Looking at the construction scene in full swing in front of him, Zhao Kuangyin was a little in a trance, is this still the border county Yanzhou, where the land is barren and sparsely populated?

The post road of three zhang wide has now been widened to five zhang, the traffic is driving on both sides of the road, and the road surface of about three zhang in the middle is countless people are nervously constructing, the wooden hammer and the round stone mill alternately work, the pavement paved with loess is pressed smooth as a mirror, Zhao Kuangyin secretly smacked his tongue in his heart, that is, the royal road in the jurisdiction of Kaifeng Mansion outside Bianliang City may not have this level. In front of it is a post station for changing horses, and next to the post station, there are rows of houses, the texture of these houses is very strange, different from the thatched houses and adobe houses in the mainland, the walls are blue-gray, and they feel hard and cool to the touch. On the side of the road, a tall wooden drum device was connected to a millstone by a strange mechanism, and two or three donkeys pulled the millstone and kept turning, and the drum also rotated, and there was a scraping sound of metal rubbing against the inner wall inside, and the shaft of the barrel was a wooden stick wrapped in an iron page in a key part, and the shaft did not rotate with the drum when it turned. There was a pile of firewood under the barrel, and the flames were still far from the barrel, but the heat could be seen with the naked eye wrapping the barrel.

Zhao Kuangyin looked at it for a while, only to see that one side of the barrel was suddenly opened, and the young people immediately rushed forward to shovel a wooden shovel to remove a thing from the drum, this thing is gray and black viscous, and there seem to be smiling particles mixed in when you look closely, and in an instant the things in the barrel have been cleaned by the people, and the chassis is resealed, and two people in the distance come with a bucket of sand, and then a young man wearing a cyan miscellaneous coat suddenly took it and poured the sand into a wooden cylindrical container. There are faint ink lines on the inner wall of the container, and some symbols that no one can understand, and I don't know what they are for. There is a patch made of white linen on the back of the Tsing Yi man's clothes, and the patch is embroidered with the words "Fengyu Cement Special Number".

Next, the man in Tsing Yi carefully poured sand into the drum loess Zhao Kuangyin had no intention of looking any further, he rushed from Bianliang, it was a day and night journey, but he didn't expect that as soon as he entered Jincheng County, the degree slowed down, not that he was tired, but that there were more vehicles and pedestrians on the road, and the galloping horses were likely to hurt pedestrians. Zhao Kuangyin knew in his heart that although he was an angel, this Yanzhou was not a place that the imperial court could directly govern, such a sensitive moment, in such a sensitive place, there would never be a mistake in being cautious.

As soon as he passed Jincheng County, the degree was even slower, the reason was to repair the road, Zhao Kuangyin's impression that the roads in the world did not seem to have been repaired since he was born. During the war years, the local government was extremely financially scarce, and every year it had to provide disaster relief, raise soldiers, and have surplus money to repair roads, even for the central government, let alone the local feudal towns. Therefore, as soon as he entered Yanzhou and saw such a hot road construction scene, Zhao Kuangyin couldn't help but feel quite novel.

In addition, the prefectures, counties, villages and towns of Yanzhou. The impression left on Zhao Kuangyin can be summed up in two words as "vitality", there are no starvation people on the side of the road, nor can you see the barren and shelved fields, on the south road of Jincheng County, there are checkpoints set up by the government to collect and register the displaced people, some officials wearing black clothes with "captain" armbands wrapped around their arms maintain road traffic and order, there are temporary homeless people stations built of adobe thatch on the side of the road, and horse-drawn carriages with the banners of various merchants on the road are flowing endlessly, and Zhao Kuangyin even saw the banner of the Lingnan Feng family from it.

By the time it approached Yanzhou, there were about four left. Ten miles of road to Zhao Kuangyin is even more surprised, this road is almost all paved with stones, from the south end of these two roads, there is no longer a two-wheeled carriage in the world, instead of a large four-wheeled carriage galloping by, the carriage is wide, the body is long, the horses are strong, some of the horses used to pull the cart see Zhao Kuangyin drooling - that is almost better than the breed of war horses used in the forbidden army, outside Jincheng County, Zhao Kuangyin saw for the first time with the county as the center of the dense radiating markets and villages and towns in all directionsAlthough there are also outside Kaifeng City, most of them are dilapidated and desolate and destitute slums, which is like here, where the residential housing and business shops are mixed together, like a peaceful and prosperous scene.

