Liu Xiuqin led the army westward, and he already had the certainty of victory in his heart.

He thought that there was a small magnet that had a strong adsorption force to suck the main force of Kui Huan tightly, and that generals such as Wu Han and Feng Yi had long been deployed in the surrounding areas, eyeing each other and doing it himself, so there was no suspense or effort to take down Kui Huan.

He knew that he was fighting very hard in Luoyang, and the sooner he moved, he would have relieved him earlier, so he traveled day and night until he arrived at Qiyi. This is Geng Yi's garrison.

Here, already, is the forefront of operations.

When Liu Xiu took a break and was about to move forward, the accompanying generals and the local garrison resolutely dissuaded him, saying that the emperor's personal conquest was related to the safety of the country, and he must not easily go into a dangerous place.

Liu Xiu hesitated a little.

(Most of the generals are heavy on the king's master, and it is not appropriate to go far into danger.) ）

Yes, everyone is not familiar with the terroir and geography, and even after Kui Huan joined forces with Gongsun Shu, we can't figure out how many enemies we face.

Your Majesty, you must take care.

In the use of troops in Xizhou and Bashu, because of the dangerous mountains and rivers, the large number of ethnic groups, and the complexity of society, it is necessary to improve the technical content. Kui Huan can't get it down at present, which means that there can't be a lot of people to fight here!

Soldiers are fast.

Lai Xi is resisting with difficulty every moment, and Kui Huan and Gongsun Shu have the potential to conceive and implement new actions every day.

In order to know both oneself and the other, both positive and safe, Liu Xiu recruited Ma Yuan to consult.

Ma Yuan arrived overnight, and Liu Xiu immediately met him and told him his plans and the opinions of the generals.

Ma Yuan bluntly said that the current clamor of the soldiers is showing a momentum of collapse, and if we attack on a large scale, we will definitely be able to destroy the enemy and win a great victory.

Liu Xiu also thinks so, the key is how to attack.

As he spoke, Ma Yuan asked people to take out some rice, and at the moment they were piled up into valleys, rivers and other terrain and landforms in front of Liu Xiu, and then pointed out the mountains and rivers in front of the rice pile, put forward their own combat suggestions, and designed the route for the troops to advance and retreat. In this way, his analysis of the situation between the enemy and the enemy was very clear and clear, and the details of the battlefield were also presented in every detail.

While Ma Yuan was introducing Liu Xiu, let's say by the way, at this moment, Ma Yuan actually invented a tool that was widely used by later generations: sand table.

As for the origin of the sand table, there have been many controversies in the past few years, some say that the military "chess" deduction comes from the Western army, and some say that it comes from the invention of the Swiss more than 200 years ago, but this is not true.

We can safely say that the sand table was first used in the military, and the commanders used it to analyze the geographical terrain, study the combat plan, organize the training of the troops, and implement the combat plan, which is very practical and convenient; Later, in modern times, colleges and universities in the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries were used for teaching and research; After that, it was gradually used in the industrial, commercial, and construction sectors in Western countries; At present, almost every country and industry in the world is using this intuitive and convenient work tool.

At the same time, we can say with certainty that the earliest appearance of the conclusive recorded sand table was the pile of rice that Ma Yuan made in front of Liu Xiu at this time!

Now, while looking at this pile of rice and listening to Ma Yuan's analysis and introduction, Liu Xiu was very satisfied and said happily:

"This time, the enemy is all in my eyes!"

(Caught in my eyes!) ）

Early the next morning, Liu Xiu personally supervised the departure of the army and quickly arrived outside Gaoping City.

At this time, Liangzhou Mu Dou Rong led tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to meet.

Dou Rong has been waiting for the opportunity to make contributions to Liu Xiu, and now he has brought almost all of his belongings, and the lineup is quite luxurious: the Taishou of the 5 counties of Hexi, who is also his 5 buddies, and their soldiers and horses; Qiang people and other ethnic minorities and local powerful people; More than 5,000 military baggage vehicles.

Dou Rong came from a family and was very politically minded. After arriving with the army, he did not rush to see Liu Xiu, but first sent the staff around him to ask Liu Xiu for instructions: What kind of etiquette should be used to meet the emperor?

(Rong Advance is engaged in asking and meeting with Yishi.) ）

Everyone, pay attention, Dou Rong is by no means eventful and wordy.

At that time, there were frequent wars, and the etiquette was very simple or not exquisite, whether it was between the official or the people, whether between the superior and the subordinate, or between the elders and the younger generation. Even if the emperor held a court meeting, the military generals were often giggling and untidy.

As for the chaos at the meeting of the First Dynasty, everyone has already seen it.

