Princess Taiping and Xue Chongxun rested in Huaqing Palace for another night, and the next morning they hurriedly left this warm palace and parted ways, Taiping returned to Chang'an, Xue Chongxun and the Flying Tiger Regiment Guards went straight north.

Xue Chongxun's initial destination was Shangjun (near present-day Yulin), which was the military center of the Guanzhong Army in the north, and a large number of elite Tang troops were stationed in the interior. In order to ensure the legitimacy and smoothness of the troop transfer, after returning to Chang'an, Princess Taiping would issue a military order to Shangjun through the military department, and make up various official documents for Xue Chongxun.

The journey to Shangjun was bumpy and boring, and the weather was still very cold, so naturally it was not as comfortable as soaking in the hot springs in Huaqing Palace. Xue Chongxun wrapped a very thick fur coat around his body, and then passed the time with a book in traditional Chinese characters printed vertically, but the taste of reading in the carriage was really not very pleasant, and his eyes shook away, and it didn't take long for people to be dizzy.

He lifted the curtain and looked outside, and there was snow nearby, and dead dead grass would emerge from the snow; However, looking into the distance, you can find that there is a faint layer of light green in the branches and fields, which is the breath of spring, after all, the envoy has already begun spring. The sergeants on horseback in front of and on the left and right were also thickly dressed, covered with almost one eye, and drove in silence in the cold wind, surrounded only by the sound of horses' hooves trampling in the soft snow.

Sure enough, Xue Chongxun felt the wound on his left shoulder tremble for a while, so he didn't dare to lean on the carriage, so he could only sit with his waist straight, and he could only rest when he arrived at the post station to rest.

After walking all day, I arrived at a small station, and I had to spend the night here, there were 200 people in the Flying Tigers, and the rooms and beds in this small station must not be enough, but it was better for everyone to stay in the house than to camp in the ice and snow.

When Xue Chongxun got down from the carriage, he heard a sergeant complain: "This is really frozen! Wouldn't it be even more cold further north? ”

Xue Chongxun took over and said: "When I got to the place, it was February, have you heard of 'February spring breeze like scissors'?" ”

The sergeant looked back and saw him, hurriedly bent down and clenched his fists, and after a while, he remembered Xue Chongxun's question, so he shook his head and said, "I can't read." ”

At this time, Li Kuiyong, who was also illiterate, said to the sergeant in a tone of lesson: "This is poetry!" Xue Lang, how did you read the whole sentence? ”

Xue Chongxun thought about it, and then satisfied the curiosity of the big-headed man and said: "The jasper is made into a tree high, and ten thousand green silk ribbons hang down. I don't know who cut out the thin leaves, and the spring breeze in February is like scissors. ”

"Good poetry! Good poetry! Li Kuiyong sighed twice unexpectedly.

Xue Chongxun pondered in his heart that He Zhizhang seemed to be a person from the Tang Dynasty, but he didn't know if he had written this poem now. After all, not all of the people in his entourage were illiterate, even the military generals of the Flying Tiger Regiment had very good practice in writing and ink, so in order to avoid others mistakenly thinking that he had written it, he explained: "This poem was written by He Zhizhang. ”

Thinking of He Zhizhang, Xue Chongxun only remembered that he was a famous poet, but he was not impressed at all as for his practical talents, and this method of identifying talents was very limited, because people who wrote poetry well did not necessarily have military and political talents.

When the army entered the post station, they lit a fire in the courtyard and cooked dry food, and the officials of the post station also found some wine and meat, and everyone ran around in the wind and snow all day, and at last they could eat a hot meal. I can only sleep on the floor all over the house, squeezing together to make do. However, Xue Chongxun had a room to sleep in, and the imperial doctor who accompanied the army took the opportunity to rest and changed the medicine for him.

Rest for one night and continue the march the next morning, a journey that would have to be repeated for many days. The pain of the wound, the bumpy journey, and the cold weather are not the most uncomfortable, but the most uncomfortable thing is this boring and boring. Imagine what it's like to be able to sit for a month on a long-distance train, and it's much more comfortable on the train. He walked for a few days and called Li Kuiyong into the car to chat with him, but Li Kuiyong always talked about knives and guns, and Xue Chongxun got tired of it in less than two days, so he found another team with a lot of literature and ink to study poetry and poetry together......

When he arrived in Suizhou (Guannei Road, southeast of Shangjun), it was already early February, and Xue Chongxun suddenly received news from Shangjun: Zhang Renyuan openly announced his rebellion against Chang'an.

The messenger sent a copy of the proclamation of the army from the north, and then hurried south to Chang'an.

Xue Chongxun stayed in Suizhou for one night, read the text carefully, and sure enough, it was in the name of King Size. From the standpoint of Xue Chongxun or Princess Taiping, this kind of article is simply self-inflicted, but fortunately, Xue Chongxun's face is thick enough...... Among them, the crimes of Princess Taiping's mother and son, such as tyrannical power, unauthorized abolition, conspiracy and so on, are all true, and what is arrogant and extravagant, cruel and unkind, and so on, Xue Chongxun felt that he had been wronged in his heart, and what was even more excessive was that he openly said that their mother and son were incest! This made him a little angry.

That night, he received the officials sent by the county guard to contact and greet him, and asked the officials of the upper county: "Have the soldiers and horses set off?" ”

The official replied: "I received an order from the military department six days ago, and Zhang Shouzhu was ordered to lead the light cavalry of Shangjun to the west and rush to Lingzhou. ”

"Zhang Shouchuang?" Xue Chongxun blurted out a question.

