At the end of the first month of the 11th year of Jingwu, the tall jujube red river meandering horse stood on the bank of the Liao River, and a young man with a short beard on his chin motionless looked back and forth in the west and north directions with one hand on his waist.

He wore a silver-ratskin coat trimmed with wind-trimmed feathers, a turquoise-inlaid barbarian belt with a swallow feather hanging from his waist, and a sturdy mallet with a sturdy handle hanging from the saddle on the other side.

"Mr. Wu, I think this place they chose is good, so let's do it here!"

"Childe, you can think about it. If we can't succeed in the first battle, not only will we have to retreat into Shenyang, but this relatively complete reserve will be broken. The rest ......." Wu Mao did not continue.

Li Dan smiled: "If I fail, my head should be hung on Yongding Gate (Shangjing North Gate), right?" After he finished speaking, he took out the monoculars from the leather case around his waist and looked at the other side for a while, lowered his head and thought about it, and pointed to it and said:

"Sir, you see, there is the Liuhe River more than two hundred steps wide in the south, and Yan Feibo in the north. We could see them on the high ground, but we couldn't see the hills through the trees on the other side.

The ground is civilized enough that we can set traps, lay mines, and repair fortifications, and the location is mine! 30,000 Erlang has been waiting for more than half a year, and he is very skilled in training, drills, and simulations, and his morale is high.

Sun Tzu said that if we are 70% sure of the battle, we can win, and this time we must not lose to the Kaeras again by the Liao River!"

I left Beijing and came to Liao last year, and when I arrived at the scene, I found that the Liao army was really unusable.

Li Dan, who was in a cold sweat, reported to the emperor and Shi Hao about the lack of staff, neglect of training, lack of clothing and armor, etc., and urgently ordered the trading company to purchase various military supplies in Shuntianfu and ship them to Jinzhou and Shenyang.

Shi Hao had just set off and was surprised to see this report. He is a marshal, and the total shortage of troops is nearly 8,000 people, and the originally said 50,000 troops are lost in an instant!

Shi Hao hurriedly reported to the Ministry of War, and issued a document according to Li Dan's suggestion, requesting permission to recruit volunteers on the spot to form a regiment to practice and participate in the war.

But first, time waits for no one, and second, Liaodi is already sparsely populated, so how easy is it to quickly recruit 8,000 people?

In the end, Li Dan gave him the idea to recruit shogunate pacesetters along the way, which could play a supplementary role to some extent.

In the end, when he went out of Shanhaiguan, he already had 4,000 Qingji disciples among his subordinates, and Shi Hao felt that his waist was a lot harder.

But fighting the Kels is still not enough to see. After defeating the combined forces of Seyan and Luyan, Yebi Khan marched 210 miles south in one day, so frightened that the people of Seyan almost abandoned the city of Yidu and fled.

Fortunately, the main focus must be on subduing the Lu Yan Department, and the army turned around and went east to let Cha Eqi Khan breathe.

Yebi Khan was indeed bluffing against Seyan, and his troops then pointed to the Harawan Pass, and before the Han soldiers could complete the interception, they rushed through the Lemulen valley and occupied the city of Udan.

At this moment, the original idea of a decisive battle with the enemy in the wicker ditch west of Kulen was wrong, because the enemy's advance was too fast, and the army on Kulen's side had not yet arrived, and the enemy had already crossed the Utunte Sea and appeared outside the city.

At that time, the defenders of Cullen were only 3,000, and it is commendable that they resolutely carried out their orders, and after holding on to this dilapidated small city to block the enemy army more than ten times their size, they began to break through on the fourth day.

As a result, only 200 men returned to their camp, and almost all the rest were killed. After losing the first battle, Shi Hao, who arrived at the front line, stopped the clamor of the counterattack.

He clearly saw that his army came from different systems, and only enthusiasm, the combat power was not high, and the supply was insufficient to continue fighting.

Therefore, he sent cavalry to attack the large camp in the rear of the opponent, and he led his team to retreat in echelon (Scholbu).

The cavalry attack was so successful that the enraged Behan turned his elite back, and as his generals requested grazing and resting here, the army halted at Kulen.

Months of long journeys had exhausted his people, and the Khan had compromised because he didn't want internal divisions.

He spent the summer in the Kulen grassland, where the water and grass restored the tribesmen and horses, and when autumn came, in the season of the traditional grass valley,

He sent troops again.

