Entrepreneurship in the Late Tang Dynasty

Chapter 51: The Army Arrives (Thanks to Alliance Leader Yu Wen for staying)
The first year of Qianfu, the 18th day of the 12th month in winter.

Zhao Huaian led a team of about a thousand people out of Shuangliu, arrived at Jinma River, and began to set up camp.

The Jinma River is fourteen miles west of Shuangliu City, and the camp where Zhao Huaian set up is about three or four miles on the east bank of the Jinma River, which is just in a pincer attack with Shuangliu City.

This place was not chosen by Zhao Huaian, but by the commander-in-chief in Shuangliu City, the Sichuan-West general Yang Qingfu, who had personally gone out of the city to survey the area.

It was the day when Zhao Huaian finally decided to give it a try, but surprisingly, it was not so easy for him to take on the task.

Yang Qingfu didn't know Zhao Huaian at all. Not to mention that he was just a guard of the Lizhou army, even the Lizhou governor Huang Jingfu would have sat down in front of him.

In the end, it was Envoy Song Jian who personally introduced Zhao Huaian to Yang Qingfu. With Song Jian's endorsement and Yang Qingfu's private examination, Zhao Huaian successfully took on this task.

This time, Zhao Huaian finally understood that if it didn't matter, it wouldn't even be his turn to do such a hard-working job.

But it was Yang Qingfu's emphasis on the selection of the person to sit in the village that made Zhao Huaian feel a little comforted. It seemed that the other party did not really want to arrange a ghost to die, but really wanted to defend Shuangliu.

This is good. As long as Yang Qingfu still wants to defend Shuangliu, he will not sit idly by and watch the village outside the city being breached. Then Zhao Huaian may have the possibility of receiving support.

After deciding on Zhao Huaian, Yang Qingfu held a military meeting that afternoon.

This time, Zhao Huaian was able to wait outside the hall. Even though he was the protagonist of the battle, he was still standing like a minion.

Yang Qingfu emphasized the importance of Jinma Village at the meeting, and then introduced Zhao Huaian to the generals. The generals from western Sichuan and foreign vassal states present had different reactions.

Except for Tian Chongyin of the Yanhai Army who was friendly to Zhao Huaian, the other generals were very cold. Perhaps in their eyes, Zhao Huaian was like a dead man at that time and there was no need to get to know him.

But none of this matters, Zhao Huaian knows what he wants.

At the meeting, Yang Qingfu gave Zhao Huaian what he wanted. He allowed Zhao Huaian to recruit soldiers in the city and allowed him to fully staff Baoyi City.

A fully staffed unit would have a thousand men, but Zhao Huaian's own unit had less than two hundred men. In other words, the troop establishment would have to be expanded fivefold at once, which was not something Zhao Huaian's team could handle.

So Zhao Huaian found Fatty Dou and formally invited his local group to be incorporated into Baoyi City.

After this period of escape, the number of people in Dou Pangzi's group has been reduced a lot, to only more than 60 people, but those who remain are the core members of their Dou Lu family.

At first, when Fatty Dou heard that he and Zhao Da were going out of the city to die, he shook his head a thousand times. But Zhao Huaian told him that if a group of people like them stayed in the city, they would be cannon fodder for the defenders, and they would have a chance to survive if they stayed outside.

When Zhao Huaian said there was a way to make a living outside, his tone clearly hinted at something, so Fatty Dou understood it immediately. After chatting with several family generals, he finally decided to join Zhao Huaian's Baoyi City.

With the addition of Fatty Dou's own men, Zhao Huaian recruited a total of 600 defeated soldiers and brave men in the city. Among them, there were only 200 defeated soldiers, but they were all recruited by Wang Duo according to the military records. They were all mature soldiers without major bad habits.

