Waiting to see the backs of Xu and the others disappear into the mountains, Bai Yijie shouted at a forest on the side of the road: "Come out, Elder Brother Yi must have been waiting in the forest for a long time." ”

A little later one is short and thin. The young junior dressed as a merchant slowly walked out of the depths of the woods with a load of goods, until he came to Bai Yijie's mount, put down the load and smiled with a smile: "I have indeed been waiting for Gongfu in the forest for a long time." ”

Bai Yijie looked at him as a lively merchant and smiled: "In the past, when I was a classmate, everyone said that Song Yichang of the new country was like anything, but today your pretending kung fu has improved a lot." ”

Song Yichang also smiled: "If it weren't for Bai Gongfu personally writing a letter to beg, I wouldn't have traveled hundreds of miles to explore here." Since I received your letter, I have pretended to be a merchant and went deep into the pit to investigate, and in the past few days, I have traveled all over the large and small mines in Ezhou. Did you receive my survey? ”

"The reason why I stayed in Ezhou for so many days is to wait for your investigation book." Bai Yijie waved his feather fan: "What I am not sure of, I Bai Yijie has never done." ”

Song Yichang laughed: "In my generation, only Bai Gongfu has the ability to go through the heavens and the earth, it's just that, I will go home first if there is nothing to do, and if I escape for many days, it will be inevitable if my father knows about it." ”

"I'll explain it myself." Bai Yijie said: "At present, I can't do without Brother Yi. Although it has been very hard to travel to Ezhou this time, can you take another trip to Huangzhou for me? ”

Song Yichang was a little inexplicable: "What are you doing in Huangzhou?" ”

"There is something I want to understand for me." Bai Yijie showed an unfathomable expression again.

While Bai Yijie was cooking the Ezhou mines, Zheng Yunming was busy rearranging the garrison in Xiangyang City.

This is exactly what Zhao Fan meant, after the new commander took office, if he did not face too much military pressure, he would always be accustomed to transferring the generals who were originally stationed in various places to change defense duties one after another. According to someone on another plane, if you stay in one place for a long time, you will inevitably develop a lot of intertwined roots, and even your joints will rust off, so it will only be good to come out and move.

Let everyone move, and the relationship with the local government is not so close. The connection between the generals will also be weaker. This is indeed of great benefit to the newly appointed marshal in grasping the military and political power.

Of course, Zhao Kui was not stupid enough to immediately drive Zheng Yunming out of Xiangyang. Don't say that this son is a celebrity in front of the court and the Privy Council, and he may be told the truth if he is casually dispatched. Needless to say, the 10,000 elite soldiers under his command are indeed the most trustworthy troops in the current system, and they can't leave his side easily. said that the personal relationship between his two brothers and Qing Zhigong would never be able to save face and not sell Zheng Yunming.

But the rest of the troops had to move somewhat.

The loyal guards stationed in Xiangyang, Fancheng, Xinye, and on the north bank of the Han River, including generals such as Li Boyuan, the deputy commander of the capital, and Huang Guobi, the commander of the same capital, were all elite and capable troops summoned from the north, with a total of more than 20,000 people, and were now transferred to the Jingmen Army, the north bank of the Yangtze River, Yingzhou, and Ezhou.

In their place were a variety of troops from elsewhere in Jinghu.

Among them, the most backbone part comes from the troops of the Imperial Jing-Hubei Commandery Division stationed in Jiangling and Ezhou, that is, the army left by Wang Min of Jing'e Commandery, and the strength of the entire Jing'e Commander's Division is around 50,000, and of course only a small part of the troops who have been transferred to Xiangyang.

The other army was the loyal army of about 4,000 men from Meng Heng's subordinates in Huangzhou, commanded by Meng Jing's brother Meng Jing, who was also ordered to come to Xiangyang Mansion and station.

In addition, because Dengzhou and Tangzhou, to which Jingxi Road belongs, have been emptied, the city wall has been destroyed, and there is no longer any value in stationing. Therefore, the Jingxi pacification department, together with the only armed force of his subordinates, the Baojie militia of about 2,000 people, also retreated to Xiangyang to station.

The Jinghu Establishment Envoy Division has under the jurisdiction of three loyal and righteous troops, known as the Three Loyal Soldiers: the Loyal Rui Army, the Loyal and Righteous Army, and the Loyal Serving Army, each of which has about a few thousand people, has also been stationed in the Xiangfan generation. These troops were also composed of soldiers from the north, and they were quite strong in combat but their loyalty was questionable.

Earlier, on the way to Xiangyang, the Governor's Office dealt with the rape of a civilian girl told by the subordinate sergeants of the Huguang Commander-in-Chief that the Huguang Commander-in-Chief had told the soldiers of the Yingtian Governor's Department, and it took Wei Liaoweng only one day to find out that Liu Qingde, a subordinate of the Huguang Commander-in-Chief, had bribed the prostitutes in the city to make false accusations against the Yingtian Commander-in-Chief. The purpose was to force Zheng Yunming, the governor of Yingtian, who was later the deputy capital of Jing'e and Hubei, to move out of Yingzhou. At the time of the great reshuffle after the invasion of the enemy, the Privy Council was noncommittal about the public case, hoping to pretend to be confused. But it is obviously impossible for He Yuanshou, the commander-in-chief of Huguang, to stay in the Jinghu Defense Area, where Zheng Yunming sits in a big seat.

