dognovel Chapter 238 The Poor Northwest Army
Chapter 238 The Poor Northwest Army
Prince Ji's army retreated very reluctantly. The fat man had no idea where the supplies from Prince Ji's palace had gone.
All the money and food are gone. This expedition is a huge loss, and so many elite soldiers have been killed.
That’s not all. We don’t even know where to find the pay and rations for such an elite army.
How Prince Ji overcomes the difficulties has nothing to do with Ning Yi. Even if Prince Ji cannot pay the military wages, causing the soldiers to go hungry and causing chaos among the soldiers, it has nothing to do with him.
It would be better to kill the fat guy. To him, these so-called vassal kings are stumbling blocks to the future unification of the world, and they will all be dealt with sooner or later.
Each vassal king occupied a certain area, had tens of thousands of soldiers, and did not obey the command of the imperial court. They were real warlords.
Although King Ji's army retreated, King Huai's remaining tens of thousands of soldiers and horses were still holding on.
Ning Yi surrounded them again.
Send someone to tell them that King Huai is dead and Huaizhou Prefecture has been sealed off.
Even the commander's family was arrested on the way.
If you want your families to live, you officers should surrender immediately.
The commander was extremely anxious. He didn't expect that his family members failed to escape and were caught.
The officers were especially anxious. They were still waiting to resist here and let their families in Huaizhou City leave.
As a result, they were surrounded again.
Ning Yi also said that as long as they surrendered, they would at most become slaves and reunite with their families after a few years, otherwise they would be killed without mercy.
The army, which had been tormented by King Ji for a long time, continued to resist desperately.
However, they were frightened by a group of Beijing troops from Ning Yi's side and really surrendered.
They were not afraid of King Ji. As long as their family members could leave, King Ji would not chase their family members everywhere.
But the Sixth Prince is different. He represents the imperial court. Where can the entire Dawu Kingdom go?
What's more, the commander's family members have been captured, so how could he be willing to continue resisting?
The truly loyal and elite troops were all taken away by King Huai and wiped out by the Second Army.
What remains now are just some soldiers of the vassal kings who serve in the army and receive food.
Tens of thousands of King Huai's soldiers walked out of the camp one after another, laying down their weapons and armor.
They were all confiscated by the two Beijing camp guards ordered by Ning Yi.
The other guards from the capital camp did not need to move and continued to surround Huaizhou Prefecture.
As for the tens of thousands of elite soldiers of King Huai, they were all taken as prisoners and guarded by one of his guards in the capital camp.
The reason why he brought his own Beijing Camp Guards this time was, firstly, to take advantage of the situation, and secondly, to serve as a front.
Let the old emperor not have any doubts.
Next was Huaizhou Prefecture. This time, as soon as the body of King Huai was thrown away, the people surrendered immediately.
Finally, Prince Huai's palace was opened, but there was nothing left in the warehouse except hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and a small amount of military rations for the soldiers defending the city.
Ning Yi just needs to distribute all the silver and the Beijing Army just needs to give a little benefit.
However, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver were given to the 30,000 elite cavalrymen in the northwest, as well as a large amount of military rations.
But it made Yu Shengfei and a group of cavalry commanders happy.
They were originally worried that the Sixth Prince would send troops to fight a decisive battle with Prince Ji, or use them as cannon fodder when attacking Huaizhou Prefecture.
As a result, no fighting was done, no one died, and a large amount of money and food was distributed.
Yu Shengfei and his fellow commanders immediately shouted out their gratitude to His Royal Highness the Prince.
Ning Yi smiled and said, "As the elite troops of the northwest and the guardians of the border of the Great Wu Kingdom, you have come all the way here to defend the king. I will never let you shed sweat, blood, and tears."
This one sentence made all the cavalrymen very excited.
The Northwest Army is poor. They live in a remote and impoverished area, and their salaries depend on the imperial court.
Not only is life miserable, but they also have to face harassment from foreign enemies from time to time.
This time, they had to rush thousands of miles to defend the king with the emperor's order. Some of them even worried that they would die without any compensation.
Now everyone is very grateful and glad that they came to help the king, otherwise they would never have had such a good opportunity.
Look at the cavalrymen, they only took a few taels of silver and had a very comfortable meal, and they were all very grateful.
Ning Yi sighed, what great soldiers the Da Wu Kingdom had.
No wonder the old emperor often mobilized troops from the northwest, as they were all elite soldiers who had been fighting for years.
He had an impulse to take a lot of silver and travel to the northwest, where he could immediately gather the hearts of hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers.
This was just a thought. He knew that there were many direct descendants of the old emperor in the northwest.
It is impossible for so many direct descendants to rebel together.
There are still several vassal kings in the northwest, which is a severely affected area by military disasters. If you want to take over the entire northwest, you must be an emperor who has successfully ascended the throne.
However, Ning Yi felt that it would not be a big problem to win over the morale of these tens of thousands of cavalrymen.
Prince Huai's palace was sealed off, so there wasn't much profit to be made.
Huaizhou Prefecture was also thoroughly rectified. There were still many able-bodied men who had followed King Huai around. Ning Yi caught almost all of them, gave them a good lecture, and then sent them home.
The people were originally forced to do this, so there is no need to make things difficult for them.
However, including the 20,000 elite soldiers left by King Huai for the defense of Huaizhou Prefecture, Ning Yi eliminated the officers and ordered the other soldiers to be escorted to the capital city one after another by two guards of the Beijing camp, saying that they were taken as prisoners.
As for the 20,000 sets of weapons and armor, I'm sorry, they must be confiscated.
The reason is also to send it to the capital.
Ning Yi is no longer short of money. A large amount of money and grain was seized at Hushan Pass, and Fang Chengyu's lair was raided. Now the court was depressed when they went to Hushan Pass because all the money and grain were gone.
After all the accusations, we can only blame Fang Chengyu for using up all the money and food to expand the army in order to support the Jingnan Rebellion.
The Prince Ji's Mansion also seized a large amount of money and food, and it was like a fat pig. The money and food seized by Ning Yi alone was enough to feed the 200,000-strong army for several years.
The only thing he lacks now is sophisticated weapons and armor.
He relied entirely on the weapons production workshop at the base he had set up to arm tens of thousands of troops, which was very difficult.
As for wanting to arm an army of hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, that is simply a pipe dream.
Ning Yi could only earn so much by relying on the spoils he had captured along the way and various sneak attacks.
Moreover, the base has been expanded in all directions, including the Yongying Camp and the mines in the mountains.
In addition, a base was also opened up in the mountains west of Hushan Pass.
There are also several bases agreed upon with the Dongfang family, which can still be used to maintain troops.
They returned one after another with large armies, large numbers of prisoners and various supplies.
When they arrived at the Yongying Camp, they directly ordered the two guards of the Jingying Camp to leave all the prisoners here, as well as a large number of weapons and armor.
They are just a group of soldiers left behind by King Huai. They are not even officers, so there is no need for them to have any ulterior motives.
As for the reason given to the court, it was that this place was severely damaged by Prince Huai's palace, so these captives should be left as slaves to rebuild the local area.
As for the captured weapons and armor, it was naturally impossible to give them to the court.
All we have to do is give the Ministry of War a bunch of scraps replaced by the Beijing troops.
Yang Long looked at the various equipment captured from King Huai's soldiers with disgust. The Sixth Prince's eating habits were too ugly.