While the Luoyan Army was actively preparing for war, the Jurchens in the northern land were also actively preparing for the south.

Wanyan Agu Da collected 60,000 Liao army prisoners, those were the original soldiers and horses of the Liao State, and they were all soldiers and horses that had been formally trained, which was exactly the manpower that Wanyan Agu needed urgently. After the battle to destroy Yeluping Mountain, Wanyan Aguda's army not only did not decrease, but expanded from 80,000 cavalry to 140,000 troops.

This is certainly not enough. Wanyan Aguda and Yeluchun signed a formal agreement. The content of the agreement was that Wanyan Aguda recognized Liaoyang and Dading as the land of Liao, and he only borrowed two lands and returned them to Liao within three years. In exchange, the Liao State must fully support the Jurchens' manpower, horses, armor, grain, grass and other materials to pay for the Jurchen consumption.

Wanyan Agu knew that although Da Zhou was extremely weak now, the hundred-legged insect was dead but not stiff, and he needed to make a lot of preparations to swallow this behemoth. First of all, the number of troops is insufficient, although a large number of Liao troops have been expanded, but it is still insufficient. In fact, Wanyan Aguda is not worried about this. In addition to forcibly recruiting young and strong soldiers in Liaoyang and Dading, he asked the tribal chiefs to provide 100,000 soldiers and horses for his command. The tribal chiefs are not stupid, they know that the soldiers and horses of the Liao State are all cannon fodder in the hands of Wanyan Aguda, and he will not have the slightest love. So Meng Sage and the others once again negotiated with Wanyan Agu Da and put forward a proposal that the Liao State and the Jurchens jointly send troops to attack. The reason is that the command of the Liao army was handed over to the Jurchens, and I am afraid that if the soldiers are not convinced, the command will not be effective, and it will affect major events.

Wanyan Agu naturally understands what these guys have in their hearts, they want to follow behind them to take advantage. Wanyan Agu naturally refused to let them take advantage of him, and his condition was that he could allow them to follow him to send troops, but they must be responsible for resisting the soldiers and horses in the northwest of the Great Zhou, and he was responsible for attacking the soldiers and horses in the northeastern border towns of the Great Zhou. On the surface, there are nearly 400,000 soldiers and horses in the northeast of the Great Zhou, and it seems that Wanyan Agu is fighting against the main force of the Great Zhou, but in fact, Wanyan Agu understands that the soldiers and horses of the Great Zhou in the northwest are the powerful enemies. Let Brother Mengza and them fight that hard bone to buy time for themselves. They win best, and it doesn't matter if they lose, as long as they can hold back the troops and horses in the northwest, they can quickly hit the capital of the Great Zhou, and then the big thing will be decided.

After all, Brother Mengsa and the others are still ignorant, and these guys who are the emperors of the grassland tribe are still a little less able to control the situation. They thought they were taking advantage of it, so they readily agreed to this condition. They also began to expand their troops.

By the end of July, Wanyan Aguda's own soldiers and horses had expanded to 250,000. Of these, 100,000 were forcibly recruited infantry, and 150,000 were the main cavalry. Meng Sago and others also quickly expanded the number of soldiers and horses in the tribe to 200,000. Even the fourteen or fifteen-year-old children on the steppe were drawn into the army, just because they did not need to train in the art of mounted archery, and they could organize themselves into battle.

The problem of military strength has basically been solved, and the combined strength of the two sides has reached 450,000, which is already a force that can completely destroy the Great Zhou. But that's not enough.

Wanyan Agu knew that the reason why the Jurchen cavalry had been able to win successive victories before was because of the surprise of the sneak attack and ambush and mobility. But to attack the Great Zhou, it is completely not enough to rely on these. This time it will be an open attack, a head-to-head battle, a siege battle. With the previous fighting style of the Jurchen cavalry, I am afraid it will not be possible. The Jurchen army didn't even have armor, and the weapons in their hands were crude. The problem of armor blades and siege weapons must be solved.

Relying on the captured armor and those armors obtained from the Liao people is still not enough, in fact, the Liao country is now almost empty. None of their own soldiers and horses had enough armor and weapons, and if they took them all from them, then their horses would be vulnerable. Tearing down the east wall and replacing the west wall is also not an option.

