Chapter 409

The Prince of Badong is very contradictory now. On the one hand, a genius has descended to assist him. Not to mention the gathering of luck and lying down to win, just for the sake of the future cause, he should continue to act out the scene of the monarch and minister getting along well.

But on the other hand, seeing Wang Yang monopolizing the limelight in the army and everyone bowing and obeying, it is indeed uncomfortable.

The Prince of Badong was complicated, and Wang Yang was still dealing with military affairs:

"Li Zaifu."

A general hurriedly stood out:

"The end general is here!"

"Attacking Zhouling, the first merit is yours. This department has recorded your merit. After the war is settled, we will reward you together. Now I will promote you two levels, commanding the various armies north of Gangzishi and Changyang Port, guarding the left wing of the boat division to move forward, can you handle it?"

Li Zaifu was surprised and happy, and immediately bowed down, the sound of armor rustling:

"The end general dares not to serve to death!!!"

Li Jingxuan glanced at the Prince of Badong.

The Prince of Badong was still sitting there leisurely, seemingly unchanged.

Wang Yang's voice was slightly cold:

"The left bank of the boat division must not have any alarms. If there is an arrow reaching the side, you bring your head to see me."

Li Zaifu felt a chill in his heart and responded with horror.

At this time, a call came:

"Jiang'an Army reports!"

"Summon."

Soon, the reporter was led in and bowed as soon as he entered the hall:

"The end general Chen Wu, under the account of the Jiang'an Army, obeys the order of the military master Feng Quanzu, and reports the military situation!"

"Speak."

"General Feng led the vanguard, drove straight in all the way, broke seven ramparts and three stockades, captured twenty-three ships, and captured and beheaded countless! By the time the end general set off two days ago, our army had arrived at Tuchengpu and is now leading the army to Jichi Mountain!"

Hearing this, everyone in the hall was happy! The Prince of Badong also waved his hand in the air, full of energy!

According to this trend, taking Runan City is a matter of eyes. From now on, the land route to Xiakou will have no city passes!

(Insert a picture)

Runan City is in the position where I drew a red circle. This is a Qiao-placed county. The so-called Qiao-placed is that after the north fell, the northern immigrants were resettled in other places, still using the original commandery and county names. Red

(Continued explanation of the picture: The Qiao commandery originally established here was later downgraded to a county. *Taiping Huanyu Ji* cites *Jingxiang Ji*: "There is an old Runan city on the north bank of the Jin River." This refers to this. The Jin River was the Tu River at that time.

Note, Mr. Tan also marked the two words Runan on the map, in the place where the orange line is drawn, which means that Xiakou City belongs to Runan County, not Runan City. Runan City is also the county seat of Runan County. It is different from the Jingzhou Jiangling county seat, commandery seat, and state seat all combined. The place where the blue frame is drawn is Shichengpu, and the green frame is Jichi Mountain)

Li Jingxuan, Guo Wenyuan, and other strategists looked at the map in the joy.

Wang Yang frowned slightly:

"You arrived at Tuchengpu two days ago in the morning?"

The captain thought Wang Yang misunderstood that they were marching at night, and hurriedly explained:

"Reporting to the military department, we arrived the night before! We set up camp at Tuchengpu."

Wang Yang pondered for a moment and asked:

"So you marched more than a hundred miles every day?"

The captain didn't doubt it, and said with high spirits:

"Reporting to the military department, General Feng's intention is that our army has just won, and the enemy cannot respond. Marching a hundred miles a day, rushing forward, can cover the enemy's unpreparedness and take Runan directly! The general heard that there are good singing girls in Runan City, and then said—"

(When the Han palace reported dawn, it was replaced by the guards singing the Runan ballad *Cock Crowing*, the first line is: "The east is about to star, the morning cock of Runan climbs the altar and calls.")

Seeing the enthusiastic atmosphere in the hall, the captain also relaxed a lot, and learned the tone of Feng Quanzu:

"The Prince has been bored on the ship for these days, so we must take Runan quickly and choose a few good singing girls to send to the Prince to relieve his boredom!"

He originally wanted to act on his own and change the words to "choose a few good singing girls to send to the Prince and the Prince's military department to relieve their boredom." But seeing Wang Yang's unfathomable expression, and then thinking of his identity as the Langya Wang family, he swallowed the words back.

He thought that anyway, he reported the merit and showed his face, which was already perfect. This last sentence was just a bonus. It would be good if he got it, and it would be fine if he didn't. Don't draw a snake and add feet to cause trouble.

Laughter broke out in the hall!

The one who took the lead in laughing was naturally the Prince of Badong, and he laughed the loudest, pointing at the generals:

"This old Feng! He really knows what this Prince wants!"

