the ship was moving very fast, and the wind was blowing, and a moment later the whole fleet appeared in view.

When the Eastern Expedition went to sea, Zhu Ai and Zhang Gou were not in Hecheng, and there was no large-scale water battalion fleet in Hecheng after that, and the main force of the first water battalion was stationed on the Shengsi defense line throughout the winter and spring, which was the first time Zhu Ai saw such a large fleet

In fact, almost one-third of the ships and soldiers of the 2nd Water Battalion were assigned to the Haedonggang Battalion to stay in Jeju, and with the addition of casualties, the size of the Crusade Army was reduced by about half when it returned.

Even so, with three Jinhai-class warships and ten Jiyun-class warships, including troop carriers, horse carriers and cargo ships returning from the same company, the entire fleet has nearly 100 ships and a total capacity of nearly 100,000 stones. A fleet of ships of this magnitude appears in the field of vision, like a large floating island.

Lin Tie stood on the bow of the boat with his hands in his hands, looking at the crane city in the distance.

Compared with Hecheng, the Hanhaihai that extends from Hecheng to the east is like a dormant dragon, which is more majestic and magnificent.

"They stay in Chongzhou, and they are not slow!" Lin Lian squinted at the Hanhai embankment, and smiled with Zhou Pu and Ge Cunxin.

It lasted for half a year, the Hanhai seawall of Jiangmen to Hecheng section was initially completed, the mound of soil is one zhang six feet high, the bottom is three zhang wide, the top is one zhang four feet wide, it extends from Hecheng to the southeast to Jiangmen, nearly 100 miles long.

From Jiangmen to the south bank of Qingjiangpu, the entire Hanhaihai wall is 300 miles long, and the plan is to build it within two years. Jiangmen to Hecheng is the southern section, which is the most fully prepared, and it is only at this time that it is preliminarily completed. Next, a post road will be built at the top of the embankment, willow trees will be planted and a large number of windproof and sea-proof forest belts will be planted outside the embankment.

The whole Huaidong region will enter the rainy season from May, until the mid-autumn of September, it is a rainy season, and the summer is busy with autumn planting, almost all of them are concentrated in this half year, whether it is man-hours or manpower, it is not as sufficient as winter and spring.

Based on this calculation, the construction of the southern section of the Hanhai seawall is slower than planned, mainly due to the impact of the January tidal disaster.

However, the speed of construction was enough to make the officials of the Jiangdong County Department and the Ministry of Industry scare their jaws.

Liu Tingzhou wants to be regarded as a capable official, and when he was in Yandu, he planned to repair the seawall and was very familiar with the embankment. A few years ago, Lin Jian convened all officials in Chongzhou to discuss the repair of the embankment, and Liu Tingzhou thought that Lin Jian would be able to build the seawall in three or five years, which was great, but he did not expect that the 300-mile seawall could really be built in two years.

At the beginning, Chen Zhongnian, a waiter of the Ministry of Works, recruited 300,000 people to repair the Yellow River embankment, and the amount of work was even less than half of the southern section of the seawall.

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Hecheng Port is also divided into inner harbor and outer harbor. It is bounded by the river sluice stone dam, and the outer port outside the stone dam is the seaport; After crossing the river sluice, it is the salt river, the south bank is the inner harbor, it is the river port, there is a city port in the crane city, you have to enter from the north water gate.

Because the sea ships have high masts, they can cross the river lock, but they can't cross the city lock, and the ships of Lin Tie can only anchor in the river port. Lin Jian landed ashore with Zhou Pu, Ge Cunxin and others, and met with Lin Mengde, Qin Chengzu, Sun Jingtang, Sun Jingtang, Hu Zhiyong and others who stayed in front of Chongzhou to greet them.

Even if the imperial court and the Jiangdong County Division were indifferent to the Eastern Expedition, Lin Liandong's victory was also a great joy for Chongzhou and Huaidong. Besides, Lin Jian has been away from Chongzhou for more than four months, and almost all the officials who stayed behind and those who can leave have come to Hecheng to greet them; The Chongzhou gentry, who knew the news in advance, also rushed over to greet them. The scene is very lively and spectacular.