Someone told Wanyan Aguda that the land they occupied in eastern Liaodong was where the largest iron mine in Liao was located, and because of the slow mining, the output was not large. At such a time, how can you destroy the heavens and things, and step up mining.

Wanyan Agu thought so, so he collected tens of thousands of people from Liaodong and Zhongjing in the name of Yeluchun to mine iron ore and smelt refined iron. At this time, iron ore mining completely relied on manual mining, and the ore veins were buried deep underground, and the ore should be dug out of the mine cavern and carried out in a basket by manpower. This kind of iron ore, which is completely mined and transported by man, is extremely difficult and dangerous. Exhaustion and stoning to death came second, and the collapse of the mine often occurred, and all the absenteeism in the entire mine was buried alive inside. In order to speed up the speed, he ordered the people to dig deep into the ore veins and opened more than 50 mine caves within a month. Because all that is needed is speed, the wooden frame that holds the mine cave in place is hasty. As a result, within a month of mining, 10 mines collapsed, and more than 2,000 miners were buried alive. In addition, there are many other things, such as drowning in the water coming out of it, being poisoned by poison gas, and being stoned. The whole mine is shrouded in an atmosphere of terror, the mine is like a man-eating devil, and the miners have no idea if they will have a chance to see the light of day again.

Some absentees rebelled and were brutally suppressed by Hulu, who was in charge of mining matters, and hundreds of troublemakers were all smashed with maces, and their bodies were hung on wooden pillars around the mine for public display. Such cruel methods make the absentees no longer have the courage to resist, and can only support hard.

As long as there is iron ore, nothing else matters. The lives of the Liao people are as cheap as pigs and dogs in his eyes, and if they die, they will be forcibly pulled. The mine collapsed and then chiseled. Iron ore must be dug out as soon as possible and dug enough.

He set up an earthen blast furnace in the northwest wilderness of Liaoyang City to concentrate on smelting refined iron, and people from all over the Great Liao and from the Great Zhou Dynasty who were proficient in smelting technology smelted iron day and night and stayed all night. On the road from the mine to the smelter, there is an endless stream of cars and horses. In just one month, more than 50,000 catties of refined iron were smelted. The speed is astonishing.

At the end of July, when Wanyan Agu went to inspect, he was quite satisfied with this, looking at the black iron ingots that had been smelted, Wanyan Agu laughed and blossomed. These will soon be transformed into weapons, armor, arrows, and the main parts of siege equipment, and they will all become bargaining chips for their own southward attack on the Great Zhou. However, each piece of smelted iron ingots on top of each other is attached to the souls and blood and tears of those who died and absenteeism, all of which are the result of exchanging human lives.

A large amount of fine iron was mined and smelted, and the replacement of weapons and armor also began rapidly. Solving the problem of protecting soldiers and replacing the meniscus that are not sharp is no longer a problem. Most of the meniscus knives used by the Jurchens were cast from cast iron and were extremely crude. On the battlefield, there will even be a problem of the meniscus knife breaking directly in battle, which is actually a matter of texture and forging process. Now that there are many skilled craftsmen in smelting, this problem will be solved quickly. In addition, Wanyan Aguda also encouraged the people not to rely on a single weapon. Like the mace, the scimitar of the Liao people and the long knife and spear of the Great Zhou, these blades have their own good uses, and they may not hold on to the meniscus knife. The meniscus knife was actually a multifunctional tool made by the Jurchens after a long period of practice for the convenience of hunting in the forest. But it is actually not small when used purely on the battlefield. In addition to its bulky appearance, it is also too short to be used for slashing and slashing, and is suitable for throwing slalom and hand-to-hand combat. But if you fight head-on with the soldiers and horses of the Great Zhou, I'm afraid it will still be as good as the long sword.

Wanyan Agu Da can be said to rack his brains to improve the combat effectiveness of the Jurchen army, taking into account all aspects of factors to improve and upgrade. He even put up notices to recruit talented people and talented people to give advice to him and contribute good ideas for army building for himself.

One day in early August, a middle-aged man who was not good-looking came to Liaoyang Mansion to ask to see Wanyan Aguda. This person is a person from the Great Zhou Dynasty, a hermit who lives in seclusion in the mountains and wilderness, named Li Guoqiu. Wanyan Aguda met with him and wanted to hear what this person was capable of. Chen Zhiqiu talked eloquently in front of Wanyan Aguda.