Starting from approaching Yanzhou City for twenty miles, the road. There are more buildings on both sides, most of the shops are selling food, most of them are for the merchants who come and go to rest and rest, and there are many temporary barns and warehouses, all of which are built with the kind of texture materials that he can't understand, and they are marked with the words "Abundant Logistics" in large characters, Zhao Kuangyin can't understand it, but he can probably know that this is to store those goods that can't be transported into the city for a while to sell whether there is a place to store them in the city.

Approaching the Eighth Route Army Town Mansion, there are more first-class people, then. It's a soldier.

Infantry patrolling the checkpoints and on the roads, occasionally galloping past the guards. The cavalry on the ground, all of them are sturdy and have two eyes, whether it is the wooden gun in their hands or the saber on their bodies, they are all good materials, most of these soldiers do not speak, even if they pass by, they do not glance at Zhao Kuangyin, they come and go in a hurry, full of spirit. Zhao Kuangyin was born in the forbidden army and has seen the best army in this era, but even so, he has to admit that the quality and mental state of these soldiers in front of him are outstanding even in the forbidden army. They are always doing their duty, not perfunctory. Zhao Kuangyin secretly calculated in his heart that if the quality of the entire army of the Eighth Route Army was like this, then even if the strength of Li Wenge's hands was only 10,000, it was enough to be comparable to some local princes who claimed to have 100,000 armor.

There is another thing about these Yanzhou soldiers that makes Zhao Kuangyin quite angry. To his astonishment, all the men he had seen, whether in armor or not, had unsurprisingly a wisp of raw linen around their left arm.

Before coming, Zhao Kuangyin. I once had an understanding of Yanzhou's military system, and I also consulted Li Wenge in person last year, so I naturally knew that the armband symbol on the right arm of Yanzhou's officers and soldiers represented the rank, but now the left arm is wrapped in numbness, what does this mean?

Zhao Kuangyin inadvertently swept the raw hemp shoulders on his body, and couldn't help but be shocked, pulled the reins of the horse and retracted the mount, and stood on the ground in a daze.

Raw hemp into clothes, called the decay, is the Zhou system of funeral five clothes, the princes and ministers for the Son of Heaven to mourn, the party wears this service.

The whole army of the Eighth Route Army was actually mourning for Guo Wei, the emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty who had just passed away.

On the one hand, it takes a certain amount of time for the news of the emperor's death to reach the local states and counties, on the other hand, the etiquette and music in the war-torn world have collapsed, and there are not many people taking the old rules seriously, not to mention that the Great Zhou Dynasty has only been established for three years, and the authority of the central government is far from being strong enough to restore the etiquette and law.

There is also a reason that it takes a lot of money to make so many mourning clothes, which is definitely an additional expense on the books of the local government.

However, it is clear that the Yanzhou side has solved this problem very cleverly, and they gave each soldier a raw hemp belt to replace the jacket made of raw linen, which is used to symbolize the gift of beheading.

What shocked Zhao Kuangyin was that even if the envoy of the Imperial Court Rites Department went out at this moment, he should still be on the road, and it was difficult to say whether he had entered Tongguan or not, he was at the forefront, and he hurried over day and night, and the Eighth Route Army had already mourned with the whole army, that is to say, at least three days ago, they had already received the news of Guo Wei's death, and as a border county, this intelligence ability was too strong.

At the same time, there is also some bad feeling in his heart, Guo Wei has been the emperor for three years, and Li Shu, an official in Zhongyuan Prefecture, has a lot of favors, but after his death, the local people are very indifferent to the death of this emperor, but in this place where Guo Wei has not allocated a penny of money and grain to give the slightest favor during his lifetime, a feudal army that does not belong to the regular army of the imperial court at all, from top to bottom mourning the founding emperor's great line.

……

Standing in the White Tiger Festival Hall of the Eighth Route Army's Jiedu Mansion, Zhao Kuangyin's heels were weak for a while.