At the request of He Yuanshou, the Privy Council was reappointed as the Commander-in-Chief of Huaidong, and before the new Commander-in-Chief of Huguang arrived, the Xiangyang Governor's Office incorporated the three armies under the Commander-in-Chief of Huguang into its direct jurisdiction, and the tea merchant army under it was transferred to Xiangyang Mansion to station.

Hubei has been the hometown of tea since ancient times, and there are a large number of people who rely on growing and selling tea for a living, because the government monopolizes the price of tea, making the price of tea very expensive. As a result, the number of merchants who trafficked illicit tea increased day by day, and they even formed gangs and openly opposed the imperial court officials and soldiers with weapons. Zheng Qingzhi, who was serving as an official in Jinghu at that time, gave an idea to the Consul General of Huguang: "This generation is strong, it is suitable to be a soldier, and it can be used in emergencies." The then commander of Huguang adopted this opinion and recruited more than 1,000 tea merchants to form an army independently, and later made many contributions in the war against the Jin State.

Today's tea merchant army has only more than 700 people, but because the supplementary soldiers are recruited from tea merchants, they are still fierce and fierce, and they are still undisciplined. During the First Battle of Jinghu, they had defeated the Mongol cavalry in Yidu County, and they had also been punished for burning villages and taking advantage of the opportunity to loot.

Zheng Qingzhi, who was far away in the capital, was also very concerned about this old army, and told his son in his letter to try his best to help the troops established by his own initiative, and not to let the name of the tea merchant army disappear in the military register.

Zheng Yunming didn't take his father's words to heart at all, after all, compared to the tea merchant army, the shock brought to him by another team was much greater.

Under the guidance of the crimson pennant and the five-color signal flag, the cavalry lined up in three columns drove from the Nanshan Mountain Road to the south gate of Xiangyang. Each cavalryman wore a black iron scarf, a brand new inverted oil gourd bottle, an iron armor, and a leather girdle around his waist. The white silk ribbon on the chest was tied into a cross, and the spear and flag hung on the victory hook hung down, and the majestic and righteous momentum made the people on the side of the road can't help but bow and worship.

If it hadn't been confirmed that the Mongols would have collected their troops back to the north a long time ago, Zheng Yunming almost thought that this was another Han'er cavalry belonging to the Mongol army coming to attack.

"Where did this cavalry come from?" When he spoke to Wang Deng, he was surprised and didn't know how to express it: "The army of the entire Jinghu can't gather so many cavalry?" ”

Of course, he made it up, but he really didn't meet these two military horses after he came to Jinghu, and coincidentally, everyone never mentioned the existence of these two military horses to him.

The two armies of Xuanfeng and Youyi under the command of the Jing'e Metropolitan Command Division are the absolute elite troops of the first class of the Southern Dynasty of Megatron, with more than 2,000 people in each army, pure cavalry.

During the Shaoxing period, the cavalry of Jing'e was so strong that it not only surpassed the armies of Nandu, but also was able to collide with the iron cavalry of the Jin army at the peak of combat effectiveness on the wilderness plains in the north, and won the battle. At that time, Yue Fei's own soldiers alone had more than 10,000 iron cavalry.

The country has been in the south for a hundred years, and its armaments have been gradually weakened. But the emaciated camels are still camels, and the current Jinghu system can barely make up five or six thousand cavalry. It's just that the number is enough, and it can't be compared with the Yue family army in terms of equipment, training, and discipline, not to mention that they will face a giant cavalry group that has never appeared in history before and uses war horses.

Needless to say, the Mongolian headquarters mixed nomadic cavalry, even the Han cavalry represented by the 40,000 Han'er households that have been crisscrossing North China for a long time, it is enough to deal with these Southern Dynasty cavalry with only two or three thousand people. In that year, the famous general of the Jin State and his loyal subordinates fought with the Song army in Lianghuai, and used 10,000 troops to deal with the Song army of 30,000, not only killing the commander of the Song army, but also eliminating 3,000 cavalry of the Song army. The weakness of the cavalry of the Song Dynasty can be seen. It is no wonder that Jin Xuanzong still disdained the combat effectiveness of the Song Dynasty army in the desperate situation of the Mongols surrounded on all sides, and declared that he would "cross the Jianghuai River with an army of 3,000 horses".

But Zheng Yunming didn't mind it. As long as there is such a scale is enough, according to the usual number of war horses in the Song army, there are only a few hundred horses in the 10,000 army, or even none, after fighting to the death with the enemy, even if the victory is at most only two or three hundred enemy soldiers, the rest of the enemy army will flee on the war horses, and the Song army has nothing to do about it.

As long as Zheng Yunming was given thousands of cavalry, combined with strictly trained infantry, it was enough to create small victories in the Jingxiang region, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and as long as one or two thousand men could be obtained each time, this kind of loss was enough to make the Mongols feel painful, so painful that they gave up their attempt to invade the Great Song Dynasty.

But the current cavalry can't do that. Not to mention Zheng Yunming, who is now a little successful in riding, even the ordinary people who are laughing and watching on the side can see that the riding skills of these knights are really not good.

Everyone straightens their backs, and the movement of the reins is mechanical and rigid, and when urging the war horse to move forward, sometimes the strength of the ribs of the war horse is too strong, and the war horse will neigh in pain, and rush out a few steps to disrupt the queue.

This is completely different from the Mobei riders who everyone saw on the battlefield with a unity of men and horses. Those terrifying-looking Hu cavalry were simply like four legs under them, driving their war horses around and around, crossing mountains and streams as if they were walking on flat ground. With these guys sitting on horses with their bodies twisted and sitting, they can only kill themselves when they go out to fight.