(Two chapters in one)

"In troubled times, people's lives are as cheap as grass!" Lin Tie stood on the grass with his hands in his hands, looked at the sunset on the top of the distant mountain, and said with emotion.

Around Lin Lian, there was only Gao Zongting alone, and the guards were scattered around.

Gao Zongting had just accompanied Lin Jian from the medical camp to visit the injured general.

In front of the injured soldiers, Lin Jian wanted to encourage the morale of the people, and let everyone know that being injured or even sacrificing was glorious and worthwhile; In front of officials and generals, Lin Jian must show a firm and iron-blooded will, and strive for victory at any cost and sacrifice; But Lin Jian hadn't cultivated to the level of being iron-hearted, so he couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

Sometimes this kind of emotion is also a manifestation of weakness and hesitation, and Lin Jian also regards Gao Zongting as a teacher and friend, so that there is less estrangement and more honesty.

After 20 days of continuous attack on Yongjia, the Huaidong Army suffered nearly 7,000 casualties, with the New Southern Zhejiang Army and the Eastern Zhejiang Xingying Army suffering the most serious casualties, and the number of generals of these two armies who died on the battlefield has accumulated more than 1,500.

Since Lin Jiao's rise to Jiangning, the Huaidong Army has not suffered such heavy casualties in a short-term local battle.

Gao Zongting looked at the flowers in the mountains and fields, it was already early summer, and said: "We can't let the war drag on until the rainy season, we must let the luxury family make the decision to evacuate Yongjia or reinforce Yongjia before the rainy season, and it must be fought like this!" The more brutal and the more intense the consumption, in order to break the 'drag' plan of the extravagant family - before the war, I was worried that the generals would be able to withstand such a strong attack, and it seems that I was too worried. ”

Lin Lian turned around, looked at the camp built around the mountain, and said: "The situation does not allow us to calmly clean up the old mountains and rivers, the so-called strategy and tactics, there is a very important principle, that is, do not give what the enemy wants!" The luxury family is determined to delay, and we naturally want to fight fiercely! ”

After a pause, Lin Jian said: "When it comes to governing the army, if you have clear rewards and punishments and strict discipline, you will already have the clues of a famous general," Lin Jian said, "But I think this is still a bit insufficient—there are still many places for in-depth work." ”

Gao Zongting smiled and said: "When it comes to governing the army, when no one in the world can match the Lord - when the Lord led the Jiangdong Left Army to the north to King Qin, Yannan won four battles and four victories, and the commander was full of praise. Compared with the adult's plan, the adult's short period of ten months has made the Jiangdong Left Army like a tiger and wolf division, and the commander is even more impressed - today I know that the adult has another plan, but it is still surprising to make people take the case! ”

The question of how high a battle loss rate the army can withstand without collapsing is a question worth exploring.

Since the campaign is composed of multiple battles of various sizes, and there is a buffer during the battle, the battle loss rate is much higher than that of a single battle.

But in any case, there are very few elite troops in the world that can withstand more than 30% casualties in just 20 days, and still ensure that morale is not greatly damaged.

Compared with other elites of the Huaidong Army, the New Southern Zhejiang Army was established for the shortest time, the Eastern Zhejiang Camp Army experienced the least war, and the system was relatively complex. However, after these two armies suffered more than 30 percent casualties in 20 days, their morale and will to fight remained at a considerable level. Moreover, the New Southern Zhejiang Army suffered nearly 2,000 casualties in the Battle of Wushanjian and the Battle of Tianshui Village.

Morale can be maintained without setback, Lin Tie made Zhou Tong do a lot of work, including quickly transporting the bodies of the dead soldiers to Yueqing and other places for centralized burial, quickly withdrawing the severely disabled soldiers from the battlefield to Ouhai for resettlement, and staying in the military medical camp for treatment on the spot, the wounded are not particularly serious and the number of wounded is extremely large.

Of course, the most important one is that the bereavement field and the military merit award field have been vigorously launched in late March under the personal supervision of Lin Lian. This has an immediate, sustained and profound effect on morale.

