Just when Zhao Yong began to lead his army westward to attack Linhu, the exploration experts sent by Taoqiu to Handan also began to explore the vicinity of Taoqiu.

Compared to the fact that there is not much gain in prospecting in the entire Song Kingdom, it is too easy to explore in the Zhao Kingdom! As soon as the prospectors arrived in Handan, they saw the purple-red peaks to the west of Handan. For them, it is highly likely that such a mountain will have iron ore!

Sure enough, as soon as the prospectors climbed the mountain, they easily found scattered iron ore. Considering that the transportation in the mountains was not very convenient, the prospectors searched near the Purple Mountain, and finally found a large area of iron ore around Wu'anyi!

Compared with Xiangyi iron ore, the quality of Wu'an iron ore is much higher!

The craftsmen of the Mo family just used the iron ore they picked up to smelt it with charcoal, and they got a high-quality pig iron that could only be obtained by refining it in Taoqiu! As soon as such news reached Taoqiu, Dai Yan was immediately overjoyed!

For Dai Yan, even if he didn't find a suitable coal mine near Handan, he couldn't smelt these iron ores into iron, and it would be a huge benefit to transport such high-quality iron ore back to Taoqiu!

He immediately cooperated with the merchants of Taoqiu, began to set up a Linzhang trading house dedicated to the development of the Zhao market, and began to invest a large amount of money to go to Wu'an to develop iron mines!

Similar to the iron ore mine in Xiangyi, digging wells, building roadways, and repairing wooden rails were all things that were done once in the Xiangyi iron mine, and the Taoqiu merchants perfectly copied them to Wu'anlai. However, the customs of the Zhao and Song kingdoms were different after all, which also caused Taoqiu's first foreign investment to encounter trouble that had never been encountered before.

In the land of Yan Zhao, there are many generous and sad people. Near Handan, the rampant rangers are far beyond the expectations of Taoqiu merchants! Even if Wu'an Iron Mine is a business mixed with Zhao Guo's office, the rangers around Handan still dare to come to the door! For the rangers, they are doing the "righteous thing" of robbing the rich and helping the poor, even Zhao Hou can't accuse them!

Such a scene is completely beyond the scope of the steward sent by Dai Yan to Zhao State, and as a last resort, Dai Yan had no choice but to hire Pu Yangxing with a high salary and let this businessman with deep connections in Zhao State deal with it!

After Puyang Xing accepted the Linzhang Commercial Bank, he immediately visited Zhao Cheng, the prime minister of Zhao Guodongfu, and after Zhao Cheng's guidance, he quickly found a ranger who was very famous in the whole Handan: Guo Zong.

Subsequently, Guo Zong began to participate in the management of Linzhang Commercial Bank and sat in Wu'an Iron Mine. With such a well-known hero in charge, there are really no more rangers near the Wu'an Iron Mine to make trouble.

After the Wu'an iron ore stabilized, Puyangxing began to encounter a second problem that even he found difficult: no one was mining.

The coal and iron mines in Xiangyi were originally mined by the Onozawa water bandits who were captured by the naval division. After there were no captives available around Taoqiu, Dai Yan began to choose to recruit a large number of poor peasants around Xiangyi to mine, but such a practice must not be possible in Zhao State!

The Zhao people are so generous and sad, they are not as able to endure hardships as the Song people, for the Zhao people, if they really want to dig something from the ground, it is still interesting to rob the tomb! Mining or something, forget it, no Zhao people are willing to do this job!

Just when things were about to reach a stalemate, the war in the west of Zhao began to take a turn for the better!

In August, Zhao Yong personally led the army to the west of Zhao State, and under the city of Lin Yi, with 3,000 long-trained cavalry, under the city of Lin Yi, he encountered the combined army of the Linhu tribe that broke through the Gao wolf and continued to besiege Lin Yi!

Lin Hu, that is, the Hu people in the forest, they live in the vast forest area north of the Gao wolf of Zhao and west of Jinyang. This area, which straddles both sides of the Yellow River, is also known as the Hezong region on the east bank of the Yellow River, and on the west bank of the Yellow River, it is the Yuzhong region.

The Linhu people are extremely widely distributed, so they have not evolved a centralized state similar to the Central Plains country, and this time the attack on the Zhao State was organized by the most powerful Linhu King, who attracted and tempted more than 100 small Linhu tribes on both sides of the Yellow River, with a total number of more than 30,000 people!

In the face of an enemy army ten times larger than himself, Zhao Yong was not afraid and took the initiative to attack the Lin Hu people!

Today's Zhao Jun is very different from the equipment on Lin Huren. The knights of the Zhao army wore leather armor, and the horses were also protected by leather armor, and such leather armor was basically not something that the wooden and bone arrows of the Linhu people could shoot through!

As for the melee weapons, the Zhao army is equipped with scimitars and iron swords made of fine iron, and the weapons used by the Linhu people, except for the descendants of King Linhu and a few wealthy Linhu tribes equipped with bronze weapons, most of the Linhu soldiers use weapons that are ground from animal bones!

