The capital city.
Li Qin sat calmly in the hall, looking at the intelligence reports sent from various places.
Li Qin focused on three areas: the southern part of the pass, the Huai River region, and the Hubei and Hunan regions.
During this period, fighting was taking place in all three locations.
In the southern desert, the Tatar tribes that had surrendered to them were frantically seizing the southern desert grasslands.
The remaining tribes that were originally in the southern desert fled north in droves after their attacks.
They have essentially taken control of the southern Mongolian grasslands.
The Tatar tribes, especially those on the Hetao Grassland, were particularly excited after learning that he had become the Tatar Khan.
They immediately and sensibly submitted a letter of surrender to the Khan, pleading to be allowed to continue grazing their livestock in the Hetao region.
During this period, quite a few Tatar tribes submitted to him on the grasslands, scattered throughout the southern and northern deserts.
After all, once they submitted their petition, they wouldn't have to worry about being attacked by Li Qin's forces, and they could also trade with the Southern Dynasty and buy daily necessities.
At the same time, Li Qin would also bestow upon these Tatar nobles a great deal of luxury goods.
For these people who grew up in the dog-eat-dog world of the grasslands, this nominal submission was a very beneficial act.
How could I not do it?
Moreover, we submitted to the Great Khan of our Tatars, not some emperor of the Southern Dynasty.
Li Qin approved all their requests to surrender.
During this period, he also designed a system of titles for these Tatar tribes.
Based on the strength of each tribe, they were granted corresponding titles upon submission.
It can be said that the entire southern part of the Gobi Desert has been basically taken over.
Although his control over them was not as strong as that over the prefectures and counties of the Great Wu.
However, due to limitations in productivity, and the fact that our current focus is on the south, we cannot invest too much manpower, material resources, and financial resources in the northern grasslands.
That's fine then.
Anyway, as long as I can recruit people from their tribe as soldiers, that's fine.
As for the remaining administrative and legal matters, let them handle them on their own.
Li Qin shifted his attention from the northern desert to the Huai River region.
During this period, Zhang Hengshuo and Qin Chenyao at the front line basically wrote a memorial every day to report on the situation at the front.
He is currently launching a massive attack on Xuzhou, a key town in the Huai River region.
At the same time, troops are being dispatched to sweep through the Huaibei region.
The Wu army of the Jinling court all cowered inside the city, not daring to come out and fight.
According to reports from the Embroidered Uniform Guard in Jiangnan, the navy in Jiangnan showed no intention of supporting Huguang.
Instead, they sent some small boats north into the Huai River.
It can be said that Jiangnan's attention is now focused on protecting Jiangnan.
There was no intention to support Hubei and Hunan.
This information actually made him quite pleased.
However, the current situation in Huguang is somewhat worrying to him.
According to the military report sent by Liu Shengwu and his men via express courier, they had already won over the enemy with his generous surrender policy.
They successfully persuaded Jingzhou and Yuezhou to surrender, thus establishing a foothold on the south bank of the Yangtze River.
At the same time, Ma Congke, the garrison commander of Jingzhou, was dispatched to continue southwards to persuade the prefectures in southern Huguang to surrender.
According to Ma Congke's reply, everything is going smoothly, and he has already contacted officials in Changsha, Changde, Chenzhou, Hengzhou and other places.
They all decided to surrender after he promised to retain their positions.
Soon these prefectures will all be under their flags. Once these places are captured, the remaining prefectures and counties will naturally surrender.
The pacification of southern Huguang was only a matter of time.
This is definitely good news for Li Qin.
However, they also reported bad news to Li Qin.
That is because their soldiers were all from Liaodong and were not adapted to the climate there at all.
From the moment they entered Huguang, some soldiers began to suffer from acclimatization problems and were unable to adapt to the local climate.
However, there weren't many, but as they crossed the Yangtze River, the situation became increasingly serious.
Now, both people and horses are beginning to experience widespread discomfort.
If things continue like this, they probably won't be able to stay in the south for long.
Li Qin was also very distressed by their situation.
Because their elite troops were mostly from Liaodong and the northern border regions.
They were more or less unaccustomed to the southern climate.
The tens of thousands of troops that he sent to reinforce them were mostly from the north.
They were rushing and were almost at their destination in Huguang. They anticipated that they would experience some acclimatization problems.
Faced with this situation, he could only try to recruit doctors to go to the military to see if there was any solution.
We can't just cross the Yangtze River and then withdraw our troops.
Speaking of being unaccustomed to the local environment.
Li Qin recalled something Zhang Hengshuo had reported to him before.
He then searched through the documents and finally found a memorial to the throne.
Upon opening it, I saw the thing mentioned above.
That was when he sent cavalry to Suqian, north of the Huai River, to check on the movements of the Wu army.
However, they discovered midway through that the fodder around Suqian was too salty and bitter for the horses to eat, so they had to search for other grains to feed them.
As the army gradually expanded southward, various problems arose.
These soldiers and their horses from Liaodong were beginning to struggle to adapt to the southern climate.
If he wanted to continue expanding in the south, he would have to give important positions to southern generals and soldiers like Ma Congke who had just surrendered in Huguang.
After all, he needed to establish a foothold in the south, but many of his soldiers from Liaodong and the north were not used to it.
We can only use these generals who surrendered in the south as a temporary measure.
Another matter is Jin Hufu in Jiangxi. He should have already received the recruitment conditions I gave him before.
However, he has not replied yet.
His generals and soldiers were all from the south, and if they joined his side...
It would be much easier to fight in the south.
Jiangxi.
Jin Hufu looked at the surrender edict that Li Qin had given him.
Looking at the noble title above, he was very tempted.
He took the edict, looked at it, and then put it down.
During this period, he had been paying close attention to the war in Hubei and Hunan.
He was very hesitant about this.
The main reason is that he is too close to the Jinling court in Jiangnan. If he jumps to Li Qin's side...
The imperial court in Nanjing, Jiangnan, will definitely come to punish us.
He was very wary of the powerful navy of the Nanjing court in Jiangnan.
A little bit of Nanjing in Jiangnan is attacking him, and Li Qin's army is blocked by Wuchang and can hardly come to his aid.
He's in big trouble now.
Although Li Qin offered himself such high conditions, it was precisely to send him to fight to the death against the army of the Jinling imperial court.
He didn't want to confront the Jinling court head-on and fight to the death with his own army.
However, if he does not accept Li Qin's offer of surrender, and Wuchang falls, Li Qin will be the next target.
He's now caught in the middle.
Whom should we side with?
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