The two armies went to rob Seyan and Luyan respectively, and he himself led the team to the city of Scholbu.

Scholbu was first established as a polder fort during the Northern Expedition of the First Emperor, and later gradually Han Chinese and Ergu scattered people and fugitive slaves who had lost their homes and sought refuge gathered outside the fort.

At the beginning of Jingwu, the city was built and became a border city between the empire and the ancient city of Seyane, which means that when you come here, you can be regarded as officially stepping into the territory of the empire.

Shi Hao saw that he would come here sooner or later, so he left 5,000 people to defend the city, and left thousands of rolling thunder and "grenades" provided by Li Dan, as well as more than 30 tiger squat cannons collected from various places.

The 5,000 soldiers inflicted heavy losses on Yebi's troops with their sharp firearms - three commanders were killed and two were seriously wounded.

Of course, they also achieved their goal. Those who could not succeed in the attack for eight days had no choice but to retreat to Kulun to recuperate and lick their wounds, and at the same time sent cronies with 10,000 cavalry to the north and east to investigate.

The cavalry, who did not want to go east, stepped into the ambush circle and ran back with their armor thrown away.

This time he will be depressed, he will not dare to try again, if there is another defeat, maybe these nobles will demand to stop attacking the Southern Empire. Seeing that it was getting colder, he had to set up camp.

From the sea to the wicker ditch, they are covered with snow. In the thick snow, people thought about how to survive the terrible winter, and no one was in a hurry to conquer.

But when the snow began to melt, the atmosphere suddenly became tense. and the men of his general, Kutush, will meet the officers and soldiers at Gravel Beach. If it's winter, both parties will turn around and walk away without even thinking about it, but this time is different.

This rocky beach soon turned into a battlefield, and the officers and soldiers who were caught off guard left their bodies and hurriedly retreated.

When they came back to look for them, they found that all the corpses had been stripped of their bodies, and the red-eyed Ergu people were as fierce as hungry wolves who had been waiting for a winter, which also attracted a retaliatory counterattack from the front-line officers and soldiers.

The final skirmish between the scouts gradually turned into a major battle involving tens of thousands of people on both sides.

The Ergu people were very clever and repeatedly attacked from the north, and the officers and soldiers panicked when they thought that reinforcements were coming, and in a flash they lost the advantage of the terrain and were driven into the valley and beaten violently.

Shi Hao was shocked to stop the unauthorized actions of the front-line generals, and the whole army was contracted, and some of the troops entered the city of Scholbu to strengthen the defenses there, and the rest of the troops withdrew to Daqinggou and Xinglongbao successively.

However, the troops who were demoralized and complained a lot about the senior officers lost both battles, and the whole army had to use tricks to hide from the opponent and retreat east to the area of Montenegro and Wulongling to defend and rest.

On the one hand, he sent people to contact and persuade the Luyan Department to come to join forces, but the latter had been frightened by the major Kerr armies and did not dare to move anything, so Shi Hao had to defend it, and at the same time he thought of Li Dan, so he politely invited him to discuss countermeasures.

Li Dan's role is more embarrassing, he is the superintendent appointed by the emperor, the theory is only supervision, there is nothing for him to command, only when the senior generals retreat, dereliction of duty or collaborate with the enemy, this general envoy can be used.

But the emperor gave him the privilege of commanding and using the second-line reserves concentrated in the Haigai area. Shi Hao's invitation to him actually has three meanings:

The arbitrary decisions of a few high-ranking generals endangered the whole army; I want to discuss with him what to do next; It is hoped that the 30,000 reserves in the rear who have been in training will be used.

Soon after arriving in Liaodi, Li Dan saw the arrogance of the Liao generals and the various problems of the troops.

Under his reminder, Shi Hao recruited the shogunate pacesetters all the way, and as a result, this pacesetter performed quite well in this battle, showing tenacity and decisiveness, which was in stark contrast to other troops, which was also where Shi Hao secretly rejoiced and thanked Li Dan.

However, this was not the case at the beginning of his tenure, at that time he politely asked Li Dan to stay in Liaoyang to watch the battle, which meant that it was enough to have me, and the prison army did not have to come forward.

Li Dan said to his indignant subordinates that they were right, we are the prison army, not the general. So he stayed in Liaoyang with peace of mind and focused on the defense and development of the south in a down-to-earth manner.

