Chapter 155: Fighting for Hetao (Twenty)

The winter on the Qingshui River is long and cold, but no matter how severe the cold winter is, there will be a day that has passed. As the sun is lingering in the northern hemisphere, the gradually green grass has made the Qingshui River, which has been gloomy for half a year, appear vigorous and vibrant.

After winter training, the Black Eagle Army units became active again, and continued to go deeper into the territory of Xihuizhou from the south and east to conduct reconnaissance and harassment. Hou Dayong enjoyed various foods in winter. Although he exercised every day, the amount of exercise was not enough. After all, he gradually had some fat meat in his lower abdomen. The first thing he discovered was that Gao Luqi, the teacher who dressed Hou Dayong. One day, she was dressing Hou Dayong and suddenly laughed. Hou Dayong then realized that the belt made by Qiu Ju for her seemed a little short.

Hou Dayong has always been proud of his toned figure. Seeing that his fat body was on his body, he immediately increased the distance momentum of morning exercise. At the same time, on the day of spring, Hou Dayong personally led the soldiers of the Lion Camp to go deep into the sphere of influence of the Dangxiang people in Xihui Prefecture, and was in the forefront and took the opportunity to lose weight.

The power of the Dangxiang Army was extremely severe. Hou Dayong came to the Yougu Military Village for the first time. The Dangxiang Army, who guarded the Yougu Military Village, was in seclusion and could not leave according to Fang Danghanhai's order. The Black Eagle Army did not forcibly attack the military village. After showing off its power, it retreated to Lingzhou. When he came to the Yougu Military Village for the second time, the defenders of the Yougu Military Village had already given up the fortress, leaving behind an empty military village.

After several sweeps since the spring, in the areas near Xiaoniuguan and Yougu military villages, Dangxiang herders moved to Xihuizhou or further west of Xihuizhou because they were afraid of the attacks of the Black Eagle Army. Therefore, a large area of ​​no-man's land appeared in the area controlled by Fangdanghan Haimen.

The civilian officials such as Hou Dayong's in-depth adventures, Qian Xiangnan, Zhao Pu, Liu Chengtong and other civilian officials did not agree with it: although doing so could inspire the morale of the Black Eagle Army soldiers, as the commander of the three armies, it is really not appropriate to play such a risky game.

After hearing the persuasion of several people, Hou Dayong did not agree, but did not go deep into the enemy territory with the troops again. Hou Dayong stopped attacking the enemy territory, not for his own safety, but after several isolated troops following the troops, he was extremely confident in the Black Eagle Army that had been trained. He was preparing for a big battle, one battle to Dingxi Huizhou.

The number of the Dangxiang Army in Xihui Prefecture is not much different from that of the Black Eagle Army. Hou Dayong fought the decisive battle with the Dangxiang Army in Xihui Prefecture, mainly because several things carefully planned in winter were successful. Although the number of the Black Eagle Army did not increase, its combat effectiveness made great progress.

First, the standardization work that Bai Shuanghua is responsible for has made preliminary progress.

After Bai Shuanghua accepted the task, she thought hard about how to complete this work quickly and well. As a military officer, she had too many trivial matters and it was indeed difficult to devote herself to the standardization of the staffing work. Therefore, at Guo Jiong's suggestion, Bai Shuanghua found Hou Dayong and asked Shen Huaijing to be transferred to the military officer camp and acted as her own deputy with Li Man.

Shen Huaijing successfully completed the task of greeting the imperial envoy Ling Shi, and bought at least half a month for Hou Dayong to transfer property and personnel from Fengzhou. After making great contributions, Hou Dayong asked Shen Huaijing to serve as deputy director of the important internal organization, Zhuyuan. The position of deputy director belongs to an internal position of the Black Diao Army and is not within the roster of the Privy Council. However, because this is a position that has been with Hou Dayong for a long time, it has very important significance in the Black Diao Army.

Bai Shuanghua originally thought that it would take some verbal remarks to adjust Chen Huaijing to lead the compilation of standardization, but who knew that Hou Dayong did not hesitate and immediately agreed to Bai Shuanghua's request. As a result, Bai Shuanghua understood more clearly the position of the standardization plan in Hou Dayong's mind.

