After seeing the situation in Zezhou and confirming that the advantages of the Liang army in the cold season and winter operations were obvious, Han Bao immediately put the focus of reconnaissance on the Mengwu people in the north, and only sent three people to Luzhou according to the original plan, while he took Shi Ruhai and others and Zhang Shigui and Zhang Shimin brothers to climb over the Taihang Mountain under the snow and go to the territory of Gujun in Hebei.

Even if he was in charge of Jinyun Tower in the early days, Han Qian also considered deploying secret spies to Liang and Shu, mainly because the resources in his hands were too limited.

When the new war broke out between Liang and Jin, Han Qian sent secret agents to sneak over and reconnoiter the situation in the southern part of the Jin Kingdom, but he did not take into account the situation in the northern part of the Jin Kingdom and the border between the Mughal and the Mughu, as well as the business situation of the Mughurs occupying Yunyou and other prefectures for more than ten years, as well as the reaction of the Mughurs to the war between Liang and Jin.

It is most convenient to go to the Taihang Mountain to the Youji region by going over the Taihang Mountain and going to the Youji region, but these two passages were completely blocked by the Liang and Jin soldiers and horses.

Nearby peaks and ridges are also scattered with a large number of scouts from both countries.

Han Bao and the others finally decided to take the white path, pass through Yizhou, pass through the area where the confrontation between the two countries is relatively relaxed, and sneak all the way, and arrive in Dingzhou, the northern region of Heshuo, controlled by the Jin State, after more than ten days.

Dingzhou, as well as Hengzhou in the south and Cangzhou in the southeast, belonged to the defense area of the Jiedu Embassy of the Chengde Army of the Jin State, and it was also the eastern front theater of the Jin State to prevent the southern invasion of the Muguls.

Tangyi only knew about the situation in the Jin Kingdom and Heshuo Towns before, and it was difficult to get a glimpse of the details, which required Han Bao to hide his identity along the road, and at the same time, he had to do everything possible to inquire about many details, and when conditions permitted, he also had to arrange one or two people to lurk.

Compared with the information collected before, Han Bao and the others have been sneaking all the way over, and they have almost figured out the general situation in the Heshuo area.

Wang Yuankui, the envoy of the Chengde Army, married his daughter to Shi Chengzu, the prince of Jin, as a concubine, and was a close confidant of the prince Shi Chengzu a long time ago, so he was able to go out of Zhenheng and other states to resist the southern invasion of the Mughurs from the eastern front.

However, with the support of the Empress Dowager Zhang and the privy envoy Liu Yun and others, Wang Yuankui did not immediately respond to the order of Shi Chengzu, who was far away in Shuozhou, to raise troops to rebel, but only sent troops and horses to seal the Jingjing passage and refused to accept the decree issued by King Lu from Taiyuan Mansion.

At the beginning of the Liang army's invasion of the southern region of the Jin Kingdom, Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang sent an envoy to Hengzhou to persuade Wang Yuankui to return to the Liang State, but as soon as the envoy entered the city of Hengzhou, he was beheaded by Wang Yuankui.

During the Liang army's attack on Zezhou, Wang Yuankui also once asked King Lu to send troops from Taiyuan to attack the Liang army with the Chengde army to relieve the danger of Zezhou, but he was not trusted by King Lu, and the soldiers and horses of the Chengde army did not dare to go deep alone, and were even blocked by the Luzhou garrison at that time.

Zezhou City fell, the remnants of the southern Jin Kingdom retreated to Luzhou City for defense, Wang Yuankui wanted to lead the Chengde army to reinforce Luzhou, but the Chengtian military city inside Jingcheng was captured by the Liang army first.

The passage of the Chengde army from Jingcheng to the west through the Taihang Mountains was blocked, and Zhao Yidu's defense made Zhang Wenli see that the Liang army was very sharp, even if he did not surrender to the Liang State immediately, it was also an ambiguous wait-and-see situation, not only refused to send troops to reinforce Luzhou, but also refused to allow the Chengde (Zhenji) army to advance westward from Fukou in his jurisdiction.

At present, the two major military towns of the Jin State in Hebei are almost in separate positions.

At the end of December, Han Bao, Shi Ruhai and Zhang Shigui tracked down a suspicious convoy and walked along the valley into the depths of the mountainous area at the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain in the west of Dingzhou.

At the end of the trail is a valley with a flat terrain for several miles, with streams flowing down from above, converging into a lake at one corner of the valley and flowing out from a wide stream below.

Although the streams, rivers and lakes are covered in snow and ice, the appearance of the river is still there.

Hundreds of houses were built in the valley, surrounded by high fences and heavily guarded by military guards, forbidding villagers to approach without reason.

Thousands of ragged laborers were transporting iron coal and other ores from the mountains to the valleys.

If others saw this scene, they might think that this was just an ironworks under the control of the Cheng German army.

Heshuo and other places have a history of smelting copper and iron for thousands of years, and Liang, Chu, Jin, Shu and other countries not only attach importance to iron smelting and casting industries, but also important military towns and military states have mastered a certain amount of copper and iron smelting and casting capacity to ensure the needs of the army.

As one of the five towns of the Jin Kingdom, Cheng Dejun can have several iron mines and iron-making yards under his command, which is really sparse and ordinary.

However, Han Leopard lurked in the high part of the valley, borrowing a copper telescope to look into the smelter, the smelter of the Cheng German army clearly adopted the double-furnace iron-making method that Xuzhou had only popularized in recent years, which really surprised them.

Several blast furnaces were built on the side of the stream, and the ancillary structure is clearly a large water drain connected to the iron-making furnace and used as a blast.

