In the imperial tent of the camp outside Yangzhou City, Zhao Bing placed a cup of hot tea in front of the table, a plate of fried crispy dried fish, a ruler-high document beside him, and a brush covered with cinnabar in his hand, but he had not started writing for a long time, and his eyes seemed to be looking at the official document, but his eyes were wandering. Wang De, who was serving the side, knew that the little emperor had "entered to meditation" again, waved his hand to let the small yellow door accompanying the tent exit, and the guards guarded the door and did not disturb him.

Wang De looked at His Majesty with his eyes fixed on his eyes, feeling a little nervous. His Majesty often had his mind when he was in a daze, but there weren't many times like today when he hadn't moved for a long time. If he hadn't heard the breath, he would have called the imperial physician. He realized that His Majesty had encountered difficulties and made it difficult for him to make decisions for a while, but he could not share the emperor's worries in this regard, so he could only be anxious.

Zhao Bing's thoughts at this time were indeed not above the official documents. Eighty percent of them were New Year's greetings sent by officials from all over the country. There was no substantive content, nothing more than greetings and showing loyalty. His thoughts were still on the current situation of battle. At this time, the Yuxi Timuer's troops had all crossed the river. The vanguard arrived in Changshu and fought fiercely with the Fifth Brigade of the Guards. After paying a heavy price, they were unable to capture the city as planned.

But today the enemy brigade will arrive at the city, and Luo Datong's pressure will double. He must ensure that the city will not be lost before the battle is fully launched. Zhao Bing said that it is false. After all, the troops of the two sides are very different. The Fifth Brigade will fight against the 100,000 Mengyuan Tiger and Wolf Division with 100,000 people. Even if he is not on the scene, he can imagine that the enemy will not be afraid of life and death and will be in a tide. After all, if they cannot capture Changshu City, they will face the crisis of food cuts and fight hungry.

Speaking of this, Wang Yinglin made great contributions. He was ordered to return to Beijing to explain to the ministers about the plan to recover the two Huai Rivers, and make preparations for the aftermath. The scale and scope of this battle have exceeded the expectations before the war. Preparations in advance mean that they must be overturned and re-deployed. Especially when the time is urgent, and the New Year is approaching, the difficulties can be imagined. If the benefits and significance of it cannot be explained, it is not easy to get them to cooperate, but Wang Yinglin successfully did it.

Lu Xiufu was indeed a minister. After learning about Zhao Bing's deployment and plan, he knew that the significance of this battle was extraordinary. Once the two Huai Rivers were recovered, the Jiangnan would be stable and the bridgehead for the Northern Expedition was obtained, and Lin'an was protected from the threat of the Mongols' going south at any time. Although he knew that Your Majesty had the intention of threatening righteousness, he still actively coordinated the forces of all parties and quietly provided various guarantees.

First, on the name of the Secretariat, the annual leave was postponed on the grounds that His Majesty was fighting outside and his affairs were complicated, and the Ministry of Revenue was ordered to prepare a large amount of funds and allocate food and grass first for war needs; to order the training bases of the Ministry of War to form new recruits who were training and village soldiers participating in winter training, and distribute weapons, and detain them in the camps, and accept dispatch at any time; to order the Ministry of Works to use the slack farming repairs to renovate cities and water conservancy facilities to concentrate the husbands in Suzhou, Changzhou, Kunshan and Jiankang in the name of paying wages, and prepare to cooperate with the army to fight.

In addition, in conjunction with the Privy Council, the garrisons around Jiangdong were concentrated in the name of protecting the capital during the New Year, and transferred to the canal along the canal, and joined the battle to encircle and annihilate the enemy in the southern invasion of the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasty at any time; ordered the Ministry of Personnel to select officials and select available people from the Imperial Academy as officials sent to the newly occupied land and form governments at all levels; ordered the Ministry of Justice to strictly set up chucks and arrest spies from the enemy country; and the Ministry of Rites held various sacrifices and prepared New Year's lantern festivals to confuse the place.

In addition, we have secretly ordered all prefectures and counties located in pre-set war zones to mobilize. Once the war breaks out, we will immediately organize the people to evacuate to a safe place, take away all the food, livestock, and property, hide them, and do a good job of clearing the countryside. At the same time, we must appease the people, do not cause unrest, and prevent people from taking advantage of the situation and causing unnecessary losses.

Thanks to the favorable grassroots regime established by the Song Dynasty, although the time was very tight, Baojia, from the imperial prefecture to the grassroots level, was quickly mobilized, and the imperial edicts were strictly implemented and implemented. Although some flaws inevitably appeared, they were all implemented through powerful means, ensuring that the war preparations could be completed before the war.

This made Zhao Bing very pleased and grateful, especially old ministers such as Ying Jieyan and Ma Tingluan who were preparing to retire, who were still inspecting them day and night, urging officials from all over the country to deal with emergencies. Of course, some officials were also dissatisfied with this, thinking that peaceful relocation with the Mongolian Yuan was the best strategy, and provoking a war without authorization was a great harm to the country and the people, but these people were quickly controlled and investigated, suppressing the voices that were not conducive to the overall situation...

