Chapter 665: Visiting the Battlefield in Person

"Please rest assured, Your Highness, we will definitely live up to our expectations." Zhou Yi straightened his body and gave a military salute to Zhao Xu.

Zhao Xu nodded, narrowed his eyes, and emphasized: "Don't be soft-hearted, hit him as hard as you can."

Zhou Yi was startled for a moment. King Yan seemed to be particularly disgusted with this Japanese.

However, he could also understand that Japan, as a foreign country, intervened in the civil strife.

This is not a bitch, so what is it!

Discuss the matter.

Zhao Xu asked Zhou Yi to transfer the twelve warships from Pingyuan City, leaving only four to patrol the Jin River.

In this way, Zhou Yi could command thirty-two warships to carry out this plan to destroy the Japanese Navy.

After Zhou Yi left, Zhao Xu asked Feng'er to pack some clothes for him and prepare to go to Qizhou.

He did not participate in the battle of crossing the river, because the battle of crossing the river was a sure thing and there was no need for him to participate in it personally.

But as the royal family's troops move south, the Xie family and Nanliang will inevitably send large armies to Qizhou to participate in the war.

At that time, the royal army will fight against the Yan coalition forces on the land of Qizhou.

The scale of this war was huge, greater than any previous war.

Although he had great trust in Chang Wei, he felt that as the King of Yan, he still had to go there in person to improve the morale of the royal family and avoid mistakes in this war.

Furthermore, if he does not participate in this kind of war that will go down in history in the future, wouldn't it mean that he is missing some of the passion of a man?

Moreover, he also intended to inspect the rear area established by Chang Wei.

Like the decisive battle against the Yan coalition, this matter is also very important.

After all, the conquered territory needs to be managed.

Moreover, the rear area established while fighting can obtain grain and grass supplies from the local area, reducing the pressure on Yanzhou's grain and grass transportation.

After all, 120,000 people go on an expedition, and there are often many times more civilians transporting grain and grass.

The farther you go, the more food and grass you consume, because the people also need to eat food.

Giving food to the enemy is certainly a solution, but if the enemy is defeated and chooses to burn the food and grass, it will be a fool's errand.

But he couldn't do it by sending troops to snatch people's food.

Therefore, only by establishing a rear area similar to a base area while fighting the war can the pressure on food and grass be solved.

Even if the attack reaches Jiangnan, there will be no need to worry about the army's rations.

There is no need to send a large number of civilians to transport grain and grass.

Based on this, establishing a rear area is by no means a child's play for him.

In the afternoon, he called Liu Fu and Yang Feng over.

Let one of them supervise the reform of government affairs and the other be responsible for the reform of the military.

A war is a war, and Yanzhou's internal affairs cannot be affected and must continue to advance.

The next day, he went to Qizhou under Xu Lie's escort.

At the same time, a group of cavalry was sent to Sizhou to prepare Ma Han to recover Qinzhou and Yongzhou.

During this time, he also delivered a batch of yellow gunpowder and grenades to Ma Han's troops.

As soon as the decisive battle against the Yan coalition begins, Ma Han will command the Ma family's troops and take the opportunity to take back Yongzhou and Qinzhou, block the passage between Nanliang and Beidi, and destroy the two border markets.

If the decisive battle is won, let him serve as the West Route Army and attack Nanliang Wuguan.

The royal army continued to move south as the Eastern Route Army, sweeping across the Qi State and the puppet court established by the Xie family.

After three days of trekking, he arrived at Dongping City.

On the way, he received the battle report from Tan Ma and had some understanding of the current war.

"Your Highness, the current war is going very smoothly. We have captured all of Dongjun. At the moment, Qinshan has captured Chenjun in the west, Lu Chang has captured Yangjun in the east, and Guantong has captured Gaojun in the south. , they are still continuing to attack the city, and they will be able to capture at least eight counties outside Lu City before the Qi reinforcements arrive. "

Zhao Xu nodded, Qizhou's area is much larger than Yanzhou.

Yanzhou has seven counties in total, while Qizhou has twelve counties.

According to Chang Wei, the Qi State now concentrated its main forces in the four counties in the southwest and abandoned the eight counties in the north. It only let the private soldiers of the wealthy families delay their attack.

However, these wealthy private soldiers are obviously like chickens and dogs, and they are completely vulnerable to the attack of the royal family's troops.

The prince's pro-army troops can basically conquer two or three counties in one day, which is not much different from surrendering at the last chance.

"The main trouble is that many wealthy families have broken into pieces, and small groups of private soldiers from wealthy families are constantly roaming in various counties, attacking villages like bandits and sneaking attacks on people transporting grain and grass." Chang Wei added.

Seeing Zhao Xu frowning, he hurriedly explained, "But General Mo has distributed the captured firearms to the village soldiers, and Zhongli is also actively training them so that everyone is a soldier. Today, six villages encountered private soldiers from wealthy families. , but they were all annihilated by the local soldiers and many of them were captured alive.”

Zhongli added: "Private soldiers of wealthy families often carry swords, but they are far inferior to country soldiers holding flintlock guns."

Zhao Xu nodded slowly, in such a short time.

Qi State did not have enough flintlock rifles to equip its army. Naturally, it was impossible for the wealthy families to have flintlock rifles, and they were still stuck in the cold weapon age.

On the contrary, the rural soldiers received the flintlock guns confiscated from the Qi soldiers, and immediately entered the age of firearms, crushing the private soldiers of the wealthy families.

Thinking of this, he said: "That's about the same. We can't forget the old skills of resisting Beidi. There are many private soldiers of the wealthy families. How can they be as many as the people of Qizhou? As long as the common people are united into a rope, these private soldiers of the wealthy families can't do anything. It’s just a bunch of flies, it won’t cause any big trouble.”

"Your Highness is right, but this is all Zhongli's fault." Chang Wei said, looking at Zhongli beside him.

Zhao Xu showed a satisfied smile. He was very satisfied with Zhongli as an excellent cavalry general.

But he did not expect that in the military academy, he found that Zhongli was both civil and military, and he accepted the military and civilian ideas he taught very quickly.

After thinking about it carefully, he thought that he was very suitable to be the chief secretary.

After all, if he promoted a scholar to the position of chief secretary casually, he would certainly not be able to overwhelm other generals.

And Zhongli had already made great achievements in the war and had a certain prestige in the army. Let him serve as the chief secretary and command the orders in the army, and he could smoothly establish the order system of the royal army.

However, he also wanted to see how the theory was put into practice.

If he built the rear of the war well, the position of chief secretary would belong to him.

So he patted Zhongli on the shoulder, "Follow me to the countryside, I want to see your skills."

Zhongli responded with a yes, led Zhao Xu to the outside of the general's mansion, and Chang Wei followed.

Before the arrival of Qi's reinforcements, he had some free time, and could concentrate on consolidating the territory he had conquered.

After leaving the city, Zhao Xu casually pointed in a direction.

Soon, they arrived at a nearby village called Duling.

Entering the village, Zhao Xu immediately heard shouts of killing.

Following the sound, it turned out that in the threshing ground of the village, a group of young men were practicing bayonet skills with sticks.

They were sweating profusely, but everyone was in high spirits.