"General Wang, attacking Kaizhou is just a bluff. For us, the Goryeo people are a big concern." Zhao Xingde patiently persuaded, "The Goryeo people occupied Baozhou and have never acted. Now they suddenly intercepted the raft cargo ship on the river, and what taxes they should collect are clearly testing our strength. Although Xingzhi has been in the Central Plains for a long time, he also heard that the Goryeo Wang family claimed to be a descendant of Goguryeo in the letter of the country, and had long coveted Liaodong. If we ignore it, we may not have no intention of going up the Yalu River and taking all Taibai Mountain."

The Han generals around him all showed a nervous look, and Wang Hengzhi still frowned and did not answer. Han Ningshuang made the decision to manage Guannan, Suzhou. He had to send troops to cooperate, but the foundation of Taibai Mountain should not be missed. After pondering for a long time, Wang Hengzhi raised his head and looked at Zhao Xingde and said, "How long does it take to attack Baozhou as General Zhao expected?"

Zhao Xingde was secretly happy, but his face did not show. "Baozhou is not far away from this place. It will take fifteen days to slow down and twenty days to slow down, and there will be a result."

Wang Hengzhi's eyes showed suspicion and asked, "Where will there be no result in twenty days?"

"Then I will retreat immediately and follow General Wang to attack Kaizhou." Zhao Xingde said with a smile, "Just punishing the Goryeo people, Baozhou doesn't have to be attacked." His eyes fell on the map. Baozhou is only a few dozen miles away from the sea estuary of the Yalu River, and the city is very close to the river bank. As long as Li Sihai's gun ship arrived, Xia Guo cannons can directly bombard Baozhou City on the river surface. However, the Goryeo people have no weapons to do anything to him.

Wang Hengzhi felt unbelievable, and he was even more willing to waste food and grass for this, so he offered a condition: "General Zhao also knew that our army was short of food. If we wanted to send troops, each soldier would be five liters of food every day. If there was no food and grass, we would not be able to send troops." Zhao Xingde's eyes appeared in his smile and nodded, "Then it's a matter of determination." He agreed readily. Wang Hengzhi was afraid that he would regret it, so he said: "My village has recently recruited more than 20,000 people, and Ding Zhuang has all sent troops to recruit. In addition, the brothers who came to surrender to the north village, there are now more than 7,000 soldiers. How many general Zhao wants us to send?"

Ordinary soldiers ate three liters of grain a day, which is equivalent to eating more than one pound per meal. Wang Hengzhi gave the rations of five liters per day, which contained water. If the Xia Kingdom not only needed the food and grass for sending troops, but also had to be replenished as reward for sending troops.

Zhao Xingde cursed the old fox inwardly. This head was actually used to calculate the rewards of food and grass. Wang Hengzhi's real old army had at most more than two thousand people, but if the reward was less, he would send all the refugees who were not responsible for the matter to collect food and grass, which would be of no help. Zhao Xingde and Jin Changtai changed their eyes and then pondered: "Of course, the more the more the better. But General Wang still left some troops to guard the camp, and the Goryeo army had 3,000 people. General Wang also sent 3,000 troops to attack Baozhou with us." The three thousand Ding Zhuang could not be abandoned at will for the Han army. He must send an old army as the backbone, so he would have some combat effectiveness.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Xingde did not bargain at all. Wang Hengzhi was secretly happy. This scholar and lieutenant didn't know that military rations were the lifeblood. It was so easy to cheat if he was stupid. The Han army did not have so many ways to breed like the Xia State Camp, and was worried about the food and grass for winter. Wang Hengzhi was about to nod and agreed, but heard Zhao Xingde frowning and said, "Oh, General Wang, it's still a little difficult to deal with."

"What's wrong?" Wang Hengzhi was a little nervous. The military rations of these 3,000 people on 20 days were as high as 3,000 stones. He was only going to send out 500 troops, with a daily eclipse of three liters. Ordinary Ding Zhuang only had one liter and five liters of grain every day, and then combined with some leaves and weeds to fill his stomach. He could save nearly 2,000 stones of military rations for twenty days. Now he was afraid that Zhao Xingde would not attack Baozhou.

"I sent troops to deter the Goryeo people for the benefit of you and my family, but now I have to bear military rations. I am afraid that Zhao will not be able to explain to the Guguo Mansion or the General Mansion."

Looking at Zhao Xingde's hesitant face, Wang Heng was unhappy and felt happy. He said in a muffled voice: "General Zhao, the emperor is not short of hungry soldiers. If there is no food and grass, I'm afraid, please forgive me for being helpless." He said something too much. Jin Changtai was angry and replied: "Since we are so ruthless, we can't do anything about the battle of Kaizhou. Do we need the cannons from our camp to help you attack the city? There is no door!"

After being robbed by Jin Changtai, a merchant philist, Wang Hengzhi was furious and angry. They all looked at him with glaring. Some even pointed at him and said, "You, you, why are you so unruly?" But he didn't say that.

