Where could Zhu Lihua think of so much, he just saw Liu Ping kneeling on the ground, so he said with a smile:

"Liu Ping, get up quickly, I can't stand up and can't help you, how can I afford such a big gift from you. Are you forcing me to bear your big gift to make me lose my life? ”

After Lihua finished speaking, everyone in the hall burst into laughter.

Liu Ping glanced at the main general with tears in his eyes and smiled, and when he saw him smiling and staring at himself, he shouted "Woo" and got up and stood in the hall.

"You and Wei Qianren and those cavalry brothers have worked hard. You must have suffered a lot of sins in the mountains this winter.

This victory, the brothers should take the first credit. ”

Speaking of this, Zhu Lihua clasped his fists and saluted Liu Pingyao.

And Liu Ping stood in the hall in a daze, his eyes were tearful and motionless, as if he had also received this gift.

This made the nobles in the hall look at it in their eyes, and they all showed puzzled looks. Only Xi Zihui observed Zhu Lihua's face and knew that he had no problem with the fact that the five hundred lords had received a gift from him, and his eyes were full of sincerity.

Xi Zihui sighed in his heart, he felt that a nobleman like Lu Lihua was really unheard of, could it be that this day was really going to change.

......

A month later, after a series of deductions and discussions, Gao Yunce, Xi Zihui and others finally decided on the strategy of the Shangdang defense to deal with the possible offensive of the Rong people.

At the same time, Lu Lihua also received a reply from Wenshui, which was naturally a relief to the Qi people who had defeated the invasion, and also had some different rewards for Xi Zihui and other Shangdang nobles.

Since then, these nobles have completely believed from the bottom of their hearts that Zhu Lihua is the party with the right roots, and at the same time, they are also glad for their correct choice.

But apart from this letter of commendation from the monarch and Zhao Zhihai's edict agreeing to Xi Zihui joining the Wooden Fence Army as a captain, there was no substantive move on the Wenshui side. However, this is not unexpected, after all, the situation in the two counties of Xia Zhong and Shubei is not much better than his own.

Therefore, they can only sit back and watch the Rong people and the Qi army start a decisive battle in Gyeonggi and are powerless.

This decisive battle in Xijing has actually already begun.

At the beginning of the decisive battle of Yuan You, after the 100,000 allied troops were forced into the mountains, Lian Min, a famous general of the Qi State, led the army many times in an attempt to take advantage of the unstable foothold of the Rong people in Baili City and overcome them in one fell swoop, and then welcome back those allied soldiers who escaped into the mountains.

However, after more than ten days of bloody battles with the Baili Rong army, they were disappointed to find that the combat effectiveness of those Rong people was even better than he imagined. The two armies often fought not long before the Qi army was defeated. In particular, the cavalry of the Rong people, although not very well equipped, were equally well-trained and shot arrows on their horses as accurately as they were on flat ground.

When the two armies fought, those cavalry alone shot arrows around the Qi cavalry, which would make the Qi cavalry helpless, so they could only escape their lives by turning around and returning to the infantry formation.

Therefore, the cavalry of the Qi State gradually no longer had any use.

After suffering more than a dozen losses, Lian Min knew that it was hopeless to seize a hundred miles, and seeing that there were more and more Rong people going south, he had no choice but to give up his strategic intentions, and instead collected troops and returned to Xijing City.

And the mountains

Among them, the 100,000 allied troops finally disappeared completely in two or three months.

The depth of the mountains between the three counties is not too large, but during the helpless period, the mountains are stacked, each mountain range is extremely steep, and there are no people under the dense forest. 100,000 horses entered it in a panic, and then retreated into the mountains after several unsuccessful breakouts, and then experienced three heavy snowfalls that lasted for several days, so that no one mentioned the fateful coalition soldiers anymore.

Only the 20,000 right guards in Xijing City, under the leadership of Yongyunqi and Wen Zhaoyuan, are still struggling to wait for the day when the right greater will suddenly return.

Because today's Xijing is not so much the capital of the Qin State, but the territory of the Qi people.

Whether it is the soldiers of the Qi State who can be seen everywhere in the city, or the 100,000 watchmen who follow the Qi army to transport grain and grass here, or those businessmen who see business opportunities, the people of Xijing feel that the sky of Xijing has changed since the day the monarch went hunting.

One day, when Lian Min summoned his generals and Yongyunqi and Wen Zhaoyuan and other generals of the right power to discuss the military, after Wen Zhaoyuan's idea of uniting Lihua and Zhao Zhihai in the northwest of Hebei to fight against the Rong people was humiliated by Yongyunqi in public, Wen Zhaoyuan drew his sword in the palace and scolded Yongyunqi all the time.

Wen Zhaoyuan counted Yongyunqi's abandonment of Xiao Guan and then to Hexi's failure to quell the rebellion, and then he and his father did not hesitate to lynch one party's generals in order to compete for territory, causing the Rong people to take the opportunity to raid Hexi County and they were defenseless.

