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Yue Fei and others followed the example of the ancients to climb the wolf Juxu Mountain to worship the sky, and carved the stone Jigong, declaring to the world: From now on, Mobei is the territory of my Dazhong.

Not only that, in accordance with Li Yan's order, the people of Beining City (Li Yan changed the name of Kedun City) must continue to explore north and increase the land area of Dazhong.

After recovering Mobei, Yue Fei and others were faced with two choices - one was to go east, and then destroy the Mongols, Kereh, Naiman, and Wanggu, and attack the Dajin Kingdom to pacify the northeast for Dazhong. The other is to the west, to pacify the northwest for Dazhong.

Before Yue Fei led his troops into the grassland, Li Yan had a heart-to-heart conversation with Yue Fei.

Because Mobei is too remote and too far, and only one-way contact has been established with Dazhong (at present, carrier pigeons can only fly back to Yanjing from Mobei, and Yanjing's carrier pigeons cannot fly to Mobei), plus Mobei is full of unknowns, so Li Yan did not dare to set too high a goal for Yue Fei, so Li Yan's order to Yue Fei was only: to take down the city of Kedun and recover Mobei.

As for the next order, Li Yan didn't give it - Li Yan handed over the choice of the next step to Yue Fei.

Of course, Li Yan didn't give Yue Fei any advice.

Li Yan handed over the recital that Xu Guanzhong and Yelu Dashi gave to Yue Fei and let Yue Fei see it for himself.

Xu Guanzhong proposed in the twists and turns: once Yue Fei recovered Mobei, he could wave his army to the east, and then choose to attack, with the upper reaches of the Orkhon River as the center, the Mongolian department that rose in the middle and upper reaches of the Onen River and the Krulun River, and the Naiban Department from the Altai Mountains to the Hangai Mountain area, but the Wangu Department near the Yinshan region in Monan, the ultimate goal was to cooperate with Liu Qi and Wu Lu to destroy the Dajin Kingdom.

And Yelu Dashi's suggestion is that after Yue Fei and they recovered Mobei, they should take hundreds of thousands of war horses from Kedun City to the west to recover the territory of the northwest during the Han and Tang dynasties, as for the northeast region, it can be completely handed over to Liu Qi and Wu Lan to deal with, the big deal, Dazhong can also transfer strong troops from the country to recover the northeast region, Yelu Dashi also explained his reason: "Since the fall of the Liao Dynasty, the northwest region has become a leaderless state, very chaotic, if this chaotic situation continues for a long time, It will give birth to heroes to unify the northwest region, and at that time, the northwest region will become a big trouble for Dazhong, so it is better to recover the northwest region by Dazhong, so that the worries from the northwest region can be completely solved, and the conquest of the distant northwest region must have a large number of war horses to support, otherwise it will not be able to solve the problem of supply, Dazhong is not rich in war horses, and it can even be said that there is a lack of war horses, this time Yue Fei brought 200,000 livestock, it can be said that all the reserves of Dazhong over the years have been taken out, And also transferred a lot of war horses from various armies, so if the hundreds of thousands of war horses in Kedun City were brought back, they would definitely be divided by the Chinese army, and it was unlikely that so many war horses would be gathered again to recover the northwest region, in that case, Dazhong might never be able to recover the northwest region. ”

In fact, Yelu Dashi repeatedly applied to Li Yan to let him recover the Northwest Region, and he was even willing to leave his entire family in Yanjing as a hostage.

But Li Yan, who had made up his mind not to do anything about the tiger's return to the mountain, rejected Yelu Dashi's request on the grounds that the Grassland Strategy Department could not do without Yelu Dashi.

In the end, seeing through Yelu Dashi, who Li Yan would never let him go to the grassland, he could only present Li Yan with a very detailed northwest strategy, and then returned to the grassland strategy department gloomily to continue to use the contradictions between those grassland kingdoms and tribes to divide them.

Yue Fei gathered Wang De, Ma Kuo and others together to discuss the next step, and told Wang De, Ma Kuo and others about Xu Guanzhong and Yelu Dashi's proposal.

Wait for Yue Fei to finish speaking.