He told Wanyan Aguda that the Jurchen cavalry was dominated by light cavalry, and although the surprise flank attack was invincible, it lacked the heavy armored cavalry that broke through the formation head-on. He told Wanyan Aguda that now the soldiers and horses of the Great Zhou Dynasty already have a large shield spear formation, a horse rejection iron chariot formation and other special standing formations to deal with cavalry charges, relying on the impact of the cavalry to impact the infantry standing formation, in fact, it no longer has a crushing posture, so changes must be made. Otherwise, it is a field battle, and there is no guarantee that the cavalry will win.

The large shield spear formation is actually a kind of shield protection, and a large number of pikemen stabbed the attacking cavalry. Under the protection of the shield, under the stabbing of the spears that were more than two feet long, the cavalry rushing to the infantry formation was like a tiger encountering a hedgehog, and there was nowhere to go. The horse-rejecting iron car formation is a kind of formation practiced in the Great Zhou army recently, which is to use the tall and stable horse-like iron car as a barrier on the outside of the formation, and the shell of those iron cars has columnar spikes that are a few feet long, and the whole car is a big hedgehog. When the cavalry charged, these iron chariots were chained together and fixed to the ground with iron drills underneath to form a barrier of iron thorns against the horses. The infantry fired arrows without fear that the opposing cavalry would rush into the formation.

Li Guoqiu said that if the Jurchen army did not change the ratio of its troops, and still thought that their cavalry was invincible in the world, he was afraid that he would suffer a great loss. Even if it was a face-to-face charge, the cavalry of the Great Zhou was not afraid of the Jurchen cavalry, because the armor and weapons of the soldiers and horses of the Great Zhou were more sophisticated, and it was still unknown who would kill the deer.

After these words were spoken, Yan Aguda's heart chuckled, and what Chen Zhiqiu said was exactly the hidden worry he was worried about. He had also heard of these Great Zhou's infantry standing in formation, and although he had not personally faced each other, he obviously couldn't ignore them. Listening to Li Guoqiu's detailed explanation, my heart suddenly felt a little hairy. That's not a fear, it's a fear that it can't be broken.

What made Wanyan Aguda feel even more strange was that this Li Guoqiu talked about the confrontation between the Jurchens and the soldiers and horses of the Great Zhou when he opened and closed his mouth, as if he knew that he was going to attack the Great Zhou. In fact, this matter is still confidential, except for Brother Mengsa and others, only himself and the senior generals around him know their intentions. Externally, no news was released. On the contrary, Wanyan Agu and the Liao court also extended an olive branch to the Great Zhou and invited the envoys of the Great Zhou to conclude a peace agreement on friendly coexistence between the three parties in Xijin Mansion, indicating that the internal disputes of the Liao State were over, and the three parties would coexist peacefully and not invade each other from then on.

Of course, this is a delaying tactic, which is to paralyze and fool the Great Zhou court, so that they lose their vigilance. It is unlikely that their intentions will be known by the Great Zhou people, and even if they know that they are mining iron ore to expand their forces at this moment, they will not think that it is aimed at them, because Wanyan Agu played a small trick and deliberately revealed some gossip for the Great Zhou envoy to know, implying that he was going to attack Yeluchun's side. He also asked them to send the same hint message, creating the illusion that the Jurchens and the Liao were still hostile to each other and that a great war was likely to break out. This kind of illusion can perfectly deceive the Great Zhou court, making them think that they can sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, and sit back and relax. The current expansion of the army between themselves and the Liao State can be understood by the Great Zhou people as an arms competition between the two sides, both of which are aimed at the other side.

It is impossible for anyone to know all the inside story, he and the close generals around him will not tell it, and it is even more impossible for them to say it.

When Wanyan Aguda directly asked Li Guoqiu why he wanted Da Zhou as the imaginary enemy of the Jurchen soldiers and horses, Li Guoqiu laughed.

"What kind of person is the Great Leader of Wanyan? He is the pride of the sky, how can he be biased to a corner and not make contributions. For example, today, the Liao Kingdom and the Great Zhou are already stormy, how can a great hero like the Great Leader of Wanyan miss this kind of opportunity? The big leader is going through the army at the moment, could it be that he is going to Changbai Mountain to hunt? ”

Wanyan Agu laughed loudly, these words made him very comfortable, but he saw the situation in the world very clearly, and he seemed to be an understanding person.