In a brutal war, no matter how well the local forces can protect themselves, it is difficult to avoid being hit.

If people flee or die, or if they are questioned or suppressed after the war, a large amount of terra nullius will be created.

The Zhejiang-Fujian army entered southern Zhejiang on a large scale, and even if it did not blackmail the local forces too much, it would also regard the ownerless land as a matter of course as the war dividends that the clan forces headed by the eight surnames, including the luxury families, should enjoy.

In the early years, Lin Jian led the Jiangdong Left Army to the north to Qinwang, and joined forces with the Jin Navy to recover Hejian Province. It is also because of this that Sun, Zhou and other clans completely supported Huaidong, and finally chose to follow Lin Jian from Jinhai to move to Huaidong.

The biggest difference is that the power of the luxury family is fundamentally structured on the clan power, and they can only use the plundered land as a reward for the subordinate clan power, and from the early Sun, Zhou and other clans moved to Huaidong and Lin Xuwen, Huang Jinnian and others finally withdrew from Jinhai, Lin Jian restricted them from annexing the land from the local area, but still found a better way out for the large amount of capital accumulated in their hands, which was also acceptable to them, that is, trade and capital colonization.

In this way, Lin Jian fundamentally avoided the involvement of the Sun, Zhou, Lin, Huang and other ethnic groups to exacerbate the contradictions of local land annexation. There was little resistance within the Huaidong Military Department to the formation of a unified idea to curb land annexation, which was particularly important.

Even the Lin family, including Lin Xuwen, sold the fields acquired by several generations on a large scale in the later period, and exchanged them for gold and silver capital as the principal and invested them in Huaidong Qianzhuang for capital colonization.

Only in this way can Lin Jian obtain enough official land to carry out large-scale casualty compensation and military merit awarding land.

There is no more direct and thorough means to make ordinary generals loyal than to grant land in the world.

Rewarding gold and silver may make the generals grateful, and sometimes plundering is also a way to reward merit and boost morale; But giving the field can make the generals and other families be grateful.

In an agrarian society, people are attached to the land and live in groups, and any nature and degree of betrayal not only means that the land may be re-deprived, but also that oneself and one's family will be excluded from the village and completely unable to raise their heads - to this extent, it also makes the generals more loyal and heroic than others.

The tradition of the Huaidong Military Division must be maintained, and it is also necessary to avoid arousing resistance from local forces, but at the same time, Lin Jian needs to extensively grant land to the generals of southern Zhejiang, so as to establish as soon as possible his personal prestige and that of the Huaidong Military Division in southern Zhejiang, and to determine the ruling foundation that cannot be replaced by others—the only means is to make the war in southern Zhejiang suddenly fierce, so that the scope of compensation for casualties or military merits can be rapidly expanded.

Although Yueqing and Ouhai counties are located in the valley plain of the lower reaches of the Yongjia River, the territory is mountainous, and the number of fields is far from being comparable with the prefectures and counties of Hailing Mansion and Pingjiang Prefecture.

How much public land can be taken over and found out from Yueqing and Ouhai counties has not yet been finally counted at this time, but it is unlikely to exceed 150,000 mu. Even if we add Huipu and Wenling, as well as Hengyang and Pingming counties in the south, the total amount of official land that can be obtained from Yongjia and Taizhou may be 450,000 mu -- compared with the nearly 400,000 mu of official land that Huaidong obtained from Chongzhou County in the first place, we can know the shortage of grain fields in southern Zhejiang.

The eastern part of Yongjia Prefecture and the eastern part of Taizhou Prefecture add up to about five counties, but because of the wide distribution of coastal river valley plains in the territory, it is the most abundant area of land and population resources in southern Zhejiang. After the brutal war, there are still more than 110,000 households in the five counties, which should account for more than half of the three prefectures in southern Zhejiang.

Of the 110,000 households in the five counties, about seventy or eighty percent are landless poor tenant farmers.

This time, more than 6,000 families of poor families from southern Zhejiang were directly involved, and the total amount of land granted was about 90,000 mu of water and dry land.