No matter what, this is also a town, a heavy place for military aircraft, even if Zhao Kuangyin is a close minister of the Son of Heaven and a heavy general of the forbidden army, he has never entered such a place where he upholds the heavy weapons of the military state. Needless to say, the Privy Secret Festival Hall is the festival hall of the forbidden army capital and the local festival, and it is also the object of strict defense on weekdays, which not only stores important military secret documents, but also is the location of important military meetings, which can be said to be the most important thing in an army.

After he signed up to meet outside the Jiedu Mansion, he just made a note at the gate according to the rules, and he walked through the hall under the guidance of an officer with the word "Neiwei" written on his badge.

Along the way, under the guidance of this captain surnamed Zhang, he never encountered any interrogation.

As soon as he entered the festival hall, Zhao Kuangyin saw Li Wenge, but at this moment, the captain of the Eighth Route Army was facing away from him, holding a wooden map that occupied most of the space in the festival hall with both hands, while examining and listening to a young officer, Zhao Kuangyin looked the young officer up and down, and saw from the armband that this officer was just a captain of Zhiguo, only about twenty years old, but in the face of Li Wenge, the commander of the first army, there was no fear at all. Speaking in a Northwest accent, he spoke while holding a stick in his hand and gesturing on a wooden map.

“…… The strength of Hedong is mainly divided into three parts, one is the Taiyuan forbidden army, with the four dynasties veteran Yicheng Jiedu make Bai Conghui as the commander of the palace guards and pro-army, the Chinese army is stationed in Jinyang City, the total strength is called 36 battalions, the actual strength is less than 8,000 people, the right army is stationed in Longzhou Tuanbai, 18 battalions of 5,000 people, commanded by Zhang Yuanhui in front of the Wuning Jiedu envoy in front of the palace; The left army was stationed in Yindiguan, Fenzhou, with 18 battalions of 3,000 people, commanded by Hao Gui, the commander of the crane army in front of the palace, and the other was the defender of the large battalion of Huangzeguan, and the large battalion recruited Li Cunhuan, with 30 battalions under the jurisdiction of 7,000 to 8,000 people; The third part is stationed in the area of Daizhou Lanzhou, the Lan Army, the Ninghua Army, and the Zhenxiong Army, the Lan Army is known as the 36th Battalion, but it has actually been disabled by the commander of Fuzhou, but it is just some remnants and new strong, the combat power is weak, and the actual strength is probably less than 3,000, stationed in Xianzhou, commanded by Han Guangyuan, the assassin of Xianzhou; Ninghua Army garrison in the northwest of Lanzhou, there are 36 battalions, of which 12 battalions are Han soldiers, and there are 24 battalions of clan soldiers, the actual strength of nearly 7,000 people, led by Guo Yan, the assassin of Lanzhou, the Zhenxiong Army garrison Daizhou, there are 24 battalions, the actual strength is between 4,000 and 5,000 people, and the defense envoy Zheng is under the command. In addition, there are some garrison troops, such as the three battalions of the garrison of Jiahubao in Fenzhou, and the two to three battalions of the garrison in Gaobiling, with a strength of about 1,000 people, guarding the left side of the forbidden army in the Yin Land, controlling the Bird Mouse Valley Road, and guarding the grain road for Hao Guibu, in addition, the garrisons of each state and state range from two battalions to three battalions, and the total strength is about 3,000 people. In total, the total number of soldiers in the Northern Han Dynasty was only 40,000, of which less than 30,000 were field soldiers, and most of them had low combat strength and insufficient salaries. Among them, the elite can be called only Zhang Yuanhui and Li Cunhuan, among which Zhang Yuanhui is particularly capable of fighting, with sufficient food and salary, excellent armor, mixed infantry and cavalry, and well-trained. This is a mobile force that should not be underestimated. Although the Northern Han Army claimed to have 240 battalions, in fact, as long as Zhang Yuanhui was defeated, the rest would not be worried. ”

The young man explained that he was holding a wooden stick in his hand and pointing on the wooden map, and in a moment he had already said that the deployment of the field defense forces of the Northern Han Dynasty was exactly the same, and Zhao Kuangyin was surprised for a while, the garrison of these enemy armies belonged to the top military secrets, although the Northern Han Dynasty was small, there were twelve states, and it was impossible to make the distribution of these troops so clear, without a strong and capable intelligence network.

