The Khitan part is the eight divisions of Diethorn, B Room, Pinbu, Ut, Wukui, Tupinbu, Pinphorn, and Tuju, etc., with the strongest power of the Diera, and the Diera Department is divided into thirteen clans, among which the Yaoran clan and the Yelu clan are the strongest, the Yaoran clan has long held the throne of the Khitan Khan, and the Yelu clansmen have long held the throne of the Khitan Yili Sumire (military chief), the Khitan tribes originally only formed a loose tribal alliance, subject to the strong neighboring Uighur Khanate, in recent years, the Yelu clan has gradually prospered, and the patriarch Yelu Sarad has a tyrannical temperament, has a strategy, and during his tenure as Khitan Yili Jin, he led his troops to conquer the east and west, constantly annexing the surrounding weak tribes, and his power was expanding dramatically.

Yang Hao has no bottom in his heart for a new enemy, the grassland people and the Han people are very different in their way of thinking, and their cultural characters are also different from each other, if you want to deal with them well, you must have a deep understanding of them, Yang Hao handed over this task to Huang Yiliang, and at the turn of the autumn and winter of the first year, Cheng Keling, Jiang Taojian and Zhang Jinbiao were ordered to chase the Guiyi army Li Shaoqing who fled eastward, and mistakenly killed Yelu Shura, the eldest son of the Khitan Dieshu Department of Yili Yelu Sarade, five hundred miles north of Youzhou, On that day, Huang Yiliang designed to blame the death of Yelu Shura on the head of the Tuju tribe who had a grudge against the Yelu clan, which led to a great chaos within the Khitan, killing and injuring thousands of people.

Huang Yiliang's Northwest Institute of Nationalities has been paying attention to the movements of the Khitan people over the years, during which he has submitted several movement reports, but has not been able to attract enough attention from Yang Hao, Yang Hao invited him to the inner study to talk all night, it can be seen that Huang Yiliang attaches no less importance to the Khitan than the Uighurs, he compares the Khitan to a pack of wolves on the grassland, fierce, cunning, and ambitious, and boldly speculates that the threat of the Khitans to the Tang Dynasty in the near future will be no less than the current seemingly incomparably powerful Uighur state,

Yang Hao agrees with his point of view, in his memory, the Liao State was established by the Khitans at the height of history, and their founding emperor was surnamed Yelu, and the Liao State and the Song Dynasty coexisted, which should have appeared after the fall of the Tang Dynasty in terms of time, and the Tang Dynasty had gone through his heyday, and its control over the north was weakening day by day, and the Uighur Khanate was also in decline, which gave opportunities to emerging nations like the Khitan.

Taking advantage of his fledgling to press him and give Datang a chance to reform himself, Yang Hao thought that this was all he could do, and he said to Huang Yiliang: "The ambition of the Khitan wolf, we have to guard against it, know ourselves and know the enemy, in order to survive a hundred battles, I have entrusted you with full responsibility for collecting information about the Khitan, and if you have any needs, you can directly ask me." ”

Huang Yiliang asked: "Are you preparing to deal with the Khitans by force?" ”

Yang Hao didn't say anything and acquiesced, Huang Yiliang said worriedly: "The Khitan has 200,000 iron horsemen, and now they are going uphill, even the Uighurs have to endure everywhere, if they are facing the Khitans head-on, I am afraid it will not be the blessing of Fengzhou, please think twice." ”

Yang Hao fell into deep thought, the Khitan had 200,000 cavalry, which was only slightly inferior to the Uighurs in the northern steppe, and the Khitans were going uphill, full of vigor, and having such an opponent would be a nightmare for anyone,

Yang Hao asked Huang Yiliang: "Do you have any good ideas, can you talk about them?" ”

Huang Yiliang pondered for a moment and said: "The Khitans only took the risk to occupy the southeast of the Uighurs this time, mainly to open up a channel for mutual trade with the Tang Dynasty, Youzhou, Hedong, and Zhenwu reached a secret agreement at the end of last year, and together closed the trade field with the Khitans, the Khitans lacked food and clothing, and had no way out, so they ventured to open up the passage from the west to the Tang Pass, why don't you use trade to envelop you, the Uighurs will not do it this year, and they will definitely send troops to expel the Khitans next year, and then the adults can join forces with the Uighurs to attack it, Wouldn't it be a few more chances of winning? ”

Yang Hao also felt reasonable, so he explained to Huang Yiliang and said: "You try to test their true intentions, if they are really here for trade, we can sit down and talk to them first." Speaking of this, Yang Hao added: "But we still have to be prepared to turn our faces, these barbarians have no faith at all, we still have to be prepared." ”

All kinds of information about the Khitans gathered to Feng'an through open or secret channels, Yang Hao was eager to find out the true intentions of the Khitans, before the intentions of the potential enemies were unknown, Yang Hao transferred the Tiger Battalion and the Weiyuan Battalion to the Tiande Army garrison, and at the same time clearly instructed the border troops, the Manhei Department and the Vulture Department to restrain the soldiers and not to do anything like a gun.

In order to prevent the Khitans from harassing and destroying the rear of Fengzhou by using a small force of cavalry, the four major fortresses of Jiuniang Pass, Bingyan Valley, Boulder Fort and Jiulian Mountain stepped up construction, and the two projects of Jiuniang Pass and Bingyan Valley were completed and used day and night, one and a half months ahead of schedule.