Of the more than 6,000 children of the Han family, about half of them were generals of the former southern Zhejiang Resistance Army, a considerable number of them were township soldiers recruited from the local government after the formation of the new southern Zhejiang army, and a considerable part of them were township soldiers who surrendered in Tianshui, Wuyi, and Zhangdu Sanzhai. They have a characteristic, they don't have much sense of identity with the luxury family and the Zhejiang and Fujian Army, and although they have a sense of identity with the Huaidong Military Division before, they can't talk about it very profoundly.

Casualty compensation and military merit awards are of extra importance at this time.

With these more than 6,000 households and other poor tenants who have benefited from the new policy of rent reduction and tax exemption, the foundation of the Huaidong Military Division's rule in southern Zhejiang will be directly consolidated, and at the same time, other children of poor families from southern Zhejiang will be encouraged, and they will naturally compete to serve the Huaidong Army and the Huaidong Military Division.

The only way to achieve this step is to have the basis for Huaidong to further engage in a long-term tug-of-war and war of attrition with the luxury family in southern Zhejiang.

Lin Lian had nothing to do, and talked to Gao Zongting about his experience of the agrarian revolution in later generations, plus his own experience over the years.

"After granting land and occupying southern Zhejiang, the income of public land will be reduced by a lot!" Gao Zongting said with emotion.

At present, Huaidong's public land income accounts for a considerable proportion, and the Huaidong Army's military expenditure has increased rapidly, so if Huaidong's income in all aspects should increase rapidly if it is not financially tight.

Gao Zongting and the Huaidong people all hoped that the amount of public land and the consequent rental income would continue to increase with the expansion of the Huaidong army, and should not stagnate.

"In the past, increasing the source of revenue from the newly expanded areas mainly relied on taxes and rent collection from public land," Lin said, "We need to change our thinking, and we must focus on restoring local production - we will undoubtedly be able to obtain a good income by issuing Huaidong copper dollars." At the same time, we import a large amount of iron, salt and other materials to ensure that the Huaidong copper dollar has a channel for reflux to ensure the stability of the currency value, but at the same time, the iron and salt can be imported on a large scale, and we can also share this part of the income. Even if you don't consider the long-term, short-term gains, it will not be much less than the traditional way......"

Huaidong's copper yuan inscription made by innovative technology is exquisite, easy to accept by the public, and difficult to imitate, but the cost is lower than the traditional casting money.

The most important thing is that the value of Huaidong copper yuan is ten times or even dozens of times that of traditional copper money, and the income of Huaidong copper yuan is naturally extremely high. The only thing to pay attention to is to prevent the blind pursuit of coinage profits and indiscriminate and crazy creation, resulting in uncontrolled and crazy inflation of prices.

Taking the initiative to import salt, iron and other materials, on the one hand, is to ensure the stability of the value of Huaidong copper yuan, on the other hand, the import of bulk materials into the trade, will bring a lot of benefits to Huaidong at the same time.

Hearing Lin Tie say this, Gao Zongting said with a smile: "Speaking of salt and iron, the envoy sent by Zhang Yan has already arrived in Yueqing, you can't keep avoiding it!" ”

At present, the monopoly of salt and iron, especially the Lianghuai salt tax, is currently the most important source of income for Jiangning, and Jiangning is absolutely unwilling to let go of a financial power to the local government.

The war in southern Zhejiang was in full swing, and the lost territory was frequently regained, and Zhang Yan couldn't wait to stretch out his tentacles.

Lin Jian smiled and said: "Let Hu Zhiyong drive people back - let's just say that the military expenses of the Huaidong Army in southern Zhejiang will cost 200,000 taels of silver every month." When will Jiangning fill this gap to Huaidong, and then send someone to talk about the salt and iron tax......"

"Salt is a great benefit," Gao Zongting said with emotion, "After the emperor ascended the throne in Jiangning, he had the intention to clean up the broken mountains and rivers and rectify the defense line, and the first thing he cared about was to raise money." When the new emperor ascended the throne, he couldn't use a knife to increase the levy, and he didn't compete with the local government for financial power for a while, but he could only pin his hopes on Zhang Yan......"

