At the request of Yi Ji, the King of Tang organized his army to gather at the end of July at the border of Wu to hold back and help Yi Ji to seize the throne. Tang, like Wu, was a coastal country, with the eastern part of its territory facing the sea.
Both Tang and Wu had salt farms, and the salt-making process in this time and space was to boil brine with seawater and fry it into salt. This kind of primitive salt boiling is time-consuming, fuel-consuming, and the production is small. Because there is a big river running through the middle of the Qin Dynasty into the sea (the big river is similar to the Yellow River, and the long river in the territory of Wu is similar to the Yangtze River), the salt content of the seawater near the salt farms of the Tang Dynasty is lowered, and it costs more fuel and labor to burn the sea salt. On the other hand, Wu's salt farm in the East China Sea had good water quality and high salt concentration, so it was easier to burn sea salt than Tang, and the sea salt was of higher quality than Tang.
Salt is indispensable to everyone's life, and at that time boiling was not easy, resulting in a high price of salt in the market, the two suitable places for boiling salt in Tang and Wu were the main source of economic resources for the inner coffers of the rulers of these two countries.
The people of this time and space will not drill wells to mine salt, and do not realize that there are natural brine and rock salt deposits under the ground, the source of salt in addition to sea salt is lake salt. In addition to half of the salt boiled by Tang was consumed at home, half was sold at high price to the inland countries that did not have lake salt. Many inland vassal states such as Zhao, Qi, Chen and Chu needed to import salt. The salt that Tang sold to the outside world was the biggest economic source for the King of Tang.
South port and the valley production of exquisite brocade, porcelain, glass products appeared, living a luxurious life of course, the king of the Tang Dynasty to spend a huge amount of money to buy to enjoy, flowing money into the merchants and manufacturing place to go, the king of the Tang Dynasty feel the beginning of economic constraints.
Over the past twenty years, because of climate change, there were frequent disasters in the Tang Dynasty, and the taxes on farmland became less and less. The King of Tang repeatedly levied more taxes, but because of the people's food shortfalls in the years of disasters, the grain officials and nobles who collected the taxes could not meet the King's requirements even if they raided the people's homes. The King of Tang's exorbitant levies, on the other hand, led to the abandonment of the land by many people who fled to the mountains or to the neighboring countries, and a large portion of the fleeing people fled to the Ulsan Mountain.
King Tang could not increase his income from the land, so he wanted to increase the tribute from the nobles, which was unanimously rejected by the nobles. King Tang's second idea to increase his income was aborted.
All the places that could increase income, King Tang went to increase, the number of increased income makes King Tang very dissatisfied. At the end of the day, the King of Tang could only toss more at his salt farms, with the idea of letting the salt workers at the salt farms boil more salt to increase production.
Because salt production adopts boiling method, which requires a large amount of fuel, the trees near the salt farms of the Tang Dynasty were cut down and dried for boiling salt, resulting in the lack of firewood available around the salt farms, and the dry firewood for boiling salt at the salt farms had to be transported by mule carts from dozens of miles away. The transportation of fuel wood alone was a waste of countless manpower and animal resources. When the fuel for boiling salt could not be guaranteed, of course the production could not be increased, and King Tang's hope of increasing the production of the salt farm was dashed.
When the King of Tang was unable to increase his income by all means he could think of for his country, he turned his attention to the surrounding countries. The countries bordering Tang, except Wei, were all stronger and bigger than Tang, and Wei, which was weaker than Tang, was in turn safe after becoming a place for the two countries to play games because most of its land area was a buffer for the borders of Zhao and Wu, and Tang, facing the two strong countries of Zhao and Wu, of course did not dare to seize Wei. The way for the King of Tang to get rich by waging war against the weaker countries was simply impossible.
Just when the Tang King was at a loss, Yi Ji contacted the Tang King through Dr. Jiang, hoping to get the Tang King to send troops to help her in her plan to get rid of the tiger. The King of Tang was overjoyed when he realized the intention of Ripple Ji, and asked Ripple Ji to use the east coast of Wu as a reward, and finally reached an agreement after several rounds of negotiation with Dr. Jiang.
The king of Tang was full of confidence to get the East China Sea, he promised generous benefits to the Tang nobles who sent troops, quickly gathered more than 10,000 Huben, and more than 20,000 auxiliary soldiers, led the army camped on the border, just waiting for Ri Ji's success in seizing the throne, he can get Ri Ji rewarded by the East China Sea.
In the view of the Tang King, this operation of the Tang army was a tour of the mountains and a visit to the border of Wu. What the King of Tang did not anticipate was the sudden rise of the army of Duke Ming's crusade in Ulsan, which prevented him from realizing his wish quickly.
