Traveling 200 miles along the west of Jiashan, you will arrive at the newly built Jiuyuan City.

The city is stuck between the Yellow River and Montenegro, and once repaired, the city is large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people.

Jiuyuan City and the Black Mountain City, which was built on the meandering part of the Black Mountain Peak River more than 200 miles to the west, were stuck on the east and west sides of what later generations called the Baotou Basin. Li Jiqi was ready to use this as a base to implement the military tun and gradually control the Hetao Plain of Nuoda in his own hands. The current Hetao area is still a large grassland area covered with barren grass.

Li Qi ordered Li Sifeng and Li Cunshuo to be the defense envoys of the two cities, recruit displaced people from various tribes, and build a city on the north bank of the Yellow River, but due to the small population, the progress of building the city was very slow.

He originally wanted to go to Montenegro to inspect the Tiande army, but he received an urgent report from Jinyang, and Luoyang mobilized troops and horses to Xingzhou, with the intention of attacking Zhenzhou. Li Qi had no choice but to give up his original plan and set off to return to Jinyang.

He ordered the army to return from the original route, but naturally when he returned with 3,000 cavalry, he chose to cross the Yellow River from the newly built Dongshengcheng south of Jinhebo in Yunnei, pass through Shengzhou City south of the Yellow River, cross the Yellow River from Fuzhou to the north, and return to Yanmen from the partial pass.

The current Shengzhou assassin history is Huo Xunzhen, he was originally the personal guard of Li Keyong, the king of Jin, and later became Zhou Dewei's general. In the battle in Xinzhou that year, he was cut off an arm by the Khitans. Li Cun, the king of Jin, remembered his merits and placed him in Shengzhou as an assassin.

The surname Huoxun is one of the nine surnames of Lite in Hezhong, but now the Huoxun Department, which moved to northern Jin with Li Keyong, no longer uses Huoxun as the surname, but has changed to the surname Huo. Huo Xunzhen's sons are all single names, and his eldest son is named Huo Wei, who is currently a lieutenant in the Jinyang Army.

Once on the south bank of the Yellow River, you enter the Shengzhou area, which is very different from the lush grasslands along the north bank of the Yellow River. The pastures here are much more sparse, and in many places there are large areas of the Gobi Desert, although the degree of desertification is far less severe than that of later generations, due to the abundant precipitation in this era.

There are very few villages in this area, and most of them are tribal forts or cottages. The style of the cottage is somewhat similar to the watchtowers of Tubo, and it seems that the Qiang and Tuyuhun who moved here have brought some living habits in the Qingtang and Hehuang areas here. However, most of the forts in this area are made of earth, and they are rarely made of stone like the Qingtang Dynasty.

Li Qi's 3,000 cavalry troops crossed the Yellow River and traveled south.

Due to the perennial attacks and harassment of nomadic tribes from the northern Tatars, Zhubu and other nomadic tribes, the Qiang and Tuyuhun tribes, which are in a state of semi-cultivation and semi-pastoralism, have always maintained a very vigilant state of all the people. However, after Li Qi built Dongshengcheng and the Yellow River suspension bridge in Hebei, and sent troops to garrison them, the sense of security of the people here suddenly increased greatly.

Shengzhou is on the south bank of the Yellow River, only more than ten miles away from the Jinhekou suspension bridge built by Li Qi, and is the only place where the Jin army garrisoned south of the Yellow River. Shengzhou City is said to be a city, to be more accurate to describe it as a fortress, the circumference of the whole city is only more than two miles, and it is not half the length of the courtyard wall of Tang Ming Manor.

Huo Xunzhen is forty-five years old this year, but after having his right arm amputated, he was forced to quit the army and became a magistrate. He is also relatively generous, and knows that he cherishes his subordinates, and he is much better than most of the generals in the Jin army.

At present, in these places west of the Yellow River, Fuzhou Zheshi and Linzhou are attached to the Jin army, while the eight departments of the party headed by the Tuoba clan have the Yinxia Dingyan army, which is in a state of separation, and is only nominally subordinate to the Central Plains Dynasty. In the ninth year of Tianyou, after the death of Tuoba Si, there was a major civil strife in the Xiazhou Party Department. Xia Zhou commanded Gao Zongyi to kill Li Yichang and stand on his own, and then Gao Zongyi was killed, and the troops welcomed Li Yichang's uncle Li Renfu as the envoy of the Dingyan Army.