"Sima Jin, don't be rude." Zhao Xingde bowed to Wang Hengzhi and apologized: "Please forgive me for not thinking well." A disappointed look flashed in Wang Hengzhi's eyes. Zhao Xingde said: "General Wang, there is a way to remedy it after thinking about it. Since our camp has more military rations, no matter whether this Baozhou City can be fought or not, the taxes on passing ships on this river surface of Baozhou in the future will belong to my camp," he smiled embarrassedly, "Although Baozhou is not as good as Zhenhai Mansion and there are no merchant ships, it is better to pay the taxes to the Huguo Mansion if you get this tax."

After hearing Zhao Xingde proposed such a method, Wang Hengzhi looked at him with suspicious eyes for a long time. If the Han army had not been entrenched in this area for decades, he knew clearly that the two sides of the Yalu River would either be deserted or the Jurchen tribe, and could not receive any taxes on the river surface. Wang Hengzhi almost thought that Zhao Xingde had set a trap. He thought about it several times, but he really couldn't think of why the Xia State Camp wanted the right to collect taxes. The final conclusion was indeed to pay the duty to the Guguo Mansion. Wang Heng looked at him in a difficult situation and said, "General Zhao, although there are indeed no merchant ships on the river surface, it is hard to say what will happen in the future. Either you give me two thousand stones of military rations and I will sign and seal it." He thought to himself that the Han army's cargo ships would not pass through Baozhou and would not pay taxes for you in vain. If you really want to be impatient, then it is not the only thing that is the big fist.

Zhao Xingde was a little embarrassed: "General Wang, I can barely take out one thousand stones. It's a bit difficult to get the two thousand stones of military rations." He said in a little nervously, "Or, let's forget about borrowing troops."

"What's up!" Wang Heng quickly stopped him and slapped his chest and said, "How can General Zhao watch the Koreans invade Liaodong? We are here to settle down!"

"Okay!" The two families agreed that three days later, the troops at the city of Baozhou met, and Wang Hengzhi said goodbye. He wanted to go back and gather the troops, recruit all the Ding Zhuang who dug grass roots, peeled tree bark, beat hares, and dig ginseng, and rushed to Baozhou to eat military rations. The Han generals did not care about staying for dinner, so Zhao Xingde kindly hung more than a dozen pickled hare pheasants behind Wang Hengzhi and others' horses. Only a dozen cavalry went back with Wang Hengzhi, while more than a hundred Han soldiers including Tong Yunjie, the fourth leader, stayed in the Xia State Camp to train artillery skills.

Until Tong Yunjie and others were settled and returned to the central army tent, Jin Changtai couldn't help laughing and laughed loudly, "Zhengzhi is too unkind, Wang Hengzhi has suffered a huge loss."

Zhao Xingde smiled enough when he smiled and said with a stern face: "He only has food." After saying that, he also smiled slightly. According to his and Jin Changtai's plan, the navy of Xia Kingdom was sharp, so the camps that arranged for reclamation and sheltering the people were distributed along the river in the future. Although real sea ships were difficult to manufacture, the gun ships patrolling the Yalu River did not have to be built as strong as sea ships. As long as there were dozens of shallow water gun ships, hundreds of fires ran on the river and bombarded the enemy, it would be enough to achieve twice the result with half the effort. In this way, there will be many merchant ships passing by on the Yalu River in the future, and Zhao Xingde must win the sea outlet of Baozhou, the Yalu River. Wang Hengzhi, somehow, actually gave up Baozhou without caring.

"Don't he know that the right to collect taxes is the most important power of the court? Promise us to collect taxes on the Baozhou River means admitting that Baozhou belongs to us. And there is no boundary on the river surface, which means that hundreds of miles of river surface and the coast belong to us." Jin Changtai looked greedily at the place one or two hundred miles from the mouth of the Yalu River.

Zhao Xingde interrupted him without hesitation: "Then you have to drive away the uninvited guests first." He said in a deep voice: "It is said that there are 300,000 troops on the northern border of Goryeo, known as the Guang army, and are sharpening their swords and preparing to attack Liaodong." His eyes fell on Goryeo's map, and carefully checked the cities near the coastal rivers. Fortunately, the Goryeo people seemed to have the habit of building cities because of the rivers. Important cities, not near the coast, are next to the rivers such as Datong River, Yongxing River, and Qingchuan River. "No wonder they are suffering from Japanese pirates." Zhao Xingde said secretly. He had no intention of defeating Goryeo in one fell swoop, but if the Goryeo King insisted on intervening in the battle situation in Liaodong and was in a dilemma with the Xia State Camp, shallow water cannon boats went up the river to bombard the city, which was a way to seek peace.

"I inform Ma Rui first, just use the cavalry to swim around Baozhou to monitor it, don't act rashly." Zhao Xingde said while pondering, and Jin Changtai ordered, "The Goryeo people caught the strong men who put the raft. Ma Rui would definitely not want to suffer losses, and would also catch the people who left the city." Zhao Xingde nodded and said, "As long as he does not make a fool of himself, he will use a cavalry team to attack Baozhou City, which is guarded by 3,000 people, it is okay to be arrogant outside the city." Jin Changtai smiled slightly. According to the situation collected by the Military Information Department, the Goryeo army has been stationed in narrow terrain for a long time and is good at defending the city and fighting water, and has very few cavalry, and his riding skills are worse than those of the Xia infantry soldiers riding horses. As long as Ma Rui fails to fall into the ambush of the Goryeo people, it should be fine to protect himself.
Chapter completed!