Xie Ming

Chapter 322 Planning for trouble
The tenth day falls at night!
Xiao Lang returned to the gate of the yamen after his night patrol. As soon as he stepped inside, he was met with trouble both inside and outside.

Zhizhong came hurriedly from the back hall and was summoned by the prince, who asked Xiao Jingchuan to come and discuss matters.

As for Li Huchen outside, because he learned that the surrendered soldiers from Jiangbei had defected at night, he was waiting for Xiao Langkan's order so that he could lead troops to pursue and suppress them!
For this reason, Xiao Lang kept silent for a while, thought about it, and decided not to pursue the matter, and explained the relevant reasons.

But obviously, Mang Huchen didn't care about it at all.

However, he had to obey the commander-in-chief's order, so he just watched Hu Chen muttering and clasping his fists with a depressed look on his face.

"Oh! Yes!"

"The commander-in-chief said he won't pursue us, so forget it!" Hu Chen said.

"Yes, there is more!"

"Hu Chen, you'd better go back to the camp now and keep a close watch on him!"

"The most dangerous days may be today or tomorrow!"

"This kind of thing must never happen again in our team!"

"Damn it, this defection is the most hateful!"

"You feel uncomfortable, but I hate you too!"

"If one can carry away ten, ten can carry away a hundred!"

"This hole must not be opened!"

"We must also do our best to block this kind of news!"

"If it really doesn't work, in my opinion, we should urgently redeploy the entire battalion, disperse all the newly surrendered soldiers from Jiangbei, and mix them into our original team. We must do the job carefully and there must be no more mistakes!" Xiao Wei said.

Hearing this, Hu Chen nodded deeply as a response.

"Yeah, yes! Got it!"

After saying this, Li Huchen clasped his fists and hurried off to do his job.

"Hey! Wait!"

"There's more!" Xiao Lang suddenly asked again, calling him back.

"Tomorrow morning, you will send another team to scout out of the city and trace back to find Peizhong's tribe!"

"Report to him all the current situation in Jinan and the defection of the surrendered soldiers from Jiangbei!"

"Tell him, tell him I said, order the rear guard to march quickly and enter the city as soon as possible!"

"and!"

"All the troops are on the move, so make adjustments accordingly. I must keep a close eye on those newly surrendered Jiangbei troops!"

"Subsequent troops must not have any more deserting soldiers. If there are any omissions, they will be subject to military law!" Xiao Yan ordered again.

"Yes! Hu Chen understands!" Hu Chen responded.

"Well, that's good, all right, go ahead!"

"Here, the prince is still waiting in the back hall. He said he has something to discuss!"

"If you have any other urgent reports from outside, please consult Chang Ting, Qin Jing and others first!" Xiao was worried and gave another instruction.

"Yeah, OK!"

"Don't worry, Governor. Go now!"

"Don't let these things delay your important work with the Crown Prince!"

After saying this, Hu Chen bowed and left.

When he left the yamen, Xiao Jingchuan looked at his back, still worried, and muttered something.

"Alas! Feiyu (Qiu Zhizhong), there are indeed too many surrendered soldiers in our army!"

"It seems that when I have some free time, I really need to think of some way to deal with it."

"If this continues, it is hard to predict whether even greater disasters will occur in the future." Xiao Yan.

Upon hearing this, Zhizhong didn't know what to do for a moment, so he just sighed slightly.

Xiao Jingchuan took a deep breath, temporarily put aside the thought, and quickly changed the subject.

"Okay, these are all later stories!"

"Let's go, let's go see the prince first!"

After finishing the work, the two of them hurriedly walked towards the back hall!
It won’t take long!

In the back hall, there was a creaking sound!
The door opened slightly.

The prince's attendant, the chief eunuch Wang Zhixin, led Xiao and Qiu into the door and walked to the right side.

Lifting the door curtain, Zhu Cilang was sitting on the main couch. Seeing Xiao Jingchuan rushing back, he quickly sat up straight and waved his hand to ask him to come in.

