Early the next morning, the military camp on the north bank of the Wuzhang River began to be lively, the Privy Council transferred troops overnight, and 12,000 soldiers transferred from the military camps around Bianjing arrived at the barracks one after another, and a large amount of soldiers, armor, money, and food were also continuously transported to the barracks, and 1,000 material transport ships transferred from Heyang also set sail to Bianjing, and a famous poem was written in response to the occasion, "Suddenly like a night of spring breeze, thousands of trees and pear blossoms bloom."

As soon as dawn, Li Yanqing and Liu Jian rushed to the big tent of the Chinese army, and the planter smiled at them, "I'm afraid I don't have time to pay attention to you today, the war horse has been approved, and you go to Mu Huogang to choose it yourself." ”

Li Yanqing and Liu Jian glanced at each other, the two of them were overjoyed, and bowed down together and said, "Obey the order!" ”

The seed master Dao handed over the horse transfer order sent by the Heavenly Eunuch to them, and instructed: "Thanks to His Royal Highness the Prince's arguments, this time the imperial court has approved 3,000 war horses, each of you will receive 1,000 war horses, and the other 1,000 war horses will also be brought back for me, and I plan to use them for the intelligence battalion and the messengers of various armies." ”

"What about the cavalry?" Liu Jian couldn't help but ask again.

"There are also cavalry, the Privy Council Governor specially transferred three thousand cavalry from Chenzhou for us, the military order has been sent last night, it is estimated that we will set off today, and we will arrive at the barracks as soon as tomorrow evening, you will take the auxiliaries today to receive war horses and three days' fodder, and the rest of the fodder will be sent by boat."

At this time, Li Yanqing asked again: "Is the marshal going to choose a martial artist today?" ”

"I really don't have time today, General Zong Lao went early in the morning, don't worry, I will never let go of a talent like Wang Gui."

Wang Gui's outstanding performance in Western Xia left a deep impression on the Seed Master Dao, and his love for Wang Gui was no less than that of Li Yanqing.

The seed master Dao also instructed the two to leave a part of the soldiers to prepare to receive the armor materials, and Li Yanqing and Liu Jian left the Chinese army's tent and returned to the camp to prepare.

At present, the cavalry and war horses of the Xuanwu Battalion and the Suzaku Battalion are not in place, but the auxiliaries are already in place, and the auxiliaries are generally served by the soldiers of the Xiang Army, mainly responsible for logistics.

Since the Khitan occupied Youzhou, soon mastered the superb iron-smelting technology of the Han people, plus Youzhou and Liaodong have a large number of iron ore, the armor protection of the Liao cavalry has made rapid progress, half of the hundreds of thousands of cavalry in the Liao State are heavy armored cavalry, with the support of the Liao State, the peak of the Xixia heavy cavalry Iron Harrier also has 80,000, and the Jin Dynasty cavalry that replaced the Liao State is famous for its armored cavalry, and the Song army is due to the scarcity of war horses, but there are more than 20,000 armored cavalry.

The Xuanwu Battalion and the Suzaku Battalion are both independent armies, with their own warehouses, stables and houses, so in addition to 1,000 auxiliary soldiers, there are 300 logistics soldiers and dozens of grooms, Li Yanqing and Liu Jian even have their own staff, the so-called sparrows are small, but they have all kinds of organs.

As soon as Li Yanqing returned to the camp, his staff member Mo Jun walked out of the big tent quickly, Mo Jun was the original staff of Jiang Dadao in Tangyin Zhi County, after Jiang Dadao died, Mo Jun turned to Li Yanqing and was temporarily placed by Li Yanqing in his father's place.

This time, the Xuanwu Battalion became an independent army and needed a staff civil official to handle daily chores, so Mo Jun naturally entered the barracks and joined the army as the head of the Xuanwu Battalion, and recruited two young civil servants to be responsible for chores.