After chatting a few more words, I found that Li Guoqiu, who looked ordinary and dressed ordinarily, seemed to have a different temperament. Wanyan Agu wanted to ask clearly, after all, this person was from Da Zhou, and if he didn't figure out his identity, he wouldn't dare to use him. Li Guoqiu did not hide his identity and told it calmly.

"It's not a secret, I am a descendant of the Southern Tang royal family. Back then, my Southern Tang Kingdom was destroyed by the Great Zhou. Our lord was deceived by the Great Zhou Emperor to Bianliang, and was poisoned in three years, and the queen was also occupied by the Great Zhou Emperor. How can we forget the hatred of destroying the country, the hatred of killing the lord of the country, and the humiliation of taking the queen. After the destruction of the Southern Tang Dynasty, some of the descendants of the royal family escaped by luck and hid in the mountains and wilderness. More than 100 years have passed, but the descendants of the Li family have not forgotten this hatred. All of my Li descendants have a hatred in their names, that is, they must not forget the hatred of the country's ruin and the death of the family. Since he was a child, he has read a lot of books and studied the art of war, and he is ready to go out of the mountain at any time to destroy the Great Zhou. My Southern Tang Li clan has declined, and I have no ability to destroy the Great Zhou to take revenge, so what we are looking for is a powerful and capable lord of the world to assist him. To put it bluntly, I hope to be able to destroy the national hatred and family hatred of the Li clan of the Southern Tang Dynasty in the Great Week. In the past few years, we have observed the general trend of the world and decided that the great leader of Wanyan is the future lord of the world, so I came. Not only to help the leader of Wanyan, but also to avenge my Southern Tang Li family. ”

Wanyan Agu suddenly realized, it turned out that this person was a descendant of the Southern Tang Dynasty, the Southern Tang Dynasty was destroyed by the Great Zhou, and the descendants of the royal family had hidden the rest of the people for more than a hundred years to think about revenge. When the Great Zhou was in turmoil now, they came out. In this way, the person is available, as long as he has real skills. This person said that he was well-read, familiar with military books, and fought against the Great Zhou people, and he needed this kind of person who understood the hearts and conditions of the Great Zhou people, and understood the combat methods and thinking methods of the Great Zhou people to help him.

"I want to ask, haven't you southerners always hated us people in the north? Even if you have a national hatred for Da Zhou, you shouldn't come to help me. You can help the rebels in the Great Zhou country. "Wanyan Agu Da. Forced to look at Li Guoqiu asked.

Li Guoqiu smiled and said, "Great Chief, my Li clan doesn't have that kind of narrow thinking. Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the north and south belong to the same country, what are the ethnic groups? Panic in the world, virtuous and talented people live in it. Qin lost his deer, and the world could chase it together. I, Lee, don't care about that. Whoever is the true son of heaven, who can destroy the Great Zhou to avenge my Li family, we will help whomever we want. It's as simple as that. As for the rebel army inside the Great Zhou, I guess the big leader is talking about the soldiers and horses in Funiu Mountain. We don't help them, because they are only against Guo Xu, not against Da Zhou, they have won the world, and the world is still called Da Zhou, so what is it? They're actually in a gang. If you don't believe it, the big leader will understand when he attacks the Great Zhou in the future, they will definitely fight against the big leader, and they are the ones who regard the big leader as a foreign race. ”

Wanyan Agu nodded slightly, Li Guoqiu spoke very frankly, not pretentious at all. A person who exposes his purpose directly to you can be called frank. He bluntly said that it was only for the destruction of the Great Zhou, and he didn't care about the rest, although he was paranoid, but it was also in line with the purpose of their behavior that they had endured so far.

"You said a bunch of disadvantages of my Jurchen army, but do you have any good advice for my Jurchen army?" Wanyan Agu asked with a big smile.

"Of course, I'm here to give advice. The first strategy was to rehaul the cavalry under the Grand Chief. I have a graphic album here to show the Grand Chief, and if you think it is feasible, the Grand Leader can ask me about the details. If the big leader feels that he has no ability in the next, he will leave immediately. Then Li Guoqiu took out a pamphlet and handed it over.

Wanyan Aguda opened the booklet, and it was full of pictures and texts, describing a class of troops that Wanyan Aguda had never seen before. When Yan Agu turned the pages one by one, he couldn't help laughing out loud and was amazed.