At this moment, Wang Zhixin was still leading the way and stepped in first. Then he walked to the side quietly to prepare tea!

"Your Highness, this is Xiao Jingchuan! Qiu Zhizhong!"

"Greetings to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!" Xiao and Qiu entered the room and knelt down to pay their respects to Kan.

Seeing this, Zhu Cilang hurriedly pretended to raise his hand.

"Well, get up, get up!"

"We are all close ministers, so there is no need to perform these empty formalities in private!"

"sit!"

"Wang Zhixin, come here, let me give you two a seat!" Zhu Cilang said in a close manner.

"Yes!"

Upon hearing this, Wang Zhixin bowed and accepted the order. Ju Xiao led the two of them to take seats, then turned around and served tea to Xiao and Qiu respectively.

At this moment, Huang Degong, who was sitting opposite to them, saw the two people coming in, and he had already stood up and sat down again to perform the formal greetings!

When Xiao Lang saw this, they also hurriedly nodded to each other to show that they were colleagues.

"Ahem, okay!"

"Since General Xiao has returned, let's continue with our previous discussion!" Zhu Cilang took the lead and started talking about serious issues.

"It's like this. Half an hour ago, Minister Ni sent a letter to Nanjing through someone else."

"I, after reading this, felt very worried, so I asked you guys to talk to me."

"Let's discuss it!" The prince smiled.

"The letter said that the supply of food and military supplies for the army heading north has become difficult!"

"Ni Yuanlu and Shi Kefa, the assistant minister of the Ministry of War in Yingtian, and others are still trying to maintain the situation, but Jinan is more than a thousand miles away from Nanjing!"

"Transporting by land consumes too much energy during the journey."

"We are now transporting grain by sea. A few days ago, due to the storm and thunderstorm, some grain ships sank and were delayed!"

"So I wrote to you and asked if we could get some food and fodder nearby to meet our military needs and ease the pressure on logistics in the south!"

Zhu Cilang was speechless. After asking the question, he immediately drank his tea, looked around, and seeing that no one interrupted him, he picked up the teacup and continued his speech.

"Haha, come on, tell us if you have any countermeasures to this thorny incident!" asked the prince.

But at this time, Xiao Jingchuan had just arrived in Jinan, and was not very clear about the specific military affairs of the towns in northern Jiangnan advancing northward. So he did not speak rashly, but just took advantage of the situation to look at Huang Degong.

I wanted to find an opportunity to speak, so I first listened to his detailed and factual information, and then we could discuss it.

Huang Degong, who was sitting opposite him, also understood the situation clearly and knew that he could not avoid the conversation, so he straightened up and started to speak in response to Jiu Xiao's remarks.

"Ah! Yes!"

"The Crown Prince has a question. As for General Xiao, he has just arrived in Jinan. It will take some time for him to submit specific military secrets."

"Then I will first tell you the truth and do the math, and then you can make your own comments!"

Speaking of this, Huang Degong cleared his throat and looked serious.

"Well, this time we are marching north to serve the king!"

"The number of troops and horses sent out by each town, including Gao Jie's unit in Fengyang, is 10,000!"

"Xuzhou Liu Liangzuo's troops, 10,000 men!"

"Liu Zeqing of Yangzhou, more than 15,000 people."

"And the number of my Chuzhou troops is also 15,000!"

"In total, there are 50,000 soldiers and horses!"

"Well, if we calculate the loss of military supplies!"

"With 50,000 soldiers, and each soldier eating two liters of rice per day, the total consumption of the entire army is about a thousand dan of grain!"

"This does not include the food for the horses, the conscripted civilians, the mule and horse teams, etc."

"If all of them were collected, the daily consumption would be more than three times, which means more than 3,000 dan of grain per day!"

"And the other military supplies have not yet been calculated."

"Oh, how can I explain it? This account is really hard to calculate!"

"Warfare is a matter of great importance to a country."

(End of this chapter)