Without a single soldier injured, Xin Qiji recovered Xinzhou City.

After staying behind, Yan Lu completely gave up his power in Xinzhou City, and the whole family moved out of the left-behind mansion and moved to a separate courtyard to live, in order to avoid harassment by the Han people and soldiers in Xinzhou City, the guards in front of his door were all handsome soldiers personally arranged by Xin Qiji.

Many people in the city of Xinzhou were originally grassland people, for decades they have been accustomed to living in the city, the living habits on the grassland have long been discarded, from the daily life, diet and daily life, they are no different from the Han people, it can be said that through thirty or forty years of mixed living, they have basically been sinicized, it is difficult to return to the grassland where they live in the grass, live in tents, and eat mutton.

Because there are too many Sinicized grassland people in the city, if they want Xinzhou to be stable, these people can't ignore them, not to mention protecting them, at least they can't kill them, they can't beat them, and give them equal treatment with the Han people, which is very important to stabilize Xinzhou, because there are too many Sinicized grassland people in Xinzhou.

After taking over Xinzhou, the city defense soldiers and the patrol soldiers in the city were all replaced by the Song army from Luzhou and Liaozhou, who had strict military discipline and could strictly implement the orders of the commander's battalion, that is, Xin Qiji's orders.

Within three days of entering Xinzhou City, Xin Qiji, who was temporarily appointed as the pacification envoy of Hedong and concurrently served as the prefect of Taiyuan and Xinzhou, issued several government and military orders in succession to stabilize the people's hearts.

Of course, for the people, the most practical thing is to be exempted from taxes, so according to the practice of the Northern Expedition, the people of Xinzhou and Taiyuan Prefecture, which have been recovered, are exempted from paying taxes for three years.

As the military orders and government orders that stabilized the hearts of the people spread and spread to counties and towns in various places, the worried people finally relaxed a little.

For most ordinary people, whether it is the rule of the Jin people or the rule of the Han people, they have to pay taxes and bear exploitation, but there is a difference between light and heavy, more and less, so who governs, who is their parent official, who is their emperor, they can't call the shots, and they rarely care, for them, as long as they can have food to eat and live, they are good officials and good emperors.

Obviously, for the people of Xinzhou, the Song army, who drove away the Jin rulers as soon as they came, and killed the oppressive and oppressive Song army was a good person, the pacification envoy who gave them a tax reduction for three years was a good official, and the emperor surnamed Zhao, who was far away in Bianjing, was also a good emperor.

In ancient times, tax collection was the most important thing in a year for the local government, and it was also the most energy-consuming thing, and now the people are exempted from paying taxes for three years, and the local government basically has nothing to do, and the most important thing left is to maintain stability, and to fight those bandits who want to take advantage of the chaos and loot, it is enough to leave three teams of men and horses in each county.

The chief officer of the local government is basically also concurrently served by the preparation general or subordinate general of the local garrison, and during the transitional period, the military and government are integrated.

Xinzhou soon stabilized, and Xin Qiji took a large amount of cash and began to requisition cattle, sheep and grain from all over the country to raise grain, grass and military supplies, some of which were left in the city, and some of which were sent to Yanmen Pass, where Yuan Hua was located.

It is believed that the messenger came to report that the fighting near Yanmen Pass was fierce, and the Jin people attacked Yanmen Pass with 10,000 troops at the beginning, and failed to attack the pass for a month, and then 20,000 reinforcements came, and began to attack Cheng in turn day and night, and after ten days, both sides were exhausted.

The Song army is based on Xiongguan, condescending, easy to defend and difficult to attack, the Jin army has traveled a long distance, the mountain road is difficult to travel, and there are not many siege equipment, eagerly, there is no way to take Yanmen Pass at all, and the city is attacked again and again, without results, leaving only countless corpses.

However, the Song army defending the city also lost five or six hundred people for various reasons, and the weather turned cold, and many soldiers began to be uncomfortable.