"On the one hand, salt merchants are wantonly mixing illegal salt with official salt for sale," Lin said, "but even if the imperial court can vigorously crack down on illegal salt, the price of salt will rise significantly, forcing the people to eat mainly light food, and it is difficult to make a comprehensive improvement in salt tax revenue......

"It may not be a good thing to drive the people sent by Zhang Yan away," Gao Zongting pondered for a moment and said, "I'm afraid that other vassal marshals will follow Huaidong's example, and Huaidong will not benefit much if he bears a bad reputation......."

"According to what the sect court sees, what should we do?" Lin Jian asked.

"In the salt matter in southern Zhejiang, Huaidong still holds on to the issue of 'military dependents'!" Gao Zongting offered advice, "It is recommended that your lord let Lord Hu negotiate with the people sent by Zhang Yan, and the matter of salt belonging to the general will be included in the exclusive scope of the Huaidong Military Division; In addition, the salt affairs in southern Zhejiang will be returned to the salt and iron envoys......"

"......" Lin Jian thought about Gao Zongting's suggestion.

Gao Zongting continued: "The price of salt is high, and salt is a heavy burden on the poor people, so the poor families usually rely on light food. Huaidong supplies salt to military families, even if the current salt price is reduced by half, there is still a profit of 40 yuan for every pound of salt supplied, and while making up for the gap in military funds, the most important thing is to consolidate the dominant position of military households in the local area, so that they will be more loyal to Huaidong, and at the same time, it can further attract poor children in southern Zhejiang to participate in the Huaidong military ......."

"This works......" Lin Lian nodded. Governing the army and governing the localities is a complex study that wins the hearts and minds of the people, and in a nutshell, it is nothing more than giving favors and benefiting them.

But treating each other the same may not be the best.

When ordinary people in southern Zhejiang were forced to eat high-priced official salt, military families were able to get a supply of cheap salt - the comparison between the two could make military families feel the benefits and benefits brought to them by Huaidong more truly.

Gao Zongting also said: "Supplying salt to military families is carried out with the Huaidong Army generals, and even this standard can be raised a little more - these can be discussed with the officials of the Salt and Iron Envoy Division, presumably Jiang Ning has nothing to say about this." ”

Lin Jian glanced up at Gao Zongting.

Gao Zongting's policy is very poisonous, but the poison is poison to Jiangning's salt administration, but it is beneficial and harmless to Huaidong.

The standard for the supply of Huaidong generals is six catties of salt a year, but where can the poor people in the local area afford to eat so much salt? Usually mostly light food, as long as in the busy season, only eat more salt, a family of young and old together, may not be able to afford to eat six catties of salt a year.

If Huaidong supplies salt to military dependents at the standard of six catties of salt per person a year or even higher, in fact, a large amount of private salt will flow semi-openly to the local areas through this method. It is one thing for Huaidong to benefit from this, but more importantly, this practice will openly destroy the foundation of Jiangning's salt administration at the local level.

If no one in Jiangning realizes the trap, in the short term, it will be Huaidong who will return the salt to Jiangning in the newly occupied land in southern Zhejiang, but in the long run, when this method is widely promoted in the areas controlled by Huaidong, the salt tax revenue that Jiangning can obtain from Huaidong will drop sharply - and all this is done on the basis of Jiangning's formal consent, and Jiangning will not be able to regret it.

Other marshals could not succeed if they wanted to learn from Huaidong, after all, only Huaidong could control the salt works at present, and even purchased a large amount of private salt from the Haidong region.

"Compared to driving people away directly, the sect's strategy is very good!" Lin Jian said, "The specific details will be discussed between you and Zhiyong......

To be honest, Lin Jian had always been worried that Gao Zongting was too deeply influenced by Li Zhuo, and worried that when the conflict between Huaidong and the Yuan clan intensified in the future, Gao Zongting's position would become hesitant again.

