A group of cavalry galloped in the black rumbling night, the wind whistled in the ears, the scenery on both sides was constantly changing, the cavalry rushed through the field, flowed across the river, through the forest, the horses galloped, tireless, only a lone full moon in the night sky condensed them, accompanied them all the way.

At the beginning of the morning, a round of morning sun erupted, sprinkling a brilliant glow on the earth, and the cavalry rushed up a hill and stopped the galloping horses, the purple glow reflecting the faces of each of them.

Yang Yuanqing stared at the forests and cities in the distance, and after four days and four nights of galloping, they had arrived in Lulong County.

"Let's go!"

Yang Yuanqing gave an order, rushed down the hill, and a thousand guards followed him and galloped down the hill......

At noon the next day, Yang Yuanqing once again arrived at the Beiping Shipyard located at the mouth of the river, and after half a year of development, this area has undergone tremendous changes.

The population gathers, and a new city stands at the mouth of the river, which is a newly built county seat, called Huikou County, including the two surrounding towns, which already has a population of nearly 3,000 households, most of which are the families of shipwrights.

Yang Yuanqing led more than 1,000 cavalry to arrive, which had already alarmed the officials of the county seat and the shipyard, the young new county commander, the county officer, Zhao Guangcai, the shipyard director, Yu Zhenwu, the general of Yingyanglang, Zhang Long, Zhang Hu brothers, and more than a dozen officials greeted them one after another.

Yang Yuanqing smiled slightly, "Everyone, please excuse me, it's not the first time I've come." ”

Everyone was very excited, and they asked Yang Yuanqing to go into the county seat to rest, Yang Yuanqing saw from a distance that the masts on the sea were like forests, and the big ships stood on the sea surface and the mouth of the river like a hill.

Yang Yuanqing's emotions began to rise, and he pointed at the distant coast with a horsewhip, "Let's go see the warship first!" ”

He rode his horse to the shipyard, which was still empty. But it was much more lively than before, and everywhere there were teams of boatmen busy, dozens of boatmen carrying a huge keel passing in front of them.

In order to attack Goryeo, the Sui Dynasty built a large number of ships and piled up countless shipbuilding materials in the shipyard, but most of these materials did not come in handy and were stacked in warehouses, which were fully utilized at this time.

It's just a shipyard. The warships of the Sui army were concentrated at the mouth of the Lushui River at the junction of Hejian County and Zhuo County, which could be reached directly through the canal, which is the location of today's Tianjin.

After more than half a year of hard work, the craftsmen of the shipyard have successively repaired hundreds of large sea ships towed from all over the world. Some of the large river ships were also modified to withstand the wind and waves at sea.

At this time, the Sui army had more than 800 warships at sea, but Yang Yuanqing's goal was 1,000 warships, and he came here to inspect how many warships were about to be repaired in the shipyard.

"Within a month. How many more warships can be repaired? Yang Yuanqing turned around and asked Zhao Guangcai.

Zhao Guangcai hurriedly stepped forward and replied, "Since receiving His Highness's order, the shipwrights have been divided into two shifts. Repair ships around the clock, and within a month, we can guarantee the delivery of another two hundred large ships,"

Yang Yuanqing nodded, and said to Zhang Long and Zhang Hu's brothers: "Let all the shipwrights finish repairing the ship." Follow the big boat to the mouth of the Lu River together, just like last time. I need them to be a crew. ”

After a pause, Yang Yuanqing asked again: "How many experienced shipwrights can be summoned?" ”

Zhang Long bowed and said, "Back to His Highness, there are about 3,000 people." ”

Yang Yuanqing's heart relaxed, he pointed to a big boat and smiled: "Get on the boat and take a look." ”……

In Taiyuan, Ziwei Pavilion passed the proposal of Yang Yuanqing, the king of Chu, to prepare for Qingzhou. Annihilated Dou Jiande's department in one fell swoop, and the news came out. It shook the imperial court, and many ministers said that they were right.

The Sui army's seizure of Hebei and the Central Plains has brought a huge burden to the Sui Dynasty, and seeing that the autumn grain harvest is a foregone conclusion, in this situation, Ziwei Pavilion actually decided to attack Qingzhou, which is tantamount to adding insult to injury, and there is opposition from the government and the opposition.

But there are also voices in favor, mainly Hebei faction officials, the people of Qingzhou are living in hardship, and they are eager for the Sui army to come to the rescue, if Qingzhou is recovered, then the refugees will not pour into Hebei, and they can be relieved on the spot.

The news soon flowed from the imperial court to the people, and it also caused a huge controversy in Taiyuan City, and people everywhere were talking about this battle, which was even more eye-catching than the Central Plains War.

Whether it was against or in favor, it could not change the decision made by Ziwei Pavilion, the army began to assemble on a large scale, the grain from the Taiyuan granary was loaded onto the ships, and the large ships loaded with grain sailed in the direction of Hebei, passing through Fenshui, the Yellow River and the canal, and sailed to Hejian County.

At noon, a wine shop outside the north city of Taiyuan was full of guests, and it was very lively, and the tables were all discussing the war against Dou Jiande, and the controversy had spread from the court to the people.

"Has the disaster in Hebei been resolved? Have the hungry people in the Central Plains been appeased? I don't know how to solve the two major burdens, and now I want to pull Qingzhou in, can this small Hedong afford such a big burden? An old man was heartbroken and rebuked the imperial court's decision.

