Among the four generals, only He Meng was the only one, who served under Zhao Xun when he was stationed in Tunxianxi County, and was later transferred to the Zhennan Army.

Due to the death of Lu Ji and Xu Song in battle, the Xian army rapidly expanded in size in order to cope with the war, and there was a serious shortage of generals.

These four people were recommended by Zhao Xun's old ministry to be promoted to the governor of the capital, and the rest of the generals have more or less the background of various factions in Chenling, and Guan Pu, the governor of the capital who has been questioned before, is the descendant of the great Sima Jiang Yan.

The army has lost more than half of its troops, and the most direct consequence of the forced expansion of the army is a serious decline in combat effectiveness and a serious shortage of officers.

In the heyday of the Xian Army, the standing army had raised 280,000 soldiers, and in wartime it could raise 600,000 soldiers for two or three years, with four armies and 16 governors.

Now only Zhao Xun has 20 governors under his command, the reason is that the generals are promoted too quickly, and the ability to command troops has not been improved.

As the saying goes, "Whoever governs the crowd is like the widow, and the score is also".

The ability of a commander directly determines the number of troops he leads, and for the same position, some people can bring 50,000 troops, and some people can only bring 10,000, which is exactly this reason.

At present, Zhao Xun dispersed his forces among more metropolitan governors, first, to promote more capable middle and low-level generals to serve as generals, and second, to divide and dilute the influence of the elite factions in the army, so as to better control the various departments. After the dilution of the troops under the command of the governors, it is easier to balance the various ministries.

After a detailed introduction, Zhao Xun continued to return to the topic:

"Wei Xian, what do you think of tonight's events?"

"Back to Zhao Shuai, I thought that intimidating our army was only one of them, and the point was that our army's water army would not be able to cross the river and sneak attack the Black Turban Army from now on."

"Yes, what Wei Xianfeng said is very true." He Meng agreed: "Our Xian army is strong in fighting in the rear of the naval army, and the capital is far away from the North Sea, even if the army is transferred to land from behind, it will be useless, and it can only be used to use the Yongxing River as the boundary to transport troops downstream to cross the river and sneak attack." But tonight's fire obviously caused the loss of the superiority of our army's naval division. ”

As soon as He Meng's words fell, Ye Xin, a younger general on the side, stepped forward and said:

The last general also agreed with what General He and Wei Xianfeng said. Judging from the information from all parties, the Black Turban Army is extremely bad at water warfare, and there are no large warships, so crossing the river is not its strong point. On the contrary, the landing in the rear of the naval division is within the power of our army, and now the Black Turban Army has burned the river with fat water and fire, with the intention of knowing that our army is powerful and that our army cannot cross the river. ”

Zhao Xun frowned, thought for a moment, and then looked at Gao Peidao:

"What does General Gao think?"

"The last general thinks that the Black Turban Army still has powerful means that our army has not yet known, after all, General Lu Ji's army is defeated by the demon magic of flat earth and thunder, if the Black Turban Army uses this method, the last general is worried that even if the matter of fat and water is exposed, the army's heart is still unstable."

Gao Pei looked at Bailiyan (Wei Xian), as if asking Bailiyan if he knew about internal references. Baili Yan Si Brew for a moment said:

"Zhao Shuai, in this world, everything that the world has not yet known, after people with ulterior motives use it, they can deceive those who are ignorant and do not know the inside story.

For example, hundreds of years ago, iron tools appeared in the world, and some people made them into blades, and for a time they were invincible in the world, and no bronze weapon could match them, which can be called the first sword in the world.

And now, the blade makes four or five of them iron. If there were unscrupulous people who used the name of the sword to bewitch the world at that time, wouldn't there be many people in the world who believed in it.

And the so-called 'flat earth and thunder', although I have seen it with my own eyes, there must be a mystery in it, and it is not an inexplicable way.

As you have all seen, the Black Turbans call the burning of fat water floating in the water as a divine fire, and in fact it is the result of the ignorance of the people. Even our army was blinded and deterred by it for a while. The reason for this is still unclear. ”

The more knowledge is scarce, the more ignorant people become, and in this case, the common people are more likely to trust the information released by the authorities. When a natural phenomenon or physical phenomenon that has not been seen by the world suddenly occurs, it is very easy to cause people's panic and uneasiness, and after being used by people with ulterior motives, it becomes some kind of witchcraft.

Zhao Xun thought for a moment, and then ordered Xue Sheng, an officer in the Dao:

"Xue Sheng listens to orders."

"The end will be."

"The main force of the Black Turban Army has gone north, and this commander has ordered you to send an order to the scout battalion, send someone to the Mageng River, carefully inquire about the news, and be sure to send the news back within ten days."

"No, the last general will give an order immediately."

"Today is not early, and all the generals will go back to their camps to rest."

"No!"

The crowd spoke in unison, and then dispersed.

On the way, Gao Pei followed after Bailiyan and asked about the fat water:

"Wei Xianfeng, I don't know what Wei Xianfeng knows about fat water?"

"Isn't it that the tall governor wants to find fat and water in the Xianguo?"

Gao Pei nodded and said:

"My father used to be a miner, and my family mostly made a living by digging mountains and prospecting for minerals, if we can find fat water, it can also be used by our army."