Climate is a big problem, as far as Xin Qiji knows, the northern grassland soldiers will wear sheepskin jackets every winter, not only to keep warm but also to a certain extent to prevent bow and arrow shooting, and the Song army did not have the habit of wearing sheepskin, and the Great Song Dynasty did not have so many sheep to kill, even if there were sheep to kill, sheepskin had many more important uses, and it was not the turn of the soldiers to wear them.

So far, many soldiers in Xinzhou City are still wearing single cloth clothes, patrolling on duty in the morning and evening, and they are a little unbearable, not to mention the soldiers in Yanmen Mountain, where it will only be colder.

Once the cold winter comes, let alone fighting, I am afraid that a single frostbite will be enough to destroy the entire army.

This is Xin Qiji's negligence, he suddenly began to realize the seriousness of the problem, if the Jin people wait until the harsh winter comes, they will soon capture Yanmen Pass, and drive straight in, then Xinzhou and Taiyuan Mansion will not be able to hold it at all, and the Northern Expedition that has been planned for several years will fall short!

After thinking about it eagerly, he quickly remembered that the Song army of Jinan Prefecture had attacked Yanjing, Pingzhou, Laizhou and Jinzhou in the snow in winter, and how they had avoided frostbite from soldiers who had never been to the north.

No one can answer this question.

So Xin Qiji immediately wrote a letter and sent someone to Jinan Mansion to ask the soldiers about the cold war in the north.

Time flies, and Xinzhou and Taiyuan are quickly pacified.

On the first day of the ninth month, 5,000 Song troops were left in Xinzhou City, and the rest of the troops began to move to the south after a long period of rest and training.

Within a few days, except for the defenders from all over the country, the rest of the Northern Expeditionary Army withdrew from Xinzhou, passed through Taiyuan City, went south to Jiexiu, and met with Xue Wang, the commander of the Western Route Army of the Northern Expedition.

After the army moved south, the only task left for Xin Qiji was to prepare grain and grass and military supplies in the center and guard Xinzhou and Taiyuan Mansion.

Xinzhou has a veteran Yuan Huazhen who is good at guarding the city pass in Yanmen Pass, as long as the Yanmen Pass is not lost, even if the Jin army outside the pass comes over the continuous mountains, there will not be too many troops, there will be no siege equipment, and if you can't break through Xinzhou City and Taiyuan City, you will only be sent to death if you come in, so Xin Qiji is not worried about defending the city.

Now the only thing that worries him the most is the raising of grain and grass and how to survive the winter, as long as these two problems are solved, Xinzhou, Taiyuan Mansion, and Pingyang Mansion can be firmly controlled.

But neither of these problems is so easy to solve.

Although the Daimyo Mansion raised a lot of grain, if you want to transport it from Luzhou and Liaozhou to Taiyuan Prefecture, you need to consume a lot of people's power, but fortunately, at this time, the autumn harvest has been completed, and there are many people's forces in various places that can be gathered.

The Daimyo's Mansion was a long way from Taiyuan Mansion, and the Northern Expeditionary Army's grain and grass transportation problem could not be involved in the merchants, and the imperial court should pay for it.

After careful consideration, Xin Qiji sent people to quickly rush back to the Daimyo's Mansion to coordinate the transportation of grain and grass.

On the other hand, the Northern Expeditionary Army wantonly expropriated grain and grass in Xinzhou and Taiyuan Prefecture, and the surplus grain stored by landlords and large families was almost forcibly requisitioned.

However, at the same time as the compulsory requisition, the pacification department also gave them requisition receipts, and promised them that once the grain from the Central Plains was transported to Hedong, they could buy the same amount of grain at the same price with the requisition receipts in their hands.

Because of the existence of this policy, although the landlords and large households were not very willing to sell their grain during the war, they still did not have much reservation to move their grain out of the granary.