"What kind of soldiers are the twenty-four battalions of the Ninghua Army, what is their combat strength, and what is their command?" A military general with a narrow face sitting in the east corner of the festival hall asked, Zhao Kuangyin glanced at this person, but saw that he was wearing a crimson Eighth Route Army uniform, and there was no armband wrapped around his arm, but there was an inexplicable loop on the shoulders on both sides, and a rectangular sleeve with a peculiar blue and black texture was covered with a small five-pointed star embroidered with silver thread on the sleeve.

Zhao Kuangyin, who had never seen epaulettes, was secretly surprised by this person's outfit, but by mistake, most of the people in the room had similar costumes and ornaments on their shoulders, but some were embroidered stars with gold thread, and some were embroidered with silver threads, and the number was different.

The long-faced man asked, and the young Captain Zhiguo smiled at him: "Most of the soldiers of the Ninghua Army are from Fuzhou and the areas east of it, and these troops were driven into Hedong by the Zhe family. ”

As soon as his words fell, a person sitting directly opposite him picked up the conversation: "Those fanbu are not enough to worry about, there are Huifu, there are Heishui Muluo, and a few Tuyuhun, all of them are scattered and remote branches of the tribe, and the number of people is not so much, it is not false to organize into twenty-four battalions, each battalion has all kinds of old and young women and children, and it is impossible to do a combat establishment. It's a scout cavalry, and when they meet our cavalry, these people only have to run! ”

Zhao Kuangyin glanced at this person, but was surprised to find that the "Ti Xia" who answered this answer turned out to be a doll who had not grown up at a glance, and there were traces of laziness and astringency between his eyebrows, but the words in his mouth were old-fashioned, what made Zhao Kuangyin feel even more incredible was that this doll was actually decorated with three silver thread embroidered stars on its shoulders, even Zhao Kuangyin, a person who did not understand epaulettes at all, could guess that the official rank of this doll was higher than that long-faced man.

The young man spoke with anticipation, without the nervousness of ordinary children on such occasions, he paused, and said, "Haoran did his homework very well, but he missed my brother-in-law who fell out with his old man. In Taiyuan City, Bai Conghui is not afraid, but there are still two battalions full of five hundred volcanic soldiers, who are the family soldiers of my sister and brother-in-law, but this army should not be underestimated. ”

A look of disapproval suddenly appeared on everyone's faces, but they suddenly heard someone near the gate ask coldly: "Your brother-in-law, but the young general of Linzhou?" The one with a long scar on the left cheek? ”

Everyone just returned it, but Zhao Kuangyin couldn't help but glance back, but saw a young man with a Chinese face sitting next to the tea table with his arms. How awkward it looks when wearing a scarlet red army uniform on his body, but on this person's shoulders are two different talents, clearly embellished with two gold embroidered stars. Zhao Kuangyin had already noticed that most of the people in the room had silver stars on their shoulders, and only three of them had gold stars embroidered on their shoulders, one was an old soldier in his forties who was sitting behind Li Wenge, and the other was a guy with long hands and feet and slender eyes who had been staring at him coldly since he came in, and the other was the person who had just spoken. The picture on the shoulders of the old soldier is different from these two, he is a semicircle surrounded by twelve small and delicate gold leaves, plus a golden star, the star is a whole circle larger than the star on the shoulders of the other two, most of the generals in the festival hall are dressed in crimson green except for Li Wenge and this old soldier, and this old soldier wears a purple military robe like Li Wenge, Zhao Kuangyin, who is familiar with the regulations of the DPRK and China, naturally understands the meaning.

The young man listened to the question of the man with a Chinese face, nodded and said, "Yes, Brother Xifeng has seen my brother-in-law?" ”

The man who was called Brother Xifeng didn't blink his eyes, but replied lightly: "I handed it over three years ago!" ”

Speaking of this, Li Wenge's face finally turned around, and he looked at the man in surprise: "Have you fought with the Yang family?" ”

The man ...... with disdain Yes, Zhao Kuangyin was sure that he was not mistaken, and the man's eyes when he looked at Li Wenge were clearly full of disdain and disdain...... He glanced at Li Wenge and snorted in his nostrils, as if he didn't bother to answer such a childish question.

At this time, Li Wenge's eyes finally turned to Zhao Kuangyin, and he smiled apologetically at Zhao Kuangyin: "Yuen Long has worked hard from afar, and the military affairs are busy, so I have neglected you!" ”