He stayed in Fengzhen and Balengshan for more than a month, and it was not until mid-April that Li Qi ordered Wu Luan to be in charge of the construction of Balengshan Fort City, the Yinma River Dam and the safety of this area.

After Yunzhou confessed that Yunzhou Thorn Shi Sha Yan was martyred and cooperated with Zhou Hong, the capital water supervisor, to build the Beigukou Dam and water conservancy facilities in Yunzhou, Li Qi set off for Shanbei.

In that year, for the gains and losses of the Eighth Army in Shanbei, there was a major battle between the Jin army and the Khitan, which ended with the victory of the Jin army and the withdrawal of the Khitan army.

Li Qi left Yunzhou and arrived at the Baishan Military Village at his first stop.

Baishan Mountain is the only dangerous mountain in the east of Yunzhou, in 200 B.C., Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, was besieged here by the Xiongnu Mao Dun Shan Yu's army, if it were not for the Han Xianhou Chen Ping's idea to bribe and buy off the Xiongnu Yan clan (wife), so that Mao Dun opened the net, Liu Bang is likely to become the first monarch in China to be captured by the steppe people.

After Baishan Mountain, there is a large grassland area with gentle mountains, and the Nanyang River is like a silver ribbon with green on both sides, turning a big bend to divide this green grassland into two pieces. The army marched east along the Nanyang River and did not encounter any dangerous terrain.

After passing Tiancheng Town (Tianzhen), Li Qi's team entered the boundary of Wuzhou in Shanbei.

Li Qi rested in Huai'an Fort for two days before he began to continue his march to Wuzhou.

Huai'an was only a small earthen city with little defensive capacity, and Li Qi found that the Jin army had basically not repaired the defenses of the northern border over the years, so it was no wonder that the Khitans were often able to break into the north of the mountain to plunder.

After passing through Huai'an, the Yanghe River became much wider.

"It's a good place to dam the river!" Li Qi said out of place, but he really doesn't have this ability yet.

This area in the north of the mountain will always be a zone that has been repeatedly contested by the Jin army and the Khitan in the future.

In terms of terrain, this is the northern barrier of Youzhou and Hebei, so you can't let go easily. Although the northern part of Youzhou is full of continuous mountains, the road is dangerous, but the valley of the Sheep River and the Sanggan River is a natural passage. Theoretically speaking, there are many mountain roads that can enter Youzhou through the mountains and mountains, but the grain and grass required by the army to the south are not a small number, and the only channels that can support the huge logistics and transportation needs are here and the Yuguan area near the sea. As long as the Zhangjiakou line and Shanhaiguan in later generations are guarded, the road to the south of the Khitans can be blocked.

The Eighth Army of Shanbei was originally mostly owned by the grassland tribes, and it was only in the Tang Dynasty that it was collected into the Central Plains. At this time, there were many herders, and there were more farmers in Ulzhou, Fuzhou and Ruzhou, and almost all of them were pastures from Xinzhou to the north, which had not been developed.

Originally, there were very few people in the Eighth Army in Shanbei, but because of this year's disaster, they were plundered by the Khitans again, and the population was even smaller. After completing the statistics, Li Qi found that the total population of the two prefectures under his jurisdiction was now less than 3,000 households, and sixty percent of them were grassland tribes in the north, and they were even inferior to a lower county in the interior.

The name of Wuzhou Thorn is Li Shaowei, who was originally a Xi person, and his name is Saolali. In that year, Abaoji killed the five leaders of the Xi Department in Bei'an Prefecture (Chengde) and annexed the Xi Department. Sao Lali led the Xixi other troops to flee into Shanbei, defected to the Jin army, and was given the name Li Shaowei by Li Cunqing, but he has always been loyal to the Li family and has not caused any trouble.

The Xi people in Shanbei are also farmers and herdsmen, but the farming methods and tools used are extremely primitive and backward, Li Qi did not say anything after inspecting Wuzhou, and went straight to Xinzhou.

