At present, there are five high-ranking officials in the Great Zhou, they are: Wen Jifu, Wen Zhong, Bao Zheng, Tong Guan and Xu Shisong.

There are also three high-ranking officials who are considered eligible to be promoted to Zaifu: Weng Shuping, Zhang Mingyi, and Xu Shiliu.

Among the eight people, Wen Jifu has not asked about the world for a long time, and in recent years, except for the time when the Son of Heaven feasted the old ministers during the festival, he has not been seen at all in the court.

And Tong Guan and Weng Shuping were involved in the embarrassing fiasco of the last Northern Expedition (Weng Shuping was even released from the north after being captured), so they had to temporarily resign and go home to think about it behind closed doors.

Zhang Mingyi and Xu Shiliu were marginalized because their loyalty was suspicious of officials.

Therefore, at present, in the court of the Great Zhou Dynasty, there are actually only three Zaizhi who can do things: Wen Zhong, Bao Zheng, and Xu Shisong.

Fortunately, among these three people, Wen Zhong managed the civil officials, Bao Zheng mastered the criminal name, and Xu Shisong rearmament, and they each did a very competent job.

Wen Zhong made a lot of money for the Great Zhou through trade with China (exporting grain, raw silk, indigo and other raw materials to the north), and then used this profit to buy horses from Dali and Tubo, and weapons from Jiangbei to equip Xu Shisong's new army.

Bao Zheng was responsible for dealing with the gentry's infringement of the rights of the new army and ensuring the treatment of soldiers as much as possible.

Xu Shisong was only responsible for marshalling and training soldiers.

The three of them performed their own duties, so that in the short years that the pseudo-gold had perished, and China did not go south for the time being, the Great Zhou actually had some kind of revitalization.

……

Unlike Xu Shisong, who piled up all his main forces on Jianghuai, the Huaxia side did not take the Zhou army in their eyes - although everyone knew that sooner or later there would be, and looked forward to the day when they would attack Jiangnan to unify the world, the focus of the Chinese army's defense was not in the south.

At the annual meeting in 1792, Xu Shiyang formally proposed a new expansion plan for the Age of No Counterfeit Gold:

One is to prepare for the destruction of the party's puppet Xia.

The second is to launch a swift attack on the Fuso Oda family to prevent it from unifying Fuso.

The third is not this year's plan, but a little more long-term: to launch a sweeping operation before the showdown with the Great Zhou, to remove the military threat of the Mughure of the grasslands, and at least to prevent the Chinese army from harassing the northern border of China when the Chinese army moves south to attack the Zhou.

Of the three strategic plans, the third is only a preventive strategic strike; The first is the most important, because the Dangxiang Pseudo-Xia has been an important threat to the Han regime in the northwest since the founding of the state (and even earlier), and this threat has lasted for hundreds of years, arguably longer than the threat of the Pseudo-Jin—although they can only threaten a few provinces in the northwest, their cruelty to the conquered Han inhabitants is no less gentle than that of the Pseudo-Jin.

As a country founded on the basis of eliminating the shame of the previous Han people, Huaxia cannot let go of the pseudo-Xia for the sake of the legitimacy of the regime.

As for dealing with Oda Nobunaga, it was purely economic reasons - the human resources of Fuso, a Chinese peeper, and nothing more.

In order to accomplish the above strategic objectives, the Chinese army, which has been undergoing military reform for two years, has begun to redeploy.

In terms of strategic direction, the Second Field Army of Hebei Province and the Third Field Army of Liaodong Province transferred half of their forces to Shaanxi Province to join up with the Fourth Field Army of Jin Province and the Fifth Field Army of Shaanxi Province to form a strategic strike group against the Pseudo-Xia.

The reserve forces and militia units in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces should also complete their initial mobilization by the end of May.

In addition, Xu Shiyang planned to transfer two soldiers per 100 households from the outer regions of Liaodong to form a 2,000-strong servant army to participate in the military operation to destroy the Pseudo-Xia (but also to further weaken the local old female real power in Liaodong), and it is natural that this army will stay in the northwest after the destruction of the Pseudo-Xia.

Or a little further west.

Together with the engineer, baggage, cavalry, and artillery units, the Chinese army prepared a field army of 60,000 for the Puppet Xia, with more than 300 artillery pieces of various types, 100,000 reserve and militia, and 2,000 servants.

Considering that although Pseudo-Xia claims to have an army of 300,000, the actual combat effectiveness of the troops does not exceed 100,000, and the combat effectiveness of the Western Expeditionary Army has already overflowed somewhat.

In another strategic direction, based on the First Field Army and Navy stationed in Qi Province, another 2,000 new army brigades of Liaodong Nuzhi and Goryeo Army, 2,000 naval divisions, and 2,000 Ryukyu soldiers were transferred to form the Eastward Advance Army, which was ready to attack Fuso from Goryeo.

This attack could be supported by Fuso daimyo such as Ryuzoji and Otomo, and if all went well, the Chinese army would not need to force a landing in Fuso, but could go ashore directly in the long-term vicinity.

The attack on Fusang was not an act of conquest, so Xu Shiyang planned to fight and withdraw the expeditionary force quickly, and strive to solve the problem within half a year.

As for the preventive strike on the Mugul, that is a question after the end of the war in other directions.

……

In order to ensure that two wars were won at the same time, the Chinese Empire's war budget this year reached a new high - reaching the level of 220 percent last year.

Some officials of the Ministry of Household have already raised the suspicion that this trend does not bode well, fearing that the empire is so belligerent that one day the increase in military and war expenditures will exceed the growth of the empire's revenues.

However, Xu Shiyang said that the emperor's expenses and war expenses are indeed increasing, but the war dividends brought by consecutive victories have actually offset the extra expenses, and even if you calculate carefully, there are still some earnings.

For example, in order to deal with the continuous war, the predecessor of the Chinese army, the Qi army, had to expand its army once a year (sometimes more than once), which seemed to cost a lot of money, but as long as the Tartars could not go south to plunder, the anti-autumn expenses saved by the two provinces of Hebei and Qi alone were a lot of savings.

Coupled with the acquisition of a large amount of land, mineral deposits, and a large amount of supplies captured after defeating the enemy, when conquering Liaoyang, the Chinese army seized all the gold and silver treasures deposited in Liaoyang by the Tartar nobles, which the Jurchens had looted from the Khitan and Han Chinese for twenty or thirty years.

Not counting antiques and works of art, only the property that is relatively easy to realize is worth more than 20 or 30 million taels, and it took half a year for the household department of the Chinese Empire to complete the inventory.

"There is also the operation of attacking the Shihou of Jin Province, although we spent a lot of military expenses, and then spent a lot of money to redeem the debts of the people of Shaanxi Province, but we have gained actual control of the two provinces, more than 1.8 million households, needless to say that everyone also knows that these two interests for our country, but not that money can be compared."

For China, which had suffered from population deprivation since its birth, the 1.8 million Han Chinese were priceless, and the benefits they could bring to the empire were immeasurable, whether they were working or farming, serving as soldiers or studying.

Even for the Chinese bureaucracy, two more provinces of territory meant two more provinces, and everyone had a bright future, and everyone could benefit from the war.