In the past two years, new scholars have been vigorously recruited and promoted, and they have been placed in various important positions in the emerging empire, gradually replacing the aging bureaucracy. Although the newly appointed scholars may not have the real ability to handle civil affairs, their loyalty to the emperor who pulled them out is unquestionable, as can be seen from the mountains of recitals that are constantly sent to His Majesty's desk every day.

When Taizu died, there were only 193,000 people in the national forbidden army, and in the past two years, 100,000 new soldiers and soldiers of the forbidden army have been recruited to step up drills in Beijing. At the same time, many of the generals were deposed, and the forbidden army in the Taizu era was successively sent to the Beijing division to divide the town into the four directions, and the old people of His Majesty's domain were constantly placed in the Beijing army, and the Great Song Dynasty military has spit out the old and accepted the new in just two years, completely eliminating the unstable factors in the army, and the Great Song Dynasty is as stable as Mount Tai.

Compared with the prosperity of the Great Song Dynasty like a round of rising sunrise, the old enemies of the north Taiyuan and the Khitan people are getting worse and worse, the Liao Emperor Yeluxian is weak, the nobles under the tribe are vying for power and profit, the Khitan elite soldiers and fierce generals are gathered in Shangjing to guard against each other, the Great Song Dynasty has been eyeing the sixteen states of Yanyun since then empty, according to the secret report, the main force of the sixteen states of Yanyun is actually some Han army. If this situation continues, the Northern Expedition of the Great Song Dynasty will inevitably be overwhelming.

In the Northern Han Dynasty, the strategy of "burning its village, moving its people, and emptying its land" has achieved results, and the Taiyuan court now wants the Liao State to reach out and borrow grain every year. The main force of the Han army stationed in Lanzhou, the Tuhun army, sent troops to Hexi without authorization, and the contradiction between Wu Yingying and the Taiyuan court has been made public, and even the Song army besieged Hexi, and Taiyuan did not have a single soldier to save him.

The dragon incense of the Jiangnan tribute emitted a faint fragrance, Zhao Jiong raised his fingers and gently rubbed the hot temples, others only said that the emperor should be happy, only he knew that he knew the bitterness and bitterness, the emperor's mental skills, the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military affairs had to be grasped in the palm of his hand, and he had to carefully calculate the arrangements of various internal and external phases It had taken a lot of effort. The various preparations for the crusade against Taiyuan and the recovery of Yanyun are even more enormous, and the original arrogant generals are unbearable to be trusted, so they must train and select generals. It is necessary to hoard all kinds of grain and grass in advance in various border towns bordering the Khitan of the Northern Han Dynasty, arrange for the generals to protect these advance bases, and prevent these old Taizu generals from contacting their restless nephews, Zhao Defang and Zhao Dezhao.

Although Dong Zunzhi described the situation in the northwest as urgent in the military book, he still could not occupy even a small position on Zhao Jiong's desk. Zhao Jiong himself even had to work hard to pull his thoughts out of his nephew's defense and Northern Expedition plans, so that he had the energy to think about other things. "Zhongqing, although the heroes of Hexi Wu have besieged Lingzhou, they have already shown weakness to the imperial court and asked for surrender, how to deal with it, can there be a plan?" Zhao Jiong said in a deep voice, but he couldn't stop thinking in his mind, there have been secret reports recently, the center of Cao Han's Mansion met with Zhao Dezhao yesterday, and I don't know what to discuss? Those old Taizu generals who were relegated to the northern border towns are said to have many people who have the intention of supporting Dezhao, this Dezhao is very military-minded, and he needs to be carefully guarded against his rebellion.