Xinzhou Thorn History is Bai Chengfu, the leader of the Tuyuhun tribe attached to Shanbei, Zhuang Zong once gave the name Li Shaolu, which has just been changed back to his surname. Xianbei Tuyuhun once established a state in the Qing Tang Dynasty, but was destroyed under the attack of the two great powers of the Tang Dynasty and Tibet, and its tribes were scattered throughout the northern part of China. His surnames include Murong, Tuoba, Helian and so on. In that year, Helian Duo had worshiped the envoys of Datong Jiedu, but was finally defeated by Li Keyong, the king of Jin, and most of the Tuyuhun tribes in Yunzhou were returned to the Jin army.

However, although the Tuyuhun tribe is now declining, the Tuyuhun people are very talented in business, and most of the tea and horse trade in the northland grassland is controlled by the Tuyuhun people, and most of the camel teams that go to and from the grassland to do business are also owned by the Tuyuhun people. The Tuyuhun people are very trustworthy in doing business in the Han land, but they often do some robbery on the grassland, and there is no distinction between merchants and bandits, and the horse thieves on the grassland are mostly from the Tuyuhun tribe.

In another time and space history, Liu Zhiyuan killed more than 400 leaders of Bai Chengfu and Tuyuhun, and his troops, so that he could obtain more than 3,000 elite cavalry troops, so that he could establish the Northern Han Dynasty on behalf of Jin, but in the end Guo Wei was cheaper.

Li Qi is now short of cavalry, and Liu Zhiyuan's story really moves him, but he still feels that it is more convincing to take the means of later generations.

Compared with the plain area, these basins in the Sanggan River Basin are relatively rich in water, and the coal and iron resources are relatively complete, which is indeed a good place for the development of agriculture and animal husbandry......

Compared with the two prefectures of Xin and Wu, there are more Han people in the three prefectures of Wei, Fu and Confucianism in the north of Shanxi, and there is also more farmland. However, people still can't get rid of the habit of relying on the sky for food, guarding the Sanggan River and the Yanghe River, but not building many water conservancy facilities. There are some waterwheels in the Yanzhou area, but the waterwheels draw water, which is tantamount to a drop in the bucket for the vast farmland.

Fu Yanchao led 3,000 soldiers and horses from his headquarters, plus 2,000 garrisons from Fu and Ruzhou, to occupy Juyong Pass and Shimen Pass in the north of Youzhou. Zhao Dejun, the envoy of Youzhou Festival in the Later Tang Dynasty, was originally Liu Shouwen, the general of Cangzhou Jiedu, and later surrendered to Jin, and was named Li Shaobin by Zhuang Zong. On the one hand, he had limited troops, and in addition, he also remembered the old feelings of the first emperor, and after Fu Yanqing occupied the two states of Concubine and Confucianism with Li Qi's edict, there was no big reaction.

For the time being, the two sides are relatively peaceful.

Li Qi appointed Fu Yanchao as the envoy of Shanbei Jiedu, and transferred Zezhou Assassin Shi Pei Yue to Shanbei as a defense envoy, responsible for building three forts along the mountain pass north of the Yanghe River, that is, the line from Zhangjiakou to Huai'an in the later generations.

To the north of Xinzhou and Wuzhou, because there were no defensive castles, they were often broken into the Shanbei basin by Khitan cavalry, plundering people and livestock, and extremely insecure. If we want people to live and work in peace and contentment, we must first ensure safety.

The cavalry of the steppe tribe is strong, but the ways and means of attacking the city are very few, and building the city is the most effective means to deal with the threat of the steppe.

Before it becomes stronger, there is no way to use this passive defense method of building a castle.

Leaving the city wall, without any support, if he fought with hundreds of thousands of Khitan troops on the grassland, Li Qi thought that he had no chance of winning. The only way to do this is to take this passive approach and keep the enemy out of the country.