Baili Yanmian waved his hand in embarrassment and said:

"The grease water is mostly buried deep underground, and there is very little shallow grease water to be mined. Moreover, this fat water is different from the mine, even if it is mined, the miner will be full of ink and anger, and over time he will die of a vicious disease. Therefore, the things that the Black Turban Army did were also hurtful to nature and reason. ”

"So, there's no chance of finding it?" Gao Pei was a little disappointed, he planned to let his family look for it, but he heard that they were all buried deep underground, and there was no hope of mining.

Bai Liyan pondered for a moment and said:

"It's not impossible, it's that the time has not come."

In order to find oil, it is often necessary to find geomorphological special reconnaissance that is consistent with the law according to the general geological laws of the existence of oil, and then drill. For today's days, if it weren't for the superficial oil, which was accidentally discovered when drilling a well, even if it was a shallow oil drill of one or two hundred meters, it would be almost a fantasy.

Further, with the current technical conditions, once the oil is exploited, it will inevitably cause a bad ecological disaster, and a large number of oil extractors will be exposed to heavy pollution for a long time, and the probability of suffering from lung cancer, liver cancer, and skin cancer will increase by hundreds or thousands of times. Without gasoline, it is very difficult for oil to peel off the skin.

The Black Turban Army could not use any modern equipment to extract oil, but could only be savagely mined in the open pit, and the result was that a large number of people died a few years later, and the aura of the "divine art" of the divine fire would fade sooner or later.

Leaving the Chinese army and riding back to the Guangxin army camp was already in Hai, Luo Songting saw that Bailiyan had not returned for a long time, and only thought that something unexpected had happened, and then heard that the vanguard of the Black Turban Army had arrived on the riverbank, and estimated that Wei Xian must have gone to the river to observe the movement.

Hearing the news that Baili Yan returned to the camp, Luo Songting closed his robe and went straight to Bai Li Yan's military tent to question:

"Wei Xianfeng, what's going on with the stationing in Wuping, Zhao Shuai can agree."

Seeing Luo Songting's eagerness to ask, Bai Liyan said quietly:

"Zhao Shuai has already agreed, and ordered our army to move to Wuping alone. It's just that Wuping has no danger to defend, and the river is narrow, if it is lost, Zhao Shuai will cure the crime of the lord, but I don't know that Luo's predecessors have a clever plan to guard Wuping. ”

Hearing Zhao Xun's promise, Luo Songting's face relaxed slightly.

"That's good, that's good. As for sticking to Wuping's policy, Wei Xianfeng will know a thing or two when he goes. In addition, seeing the fire on the river earlier, and later Zhao Shuai ordered each army to send ten people to the Yongxing River to salvage some grease water, Wei Xianfeng knew about it. ”

Bai Liyan told the matter of fat and water, and Luo Songting asked the letter:

"Is there such a thing in the world?"

"Exactly, I am worried that Wuping is too close to the other side, if the Black Turban Army sets fire to the army, how will our army respond."

Luo Songting frowned at this time, his eyes drooping solemnly, as if he was thinking about a very serious problem.

"Senior Luo, but are you thinking?"

Luo Songting was surprised, covered up his expression and said:

"Oh, nothing, nothing. It's not too early, Wei Xianfeng will rest. ”

Luo Songting left with doubts, Bailiyan faintly felt that Luo Songting's mood fluctuations were obviously falling off a cliff, he was such a shrewd and calm person, it should be impossible for him to have such a big emotional fluctuation because of the fat water, then just now, Luo Songting thought of something, and it must be related to the fat water.

At dawn the next day, all the armies and battalions sent people to salvage the fat water, and after a night of burning, the river still floated with black burning oil, and no matter how it burned, it could not be burned.

After the front army of the Black Turban Army arrived at the shore last night, they set up camp next to the shore, and they stretched for dozens of miles, this is still the vanguard and the front army, the middle army and the rear army have not yet arrived, and the current density of tents alone can accommodate 200,000 people. On the other side of the river, the Xian army was only 2,670,000 men, and the Black Turban Army had 200,000 men in just one front army.

As soon as the morning dawned, the fat water retrieved by the Guangxin army was brought into the big tent, Jiang Gan, Hu Mo, Wang Jiu, and Luo Songting watched the marching pot for a long time, and Jiang Gan asked Luo Songting:

"Mr. Luo, is this black grease really so terrible?"

"I heard what Wei Xianfeng said last night, fat water is very flammable, and it is difficult to remove it from the adherent skin.

When the words fell, Luo Songting took the fire and inserted it into the fat water, only to see that the fat water that had been extinguished rekindled again, raising a black choking smoke. Jiang Qian was taken aback, took two steps back and said:

"Floating on the surface of the water can ignite."

"Exactly. Fat water is different from pine oil, tung oil, floating in water is difficult to burn, fat water on the contrary, as long as it is stained, the future is endless. ”

Nowadays, almost all grease that does not carry a fire source is difficult to ignite again after falling into the water, unless it is in a burning state when it enters the water, and even then, it cannot continue to burn for too long.

Petroleum is different, its composition is complex, after entering the water, it still maintains a relatively compact dense physical form, and there is more than one kind of material that can be burned, such as kerosene, gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, benzene, phenol, aldehydes, alcohols, condensate, etc. are extremely combustible substances, even if they are poured into water, they can still be burned, not to mention asphalt, which releases a small amount of carbon monoxide and sulfide while burning, providing more external combustible gas.