Xie Ai led the troops to break the Zhao army and relieved the threat faced by Guzang City, and Zhang Chonghua, the king of Liang, valued Xie Ai very much for this, so he naturally ignored the malicious slander of the ministers, and insisted on adding an official to Xie Ai to show his absolute support and trust.

After making some necessary preparations, Zhang Chonghua personally led 30,000 main troops and horses to march in the direction of Guangwu City to reinforce Xie Ai's troops.

In the direction of Yuzhong City, Ma Qiu and Sun Fudu led the remnants of the defeated army to retreat in the city, preparing to collect the scattered men and horses, and then continued to retreat back to temporarily avoid Xie Ai's edge.

However, for the two successive routs, Ma Qiu and Sun Fu are still not very convinced, they think that the first time is to underestimate the enemy, and the second time is because the soldiers under their command have gone through the first rout, their morale is too low, and they accidentally fell into Xie Ai's tricks, so they led the second defeat, they believe that in the future, they will be able to defeat Xie Ai, so as to avenge this arrow.

After gathering enough men, Ma Qiu and Sun Fudu led the remnants of their forces, abandoned Yuzhong City, and retreated in the direction of Caohan City, preparing to join up with Wang Zheng's men and horses, so as to strengthen their momentum and re-boost the morale of the army, and then fight Xie Ai again.

In the direction of Guangwu City, after Zhang Chonghua arrived at the city, he saw that Xie Ai had taken care of the city in an orderly manner, greatly praised Xie Ai in front of the ministers, and handed over half of the soldiers and horses he brought to Xie Ai, and asked him to lead 30,000 horses to continue to pursue in the southeast direction, so as to completely repel the army of Zhao and lift the siege of Caohan, the capital of Hezhou.

Xie Ai received the order of Shane, and immediately led 30,000 horses to march to the southeast, and successively took over more than a dozen cities abandoned by Ma Qiu and Sun Fudu. The soldiers pointed directly at the vicinity of the city of Caohan.

######

In the direction of Nanzhengcheng, since Ge Hong accepted Hua'an's request to make zuò black powder, he started the experiment seriously with the suspicion of trust, whether what Hua'an said was true or not, he decided to give it a try.

After several days of non-stop testing, Ge Hong still did not find any signs of the pill cracking, and he couldn't help but have a trace of doubt about Hua'an's statement.

However, he still insisted on adjusting the ratio of the three materials and adjusting the size of the heat. Even if you can't configure what Huaan wants in the end. At least give it a try, too.

"Boom ......" In the last real yàn, the configured pill exploded in the alchemy furnace, and the entire alchemy furnace was blown to pieces, with a huge explosion. The whole Nan Zheng City could hear it.

Hua An, who is handling official business in the Assassin's Mansion. Naturally, an explosion in the direction of the north gate was also heard. He knew that this must be the success of Ge Hongshi's black powder, so. Put down the work at hand and immediately go to the direction of the medical hall and prepare to find out.

Seeing that he had really configured a pill that could crack, Ge Hong was also very surprised, fortunately, there were not many materials configured, but the alchemy furnace was blown up, and there were no casualties.

Ge Hong immediately sent someone to report the situation to Hua'an, and before the person sent went out, Hua'an had already arrived.

"Gong Ge, the general heard the voice here in the mansion, it seems that the elixir must have been successfully refined." As soon as Hua An entered the door, he said happily.

"Yes, the hard work of the old man for several days has finally not been in vain." Ge Hong hurriedly replied.

Subsequently, Hua'an asked about the ratio of these three materials, and asked Ge Hong to prepare some more drugs to supply the miners who opened the mines.

After some understanding, Hua An left the Literature Museum and went to the direction of the baggage battalion, asking the soldiers of the baggage battalion to immediately hoard charcoal, sulfur and nitrate, and the three materials should be hoarded on a large scale, and they should be hoarded separately, so as not to cause a big explosion when put together.

For the current construction of Liangzhou, many of them are inseparable from black powder, such as mining, digging mountains and roads, and cleaning up boulders in the river.

As long as there is this black powder, the efficiency of all production and construction will be greatly improved, so that the construction period can be greatly shortened.

Of course, for the technology of configuring gunpowder, it must not be passed on lightly, for this reason, Hua'an has already explained to Ge Hong, so that he must keep it secret, and the gunpowder at this stage is personally configured by Ge Hong and his henchmen.

In order to increase the production of black powder, Hua'an plans to recruit reliable laborers on a large scale and hand them over to Ge Hong's command, these reliable laborers must naturally not leak the configuration methods and processes of black powder.

You must know that in the deaf and dumb hall, Hua'an has taken in and fed thousands of deaf and mute people, among these people, not everyone has the ability to take on the task of smart people, those who have been eliminated have nothing to do, if they are organized and let them configure black powder, it is the best of both worlds.

After thinking about this, Hua An went to the deaf-mute hall and handed over the matter of mobilizing the deaf-mute to prepare black powder to Huang Fuming, and asked him to organize it immediately.