After Chen Huaijing and four academy men were transferred to the military camp, Hou Dayong also specially invited Bai Shuanghua and the five people. In this way, Chen Huaijing actually presided over the standardized staffing work.

In order to make Chen Huaijing work with peace of mind, Bai Shuanghua used his power to provide Chen Huaijing and others with the best logistics services, and used various names to pay twice the salary. Chen Huaijing was a thoughtful person. After taking over the work, he immediately took people to visit Dou Tian, ​​Guo Baoyu, Zhang Qinghai and Chen Lingxin, and proposed two key points of standardized construction. One was to compile the crossbow and catapult machine produced by Guo Baoyu, and the other was to produce the carriage produced by Chen Lingxin. As for the Hou Family Knife, Mo Dao, and Qing Party Armor Plates undertaken by Dou Tian, ​​they were put into the next step.

Due to the clear work focus, the standardization plan for the three instruments of new carriages, catapults and crossbows was quickly compiled. With the standardization manual, the craftsman camp where Guo Baoyu and Chen Lingxin were located quickly expanded its production scale. When spring arrived, more than 80 new carriages and more than 40 catapults had been produced.

Second, Zhang Shaoyang, who was sent to Chengdu Prefecture by the military intelligence camp, also successfully completed the task and successfully brought Jian Bufan and Jian Yue's family to Lingzhou.

Although Jian Bufan and Jianyue are very skilled, they have a very low status in Chengdu because they belong to the craftsman. Jianyue is upright and unaware of the craftsmanship, and offended a minor official who manages the craftsman. This minor official is a sinister and vicious guy who tampered with the new bed in the palace on a craftsmanship. Jianyue was convicted of this and was beaten and locked up in a cell. In order to rescue his son, Jianbofan almost spent all his savings. When Jianyue returned home, he had no good meat on his body. The Jian family, who had some savings in the past, also ended up in a state of being barely barred.

Since Zhang Shaoyang set out from Lingzhou, he has designed several chess games on how to "invite" the Jian family to Lingzhou. After they arrived in Chengdu Prefecture, they learned about the situation of the Jian family and immediately became overjoyed and started an action immediately.

After Jiang Dagui's threading needles and turning a few turns, Zhang Shaoyang got into a relationship with the Jian family. After the two sides had a few times, Zhang Shaoyang became a guest on the Jian family's base. After gaining the trust of the Jian family, Zhang Shaoyang took out Hou Dayong's handwritten letter. In the letter, Hou Dayong promised that after the Jian family arrived in Lingzhou, he would immediately get rid of the bad luck and be allowed to be a seventh-rank official. Jian Bufan felt a little dizzy when he saw this letter. Since Jian Bufan remembered, he had been working around the call of the vicious minor officials, and any minor officials could bully them at will. Now the military governor of the Great Zhou Dynasty actually wrote them a handwritten letter, and this military governor was still Hou Dayong who was used to scare children in Chengdu.

Although Chengdu Prefecture is under the rule of Western Shu, deep down in the hearts of most people in Chengdu Prefecture, the Central Plains regime is still an orthodox court that inherits the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, in his bones, Jian Bufan did not particularly dislike the Central Plains Great Zhou regime. Seeing his family's family background, Jian Bufan looked at his son who was beaten to death. Without much hesitation, he agreed to Zhang Shaoyang's invitation.

In order to evacuate Jian Bufan and Jianji from Chengdu neatly, Zhang Shaoyang did not cause trouble to the other relatives of the Jian family in Chengdu Prefecture, and did not want people to guess where the Jian family father and son were going, so he bought a few bodies and placed them in the Jian family, and then arranged a fire for the Jian family. Then, he took Jian Bufan and Jianji from Chengdu Prefecture without knowing anyone.

After receiving the report of the fire, the prefect of Chengdu found that it was only the craftsmen's family who were burned to death. He sent someone to check the fire scene in a hurry. Even if the accounts of Jian Bufan and Jian Yue were written off, the minor officials in charge of Jian Bufan and Jian Yue took Jian Bufan and his son to heart. Anyway, there were not many craftsmen. Birth, old age, sickness and death were the most common thing.

