Cheng Chuliang was idle, and Su Dingfang was a little slow, but the general situation was similar to that of Cheng Chuliang. They only blew up the city wall tonight, but they looted much more than Cheng Chuliang. Cheng Chuliang only found about 800,000 strings of cash, but Su Dingfang found nearly 2 million strings of cash.
Of course, this is related to the different sizes of the cities. Another reason is that Su Dingfang acted quickly. His men directly occupied the official warehouse and did not let these people set it on fire. The official warehouse on Cheng Chuliang's side was burned down, which is also a reason for the reduction in income.
Su Dingfang also captured more than one hundred local government officials, but these people were of no use. Su Dingfang did not have the time to distinguish them. There were no high-ranking officials anyway, so he simply treated them as labor. He gathered more than five thousand laborers, some of whom were willing to surrender to the Tang Dynasty, while others were not.
Anyway, Su Dingfang didn't care about so many things and just tied them up with hemp rope. In the Tang Dynasty army, hemp rope can be said to be the second most important material after food and ammunition. This thing is very useful to the Tang Dynasty army. If you don't have this thing, then you will not be able to control the large number of prisoners.
When you have no way to control the prisoners, you either bury them alive or escort them back to the rear. But if you have a hemp rope, one person can at least watch over hundreds of people. This is the power of the hemp rope.
The supply team that was transporting supplies to the two armies was also dumbfounded. We just drove more than 80 carts here and handed the things to you. We were originally going to transport these gold, silver and treasures out. You didn't tell us that there were so many prisoners when we came.
After much persuasion, the two generals agreed to leave behind a hundred soldiers. They only had ten thousand men. If they left behind a hundred soldiers each time, there were still many cities ahead. Did they want us to divide all the people among you?
But the supply team only has about 200 people at most, and more than 50 of them are not combatants.
They are specialized carriage drivers. Although they are equipped with weapons and have received military training, their combat effectiveness is not much stronger than that of ordinary people. If you ask them to manage more than a hundred prisoners, then you really overestimate them.
But now that the battle has reached this point, these people also understand one thing: these young and middle-aged people are very important. After we take the city, we must build roads. To build these roads, at least dozens of lives will be lost for every kilometer. The prisoners on both sides are less than 10,000 people in total, and we can only build less than a few hundred miles of roads. How can this be enough?
Therefore, Cheng Chuliang and Su Dingfang both understood that labor force is very important now. You can't kill them just because you want to, nor can you drive them away just because you want to. If we are a little more cautious here, there will be more people to build roads in the future. Only when the roads are built can we establish contact with the rear.
Having followed Li Xiang in the wars for a long time, I naturally know the role of cement roads. Now most of the traffic arteries in the Tang Dynasty are paved with cement roads. With this thing, the distance traveled per hour can be increased a lot. Otherwise, you just wait.
There are many coal mines and cement plants all over the Tang Dynasty. If it weren't for them, there probably wouldn't be so many cement roads.
Because of the large amount of cement used, house construction and other projects have not been popularized, mainly because the amount of cement is not enough.
Li Xiang in the rear finally received the reports from the two generals. There was no smile on his face before, but now, although he cannot be said to be as happy as a group of ministers, he is also very happy. At least the current policy can make the Arab Empire feel the pain.
When we retreated before, in addition to being confused about strategy, the most important thing was that we didn't know what to do next. This was a very dangerous thing. With so many troops gathered in the Western Regions, it would be really troublesome if we didn't know anything. Now we finally know what to do next.
Li Xiang wanted to continue building military stations along the way, station troops and supplies in these places, and move all the equipment from the Western Regions to Afghanistan. He would build a large number of military stations in Afghanistan to support the military operations of the two generals. At the same time, he could also disperse a large number of laborers so that they would not have to be transported back to Duhufu.
Zhang Jiuli and Xiao Shougui have both calculated that if all these people are transported back, the safety issues on the road will be really terrible. Another thing is that too much water and food will be consumed. It is better to arrange them to work locally. Anyway, we also need to build a large number of military stations, so we can let these people work on the spot. We only need to send people to deliver various materials to them. You must know that those materials are fixed and will not cause trouble on the road.
But these prisoners of war are alive. If they cause trouble for you, it would be hard to say what will happen. So in the current situation, the safest thing is to transport the dead ones over and leave the living ones where they are, so as to minimize their running around and reduce the chance of riots on the road.
Li Xiang quickly adopted the strategy of these two people, and let these young and middle-aged people disperse on the spot and wait at the military station. When our logistics personnel delivered various construction materials, they would have to start working. Of course, the military stations we chose were all near water sources, so there was no need to worry about drinking water.
Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that some people here will take risks. If you have such an idea, don't blame us for being rude. Most of us come from the battlefield. If you have other ideas, our swords will not dare to drink your blood. Anyway, the court will not pursue us. Stability is the most important thing.
As for Cheng Chuliang and Su Dingfang, after a brief rest, the two of them immediately rushed to the new city. They also knew what Li Xiang was thinking. They estimated that new troops would arrive soon, also in units of tens of thousands, and would run around the entire Arab Empire in order to turn the central and northern regions into a mess.
By the time the Arab Empire comes to its senses, dozens of cities in the central and northern regions will probably be gone, and millions of refugees will emerge from these dozens of cities. They will run south like crazy, causing the central and southern regions of the Arab Empire to fall into chaos. The trick that was originally used against the Tang Dynasty will be returned to you intact.