The ministers saw that Zhao Jiong's face was cloudy, his eyes were quite gloomy, and they didn't know his intentions, only Cao Bin, who had a grudge against Wu Yingying, said first: "Your Majesty, this Wu Hero is ambitious, and now he has a land of thousands of miles to Hexi, and he has not yet been able to clean it up, so he needs to deal with it as soon as possible, otherwise he will have the worry of raising tigers." He paused for a moment, and saw that Zhao Jiong did not express his position, and continued: "Although Wu Yingying repaired the book and asked to surrender, he had already stated in the letter that he was willing to make it difficult for the Cai family because of the attack, and the Fuzhou family became an example, clearly wanting to divide one side, and the heart of disobedience has been clearly revealed. His Majesty is trying to clean up the world, bring peace to peace, and prosper the world, so that the heroes of the Quartet will have different hearts. ”

Zhao Jiong nodded, still noncommittal, turned his head to look at Zhao Pu, Zhao Pu figured out the holy will, bowed down and said: "What General Cao said is dedicated to the country. But," he said, looking at Wang Yu beside him, "there are priorities. In order to pacify Taiyuan, the imperial court made a northern expedition to Yanyun, and prepared for no less than ten years. Storing baggage, repairing roads, and building border villages, the great preparations have gone down. If it was for the sake of this Wu hero, the imperial court rashly turned to the west to use troops, and the whole court would be at a loss. This one too.

Taiyuan, the henchmen are also in great trouble, riding out of Taiyuan, and drinking the horse Bianliang the next day. Hexi, the disease of scabies, the family of the Wu hero is trapped in Lanzhou, the day is not safe, and they can't save themselves, and the threat to Bianliang is minimal. The way to seek the country is to first get rid of the big trouble of the henchmen, and then solve the disease of scabies, which is the second.

Khitan, Xiongguo also, thousands of miles of places, hundreds of thousands of strings, although the civil strife has continued in the past ten years, once cleaned up, it is the great enemy of our dynasty. Although there are 300,000 forbidden troops in our dynasty, we have to guard Heshuo, and it is difficult to divide troops in Hexi. That Wu hero rose up in vain, the soldiers were newly attached, and the people were suspicious, even if he was given a few years to live and be educated, how could he compete with the Central Plains. This is also the third. ”

Zhao Pu looked at Cao Bin, whose face was gradually gloomy, and felt quite proud, "Don't think that if you put on a Confucian robe, you are a scholar." The emperor's determination to go on the Northern Expedition was shaken by you, a soldier?" said in an undoubted tone: "In the opinion of the old minister, we should first appease Wu Yingying and strive to protect the Northern Expedition." In his heart, he disagreed with the plot of the Northern Expedition of the Zhao brothers, and Zhao Pu had a famous saying that has been passed down to future generations: "If you go outside, you must first settle inside." "With the decline of the five generations and the strength of the Khitan, it is not possible to destroy the Central Plains, but it is the continuous change of dynasties in its own country, which shows that the way to govern the country is to focus on the inside rather than the outside. He has never hidden this argument, when Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyi brothers were not emperors, the three of them talked about the general trend of the world together, and Zhao Pu expounded his own point of view countless times, which had a great impact on the Zhao brothers.

Zhao Pu's analysis went straight to the point, Zhao Jiong nodded approvingly, and asked Wang Yu again: "Tian Qinzuo has been besieging Lanzhou for more than a month, and the war can't be delayed, what is the reason?" Although Tian Qinzuo has already reported the war in Lanzhou in the military book, it is the emperor's mind to open up his words and check and balance each other. Moreover, although Zoroastrianism was attacked in Lanzhou and could no longer be used, Wang Yu was still the person in the court who had the clearest understanding of Lanzhou's reality and reality. Zhao Jiong was also quite interested in the fact that the more than 1,000 soldiers left behind in Lanzhou were able to resist for a month under the siege of the army.

Wang Yu didn't dare to slack off, and said: "The one who stayed in Lanzhou was Wu Yingying's left and right hands, and Xiao Jiu, the commander of the right army, had a heavy battalion, a Jincheng battalion, and a thousand five sergeants from the craftsman battalion. Although Wu Yingying has not many troops left behind in Lanzhou, but the border people have always been strong, the people of Lanzhou are led by the sergeant to practice archery when they are free, and Wu Yingying uses the military law department to strangle the people's households, so although there are few soldiers in the city of Lanzhou, there are more than 10,000 strong people in the households available, these strong men can not go out of the city to fight, but it is more than enough to defend the city, and the number of troops defending the city is actually more than 10,000, and the 5,000 forbidden army led by General Cao Han is really difficult to capture. ”