Under such a disparity in weapons and equipment, the Zhao army has the monarch to take the lead, personally risking arrows and stones to kill the enemy, everyone fights bravely, with one as ten, unstoppable!

Therefore, the Zhao army just let the soldiers in armor and cavalry take the lead, and after the whole army moved, a single sound of the dinator gave great damage to the Lin Hu people!

Subsequently, Zhao Jun began to draw out the scimitar he carried with him and started hand-to-hand combat with the Lin Hu soldiers! In close combat, the Linhu people were not the opponents of the Zhao army, and countless Linhu soldiers were hacked to death and slashed by the sharp iron swords of the Zhao army, and died on the land of the Zhao country!

Seeing that the cavalry of the Zhao army could no longer be defeated in a head-on battle, King Lin Hu began to resort to the best tactics of the nomads: run!

However, such a tactic could still be done before Zhao did not have a large number of cavalry; Now that the Zhao army also has cavalry, how can they run away?

Of the more than 30,000 people in Lin Hu, only half of them ran away from the pursuit of the cavalry of the Zhao army, and among the remaining people, more than 5,000 people were directly killed by the Zhao army, and the remaining nearly 10,000 people were captured by the Zhao army!

Such a brilliant victory can be said to be the best record achieved by Zhao for decades against the nomads, and Zhao Yong's reputation in Zhao has also grown rapidly!

The Zhao army defeated Lin Hu, and the extra tens of thousands of prisoners immediately made Puyang Xing, who was in the predicament of unmanned mining, overjoyed! When these captives were escorted to Jinyang, Puyangxing immediately began to operate in the Zhao State, eating thousands of captives and letting them go to mining. In this way, the mining of iron ore was started!

Subsequently, Zhao Yong did not have the slightest intention of letting go of the Lin Hu people, he mobilized the troops of the entire Zhao State Xifu, and transferred more than 10,000 cavalry from the vicinity of Jinyang, and he himself recklessly cavalry of 3,000, and attacked the north in two ways, directly attacking the pastures of the Lin Hu people in the Hezong area!

The Hezong area is located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, roughly west of Luliang Mountain and Daijun, and east of the Yellow River. This area is mostly densely forested, with only a small part of the area near the north having grasslands, and this is one of the most important pastures in Linhu!

Under the rapid advance of the cavalry, especially the remnants of Linhu who were personally led by Zhao Yong to chase the fleeing cavalry all the way north, the Zhao army easily entered the pasture of the Linhu people.

Under such circumstances, King Lin Hu also knew that his invasion of the Gao wolf had completely angered the Zhao State, and hurriedly sent an envoy to ask for surrender. If in the past, Zhao Guo did not have cavalry in his hands and could not deal with these nomads, in order to stabilize the border, Zhao Guo would indeed agree to the other party's move to surrender! However, Zhao Yong now has a strong army, how could he easily agree to the submission of the Lin Hu people, so that the Lin Hu people have a chance to make a comeback?

After a great battle, more than 2,000 people were killed, and there were several times as many prisoners, and the remaining Linhu people had to start a frantic evasion of the Zhao army, and the tribe began to move west, fleeing to the Yuzhong area on the west bank of the Yellow River, waiting for a counterattack!

For Zhao Yong, what he wants to do is to solve the Lin Hu problem once and for all! Therefore, he did not give up on the territory he had defeated, but began to stabilize his position while continuing to attack Lin Hu!

He built a castle on his newly conquered territory, which he named Mayi. Subsequently, he moved some people from the war-torn Gaowolf and other places to enrich the territory.

For Zhao, whether it is to build a city or to migrate people, it is necessary to have a lot of money, in the past, Zhao was unable to raise this money in a short time, but this time after the victory of the Zhao army, Zhao then issued a treasury bond of 20,000 yuan in Taoqiu. The interest rate on the treasury bonds issued this time was reduced to 40%, but it was still snapped up by the Taoqiu people in a short period of time!

The answer is obvious! The Zhao army defeated Lin Hu and captured tens of thousands of prisoners and tens of thousands of horses, and it was these captures that could easily repay the previous 50 million national debts!

And these more than 10,000 horses, after the capture of Zhao State, except for a few military horses that were nationalized by Zhao State and incorporated into the army, most of the horses began to be sold to all parts of the world through Taoqiu merchants! All businessmen know that the Zhao State is rich today, and for the big countries that can afford to repay their debts, wouldn't it be a great opportunity to make money by lending them money?

After the Zhao State had such a huge sum of money, Mayi City quickly rose from scratch in less than a month, and around Mayi City, thousands of Zhao people who migrated from here began to walk.

took a piece of grassland from the Lin Hu people, but Zhao Yong was not satisfied at all! After sufficient food and equipment entered the Zhao State, the war machine built by Zhao Yong in the West Mansion of the Zhao State began to run rapidly, and its efficiency and strength were far from being comparable to the previous Zhao State!