After Jian Bufan and Jianyu and his son arrived in Lingzhou, they settled down shortly after they soon met Hou Dayong, who was in power in Chengdu. On the night of coming to Lingzhou, Hou Dayong invited them to have a meal of Shu cuisine. After the banquet, Jian Bufan and his son were taken to a small Sihui Courtyard. When everyone left, Jian Bufan and his son hugged their heads and cried bitterly, and from then on, they felt at ease to make Western Shu crossbows for the Black Eagle Army.

Hou Dayong specially set up the fifth craftsman battalion for Jian Bufan and his son - the Crossbow Battalion, which specializes in making chariots for chariots.

Third, Hou Dayong began to manage the Hetao area.

Lingzhou has been entangled by the Dangxiang people in recent years, and it is difficult to have the energy to develop northward. Some garrisons in Lingzhou have gradually been abolished. In the past, the garrisons of Lian County also retreated to Lingzhou City. In fact, there was no defense in the Great Zhou army north of Lingzhou. Fortunately, the Khitans were unstable at this time and had no energy to go south, so they were able to maintain safety on the northern border of Lingzhou. Since their presence in Lingzhou, Hou Dayong has sent many blacksmith shops to search for iron ore along the Yellow River north of Lingzhou.

Since the beginning of spring, craftsmen who went north have also gained great gains and found subway ore with large reserves and carbohydrate with extremely large reserves. At this time, the forests along the Yellow River are still quite dense, and there are entire areas of primeval forests in many mountains. There are coal, iron ore and forests, which is of great significance to the rapidly developing Lingzhou Blacksmith Camp.

The iron ore discovered this time is in Lian County. For the needs of the northern border defense, Hou Dayong sent Duan Wuwei, the commander of the Jiao Army, and the deputy commander of the commander of Nanchuan to settle in Lian County and rebuilt the Lian County Defense Center. However, to rebuild Lian County, it is far from enough to rely on two thousand soldiers.

Just as Hou Dayong was in a state of great trouble, good news came from the No. 5 of the Feiying Hall. After the Yellow River flood, there were many victims along the coast of Zhengzhou. The people of Feiying Hall secretly spread the news that Lingzhou needs manpower. Hou Dayong's official reputation in Zhengzhou has always been very good, especially a large number of refugees who had been resettled before. They lost their land during this flood. When they heard the news secretly conveyed by Feiying Hall, many people were moved to Lingzhou to settle down. Although

It is said that Lingzhou is close to the border, but if there is land, seeds and farm tools in Lingzhou, it is better to support a family than starve to death in Zhengzhou. So after getting the news, many refugees in Zhengzhou began to migrate northward with difficulty. Just like the rumors, when these victims migrated northward, some people along the way provided food, clothing, housing and transportation in various names. These victims thus believed in the authenticity of the rumors and strengthened their idea of ​​going to Lingzhou.

Shortly after the construction of the protective fortification in Lian County started, the first batch of victims came to Lingzhou. In Lingzhou, all the rumors became facts. The victims were assigned land that was too big to imagine, as well as food enough for them to survive, as well as large animals such as cattle and sheep.

Shortly after the disaster victims in Zhengzhou arrived in Lingzhou, Dabu left fifty Tubo people from Yege, Sha and other states, and brought back a large number of Tang survivors. These Tang survivors were already hundreds of them, but they still had the blood of Tang people, and they missed their long-term homeland. They heard that Hou Dayong, the governor of the Great Zhou Dynasty, welcomed them to Lingzhou and Tongxin City to settle down. They were all ecstatic. When spring arrived, these Tang survivors would lead their families to cross mountains and deserts and cross paths. They headed towards Lingzhou in groups. During this period, many Tang survivors died of illness on their way home.

When hundreds of Tang survivors, like beggars, appeared under the Lingzhou city walls with their relatives' bodies, Hou Dayong's eyes, which had not been wet for a long time, were wet with tears. These hundreds of Tang survivors enjoyed the same treatment as those of Zhengzhou victims, were divided into land, farm tools, seeds and grain, and were also placed in Tongxin City. After that, the Tang survivors in Gan, Sha and other prefectures began to embark on the road to return home despite the risks. In order to avoid the interception of the Uighurs and Dangxiang people, these Tang survivors used their bodies to escape a path full of dangers.

