Whether Han Shizhong is sure or not, no one knows, but Yue Fei always feels that he seems to be in Han Shizhong's way, from the beginning of Han Shizhong's unfathomable smile, Yue Fei felt that he had fallen into a trick, and sure enough, on the seventh day, Han Shizhong brought a huge amount of grain with a thousand iron horsemen who were going to go before.

The three views of the generals of the Western Army have been refreshed, Zhang Xian grabbed Han Shizhong's collar and was about to ask Han Shizhong if he had robbed his house and wanted to kill Han Shizhong, Han Shizhong shouted that he was wronged, he obviously didn't do that, why did he bully people like this? I'm just doing a business with those border people.

If you don't eat salt, you have to lose your strength, and you will have the risk of dying, to say small, people who don't eat salt have no strength, and if you don't eat salt, you have to die, so the state stipulates that salt and iron are monopolized, it's not unreasonable, and salt can even become a strategic material.

More importantly, salt is not ready-made and put there as long as you go to get it, salt needs to be purified and filtered in various ways before it can become edible salt, there are indeed many places in the northwest region that have the existence of salt salt, but those salt salts are very impure, after eating poison to death, although this poison can be solved, but it can not be said that eating salt once will detoxify once.

But for a long time, the salt-making technology is relatively backward, and there is no thorough research, so the salt that can be eaten has become a very important strategic material, so the vinegar cloth came into being, in the pre-Tang Dynasty, the reason for the war between the Tang Dynasty and some small tribes in the northwest is the competition for salt, the Han people have salt-making technology, and the tribes do not have it, and they can't buy it, so they can only wage war to grab salt.

After the establishment of the Great Song Dynasty, science and technology developed rapidly. Salt production technology has been greatly improved, but this technology has always been firmly in the hands of the Han people, become a national strategic resource, of course, this has no effect on the Western Xia and the Liao people, the era of chaos after the fall of the Tang Dynasty made many Han people in order to escape the war and hide in the northern grasslands and the northwest Gobi, become the Western Xia and Liao vassals. The alien nations that established the regime all mastered the technology of salt production.

They also had trade with the Great Song Dynasty, so there was no shortage of these, but not every foreign country was worthy of the Han people's service, the Tibetans did not, the Uighurs did not, and a large number of small tribes on the Song border did not, they still did not master the salt-making technology, and could only survive by trading with the Han people in exchange for salt.

Da Song is not a fool, after mastering these truths. He skillfully used the demand for salt of these tribes, grasped the salt technology to the death, used salt to do business with these tribes, did business, and even exchanged the warriors of these tribes who were good at fighting to come to the Great Song Army as soldiers, and enhance the combat effectiveness of the Song Army. And so it was born.

They need table salt, and they can't do without it. In order to confront the party and its own lack of combat effectiveness, the Great Song Dynasty also needed to win them over to fight for themselves, which was a very reasonable exchange of interests, and in this transaction, many times, the Han people stood in the position of the profiteers. War is not common, but eating salt is a daily necessity.

Han Shizhong is a veteran, he joined the army at the age of eighteen, and has been in the Western Army for more than 20 years. It is normal for some generals of the Western Army in the Tong Guan era to do business with the Tibetan people in private and sell illegal salt to obtain huge profits out of the idea of self-interest.

Han Shizhong participated in it, and there were some ways, plus he himself was talkative and cunning, so he actually had some direct trading partners.

Through hundreds of years of intermingling with the Han people of the Great Song Dynasty, these Tibetan people also gradually mastered agricultural technology and began to live an agricultural life, they could also produce enough food and be self-sufficient, and by the way, they used the advantages of the plateau to graze, and traded livestock and grain with the Han people for salt in exchange for salt, so they themselves were not short of food.

Han Shizhong obtained temporary control of the Western Army's materials from Yue Fei, and immediately mobilized a large amount of salt from the salt depots in various places, found his own way, and began to sell a large amount of salt.

Han Shizhong's appearance has become their big savior, don't say it, livestock, grain, whatever you like, take it all away, give us salt!

A food crisis in the Great Song Dynasty and the salt crisis in the Fan people were solved in this way, it is not miraculous, they have a great demand for salt, the batch of salt mobilized by Han Shizhong was robbed in an instant, this old boy also understood the way of bidding without a teacher, whoever gave the high price will sell the salt to whom, this is good, the salt that could have been exchanged for one pound of grain has been exchanged for three catties of grain, and the windfall profit has been doubled.

Therefore, the sale of illicit salt cannot be prohibited no matter what.

The whole person who listened to the generals of the Western Army was Spartan, that's right, salt is nothing to the Great Song Dynasty who has mastered the salt-making technology, and salt is not grown in the ground, as long as there is a salt pond, how many or how much, the Western Army lacks everything else, that is, there has never been a shortage of salt, so our richest things can be exchanged for what we lack the most, and we can also exchange for several times the huge profits, such a good thing, who doesn't want to do it?