Regardless of whether they were defeated soldiers or brave warriors, they were basically waiting to die in the city. Now Zhao Huaian was recruiting them at the rate of 20 strings of cash per person, giving them winter clothes and firewood. Although they knew that leaving the city would mean a fight to the death, they were all willing to die.

After all, dying in battle is better than freezing to death.

The military quality of this group of people also exceeded Zhao Huaian's expectations. Not only were the more than 200 defeated soldiers combat-ready, but even the recruited brave men had received certain military training.

This made Zhao Huaian realize how strong the martial virtue of three households supporting one soldier was in the late Tang Dynasty.

As for the specific organization, Zhao Huaian was forced to do something unexpected. The generals under his command were just these people. Previously, they were in charge of ten people, but now each of them had to be in charge of fifty people.

But there was no other way. Even Zhao Huaian had to learn by doing, so others had to do the same.

The battlefield will be the best teacher.

As for the specific expansion of the team, Zhao Huaian first officially promoted Sun Tai and Zhao Hu to the left and right generals of the central army, in charge of the hundred armored warriors of the central army.

These hundred people were veteran soldiers specially selected by Zhao Huaian from the defeated soldiers. They had rich combat experience. Zhao Huaian organized them into the central army and placed all six of his disciples in it as commanders.

Zhao Huaian also specially gave the military the nickname "Beiwei".

In addition to the more than one hundred veteran soldiers in Zhao Huaian's own camp and the Eighth Team, he also organized Fatty Dou's troops into a complete team, and then ordered Sun Chuanwei to expand the team to fifty people with the seven Baoyi Army warriors he brought as the core.

In addition, Zhao Huaian also appointed the four newly surrendered generals Gao Renhou, Dang Shousu, Hu Honglue, and Kang Yanjun as team leaders, each leading fifty people.

In this way, Zhao Huaian had sixteen captains under his command, and the remaining less than two hundred people were assigned to the Sixth Battalion as logistics commanders.

All of these sixteen captains are directly led by Zhao Huaian. Although this reduces the efficiency of communication to a certain extent, for the current Baoyi City, such flat management will undoubtedly make Zhao Huaian feel more at ease.

In addition to personnel replenishment, Zhao Huaian also asked Yang Qingfu for corresponding equipment. Although he only had a combat force of 800 people, Zhao Huaian still asked for equipment supplies for 1,000 people.

These supplies were not difficult for Yang Qingfu to obtain. The supplies in the Chengdu treasury were piled up like mountains. In just two days, the equipment of a thousand men loaded into more than a hundred carts were delivered to Zhao Huaian's camp.

In the next three days, Zhao Huaian's troops stepped up their reorganization until December 18th, when they left Shuangliu and set up camp four miles east of Jinma River.

……

At this time, the Jinma Village was covered in dust, and Zhao Huaian, Chen Fahai, Gao Renhou and others were directing the establishment of the camp.

Chen and Gao both have rich military careers and are experienced in setting up camps.

In order to resist the siege of the Nanzhao army, Jinma Village had to be fortified.

The Tang army had its own rules for building camps: deep trenches, barricades, and wooden fences and watchtowers. These were old-fashioned, so Zhao Huaian didn't need to delve into them. However, based on his observations of later generations and his military career, he had a few insights to add. First, the deep trench. How deep did Zhao Huaian dig? He had to dig it at least as high as a person, and then fill it with rocks and soil on the side closest to the camp, forming a slope.

Then deer antlers and sharp wood were placed in the deep ditch. Zhao Huaian even had people dig a shallow ditch three or four miles along the Jinma River to directly divert the water of the Jinma River into the trench.

After that, arrow towers were built at the four corners and the archers in the camp were deployed on them. Then, another tall tower was built at a high point in the camp to serve as the command post for the entire army, to observe the enemy situation and to coordinate the defense on all sides.

All that remained was to set up some secret passages, which Zhao Huaian had learned from some film and television dramas. He knew that such secret passages were often found in Western blockhouses, specifically for surprise attacks.