The official of Shangjun hurriedly explained: "The surname of the guard is Zhang Chongsi, but he is not related to Zhang Renyuan, I am afraid that he has never even met, please rest assured." ”

Xue Chongxun nodded after hearing this, surnames like Sun Wang Li Zhao Zhang are all big surnames, they are everywhere in the world, and they don't necessarily have any blood relationship with each other, maybe they go back to the same ancestor for several generations, but what's the point? According to the Han people, all the people in the world can be traced back to the descendants of Emperor Yan and Emperor Huangdi.

The envoy of Shangjun said again: "King Si Ze and the chief steward of Shuo Fang really ate the gall of a leopard, and they dared to raise troops against His Highness. ”

Xue Chongxun was silent, and said in his heart: Zhang Renyuan sent two groups of people, all the way to the surprise soldiers and all the way to the assassin sneak attack, so long without hearing the news of success, how can you judge that the sneak attack failed. At this time, if he didn't hurry up and mobilize his subordinates, he would have no chance at all; At this time, he was raising troops in the open, so that he could "legitimize" the hostile measures against Chang'an in his jurisdiction, and this legalization meant that he at least had an explanation for his non-compliance with the imperial decrees...... Otherwise, Chang'an will escort him back to Beijing to ask for a righteous and bright edict, what reason does he, as a courtier of the Chang'an court, have to be unrestrained? When the time comes, it will be tantamount to resisting because of fear of sin.

Xue Chongxun pondered that Zhang Renyuan would most likely join forces with the Turkic Khanate and borrow troops to launch a war against the Chang'an regime.

He received the necessary news from the envoy of Shangjun, and sent the man away, not wanting to say anything more to an unfamiliar official. At this time, he had no staff and advisers around him, and when he set off from Huaqing Palace to the north, he only brought the Flying Tiger Regiment Guards, and there was nothing to discuss with the generals of the Flying Tiger Regiment, either the level was too low or someone like Li Kuiyong couldn't even read a word, what was there to plan with him?

Although Zhang Renyuan and others had openly rebelled, Xue Chongxun did not panic, he did not think that Zhang Renyuan could immediately mobilize a large army to fight south to Guanzhong. So the itinerary remained unchanged, and the next morning he left Suizhou with the Flying Tiger Regiment and continued to march to Shangjun.

Three days later, they arrived in Shangjun, and Wang Dai, the county guard, led the officials and people to warmly welcome them out of the city ten miles away, and the solemnity of its ceremonies was almost like the blessing of the Son of Heaven. Xue Chongxun also fully understood his feelings, especially after King Ze spread the word to the world, he publicly accused him of voyeurism, so that those who were originally peripheral and did not know much understood the current situation.

Wang Dai was born in a scholar family, and also had a wide range of pastoral industries in Shangjun, and after receiving Xue Chongxun, he did not welcome him to the dilapidated county government to settle down, but held a banquet in his own mansion and gave up his own mansion as Xue Chongxun's line. The front yard is the place where the office issues military and political orders, and the inner house where Wang Dai lives is used as the place where Xue Chongxun rests and falls, and the servants and maids in the house are all at the mercy of the call.

After the banquet, Wang Dai brought his son and daughter concubine to meet Xue Chongxun, and hinted that the concubine still lived at home...... Xue Chongxun was funny in his heart, and he really thought that Lao Tzu was as ridiculous and shameless as it was written? No matter what, the woman who can still move the subordinate officials can't do it?

He simply ordered the soldiers of the Flying Tiger Regiment to clean up a side hall in the front yard hall where the guard of honor was stacked, and then Li Kuiyong and other lieutenants and brigade commanders also lived next door. He also set up a table in the hall as a lobby, and requisitioned this house, and did not harass the inner house of the county guard.

After the marching army was established, Xue Chongxun began to arrange manpower, and for the time being, there were only the generals of the Flying Tiger Regiment and the civil and military officials of Shangjun...... Of course, it would be impossible to deal with Zhang Renyuan with such a little person, so he immediately formulated the preliminary arrangement.

He first wrote an urgent report back to Chang'an, asking to be named the "Chief of the March of the Heisha (Turkic Nanting) Road", and sent the generals Yin Ci and Zhang Wulang to the north as deputy generals, and Wang Changling and Zhang Jiuling as the staff of the marching counselors, and formed a civil and military team on this basis.

The title must first be formal and legitimate, and then it can justifiably crusade against rebellions and foreign enemies in the name of the general manager of the march.

The next day, after a night of consideration, Xue Chongxun thought that war with the Turks might be unavoidable, and that he had to prepare a large army to enter the army in addition to using diplomatic means, so he wrote a letter to Princess Taiping, asking her to authorize the gathering of the elite from the northern region of Guannai to Shangjun to prepare for the Northern Expedition.

The letter to deliver the military emergency was carried out in an eight-hundred-mile expedited, and there were constant changes of horses along the way, so the transmission of the news was relatively fast, and in late February, he received a message from the Zhongshu Ling Zhang. Zhang said that in the article, the bitter water of the empty treasury and insufficient troops was poured out. Because of the large-scale war against the Tibetan State just last year, the war and the aftermath of the war have consumed a lot of money (the Taiping repair of the Qing Palace in Hua also cost a lot of money, but Zhang said that he did not say it explicitly), and now less than a year has passed, and the new year's tax revenue has not begun, and Xue Chongxun is preparing to wage war against the Turks.

However, Xue Chongxun was on the rise, expecting to deal a heavy blow to the internal and external enemies who opposed him, so he ignored Zhang's message and insisted that the military department transfer a group of elite soldiers, grain, grass and ordnance to the north. G