When the Ulsan army destroyed Ri Ji's 20,000 Huben and 30,000 army at the mouth of Ulsan Road and swung north to conquer, the Tang King was not calm in his heart, he was afraid that Ri Ji would fail, in that case, not only would he not get paid, but there would be no one to compensate for the wasted financial and material resources.
After pondering for a long time, King Tang felt that he should take advantage of the civil war in Wu to seize the East Coast of the Sea first. King Tang did not take the Wu army at the border of Wu in his eyes, because he knew that the army's food and supplies were controlled by Ripple.
For the sake of the safety of the royal capital, Ri Ji has requested the Tang army to retreat twice, so that the Wu army at the border of Wu will be able to save the army. Since Ri Ji has requested the East Sima and South Sima to retreat, the Tang king believes that the woman will definitely use all means to coerce the Wu army, and cutting off the food and grass is the best way to force the army to retreat. An army without provisions is a paper tiger, no matter how many soldiers or heroic they are.
Paper tiger's army is unbearable, the Tang army and such no fighting force army engagement, can easily break the Wu army defense line to take down the East China Sea coast, to achieve the fact that occupy the East China Sea coast.
If Ri Ji wins, the East China Sea was originally her promised reward, and Wu will naturally not send troops to take it back. If Azure Mountain Duke Ming wins, Duke Ming's life is questioned by the world, Tang can use this reason not to recognize the pseudo-regime of Wu, and then contact the surrounding vassal states to unanimously denounce it, and perhaps even cut Wu into pieces to share a bit of the cake again.
The King of Tang felt that his plan was perfect. Immediately, he ordered the Tang army to march lightly towards Wu, and he wanted to pocket the East China Sea coast with lightning speed.
King Tang's perfect calculation was defeated by Nanbu's wooden ships located in the harbor of the small bay on his own border. The large wooden ships of Nanbu brought food, clothing, and ordnance from Ulsan to the large army on the border of Wu, ensuring the fighting strength of the large armies of Dongshima and Nanshima. The Tang army that entered the border of Wu encountered strong resistance and was stopped at the hollow of the mountain in front of Donghaejimae. And the Ulsan army quickly broke through the city and divided the border to give the Tang army another fatal blow.
The Tang army was besieged without any mental preparation by the East and South Secretaries and the army led by Chu Chao Hui and Zhou Cheng. After the Tang army was encircled, the Wu army just besieged and did not take the initiative to fight, but always dealt a hard blow to the Tang army for organizing a breakout.
The King of Tang tried to break through three times and found that apart from the loss of soldiers and horses, there was not a ray of hope that he could break through the defense line of the Wu army, and the Tang army had to stop the useless behavior and wait for a good opportunity.
God did not give the King of Tang a good chance, not only did he not give him the possibility to leave safely, but instead, there was a massive cooling down and heavy snowfall. When the Tang army invaded Wu, it was lightly loaded and did not bring enough food and clothing. A few days after being surrounded by the Wu army, the army ran out of food and clothing and began to slaughter horses and mules and dig up grass roots to satisfy their hunger, and with the arrival of the cold spell, the Tang army not only faced a lack of food, but also a lack of clothing and heating fuel. One night, the Tang army always carried out hundreds of corpses on the campsite that died of starvation and freezing, and the number of deaths doubled with the time of the siege.
After half a month of encirclement, the Tang army camp has been unable to see people carrying dead bodies out, Tang soldiers have been too hungry to bury the robes, and the lack of food, but also forced them to cook and eat the bodies of their robes. To the barracks to stand guard in front of the soldiers, walking will fall head over heels, and rely on the barracks door yards of the soldiers on duty, often after a night of noiseless freezing to death. The Tang military camp seemed to be hell on earth.
The King of Tang, faced with his own army which had no fighting power at all, could only ask the Wu army to negotiate for peace. The place of negotiation was set up in the open space of the military camps of the two countries, where a tent was erected for the negotiation of peace.
King Tang was afraid that he would be 'clicked' by the Wu army if he personally went out to negotiate peace, so he only sent his own beloved generals to negotiate with the Wu army. The representative of peace negotiation from the Wu side was Chu Chao Hui, who had come all night from the royal capital.
"General Sima, with what sincerity will your king apologize to Wu?" Chu Chaohui curiously surveyed the Tang's General Sima, the Tang camp starved and froze to death countless soldiers every day, but the face of this Sima in front of him didn't seem to have a trace of vegetable color, except for the clothes on his body were a bit dirty and disheveled, the whole person seemed to be in good temperament.
"Our Maharaja said that he would pay out eight hundred thousand coins to the Wu Kingdom as compensation." Tang Sima said carefully, Chu Chao Hui's tall body had an intimidating pressure on him.