Among the more than 100 people, Zhu Ai and Zhang Gou didn't have a chance to talk, they just came to join in the fun. After Han Caizhi entered Hecheng with Lin Jian and the other officials who greeted him, Zhu Ai and Zhang Gou planned to go back to the section first. There is still a mess of things, saying that it is inconvenient to stay in Hecheng overnight if I rush back today.

Zhu Ai and Zhang Gou walked to the livestock shed to lead the horses, Han Caizhi turned around and came to them at this time, and said, "Why can't I see the two of you in the blink of an eye?" Your Excellency wants you to stay and have a feast! ”

Zhu Ai was quite excited, although he was still a grassroots official, he had already integrated into the group of Huaidong Military Division, so he naturally looked forward to being appreciated and promoted, rubbed his hands, and walked to Hecheng with Han Caizhi.

Zhang Gou was quite cold, he knew in his heart: whether it was to the Huaidong Military Division or the Huaidong Military Division to him, the pole master was a dead knot that could not pass the threshold and could not pass. His real power in the Gongyi camp is even inferior to Zhu Ai, but at the same time, he has to admit that Zhu Ai is a very capable person, if the Huaidong Military Division can really use him regardless of his background, Zhu Ai's future achievements should be above Han Caizhi.

Although Hecheng is the establishment of the inspection department and the grassland department, the city is solid and large, no less than the state and county, and the people in the city and the surrounding tuntian have a large scale. Like Jiangmen, including the setting of officials in the Inspection Department, the preparations for the county have actually been completed, and the imperial court is short of a piece of paper.

Lin Jian was appointed as the envoy of the Huaidong system, as the military and political governor of the two prefectures and eleven counties in Huaidong, but he was only in Chongzhou, and he was able to fully control the military and political affairs, civil affairs, finance, and official appointments.

Even if the Lianghuai Salt District did not need the Hecheng Grassland to provide forage, Zhang Xie, Yue Lengqiu and the others would only agree to divide the Hecheng Grassland into counties if they took the wrong medicine, so that Lin Jian could completely control the land and expand from one county to three counties.

Zhang Gou was more knowledgeable than other generals in the Wandering Army because of his rough practice of writing and ink, and was reused by Liu An'er and Sun Zhuang, and Zhang Gou was also quite complacent, but after arriving in Chongzhou, he really opened his eyes and improved his knowledge.

In Chongzhou for more than half a year, there is an advantage that Zhang Gou can see the Tang Copying Newspaper gathered from all over the country, both new and old. All this alone provided Zhang Gou with a higher-level vision to reflect on the problem that the Wandering People's Army has become more and more tired and weaker over the years.

The year before last, the number of displaced troops entering the Huaisi area was as high as 400,000, and the officers and men in the Huaisi area were mainly the Changhuai Army and the Huaidong Army, but only 40,000 or 50,000. Under the oppression of 40,000 or 50,000 officers and soldiers, the exiled army was defeated.

Not to mention the Huaidong Army, even the Changhuai Army resisted the siege of tens of thousands of elite soldiers of the Liumin Army with less than 20,000 troops under extremely unfavorable circumstances, and held Xuzhou City for half a year without wavering.

The gap between them can no longer be measured simply by combat effectiveness and tactical level.

Including Han Caizhi, Chen Kuili, Zhang Gou, Chen Yan and others, many of the generals of the Liumin Army who joined the army were reflecting on this issue.

Since he did not have much real power, which meant that there were not many affairs, Zhang Gou had more free time to reflect on the success and failure of the exile army.

In the past, due to limited vision and limited conditions, the books collected from the local government were also classics, the words were obscure, concise and mysterious, and there was a suspicion of being mysterious. A book of soldiers, in just a few thousand words, wants to finish the matter of leading troops to fight, and the practical help is very limited, and it is more dependent on the generals to summarize and comprehend it based on actual combat experience.

The Huaidong Army's Horse Infantry Army Drill Code compiled by Lin Jian personally contains tens of thousands of words of the most basic tactical training at the flag and army level alone. In addition to the text, it is more important to supplement it with more than 100 illustrations. Even if you are illiterate, read the diagrams, listen to the explanations of others a few times, and have a slightly more flexible brain, you can master the most basic tactics at the level of the flag team.

