Since Li Xuan personally led the army to defeat the Zhengde army in the Battle of Anping, the north has been basically pacified, even if there is still a Zhang Yue in the west, but for the Tang Dynasty, which has controlled most of the region, it is only a matter of time to destroy Zhang Yue, and this time will not be too long, at most it will be a year or two.

Today, most of Li Xuan's military affairs have been handed over to the Privy Council and the Navy Command, and his focus has shifted to the domestic people's livelihood.

Militarily, there are probably three main enemies of the Tang Dynasty today, one is King Hui entrenched in Liaodong, one is the Tatars on the grassland, and one is Zhang Yue, En, Zhang Yue's side also includes King Jing.

Among the above three families, the Tatars don't care about it first, because the current situation is that there are not many cavalry in the Tang Dynasty, and they basically can't go deep into the grassland, and the Tatars' offensive and defensive capabilities are too scum, and they don't dare to rush into the pass, so the war between the two sides is long-term, just like thousands of years in the past, and it may last for decades.

And Liaodong Huiwang, this person is a little interesting, he now controls part of the original Ming army in Liaodong, and is also supported by the Tatars and other tribes, although the number of troops in his hands is not much, only about fifty or sixty thousand, but the number of cavalry is a lot, there are 20,000 cavalry, and he now controls Shanhaiguan.

At that time, the Third Army's actions were still slow, and it failed to seize Shanhaiguan!

However, now King Hui doesn't dare to enter the pass, and he can't get into it if he dares to fight, but if he guards Shanhaiguan, the Third Army will have nothing to do with him at this time, after all, the place where the Third Army needs to be stationed is too big, and there is only one division on the first line of Shanhaiguan, and the Eighth Infantry Division is stationed here, lacking an infantry regiment and some artillery and other auxiliary forces, and the total strength is about 10,000 people.

And more importantly, with the end of the Anping Campaign, in fact, the Third Army was able to obtain very little material supplies, and the generals on the front line were now fighting with a cannonball in half.

If this ammunition is not replenished, the Third Army will not be able to exert its combat strength even if it is strong!

However, King Jing of the people piled up all the main forces in Shanhaiguan, and there were cavalry to respond, and Shanhaiguan has always been easy to defend and difficult to attack, so it is a little difficult for the Eighth Infantry Division to rely on 10,000 people who are not satisfied with the number of soldiers, and it is also a shortage of ammunition.

Now the Eighth Infantry Division is actually doing similar things to the Ming army under King Jing on the opposite side, digging trenches, building fortifications, and putting on a posture of blocking the Shanhaiguan.

In addition, what is interesting is that King Hui learned the news of the destruction of Youzhou City and the death of Emperor Shaowu before King Jing on the other side of Sichuan, so he ascended the throne in Jinzhou, Liaodong for the first time, of course, his throne is not recognized by many people, and other remnant Ming forces do not recognize it, and the Tang Dynasty is a pseudo-emperor, and he does not recognize him as the heir of the Ming Dynasty at all.

Because Emperor Shaowu died, and Emperor Shaowu had no children, so in the official propaganda of the Tang Dynasty, the inheritance of the Ming royal family has been severed, and the Ming Dynasty has also become a thing of the past.

And King Jing in Sichuan also ascended the throne in Chengdu, Sichuan about ten days late, so at present, there are two puppet emperors in the Ming Dynasty, and everyone says that the other party is a puppet emperor, and the Tang Dynasty itself did not fight them, they themselves fell out first.

But on King Jing's side, strictly speaking, he himself is not important, the important thing is Zhang Yue!

Zhang Yue is the master of more than 100,000 governors, Huguang training troops, and Sichuan training troops, and King Jing is not good, that is, he is just a puppet supported by Zhang Yue.

With the initial pacification of the north, although there are still threats from Liaodong and the grasslands, the strategic focus of the Tang Dynasty has shifted to Huguang and Sichuan.

At the same time as Li Xuan returned to the dynasty, a large number of troops and various supplies had already begun to gather towards the Huguang region!

Boats loaded with brand new artillery and numerous shells were transported all the way through the Yangtze River to Jiujiang, and then docked!

In addition, the Yangtze River Fleet has also been restored, and a large number of inland river warships that originally belonged to the Canal Fleet have begun to be transferred to the Yangtze River Fleet.

This also makes the number of inland warships of the Yangtze River Fleet have exceeded 100, and at present, many shipyards under the rule of the Tang Dynasty are still making every effort to build ships, and the strength of the Yangtze River Fleet will continue to improve for a period of time in the future.

Whether the Yangtze River Fleet is strong or not is the key to the safety of the Yangtze River shipping, and it is also the key to whether the Datang Army can successfully operate in Huguang!