In September, after the completion of the Mayi, Zhao Yong continued to lead the army to the north, from the Daidi out of the fortress, to the north within half a month, swept the pasture where the Linhu people lived in history, and even the neighbor Lou Fu, who was also an enemy and friend of the Zhao State, had to avoid the edge of the Zhao army, and began to restrain his life, and moved the tribes to the east and north, not daring to provoke the Zhao State at will!

After the Zhao army swept the land north of Daijun, he built two more cities north of Daijun. They are Yanmen, the city that is stuck in the Daidi to go to the grassland and Mayi, and the new city located on the northern grassland!

After establishing two cities, Zhao Yong was not satisfied at all, and still continued to move forward, setting off along the grassland, chasing and killing the remnants of Lin Hu, and hitting the foot of Yin Mountain! Subsequently, when Lou Fu in the eastern part of Yinshan expressed his willingness to pay tribute to Zhao State, Zhao Yongshuai's army marched westward and went straight to the bank of the Yellow River!

In Zhao Yong's eyes, this land is a boundless grassland as far as the eye can see. On the grassland, many rivers are wanton and horizontal, and the vegetation is luxuriant! In the entire grassland, wild flocks of sheep and horses abound, and the richest pastures in the entire Zhao Kingdom cannot be compared to this place at all! This land immediately made Zhao Yong deeply fascinated!

If Dai Yan was here, of course he would know that this place was the famous Hetao Plain in later generations! The Yellow River is harmful, but only rich is a set, this is definitely not a lie!

This is also the first time that the rulers of the Chinese nation have seen this rich land, and it will become the land of the Chinese nation forever! Although Zhao Yong can't say the words of me, I see, and I conquer, he did so!

He soon began to think about how to occupy the place permanently. Considering that the Linhu people are now the main enemies of Zhao in the north, in order to suppress Linhu, Zhao Yong directly led the army to cross the Yellow River, and was ready to start building the fourth city built by Zhao in his hands in the Yuzhong region!

However, just as the foundation of the new city was laid and construction began, the entire city suddenly collapsed. Such a strange phenomenon shocked the Zhao people who believed in ghosts and gods.

The soldiers of the Zhao army were afraid that this was the ancestor of the Linhu people who used their magic power and wanted to protect the land of the Linhu people, so all the soldiers did not dare to build a city here, and hoped to return to their hometown as soon as possible!

At such a time when the army's morale was unstable, Zhao Yong had no choice but to personally lead the army back to the east bank of the Yellow River. When people continued to be afraid, Zhao Junjun suddenly found that there were countless swan clouds soaring in the entire grassland, and all the swans were circling around one place, and the underside of the swans began to radiate dazzling brilliance!

Zhao Yong immediately decided that this was a good omen, and the place where the swans were hovering was a suitable place to build a city. Zhao Jun then built a city here, thanks to the guidance of the swan, Zhao Yong named this place in the clouds!

The construction of the four cities made the territory of Zhao expand rapidly to the north for hundreds of miles, and Zhao Yong began to set up Yanmen County and Yunzhong County as management on the newly conquered land, these two vast lands are superior pastures, and after they were incorporated into Zhao State, Zhao's animal husbandry also began to have broader development prospects, and the strength of Xifu began to expand more and more!

Because of the cavalry in his hands, backed by Yunzhong City, Zhao State can cross the Yellow River at will to attack the Linhu people on the west bank of the Yellow River, after many attacks, the territory of the Linhu people in Yuzhong was also destroyed by the Zhao army, and the Linhu tribes no longer have the confidence to face the anger of the Zhao army. So the chiefs of the tribes rebelled, killed King Lin Hu and dedicated it to Zhao, and sent their sons and nephews to the Zhao army as hostages, just to no longer be enemies of the Zhao army!

This kind of surrender is different from the unilateral surrender of King Linhu before. King Linhu's previous surrender was actually a strategy implemented by the steppe people in order to protect themselves; And this time the surrender of the tribes is a sign of the surrender of the entire Linhu tribe!

Zhao Yong accepted the invitation of these tribal chiefs to surrender, and immediately dispersed the Linhu tribes and incorporated them into the newly established Yanmen County and Yunzhong County respectively. Of course, in order to be able to occupy this vast territory permanently, Zhao Yong also began to migrate a large number of common people throughout the Zhao State to come here to garrison the border. For Zhao Yong, these two places will be the most beautiful pastures in Zhao Guo in the future!

And its original owner, Lin Hu, was the stepping stone for Zhao Guo to embark on a strong position!

From August, they began to march westward to fight with Lin Hu, and when winter came in November, the Zhao army returned to Zhao with Zhao Yong. In these short three months, the Zhao State has conquered an incomparably powerful grassland people in one fell swoop!

Of course, as a tolerant culture, if Lin Hu wants to integrate into China permanently, he still needs to go through a long cultural baptism of poetry, books and music!

The rapid rise of Zhao State is still a bit of an afterthought for the Chinese country, and they still don't quite understand the strength of Zhao State. And the nomads in the north, facing the rise of a big country like Zhao in their best field, have begun to tremble!