In the next few days, Han Bao, Shi Ruhai and others, in addition to sneaking into the smelter to reconnoitre, also tied up a person with the scale of the leader of the engineer for interrogation, only to confirm that this smelting field was run by Wang Jingrong, an envoy of the Chengde Army, five years ago, in the early years of mining stone coal, burning lime, and green bricks to supply Dingzhou, and two years ago used the double-furnace method to smelt refined iron, build a large number of armor, and supply the German army generals.

From the middle and late dynasties of the former dynasty, as the head of the feudal town, it has become the norm to use eunuchs in the inner house.

Shi Chongsi established the Jin Kingdom, and his control over the towns of Heshuo has not been strong, and in order to win his heart, he has always acquiesced to the envoys of the towns of Heshuo to continue to use eunuchs as a special favor in the inner house.

Through interrogation, he also knew that Wang Jingrong, an internal official, worked beside Shi Chengzu, the prince of Jin, in his early years and became good friends with Wang Yuankui. In the early years, Wang Yuankui was just an ordinary general in the Jin army, he was able to win the trust of Shi Chengzu, the prince of Jin, and was able to serve as the commander of the Jin prince's guards, and married his daughter to the prince of Jin as a concubine.

Wang Yuankui served as the envoy of the Chengde Army, and Wang Jingrong followed Wang Yuankui to Hengding, and he was also Wang Yuankui's closest descendant.

After confirming that all this was correct, Han Bao asked Shi Ruhai to twist the captive's neck, push it into the ravine and fake it as a false fall to death, and then quietly withdrew into a farmhouse outside Dingzhou City, and then wrote what he had seen and heard in the past few days into a secret letter, and immediately returned to Tangyi.

Han Bao's side is limited, and there are seven or eight people lurking along the way, and in the case that a stable communication channel has not been established in the territory of Liang and Jin for the time being, if a letter wants to be sent to the Tangyi Mansion, it is extremely difficult to send someone to hide his identity in the territory of Liang and Jin across more than 2,000 miles of mountains and rivers.

If it weren't for particularly critical information and intelligence, Han Bao and the others would not have sent someone back to Tangyi alone to deliver the message......

…………

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The secret letter written by Han Bao in Dingzhou was sent back to Huaiyang, and it has been extended in early February of the fifth year.

Along the way, there are no hidden piles in the center to answer, there is no replacement of manpower, and we must do everything possible to avoid attracting attention, can not ride horses, more often to avoid the crowd on foot, encounter the city to prevent congestion from the mountains and rivers to detour, but also to deal with mountain bandits.

If you are an ordinary person, I am afraid that it will take half a year to walk back to Tangyi from Dingzhou.

The scouts who went north with Han Leopard were all elite soldiers in the army, and even so, after a month and a half of travel, it was extremely fast to deliver the letter to Tangyi.

"This Wang Jingrong should also be the old subordinate of the Shenling Division, and the double furnace iron-making methods should have been secretly transmitted to Dingzhou by Yao Xishui and them......"

The secret letter from Han Leopard was translated by Xi Ying and sent to Han Qian's desk as soon as possible.

At the beginning of February, the weather in Tangyi was not so cold.

At noon, Han Qian was wearing a thin jacket and sitting in the courtyard of the back house of the Yasi, the sun was shining on his body, which was comfortable.

He took the translated copy, frowned for a moment, and said:

"The former dynasty was destroyed in the hands of Emperor Zhu Wen of Liang, and the Liang army spared no effort to clean up and attack the remnants of the previous dynasty. And the three places of Shu, Chu and Jin, before the fall of the previous dynasty, although they were divided and dominated, they have always been the center of the former dynasty as the Zhengshuo, and after the fall of the previous dynasty, the combing of the remaining forces was also quite restrained and tolerant, and they did not kill them all - the Shenling Division still has a foundation in the Jin Kingdom, that is a certain thing, but it is not yet possible to confirm how deeply Wang Yuankui is involved in the Chengde Army. ”

Not only the four kingdoms of Liang, Jin, Chu, and Shu, but also the Liu clan of the Qingyuan army (Jinghai Jiedu envoy) who occupied Lingnan in the south, and the Wang clan, the envoy of the mighty military jiedu who occupied eastern Fujian, were all local separatist forces that extended from the former dynasty as Zhengshuo.

The Late Red Mansion was particularly eager to get the prescription for dispelling miasma from Han Qian, and Han Qian suspected that they still had a close connection with the remnants of the Shenling Division within the Jing Navy or the Weiwu Army, but he didn't expect that they were even more closely related to the remnants of the Shenling Division of the Jin Kingdom, and they actually sent the part of the Heavenly Craftsman Book that they got from him directly to Dingzhou five or six years ago.

As early as two years ago, Dingzhou tried out the double-furnace iron-making method, which is outside the content of the "Initial Edition of the Heavenly Craftsman Book", which shows that the late Red Mansion has been paying close attention to the movements of Xuzhou in recent years, so as to steal the double-furnace iron-making method very early.

Han Qian didn't care much about any of this.

He attaches great importance to secrecy, but he will not expand the scale of production and promote the application of new technologies because it is purely for the sake of secrecy.

It was difficult for the Evening Red Mansion to infiltrate him, but the iron smelting and casting yard in Longya Mountain alone currently employed nearly two thousand craftsmen to work, and Han Qian obviously did not supervise them all as prisoners, at this time, the new process that had been applied on a large scale and at the same time was not particularly cumbersome, Han Qian would not be much surprised.

At this time, he was more concerned about the involvement of Wang Yuankui and Shenling Division in the Chengde Army, and what role he would play in the Liang-Jin War, which was very likely to be directly related to the development of the situation in the north and even the entire Central Plains......