There are a lot of goshawks inhabiting the western foothills of Longshan and Qinling, and the carrier pigeons that Feng Yi and Lu Ze brought to Chengzhou with the army are easy to fall into the prey of goshawks and other birds of prey.

The news that Li Zhihe led the Liangzhou army west into Chengzhou and won the first battle was still transmitted by the messenger all the way over the mountains and mountains to Luoyang, which was already after the Shangyuan Festival in the third year of Taihe.

Luoyang City in early spring is still cold, after the year in the garden of Shangyang Garden, a new cast iron lamppost is erected, the palace maid uncovers the lampshade at night, adds new gas stone and water to it, lights the lamp, and emits much brighter light than the traditional lamp candle.

The gas stone is a new product inadvertently generated when the Institute of Engineering used quicklime and coke for dry distillation test, and combustible gas is generated when it encounters water, but fortunately, the amount of gas stone produced by the test at that time was very small, and it did not cause any uncontrollable accidents.

The Institute of Engineers submitted the relevant information because it was thinking about what role the gas stone might have in the military.

After Han Qian saw the materials of the Institute of Engineers, he knew that compared with the military value, the gas stone, which can stably produce combustible gas by adding water, is actually a rather cheap outdoor lighting material that is much brighter than ordinary lamp oil when lit.

Out of safety considerations, gas stones cannot be used for indoor lighting, and the requirements for moisture-proof preservation are also extremely strict, but Han Qian still ordered the Institute of Engineers to try to produce a batch of gas stone lamps and install them in the garden of Shangyang Yuan as soon as possible, so as to be more conducive to the subsequent promotion of this new thing.

The gas stone lamp in the corner of the eaves emitted bright light, and through the greenish glass window, it shone into the hall of Lingyun Pavilion, Han Qian sat behind the long case under the window, browsed the notes handed back by Li Zhihe and Feng Yi from Chengzhou, and smiled with Wang Jun quite proudly:

"Look, or did I decisively move the Liangzhou army westward and didn't miss a big deal?"

"You decisively decided to make the Liangzhou army move westward, that is what you should do as the lord of the Great Liang State, Chen Jingzhou and Han Yuanqi had concerns before, and it was also the duty of a courtier to consider it for you, what do you have to be proud of at this time?" Wang Jun said with a smile.

Li Zhihe and Feng Yi passed on the details of the first battle of the Liangzhou army's westward expedition to Longyou, which made the people in Luoyang feel quite lucky, and Chen Jingzhou and Han Yuanqi, who advocated rejecting Li Zhihe's westward advance, had just come to Shangyangyuan to find Han Qian to reflect.

Judging from the current situation, if Han Qian accepted their suggestion, he ignored Li Zhihe's request to lead his troops westward in early October, but after receiving the news that Hou Mo and other leaders of the Qiang tribe had accepted the incorporation of the Mughal people, he would have organized a westward expedition from Liangzhou with Li Zhihe, even if he did not mention the resistance of the Liangzhou army, it would have been delayed for three or four months.

At that time, Hou Mo may have preliminarily integrated the Qiang forces in Chengzhou, and even built a strong fortress to garrison the Niuwei Gorge at the west entrance of the Niujiyi Ancient Road.

At that time, the Liangzhou army will become more difficult to advance westward, not to mention, and it may even be impossible to tear the blockade of Niuwei Gorge and advance westward after paying heavy casualties, but at this time, it will actually form a military threat to Chengzhou and other southwestern Longxi regions, which will inevitably promote the integration of the Qiang tribes in this area, and more firmly fall to the Mughu.

Everything is a matter of affecting the whole body, and in that case, the situation on the entire Western Front will inevitably be unfavorable to the girders.

Of course, Han Qian didn't blame Han Yuanqi and Chen Jingzhou at all, just like Wang Jun said, Han Yuanqi and Chen Jingzhou's original suggestion was also to fulfill their responsibilities, and the final decision was on him.

Of course, Han Qian was a little triumphant when Han Yuanqi and Chen Jingzhou walked to it, but it was Li Zhihe who led his troops into Chengzhou in time, won the first battle, and severely damaged Wang Xiaoxian's soldiers and horses in Qinzhou, and the direct and potential impact on the entire battle situation should not be underestimated.