Mo Jun's ability is very strong, Jiang Dadao is almost illiterate, so he relies on two staff members to support the entire Tangyin County, so that Jiang Dadao can be the county magistrate for nearly seven years.

"Commander Qiqi, just now Zhang Sima sent someone over and asked us to collect money, food, and soldiers."

"I see, go ahead! I'm going to take someone to Mutuogang soon. ”

"War horses?" Mo Jun was pleasantly surprised.

"I heard that the Son of Heaven is angry, so everything came so quickly."

Li Yanqing signed the receipt book, handed it to Mo Jun and said, "I will take five hundred soldiers to fetch the horses, and the rest of the soldiers will be transferred by you, let Yang Liang assist you and bring back the money, food, and armor." ”

"The lowly position has been arranged."

At this time, Li Yanqing remembered something, and said to Mo Jun: "Wang Gui and they are coming over today, I may not be able to rush back until the evening, you can settle them well for me." ”

"Don't worry! The lowly will settle them down. ”

Li Yanqing arranged the camp tent a little, and then took five hundred auxiliary soldiers and Liu Jian to go to Mu Huogang.

Thirty miles northwest of Bianjing, there are tens of thousands of acres of grassland distributed under a gentle hill, surrounded by wooden fences, this is the place where the imperial court Tiansi Prison raised horses, raising more than 20,000 war horses, and hundreds of huge warehouses, which store hundreds of thousands of tons of good fodder.

Unlike the money and grain armor that were actively transported to the barracks, the planter insisted that the war horses should be selected by themselves, and the war horses were not like grain, and the slightest movement of hands and feet would cause the lives of the cavalry on the battlefield, and even a little thinner could not bear the weight of the cavalry and the horse armor.

At noon, the team rushed to Mu Huogang, and there were already officials waiting here, and several officials hurriedly greeted them and saluted: "Three thousand war horses are ready, the two generals will rest for a while, and then we will arrange for the soldiers to eat something, and then we will send the horses to the two generals to see when we turn around." ”

Li Yanqing and Liu Jian glanced at each other, it turned out that the other party had already prepared the war horses, it seemed that their guess was correct, it was very likely that there were no 20,000 war horses here, and Li Yanqing would not expose them, so he said lightly: "Then there is Lao You." ”

The officials of the Tiansi Prison and the horse farm were extremely attentive, so that every soldier was full of food and drink, and the hospitality of Li Yanqing and Liu Jian was even more luxurious, not only the best wine and food, but also invited two maiko to entertain, and finally when they drank tea, an official took two bags of gold and handed them to Li Yanqing and Liu Qian, "A little heart, the two generals take it to drink tea!" ”

Li glanced at the gold he gave himself, there were about five ingots, about twenty taels each, he saw that Liu Jian did not mean to accept the gold, so he pushed the gold back, and said lightly: "We have good intentions, you take back the gold, we also know that you have difficulties, so we don't want to embarrass you, but I hope you understand that we are not leading horses to train, but to Liangshan to suppress bandits, we will face 100,000 Liangshan bandits, the battlefield will be extremely tragic, we can not pick horses, but three thousand war horses must be qualified, This is our minimum requirement. ”

Several officials looked at each other, but the other party refused to accept the gold, what should I do? Or the leader of the official reacted quickly, the other party did not accept the money not necessarily to embarrass himself, maybe he didn't want to fall into any tricks, he hurriedly said: "Please ask the two generals to see the horses, if you are not satisfied, we will replace them immediately!" ”

The officials of the Tiansi Prison did everything possible to prevent the other party from going to the horse farm to pick horses, and instead they sent horses to pick them, which was actually the same thing as sending horses to the barracks.

Three thousand war horses had been prepared in advance and placed in a fence of nearly 1,000 acres, and Li Yanqing and Liu Jian each brought ten experienced horsemen, and the horsemen rushed into the fence to select the horses, mainly to pick out the weak and old horses.

