Chapter 112: Counter-attacked and Defeated an Entire Army

  "Bohemian? Didn't you go to Lin'an? Has the petition been successful?" Yue Yun asked excitedly as soon as he saw this person. Only then did he understand why Yue Fei knew about Wang Tong's affairs, it turned out that someone had come back to report.

  Wang Tong smiled bitterly and said, "The result is indeed there, but it's not a good one. Three days ago, the imperial envoy arrived. I rushed back before the imperial envoy arrived, originally wanting to inform you first, Young Master, so that you could be prepared, but I heard that you had gone to Chu State to borrow grain from General Han and hadn't returned yet. So I had no choice but to tell the general directly."

  "Oh! Never mind, I'll tell Father about this too... By the way, what was the outcome of going to Lin'an for a visit? How did the officials make their decision in the end?" Yue Yun asked curiously.

  Wang Tong let out a sigh and recounted the events that had occurred in Lin'an in great detail. Yue Yun listened intently, her brow furrowed slightly as she felt that the development of the situation was roughly what she had initially expected, except for the fact that Zhao Gou had kicked the ball back to Yue Fei's side.

  Wang Tong spoke for more than half a day before finishing, and Yue Yun listened to him with some confusion, saying: "Wen Qing, I feel that the situation is not so bad! Although the government has handed over the trouble of resettling the people to us, the deadline for withdrawal has been extended to three months, which can be delayed until after the autumn harvest. Moreover, we have also obtained grain and silver, this result is not perfect, but it is still an acceptable result!"

  Wang Tong shook his head helplessly, furrowing his brow: "Young Master, it's true that the government allocated grain and silver, but the amount is extremely small. There are only 50,000 stones of grain and 100,000 taels of silver. This little bit of resources won't even be enough to settle the common people, let alone cover a week's worth of expenses."

  "What? Only this much?" Yue Yun was shocked when he heard the number. Even the grain borrowed by Han Shizhong had 100,000 dan, while the imperial court only allocated 50,000 dan.

  "Yes! The young master, not only is the grain a drop in the bucket, but this amount of money can't even fix the houses for 10,000 people. And yet there are over 2 million civilians preparing to follow us back south, how can it be enough?" Li Ruoxu couldn't help but twirl his mustache and sigh as he spoke.

  "Isn't this obviously a trap? We can totally reject it! What are we? The vanguard of the imperial army, responsible for fighting battles! Settling the common people is the court's and local officials' business!" Yuke Yun heard this and became anxious. He hadn't expected that his original plan to petition would lead to this situation.

  "Yingxiang, not accepting is not an option!" Zhang Xian also shook his head and said: "When the imperial edict was announced, you were not there, so you don't know the situation at that time. The eunuch who came to announce the edict was not announcing it in the commander's tent, but rather in Zhu Xiantown, in front of tens of thousands of civilians and several thousand soldiers. When he read out the imperial edict saying that the court had specially allocated a sum of grain and silver for the commander to take care of the civilians, tens of thousands of civilians cheered in unison. Not to mention that originally not accepting an imperial edict is a serious crime, in such a situation, even if the commander had doubts, he would be suspected of having ulterior motives, let alone speaking out to refuse."

  Yue Yun was taken aback. It seemed that he had underestimated Zhao Gou and Qin Hui after all. He had used public opinion to coerce them, but they had also used public opinion to coerce the Yue family army. His previous plan had indeed been a case of "stealing a chicken only to lose rice".

  This court's calculation is too precise. They must have calculated: isn't your Yue Fei's army always claiming to be the protector of the people, the guardian of the people? Then I'll just hand over the task of resettling the people to you, Yue Fei. If it goes well, it's because the court has used the right person; if it doesn't go well, it's because you, Yue Fei, are incompetent, and it's convenient to hold you accountable.

  When Yue Yun realized this point, he felt a chill run down his spine and cold sweat broke out on his back.

  Yue Fei, Li Ruoxu and Wang Tong had discussed this matter before, so they deeply understood the pros and cons.

  Yu Yunwen was originally clever and soon figured it out with a little thought, his expression suddenly became anxious and worried.

  "Governor Li, is there any way to resolve this matter?" Yue Yun also became anxious, because the petition was his doing, originally just wanting to delay the withdrawal of troops for a few more days, but unexpectedly being counter-attacked by the imperial court.