It's a pity that at that time, the Jin army was besieged by the Liang army and the party in Luzhou, so there was no time to take care of anything else, so that the party members successfully passed the crisis.

In that year, due to the defection of the party department of the Dingyan Army to Zhu Liang, Li Maozhen, the king of Qi, and Li Cunxuan, the king of Jin, had sent troops to fight against the Dingyan army several times, but because the party Xiangqiang was already very strong, they all returned in vain.

It can be seen that the Dingyan army under the command of the party Xiang Qiang is already quite strong.

Huo Xun really got the report, and he went out of the city early and welcomed Li Qi into the city.

"How is General Huoxun's body recovering?" Li Qi greeted with a smile.

"Very good, Your Majesty Lao is concerned." Huo Xunzhen said: "It's just a pity that you can't get on the horse and kill the enemy, even if you get to the battlefield, you have to stay behind, otherwise you will die quickly." ”

"I plan to build a city and build bridges on both sides of the Canghe (Hunhe) estuary, so that from Yunzhou you can directly follow the Canghe Valley to Shengzhou in the west of the river." Li Qi said his plan. The Canghe Valley, which was later known as Youyu, Liangcheng, and Qingshuihe, was now the main horse grazing ground of Yunnei Horse Farm, and he felt that this trade route was closer and safer than the trade route on the Northland grassland.

"Why don't you choose the off-track? In fact, in the pre-Tang Dynasty, the Biguan Valley Road was always the main trade route connecting the north to Shuofang. Huo Xunzhen asked a little strangely.

"This ...... More on that later. Li Qi said, "Shengzhou's task is to strengthen the defense, slowly accumulate strength, and in two years, I am ready to get the land into my hands!" "Dijinze is located in the northern part of the Mu Us Desert in later generations, and is currently a large saline-alkali marshland. There are two large salt ponds here, which produce fine green salt, which is a major source of income for the Party Department.

It is best to weaken the party department of the Dingyan Army and adopt this method of drawing salaries from the bottom of the kettle.

"This northland business is really quick to make money, Your Majesty's chamber of commerce in Shengzhou City has earned 20,000 sheep, more than 1,000 cattle and more than 500 good horses in just half a year, is this thing more profitable than robbery?!" Huo Xunzhen licked his lips and said, "It's a pity that that kind of good wine has been sold out!" ”

Li Qi looked at him with a smile: "I heard that Thorn Shi himself still has twenty jars of good wine, how can it be sold out?" ”

Huo Xunzhen smiled: "The old minister has this hobby, and I hope Your Majesty has mercy!" ”

This was a shameless thing to say, and Li Qi couldn't help it: "The new wine will be shipped from Yunzhou soon, and this commercial profit, in addition to sharing a part of the profits to you, will also take out some of it to arm the Tuyuhun and Qiang tribes." Is it easy to recruit soldiers in the Shengzhou area? You can't relax! ”

Speaking of this, he leaned over the large map of the army that was spread out, pointed to Lingzhou City, which was hundreds of miles away, and said: "Now the south has no time to take care of Guanzhong for the time being, and the troops of the Shuofang army in Lingzhou are empty, if there are more than 10,000 soldiers and horses, maybe they can go down in one go, and we should not let go of this golden opportunity." The party members are staring at Shuo Fang fiercely, we have to get ahead of them! ”

"The Dingyan army is very strong, and it may not be easy to get a bargain if you move them directly." Huo Xunzhen was still a little worried.

"General Huoxun is too worried, and I will personally lead the army to go there when the time comes." Li Qi patted his chest with confidence and said, this matter really needs him to go out in person and open up the land connection with Guanzhong as soon as possible.

The Zhe clan in Fuzhou is his alliance against the party, but he is not prepared to rely too much on the strength of the Zhe family, otherwise it is very likely that the tail will not fall and raise a new Tuoba family.

In the areas of Yunnei, Shengzhou and Fengzhou, the Shatuo, Turkic, Tuyuhun and Qiang tribes were mixed, and the Han people accounted for only one-third, and he planned to integrate these tribes with the help of the construction of the Yunnei Horse Farm and the development of Tuntian in the north. In fact, these ideas are not very difficult to implement, and some things are nothing more than profits. As long as there is enough money and food, many difficulties can be solved......