The Prince of Badong meant this as a joke, and the generals naturally wanted to support him.

Li Jingxuan was thinking about the map and didn't laugh.

Wang Yang didn't laugh either:

"Too fast..."

"Zhiyan, what did you say?" The Prince of Badong asked while laughing.

"Feng Quanzu marched too fast—"

"Of course! Everyone knows old Feng is fast!"

The Prince of Badong finished speaking with a wink, and the laughter was even louder.

The generals held their stomachs and followed suit.

Feng Quanzu led the army a hundred miles a day. What is this concept?

In the Southern Dynasties, six feet is a step, three hundred steps is a mile, one mile is one thousand eight hundred feet, and one foot at this time is 24.7 cm, so a hundred miles is nearly 45 kilometers. This is already a very fast marching speed for the infantry in the cold weapon era.

Marching is not an individual race, it needs to consider food, accommodation, and combat effectiveness. If you don't march well, examples of direct dispersal are not uncommon. Therefore, there are always requirements for the marching speed of the Southern Dynasties. Generals who don't understand need to explore by experience and grasp by feeling. Generals who understand have rules as soon as they start.

There are not enough samples of records of infantry marching speed in the Southern Dynasties to form universality, but fortunately, the cold weapon era is connected, so take the Song Dynasty as an example. The marching speed of infantry in the Song Dynasty is generally thirty to sixty miles. Thirty miles is a heavy and slow way of walking. Walking forty miles is considered fast. Fifty is what Wei Liaoweng called "exhausting the strength of the day to walk fifty miles" (*Complete Song Prose, Memorials on Three Things First*). Although Wei said "exhausting the strength of the day," it is not that exaggerated. It can be accelerated to more than sixty, but the more acceleration, the higher the fatigue, and the greater the impact on combat effectiveness.

One foot in the Song Dynasty is 31.4 cm, five feet is a step, three hundred and sixty is a mile, so one mile is still one thousand eight hundred feet. Therefore, a hundred miles in the Southern Dynasties is approximately equivalent to eighty miles in the Song Dynasty. What is the concept of eighty miles? Jin soldiers invaded the south, Zhong Shizhong and Yao Gu rescued Taiyuan from the Hebei and Hedong roads. Zhong Shizhong was originally "walking forty miles a day" (this is already speeding up the rescue while maintaining combat effectiveness), but later for fear of delay, "walking eighty miles a day" (*Three Dynasties North Alliance Compilation*), and as a result, he was intercepted by Jin soldiers and invited to fight, and was defeated and died.

General Zhong's speed is what *Sun Tzu's Art of War* calls "doubling the road and marching, fighting for profit in a hundred miles." This is exactly Feng's current speed.

(ps. The daily schedule of walking and marching is different between ancient and modern times but not too much. During the Long March, walking while fighting, the daily schedule of the Red Fifth Regiment was generally around a hundred miles, equivalent to more than 110 miles in the Southern Dynasties; Zhang military supplies rushed to Xifengkou, from Suxian to Zunhua, walking more than 200 miles in one day and night, and the daily schedule was a hundred miles. Modern marching does not count motorization, and the daily schedule of constant speed walking is 30 to 40 kilometers, which is about 50 to 70 miles in the Song Dynasty, and 70 to 90 miles in the Southern Dynasties.)

"Alright."

Wang Yang said two words plainly, but they had a momentum of their own. The generals stopped laughing and waited for military orders with their faces collected.

The Prince of Badong could also distinguish the importance and returned to his seat. Although he didn't continue to joke, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed, feeling that Wang Yang was not as interesting as before.

Wang Yang said to the captain:

"You go back immediately to catch up with Feng Quanzu and order him to stop and rest immediately. From now on, until before Pingshigang, you must not walk more than fifty miles a day. If you walk more than fifty miles, you will be punished by military law."

The hall was stunned.

The captain was stunned for a while, then hurriedly took the order. But his voice was dry, his face was cramped, and he was no longer as high-spirited as before. He was about to exit when he heard a call from the stairs:

"Wait!"

After Li Jingxuan called the captain, he immediately bowed to Wang Yang to plead guilty:

"Military department, forgive me! Jingxuan was anxious for a moment, not daring to obstruct the military order! It's just that General Feng is a veteran general under the Prince, his nature is rough, and he is eager to make merit. I'm afraid... I'm afraid he won't be able to deeply understand the military department's intention. Should I ask the Prince to write a handwritten order to show solemnity?"

Li Jingxuan said tactfully, actually worrying that Feng Quanzu would not follow the order. After all, this person is bold, relies on being an old general of the Prince's mansion, and now the military power is flourishing, driving straight in, and great merit is in front of him. At this time, asking him to slow down, he may not be willing to listen.

