After May 1681, the two sides of Jin and Han were again in a stalemate.

In the Central Plains, the offensive and defensive battles between the Jin soldiers and the Han army began to show a stalemate. The Jin Western Route Army was unable to cross Taiyuan because of Cao Guangbi's resistance, and was unable to make a detour to attack Shaanxi because Yunnei Tiande had been sold to Western Xia by Xiao Tienu. Relatively speaking, the resistance on the Hebei side is weak, because of the lack of natural danger, in the case of the collapse of the front-line army, the Jin soldiers' rangers galloped across the entire Hebei Plain, whether it was Zhao Li or Yang Kaiyuan, it was difficult to stop it, the Jin army even re-established a stronghold in some places in Henan, and Henan became a chaotic area where the Jin army, the Han army, and the Song army were entangled.

However, due to Zongfu's delay in capturing Tanggu, this greatly limited the longest distance that the Jin army could march on the eastern route. If the Jin Guodong Route Army did not capture Tanggu and went south to Shandong, the back would be sold to Yang Kaiyuan, which was a rather dangerous thing, and Tanggu could not be captured, and the Jin people could not carry out effective rule and tax collection in Hebei, so the logistics of the army had to rely on Yan Yun's savings, because the reliable supply line was too long, so Zongbi's elite advanced to Qingzhou, the area of the Daimyo Mansion began to show weakness, Zhao Li was in shape, along the Jishui defense, the Jin army in Henan because of the weak resistance encountered and marched smoothly, But he couldn't defeat Zhao Li and enter Shandong.

In the northeast, Zhe Yanchong's attack on Huanglongfu also did not achieve obvious results. If calculated by area, the territory ruled by Wu Qimai in the northeast is still larger than that of Zheyanchong, but most of the areas he ruled are wild, so in terms of economic aggregate, the prefectures and counties under Wu Qimai's rule are not a fraction of the Liaohe River Valley. However, the Jurchens had their own set of social structures that were compatible with this backward economy, and the Jurchen soldiers and civilians under this social structure were both poor and barbaric, but also had quite strong combat effectiveness because of their barbarism, and the Jurchens relied on this brute strength to resist the attack of Zhe Yanchong.

Since last year, when Zhi Yanchong led his troops to attack Liaoyang Mansion, battles large and small have never stopped; While the soldiers were working the front line, the intellectuals in the rear were also reflecting. After the defeat of Zongying, scholars from the Jinmen Guanning School, the Dengzhou Penglai School, the Liaokou Military School, and the Tanggu Political Science School discussed the war even more enthusiastically.

"Why did we fail? Obviously having the upper hand, why did the army suddenly collapse? ”

Naturally, some people summed up various reasons on the battlefield, such as training, such as logistics, such as troop deployment, such as the ability of generals. But as the discussion progresses, scholars are no longer satisfied with these superficial reasons.

Scholars of Liaokou military science believe that the key to this defeat was the "incomplete regularization" of the Qilu Army. This school of thought believes that the Qilu Army is uneven, some troops such as Liu Qi and Zhao Libu can be in line with the main force of the Han army, Wang Xuanbu has sufficient actual combat experience, but the training and education are insufficient, as for the hundreds of thousands of rebels who can't even figure out the number, they are completely a rabble, although the enthusiasm of this part of the people to resist Jin is worthy of respect, but the role they play on the battlefield is not necessarily positive.

For this reason, many instructors of the Liaokou Military Academy jointly wrote a letter, asking the privy council to take the opportunity to rectify the remnants of the Qilu Legion, to select people who meet the requirements to be retrained in the regular military camp, and to directly disarm and return to the field if they do not meet the requirements. Yang Yingqi expressed his appreciation for this, and replied to the approval letter and asked them to come up with an exact plan and submit it again, and the plan submitted again must solve the following problems:

What are the selection criteria for selecting soldiers from among the rebels? How much? How do I train after I choose it? Where should the training ground be located? Where should the training manpower be drawn from? How much money do I need for training? How should the rebels who do not meet the standards be placed? Where to settle? What kind of conditions should be given for resettlement? How should soldiers in different regions and at different levels be treated differently? What if the soldier is unwilling to disarm? In the immediate situation, will the impact of this plan on the overall situation be good or bad? Wait a minute.