Wang De was the first to say: "It's not that Wang De doesn't dare to fight with the big tribes of Mongolia, Kereh, Naiman and Wanggu, and he doesn't dare to go to the gold, but to the east, our expeditionary force can only assist, and can only drink soup behind the Northeast Army, only to the west, our expeditionary force can become the main attack, and I read ancient history, and the most regrettable thing is that the Tang army was defeated by the Great Food Army in the Battle of Talas, and now I have the opportunity to make up for this regret, I would rather die in the northwest of the frontier!" ”

After Wang De finished speaking, Ma Kuo said: "We have recovered dozens of large and small military states and tribes around us, if we go west, they can act as our guides, and they must be willing to lend us troops, I want to borrow thirty or fifty thousand soldiers, it should not be a problem, and, according to the rules of the grassland, they will also bring their own horses, the northwest region is wide, but the population is relatively sparse, we have these hundreds of thousands of elites, should be able to sweep the northwest, the only problem is the problem of grain and grass." ”

Sun Ge said: "The grain in Beining City is enough for us to replenish it, and it is not a problem for six or seven hundred thousand war horses and camels to bring three or four hundred thousand stones of grain and grass, and besides, we can also send a message to the imperial court and ask the Longyou region to supply us once." ”

Li Yanguang said: "Longyou's supply, we should not be able to count on it, Xixia will not let us get the supply of Longyou region smoothly, because Xixia is most afraid of our Dazhong unification of the northwest, in that case, Xixia will be surrounded by our Dazhong, become a country within a country, once it reaches that point, our Dazhong is bound to destroy Xixia and complete the unification of the territory, so, I dare to assert that Xixia will do everything possible to prevent us from recovering the northwest region, maybe the Western Xia will also send troops to prevent us from recovering the northwest region." ”

Chief of Staff Fang Xuedu said very firmly: "Xixia will never dare to send troops to stop us openly, this will give us an excuse to attack their Western Xia, however, General Li is also right, we should not be able to count on the supply of Longyou, as long as Xixia sends troops disguised as bandits, it can make it impossible for the baggage to come out of Longyou." ”

Hearing this, Sun Ge said: "If we can't get the supply from Longyou, then our food will not be guaranteed to be enough, after all, the road is too far." ”

Li Yanguang heard this and said: "I have the opposite opinion with Lord Sun, I think that our grain and grass are enough for us to conquer the northwest." ”

Sun Ge said quietly: "I want to hear it in detail." ”

Li Yanguang said: "The war horses we brought plus nearly 600,000 war horses in Beining City, the camels we brought plus more than 80,000 camels in Beining City, these war horses and camels can bring dozens of stone of grain, these grains alone are enough for us to eat for more than half a year, in addition, there are hundreds of thousands of cattle and sheep in Beining City, we can also bring them together as military food, if it is not enough, we can also fight grass valley." ”

The so-called grass valley is to rob and plunder.

In the eyes of the steppe people, in fact, in the eyes of many troops in the Central Plains, this is very normal.

But—

Li Yanguang also knows that the military discipline of the Chinese army is clear and does not allow the robbery of the people's things, and the military discipline of Marshal Yue is stricter, and if he takes a penny from the people, he will lose his head.

Therefore, Li Yanguang immediately added: "Of course, the grass valley is only the last resort, we bring so much grain and grass, those cattle and sheep can still breed, it is really not good, we can eat war horses, along the way there should be some unopened eyes and disobedient to our Dazhong ruling tribes, seize their grain, war horses, cattle and sheep, and can also supplement our grain and grass." ”

Yue Fei was very disgusted by Li Yanguang's proposal to fight the grass valley.

But when it comes to fighting, Yue Fei is not a dead brain, he knows that under duress, fighting Grass Valley is not a road.

Therefore, Yue Fei did not blame Li Yanguang, but continued to listen to other people's speeches.

Eventually, the vast majority of people were in favor of going west.

Actually-

Yue Fei also wanted to go west.

Sealing the wolf is much easier than Yue Fei imagined, and it is not challenging at all, so for Yue Fei, this is not much of an honor.

Therefore, Yue Fei wants to have higher achievements.

Seeing that everyone was in favor of going west, Yue Fei didn't talk nonsense, and directly set the strategy of "going all the way to the west".

This strategy must be good, so Ma Kuo stepped forward and borrowed troops from the governors of various military states and the leaders of the tribes.

The imperial court of Ma Kuodai promised these military governors and tribal leaders that whoever borrowed more soldiers from their expeditionary force would be rewarded more by the imperial court, and they did not have to wait for Yue Fei to triumph, they could directly take the certificate issued by Ma Kuo to them to Yanjing to receive the reward.

Li Yan, who is not bad for money, has always been generous, at least, in the eyes of the poor grassland people, Li Yan's every shot is very generous.

The key is that Li Yan and Dazhong have a very good reputation, and there are few things that are not honored.

Therefore, these military governors and clan leaders lent troops to Yue Fei and them, and some even led troops to march west with the expeditionary force in person.

In the end, they lent more than 40,000 horses to the expeditionary force.

Yue Fei screened out 20,000 cavalry and 10,000 people from the defenders in Beining City.

Tietong in the autumn of the fourth year.

Yue Fei left Li Xu and Fang Xuedu with 10,000 Han cavalry and 10,000 cavalry to garrison Beining City, and then took 140,000 troops and 10,000 people to the west......

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