After Zhao Yan returned to the capital, he first rectified the military academy by thunderous means, and then was appointed as the regent by Zhao Ji, and soon shot again, and the military weapons supervisor also sorted out from beginning to end, except for the weapons supervisor Zhang Dian took refuge in Zhao Yan in advance and finally kept his position, more than 30 officials of the armory prison were cleared out, especially Wu Quan, who was a military weapon, was sent to the criminal department for the crime of dereliction of duty, and it is said that even the charges have been decided, and he will be exiled to Luzon overseas, Don't want to come back in this life.

Seeing Zhao Yan acting so vigorously and resolutely, it also made the hundred officials in the court shocked for a while, everyone was shocked by Zhao Yan's tough methods, and even they vaguely saw a little bit of Wang Anshi's shadow from Zhao Yan, when Wang Anshi changed the law with the support of Zhao Yan, he was also so tough, and Zhao Yan's confidence is much more than Wang Anshi, after all, with his current status and fame, the entire Great Song Dynasty can't find a second one, plus Zhao Yan's trust in Zhao Yan, it can be said that if Zhao Yan wants to do something, Almost no one can stop it.

It is precisely because of Zhao Yan's tough measures after his return that many people think that Zhao Yan will definitely insert people in the DPRK and China in the future, and by the way, he will hit those political enemies, such as Lu Huiqing, who must be the first to bear the brunt, so many people are waiting to see Lu Huiqing's jokes, and even Lu Huiqing himself is prepared for the worst.

However, what everyone didn't expect was that the battle they envisioned did not appear, Zhao Yan cleaned up the military weapons supervisor, and then roughly rectified several other important yamen, and then did not take action against the people in the court, but focused all his energy on quelling the domestic rebellion, and dealing with the disputes caused by various reasons such as law changes and wars.

For Zhao Yan's above actions, he didn't understand it at first, but soon a smart person reacted. This is Zhao Yan in order to take into account the overall situation, so he did not take the lead in provoking disputes between the DPRK and China, but mainly to stabilize the domestic situation in the Great Song Dynasty, which is also the best way to deal with the current Great Song Dynasty, after all, the domestic rebellion and various disputes are already very serious, if you provoke the battle in the court again. It will only consume the national strength of the Great Song Dynasty, and it will not be of any benefit to the Great Song Dynasty at all.

understood what Zhao Yan thought in his heart, whether it was the court or the people, as long as they were knowledgeable people, they all appreciated Zhao Yan's approach, and many officials took the initiative to put aside their differences in political opinions and strive to help Zhao Yan stabilize the domestic situation, such as Chen Shengzhi and Zeng Gongliang, two old ministers who have never been in charge of things, also became active and began to really give full play to their ability as prime ministers, and Lu Huiqing did not dare to move. Only Sima Guang is a little dead-headed, and he often persuades Zhao Yan to completely abolish the new law, it is estimated that he has been severely suppressed by the law changers in recent years, so he has a deep prejudice against the new law, but unfortunately now is not the time, so he is perfunctory by Zhao Yan every time.

With the efforts of Zhao Yan and some ministers, the deteriorating situation in the Great Song Dynasty finally began to stabilize, and some less serious disputes were slowly subsided. Although some of the new laws that have been completely repealed by the public have not yet been completely repealed, they are practically no longer in force at the local level. This also greatly calmed down the people's grievances in various places, but now what worries Zhao Yan the most is the Manichaean rebellion in the south and the rebellion in the Western Xia in the northwest.

In March, the south of the Yangtze River was a hazy scene, perhaps to make up for the previous drought. This year's rain seems to be more than in previous years, just the beginning of spring is non-stop, as the so-called spring rain is as expensive as oil, this continuous spring rain is also a rare good thing for farmers in the south of the Yangtze River, at least they don't have to work hard to water the crops.

"What the hell is the weather. When will the sun come out, if it goes on like this, Lao Tzu will be moldy! Guo Kui, who was riding on the horse, wiped the rain from his face, and then cursed in a low voice, of course he knew that the spring rain was important to the farmers, but for him and his soldiers, this continuous spring rain was simply a disaster, and many soldiers who were marching in the rain were sick and had to be sent to nearby states and counties to recuperate, which also further weakened the troops in his hands.

However, compared to this annoying spring rain, what gave Guo Kui more headaches was the cunning Manichaean rebel army in front, he had already defeated the main force of Manichaeism last winter, but the Manichaean rebel Shi Fozi was an extremely cunning guy, he saw that he could not resist Guo Kui's army, and immediately led the rest of the army to flee in all directions, Guo Kui could only chase after him, and the result was several months.