Huang Fu Ming accepted the order, and immediately organized hundreds of deaf and mute people who could be qualified to configure black powder, and took these people to the location of the configuration of black powder, after communicating with Ge Hong, Huang Fu Ming directly gave these deaf and mute people the order to configure black powder, and taught them how to configure it.

After these hundreds of deaf and mute people were on the right track, Huang Fu Ming left the position where the black powder was prepared, returned to the Congshi camp, and continued to train the Congshi.

Since there was a large amount of black powder, several iron mines around Nanzheng City have ushered in spring, and the output of each mine has increased significantly, and the speed of blasting iron ore with explosives is much faster than manual mining with hammers and chisels, and the efficiency has increased several times.

With more iron ore, the smelted pig iron will also increase, and pig iron is an important raw material for building various iron weapons and civilian tools.

In addition to iron ore, copper, silver, gold, and other minerals have also increased production, thus greatly enhancing Liangzhou's economic strength and accumulating sufficient economic foundation for the Northern Expedition in the future.

With the help of black powder, Liangzhou's economic development is about to enter the fast lane, Hua'an is naturally very happy, in the process of black powder continues to be put into production and construction, it is inevitable that there will be many problems, for this reason, Hua'an and Ge Hong discussed and solved them one by one, for the use of black powder in the process of being accidentally killed and injured by the explosion, have given enough comfort, and emphasized safety, for this reason, it is specially stipulated that the lead of black powder shall not be shorter than three zhang, and the material is soaked in oil cotton thread, in order to increase the reliability of ignition.

Although the construction in Liangzhou, so that Hua'an is very satisfied, but the situation in the northwest, but make Hua'an very worried, according to the scouts and Congshi reports in recent days, Zhao general Ma Qiu and Sun Fu have divided their troops to invade Guzang, and all the way like a bamboo, successively broke through more than a dozen cities in Liangguo, and approached the southwest of Guzang City not far from Hongchi Ridge, there is a tendency to break through Guzang in one fell swoop.

In case the situation of the Liang State has really been developing in the direction of the Zhao State's army, then the situation will be very bad, once the Zhao State is destroyed and the Liang State unifies the north, the next target should be Wudu County and Hanzhong, and without the containment of the Liang State, Hua'an will have to face the invasion of the superior forces of the Zhao State alone, and in this way, there will not be enough energy to develop the economy.

For this reason, Hua'an was worried, and decided to intervene in the northwest war situation at any time, as long as the Liang State could not support it, Hua'an would lead the main army of Liang and Qin Prefectures to attack Guanzhong, so as to distract the Zhao army and keep the Liang State as an indispensable ally.

"Big brother, good news!" Just when Hua An was worried, Wang San walked in happily.

Seeing Wang San's happy face, Hua An hurriedly asked, "What's the matter, what's the good news?" ”

Wang San hugged his fists and said: "Big brother, according to the latest news from the scouts, the army of Liangguo broke the Zhao army twice in a row in Hongchiling and Guangwu City, killing the Zhao army and not being able to form an army. ”

"What, the army of Liangguo broke the Zhao army, it's really a twist!" Hua An said with a sigh.

Wang San nodded, and said with a straight face: "Big brother, this is nothing, according to the scout's report, when he was in Hongchiling, the army of Zhao Guo had 50,000 horses, while the army of Liangguo only had 5,000 horses, and the difference in strength was ten times. ”

"One against ten, so powerful." Hua An was shocked again when he heard this, paused, and said softly: "The army of Liangguo was defeated at first, but now, it can be defeated by one against ten, and the change is too fast, it seems that the main general must have changed." After saying that, Hua An seemed to think of someone.

Wang San smiled and said excitedly: "Big brother guessed right, the commander of the Zhao army of the Liang Kingdom has indeed just taken office, and he is also a white-faced scholar named Xie Ai, but I didn't expect that this Xie Ai scholar is so powerful that he actually beat Ma Qiu, a famous general of Zhao State, back again and again, which makes people can't believe it!" ”

Seeing the famous Xie Ai, the general of Liangguo who defeated Ma Qiu, Hua An showed a smile on the corner of his mouth, this Xie Ai he knew, his strength in history was comparable to Han Xin of the Han Dynasty, but his reputation was weaker than Han Xin, but his strength in leading troops in battle was not lost to Han Xin at all, and he was a typical military genius forgotten by history.

"This Xie Ai really has a set of wars, with this person, Zhao Jun will not be able to destroy the Liang Kingdom, and the eldest brother can sit back and relax." Hua An breathed a sigh of relief and said slightly.

"Big brother, our army recruits have been training for several months, even if Zhao Jun calls, we will be able to deal with it." Wang San was not afraid of Zhao Jun at all.

Hua An smiled and said softly: "This is natural, but at this moment, it is not yet the time for the Northern Expedition, if you can not use troops, try to avoid it, so as not to consume too much strength." ”

"Well, that's what Big Brother said." Wang San responded. (To be continued......)