And although Lian Min thought deeply of Wen Zhaoyuan's words, and knew that this Yongyun Qi was just an embroidered pillow, after all, he remembered that his father was Yongluan, who wanted to be established as the king of the Qi Kingdom, so he spoke out to stop Wen Zhaoyuan from continuing to insult Yongyun Qi, and expelled Wen Zhaoyuan from the palace on the grounds of noisy military discussions.

After returning to the barracks, Wen Zhaoyuan did not hesitate, and immediately ordered 5,000 troops to leave Xijing and entered Xiazhong County to serve Zhao Zhihai.

Wen Zhaoyuan was the deputy general of Hexi appointed by the monarch at the beginning, and he had received Yin Fang's promise because he let go of Lihua in Xuchang, so now when the power of the right watch has gone, he will naturally not be martyred for Yongluan again. Therefore, in the military discussion during the day, he dared to express his chest and vent all his anger on Yongyunqi.

After Wen Zhaoyuan led 5,000 men and horses to leave, there were only more than 10,000 soldiers and horses left in Xijing Qin, which can be described as candlelight and Haoyue compared with the 100,000 Qi troops in the city.

Also, after the people in the city experienced the Xijing Change, they didn't know that being a soldier at this time was just to serve as cannon fodder for the Qi State, not to mention that the people in Gyeonggi were always much more well-informed, and it was said that under the rule of the Xia State established by the Rong people, the people seemed to be living quite well.

Since the king has abandoned his people, why should the people shed their blood for the king?

The chaotic Xijing finally ushered in the burning red sun flag fluttering in the hands of the Rong army together with the rising sun in the east.

In less than half a month, the Rong cavalry destroyed dozens of fortresses north of Gyeonggi, and the majestic Great Qin State, which had never fallen for nearly 600 years, finally waited for the most powerful enemy.

Ironically, it is the people of Qi who are guarding this city at this moment.

At the beginning of spring

As soon as the festival arrived, the Rong people and the Qi people began a protracted decisive battle around Xijing.

And Hexi County has also quietly reappeared a third force.

In the battle of Huangtian Ferry, Lihua deliberately let go of a Qi army to let them return to Xuchang and Binshui. In this way, if the Rong people attack themselves to the north, then the Qi people will naturally become a barrier in front of them.

After the seriously injured Wei Huan fled to Xuchang, he was lucky not to die, and from then on he could only lead two Qi troops of less than 20,000 cities to start a journey of survival in a foreign land.

On the party side, after a long period of repeated deliberation, everyone finally agreed to the decision of Lu Lihua and implemented it.

He found something to do for the 20,000 Qi prisoners, and he asked Gao Yunce to lead these prisoners to build a fortress outside the Huangtian Ferry within a year that could accommodate the garrison of 50,000 troops.

The labor force to build the fortress was naturally the 20,000 Qi army prisoners, and as for the building materials, they could be obtained directly by demolishing the walls of the Shangdang.

The armed people in Shangdang City and those who were willing to join the army were officially brought under the control of the official army by Zhu Lihua, while the rest of the people went north to Longmen under the leadership of the nobles to escape the war.

A city with a similar history to Xijing was reduced to ruins at the request of Lihua, and a fortress that would be passed down forever was erected on the shore of the Yellow Water.

Another spring is coming, and in addition to the Shangdang, the people of the eight counties under the rule of Lihua will once again usher in the busyness of spring ploughing. And with the spring breeze blowing on the mountains and mountains of the counties, the mountains and fields are red, peach blossoms and green branches.

The soldiers and horses under the command of Lihua also put into spring ploughing one after another.

Because the population of the vast land in the eight counties that had experienced the Meng Chun Revolution and the eastward advance of the Rong people was pitiful, it was not enough to make more use of the fertile land in each county to produce more grain, so most of the soldiers and horses under the command of Lihua were also put into farming during the spring ploughing and autumn harvest.

Last year, it was Liang Qingshu who saw that there was too much idle land, so he let the trained soldiers try to cultivate in the counties of Fengtong, but unexpectedly, this not only harvested a lot, but also made the army of Lihua have abundant grain and grass, and did not compete with the people for profit, which made Lihua deeply inspired to promote this practice of military tun to all counties under his rule.

Spring plowing and autumn harvest do not take much time, and they only concentrate on the busy time for two months, which cannot delay the daily training of soldiers. As for other tasks such as weeding, they are paid to be done by the people under their rule. The people are profitable, and they know that they are doing things for the Mu Ji Army, so they are even more eager to do it, which makes Lihua feel moved.

This spring, in addition to the 20,000 soldiers and horses stationed in Shangdang, who have been undergoing intense training, the soldiers and horses distributed in the other eight counties have been put into vigorous production.

He explored the civil affairs and military affairs of the eight counties all the way from south to north, and redistributed the soldiers and horses from all walks of life in accordance with the principle of bringing the old with the new, and the surrender of the rebels made the strength of the troops under the command of Lihua increase from more than 30,000 half a year ago to nearly 40,000.

And that's not counting the 20,000 troops who are being trained by the party.

However, the sudden increase in troops and the temporary abundance of food and grass did not make him feel much complacent, on the contrary, he was full of anxiety about the land that had become vigorous in less than two years under his rule.