In this kind of pursuit, it seems that Guo Kui's army chased Shi Fozi and fled, but in fact it was not the case, Manichaeism has been operating in the south of the Yangtze River for many years, and has a lot of supporters among the people, especially some gentry and low-level officials are also colluding with them, so that Manichaeism can often get local assistance when fleeing, and as a result, the already defeated rebels have begun to slowly recover, and now Shi Fozi has gathered tens of thousands of people.

Compared with the Manichaean rebels, Guo Kui's army looks very majestic on the surface, but in fact, it is deflated everywhere in this chase, and some local forces who secretly defect to Manichaeism give him a trap everywhere, although they dare not confront the army head-on, but secretly delay the delivery of grain and grass, or release some wrong news, it is enough to make Guo Kui feel tired to deal with it.

What Guo Kui didn't expect was that there seemed to be a Manichaean traitor among his subordinates, and he had designed several military operations against the Manichaean rebels before, but he didn't expect to be known in advance by the other party, and instead used his actions to set a trap, which not only failed to catch the Manichaean rebels, but made the army sent lose their troops and make him even more angry.

First of all, all the troops under his command are all Western troops transferred from the northwest, and the Manichaean hand can't reach there, so the possibility of a traitor in the Western army is very small, but in addition to the Western Army, he has some officials sent from the local government, these officials are responsible for the logistics and other affairs of the army, and sometimes they will also come into contact with some secrets in the army, plus the infiltration of Manichaeism into the locality, so Guo Kui can almost conclude that the traitor must be among these officials, It's just that there are a lot of these officials, and it is not easy to find out the traitor in a short period of time.

Thinking of the above things, Guo Kui, who was riding on the horse, had a headache even more, especially now that the drizzle was drenching his whole body, and the spring breeze blew, and the frozen people fought with their upper and lower teeth. At this moment, I saw a young general step forward and suggested to Guo Kui: "General, you can't go on like this, the soldiers are already too cold to stand it, if you don't take a break and dry your clothes, I'm afraid that many people will get sick tomorrow because of this, and with our troops, if we continue like this, I'm afraid that even if we catch up with the Manichaean rebels, we won't be able to beat the other party!" ”

The young general who spoke was named Yang Anxing, who was the brother who was in the same bedroom as Hu Yanqing and others, and Yang Anxing was also Yang Huaiyu's own nephew, who entered the Western Army after graduating from the military academy, although he was not as dazzling as Hu Yanqing, but he was also steadily promoted to the position of military commander, and this time he was transferred to Guo Kui to clean up Manichaeism, and also made a lot of contributions, so he was valued by Guo Kui and became one of his important assistants.

"An Xing, I also know that going on like this will make some soldiers sick, but the Manichaean rebels have fled far away, if we don't catch up closely, I'm afraid we will lose the trace of the Manichaean rebels, and if these Manichaean thieves find a place to lurk, they will definitely become my Great Song henchmen in the future!" Guo Kui said a little helplessly at this time, he didn't want to stop and rest, but he was afraid of losing the traces of the Manichaean rebels in front of him, so he could only move forward in the rain.

Hearing Guo Kui's words, Yang Anxing also felt very helpless, originally they came with a total of 30,000 Western troops, but after these months of attrition, there are not many people killed in the war, but many people are sick because they can't adapt to the local climate, and have to be resettled in the nearby state capital to recuperate, now their remaining troops are less than 20,000, and the Manichaean rebels who fled in front have grown to 30,000 or 40,000, and he is really worried that one day his people will be eaten by the Manichaean rebels.

Guo Kui insisted on hurrying, and Yang Anxing could also understand his difficulties, so he no longer persuaded him, and then returned to the headquarters and continued to grit his teeth and hurry, and finally when it was almost dark, he finally came to a place called Qingyunling, according to the information they had obtained before, the Manichaean rebels had been stationed here two days earlier.

In fact, Guo Kui and they quickly found traces of the camp where the Manichaean rebels were stationed, according to the scale of this camp, it should be the main force of the other party, and looking at the direction of their march, it should have crossed the Qingyun Ridge, but this also made Guo Kui more worried, because after the Qingyun Ridge is the border of Hangzhou, they had driven the Manichaean rebels from Hangzhou once, is this time the other party going to kill back?

With the above speculation, Guo Kui and Yang Anxing and other generals also became nervous again, Hangzhou is an important town in the south of the Yangtze River, and there must be no mistakes, so they must catch up with the Manichaean rebels as soon as possible, otherwise when they defeat Hangzhou, it will definitely shake the whole country, and if the imperial court blames it, they will definitely not be able to eat and walk around! (To be continued......)