At this time, Li Dan's second-line troops included the two guards of Jinzhou and Fuzhou stationed in Hai and Gaizhou, as well as the reserve army of Deng, Lai, Weihai, Yantai and other places, and at the same time, there were 7,000 people in Kaiping and Funing in Jinzhou.

Later, 3,900 veterans of the Huanzhou regiment recruited from Jiangxi (and more than 400 academy soldiers in the name of the merchant regiment's standard protection armament) also arrived by boat, and Li Dan had the old subordinates in his hands and began to implement his own plan, and in the name of inspection and understanding, he got along with the commanders, especially Sun Douen, the chief soldier of Liaodong Town.

Mr. Sun's hometown is from Qingzhou, Shandong, and he has been in Liaodi for 20 years, so he can be regarded as an old Liaodong. He is already sixty years old this year, and he is extremely dissatisfied with Shi Hao, who put him in Liaoyang, and scolds with his mouth closed, "That calf".

However, Li Dan likes it a lot, not only because Li Gengsan and Hou Xie sent people to take care of it, but also because this doll as big as his grandson talks and does things, which he admires quite a lot.

"Look at how other people's babies are born and raised, don't look at it as a civil official, there is no frame at all, then it is a close minister of the Son of Heaven!" After returning to the house and calling Qi children and grandchildren, he said, and after a moment of silence, he gave the military order:

"The second, third, and two of them are also known as literati, and they will go to the Li Zhongshu Shogunate tomorrow to make a book for me, and they will be at home all day!" After speaking, he turned his face to look at the eldest grandson:

"Dezhi, what's the use of seeing the sky and playing with a big knife at home? The country is in danger, and it is the right thing to go into battle to kill the enemy! I also went to Li Zhongshu's side to be a guard."

"Master, I still have the identity of a martial artist to be a guard?"

"A little bunny cub still picks and chooses? Go and study hard, the guards around Li Zhongshu are all heroes who have been killed by thousands of troops, and it's good to stay!"

"Da, this baby is still ......." The eldest Sun Qinggang was still secretly laughing at Sun Zhe and Sun Qi's two younger brothers, and in a blink of an eye, he was apportioned to his son, so frightened that he hurriedly stood up, this is a war, it will be fatal!

"What's the matter, Lao Tzu was also killed, a turtle grandson, do you want to forget your roots?"

The old man roared, so frightened that several children and grandchildren shrank their necks, and the old wife wanted to dissuade her, but quickly swallowed her words back when she saw this.

"Grandpa, I'll go!" Sun Dezhi patted his chest: "I heard about Li Zhongshu's young hero, I have long wanted to see and see!" Don't worry, I'll go tomorrow and kill a dozen of his sons on the battlefield, and show grandpa his grandson's ability!"

The old general laughed: "That's right, this is not the majesty of the Sun family!"

But having said that, repeated defeats at the front also made him anxious. Therefore, Li Dan put forward the idea of training soldiers and training regiments to practice preparedness, and he immediately agreed.

But...... Where does the money come from? Li Dan waved his hand, don't worry, I have an idea.

I don't know how he did it, and soon news came from Beijing, one is that the household department sent the prefect of Liaoyang, informing him that he was preparing 500,000 acres of wasteland on the outskirts of the city and planned to build three tunbao, and that 10,000 immigrants from Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Anhui would come to Liaoyang!

Then the emperor's decree was that Zhun Liao Town raised its own funds to train 8,000 regiments as an official and military auxiliary, and at the same time imitated the inland to establish inspection divisions and inspection divisions at all levels, and inspection subdivisions to strengthen the control of Liao and the management of new immigrants, and gave Li Dan a new title:

Wailang, a member of the household department, presided over the resettlement and land distribution of Liaodi.

Then Li Dan magically told General Sun and the prefect Qi Daxing: There is money!

If you have land, you can make money! Li Dan's idea is very simple: contract the recruitment of immigrants to businessmen in the four provinces, and then the group training, inspection agencies, castles, residences, and shops needed by new immigrants are all planned on the map in pieces, and investment attraction plus construction contracting and sales.

Merchants from all over the country came one after another when they heard the movement, including those from Shandong and Hebei on the other side, as well as merchants from Shanxi and Jinshan. No matter how far the road is, who will have a grudge against profits? The summer is not over yet, and Liaoyang has already gathered businessmen and sprouted hearts!

"Vote for those who have a ticket, the cat is about to wear it!"