Ma Shan's news arrived only one day early, and early the next morning, the officials of the Privy Council also rushed to the barracks and read out the plan for dealing with Yang Lin's case, Yang Lin was guilty of the two major crimes of selling military funds and fornicating with the enemy, and he was escorted to the capital to be beheaded, Li Yanqing's plan for the reorganization of the army was approved by the Privy Council, and Cao He and Han Shizhong officially assumed the post of commander, and ordered Li Yanqing to immediately lead the army to the north to quell the Qiang riot in the north of Shaanxi Road.

Before dawn the next day, the assembled war drums rumbled and beat, and the soldiers rushed out of the barracks in all directions and quickly assembled on the martial arts exercise ground, which was what Li Yanqing had to practice every day, and 12,000 soldiers had to assemble within 50 drums.

After beating hundreds of soldiers with canes for several days in a row, the soldiers basically did not arrive late, the fifty drums ended, and all 12,000 soldiers were assembled.

Li Yanqing stood on the high platform, staring at the 12,000 soldiers standing in line, if nothing else, this army is his foundation, he must make good use of this opportunity.

"Brothers!"

Li Yanqing's loud voice echoed above the heads of the soldiers, and he coldly killed Commander Yang and the five partial generals, making all the soldiers full of fear of him, until he rewarded all the 50,000 taels of silver to the soldiers, and the soldiers had a little more respect in fear and turned into awe.

"In another hour, we will assemble and go north, a new big war is waiting for us, some people will be worried, will be afraid, afraid that they will die in another country, but there will definitely be casualties in the war, what I Li Yanqing want to do is to lead everyone to victory in the war, brothers, take out your courage and confidence, I, Li Yanqing, have never been defeated in the southern and northern wars, this time we will not fail either, use our iron and blood to cast the strongest army of the Great Song Dynasty!"

．．．．．．．．

Li Yanqing's impassioned encouragement still echoed in the ears of the soldiers, and the army had already set off in a mighty way, Jingzhaofu mobilized a thousand carts and 5,000 Jingzhaofu township soldiers for this northern expedition, and the carts were loaded with all kinds of grain and grass and military materials mixed in the army going north, and the role of the township soldiers was to carry materials and be mainly responsible for logistics.

Although the expedition was only more than 700 miles, the army still had to mobilize the army in the north, not only using the township soldiers, but also the counties along the way had to contribute people and efforts to assist the army's logistics and materials to go north.

To be precise, their army is a reinforcement, the Qiang riot is not the first time, in the past, they were able to use the local army to suppress it, but this riot was different, the Qiang people actually formed a regular army, with sharp weapons and strong armor, coupled with the general horseback riding, it was so that tens of thousands of Xiang troops were defeated, and the state officials had to ask the court for help.

Fortunately, the Qiang people's siege ability was extremely weak, and they ravaged several states, but only captured two small county towns, which was caused by the disrepair of the county seats.

The Jingzhaofu army took the Jingyuan Road, passed through the heavy mountain in the north of Guanzhong, and four days later, the army arrived at the central county of Fangzhou, which is the location of the Fangzhou Prefecture Government, which is a kind of medium-sized city, and it is obvious that there are traces of just repaired, many damaged city walls are repaired with large stones, and the city gate is also newly replaced, and many people are dredging the moat.

"What's going on?"

Li Yanqing pointed to the newly repaired city wall with a horsewhip and asked Huang Wendao, the Zhizhou who had specially gone out of the city to greet him: "Has the Qiang army already hit Fangzhou?" ”

Zhizhou Huang Wen was a short man, only Li Yanqing's neck, about fifty years old, and a face full of folds was like an air-dried orange peel.

Huang Wen rode on a donkey and sighed: "A few days ago, a Qiang cavalry of hundreds of people rushed into Fangzhou, killed a circle in Fangzhou and left, snatched thousands of catties of grain, ruined more than a dozen women, and killed some villagers, but fortunately they did not come to the county seat, at that time there was still a gap in the city wall that had not been filled, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable." ”

"How many people are currently in the Qiang army, does Governor Huang know?"

"About five or six thousand! I heard the commander of the Xiang Army in Juzhou talk about it once. ”

"How many Xiang troops are there in Fangzhou?" Li Yanqing asked again.

Huang Wen smiled bitterly, "After a fiasco, there were only more than 300 people left of the original 1,000 people, not that 700 soldiers were killed, at least half of them fled home." ”

Li Yanqing had also heard that a month ago, the 20,000 Xiang troops in eight states fought fiercely with the Qiang people, and were defeated by the Qiang army in a battle.

In fact, there are still 40,000 or 50,000 forbidden troops in the northern border area, and it is more convenient for them to send troops to exterminate the Qiang people, but the imperial court finally decided to let the only 12,000 forbidden troops in the Guanzhong region go north.