Another middle-aged man had a tempered temper and persuaded the old man, "Qi Weng, you can't say that, if Qingzhou doesn't take it, won't there be a burden?" Seeing that the autumn grain harvest is a foregone conclusion, and a large number of hungry people in Qingzhou will inevitably pour into Hebei or the Central Plains, rather than leaving their hometowns to beg for food, it is better to settle them in their hometowns, I think this is the purpose of the Sui army's attack on Qingzhou. ”

Another drinker sighed, "The point is how much grain do we have?" The war has started, the army has been mobilized, and the money and food are about to go out, if there is not much food, a war will be exhausted, and what will be used for disaster relief? ”

"There should be more food, I heard that the last time I negotiated with the Tang Dynasty, I slaughtered the Tang Dynasty fiercely, there should be enough food, otherwise His Royal Highness the King of Chu would not have made this decision." ……

There was a lot of discussion everywhere, and one of the middle-aged drinkers was slowly drinking fruit wine, but his ears were straight up, and he listened to all the discussions in his ears.

He quietly settled the bill, quickly left the liquor store, this person walked into the North Market, came to a pharmacy, a guy greeted him, "The shopkeeper is back!" ”

The middle-aged man nodded and walked into the pharmacy.

Just as the Sui Dynasty set up the intelligence hall in Pyongyang, the Goryeo people also extended their tentacles into Taiyuan, after the assassination of the princess half a year ago, the Goryeo Hall was wiped out, but two months ago, Gai Suwen sent a group of Goryeo Hall members to continue to collect intelligence from the Sui Dynasty.

Unlike the last killer intelligence officer, this time it was changed to a businessman style, the middle-aged man named Gao Wenjing, a well-known doctor in Pyongyang, became the leader of this group of Gao Litang intelligence officers.

He led more than a dozen of his subordinates to use this pharmacy in Beishi as a base, spent a high price to collect all kinds of information, and then transferred it to Liaodong with Eagle Letters, and finally sent it to the inner city of Goryeo and sent it to Gai Suwen.

Gao Wenjing was about forty years old and could speak fluent Chinese, but from his appearance, he could not tell that he was a Korean.

Gao Wenjing hurriedly walked into the backyard and into a room, he sat down at the table, spread out the silk paper, and wrote the latest information little by little with a thin pen, "The Sui army will launch a campaign against Qingzhou, which will cause widespread dissatisfaction among the people. ’

Of course, this kind of important information, he could not listen to a few discussions in the wine shop and take it seriously, in fact, he had already received definite news from the imperial court that the Sui Dynasty was going to attack Dou Jiande in Qingzhou and complete the campaign before the autumn harvest.

He went to the liquor store just to hear the public opinion.

After writing the information, when the ink was dry, they carefully rolled it up and put it into a thin bamboo tube, which was the communication method they learned from the Sui army, training the letter eagle to deliver the news, and their eagle release point was outside the city, first sent to Liaodong, and then from Liaodong to Goryeo.

Gao Wenjing walked out of the room and handed the bamboo tube to a man, "Send this letter quickly, don't delay!" ”

The guy took the letter box and hurried away, and Gao Jingwen walked unhurriedly to the front hall of the pharmacy......

The day after the Ziwei Pavilion of the Sui Dynasty made a decision, Li Shimin of Chang'an also received urgent information from Tang Feng.

In the inner hall of King Qin's mansion, Li Shimin was pacing back and forth in the hall with his hands behind his back, with Tang Feng's urgent information on the table, and Li Shimin's military advisor Fang Xuanling sitting on the other side.

"Your Highness, I think it's very strange, the military operations of the Sui Dynasty have never had anything to do with Ziwei Pavilion, and they were directly deployed by Yang Yuanqing, this is the principle of separating the military and government of the Sui Dynasty, it has always been like this, why do you actually ask Ziwei Pavilion for approval this time?"

"Maybe this is the beginning of the restructuring of the Sui Dynasty." The eldest grandson on the other side, Wuji, said.

"Impossible!"

Fang Xuanling did not hesitate to deny the idea of the eldest grandson Wuji, "Even if Yang Yuanqing ascends the throne, he will never give the military power to Ziwei Pavilion, not to mention that he is still the king of Chu now, Wang Xu's experience is just not far away, and he will never give the military power to Ziwei Pavilion." ”

Li Shimin stopped, Fang Xuanling's judgment was indeed reasonable, in fact, he also felt that it was unlikely, it was actually approved by Ziwei Pavilion, even if it was a formality, Yang Yuanqing would not be the slightest vague in military power.

"Why does that gentleman think?" Li Shimin looked at Fang Xuanling and asked.

Fang Xuanling pondered for a while and said: "I think there is only one possibility for this, that is, there is no such thing at all!" ”

Li Shimin was taken aback, "How do you say this?" ”

Fang Xuanling sneered and said slowly: "To be honest, I don't believe that Yang Yuanqing will attack Qingzhou at this time, Qingzhou is in drought, he will only cause public resentment to boil at this time, the people of the Sui Dynasty hate him and add burden, and the people of Qingzhou hate him for winning the drought in the army, if he is smart and uses the drought in Qingzhou to help the victims, then what he gets is the hearts of the people of Qingzhou, and leaves the notoriety of poor disaster relief to Dou Jiande, I believe Yang Yuanqing also understands in his heart." ”

The eldest grandson Wuji next to him nodded approvingly, and added: "If you really want to attack Qingzhou, you should be silent and use thunder to end the battle, and when we get the news, the war will be over, this is the plan that Yang Yuanqing should take, not so much fanfare, let us seize the opportunity." ”

"Then what is Yang Yuanqing's intention in doing this?" Li Shimin asked puzzled