When everything was ready to stop, the Khitan envoy Yelu Tira suddenly came to the city of Zhongshou, Yelu Tira is the second son of Yelu Sarade, only twenty years old, fluent in Chinese, Yang Hao was inspecting the border affairs in the city at this time, Yelu Tira's sudden arrival, so that Yang Hao was both embarrassed and a little panicked: if the arrival of Yelu Tira is not a coincidence, it means that there are Khitan spies lurking around him, otherwise how can he be so clear about his whereabouts,

On behalf of the Khitan Khan, Yelutira invited Yang Hao to send troops to besiege the Uighurs, and from the various information he had obtained before, the Khitans had no signs of sending troops to the Uighurs on a large scale in the near future, Yang Hao concluded that this was a test for himself, so he used the excuse that he was only a member of the border guards, and had no right to decide on the attack, and he had no right to call the army without the holy decree and the transfer of the military department.

Yelu Tiera laughed, disappreciatively said: "It is said that since General Yang governed Fengzhou, he has never paid a penny of taxes to the treasury, so what is the difference between Fengzhou and Heshuo Towns, General Yang said that he can't make the decision to conquer the matter, Tera really dare not agree, if I am not mistaken, General Yang was still suppressing bandits in Hedong a month ago, and the soldiers of Fengzhou went to Hedong to suppress bandits, is this the edict of the Son of Heaven of the Tang Dynasty." ”

Yang Hao was secretly surprised in his heart, he didn't expect that this Yelu Tera knew so clearly about the affairs of Fengzhou, the wolf ambition of the Khitan people was really obvious, he pondered for a while and replied: "Fengzhou is not Heshuo, Fengzhou is a border land, perennial wars, people's livelihood withered, the people are poor, the imperial court allocates grain money every year to appease the local people, because of this, the taxes obtained by Fengzhou are all retained by the local government, and the taxes of Fengzhou are not paid to the imperial court, which does not mean that the military and civilians of Fengzhou do not need to obey the orders of the imperial court. I went to Hedong to suppress bandits, and it is the responsibility of the local guards to exterminate the horse bandits and pacify the localities. ”

Yelu Tera feigned surprise and said: "It is said that there are 100,000 troops in Hedong Town, your country, what kind of horse bandits are so fierce that even 100,000 troops can't subdue them. ”

Yang Hao replied with a smile: "I don't know if there are 100,000 troops in Hedong, but the horse bandits are flowing into Hedong from my Fengzhou, as a Fengzhou guard, I can't sit idly by, I really don't hide it from the second prince, my cross-border pursuit of horse bandits is actually not in line with the law of the Tang Dynasty, but if I can extinguish this horse bandit, the court will read my merits and no longer pursue my faults, because the victory cleared the bandits, and my colleagues in Hedong are also willing to get rid of me quickly, on the contrary, if I don't go, then the Hedong guards must be involved in me, and then I will have to worry about my life. In order to save this necklace head, I can only take risks. ”

Yeluther smiled wryly: "It seems that only by asking the Son of Heaven of the Tang Dynasty to give an order, the general is willing to help me." ”

Yang Hao replied: "Please forgive the second prince, as a minister, I dare not disobey my orders." ”

Seeing this, Yelu Tira no longer insisted on it, and instead discussed with Yang Hao about opening the border and setting up a field, the Khitans needed a lot of iron tools, salt, silk and linen, and the blockade of the three towns of Youzhou had seriously affected the lives of ordinary people, when this question was raised, Yang Hao refused: "The second prince wants Yang Hao to open a yard, but let Yang Hao face his colleagues." ”

Hearing this, Yeluther sneered, and said in a threatening tone: "As far as I know, the general is not familiar with the three of them, you and Envoy Liu have not had a good time recently because of the matter in Hedong, and you have never even met with the other two envoys, I don't know if the general has a dispute with outsiders, the three of them will draw their swords to help." ”

Yang Hao replied: "It depends on who you are arguing with, why you are arguing, if you are arguing with your own people, except for Liu Yuanshuai, Liu Zhang and the others will definitely stand by, because we are not familiar with it, and secondly, it depends on what they are fighting for, if they are just fighting for righteousness, I am afraid that the three of them will not help me, but if it is related to the righteousness of the country, I believe that the three of them will definitely help each other." ”

Yeluthera rose up angrily, pointed at Yang Hao and said, "If you offend the Khitans, you won't end well." ”

Yang Hao also said coldly: "Yang Hao is in Fengzhou, waiting for you to come at any time." ”

The meeting broke up unhappily, Zhang Bozhong only learned the news about a day later, these days he was ordered to inspect the defense everywhere, supervise the war preparations, Zhang Bozhong asked Yang Hao: "Is the general ready to go to war with the Khitans?" Yang Hao said: "Sir, don't worry, the Khitans don't dare to turn their faces, at most they will instruct a few puppets to fight with us." ”

Yang Hao said that the puppet refers to the Khitan conquered Murwei tribe poison Feng, the tribe has a population of 2,000 people, there are more than 600 cavalry, on the night of the surrender of the city in the departure of Yelu Tira, poison Feng 1,000 cavalry raided the nomadic vulture tribesmen in Datongchuan, killed 12 shepherds, robbed 1,800 cattle and sheep, Jin Mi was busy asking Yang Hao for help,

Yang Hao quickly found out that behind the scenes, he instructed the poison to attack the vultures was Yelu Tira, who was returning from the feathers, he was taking revenge on Yang Hao, Yang Hao knew that he asked the barbarian blacks to send troops to attack the drug department on the grounds of saving their allies, and the troops were sent by Gu Duoli's Weiyuan battalion, they changed into the old clothes, rode the oolong horse that came and went like the wind, and the soldiers were divided into three ways to suddenly attack the drug department,

When the people of the Poison Feng tribe were encouraged to fight the vultures, they didn't know that the real purpose of Yelutira was to treat them as stones to ask for directions, they naively thought that with the support of the Khitans, the vulture tribes didn't dare to do anything to themselves, and they realized that they had been fooled when the barbarian blacks suddenly entered their camp, but it was too late.