In addition, Wu Qilang's private salt team also developed greatly this winter. After the experimental trafficking in the previous stage, the private salt team received the tacit approval from the army north of Yanzhou, and Tongxin City and Lingzhou City were exactly the connection point between the Central Plains and the northwest tribes. The northwest tribes have a great demand for salt land, and although salt and iron are prohibited from taking out to the northwest Hu tribes, there are still some differences between salt and iron. Salt is a daily necessity and consumables, but iron is different. Iron is a material for making weapons and is durable. Therefore, for Hou Dayong, selling private salt has no psychological barriers for him.

However, for strategic reasons, iron trading was a strict sanction by the Black Eagle Army. Several bold and reckless merchants who smuggled iron tools secretly heard that Lingzhou was very broad about smuggling, so they took some iron tools to smuggle to Lingzhou. After being seized, Hou Dayong immediately issued a killing order: Anyone who dared to steal iron tools would be killed immediately. When more than a dozen bloody heads were hung on the city gate and slowly turned into skulls, the merchants who smuggled iron tools knew that Lingzhou was not a paradise for adventurers. This legendary governor who tolerated private salt and was willing to accept refugees was unambiguous when he killed people, so he put away his dream of opening up a smuggling iron tools on the front line of Lingzhou.

When the bitter north wind slowly retreated from the Qingshui River, Hou Dayong, who was even more powerful, went through several tentative attacks. In May of the fourth year of Xiande, the well-prepared Black Eagle Army launched the first earth attack on Fang Danghan Hai tribe.

This attack war is code-named "Grand Cleaning". The strategic purpose is to clear the periphery of Xihuizhou city and clear obstacles for the final break of Xihuizhou. In this "Grand Cleaning" battle, in addition to Xiongying and Lingzhou City stationed in Lian County and a small number of garrison troops in Tongxin City, the New Black Eagle Army was fully taxed. Shi Hu led 6,000 troops out of Xiaoniu Pass, approached Xihuizhou from the south, and restrained Fang Danghanhai's troops, while Hou Dayong led 10,000 troops out of Lingzhou and approached Xihuizhou from the east.

Fang Danghanhai, who was guarding Xihui Prefecture, also had a large number of scouts on the border. After the Black Eagle Army was dispatched on a large scale, Fang Danghanhai immediately made corresponding arrangements.

Fang Danghanhai had seen the powerful attack power of the Black Eagle Army and was not optimistic about the war. However, in order to leave more time for the clan to move to Juyanhai, the Dangxiang Army must concentrate all its strength and take all its courage to fight the Black Eagle Army. However, Fang Danghanhai was prepared for both. If the Black Eagle Army could defeat the Black Eagle Army in the spring war, he would be fully prepared to move to Juyanhai before moving to Juyanhai. If the war was unfavorable, he would immediately move to Juyanhai regardless of everything.

Juyanhai was divided into three parts by the Liao people, the Tatars and the Uighurs. However, the strength of the three tribes was not strong. The Liao people had only more than 4,000 soldiers to fight, while the Uighurs only had two or three thousand soldiers. As for the entire tribe, the Fangdanghan Hai tribe had more than 20,000 troops. If the entire tribe mobilized, more than 30,000 soldiers could be used, and it seemed that there was no problem to drive away these tribes. Although such a hasty migration would cause great losses to the tribe, it would have to be for the survival of the tribe.

When the Black Eagle Army suddenly launched a full-scale attack, Fang Danghan Hai's troops, who were prepared, also mobilized the entire army. In addition to arranging 3,000 cavalry north of Xiaoniu Pass, nearly 20,000 main troops rushed towards the enemy in Lingzhou. Although Fang Danghan Hai was cautious, when he had to fight to the decisive battle, he also showed the courage to die. He concentrated the power of the Dangxiang people and land in Xihuizhou on the bank of the Yellow River, preparing to use the cavalry advantage to repel the attack of the main force of the Black Eagle Army and use a bloody battle to gain time for tribal migration.

The "Great Mopping" campaign was the first battle of the Black Diao Army since the winter reorganization, and the first battle of the New Black Diao Army after winter training. Hou Dayong attached great importance to this battle and personally led his troops to Xihuizhou.

On May 7, the fourth year of Xiande, the main force of the two armies collided head-on in an open area fifty miles away from Xihuizhou.
Chapter completed!