In fact, Li Yanqing can also understand the worries of Western Xia, after all, the Song and Jin still have an alliance, once the Jin soldiers attack the Western Xia in a big way, and the Western Xia has to face it, then the southern Song and Xia borders will be empty, so no matter what, the Western Xia must find a way to contain the Song army and prevent the Song army from taking the opportunity to attack north, and it is not surprising that the Qiang riots also occurred at this critical moment.

After resting in Fangzhou for a day, the army continued northward, and two days later the army entered Yanzhou.

The army stopped advancing soon after entering Dunzhou, Li Yanqing ordered to build a camp on the spot, a month ago, Gyeongju was the most raging state of the Qiang people, but now Gyeongju except for the state of An'anhua County is also defended by 3,000 Xiang troops, all other areas have fallen, the main battlefield has been transferred to Dunzhou, Li Dajun just entered Juzhou and found the Qiang army's sentinel cavalry.

Li Yanqing immediately ordered Yan Qing to send ten scout cavalry teams to investigate the enemy's situation.

The scout battalion in Jingzhao County is only 200 people, the reason why the troops are so small is mainly due to the lack of war horses, before Li Yanqing took office, the 12,000 army had a total of only 300 war horses, originally there were 2,000 war horses, but most of them were requisitioned by the Northern Expeditionary Army, but they were never returned.

The Qiang people are different, the Qiang people originally lived by animal husbandry, even if they did not raise horses at home, but at least half of the families had horses, extending to the army, and it is not surprising that there were 4,000 cavalry for 6,000 Qiang soldiers.

Li Yanqing was standing in front of the map and discussing with the two commanders about the strategy of breaking the enemy, and Han Shizhong next to him said: "Actually, it is not very difficult to deal with the Qiang people, as long as we make use of our strengths and avoid weaknesses, give full play to the advantages of firearms, avoid the disadvantage of short legs, and defeat the Qiang people, I think we are still confident." ”

Li Yanqing saw Cao Xingzhi shaking his head, so he said: "What do you mean by always shaking your head, and you have different opinions to say." ”

Cao Xing scratched his head and said: "I just think General Han said too roughly, of course it's good to avoid short legs, but how to avoid it?" Is there any other way than to defend the city? ”

Han Shizhong was a little unhappy and said: "I just proposed a direction first, and then discuss the specific how, you ......"

Without waiting for Han Shizhong's ugly words to come out, Li Yanqing interrupted him, "It's a little early to discuss the specific plan now, wait for the scout's intelligence to be summarized, let's talk about the general direction first!" ”

He said to Cao Xing again: "Tell me what you think!" ”

Cao Xuan glanced at Han Shizhong and said: "Actually, I also think that firearms are good, we have earth-shaking thunder, which is the sharpest firearm, and iron fire thunder, which is also a sharp weapon against cavalry, if you are unfortunate enough to encounter the enemy, then you can only give full play to the advantages of crossbow arrows, and you can also compete with the enemy with the divine arm crossbow." ”

Li Yanqing saw that Han Shizhong's expression was a little cold, so he smiled at Cao Xing: "Let's talk here, I don't know how the military camp is built?" Lao Cao, you are familiar with the camp, go and keep an eye on it, I am a little uneasy, and I will talk to you about the military situation when I go back. ”

Cao Xuan said yes and turned to leave, Li Yanqing smiled at Han Shizhong and asked, "I interrupted you just now, are you emotional?" ”

Han Shizhong hurriedly shook his head, "I don't dare, it's just... General Cao is a little too taken for granted. ”

"I understand your feelings, Lao Cao is such a person, he can say whatever he wants, he can't hide things in his stomach, if he is as insidious as Yang Lin, I'm afraid you won't feel well."

"I understand that maybe the contact time is too short, and we can adapt to each other after more running-in."

Li Yanqing said slowly: "Lao Han, I know that you are fighting step by step from the bottom, and you have a lot of actual combat experience, but you are not ignorant of the decay of the Great Song Army, although Lao Cao is a child of a meritorious family, he is very modest, righteous, and does not respect the frame of the children of the family, this alone is already very rare, but he does not have any experience, and he has a good face, sometimes he doesn't know how to pretend to understand, at this time you just laugh at it, don't worry about him." ”

Han Shizhong nodded silently, "I remember the words of the command." ”

Li Yanqing smiled again: "The reason why I promoted him to be a commander instead of a high favor is not because he is a child of the Cao family, but because he has a good advantage, a strong sense of responsibility, and can start from the overall situation, even at the expense of his own interests. ”

"The lowly duty understands, and the lowly duty also goes to see the camp."

Li Yanqing smiled and waved his hand, "Go ahead!" That kid doesn't have much experience in camping, and I'm really afraid he'll mess up camping. ”

Han Shizhong smiled slightly, walked quickly, and Li Yanqing pulled his thoughts back to the map, this area is the Loess Plateau with ravines, how should he fight his first battle?