"Haha! Your great king is so amusing, is this point of compensation a sincere attempt to beg for surrender and peace?" Not only did Chu Chao Hui laugh, the other Wu generals present also let out snickers.
Tang Sima gritted his teeth, "Then offer a million gold coins as compensation." This was the limit set by King Tang.
Chu Zhaohui leaned his body back and shook one finger repeatedly, "No, no, don't say a million, even if you offer ten million, it won't be able to offset the damage that your Great King has caused to the Kingdom of Wu, and it's simply delusional for your Great King to think that he can offset his crime with just this amount of money!"
"Ten million?" Tang Sima was dumbfounded, ten million couldn't even reach the number to collect the entire Tang King's Palace.
Chu Zhaohui stood up, two hands behind his back in the tent walking back and forth, while walking, while denouncing the crimes of the Tang King: "Your king conspired with the adulterous consort to transfer two loyal and good generals of my Great Wu away from the royal capital, resulting in the murder of our prince by the adulterous consort, the king was killed by the adulterous consort, the king was placed under house arrest, and many of the ministers in the court died, and the Northern Marquis took advantage of the opportunity to split up the country, which led the Kingdom of Wu into a civil war. All the things that happened to Wu were the result of the conspiracy between your king and the concubine. Can you afford to pay for it with just a hundred gold coins? Not to mention that your country has also launched a direct invasion of my country, just for the crime of thinking of my Great Wu's East Sea coast, a million gold coins cannot be used to express apology."
Tang Sima was rebuked by Chu Zhaohui and wiped cold sweat, in fact, the Wu army now can completely destroy the Tang army, capturing the King of Tang alive. Tang Sima does not know why Chu Zhaohui will not move troops, as if he intends to give the Tang King a negotiation and peace road.
"Great General Chu, our domestic finances are really difficult, we can't take out any more coins than one million." Tang Sima said the truth, is this million coins, half of which still have to go back to the country from the people and the nobles to scrape, to the king of Tang himself all from the palace treasury out is impossible, the king of Tang burden half, already put him heartache in the barracks in the king's tent to roll.
"Humph! In fact, your country's lord has lost his virtue, benevolence and morality, and is no longer worthy of being a country's lord, I, Great Wu, can completely dispose of the Tang lord on behalf of the Qin Emperor." Chu Chao Hui snorted coldly.
Tang Sima's forehead bean-sized beads of sweat straight up, his own country master dry dirty things, is can be abolished reason. "My family great king already know regret, he is sincere and sent in to apologize for compensation, but too much money compensation in my Tang country outside of the capacity to bear, please Chu great general accommodation."
Tang Sima's caution caused the anger on Chu Chaohui's face to fade. "That's fine, since we don't have millions of coins to compensate, let's offset it with land and cities."
"This, I can't make the decision, Great General Chu can tell me the request, and I'll go back and report to my family's Great King."
Chu Chao Hui smiled slightly, glanced toward Zhou Cheng, Zhou Cheng immediately held out the pen and ink on top of the table, Chu Chao Hui picked up the brush and dipped it in ink swish and wrote four articles.
"Our country's compensation demand is only four, these four are the bottom line of my Great Wu, no bargaining is allowed. Please ask Sima to bring them back and present them to your Great King, I hope your country will give a reply tonight, if your country refuses to agree, my Great Wu army will fight your army to the death tomorrow, at that time, I believe that your Great King won't have a chance to negotiate again!"
"Aye! Is! I will immediately go back and present it to my family's great king, and will definitely give your country a reply before nightfall." Tang Sima received the paper and nodded repeatedly.
The first request made by Chu Chao-hui was to allocate one-sixth of Tang's territory, more than 5,000 square kilometers in the south, to Wu, which included coal mines, small bays and the mouth of a large river in the north.
The second article is that Tang will compensate Wu for the military expenses of 800,000 gold.
The third article is that Wu merchants are protected from arbitrary seizure of goods or overcharging of commercial taxes when doing business in Tang.
Fourth, the border between the two countries, the Tang side can not set up a permanent army, Wu at the same time to ensure that they will not take the initiative to start a war against the Tang.
After reading the four conditions proposed by Chu Chaohui, King Tang was greatly relieved to find that he was not asked to cede the treasure bowl-like salt farms. King Tang was most afraid that Wu would turn around and ask him to cede the salt fields.
A large part of the land that Chu Chao Hui was the first to ask the Tang to cede was hilly, and only the plains around the mouth of the Great River were plains. Although the ceded area accounted for one-sixth of Tang's territory, it was not the main tax area of Tang. The number of monetary compensation in the second article was within the psychological tolerance of the Tang king. The third article was not considered a problem at all by the Tang King. As for the fourth article, after this war, coupled with the compensation in the future, the King of Tang itself no longer has the financial strength to set up a permanent army on the border, Chu Chaohui did not deliberately put forward, the King of Tang will also do so.