When Liu Xiu held a meeting, the ministers were also in a mess.

This is because most of us have not received training and education in etiquette; Second, because the war is too tight, most of the meetings are to study the destruction of the city and the cutting of people, which is very urgent, and everyone has no time to pay attention to etiquette; The third is that although Liu Xiu himself is a college student, full of poetry and books, and proficient in etiquette, it is also because of the special environment of the war, it is not good to be strict with everyone.

In short, most of us are not quiet people, and in this era of relying on fists to speak, too much attention is paid to affecting efficiency, and if you move slowly, you will be beaten.

However, Liu Xiu believes that with the establishment of the empire, the country's strategic focus will inevitably shift from focusing on fighting wars to focusing on peaceful development, and in this way, the tremendous role of the building of spiritual civilization in guiding social thinking, creating conditions for public opinion, and educating the masses of the people will become more and more important.

Among them, civilized etiquette, as an important way and carrier for the construction of spiritual civilization, must be conscientiously built and cultivated.

Dou Rong saw that the emperor greeted first, which was refreshing, very good!

Therefore, Liu Xiu wanted to seize this opportunity to conduct a civilized etiquette education and drill for the senior cadres accompanying him.

Liu Xiu held a grand cocktail party, asked the accompanying senior cadres to participate, and welcomed Dou Rong and his brothers with extremely grand etiquette.

(It is a high meeting of wine, introduction and so on, and special gifts.) ）

After some procedural remarks, Liu Xiu appointed Dou Rong's younger brother Dou You as the commander of Fengche and his cousin Dou Shi as the Taizhong doctor.

Here, Liu Xiu killed two birds with one stone, not only sincerely welcomed Dou Rong to join officially, but also showed up to explain the law, and gave his subordinates a lesson in civilized etiquette that combines theory with practice.

Next, there is still a war.

Liu Xiu arranged it, and immediately continued to fight Kui, and the intensity of his combined movements could only be increased, not weakened.

Liu Xiu personally deployed, and the troops marched in several ways, which was basically hot soup and snow.

Everywhere he went, the hustle and bustle of the territory, including Gaoping, was like dominoes, and the sight of the defenders dying or surrendering, and the cities surrendering or destroying immediately appeared.

At this moment, a comrade stood up and slammed his hand, causing the dominoes in the old Kui camp to fall faster.

Everyone has seen this comrade, his name is Wang Zun, and he was originally one of Lao Kui's dominoes, but he came to rebel against him not long ago, and he decisively left the dominoes.

His current role is to serve as the supervisor of the Wu Han army in Chang'an as Liu Xiu's Taizhong doctor and Xiang Yihou.

Comrade Wang Zun is also very smart, and after he surrendered, he always wanted to do something to repay Liu Xiu, and he saw that what Liu Xiu needed most now was for his subordinates to surrender like himself. He thought of his iron buddies, the noisy general Niu Han.

Comrade Niu Han is also a senior general of Lao Kui and a good friend of Wang Zun for many years. Not long ago, when he saw Wang Zun attached to Luoyang, he was also secretly moved.

Wang Zun had long seen the inevitable demise of Kui Huan, and couldn't bear to see his good friend accompanying him to the funeral, so he wrote a letter of persuasion to Niu Han according to the idea of coming to her.

Niu Han received the letter, properly arranged his subordinates, the staff around him and related work, and resolutely submitted to Liu Xiu.

Liu Xiu was very happy, and when he was still in the army, he immediately named him a doctor in Taizhong.

If it is said that in the original camp of Kui, Ma Yuan, Zheng Xing, Ban Biao, and Wang Zun's departure was because everyone saw the general trend of Liu Shengkui's defeat, then Comrade Niu Han's departure not only reminded everyone once again to pay attention to this general trend, but also clearly told everyone that Liu Xiu's combination punch has been hit, the big knife and sharp blade have been raised, and whoever does not run over will die.

As a result, the string of dominoes from the Lao Kui camp quickly pounced on the ground.

In a relatively short period of time, Lao Kui's 13 generals, 16 subordinate counties, and more than 100,000 soldiers and horses all surrendered to Liu Xiu.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Kui Huan sent Wang Yuan to Chengdu to ask Gongsun Shu for help, and he hurriedly took his family and fled from the battlefield of Lüyang to Xicheng (now Tianshuixi, Gansu).

In the face of the devastating offensive of Liu Xiu's army, Yang Guang, the old guard of Xicheng, wanted to hold on. Not long ago, Ma Yuan wrote a long letter to persuade him to surrender, but he ignored him.

Of course, Liu Xiu would not give up, and immediately sent Wu Han and Cen Peng to encircle and suppress Xicheng.