In August of the 14th year of Xuanping, Xining, Gansu, in the yamen of the governor of Gansu.

Li Yuanzhi, the new governor of Gansu and the first governor of Gansu, frowned and looked at the letter in his hand, this is an official document transferred by the military headquarters of the Fifth Army, the content of the official document is very simple, it seems that the Tatars in the north seem to have moved, and the military has stepped up its defense, and at the same time hopes that the local yamen can cooperate with the military and do a good job in the evacuation of the people and the reserve of materials.

In the political ecology of the separation of the military and the government in the empire, the military side will naturally not report military affairs in detail to the governor's yamen, but the situation in Gansu is very complicated, and the military often needs local support, so the interaction between the two sides is relatively large.

Looking at the official document sent by the military in his hand, Li Yuanzhi frowned, are these Tatars going to make a move again, this time they want to enter the customs and loot supplies, or do they want to break through the blockade of the Great Wall and enter Qinghai and other places, or do they want to put pressure on the empire on the Gansu side to alleviate the huge pressure they are under in the Hetao area?

Although Li Yuanzhi was not a military general, as a high-ranking official of the empire, he was entrusted with an important task as the governor of the newly established Gansu Province.

He knew very well that in order to further compress the space of the Tatars, and more importantly, to recapture the Hetao region, the empire had secretly launched the Hetao strategy since the beginning of the tenth year of Xuanping.

What kind of strategy, in fact, is very simple, not even a military action, but through the encroachment of immigrants, the empire built fortresses along the banks of the Yellow River, and established settlements.

At first, the Tatars on the opposite side did not feel anything, the fortresses established by the empire on both sides of the Yellow River were not large-scale, and there were no large-scale migrations, only a small number of them.

And they did not take the initiative to attack the Tatar tribes on the Hetao Plain, not to mention, this section of the Yellow River will freeze in winter, so in the eyes of the Tatars, this kind of small-scale construction of fortresses and colonial impact is not too great, and they can still come and go freely.

However, when small fortresses were built one by one, and relying on these castles to form a stable front passage of about 50 kilometers, the Tatars finally realized that the Tang Empire wanted to gradually encroach on the Hetao region, and they began to get nervous.

The importance of the Hetao region is undeniable, for thousands of years it was a battleground between the northern nomads and the Central Plains Dynasty, when the Central Plains Dynasty was strong, they were often able to control the region, but once the Central Plains Dynasty weakened, then the northern nomads would control the area.

Even for the nomadic tribes of the north, this place is a competition zone for each other!

For thousands of years, the history of the Hetao region has basically been the history of war, with constant fighting between various tribes, the Central Plains Dynasty and the northern nomads, and the blood spilled by countless soldiers has become the best nourishment for nourishing this land.

The Tang Empire's attempt to regain the Hetao made the Tatars feel the crisis, so they also began to send troops to pull out these small fortresses.

It's just that before, both sides were relatively restrained, on the one hand, the two sides also reached an agreement, and the Tang Empire also gave Altan Khan a title, and the two sides also maintained a mutual market relationship.

In addition, more importantly, in the past few years, the focus of the Tang Empire was to restore people's livelihood, develop industry and commerce, and maintain restraint in foreign expansion, while the Tatars were also busy fighting Chahar and Warat.

Both sides are busy, and such a large-scale war cannot be fought, but small-scale armed conflicts are quite frequent.

However, at the beginning of this year, Li Yuanzhi knew that the empire had begun to gradually change its northern policy, and the main reason for this was not that the empire was ready for the Northern Expedition, in fact, at the end of last year, the tone of the empire's top leadership was still to develop the agricultural industrial and commercial economy, strengthen itself as the mainstay, and large-scale foreign expansion was still only a plan on paper.

This can be seen from the distribution of fiscal budget expenditure at the end of last year, a large amount of fiscal expenditure is still concentrated in internal affairs, military expenditure and Xuanping 13 years are still the same, but the empire's fiscal revenue is increasing year by year, and the relative fiscal expenditure is also increasing year by year, but the total amount of military expenditure has not been increased, which means that the proportion of military expenditure is decreasing in small amounts year by year.

At the end of last year, the empire had no plans for large-scale external expansion!

But in March of this year, a news came from the northern steppes that made the empire feel the threat of the north, because in February of this year, the Tatars and the Warats had a fairly grand battle, and it is rumored that the Tatars invested more than 100,000 troops in this battle, and the Warats also invested 70,000 or 80,000 troops, and as a result, the Tatars won a great victory, and most of the main force of the Warats were annihilated, and finally fled in disarray.

This also means that the Tatars have an absolute advantage in the northern steppe, although they have not been able to completely eliminate or annex the Chahar and Warat tribes, but their strength has reached a new peak, and it is now difficult for the Chahar and Warat tribes to protect themselves, let alone confront the Tatars.

