There were 8,000 cavalry gathered around Zamuhe, but only 2,000 of them were armoured, and most of the so-called armoured soldiers were actually equipped with leather armor, and their protection was completely different from that of the ironclad soldiers.

The advantage of the Mengwu army was the mobility of the cavalry, even the poorest Mengwu herdsmen had at least two horses, and even three or four horses, which was not only impossible for the Qi State, but also for the Jin State in its heyday.

In addition, compared to Wanyan Zongwang, Zamuhe has almost twice the advantage of troops.

War, more people and fewer people are the best strategy, it has always been so.

At this time, Wanyan Zongwang's total strength was only a little more than 4,000, but after arriving at the Trouble River, the phenomenon of his subordinates fleeing came to an abrupt end - because in this icy and snowy wasteland, it was completely impossible for individuals to live.

For those who have already made it here, leaving the team again is tantamount to suicide.

Therefore, at this time, the Wanyan Sect Wangjun was actually in some kind of tragic atmosphere similar to a broken cauldron.

Moreover, the Jurchen remnants still had 2,000 armor soldiers at this time, and they actually had the strength to fight against the Muguls.

……

Qi country.

For the next period of time, the main strategic direction of Qi was placed in Shanxi.

During the rest in Quancheng, Xu Shiyang learned that under the persuasion of Zuo Helin, the five families of Zuo, Yang, Ding, He, and Guo in Shanxi Shihou, plus the Zhe family, were willing to take the initiative to merge with the Qi State.

However, each family made some additional requests:

For example, the state of Qi purchased most of the territory of the Shihou family in the situation of redemption, but the private land belonging to the Shihou family should be retained.

The law that the Han dynasty of Qi was not slaves was not enforced in Shanxi for the time being, and the Shihou family hoped to keep those domestic slaves who had bought out their personal rights until the king of Qi replaced them with foreign slaves and ransomed them.

The last condition is that the Shihou family wants to keep some private soldiers, and the number is between 2,000 and 3,000.

These conditions made Xu Shiyang sneer.

The Shihou family is a little ignorant, and such an exaggerated condition dares to be proposed! Isn't this just a desire to become a semi-independent warlord?

Well, in fact, they are not even semi-independent warlords, and their conditions are actually only nominal allegiance to the Qi State.

After all, even Goryeo, a standard foreign state, still has military power in the hands of Qi advisors.

Moreover, in addition to these six families, the other eight Shanshan families simply did not give a reasonable answer to Qi State, and they even hoped that they could interact with Qi State on an equal footing in the future, and they were not even willing to agree to the superficial vassals!

In this regard, Xu Shiyang's evaluation is: "If people die, they will definitely die." ”

In early March, the king of Qi wrote an open letter to the fourteen Shanxi Shihou families, including the Zhi family, directly refuting the demands of the Zuo, Yang, Ding, He, Guo, and Zhe families.

King Qi made it very clear in his letter:

The first and sixth families are only allowed to retain about 100 family guards, and the rest of the armed forces must be disbanded.

Second, it is an iron law that Han is not a slave, and no discount is allowed! And the kingdom will not compensate them in any way - it is already a great grace to punish them for keeping Han slaves and maids for them!

Third, the right to govern the land must be nationalized, but the Qi State allowed the Shihou family to retain some of the private land, and as for how much each family could keep, it was necessary for the Qi State to send officials from the Criminal Department and the Household Department to Shanxi to conduct an audit before reaching a conclusion.

Fourth, the usury owed by the ordinary Han people in Shanxi will be taken over by the Bank of Qi, and after examination, the reasonable part will be repaid by the situation of the loan provided by the Qi State. The Shihou family did not allow any situation to restrict the personal freedom of the Han people.

Fifth, Shanxi fully implements the laws of Qi State, and lynching against civilians and above must be completely prohibited!

This is almost equivalent to not agreeing to any interest demands of the six princes, and not only that, the eight families in the Shanxi marquis who did not even agree to the superficial merger did not even get this condition.

At the court meeting in Quancheng, Xu Muhe told his civil and military officials that since they dared to ignore Qi Guo's demands, then they should be punished for traitor.

In the state of Qi, the crime of traitor is the first of the ten evils that surpasses rebellion.

Therefore, on May 15 of the sixth year of Longdao, Xu Shiyang transferred a field brigade from each of the six divisions of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, Jingyuan, Laiyuan, Zhiyuan, and Jingyuan, and a total of 26,000 people from the external processing, baggage, cavalry, and artillery units, guard units, and some army university student practice teams to form a western expeditionary army, which set out from Quancheng to prepare for the conquest of Shanxi.

……

On the day of the departure of the troops, the gongs and drums of Quancheng were noisy, and the military songs were loud.

Unlike in the past, when the Qi army launched large-scale offensives, it was always as secretive as possible, since the destruction of the pseudo-Jin, the self-esteem of the whole Qi country has become more and more inflated.

Some people believe that in today's world, the most powerful army is undoubtedly the Qi army, followed by the Mengwu and Dangxiang people, then the Marquis of Shanxi and the Great Zhou court, and finally Goryeo and Fusang.

There may be slight changes in this ranking, such as the belief that the Goryeo who received guidance from the Qi Army's advisors should not be considered a weak brigade now.

There are also people who believe that if the Marquis of Shanxi is regarded as an independent force, the remnants of the Jin Army should also be counted, and the combat effectiveness is still above that of the Marquis.

However, no matter how they rank this ranking, there is no doubt that the strongest army must be the Qi army, and the Marquis of Shanxi, if not the penultimate one, can only squat in the penultimate position.

Fighting the weakest with the strongest, not to mention that Xu Shiyang, the "No. 1 general in the world", personally led the troops, and even the staff department, which has always been cautious, thought that this would be a very easy military operation.

Therefore, the Qi government did not pay much attention to the outcome of this operation, and they believed that since the war was undoubtedly won, it should try to obtain some other benefits in addition to military achievements.

For example, in terms of publicity.

In order to publicize to the world the strong combat effectiveness and majestic spiritual outlook of the Qi army, the official Qi State held a grand departure ceremony for this expedition.

On the square outside Schönbrunn Palace, the neatly dressed and well-organized Qi army was inspected by His Royal Highness the King of Qi and His Royal Highness the Prince of Qi, who also delivered a speech before the expedition, encouraging the soldiers to fight bravely, and strongly predicting that they would conquer Shanxi within three months...... to destroy the perverse Shihou clique.

Then Xu Shiyang led the team to pass through the front line of the rostrum, which was regarded as a small military parade ceremony, and after the troops passed through the review stand, they went directly out of the city to the west to the battlefield.

Amid the comments of Qi officials and the cheers of tens of thousands of onlookers, the Qi army drove out of the city in groups and columns and rushed to the battlefield.

Beginning the next day, all the newspapers in Qi and Jiangnan that had overt and covert relations with Qi reported the grand occasion of the expedition with the largest amount of space on the front page.

At the same time, some media companies have also been granted permission to send their capable reporters to follow the army and report on the heroic deeds of the Qi soldiers.

This was also the beginning of the system of reporters accompanying the Qi army.