When the sky was bright, Li Zhongyi was already stationed on the Zhuangyuan Ridge, fifty miles west of Bozhou City, overlooking the troops on the march.

The Li Jiajun, who had completed the horse-loading of the whole army, was equipped with one man and two horses, and the marching speed was amazingly fast.

I saw that under the overwhelming red army flag, the ironclad torrent on the march was like five red dragons, swallowing thousands of miles like a tiger.

Chu Xiong took the monocular and made a clever proposal: "Master, after rushing for most of the night, drink saliva?" ”

Li Zhongyi waved his hand, staring at the rolling red stream below the mountain, his heart fluctuating.

In the blink of an eye, the first half of his life is about to pass, and Li Zhongyi's hard-earned family wealth is now all on the table, and the Prancing Horse Central Plains is at the right time.

In order to speed up the march and reduce the burden of the army, Li Zhongyi did not bring Chai Xirang and Du Qinniang.

After the victory of the Battle of Bozhou, because Chai Xirang had the title of supervising the country, it was equivalent to giving all parties the forces to vote, a big face step.

Objectively speaking, the forces of all parties are directly attached to Li Zhongyi, a traitor, and in the essence of interests, it is actually not a big deal.

However, the reader's mouth is poisonous, and when the situation is right in the future, he will definitely be scolded half to death, making you so angry that you vomit blood, but there is nothing you can do.

The value of Chai Xirang's existence is to let all forces put down their psychological baggage, and turn the notoriety of surrender or submission into the virtue of obeying the heavens.

Both as a watch and a memorial arch, this kind of behavior of covering the ears and stealing the bell will continue to be popular.

At first, in the Li family's army, many people did not understand Li Zhongyi's decision to arrange Chai Xirang to be the prisoner of the country.

Everyone has a lot of discussions, and there are all kinds of things, and the mainstream opinion is: The country laid down by the Lord should be the emperor of the Lord, why did a baby who has not dried up on the throne?

After the fierce victory of the Bozhou Campaign, the prestige of the Li family army was greatly enhanced, and all nearby forces came to vote, and the noise in the army disappeared without a trace.

The reason is obvious, Li Zhongyi's army has always been in the middle of the fine, and although the combat effectiveness of the Li family army is very strong, the shortcomings are also very obvious: the number of troops is too small.

Counting the more than 20,000 soldiers of the former forbidden army annexed this time, the number of soldiers of the Li family army is only more than 80,000 at best.

The vast Central Plains region is dotted with more than 1,000 state cities and county seats, if each city needs to send troops and horses to attack, how much food and energy will it consume?

The wise do not do it!

Therefore, Li Zhongyi pulled up Chai Xirang's banner of supervising the country and blocked the front to cover up, with the purpose of reducing the various costs of attacking the Central Plains.

Now it seems that pulling up the tiger skin of the prison country is still very effective. After the Li Jiajun seized Bozhou, it was effortless, and in just half a month, relying only on the deterrence of military might, the officials and gentry in various places were forced to give another two million stone of grain and nearly one million yuan of money.

Artillery, that is Li Zhongyi's heart and soul treasure, these bronze weapons of great killing, absolutely not to be lost. Therefore, Li Yongtang's artillery army has been advancing with Li Zhongyi's Chinese army.

Around the convoy of the artillery battalion, there were all guards armed to the teeth, and the Chinese army's rebuke and double sentry had been scattered for more than a hundred miles.

Li Zhongyi issued a strict order that as long as there was a soldier alive and panting, the enemy troops could not be allowed to pounce on the position of the artillery battalion.

The artillery corps was not without its shortcomings. Due to the disrepair of the official road, it rained heavily a few days ago, and the road was unusually muddy and difficult to walk.

The wheels of the 12-pounder gun, which weighed more than 2,000 catties, often got stuck in mud puddles, and from time to time horses had to be dragged by people, which seriously slowed down the speed of the march.

At the same time, a cavalry-style 6-pounder gun of several hundred pounds, dragged by four horses, appeared to be much more flexible. Even the wheels of a 6-pounder gun fell into a pit, and it only took ten soldiers to push a few in the back, and it was easy to be pulled into the mud pit.

"Well, if only there was a lot of cement." Li Zhongyi sighed secretly, although the power of the artillery is huge, it is also extremely deep due to the influence of road conditions.

Since the Qin Dynasty, successive dynasties have not attached importance to the construction of Chi Road. From the early Tang Dynasty to the middle Tang Dynasty, before the Anshi Rebellion, because there were a lot of war horses, the cavalry was also strong, and the impact was not particularly bad if the road was not repaired.

The most hateful thing is that the Northern Song Dynasty court, which pursued strong cadres and weak branches. Due to the mercantilism of the Great Song Dynasty, the financial revenue was also surprisingly high, raising up to one million officers and soldiers, and it seemed to be strong.

However, the ministers of the political affairs hall only cared about the excellent scholars, but ignored the basic strategic disadvantages of the Great Song Dynasty not to stabilize the source of horses, and they all lay on the golden mountain to enjoy the blessings, and actually did not build strategic highways to quickly reinforce the north and northwest.

Objectively speaking, the loss of the sixteen states of Youyun did make the Northern Song Dynasty lose its strategic barrier. As we all know, it is absolutely not a good thing for local warlords to sit on the throne.

However, if the Northern Song Dynasty did not take various measures for active defense and vigorously build a national defense road, it could quickly gather heavy troops in the fortified cities of Hebei, so as to effectively curb the southward movement of the Jurchens.

Li Jiajun is now a quasi-modern army, and due to the early birth of bronze artillery, the requirements of the entire army for road traffic are essentially different from the traditional feudal army.

Don't say anything else, just the smooth road conditions of old Europe presented in "War and Peace" have already made Li Zhongyi envious.

Just as Li Zhongyi was about to go down the ridge to continue his journey, a fast horse suddenly galloped over, and he couldn't help but stop getting on the horse, standing in place and waiting for the military situation that was probably not very good.

This time he sent troops to the west, Li Zhongyi always had a hunch that his old friend Yelu Hugo would definitely appear.

"My lord, the Khitans are here, and Yelu Huge personally led 100,000 iron horsemen, along the shortcut road by the sea, and went straight to our Pinglu......"

Li Zhongyi glanced at Chu Xiong, who gritted his teeth, and he couldn't help but sigh slightly, the Khitans were not discovered until they were close to Pinglu, even if he thought about it with his feet, he could completely imagine that there was a big traitor colluding with the Khitans in the court!

"Okay, very good, Brother Hugh deserves to be the number one general of the Khitan, his eyesight is very accurate, and he also seized the fighter. His siege of Wei to save Zhao at such a critical moment really hit the key point of Lao Tzu. Li Zhongyi looked in the direction of the east with a smile, and the corners of his mouth were raised high.

Li Yanqing on the side, although he didn't go to see Li Zhongyi, he also sighed secretly for a while: the Lord is determined to set up a senate department, which is simply a stroke of genius.

The sub-senators of the Senate Department usually look inconspicuous, and they look like idlers eating dry rice. However, the Senate has made full use of its expertise in brainstorming, turning the battlefield into a translucent chessboard for professionals.

PS: There is at least one more, ask for a monthly pass!