Tang Sima went back to the camp for an hour and returned to the negotiation tent of the two countries, handing over to Chu Chao Hui the map of the ceded land and the contract promising compensation. After Chu Chao Hui stamped the contract with the seal of the Prime Minister of Military Affairs, the agreement between the two countries officially came into effect.
Early the next morning, the King of Tang, with only his ministers and retinue, led more than 5,000 Huben through the empty gap left by Wu, and he abandoned the other 10,000 or so auxiliaries that had survived.
The Huben in the Tang army were all of noble origin, and the auxiliary soldiers were either domestic servants brought by the Huben or civilians forcibly recruited into the army. After being besieged by the Wu army, the Tang army was short of food, clothing and fuel, and the army's food, clothing and fuel for heating were all supplied to the Huben first, and the auxiliary soldiers were only supplied with a small amount of military food. After the cold snap, the auxiliary soldiers froze to death and were injured the most, after the scarcity of food, the Tang King ordered to cut off the supply of rations to the auxiliary soldiers, when Chu Chaohui led the Wu army into the camp of the Tang army, the tents in the camp have been dismantled and taken away by the King of the Tang army, very few of them were left, and the remaining tents and the open space were filled with the dying auxiliary soldiers waiting for their deaths, and the auxiliaries were as thin as a wood, with lifeless eyes, and some auxiliaries who had already lost their minds were devouring the corpses of their companions. Many Wu soldiers vomited on the spot when they saw this scene.
King Tang could abandon his own nationals, but Chu Chao Hui could not abandon them. Most of these Tang auxiliary soldiers were forcibly recruited by the King of Tang in the border areas, and these areas already belonged to the Kingdom of Wu, and the auxiliary soldiers in the border areas were already considered nationals of the Kingdom of Wu, and they would be a valuable labor force for the Kingdom of Wu.
After Chu Chao Hui's order to rescue the Tang auxiliary soldiers was issued, the Wu army entered a state of tension even more than fighting the Tang army; the sooner the auxiliary soldiers were fed food and the sooner they were given a roasting fire, the sooner their lives could be saved.
Immediately, the camp abandoned by the king of the Tang Dynasty was re-erected with tents, in which a pond fire was built with coals, and the Tang auxiliary soldiers who had breath were carried into the tents. Outside the tent, hundreds of iron pots were set up to boil up corn porridge. After the porridge was boiled up, those who had the strength would take a bowl and drink it by themselves, while those who had no strength would be fed by the Wu soldiers, as many of the soldiers in the Ulsan army were Tang people, they were most active in saving their own folks. The doctors accompanying the Wu army were busy treating those Tang soldiers who had hopes of surviving. The dead Tang corpses were carried outside the camp and discharged. The cold temperature ensured that the corpses did not decay, and the Tang auxiliary soldiers would dispose of the corpses after their bodies recovered.
"General Chu! Should those Tang army corpses be stacked into a Jing Guan?" Dong Sima and Nan Sima inquired seeing the corpses discharged outside the camp.
"No, don't fold into the Kyokan, wars can't be won by deterrence alone. When the Tang auxiliary soldiers recover, let them bring the remains of their acquaintances back to their homeland for burial." Chu Chaohui shook his head.
The Qin lords used to pile up the corpses of defeated enemy troops on both sides of the road, cover them with earth and tamp them down to form a pyramid-shaped mound as a deterrent to the enemy and to show off their own martial arts skills.
"Here!" East Sima and South Sima respectfully bowed their heads to receive orders. Without the two of them, Chu Chaohui and Zheng Yuming, their families would definitely be murdered by Ripple Ji, and they themselves, after being cut off from food and grass, would end up in the same situation as the Tang army in front of them. Without Zheng Chu and the two of them, the two who stood here discussing the Stacked Jing Guan would not be the two of them, but the King of Tang and his courtiers.
"The turmoil in my Great Wu ends here, and from now on, we'll do our best to rebuild our home!"
Chu Chao Hui gazed into the distance, the heart rises a wave of pride, this large area of the river and mountain, the future will be by him and Zheng Yuming two to splash the ink!
Author's Note: Jing Guan, an ancient mound where enemy corpses were gathered and sealed in order to show off their military prowess. Many ancient books have records of Jing Guan, such as the Battle of Changping in the Records of the Grand Historian, Xiang Yu's killing of 200,000 Qin prisoners of war; Wang Mang's killing of rebels in the Book of Han; and many others in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, the Book of Jin, the History of the Song Dynasty, the History of the Ming Dynasty, and so on.