boyutpedia Chapter 295 Who are we fighting for?
Chapter 295 Who are we fighting for?
The real main force showdown at Hushan Pass has been going on for a month.
The barbarian Khan was quite ruthless. Although he lost tens of thousands of rebels, he was still not worried.
The passes were fought over by each other, and large numbers of troops were sent to continue the fight.
Some passes were fought over and passed back and forth, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides.
However, the attackers suffered more casualties, and the Barbarian Khan wasted most of the rebels in just one month.
The rebels suffered heavy casualties, but were still forced to attack everywhere.
Similarly, the Wu Kingdom also suffered heavy casualties. Ning Yi continued to send reinforcements to various passes, but he managed to capture them at the cost of human lives.
Under Ning Yi's constant urging, tens of thousands of cotton-padded clothes were finally delivered from the capital.
But what annoyed Ning Yi was that many of these tens of thousands of cotton-padded clothes were moldy old goods.
How can soldiers use this?
After careful selection, it would be good to have 10,000 sets in the end. However, for the entire Hushan Pass, it would require preparing winter equipment for an army of more than 100,000. Otherwise, how could Hushan Pass be defended?
For this reason, he went to the emperor to complain several times.
Letter after letter was sent, exposing all the problems.
Winter is approaching, but the problem of cotton clothes still cannot be solved.
The tens of thousands of sets sent here are unusable. Can we still defend Hushan Pass?
Who was he fighting for at Hushan Pass?
The group of corrupt officials behind him are greedy for even this silver. Aren’t they afraid that Hushan Pass cannot be defended and the next step will be to capture the capital?
And they were really not afraid, as they had already moved their property to the south.
If there is a chance to make some money, why not take it?
At worst, if Hushan Pass could not hold out, it would be the Sixth Prince's responsibility, not the responsibility of these officials.
What made Ning Yi even more angry was that the Ministry of Industry had gradually reduced a large amount of military supplies.
The Ministry of Works explained that it was the emperor who intercepted it.
Now they don’t even send any military equipment to Hushan Pass.
Ning Yi also knew that the old emperor wanted to take these weapons and send them to the south.
After all, the old emperor still wanted to reorganize tens of thousands of elite troops in the south to prepare for his escape to the south.
Ning Yi naturally would not refuse, and kept talking about how Hushan Pass was attacked by hundreds of thousands of barbarian troops and the military equipment was in serious shortage.
He has already collected a lot of ordinary blacksmiths and is constantly forging them.
But the demand still couldn't keep up with the supply, and countless arrows were wasted.
I just hope the old emperor can give more support to Hushan Pass.
That’s not all, even the supply of money and food began to decrease one after another.
Ning Yi naturally would not agree to this, and he told the old emperor clearly.
If the military supplies cannot be delivered and Hushan Pass cannot hold out, don't blame him for being unfilial.
By that time, he will be leading a group of remnants and will have no way to fight. It is better for the old emperor to send someone else to guard the city.
In theory, he wanted to quit and hand over the command.
But he just wanted to use this to force the old emperor to take out more things and give more as rewards, which also showed that Hushan Pass had indeed suffered heavy losses.
The battle was so intense that several passes were defended by both sides.
I believe that now that the battle at Hushan Pass is intense, no one will come to take over this mess.
Even a fool knows that accepting it at this time would be like accepting a hot potato. Once Hushan Pass is breached, the Sixth Prince will be finished, and the blame will be on their replacements.
The old emperor was in the palace, reading another letter of complaint sent by Ning Yi.
He frowned and looked at the people kneeling below.
"How's the situation at Hushan Pass?"
One of them looked up and said seriously, "Your Majesty, I have visited various locations at Hushan Pass and have indeed seen heavy casualties."
"Moreover, several passes have been breached by the barbarians. The reinforcements sent by the Sixth Prince are desperately fighting for them. The south is full of camps for the wounded, and countless civilians are fleeing south."
Someone nearby explained, "Your Majesty, the barbarians have been attacking the main city of Hushan Pass for a month. Countless people in the city have been injured. Even the Sixth Prince's servants frequently go up to the city walls to resist, and the losses have been considerable."
The old emperor looked at the last person.
The last man smiled bitterly, "Your Majesty, I did thoroughly inspect the granary at Tiger Mountain Pass. There was no trace of corruption. It was just that the Sixth Prince gave the best grain to the wounded. The entire army, whether it was the Beijing Battalion, the Northwest Cavalry, the troops at Tiger Mountain Pass, or the captured criminals the Sixth Prince had improvised, were treated equally. There was no bias."
"The Sixth Prince also organized a number of able-bodied civilians to do odd jobs, and also provided food to some elderly and weak refugees who had fled. As a result, the army's rations were not very abundant."
The old emperor's face was very cold, and he asked calmly, "Is it true that Lao Liu said about cotton clothes?"
The people below looked at each other.
"Speak." The old emperor's expression suddenly changed.
Several people immediately kowtowed in fear and said, "Your Majesty, please forgive me! We have examined the 30,000 cotton-padded clothes that the Sixth Prince selected, and they are indeed all in tatters, extremely moldy, and infested with insects. The officials who delivered them claimed that they bought them at high prices and that the Sixth Prince didn't want any of them. We haven't taken any of them."
"So, that's why the Sixth Prince, in a rage, executed the official who delivered the cotton-padded clothes. When I went to investigate, all the soldiers present could testify to this."
The old emperor was silent, but he was not in a hurry to make a conclusion.
After a while, he muttered, "Old Six is such a waste."
"Military rations are for soldiers, but he also has to take care of a bunch of refugees, the elderly and the weak."
No one dared to respond. The Sixth Prince used military rations to help some refugees, the elderly and the weak. Although this was a waste, or even harsh, it disregarded the lives of the soldiers.
But who can say that he did anything wrong? After all, the refugees who fled were also the people of the Dawu Kingdom.
The old emperor finally asked again, "Now that you have investigated the entire situation at Hushan Pass, how long can you judge it?"
That's what he cares about most.
He didn't care what Lao Liu did at Hushan Pass, no matter how he helped the refugees, the elderly and the weak, or how he organized the prisoners to form a criminal army to go to the front line to die as cannon fodder.
He didn't care whether the soldiers led by Lao Liu would freeze to death, he just wanted to know whether Hushan Pass could hold out.
Several investigators finally stated, "Based on all the information we've reviewed about the battle at Hushan Pass, Hushan Pass, under these circumstances, truly cannot hold out for more than two months, as the Sixth Prince said."
"Two months?" The old emperor's face was gloomy. This was not the result he wanted.
Although from the moment the Sixth Prince led his troops to guard Hushan Pass, the old emperor had begun to reorganize the south and had already begun to move the capital to the south to become the emperor of half of the country.
After all, being the emperor of half the country is not a good thing, but it is better than being besieged by barbarians and unable to escape.
But he wanted to move the capital to the south, where he could suppress those powerful vassal kings. How could he prepare it in just a few months?
There were even reports from some southern provinces that they hadn't even finished recruiting new soldiers.
He didn't want Hushan Pass to be breached now.