After a series of arrangements by Liu Hou (of course, in fact, Liu Hou only put forward opinions, and it was Guo Youzhi who implemented them), and now a huge road building group composed of Xianbei people has been formed in the north. The more than 100,000 Xianbei people captured by the First Division were responsible for mining and producing raw materials used in road construction, while the 50,000 Xianbei Qingzhuang captured by the Second Division were responsible for paving roads.

These Xianbei people were scattered in different places to work, otherwise it would be too dangerous to let them gather together, with a population of up to 200,000. In addition, there are still 50,000 Xianbei cavalry of the Suli Department on the battlefield of the Northern Front, if these people are all connected together, it can indeed set off a big disaster, so the necessary precautions must be taken.

These precautions also involved a large number of troops in the Hong army. For example, the more than 100,000 Xianbei civilians captured by the First Division involved the strength of a brigade of the First Division. The Second Division also dispatched a brigade to take care of the 50,000 prisoners they had captured, and although the number of prisoners they had captured was much smaller than that of the First Division, these 50,000 men were all young and strong, and their combat effectiveness was much stronger than the hundreds of thousands of old, weak, sick and disabled prisoners captured by the First Division.

In this way, the first and second divisions that participated in the encirclement and suppression of Wei on the northern and eastern fronts were actually only two brigades respectively, and their combat effectiveness was greatly affected, but fortunately, the first division also had 50,000 Xianbei cavalry to assist, and the second division also had the help of the third division.

The song says: "1929 does not make a move; ......"On a midwinter day when the water was dripping into ice, the troops of the northern front made a move, and their attack opened the prelude to the battle of Wei.

In the winter of the northern country, the cold wind blows, the battle flag is blown and hunting, the ground is covered with a thick layer of snowflakes, and the whole world is very beautiful. The key point is that the Yellow River has been completely frozen, and 50,000 Xianbei cavalry and two brigades of the First Division rode war horses and crossed the Yellow River in batches and entered the Hetao area.

The Hetao area refers to the bends of the Yellow River and its surrounding basins. Originally the territory of the Xiongnu, in 127 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Wei Qing out of the cloud to defeat the two kings of Lou Fu and Baiyang of the Xiongnu, occupied here, and built a city to Tuntian and raise horses, as a base for defense and attack on the Xiongnu.

During the Han Dynasty, it included Shuofang, Wuyuan, Xihe Yunzhong County and Dingxiang County, as well as the northern part of Beidi and Shangjun, which was the northern fence of the ancient capital Chang'an.

At that time, people diverted the Yellow River for irrigation, which led to the rapid development of local agriculture and animal husbandry, and the economy prospered. As the saying goes: "The Yellow River is harmful, only one set of riches", "The Yellow River is rich in the world, and the rich front set is rich in the back", which shows that this is indeed a unique place.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu who belonged to the Han Dynasty were placed in Hetao, so Hetao was a place where Qiang, Hu and Han lived together, and the complex ethnic composition naturally led to the intricacy of power here. After the great rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains Dynasty gradually lost control of this region.

When the Wei state was about to collapse, the three forces of Wei (Han people), Xiongnu (Hu people), and Qiang people fought endlessly here, and they were entangled, forming a very complicated situation. The arrival of the Han army undoubtedly stirred up a thousand waves with one stone, making the already complicated situation even more complicated.

However, this complicated situation was undoubtedly beneficial to the Han army. The more chaotic the situation, the more conducive to fishing in troubled waters, if this is a monolith, then the Han army is afraid that the Han army will have to fight here first, before they can rest assured that they will go south to Guanzhong.

In fact, before the departure of the Han army, countless envoys and "CIA" agents had already entered the Hetao area, wandering among various Han forces and Hu and Qiang tribes, bribe, lure, coerce, and assassinate the chiefs of these tribes in preparation for the arrival of the large army.

As mentioned above, there are three kinds of forces here, and the reason why they are said to be three "species" and not three "shares" is because, if they are divided by race, they can be divided into three forces: Han, Hu and Qiang, but none of these three forces are monolithic.

Except for the Han Chinese forces, which were ostensibly dominated by the Wei court, the Hu and Qiang did not have a unified regime at all, and the various tribes, large and small, were both allied and hostile to each other, and a single fragment of sand is not enough to fully explain this situation.

In fact, even among the various forces of the Han people, it is not monolithic. Originally, they were all local forces of Wei, but now that the Wei court was in danger, they had little control over these local forces. It is difficult to say how many of these Han forces are loyal to the Wei court.

In this case, the envoys and "CIA" agents sent by Liu Hou came into play. Bribery and inducement are aimed at those chieftains or magistrates who can be bought and lured, giving them benefits, or money, or food, or land, or official positions, in short, doing everything possible to win over and buy these people, so that they can facilitate the arrival of the Han army.

The so-called convenience of travel included getting out of the way, providing forage for the horses, meat and food for the large army, and not bothering the large army. The Han army dispatched about 70,000 people this time, plus 200,000 war horses, and the amount of grain and grass consumed every day was very amazing.

The Han army only brought ten days of food per person, but the forage for the war horses was very small. There was barely enough food to eat, but the forage had to be replenished on the way to Chang'an. Due to the need to march quickly, it is impossible ~ to rely on the convoy to carry grain and grass to replenish as in the past, and the only way is to go there and eat there. In the military, there is a nice term for this method, which is called "because of food for the enemy."

It means "for food" on the enemy's territory. How to "cause food"? Of course, it's robbed, do you still have to pay for it? This is what the grassland people like to do the most, and it is also what they often do.

However, the Han army could not do that in the Hetao area, because the various forces in the Hetao were not strictly speaking enemies, they should belong to the objects that could be fought over, and in fashionable terms, they belonged to the objects of "united front" work.

Therefore, the Han army needs to use the above various benefits to exchange grain and grass with them. The Hetao is a place with abundant water and grass, and the problem of forage is not too big in the first place, as long as the horses are let go and they can graze freely on the grassland.

As for the essential essence of the war horse, it doesn't hurt not to eat it for a few days, as long as they are usually fed well and raised with a body of fat, it is still enough to consume for many days. However, it is the middle of winter, the snow is falling, the turf has long been buried under the snow a few feet deep, and the war horse is not a mammoth, and there is no pair of fangs, where can I dig up the snow to find grass to eat.

Therefore, at this time, we can only buy some forage from various forces in the Hetao. There are many nomadic people living here, who are very experienced in grazing, and every year from September and October, they start to mow the grass one after another, dry it and build it up as a reserve forage for the winter.