Li Yanqing and Liu Jian stood on the hillside and watched the dense war horses in the fence below, and could see that the officials of the Tiansi Prison did not want to make a big deal out of the matter, and most of the war horses sent were strong and powerful horses.

"I heard that the backstage of Tiansi Prison is Liang Shicheng, once it is investigated, I am afraid that Liang Shicheng will not be able to eat and walk around!" Liu Jian said hatefully.

Li Yanqing smiled faintly, "If it is really found out, there will definitely be a scapegoat, and it will not be Liang Shicheng's turn, but I estimate that half of the interests in this black hole have gone into the inner treasury, including military spending, and the person who really took the big head, I'm afraid no one dares to mention it." ”

"Is that going to be the case?"

Li Yanqing nodded, "How much grain and materials did the Western Xia War cost, and now it has to be suppressed on a large scale, as well as redundant officials, redundant soldiers, and redundant expenses, how can the financial resources of the imperial court afford such a huge expenditure?" But Yanfu Palace is still being built, and the more it is built, the more luxurious it becomes, what will be used to make up for the deficit in the inner library? Can't General Liu think of this truth? ”

Liu Jian said for a while: "Isn't this self-destruction of the Great Wall? ”

"Zhu Mian set up a bureau in the south of the Yangtze River, collected the people's wealth, forced out Fang La to rebel, Yang Jian built the Xicheng Institute in Yunzhou, forcibly occupied the land, forced out the Liangshan rebellion, and the Great Wall of the Great Song Dynasty had long been destroyed."

Li Yanqing let out a long sigh and walked quickly towards the horse circle........

Li Yanqing returned to the barracks at dusk, and the soldiers brought back a large number of war horses, Li Yanqing asked 1,000 war horses to be sent to the main camp to the logistics supervisor Jiang Lian, and he and Liu Jian each returned to the barracks with 1,000 war horses.

The war horse entered the Xuanwu cavalry camp, the barracks suddenly became lively, the soldiers ran out to watch the war horses, although the auxiliaries could not ride horses to fight or train, but the horses were usually taken care of by them, and everyone had a great interest in the war horses.

Mo Jun had already prepared the stables, and he came with the groom to lead the war horses to their camps, at this time, Yang Liang hurriedly walked over with two young officers, one was Wang Gui and the other was Niu Gao, Li Yanqing looked behind, "What about Ah Tang and the fifth brother?" ”

"Lao Tang went to the intelligence camp, didn't he tell you last night?"

Li Yanqing slapped his head, "That's right! Right! I actually forgot, what about the fifth brother? ”

"Lao Yue was asked to leave by the old general Zong."

Li Yanqing was stunned, Yue Fei was actually asked to leave by Zong Ze, he suddenly had a wonderful feeling, people are actually pulled by various invisible threads of fate in the dark, in history, Yue Fei was favored by Zong Ze to stand out, and today Yue Fei just came out of martial arts, and was recruited to Zong Ze's command, isn't this the arrangement of fate?

At this time, Wang Gui hurriedly said: "We have been idle for a day, you can quickly arrange something for us!" ”

"You come with me!"

Li Yanqing took Wang Gui and Niu Gao into his big tent, he invited the two of them to sit down, and said with a smile: "There are two thousand three hundred people in the Xuanwu battalion, and the same is true for the Vermilion Bird Battalion, these are two relatively special armies, which directly belong to the kind of commander, and can also be called an independent battalion, because the kind commander only gives us orders, and the rest of the army commanders are fully responsible for me, including Sima Zhang Shuye and the old general of Duyu Houzong, they have no right to govern us." ”

Wang Gui and Niu Gao nodded silently, they were all surprised in their hearts, I don't know why the commander would give so much power to the two cavalry armies?

"Since the commander gave me the decision to dispose of it independently, I plan to set up the army into five battalions, five capital heads, two cavalry battalions, two infantry battalions and one logistics battalion."

Wang Gui was a little puzzled, "Does the commander plan to separate the cavalry and auxiliaries?" ”