After Zhao Huaian's addition, the defense became more systematic, but the workload was also huge. Fortunately, Yang Qingfu in the city supported him very much and mobilized refugees in the city to do civil engineering work.

In the following week, people came to Jinma Village one after another, and even Yang Qingfu in the city brought his generals here to inspect it, and they gave it a very high evaluation.

Unfortunately, no one was optimistic about Zhao Huaian, simply because he had to face tens of thousands of Nanzhao troops.

……

After the camp was repaired, Zhao Huaian's troops moved into Jinma Village.

Then the last batch of supplies was delivered to the city, including money, food, war equipment, defensive equipment, and a handwritten letter to Zhao Huaian.

The letter was written by Yang Qingfu. It was very short, only four words:

"The pillar of western Sichuan."

Zhao Huaian shook his head, thinking that Yang Qingfu was indeed better at winning people's hearts than Song Jian and Jiedushi Niu Cong, but Zhao Huaian didn't care about that.

He knew that these were all empty, even the thousand-man army he had was empty. Once he could not defend Jinma Village, all of this, including him, Zhao Huaian, would disappear.

At this moment, Zhao Huaian finally understood that sentence:

"I've been walking on thin ice my whole life. Can I ever make it to the other side?"

With a sigh, he put the letter in his arms and waited for the arrival of the Nanzhao army.

……

No one expected that the wait would last until next year.

Throughout the twelve months of winter, the main force of the Nanzhao army remained stationed in Tang'an, and the various armies were plundering in all directions, with no intention of coming to Shuangliu at all.

Although military reports from the city said that the Nanzhao army seemed to have no intention of advancing eastward, Zhao Huaian did not dare to relax at all. Instead, he used this time to intensify the training of the troops.

Because he knew that even if the Nanzhao army wanted to rob, they would go to Chengdu, and these counties outside Chengdu were just appetizers.

Sure enough, on New Year's Day of the second year of Qianfu, when the entire army was celebrating the New Year, a fast horse crossed the Jinma River from the other side and headed straight for Shuangliu City.

Zhao Huaian, who was on the watchtower, saw the cavalry commander and immediately guessed that the Nanzhao army had probably set out.

But Zhao Huaian didn't say anything to the generals, but spent the New Year's Day with everyone.

He knew very well that this might be the last New Year's Day for many people.

……

Sure enough, the next day, a military report was sent from Shuangliu City, saying that 30,000 Nanzhao troops had marched out of Tang'an, stretching for more than ten miles, and marched towards Shuangliu.

In the following days, Shuangliu City reported three times a day, conveying the movements of the Nanzhao army to Zhao Huaian.

The whole city of Zhao Huai'an was filled with pre-war tension. Everyone knew what 800 against 30,000 meant.

Then, just two days later, on the fifth day of the first lunar month in the second year of Qianfu, Zhao Huaian, who was patrolling on the watchtower, finally saw the Nanzhao army appear on the other side of the Jinma River.

A huge cloud of dust obscured the western sky, and countless flags dyed the wilderness a vibrant riot of color.

After arriving at the Jinma River, the enemy quickly crossed the shallow Jinma River.

When the Nanzhao army saw the camp standing three or four miles away, they obviously didn't take it seriously. They had been invincible along the way and the entire army regarded the Tang army as nothing.

So, Zhao Huaian saw that after crossing the Jinma River, the enemy army did not stop at all and headed straight towards Shuangliu City in the west.

Then his army left behind a team, which, judging by the flags, numbered no more than a thousand people.

After the army stopped, they did not set up camp or build a stronghold, but sent a knight to the Jinma Stronghold.

Just as Zhao Huaian and the others on the camp wall were surprised, they heard the knight stop in the distance and yell at the top of his voice:

"The royal army has arrived, why don't you surrender?"

Zhao Huaian was furious, simply because the person who said this was clearly a Tang person.

(End of this chapter)