Back to square one, Zhao Haiping fell into deep thought.
Had the tea bandits flown the coop as soon as the governnt troops entered the mountain?
Was that reasonable?
Zhao Haiping, well-versed in ancient warfare as a modern man, found the situation clearly unreasonable.
In ancient wars, information and intelligence were crucial.
Many military texts discussed the importance of information and intelligence, emphasizing "know yourself, know your enemy, and you will never be defeated," a consensus among legendary generals throughout history.
A competent general, before facing the enemy, would dispatch nurous spies and scouts to gather as much information about the opponent as possible—a basic tactic.
However, the transmission of information in ancient tis was considerably limited.
After all, there were no mobile phones or telegraphs in ancient tis; besides the rare instances of using homing pigeons, most communications relied on human runners.
Whether verbally or in writing, soone always had to keep an eye on the surroundings and constantly relay information.
Thus, initially, Zhao Haiping didn’t think much and simply led his troops directly into the mountains.
The reason was simple—in the primitive communication thods of ancient tis, even if the tea bandits’ scouts outside the mountains spotted the governnt army and reported back, and the tea bandits subsequently fled, it would still take so ti.
The governnt army could still catch them and give them a sound thrashing.
But now, the governnt troops hadn’t even seen a shadow of the tea bandits.
What did that imply?
After calmly analyzing, Zhao Haiping reached a sowhat reluctant conclusion, "Does this an that the tea bandits’ intelligence system overshadowed the governnt’s?
"But why?
"The tea bandits didn’t have many people; they couldn’t possibly send out many scouts to monitor the governnt troops.
"Could it be...
"Soone else was tipping them off?
"And the so-called ’soone else’ are mostly the local villagers?
"What a joke, why would the villagers not support the governnt troops but rather help the tea bandits?"
After analyzing, Zhao Haiping arrived at a conclusion that even he found absurd.
Why could these tea bandits run so swiftly? There was no other explanation except that there was significant local support alerting them.
Moreover, once he figured this out, it seed quite reasonable.
It was known that these tea bandits initially smuggled tea leaves, simply hiring so toughs for escort, and turned to banditry only after clashing with the governnt officers and killing people.
They fought across various locations and frequently defeated the governnt troops due to Lai Wenzheng’s military capabilities at their helm and the governnt troops’ poor combat effectiveness. However, more crucially, it was perhaps far superior intelligence work.
No matter how poor the governnt troops were, they were only comparable to the fierce Jin fighters.
Fighting ordinary bandits was still nothing difficult.
The persistent defeats were essentially because they were always fighting on the tea bandits’ ho ground, where the bandits had a trendous intelligence advantage.
A large contingent of governnt troops would ascend the mountain to suppress the bandits, only for the troops to return empty-handed as the bandits swiftly escaped; and when the governnt troops returned without success, the bandits could strike painfully at any isolated governnt soldiers.
In the face of such a gap in intelligence, was it not indeed difficult to fight?
As for why many villagers sided with the tea bandits?
Understanding why these tea bandits initially turned to banditry was telling.
Why didn’t they handle their tea business legitimately? Was it because they disliked it?
Of course, it was because the tea business during the Qi Dynasty was overly taxing. The tea levies were excessively expensive, and they faced repeated exploitation by various officials along the way.
Thus, these tea bandits took the risk and ventured into the smuggling trade.
To the local villagers, compared to the exploitative governnt officers, the tea bandits felt much closer.
After all, these tea bandits, unlike other bandit groups in Qi, were different.
So bandits, idle and unproductive, wanting to consu large amounts of food and drink, could only survive through robbery, naturally making the surrounding villagers desperately avoid them; but the tea bandits were different, they had their source of inco—transporting and selling tea.
In such circumstances, it was unsurprising that the villagers leaned more towards the tea bandits.
"So... to successfully suppress the bandits, we need to find a way to sever the connection between the tea bandits and the local villagers.
"...that’s not right.
"That seems impossible to achieve; I don’t have that much ti."
Zhao Haiping’s first reaction was to straighten out the local governnt here and then implent several beneficial policies to allow the villagers to live and work in peace and contentnt.
This way, they likely wouldn’t support the tea bandits anymore.
But on second thought, while this was indeed a redy for the root of the problem and seed good, it would take too long to take effect.
Many villagers had already developed a habit of colluding with the tea bandits— even if their living conditions improved, the loyal relations would still prevail in the next three to five years.
By the ti the governnt troops extensively marched into the mountains, the tea bandits would still escape at the first opportunity.
If given more ti, of course, there wouldn’t be a problem, but at the mont, Zhao Haiping, in the role of Yu Jiaxuan, was essentially a firefighter—the imperial court couldn’t possibly wait a few years to resolve a band of tea bandits.
Although everyone knew that the best strategy was to govern a place well and eliminate banditry entirely, such a strategy took too long to prove effective, and few could afford to wait.
"So, I need to change my approach.
"A large movent of governnt troops into the mountains would be discovered, and villagers would tip off the bandits. Moreover, the assembly of a large body of troops itself also required ti, which granted the tea bandits a window to escape.
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