Yue Fei was overjoyed, and immediately ordered to mobilize a large amount of salt from the Chang'an salt depot to hand over to Han Shizhong, desperately exchanging food and meat from the hands of the people from all over the country, as military supplies for the army, while writing to Beijing, thinking that under the premise of obtaining a large amount of food, he already had the confidence to take the initiative to attack and break the Western Xia side.

Yue Fei hoped that Zhao Huan could approve himself to expand the scale of the war, change from a defensive counterattack war to a war of annihilation, solve the problem of the party members in one fell swoop, completely stabilize the northwest frontier, and lay a sufficient foundation for the Northern Expedition.

The Western Army did not rashly launch an attack, while letting Han Shizhong, the old boy, resell salt, in exchange for enough food and meat, and accumulate military supplies, while waiting for the latest instructions from the imperial court, Yue Fei believed that as long as the imperial court got this news, it would definitely allow itself to expand the scale of the war, at that time, it was not a matter that could be solved by 30,000 people, probably, more troops would have to be added, at least 30,000 more!

It will take more than half a month for the urgent news of 800 miles to travel from Chang'an to Beijing, and more than half a month is enough for Han Shizhong, the old boy, to plunder more food and meat from the hands of the Tibetan people, and the strategic materials of the Western Army are slowly increasing, slowly increasing, and slowly increasing to the extent that they are enough to cause a catastrophe to the Western Xia.

When Beijing received this news, Zhao Huan was also very surprised, he never imagined that the Western Army could solve the problem of food shortage on the spot, he immediately rummaged Yue, summoned the political hall and the Privy Council, and asked them what to do now.

After Wu Yong learned the news, he was overjoyed, he had a set of research to deal with the Western Xia's strategy of destroying the country, limited to the problem of food shortage and could not come up, now this problem can be solved by the Western Army itself, and he is the happiest.

"Your Majesty, the minister has ordered the Privy Council to study a set of practical and feasible strategies for destroying the country, please read and correct it!" Wu Yong doesn't care about civil affairs, he just cares that the war can go smoothly, in the case of no lack of logistics, it is the basis of his consideration, Zhao Huan took over this strategy, glanced at it roughly, and felt that it was quite feasible, so he handed him over to Yue Xuan: "Yue Qing, take a look." ”

After handing it to Yue Xuan, Zhao Huan asked Zhao Ding: "Zhao Qing, if General Yue is allowed to expand the scale of the war, but the food used can be solved by itself, can the rest of the military materials be guaranteed to be produced?" Can bows, arrows, ladders, ramsticks, and gunpowder meet the needs of the army? ”

Zhao Ding discussed with the accompanying officials around him, and said: "Your Majesty, if it is not for these things, the rest of the military materials need only wood, steel and saltpeter, etc., which can be collected, these are no problem, but military materials need craftsmen to make, and the labor and money required for production may be more, and the imperial court's finances have been tight, and there may be some problems, and there may be too much money." ”

Zhao Huan took out the financial statistics of this quarter in front of him and looked at it, frowning: "Although I am indeed a little nervous, I can't afford this expense, right?" In this way, the palace that is being renovated will stop, and the wood, stone and craftsmen will be transferred to produce military supplies, I can only do so much, and the rest, you can do it, I decided to support General Yue to fight this battle, since there is a chance to completely solve the western thieves, then the imperial court cannot drag the army back! ”

Zhao Ding frowned, thought for a long time, and then said: "Your Majesty, the old minister will do his best." ”

Zhao Huan nodded, and turned his gaze to Yue Xuan: "Yue Qing, do you think there is any problem with fighting like this?" ”

Wu Yong and the Privy Council also set their eyes on Yue Tuo, and they knew in their hearts that the person who could decide whether this strategy was feasible was Yue Tuo.

Yue flipped through the battle strategy used by Wu, remembered the previous experience of fighting in the northwest, and said slowly: "On the whole, it is very practical, in line with some of the advantages of the Western Army's operations, the minister thinks that it is feasible to do this, you can send this battle strategy to General Yue, let General Yue arrange it in combination with the actual situation, after all, the battlefield is changing rapidly, what is really needed is the general's immediate command, and the imperial court should not have constraints on the general." ”

Zhao Huan nodded: "What Yue Qing said is yes, then, so be it, Zhao Qing, you go to draw up the decree and order the Ministry of Industry to make every effort to rush the military supplies to the northwest to support the Western Army in the operation, Wu Qing, you go and issue an order to allow the Western Army to expand the scale of operations, if there are indeed fighters, the imperial court will allow the Western Army to eliminate the Western thieves!" In addition, send this battle strategy to General Yue and let General Yue arrange it. ”

The ministers received the order: "The ministers obey the order!" (To be continued.) )