  "Alas, this matter is too difficult to handle! If we had sufficient funds and grain, it wouldn't be impossible to resettle the people. However, now everything is in short supply. We've calculated that if we want to resettle 250,000 people, the grain shortage would reach 1 million dan, and building houses for 250,000 people would cost over 3.5 million guan. If we also consider the clothing needed for the people to get through winter, as well as the large-scale procurement of stone and wood materials that could lead to price increases, the gap would be even greater. Not to mention our army's financial resources, even mobilizing the entire Hubei province's Xikou Road Pacification Office wouldn't be enough."

  "Then... are we just going to wait for death?" Yue Yun's heart had already chilled by half.

  He had guessed that if there was a shortage of food and supplies at the time, these people might think that Yue Fei was embezzling money and profiteering. After all, they were not clear about how much money and grain the court had allocated. Once unexpected situations such as famine, cold, and epidemic diseases occurred among the refugees returning south, it would not only make the people resent Yue Fei but also provide an opportunity for Qin Hui's party to attack him, and Yue Fei might really end up going to the Wind and Wave Pavilion ahead of time.

  Yue Fei said with some helplessness, "Yun'er, at present there is indeed no better way! I and Ruo Xu, Wang Gui, Xun Li, and your new staff member Wang Tong have discussed it and feel that we can only take things one step at a time. We plan to resettle more than 200,000 refugees in the six counties of Xiangyang, which was occupied by the fake Qi five years ago. Although it was later recovered by my father, many people were displaced, and the land was left barren, making it suitable for resettling refugees. Now that it is September 18th, we can start harvesting autumn crops. After the harvest is complete, the newly harvested grain, combined with the grain you transported back from Xiangyang, should be enough to sustain us until the end of the year. As for how to build houses and supplement the insufficient food, we will have to figure it out after returning to Xiangyang."

  Yue Yun said with a sigh, this is indeed the case where a clever woman cannot cook without rice. He deeply felt why the several northern expeditions of the Southern Song Dynasty in history always ended in failure. It was not only the problem that the combat effectiveness of the Song army was not as good as that of the Jin army. Even later, when the combat effectiveness of the Song army was enough to defeat the Jin army, it was still impossible to expand the results due to logistical constraints. Moreover, the more land they recovered, the larger the number of people who needed to be resettled and the greater the cost of resettlement. No wonder Zhao Gou would rather send silk and silver to the Jin state every year in pursuit of stability, but never wanted to launch a northern expedition again.

  In the commander's tent, after another discussion, Yue Fei decided to formally retreat on September 28.

  Yue Fei set the time for withdrawal ten days later, seemingly with plenty of leeway, but in fact it was quite tense. Within these ten days, not only did they have to rush through the autumn harvest, but also arrange the route for withdrawal, as well as deploy flank guard troops and rearguard forces.

  150,000 troops and 250,000 civilians, the total number has exceeded 400,000. Many civilians are planning to move south and never come back, so they plan to take away all the things that can be moved from their homes. This also brought a lot of inconvenience to the retreat. Yue Yun looked at many civilians who even wanted to put their tables on the board car to take away, and couldn't help but sigh with sorrow.

  He thought to himself, such a moving team with all sorts of pots and pans, would take who knows how many years or months to return to Xiangyang.

  Yue Yun looked north, and on the horizon, he could already vaguely see the city walls of Bianjing. This old capital of the Song Dynasty, which was breached by the Jin army fourteen years ago, seemed to be about to return to the bosom of the Song people, but it was again ruthlessly abandoned by the court of the Song Dynasty.

  "Alas, I don't know when I'll see Bianjing again, nor do I know when we can drive out the Jurchen people and recover the Central Plains..." Yue Yun murmured to himself.

  The sharp autumn wind blew up his silver-white cloak, and Yue Yun thought about his journey to this era for two months, and couldn't help but have some doubts in his heart: This Yu Jing is a great general who is as famous as Yue Fei in history! Moreover, he now holds the military and political power of the Jin State alone, and does not act like Yue Fei who was restricted everywhere. But in these two months, he seemed to have been hiding in Bianjing City without any movement, which is really a bit unusual.

  What is this guy doing now? Yue Yun couldn't help but wonder in her heart.