On the other hand, Han Qian also knew that the real resourceful and thoughtful people in the world should not be underestimated, and the reason why he was able to stand above others was not how clever his personal intelligence really was, but more because he took advantage of the many advanced experiences and knowledge systems in the dream world that far exceeded those of the current world.

Purely in terms of personal intelligence, Feng Yi, Gu Qian, and Guo Rong are by no means below him, and Chen Jitang, who is determined to stay in Liyang at this time and preside over Liyang Academy to concentrate on promoting the development of the new learning system, is far above him.

Wang Wenqian lived in Lianyuan, and in more than half a year, he thoroughly ate the hundreds of new monographs sent by Wang Jun to Lianyuan.

The hundreds of new monographs sent to Lianyuan can be made public within the scope of the higher education hall, and in addition, they are all listed as top secrets. Wang Wenqian could not get in touch with the newer and more confidential research results of the Institute of Engineers, and at the same time, in order to avoid suspicion, he could only write to Wang Jun to exchange some of his experience in studying new studies.

Han Qian knew that there was really a person with a high IQ in the world, and when he saw Wang Jun laughing at him at this time, he said: "I also plan to write a letter to Chen Jitang, asking him to include your father in some of the new studies that Liyang Academy is currently responsible for, so that your father can find something that he is really interested in doing for the rest of his life—since you are laughing at me like this, then I will not write this letter......"

"Your Majesty, how do you want your concubines to beg so that you can change your mind?" Wang Jun tilted his head and asked with a wonderful look at Han Qian.

"It's rare that you have a time to beg me, so I'll have to think about it after watching these recitals." Han Qian said.

After the establishment of the Parliamentary Yuan, the prefectures, counties and various departments were sparse, and the new system of being decided by the Zuo Nei Shifu and deliberated by the Parliamentary Council was also initially put into operation, and Han Qian would not dismiss the decisions of the House in principle, but he still had to look at the important recitals and letters one by one.

In the past two days, the main discussions and deliberations of the Zuo Nei Historical Mansion and the Parliamentary Yuan revolved around the victory of the Liangzhou Army in the first battle of the Western Expedition and the continued support for the Western Expeditionary Army to fight in Longyou.

Needless to say, the victory in the first battle of the Western Expedition had a far-reaching impact on the situation on the Western Front, and the most direct benefit was that in addition to obtaining excellent war horses from the Song Domain region through Shu, high-quality horse sources could also be obtained from Longyou in the future.

Now what the Zuo Nei Shifu has to consider is how to organize commercial goods with high added value and controllable transportation costs, take Xichuan and Chuyang as transit points, and transport them to the southwest of Longxi through the Danjiang, Hanshui and Niujiyi Ancient Road, trade war horses and transport them back to the hinterland, and at the same time reserve enough profits for the Western Expeditionary Army, so that they can obtain sufficient food supplies from the local area.

At present, the initial formation of the industrial product production system, in Xuzhou, Donghu, Huaiyang, Yongyang and other places is the most concentrated, the most vigorous development is in the southern area of Luoyang to build many workshops and workshops, mining coal and iron minerals.

It is difficult to minimize the transportation cost of organizing the production of industrial products from these regions to the Longyou region.

In addition to the scale of commercial goods transported from Xuzhou to Dengjun Erzhou by water, which is limited by the peace negotiation agreement, whether it is from Huaixi or Heluo to transport commerce into Xichuan and transfer to the waterway, there is a considerable distance of land transportation.

Even though the construction of post roads and the promotion of heavy-duty carriages have solved some of the problems of insufficient capacity, the cost of land transportation is still several times that of mainstream shipping.

Feng Yi, Gu Qian and others all advocated the construction of workshops in Xichuan, Wancheng and other places to mine coal and iron and other coal mines.

Xichuan, Wancheng as Jun, Deng Erzhou at this time of the state governance, the history of the city has thousands of years, especially Wancheng is located in the center of Dengzhou (Nanyang Basin), the former dynasty was prosperous, only in the city there are more than 200,000 households, and Dengzhou, which has the name of Nanyang grain and grain, is as high as one million people at most.