As the situation developed, Zhao Bing understood that most of his plan had been successful. Even if there might be variables, the general situation had already been achieved. The tiger in the cage that Yuxi Timur's army had already had no big waves, and it was only a matter of time before it was annihilated. Yangzhou City was also a thing in the bag. The Tuolidu team, who lured the enemy outside, had been defeated by his own troops, and the remaining soldiers fled fifty miles away. The enemy in the city was a turtle in the jar, and he could break the city at any time and wipe it out.

In theory, Zhao Bing should be full of joy, but he was not happy. Because he was troubled by something, Zhao Bing knew that a large number of prisoners would inevitably be captured after a great victory, especially in this kind of encirclement and annihilation battle, and how to deal with these prisoners was also a big problem. In the past, after captives were captured, officers were usually executed, and soldiers were selected to be soldier camps and used as cheap labor.

In the war to recover Jiangnan, Zhao Bing adopted a policy of severe suppression, imposed the Mongols, Semu people and those who colluded with the enemy and treason, and were all sentenced to death, and soldiers were organized into baggage troops to serve. However, the current situation has changed. Most of the Yuan army stationed in Jiangnan at that time were Han and the New Affiliated Army, and they belonged to the same ethnic group. Most of the two Huaihe and Central Plains were formed by the Mongolians, Khitans, Jurchens, and Semu people from the nomadic people in Central Asia. They were not their own tribe, and according to the previous policies, they only faced a dead end.

Zhao Bing knew that large-scale killing of prisoners in ancient Chinese wars was not rare. In addition to Bai Qi, the historical records recorded in history books actually occurred frequently in Chinese history. For example, during the Qin and Han dynasties, Xiang Yu "attacked at night and trapped more than 200,000 Qin soldiers in the south of Xin'an City." During the Three Kingdoms and Southern and Northern Dynasties, killing of killing became a common means to deal with untrustworthy surrendered soldiers or retaliatory massacres. For example, in the battle between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao in Guandu, Cao Cao killed Yuan Shao's 70,000 surrendered soldiers.

According to the "Zizhi Tongjian", Cao Cao "killed hundreds of thousands of men and women in the Si River in Xuzhou, but the water did not flow." Although this data was suspected of Sima Guang's exaggeration, it also proved that the act of killing was at least in the Cao Wei camp. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, killing enemy prisoners became a very common behavior. For example, in the Book of Jin, it was recorded that Shi Le, the founding monarch of the Later Zhao Kingdom, "scattered like Wude, and surrendered more than 10,000 soldiers." After the Battle of Chanhebei in Later Yan and Northern Wei, Tuoba Gui also "pied all the prisoners of war in Later Yan".

In the north of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, pit killing was a popular means to deal with enemy prisoners of war. After the Southern and Northern Dynasties, pit killing prisoners of war also occurred frequently. So what is the significance of pit killing prisoners of war? In fact, this method has two main functions. One is to eliminate the surrendered troops through pit killing, but it is really difficult to trust and cannot be incorporated into their own army. Pit killing can greatly reduce the logistical difficulties caused by a large number of surrendered troops. Another very common intention of pit killing is to shock the enemy and thus dismantle the opponent's will to continue fighting.

However, killing is an extremely waste of human resources. Zhao Bing knew that in Europe at the same time, the general method of dealing with prisoners of war was to force them to work as slaves or sell them. Generally, captured knights and other nobles with noble titles would be protected and exchanged for ransoms through them. If ordinary soldiers were unable to pay the ransoms at home, they would be sold to Genoa or Venice and sold to ***s as slaves through them. What is more interesting is that the same operation was also performed in the Middle East at that time, and the captured aristocrats could undoubtedly be exchanged for high-priced golden eggs.

However, during the Crusade War, both the crusaders and the *** chose to kill prisoners of war instead of using them as slaves or exchange them for ransom. However, since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period of China, there were not many cases where they could spend money to redeem people. However, for the captured soldiers, as long as they were not killed because they were not trusted by the other generals, there were few cases where they would be sold as slaves.

In fact, China's common method of dealing with prisoners of war was to incorporate these soldiers into its own army. Therefore, in ancient times, prisoners of war were relatively safe and without wasting manpower, and they were still invested in some wars that were irrelevant to the overall situation but were of huge scale. For example, after Qin destroyed the six countries, it invested a large number of prisoners of war in the six countries into the war to attack Baiyue, allowing these soldiers to conquer and pioneer the territory of the Qin Dynasty, which also greatly expanded the territory of the Qin Dynasty. During the Mongolian and Yuan dynasties, Kublai Khan's two conquests against Japan also sent a large number of prisoners of war from Goryeo, Jin Dynasty, and Southern Song Dynasty.

Zhao Bing also knew that this practice was often used in the battles between the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols. Especially when the Ming army lacked cavalry in the early Ming Dynasty, the captured Dayuan soldiers were undoubtedly the best source of cavalry. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding monarch of the Ming Dynasty, was extremely disgusted with the generals' indiscriminate killing prisoners of war. In the early Qing Dynasty, the Ming army who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty also had the opportunity to become the vanguard of the Qing army's elimination of the Dashun and the Southern Ming regimes. However, it was actually quite dangerous to install prisoners of war to the front-line troops...
Chapter completed!