Gao Zongting's policy can be said to have the effect of drawing wages from the bottom of the kettle for Jiangning Salt Administration, but what makes Lin Lian even more pleased is that Gao Zongting's position of taking Huaidong's interests as the fundamental.

Fundamentally, if Huaidong wants to take a path of going against the grain, it is necessary to do everything possible to weaken the Jiangning regime while strengthening Huaidong.

However, under the current situation, in order to implement the strategy of defending Huai and attacking Fujian, Huaidong has no choice but to maintain the stability of the Jiangning regime, avoid conflicts with Jiangning, and provoke new contradictions.

Qin, Cao, Fu and others are more good at military strategy, and Lin Mengde, Sun Jingxuan, Hu Zhiyong and others, although they are good at government affairs, but when it comes to using tactics, digging pits for opponents, and setting traps, they are not as good as Gao Zongting.

Thinking of this, Lin Jian thought of Song Jia who stayed in Yueqing at this time, when it comes to the level of strategy, Song Jia is not slightly inferior to Gao Zongting, but I don't know what kind of character Song Fu is who cultivated Song Jia's daughter?

"Okay, Master Hu will go to Ouhai tomorrow, and I'll go to Ouhai." Gao Zongting didn't know that Lin Lian's mind had already wandered all over the world, but he replied quietly, and some things could only be tacitly carried out for the time being.

At this time, Zhou Tong rode over, handed over the horse to Hu Cong to lead, climbed the grassy slope, and asked from a distance: "What are you discussing with Mr. Gao?" There was no one for half a day. ”

"I'm discussing the salt matter in southern Zhejiang," Lin Lian replied, "What are you here to make a fuss about?" ”

"Salt matter?" Zhou Tong asked suspiciously, and then said, "The people sent by Jiang Ning, rushing back, Jiang Ning didn't give any benefits, but wanted to grab the benefits, how can there be such a cheap thing in the world?" "As the chief general of southern Zhejiang, Zhou Tong naturally knew about the matter of Zhang Yan, the envoy of salt and iron, to send people to southern Zhejiang.

"We already have a countermeasure for this matter, you don't have to worry about it," Lin Jian asked again, "Is there a conclusion in the military discussion, how to fight next?" ”

"The casualties are high these days, and if such a high-intensity tug-of-war continues, the pressure will be very great," Zhou Tong said. ”

"I used to fight with the wind before, but this time all the departments suffered a lot of casualties, and I couldn't get used to it for a while, and it was normal for everyone to have ideas in their hearts, but the tug-of-war still had to go on," Lin Jian said, "We can't hold it, and the Zhejiang-Fujian army can't hold it anymore; The tug-of-war must continue at least until the Zhejiang-Fujian army reinforces Yongjia or the defenders withdraw from Yongjia. At night, you asked Tang Fuguan, Chen Dingbang, Zuo Guangying, Liu Zhenzhi, Zhang Jiheng, Mao Tengyuan, Chen Kuili and others to come to my big tent, and I personally came to do ideological work for everyone...... If it really didn't work, I sent some soldiers from the Jinghai Sea camp ashore to relieve the pressure on the various departments. ”

"Sometimes, the method seems clumsy, but it is effective, and there is no solution," Gao Zongting said, "Last year, Yanhuwei attacked Jinhai, and it was also this way of fighting, and the Tianjin Navy finally had to abandon Jinhai and withdraw...... I estimate that it is more likely that the defenders of Yongjia will retreat, and our army should be prepared to inflict heavy losses on the defenders when they retreat. ”

"If the defenders can withdraw, it is naturally good - the Zhejiang-Fujian army will give up Yongjia, and Huipu and Wenling will not be able to defend alone, and the Taizhou defenders will inevitably withdraw to Xianju and Linhai, which are more precipitous and closer to Dongyang County," Zhou Tong said, "Of course, if the Zhejiang-Fujian army reinforces Yongjia on a large scale, and the number of troops is less than 10,000, it will not be possible, then it will be dragging them down." Now I just hope that the luxury family will make a decision quickly, but our life is really uncomfortable. ”

Listening to Zhou Tong's complaints, Lin Jian just smiled, as long as he could understand Huaidong's overall strategic vision.

