The armies of the two sides confronted each other in the vicinity of Linhuang Mansion and Yongzhou for several months, consuming countless grains, grasses, and materials, and no one was able to take advantage.

As the snow melts and the grasslands turn green, the young and strong men of both armies need to return to various places to graze or farm, otherwise they will only be hungry in autumn and winter.

Wan Yan Yong and Wan Yan Liang are waiting for the other party to withdraw under pressure, or take the initiative to fight once, and they both know that the other party can't afford to wait.

However, they waited from March to April, and found that the other side had no intention of retreating, and had no intention of taking the initiative to attack.

Then waited from April to May, and seeing that it was mid-May, the other party still had no intention of withdrawing troops or fighting to the death, so they were all a little anxious.

They all know that if it drags on like this, it will be difficult to survive this winter.

Just when both sides were about to lose patience and couldn't hold on, Wan Yanliang received news from Datong Mansion that the Mongolian tribes had rebelled again, and the number of rebels reached 30,000!

This is definitely bad news for Wan Yanliang because it came out of such an inopportune place.

The various tribes of the Mongolian steppe rebelled, and there was chaos in the rear, and it was extremely dangerous to hold on to Linhuang Mansion.

A few days later, Wan Yanliang sent a cavalry to feint Yongzhou, while the rest of the large army retreated westward by night and retreated into the grassland.

Wan Yan Yong was deceived by Wan Yan Liang's feint attack and was ready to hold on to the city, but later learned that although he was annoyed by being deceived, he was still very happy to recapture Linhuang Mansion without much effort.

As a result, the two sides finally returned to the starting point after a year-long war, and the vast area around Linhuang Province was once again under the control of Dongjin, and Dongjin's connection with the western Mongolian steppe tribes was restored.

A month later, Wan Yan Yong learned that there had been a great rebellion in the Mongolian steppes, and now Wan Yan Liang's army was trying its best to quell the rebellion in the northern steppe, and was unable to advance eastward, so Wan Yan Yong immediately decided to further expand the power of Dongjin to the west.

At the same time, he sent people deep into the Mongolian steppe tribes, contacted the rebels who opposed Wan Yan Liang, promised benefits, and won them into joining the Liaoyang Mansion of Dongjin.

Due to the fact that the rebellion in the Mongolian steppe was already very extensive and large-scale, coupled with Wan Yan Yong's involvement in it, adding fuel to the firewood, Wan Yan Liang's road to counterinsurgency was very difficult.

Fortunately, the relationship between Wan Yanliang and the Western Xia Kingdom was quite stable, and he received the support of the Western Xia at the critical moment, and this road to counterinsurgency finally ended in the winter of that year.

Wanyan Liangzhi was in Yanjing and Liaoyang Mansion, and before taking these places, he would never allow the Mongolian steppe to catch fire and burn down his Datong Mansion, so he dealt with this rebellion quite harshly, and the punishment methods were also extremely cruel.

The leader of the rebellion of the tribe was directly executed, and after the head was pickled, it was reported to the tribes, and the entire tribe involved in the rebellion was beheaded by all men over the age of five, and children and women under the age of five were used as slaves, rewarded or sold to other tribes that had joined Yan Liang.

This counterinsurgency is very different from the previous Jin State's policy of killing the heads of rebellious tribes and men over the age of ten, because in Wan Yanliang's view, ten-year-old children already have memories, and if they remember to kill, they will have hatred, while five-year-old children will not.

As a result, within half a year, more than a dozen tribes of many large and small tribes in the Mongolian steppe were almost completely slaughtered.

In order to avoid extinction, many steppe tribes had to brave the biting cold to migrate to the more remote western deserts, or to the colder and more inhospitable north.

But they also faced many difficulties and dangers on the way to migrate, and many of the tribes who died as a result of the migration were as high as fifty or sixty percent, and the losses were equally heavy, but at least they kept their own people.

As a result of this incident, the population of the entire Mongolian steppe was reduced by half.

After the end of the counterinsurgency, Wan Yan Liang carefully calculated the gains and losses of the counterinsurgency, and actually found that the counterinsurgency had made a lot of money in half a year, including more than 50,000 troops from the various departments of the grassland, all of which were warriors who could recruit and fight well in various tribes, and collected more than 100,000 war horses from the rebel departments, cattle and sheep were not counted, and there were countless gold, silver and jewelry.

Therefore, judging from the results, the suppression of the rebellion in the past six months is actually a complete looting of most of the tribes in the grassland, and the wealth they have accumulated for several generations or more than ten generations has been looted.

After this rebellion, Wan Yanliang, who was originally financially stretched, became rich.

At the end of that year, he purchased grain from the Great Song Dynasty as an ally, and whether to pay gold and silver or use horses was all up to the Bianjing court.

Bianjing was in a difficult period, and agriculture in the north was also recovering rapidly, and the imperial court was willing to do this business that would make sure that it would not lose money.

So the Bianjing court sold the grain in the granary of the treasury to Xijin at the price of six quintals per quintal, and then purchased grain from the private sector at the price of two quintals per quintal, making a great profit.

Originally, the Great Song Dynasty was strictly forbidden to sell grain to the Jin Kingdom, but the Bianjing Imperial Court was too difficult and urgently needed money to tide over the difficulties.