Yang Yingqi's reply raised more than 50 questions in a row, asking them in detail and specifically, and after this round of questions, most of the people who opened their mouths to talk empty words were closed, but there were still a small group of people with perseverance and ideas who either sat down and thought, or personally went to Shandong, Hebei, Henan and other places where wars were still frequent, and contacted the rebels from all walks of life one by one. None of these people have titles such as "famous generals", they are some middle and lower-level generals, and none of them have the reputation of "genius", but these people are willing to work hard, and they can do things in a down-to-earth manner, and this investigation lasted for five months to complete, and after a month of repeated pondering, a detailed report was handed in. The officers who handed in the report not only had actual combat experience, but also experienced the education of the Liaokou Military Academy, and some of them were young people who graduated from the Guanning School and belonged to the pen, so after the end of this investigation, they not only completed the report on how to deal with the rebels, but also completed the process of transforming into professional staff officers.

Yang Yingqi was very satisfied with this, and specially appointed them as the first staff committee directly under the privy council, which was fully responsible for this important matter, and gave them considerable resources, including titles (with the consent of Zhi Yanchong, they were given a nickname - "Weiyuan New Army"), local (open up half of the county in the south of Mizhou and borderline the mountains and seas as their military base), technology (move part of the firearms research and development and shipyards in southern Liaoning to here), and funds (20% tariff in Huaizikou).

The chief of the First Staff Committee directly under the Privy Council is called Tao Zongxian, the second seat is called Yu Huichun, and the third seat is called Zhu Jinmin, all of whom are unknown young people, but they are all famous because of this incident, and their prestige and real power are important for a while, and this has led to the atmosphere of emphasizing truth and reason in Liaokou's military learning. Soon after, the Han Ministry Central Committee set up a naval staff group and a northwest staff group to study the issue of how to regularize the troops in the northwest and the east China Sea.

The Liaokou military academy group is both scholars and soldiers, so they naturally focus on military affairs. Unlike them, Confucian scholars from Tanggu politics attributed the reason for the defeat to political issues. In their view, the defeat of the Qilu Army was rooted in the big mistake of the unclear political system of the New Han regime, and they believed that the Huaxia Enlargement Conference in Dengzhou was both a success and a failure, and that the success of the Huaxia Enlargement Conference was that it united all the positive forces, and the failure was that the conference did not bring the various factions into a real fusion.

"Of course, it was impossible to do it overnight at the time, but now that the problem has arisen, we can't ignore it!"

These scholars believed that in order to avoid a recurrence of the tragedy of the defeat of Zhending, it was necessary to make a political adjustment and carry out deeper integration within the New Han regime.

Tanggu Political Science School had already moved its location to Liaoyang Mansion due to the war, so their remarks quickly reached Yang Yingqi's ears and quickly had a strong influence. As for the call of Tanggu political scholars for further integration, not only the central authorities believe that this should be the case, but even the officials and generals in various localities also feel that it should be so. The concept of China's great unification has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and intellectuals of all factions have a deep hatred for division and separation, even generals such as Cao Guangbi and Liu Qi who maintain the tradition of military affairs.

"This is the principle, and everyone agrees." Zhao Ju'er sighed: "The question is what should be done to achieve reunification!" ”

"Names needed!" Penglai School made this voice: "Now our country name, national capital, and social society are uncertain, and if the name is not right, it is not good, and if it is not good, let alone good?" The loss of morale of the soldiers and civilians on the front line was due to the disturbance of Emperor Song, but also because the soldiers and civilians did not have a sense of belonging. If the army and the people know that they belong and know that they are loyal, how can the disturbance of the ten Zhao structures be enough to shake people's hearts? Therefore, the indefinite distinction between the country and the monarch is the most fundamental reason for this defeat! ”

Echoing this kind of public opinion, Hu Anguo, Chen Xian, and Han Fang coincidentally wrote to Yanchong in three places, persuading him to ascend to the pole.