Before the grain and grass of Luzhou, Liaozhou, and Daming were transported to Taiyuan in large quantities, the grain and grass purchased by Taiyuan and Xinzhou solved the urgent needs of the Northern Expedition army.

Taiyuan Mansion, Jiexiu.

Just after the grain and grass materials were transported to Jiexiu, Xue Wang immediately led the 50,000 Northern Expeditionary Army to the south and went straight to Huoyi along the Fen River.

When the Northern Expedition arrived, thousands of defenders of Huoyi fled, and the army followed closely behind, striving to pursue.

Within a few days, the army rushed along the Fen River to Hongdong County.

Hongdong County is only 50 miles away from Pingyang Prefecture, located at the mouth of the Fenhe River Valley, the terrain is flat, the land is fertile, there has been no war for decades, the population is large, and a county is the top of Taiyuan, Xinzhou several counties.

The news of the capture of Taiyuan and Xinzhou by the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Great Song Dynasty, even if Jiexiu blockaded, finally reached Pingyang Mansion.

The Jin army of Pingyang Mansion once organized an attack on Taiyuan Mansion, but Jiexiu was in the hands of the Song Army, there were heavy troops garrisoned, several times, it was difficult to break through, so they gave up the plan to go north, they thought that Datong Mansion would not sit idly by and watch Taiyuan Mansion lose, and would definitely mobilize elite soldiers from outside the pass to enter the pass, recapture Taiyuan Mansion, and open up the entire Hedong Passage, so they transferred the main force of the north support back to the vicinity of Pingyang Mansion.

In their opinion, as long as they stick to Pingyang Mansion and wait for Datong Mansion to send reinforcements into the customs, when the time comes, the Song army will be unable to avoid Taiyuan Mansion from the north and south.

Therefore, Hongdong County is the first line of defense of the Jin army to defend Binh Duong Province.

The Northern Expeditionary Army of the Great Song Dynasty went straight to Hongdong County, and found that the 10,000 Jin army was shrinking in the city, so they approached three miles outside the city, set up camp, and assembled siege equipment.

Although Hongdong County is a large county, it is not a place of long-term war, the city is not high, the wall is not thick, it is easy to attack and difficult to defend.

However, due to the fact that Pingyang City still needed time to mobilize troops and deploy defenses, it had to send defenders to delay the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Great Song Dynasty in Hongdong County.

Five days later, when the Northern Expeditionary Army was resting and preparing for the third pole of the day, Xue Wang gave an order, and the army attacked Hongdong County on all sides.

Half an hour later, the Northern Expeditionary Army broke through the southern city gate, and the soldiers rushed into the city and started street fighting.

The south gate was lost, and the defenders of the east, west, and north gates heard the news, and their fighting spirit was lost, and they heard that there were not many Song troops attacking the city at the east gate, so they opened the east gate, swarmed out, and fled to the east.

The Jin army defending the city fled, and Hongdong County fell into the hands of the Northern Expeditionary Song Army in an instant.

The six or seven thousand Jin troops who fled eastward from the east gate where the siege force was weak did not escape safely, and after they fled for more than ten miles, they fell into the encirclement arranged in advance by the Northern Expeditionary Army, and the whole army was annihilated.

Hongdong County fell into the first battle, and the grain and grass materials hoarded in the city naturally fell into the hands of the Northern Expeditionary Army.

The news of the annihilation of the defenders was transmitted back to Pingyang Mansion on the same day, and the people left behind in the mansion were shocked.

Pingyang Mansion has not fought for more than 40 years, the defenders from the commander of the army to the ordinary soldiers, almost no actual combat experience, more than 40 years, the Song army has never entered Pingyang Province, the defenders have no chance to fight, peacefully consume their combat effectiveness and courage to fight.

Without waiting for the order of the left-behind government, the 40,000 gold troops near Pingyang Mansion shrank into Pingyang City.

A great war is about to break out, and the surrounding people are scattered, fleeing to the mountains to the east and west.