Wang Yang looked at Li Jingxuan deeply and nodded slightly:

"You are right."

Then he faced the Prince of Badong:

"Please, Prince, write a handwritten order."

The Prince of Badong sat still:

"Is it necessary? Now is the time to use troops, and soldiers value speed. Old Feng leads elite soldiers, rushing forward quickly, just to catch the enemy off guard. Limiting his daily walking will tie his hands and feet. It's better to let him watch it himself..."

This time, before Wang Yang could speak, Li Jingxuan advised:

"Soldiers value speed, but too fast is isolated. The Jiang'an Army is too deep, and once it suffers a setback, there is no support."

The Prince of Badong hesitated for a moment and said resentfully:

"Alright then, don't blame me if there are no singing girls to accompany you then..."

He actually didn't take it for granted in his heart. The danger of going deep alone is something everyone will say, but if all going deep is cautious and slow, then there will be no surprise soldiers and surprise merit. Isn't it more stable to tie them together and move step by step?

Slowing down at this time may be a godsend for the enemy! Just fully prepare for war, strengthen the city defense, and then it will be a hard battle. The longer the time drags on, won't Jiankang—

Eh?

Li Jingxuan said that Wang Yang recruiting troops was to drag time, then is this also—

(Chapter 377, *Water Strikes Three Thousand Miles*: "So the advantage of Wang Yang's strategy is not in the gathering of troops or the dispersal of troops, but in dragging! He wants to drag us in Jingzhou and fight for time for the court!")

In the past, the Prince of Badong treated Li Jingxuan's words as farts, but now he began to take it to heart.

The Prince of Badong actually didn't realize himself that the most fundamental source of all his negative emotions toward Wang Yang was neither Wang Yang's actions, nor the "slander" of Chen Qiming and others, nor the thorns buried early by Li Jingxuan—those were just help, catalysts.

There is only one root cause: fear.

The Prince of Badong was extremely fearful of Wang Yang, so he decided that he would never be allowed to hold military power before he had not yet reused Wang Yang. Power is like a mirror, which can best reflect the selfishness of the human heart. "Life is just like the first meeting." At the first meeting, only his talent was seen, not his momentum; after his momentum was formed by talent, looking at his talent again, it felt a bit dazzling.

So the clothes are wrong, the strategy is suspicious, small places can be non-compliant, details can be annoying, from small to large, accumulating thorns into diseases. Since the heart is uneasy, the feelings cannot be restored. Throughout history, those who have gone from monarch and minister getting along to guessing each other are all like this.

However, the Prince of Badong's suspicion has not developed to this extent yet. Although he was slightly suspicious subconsciously, he did not believe it rationally, especially now that Wang Yang and Li Jingxuan are of this opinion, then listen to them...

Just as he was about to write the handwritten order, rapid footsteps suddenly came from outside the hall, and a military school ran over, and the military report arrived!

"Report! Enemy ships gathered north of Longxue Island! Enemy traces also appeared north of Yangkou! Water and land flags are flying, and it seems that a large army is gathering!"

The decisive battle came so unexpectedly, and yet it was reasonable, suddenly arriving!

The hall was suddenly noisy!

The Prince of Badong was excited and shouted:

"Good! Since they came out to die! Just defeat them in one fell swoop! Take Yingzhou! Zhiyan, you arrange it, you must annihilate them all!"

A group of strategists and generals looked at Wang Yang.

I saw Wang Yang's face as heavy as water, his hand pressed on the palm edge, pacing back and forth a few times, his footsteps paused, his eyes swept over the crowd, his voice heavy and slow:

"Feng Quanzu is defeated."

Everyone was confused! Completely didn't understand why he suddenly returned to Feng Quanzu, and how he said Feng Quanzu was defeated???

Only Li Jingxuan immediately leaned over, his fingers quickly walking on the map, then suddenly realized, and smashed his fist on the map:

"This is a feint to lure us! There must be a large army in ambush on the Jichi and Runan line!"

——————

Note: Li Jingxuan is a rare talent. When the Qing army and the French army fought fiercely in Vietnam, the main general of the Black Flag Army, Liu Yongfu, reported to ask for reinforcements. Everyone thought that the French fleet was close to the provincial capital of Shanxi (it is Shanxi, Vietnam was a vassal state in the past, and the place names and systems were often imitated), the situation was critical, and it was not appropriate to divide troops. Only Tang Jingsong saw that this was a containment by momentum, and the main battlefield was still Danfeng. Although the situation today is different, he can clarify the situation and distinguish between primary and secondary, which is the same.