The prosperity of the Nanyang Basin was completely destroyed by hundreds of continuous wars of all sizes for decades because of its location in the north and south of the previous dynasties.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China by Liang and Chu, Nanyang was the focus area of the Western Front where the two countries had been engaged in a long-term tug-of-war.

Even after the Jingxiang War, the Chu army advanced the defense line to Fangcheng in the north of the Nanyang Basin, moved to a large number of soldiers to fill the defense line, and agricultural production was restored somewhat, but Lü Qingxia failed to launch a palace rebellion, and fled to Xiangcheng with the Empress Dowager Wang Chan'er and Xiangwang Yang Lin.

At present, the total population of Dengjun and the two prefectures is only 200,000, and even Junzhou, which is sandwiched between the Funiu Mountains and the Qinling Mountains and has undulating mountains, has a slightly larger population than Dengzhou, which occupies the grain of Nanyang and has a large amount of fertile land that can be cultivated.

If you want to develop industrial and mining industries in Wancheng and Xichuan, you can't do without the corresponding agricultural population as the foundation.

At present, the total population of the 12 counties in Dengjun and Deng Jun is less than 200,000, and they are even extremely scattered.

After the Liang-Chu peace talks, Daliang promised to reduce the garrison in Deng and Jun, but the strategic value of Deng Jun and Jun cannot be ignored.

This time, it was discussed that it was necessary to transport high-value-added commercial goods to Longyou through Liangzhou nearby, and advocated the large-scale development of industrial and mining industries in Wancheng and Xichuan.

The key is that the counties under the jurisdiction of Daliang are far from full in population, and there is a large amount of fertile land that can be cultivated in various places, and there is an urgent need to move in the population, not the outward population.

In order to solve such contradictions, Feng Yi, Gu Qian, Guo Rong and others suggested that Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu should garrison the defense line on the west bank of the Yinghe River in Xuzhou, Chenzhou and other places, and the focus of follow-up operations should be to do everything possible to infiltrate the areas along the Wushui and Surabaya areas, or lure or force, to bring back the households in these areas and move them to Deng and Junzhou, which can also achieve the goal of continuously weakening the Eastern Liang army.

Although Han Qian was reluctant to do more things to disturb the people, the militaristic government could not tolerate too much of the kindness of women.

Of course, even if it is to facilitate the smooth recovery of these places in the future, the foundation of public opinion must not be lost, and the use of bloody means to create hatred must be avoided as much as possible.

The Military Intelligence Office proposed two proposals that could be carried out at the same time.

The first is through the bile water copper smelting method mastered in the early years of Xuzhou, and the Institute of Engineers currently has a certain amount of research on the use of replacement method for copper plating, silver plating, etc., which can cast iron money on a large scale and plating copper, and pretend to be normal copper money to flow into the cities of Wuyang, Bozhou, Bianliang, Xingyang and other cities currently controlled by the Eastern Liang Army.

To put it bluntly, it is to use a large amount of fake money, which costs only one-fifth or one-sixth of the normal copper money, to disrupt the prices of grain and other goods in the border cities controlled by the Eastern Liang Army, so as to inhibit the rest and recuperation of these areas, and force the people at the bottom to flee to Huaixi and Yingxi.

The second is to build a diversion weir in a specific bay area of Yingshui, so that the water of the Yu River, which is completely immersed in the Shaying River, can be diverted to the vortex river on the east side through the subsidence area on the east bank of Yingshui.

Before recovering the cities of Xingyang and Wuzhi and blocking the breach of the Yuhe embankment, this can not only effectively reduce the flood disaster in the middle and lower reaches of the Shaying River and Shouzhou and Haozhou, but also deepen the flood disaster on both sides of the vortex controlled by the Eastern Liang Army in the summer and autumn flood season, so as to curb the rhythm of recuperation and business in these areas and force the people at the bottom to flee to Huaixi or Yingxi.

At this time, Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu gave appropriate guidance in Xu Chen and other places, and the effect of attracting population inflow from the area controlled by the Eastern Liang Army was more obvious.

Han Qian summoned Wang Zhe and Yin Peng, who were waiting in the outer hall, and said to them: "The second plan is sealed, and the first thing about casting copper-plated iron coins, you go to Feng Yi, and hand over the official money department to carry it out secretly, first mint one million copper-plated iron coins, and hand them over to Xuzhou to test the after-effects." ”

"It takes time to verify the effect of casting copper-plated iron coins, but building a diversion weir in Yingshui can have an immediate effect," Wang Zhe said, "The king is worried that the people will be injured too much, and the death will only increase, so before the summer, you can build a diversion weir in Yanling, and first divert a small amount of Yuhe flood into the vortex ......"