According to their predetermined plan, small and medium-sized battles will continue to be launched in recent months to test the reality of Zhang Yue's department, and the final decisive battle is to be prepared for winter.

Because the Tang Dynasty needs at least three months to complete the preparation of troops and various materials.

It would be a blessing to be able to fully prepare in December in winter, and if something happens casually, it is very likely that it will be delayed until January.

After all, the battle over there in Huguang will also be a large-scale decisive battle, if you are not fully prepared, it is easy to capsize in the gutter, and now the Tang Dynasty has an absolute strategic advantage, so they are not willing to be too impatient, they would rather take their time, and they will also launch an offensive after being prepared.

Many military affairs are carried out in an orderly manner, and Li Xuan does not need to worry about it, but in internal affairs, to be honest, it makes Li Xuan's heart broken.

I didn't think it was when I didn't take the northern provinces before, but now, Li Xuan found that the northern provinces have a lot of trouble!

In three days, two heads would report that so-and-so had been hit by a disaster, some had a drought, some had a flood, some had locusts for thousands of miles, and that they had just conquered these places, and there were many rebellions of all kinds.

When I first won Jiangnan, it was completely different!

When Jiangnan was taken, the Tang Dynasty completely controlled the region very smoothly, and there was no violence, nor natural and man-made disasters, but now these provinces in the north are different.

A few years ago, in order to raise military funds to exterminate the puppet Tang Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty successively followed Zhang Yue's example in several northern provinces to open taxes such as flat thieves' salaries and business donations, although Zhang Yue collected these taxes in Huguang, Sichuan and other places, although it would inevitably lead to an increase in the burden of a large number of ordinary people, but Zhang Yue collected money directly by his own hands, without going through the local yamen below, so although the burden of the people has become much larger, it is still in a situation that can barely be maintained.

In addition, Zhang Yue will also use a variety of more moderate, indirect ways to collect money from the gentry group, of course, in the name of collecting taxes, it is not possible to use some donations and the like, Zhang Yue's means to ease, those gentry are also reciprocating, how much will give a little.

However, in the northern provinces, when Zhengde opened a flat thief's salary and commercial donation, it was not directly collected, but apportioned to the local yamen, and when the local yamen collected taxes, they naturally did not look for the gentry to collect, but would find ordinary people to collect, and in the actual process of collection, one or two flat thieves' salaries would often collect several taels of money in the end.

In just a few years, the flat thief salary fattened I don't know how many officials of the Ming Dynasty, and forced to kill I don't know how many people!

In such a situation, the provinces of Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other provinces taken over by the Tang Dynasty are actually a huge mess!

The people's livelihood is difficult, and under the people's livelihood, all kinds of cows, ghosts, snakes and gods have emerged, always thinking that they are the next eternal saints, and they are full of confidence to carry out all kinds of rebellions.

The Fourth Army marched west along the Yellow River for only a few months, but in addition to fighting with the Ming officers and soldiers, in fact, they had already fought dozens of battles with all kinds of chaotic rebels, the small ones were only a few hundred people, but the large ones were tens of thousands of people.

When an infantry regiment of the Fourth Army marched into Zezhou, Shanxi, it turned out that Zezhou had completely fallen into the hands of a rebel army, and even the state city was occupied.

And then these rebels are still shouting something, their big boss is already the emperor, and he wants to share the world equally with Li Xuan with the Yangtze River as the boundary, which makes a colonel who leads the army quite speechless, this forest is really a bird.

So he was lazy to persuade him to surrender or something, and directly pulled out the artillery and bombarded it, and the army of more than 10,000 displaced people scattered in a hurry.

The matter here in Zezhou is just a microcosm, there are more rebellions in the northern provinces than Li Xuan estimated, and there are many more, I don't know how the Ming army has come over in recent years, in the face of so many rebellions, it is estimated that they are also busy suppressing them everywhere!

Now it has been replaced by the Datang Army, although it is said that the Datang Army is strong in combat, but it can't be suppressed like this all the time, suppressing it every day, tired!

Li Xuan wants to fundamentally change this situation, and there is only one way to improve the situation, and that is to improve the local people's livelihood.

If the people don't have enough to eat, they will definitely rebel.

And after eating, except for those careerists, few people are willing to rebel.

In fact, to a certain extent, the domestic immigration policy is also aimed at solving the current problems in the above-mentioned provinces, where there are many people and little land, and land annexation is serious, and it is normal for people to not survive.

However, relying on immigration alone is not enough, and Li Xuan feels that it is necessary to take a dose of fierce medicine in the above places.

Otherwise, if the turmoil continues, even if you want to restore people's livelihood, you will not be able to recover.