Of course, this kind of grain trading can only be done by the imperial court, and the transaction place is only Hangu Pass in the west of Luoyang, in addition, once someone is found to sell grain to the Jin State without permission, it will be punished as a capital crime.

However, the wealthy families have relationships and means, and they can sell some grain to the gold country secretly, and the amount is not too much.

In the winter of the second year of Beiding, Xijin and Dongjin, who lacked food, survived the famine with the support of Bianjing, and similarly, the Bianjing court also survived the difficulties in the gold and silver and more than 4,000 fine horses paid by Wanyan Liang and Wanyan Yong.

In the end, the only victims were the tribes that provoked rebellions in the Mongolian steppe, because of their sacrifices, the Xijin, Dongjin and the Great Song Dynasty all entered Beiding safely for three years.

In the spring of the third year of Beiding, Wan Yan Liang and Wan Yan Yong had no intention of immediately launching a war to exterminate each other, how precious the grain and cattle and sheep were, they deeply realized that spring and summer are not good times to start a war, delaying farming and grazing, and when winter comes, the war is doomed to failure, so no matter what, they will not start a war in spring and summer, no matter how urgent, they have to wait until autumn comes.

There is no war between the two golds, and Bianjing will naturally not start a war at this time, for three reasons, one is poor, the second is poor, and the third is still poor.

Although the promise of three years of tax exemption has ended, it will take half a year from the beginning of tax collection to tax storage, and in the process of collection, a large part of the tax will be withdrawn on the spot, and finally it can be handed over to the state treasury, and only a small part will enter Bianjing, so even if the tax collection begins to resume this year, the imperial court may still be unable to make ends meet, because the capital has not been moved for a long time, and there are too many places that need money.

In the past two years, the government offices in Jiangbei were used as two people, and there was a shortage of people everywhere, and Bianjing did not dare to open Enke, just because there was no money. The manpower, material and financial resources required to organize a imperial examination are by no means a small amount, and the Bianjing Imperial Court, which cannot make ends meet, cannot afford it.

However, since the third year of Beiding, the imperial court resumed the collection of taxes, and there was a stable source of finance, and the imperial examination was related to the future of the Great Song Dynasty, so it had to start preparations, which was also the first major thing to do in Bianjing in a few years.

At the beginning of February, the emperor issued an edict to Bianjing to open the imperial examination.

Subsequently, the Ministry of Rites issued a document and issued an order to all localities, ordering all prefectures, governments, and armies to hold state examinations on April 25 of the same year, and the top five were selected and sent to Bianjing on September 15 of the same year to participate in the provincial examination held by the Ministry of Rites.

The document issued by the Ministry of Rites did not stipulate whether students from the prefectures in Jiangnan could participate in the Bianjing Ministry of Rites examination, but due to the division of the two courts across the river, the scientific examination documents of the Bianjing Ministry of Rites were not sent to Jiangnan.

However, it is a coincidence that Lin'an is also the year of the imperial examination this year, the provincial examination of the Ministry of Rites is in February, the palace examination is expected to be held in March, and the release time is generally before mid-April.

Bianjing has no right to ask about the Jiangnan Prefecture, but Bianjing gives Jiangnan Jiangbei students the same opportunity.

In mid-February, after the prefectures and governments of Jiangbei received the documents from the Ministry of Rites requesting the organization of the state examination, the prefecture and the prefect immediately began to prepare for the state examination.

South of the Huai River, the imperial examination has never been interrupted, and north of the Huai River was previously under the rule of the Jin State, the imperial examination was not constant, and the government did not pay much attention to education, and now it is difficult to organize the state examination.

First of all, many of the governors of the northern state capitals are still officials left by the Jin State, and they have not held a state examination for many years, and they are extremely inexperienced.

Secondly, in the area north of the Huai River, culture and education have not flourished for more than 30 years under the rule of the Jin State, and there are few real scholars and fewer students.

Also, according to the usual practice, before the state examination is held, the counties under the jurisdiction of the state government must first conduct a preliminary selection to eliminate the fake scholars who are not good at studying, but the county magistrates and county orders of each county have all grown up under the rule of the Jin State, so how much knowledge can they have? What kind of readers can be selected?

Therefore, the problem of the states and provinces north of the Huai River is far more complicated than that south of the Huai River, and there is no suitable solution, if there are people in Bianjing, it is easy to say, but Bianjing is too short of people, not like Lin'an, there are 2,000 students in Taixue alone, not to mention that almost all states and provinces have academies, as well as state schools.

Although there are only five places in the state to enter the provincial examination, the state government is worried that the selected students will lose face in the state, so the counties are given as many as 50 places to participate in the state examination.

In addition, there are even state government regulations that if a student finds that his or her name is not in the list of students who have taken the state examination, he can go directly to the state government to register, without the approval of the county.

This is the first time in decades that the imperial examination has been held in Bianjing north of the Huai River, who dares not to pay attention to it?

If the final list is published, and the students recommended by the state are on the list, the benefits are obvious.

Before the fifth day of the first month of April, the counties basically completed the list of recommended candidates to participate in the state test, waiting for the state government to confirm.

Around the 10th day of the first month of April, the states successively sent the state test list to all counties and publicized the list.

Beginning on April 20, students and candidates from various counties rushed to the state capital one after another to prepare for the exam.