Chapter 899: The Wolf is Coming

"Your Highness is absolutely right. If not for their ambition to wreak havoc on Great Song, how could Great Song have the internal strife it has today? How could the prosperous Jiangnan be filled with the smoke of war everywhere? We must not only hunt them down and bring them to justice, but also recover the wealth they plundered." Chang Wei raised his fist.

Zhao Xu nodded.

Of the seven rebellious powerful clans, only the Fan Family's plan to flee abroad was thwarted by them.

Although Liang Kai, Han Zheng, Xie Duan, Wang Zi'an, Dou Wei, Xiao Cheng, and others were assassinated.

A portion of their descendants still managed to escape.

Moreover, the wealth they carried was seized by Britain and the Northern Di respectively.

This wealth is the lifeblood of the people of Great Song.

Just as Chang Wei said, he is determined to recover it.

"Discuss this matter with Xu Ke and draw up a list," Zhao Xu instructed.

After discussing this, Zhao Xu consulted with Chang Wei on military deployment.

The internal strife in Great Song was completely quelled after the capture of Yunzhou.

But next, they must face the issue of national defense.

Previously, they only needed to guard against the North Territory.

Now, they also need to guard against the south.

This time, when Chang Wei led troops to capture Fan Xinglun, he directly fought a small skirmish with the Frankish people.

It is evident that the Westerners have effectively pushed the front line to the borders of Great Song.

According to the intelligence he has gathered, the current East Land Southern Region, from Jiaozhi, Nanzhang, and Funan to Piaoman, are all colonies of the Frankish.

Among them, Jiaozhi is the contemporary Vietnam region, while Piaoman is the Myanmar region.

Funanguo is the Cambodia region, and Nanzhang is the Laos region.

The Frankish collectively refer to the area encompassing these four countries as Southeast China.

And outside of these four countries, there is also the Siam Kingdom, which is Thailand.

Because both Britain and the Frankish want to swallow this region, they have not reached a consensus on interests.

Neither of them allows the other to station troops there,

So the Siam Kingdom has rarely maintained a state of independence.

Among these Southeast Five Nations, Funan, Nanzhang, and Siam were once vassal states of Great Song.

Before being swallowed by the Frankish, they paid tribute to Great Song every year.

But after submitting to the Frankish, there has been no word from them.

As for Jiaozhi and Piaoman, they have always been ambitious in the southeast direction, attempting to dominate the southeast.

Because of their great ambition, they have even repeatedly encroached upon the territories of successive Central Plains dynasties.

For this reason, the Central Plains dynasties have had several wars with Jiaozhi and Piaoman throughout history, with each side winning and losing.

Therefore, both the imperial clans and the common people of these two countries have always harbored a mindset of both fear and defiance toward Great Song.

After becoming colonies of the Frankish, Jiaozhi and Piaoman have both taken orders from the Frankish Governor.

In order to further encroach northward, the Frankish have continuously instigated Jiaozhi and Piaoman to provoke the borders of Great Song, coercing the Fan Family stationed in Yunzhou.

And Fan Xinglun, cowardly as a mouse, could not withstand the intimidation; despite knowing the Frankish had malicious intentions, he still chose to be on good terms with them.

But it was precisely at this moment that he started the war in the south.

The Frankish plan of boiling a frog in warm water to further encroach upon Great Song went bankrupt.

This is also the reason why they are like dogs jumping over a wall in desperation and hate him so much.

Such a large cake as Great Song, before they could take a bite, was snatched away by him.

"Since you snatched people right under the noses of the Frankish this time, they will certainly not swallow this insult; I fear they will create trouble in the direction of Jiaozhi and Piaoman. Before the Vermilion Bird Army is formed, you will be temporarily responsible for the defense of the Jiaozhou and Yunzhou line," Zhao Xu said.

This Jiaozhou is the contemporary Guangxi, and Yunzhou is Yunnan.

These two places face Jiaozhi and Piaoman respectively.

"This subordinate believes that no more is needed; fifteen thousand men stationed in each province is more than enough," Chang Wei said with great confidence.

The war in Jiangnan proved that the Great Song army currently possesses an overwhelming advantage over both the powerful clans and the Northern Di.

Moreover, they have also fought against Western mercenary armies and the Expeditionary Army of the Ross.

They might not be as good as the local regular army, but they are not much worse.

In front of the Prince's Army, they did not perform particularly brilliantly either.

It is just that they were more seasoned on the battlefield, with low combat losses.

During hand-to-hand combat, they were also quite proficient with the bayonet.

But in terms of individual combat ability, they are still inferior to the Wangfu soldiers.

After all, the training methods for the Wangfu soldiers far exceed theirs.

It was he who took the strengths of many and taught them to the generals.

Coupled with the Qin-series rifles, and adding the breech-loading artillery in the future, they will not be able to compare.

Therefore, fifteen thousand men per province is absolutely sufficient.

When the time is right, the generals can even cooperate with the navy to capture what the Frankish call Southeast China.

"This is for the south. Deploy twenty thousand men in the direction of Tibet in the west, and frequently go to Songyang for training in other places to prepare for the future invasion of Tibet," Zhao Xu said, knitting his brows.

He must capture this place called Tibet.

This place, known as the roof of the world, looks down from a height, overlooking all directions.

Occupying this place, he can deter the countries below the plateau.

Conversely, if the enemy occupies this place, their military force will point directly at the heartland of the Central Plains, such as Yizhou and Qinzhou.

These three are the three important nodes of Jiangnan, and the deployment in the north does not need to be changed.

After giving these instructions, Zhao Xu began to speak with Chang Wei about matters concerning the cavalry.

He ordered him to mobilize half of the cavalry from the Qin Army and the Prince's Personal Army, and hand them over to Chen Hu for unified command.

Once the Northern Di were expelled, these cavalry units would be returned.

At the same time, he also spoke about the matter of the cavalry rifles.

Upon hearing this, Chang Wei laughed heartily, "I never expected there to be specialized cavalry rifles; hahaha, the Northern Di are in for a bitter time now."

They had lived under the shadow of the Northern Di cavalry for too long.

They had always been helpless against the cavalry on the vast Grassland.

But if the Great Song cavalry were equipped with cavalry rifles.

They would be able to penetrate deep into the Grassland and go toe-to-toe with the Northern Di cavalry.

As the two were talking, someone came to report that Zhou Yi requested an audience.

Zhao Xu ordered Zhou Yi to enter, and Chang Wei tactfully withdrew from the study.

Without Zhao Xu's order, it was not appropriate for him to remain and participate in naval affairs.

"This humble general pays respects to Your Highness." Before long, Zhou Yi arrived, dusty and travel-worn.

Saluting Zhao Xu with a military salute, Zhou Yi said with a serious expression, "Your Highness, the warships patrolling the east coast of Yizhou and the east coast of Dongying have both discovered warships from Sam Country."

"When one of our warships in the direction of Dongying encountered a Sam Country warship, the other side even took the initiative to attack, but after being damaged by our warship, they fled. This humble general believes that Sam Country may have dispatched quite a few warships to the waters of Dongtu, hiding them somewhere with malicious intent."

Zhao Xu gave a soft hum and sneered, "In this amount of time, it is enough for the Western Lands to make decisions and implement actions, so what was bound to come has finally arrived."

He had been so anxious to resolve the internal strife of Great Song precisely to deal with this situation.

Otherwise, Great Song would be in even greater chaos.

And after pacifying the internal strife, he would only need to deploy troops at the borders to be able to fend off the enemy outside the nation's gates.

At the same time, he would compete with the Northern Di and the enemy on battlefields outside of Great Song.