This method was proposed by him, and it took a lot of effort to perfect, so he naturally wanted to insist on it more.

"The speed of recovering Xingyang is not as slow as you think," Han Qian said, "I plan to send troops to attack Xingyang City on two fronts before this autumn and winter, and after recovering Xingyang City, I can pile up concrete blocks from the west side of the embankment breach, close the breach little by little, or force the dike breach to move eastward, and then naturally have the effect of diverting floods to the south of Wuzhi and Bianliang, and there is no need to waste manpower and material resources in Xuzhou and Chenzhou to build a diversion weir ......"

"Use troops against Xingyang before autumn and winter?" Wang Zhe asked with some hesitation.

Although Xingyang is isolated at the northeast foot of Songshan by the Yu River and the flooded Jialu River, at present, in addition to Liang Shixiong personally leading 20,000 elites to garrison Xingyang, Mengzhou guarded by Zhao Mengzhou faces Xingyang across the river, and Bianliang City, which is designated as the military capital of the Eastern Liang Dynasty by Zhu Rang, is separated by the flooded Jialu River, less than 200 miles away from Xingyang, and there are elite garrisoned Wuzhi and other city fortresses in the middle.

At present, Xingyang is the only foothold of the enemy army on the eastern flank of Heluo, and at the same time, it is also a big and dangerous city and a strong city, Wang Zhe thought that Han Qian would delay for two or three years, at least wait for the enemy's offensive force in the Heluo area to be completely relieved, and then try to send troops to seize Xingyang.

"After capturing Xingyang and ensuring that the eastern flank of Heluo is completely worry-free, we can send troops to recover Guanzhong," Han Qian said, "I originally thought about delaying it for two years and waiting for the situation in Heluo to stabilize before speaking, but if Li Zhihe led the Western Expeditionary Army to fight well in Longyou, it may not be possible to use troops against Xingyang this year - you prepare a secret letter to Wuji on my behalf, and ask him to start preparing first......"

…………

…………

After the Shangyuan Festival, the Yingshui is still frozen for three feet, and there is no sign of the melting of the river ice for the time being.

Zhao Wuji was dressed in a dark gray coat, straddling the horse's back, his thin face, with the coldness and perseverance of a knife and axe, listening to the horse's hooves lightly clasping the hard river ice, as if the hammer was gently hitting the rocks, he frowned into his long eyebrows, looking at the land on the other side like a wasteland.

In order to stabilize the situation in Heluo, in addition to more than 30,000 generals who died at the mouth of the Yiluo River and the two wings of Bishan and Hujiaoguan, at the same time, at the same time, regardless of the cost, the Songnan and Shuanglonggou plank roads were widened, breaking through the land transportation bottlenecks of Heluo, Shangzhou and the hinterland, and the national strength was also extremely consumed.

Even if there is spare power, it is to make every effort to build and develop the industrial and mining industry in the south of Luoyang.

Whether it is the infiltration operations against Lishan and Wangwushan after the beginning of the autumn, or the recent westward expedition led by Li Zhihe to lead the Liangzhou army, the scale of the army is limited. There are slightly more soldiers and horses sent to Lishan and Wangwushan, mainly because it is convenient to send supplies across the Yu River, and there is not much additional consumption, and the army of the Western Expedition led by Li Zhihe is actually only 6,000 soldiers and horses, and the early goal is only to collect and integrate the forces of the three states in the southwest of Longxi, and most of the grain and grass supply problems need to be solved on the spot.

This also decided that the newly established Xuzhou marching camp army after the Liang and Chu peace talks, even if there were Li Xiu, Feng Zhang, He Liufeng, Cao Ba, Zhao Ci and other infantry battalions and cavalry elites, but there was no sufficient logistics materials as support, and it was also transferred to Xuzhou, Chenzhou and other city fortress garrisons after the autumn, and it was necessary to be familiar with the place and build a camp, so there was no way to fight in the area east of Yingshui on a large scale.