The army suffered such heavy casualties, and Zhou Tong, as the main general, could not be lightened by the pressure on his body, and he could only run to Lin Jian to complain twice.

Zhou Tong said: "Everyone has found that the oil canister is very useful during the siege of the city, can the military department supply more ......?"

In cold weapon warfare, the use of fire has almost become a conventional tactical choice, and in water warfare dominated by wooden ships, the use of fire and fire prevention is the most important tactical choice, but the main attack equipment, camp tents, and ships are the main ones.

When the soldiers are fighting, it is very rare to use fire directly, after all, the fire used in the world is mainly oil-soaked rockets, and when shooting enemy soldiers, the fire head is easy to extinguish, and it is difficult to provide additional damage.

The fire oil tank has almost become the standard Huai war equipment in the Huaidong Water Battalion. The fine-mouthed pottery bottle is full of fire oil, the mouth of the bottle is stuffed, and it is lit and thrown to the enemy ship during the war, the bottle is broken and the oil is splashed, and the fire is a piece, which is difficult to extinguish.

During this siege, Zhou Tong borrowed a batch of oil canisters from Shuiying for the siege, and found that it was really useful. It's just that the number of oil canisters used in the battle before was limited, and it was mainly used to attack the head of the defenders, although it was useful, it did not show its majesty.

The defenders are Fujian soldiers, wearing more armor and more shield soldiers, which can effectively prevent the rain of arrows to cover. Even if you are wounded by an arrow, it is difficult to be fatal. It is very different to use a fire oil can, as long as you can rush to a close place, ignite the fire oil tank and throw it away, the tank will be broken and splashed with oil, and a large area of oil will be soaked in oil and burned on the body of the Fujian soldiers, and the skin will be peeled off if you do not die, which can cause chaos in the enemy formation to a greater extent.

In particular, the iron armor with strong protection is more likely to directly smash the oil tank and be splashed on the body by the oil tank.

Once a soldier is burned on a large area of his body, it is several times more difficult to treat than an ordinary knife wound and arrow wound.

In later generations, improvised incendiary bombs filled with white phosphorus were even sharp weapons for civilians to fight against armored vehicles, and Lin Jian advocated the use of fire oil canisters in the army according to the improvised incendiary bombs of later generations, how could it not be easy to use? It's just that the cost is relatively high.

The first is that the cost of firing easy-to-carry ceramics in the world is not low, and the second is that liquid fire oil is rare at room temperature in the world.

The production cost of a fire oil tank is worth nearly 100 arrows.

But since it is easy to use, since it is a war of attrition, Lin Jian has no reason not to support it, after thinking about it, he replied to Zhou Tongdao: "You report the number to me, and transfer ...... from Shuiying first" Lin Jian thought more about how to make more and better improvised incendiary bombs. Before gunpowder was put into practical use, it was relatively easier to improve the performance of fire oil, and it was easier to use it in actual combat.

"Let's get 10,000 first, I plan to organize a group of soldiers to practice throwing and use them in the offensive array!" Zhou Tong said, "Fight the tricky ironclad warriors in the opponent's array!" The iron-clad soldiers in the defenders are really difficult to deal with, they can't be hurt by swords, they can't shoot through arrows, maybe they should taste the taste of fire oil cans. ”

"It's so easy for you to open your mouth!" Lin Jian smiled bitterly, "Okay, you prepare first, and I'll coordinate other things." ”

When it comes to fire oil tank tactics, they are the easiest to imitate.

Defending the city with fire or pouring hot oil is also a conventional tactic, Yongjia City Head even uses a large iron pot to hold feces mixed with lime to boil the city soldiers, but after all, the scale of use is not large, once it is on the scale, it really becomes a fight for consumption.

But when it comes to large-scale fighting, the fire oil tank tactic is the most difficult to imitate.

The Yongjia garrison could not be compared with the Huaidong Army in terms of the supply of fire oil.