This also makes the Empire's attempt to maintain a balance between the three major powers in the north and give the Empire more time to prepare in vain.

Now Altan Khan is in full swing on the steppe, which naturally makes the empire feel threatened!

To this end, at the end of March, Li Xuan, the Son of Heaven, personally convened the Imperial Military and Political Conference, which was a meeting attended by the top leaders of the military and the cabinet, and the main body of the meeting was how to deal with the situation in the north.

The details of the meeting will not be announced, but it can still be inferred from a few things that the empire's northern policy has undergone a major change.

First of all, the most obvious signal is that the military temporarily received five million taels of silver for military expenses!

Temporary military spending, this situation generally occurs in wartime, in normal times, there is no such thing at all, the army suddenly received five million taels of silver temporary military spending, which means that the military has to make a big move, otherwise, it is impossible to obtain so much temporary military spending.

The military wants to make a big move, this is something that many high-ranking officials in the empire know, and some ordinary officials and even Ping Ming can even guess that the military is preparing for war!

This is because the military's preparations for war involve too many aspects to be concealed.

For example, this year's students of the Army Martial Arts Academy graduated early and were then assigned to various units!

For another example, the logistics department of the Privy Council suddenly temporarily increased urgent orders to major enterprises, and Lingao Erjiu Fishery Company suddenly obtained a large number of canned fish orders, and the delivery time requirements were very strict, forcing Lingao Erjiu Fishery Company to delay other orders and give priority to the production of military orders.

For example, grain companies in several northern provinces, such as the Hebei Grain Company, the Shanxi Grain Company, and the Shaanxi Grain Company, all of which are government-run grain companies under the Imperial Grain Corporation, have all received administrative orders requiring them to transfer and reserve large quantities of grain.

On the Yellow River, boatloads of grain and other military supplies are being transported north.

On those official roads, four-wheeled carriages were transporting large quantities of grain and other materials to the north, heading to the border.

Although the military's troops have not yet moved, and even in the Hetao area, there has been a pause in medium-scale fighting, and there are only some small-estimated conflicts and battles, which give people a sense of calm, but some people who know or guess the inside story know that the military must be planning a large-scale military operation in the north.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be so much trouble!

And Li Yuanzhi, as a high-ranking member of the empire and the governor of Gansu Province, naturally knew that the target of the imperial military was not anywhere else, but in the most important Hetao area.

After years of preparation, and even suppression, the Son of Heaven finally approved the plan proposed by the army: to recover the Hetao!

Even if he didn't know the inside story, he could guess that if he wanted to recover the Hetao, the army would have to invest more than 100,000 troops to fight.

The Tatars in the north are not stupid, they can also feel the huge pressure from the Tang Empire, and their spies also found out the unusual, and then reported it to Altan Khan.

This is also the reason why in recent months, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, and even western Liaoning have been active frequently.

They are also unwilling to sit idly by and are trying to find ways to undermine the Empire's Hetao strategy.

Gansu, as a relatively deep contact with the Tatars, is also the bridgehead of the empire in the northwest region, and is naturally the focus of the Tatar attack.

"I don't know what the situation is on the side of the Fifth Army, how it will face the invasion of the Tatars!" Li Yuanzhi was a little worried about the situation on the side of the Fifth Army.

He didn't want to let himself become the first feudal minister of the empire to lose his territory because of the defeat of the military!

At this time, he even wondered if he had made a mistake in choosing to compete so desperately for the first governor of Gansu, and at the end of last year, the empire had adjusted several major military districts and some border provinces in the country.

The Gansu Military Administrative Region was upgraded to Gansu Province, and the Gansu Governor Yamen was set up, and Li Yuanzhi served as the first Gansu Governor.

In addition, the original huge Liaodong Province was also divided into two, and the newly established Liaoxi Province was established.

In addition, the jurisdictions of some other provinces have also been adjusted, and the impact is large and small, but the new provinces are only Gansu Province and Liaoning West Province.

In the previous model of military administrative regions, the power of the military was still too great, which seriously affected the basic political principle of the separation of military and political affairs in the empire, so there was a situation of abolishing military administrative regions and directly establishing provinces.

But even if Gansu is a province, even Li Yuanzhi himself has to admit that here, military affairs are the first priority, and civil affairs are honestly not much.

Since Li Yuanzhi took office, he found that most of what he did was actually to serve the military, and even if he vigorously presided over the reclamation, the main purpose was actually to provide military rations to the military.

Even the development of the industrial and commercial economy is like this, Gansu Province actually has industry, what industry?

Defense!

The scale of Xining Arsenal is not small!

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