But that doesn't mean they're fighting less this winter.

Before the flood season, the Mongolian army and the Eastern Liang army attacked Heluo to no avail, and were forced to withdraw after the flood season of the Yu River, but in terms of the process of the Heluo battle in the first half of the year and the final casualty ratio, the Mongolian army and the Eastern Liang army still had the advantage.

Wu Su Dashi and Xiao Yiqing saw that Liang Chu finally reached a peace agreement, so that the Liang army could draw a large number of elites from the southern front to the north to enrich the defense line, and decided to give up this winter to organize troops and horses to attack Heluo on a large scale again, and the main troops were to rest and consolidate the existing defense line.

However, Zhu Rang and Hetu, the cavalry general of the Mongolian army who was stationed in the southern area of Bianliang as reinforcements to assist the Eastern Liang Army in defending the east bank of Yingshui, did not care.

In addition to Sima Tan and Xu Mingzhen's headquarters on the southern line, after the Yinghe River was completely frozen in late November, Zhu Rang and Hetu organized a large force of men and horses to cross the middle reaches of the Yinghe River and launch frequent large-scale invasions of Xuzhou and Chenzhou on the west bank of the Yinghe River.

In addition to the more than 12,000 Mongolian cavalry led by Hetu, Zhu Rang also organized 20,000 cavalry to take turns to invade the west bank of Yingshui.

After the end of November, the rivers were frozen, and the area east of Funiu Mountain and Songshan Mountain was flat and broad, and the terrain was also conducive to cavalry roundabouts and interspersed battles.

Li Xiu led the three newly formed cavalry brigades, the cavalry strength was only one-third of the invading enemy's troops, but they had to undertake the combat mission of intercepting the enemy's cavalry infiltration and interspersing outside the city fortress, bearing great pressure, and the casualties throughout the winter were not small.

Of course, when the enemy cavalry tried to gather a large number of troops and horses to invade deeper west of the Yinghe River, and even tried to attack the city, or to besiege the infantry brigade array that fought out of the city, the well-trained and high-morale elite soldiers of the Great Liang, as well as the well-trained and high-spirited elite soldiers of the Great Liang, as well as the sophisticated combat weapons that entered the field for mobile warfare, such as the spring-arm bed crossbow, made them suffer a lot.

At this time, the Shangyuan Festival has passed, and in another ten days and half a month, the streams of Hehuai will be thawed, and the Eastern Liang army has withdrawn to the east of the Yinghe River after leaving more than 3,000 corpses.

The casualties of the Xuzhou marching camp army were not particularly large, and the number of casualties in the anti-invasion operations throughout the winter was about 1,000, but the burned houses, massacres and looting of the people in Chen and Xuzhou were as high as more than 20,000.

Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu were unsatisfactory with such a result, but they had no good way to resist the enemy's cavalry, which had an absolute advantage in numbers, scattered and interspersed to disturb the attack.

In this open wilderness, it is difficult for heavily armored foot soldiers to catch up with the enemy light cavalry who insist on guerrilla attacks, even if they ride military horses that are not known for their speed; In terms of the size of the cavalry, they were far less than the enemy army in Hehuai, and they could not be easily entangled.

Wang Zhe advocated building a diversion weir in the middle and upper reaches of the Yingshui (Shaying River) to flow the water of the Yu River to the vortex and even the Surabaya, so as to form a deeper and more open buffer zone in the hinterland of the river.

Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu support such a plan.

This will make it impossible for the enemy to gain a foothold on the east bank of Yingshui, and in the autumn and winter in the future, they can only start from the farther east bank of the vortex and invade the west bank of Yingshui.

In fact, it will increase the distance of the enemy's cavalry invasion by one or two hundred miles, which will naturally be more conducive to the defense of the Xuzhou marching army on the west bank of Yingshui.

However, they didn't want to build a diversion weir in the middle and upper reaches of the Shaying River, but they couldn't pass it by Han Qian, and Han Qian also asked them to start thinking about and preparing an operational plan to attack Xingyang from the southern front within this year.

Zhao Wuji frowned and stared at the last group of enemy cavalry with a size of more than 100 people disappearing in the distance, but he was thinking about how to prepare for the battle of organizing troops and horses to attack Xingyang from the southern front.