Chapter 233: March Forward
Deciding to go to war does not mean that you can go immediately, just like deciding to go to war does not mean that the chance of success is high, or that the person making the decision really believes that they will win.
At least from Zhao Jiu's point of view, the reason he chose to take the initiative was largely because the situation had already been dragged into a mess, so he just made up his mind. Before and after this, the other senior officials also agreed with what they should agree with and opposed what they should oppose... For example, Zhang Jun always believed that they should go to war, and Liu Ziyu also opposed it from beginning to end.
However, since the emperor had made the decision to go to war, Liu Ziyu had no choice but to keep silent, because at this time he had to at least make the officers, soldiers and the common people believe that the war would be a sure victory, and he, Liu Ziyu, had to pretend to be convinced.
But as I said before, going to war does not mean you can go immediately just by saying so.
How to gather a 100,000-man army? Who goes first and who goes last? Which route should each take? With such a large army, how to coordinate logistics? With so many generals, who will listen to whom when they meet?
All these things have to be arranged and resolved one by one. Fortunately, the Privy Council already had a plan.
On this day, after Zhang Jun once again submitted a memorial requesting to send troops and "persuaded" Emperor Zhao, things really began to become complicated and tedious.
From a high-level planning perspective, the first thing that comes to mind is who will stay in Chang'an.
Zhao Jiu had already made arrangements for this. He first hung up a brand new Jinwu banner in Chang'an City and officially moved into the palace of Chang'an City... Although people inside and outside Chang'an had already guessed this, the news that the emperor had moved to Guanzhong still shocked the entire Jingzhao.
However, Zhao Jiu quickly dragged Yuwen Xuzhong into the old palace of Chang'an City and gave him the Jinwu banner.
Obviously, when Luoyang was about to be exposed, he still wanted to play psychological warfare with those people in Loushi, but he let Yuwen Xuzhong stay in Chang'an in his own name.
As for the strategic point of Wei Bridge, it was handed over to Liu Ziyu, and Zhang Jun was still in charge of logistics... and he himself was preparing to go directly to the front camp under the banner of Yuwen Xu Zhong to lead the army in person.
Anyway, it's a bit confusing, as long as it can have a confusing effect.
In fact, this arrangement was more or less expected by high-level civil and military officials. Emperor Zhao's intention to risk everything had been in his mind for a long time. Everyone had basically anticipated this since the day he entrusted his son to the care of his parents.
However, after this high-level plan was quickly decided, when it came to the execution stage of sending troops, something happened that shocked Emperor Zhao - the three armies in Guanxi, which had been hiding behind Jingzhao and were originally preparing to march to the front line, heard that the emperor had come to Chang'an, and under the instigation of someone unknown, they actually asked for rewards for marching to the city.
How to say it?
Although he was shocked, Zhao Jiu was not angry at all. He even felt that this matter was unexpected but reasonable.
This is reasonable, not to say that this is how it should be, but that Zhao Jiu realized almost immediately that this army was originally at this level... This is the real Western Army, it has combat effectiveness, and may even have more combat experience, but in essence it is still an old army with very "Song Dynasty characteristics", the army that directly gave up fighting on the battlefield because of insufficient silver bowls for rewards, and the army that would kill innocent people to take credit from time to time and watch the friendly forces perish.
Moreover, this army had experienced several major defeats and had only received its military pay again for more than half a year. After seeing the equipment and treatment of the imperial camp troops, it seemed understandable that they would ask for an additional reward in order to maintain psychological balance.
However, compared with Zhao Jiu's calmness, Zhang Jun and Yang Yizhong were obviously ashamed and angry because of this incident. The former, as the actual commander of these troops, felt embarrassed facing the decisive actions of the imperial camp troops and the battle record of Wu Jie in the three routes of northern Shaanxi; while the latter was obviously ashamed of his previous speech to Emperor Zhao about "protecting the people and defending the country" and guaranteeing the combat effectiveness of these Western Army.
Of course, no matter what, Zhao Jiu is familiar with this kind of thing.
Emperor Zhao had Zhang Jun give out the reward, or the travel expenses, without hesitation... What else? He raised taxes in the southeast, Jingxiang, and even advanced two years of taxes to Bashu. Dongting Lake had already started to rebel, and there might be other troubles in the future. What was the purpose of doing so recklessly? Wasn't it just to get out of the constraints of money and grain for the time being?
Besides, the Western Army was indeed a little poorer.
At the same time, Zhao Jiu asked Yang Yizhong to select 30 officers below the commander level, all of whom were the most noisy in demanding the march expenses. Then he handed the list to Liu Xi, Liu Qi, and Zhao Zhe, and asked them to immediately behead them in their own names as a warning to others.
It is said that the reason why Yang Yizhong did this was not because his Imperial City Division was still so useful in Guanxi, but because his grandfather Yang Zongmin was the general who was stationed in Chang'an during the Jing Kang period and was responsible for the defense of the entire Guanzhong area. Later, he died for his country when Chang'an was conquered by Lou Shi. He had connections and prestige in the local area, so he was able to do things at his convenience.
After killing the man, Zhao Jiufu, as the Son of Heaven, officially issued a notice, promising to grant land to local soldiers for their military merits, and to reward ten acres of land for each Jin soldier's head. The Imperial Camp also had a similar rule, but it directly promised to take out the previous military settlements in Henan, turn public land into private land, and use it as a reward.
As for the people from Guanxi among the imperial army, those who wanted to buy property in Guanxi were also allowed to participate in the granting of land in Guanxi based on their military merits.
Frankly speaking, Zhao Jiu's words were a typical empty promise, because the imperial camp was fine, after all, there were military settlements in Henan to back him up, but he had only been in Guanzhong for a few days, so how could he know how many idle fields were left after the Jin army swept through Guanzhong? And how could he know whether these idle fields were taken over by these military leaders, officials, and landlords?
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