When Zhang Gou first got the drill code, he borrowed it from Han Caizhi, and when he first got it, he was like a treasure, thinking that only Han Caizhi could gain the trust of the Huaidong Army to get such a top-secret dossier, and wanted to secretly copy it down and send a copy to the pole master, thinking that if the exiled army could get this code earlier, it would never be so miserable to the officers and soldiers.

The combat training school set up in Hecheng recruited people after the year, and the workers' battalion recommended 400 officers to study in the Hecheng primary combat training school at a time, and Zhang Gou was among them. Every month, I go to Hecheng to study for half a month, and I return to the section for half a month to deal with affairs, and take turns.

After entering the combat training school, Zhang Gou found that he had obtained the treasure of the Mabu Army Drill Code, as long as he entered the combat training school, he could have a book in his hand, and it was not a top-secret file in the Huaidong Military Division. It's no wonder that Han Caizhi didn't guard against him and easily lent him the drill code first.

Constantly seeing new gaps made Zhang Gou more and more depressed about the future of the Displaced People's Army.

Not to mention the contents of the book, which are like treasures, is only an ordinary book of more than 200 pages, nearly three inches thick, well-printed, Zhang Gou used to ask someone to buy and sell it from a bookseller in Jiangning, not to mention ten taels of silver.

The most basic drill code for the Ma Bu Army and the Water Battalion, the officers of the Huaidong Army and above can almost do one book per person, and the cadets who enter the primary combat training school can do one book per person. There are also all kinds of handouts, copying and printing, and the consumption of paper within the Huaidong Army has reached an astonishing scale, and this alone is the homeless army that can't even eat enough, which is far from being comparable.

In addition to the books distributed free of charge, the other books supplied by the Huaidong Military Division to the internal generals and officials were also extremely cheap, and it was often possible to buy a book for several taels of silver for only one or two hundred yuan in the city's bookstores.

In addition to books, the Huaidong Military Division usually sells other daily necessities to internal generals and officials at only half or even a fraction of the market price. Most of these books and other daily necessities are supplied by the workshops in Guanyintan and Chongcheng, which is also a key factor in keeping prices low.

This also ensures that the generals and officials are not well paid, but also relatively well-off, and their lives are not so embarrassing.

The Wandering Army needs to be eliminated through a brutal and bloody war, and on the face of thousands of dead corpses, a qualified battalion general can stand out, and it is only at the basic level that he can be brave and resourceful.

After the year, most of the 400 officers of the Workers' Battalion who were selected to study at the Hecheng Primary War Training School for short-term study were grassroots officers at the level of the former Exile Army. After a short period of intensive study, many of these officers showed a higher tactical standard than the camp of displaced people.

Zhang Gou realized that unless the Displaced People's Army could have such an excellent and complete logistical support system in Huaidong and organize such a large-scale combat training school, it would never be able to catch up with the combat strength of the Huaidong Army.

The tactical cultivation of officers at all levels alone is thousands of miles apart, not to mention the direct mastery and control of officers at all levels by the Huaidong Military Division, which is far from being comparable to that of the exiled army.

At least within the Huaidong Army, no general has the ability to independently pull his subordinates out to join him, and it is unlikely that there will be an incident in which Qu Shuai led his troops to attack and kill the commander.

The more people he learned about the Huaidong Army, the more surprising Zhang Gou felt that the Huaidong Army's victory in the Eastern Expedition was not so surprising.

has all kinds of thoughts in his heart, and at the banquet at night, Zhang Gou is also unhappy.

At the night banquet, even Han Caizhi didn't have much chance to squeeze in front of him. Zhang Gou's temperament was cold, so naturally he didn't even have a chance to speak, so after eating and drinking, he left early and returned to the hall first.

Han Caizhi, Zhu Ai and others came back very late after being drunk. It's rare to have the opportunity to not stop drinking, how many people don't drink when they lead troops to fight? Zhang Gou woke them up and told them that they would not be able to leave Hecheng tomorrow and would wait for the summons.

When Lin Jian first returned to Chongzhou, there were too many affairs to deal with, too many people to meet, and there was no time when he could summon them, but he just asked Han Caizhi, Zhu Ai, and Zhang Gou to wait in Hecheng.