Chapter 138: Preparations for War
The emperor of the Great Liao Kingdom, Tianzuo Emperor Yelu Yanxi was furious and asked Xiao Ming to send troops to attack the Western Xia Kingdom, but Xiao Ming said that there were not enough soldiers and horses in the Southern Courtyard! This made Emperor Tianzuo very embarrassed!
In fact, what Xiao Ming said is the truth! At present, the entire southern courtyard soldiers and horses are still the structure of Xiao Ming's attack on Beijing, there is no increase or decrease, a total of 30,000 cavalry, 50,000 or 60,000 infantry and auxiliaries, and 10,000 archers, some of these soldiers and horses are stationed in Tokyo, as well as the men and horses stationed in various states and counties.
The strongest 10,000 Wuhuai battalion cavalry was also classified by Xiao Ming as the private army of his Wugu enemy Lie Commander Division, this part belongs to the more effective men, but a large part is in the hands of Xiao Tzu Buye, stationed in Jinzhou Dayingkou and Lushun area.
And Nanjing Liunanfu nominally has tens of thousands of elites stationed in Xiongzhou and Bazhou, but these horses do not really belong to the Southern Courtyard moderation, but belong to the inner court of the Great Liao, and the right to transfer troops is basically not subject to the Southern Court, but to obey the inner court of the Great Liao State, and now this part of the people and horses have been withdrawn from the Song-Liao border, and they went to Beijing along the northern grassland to prepare to defend the Beijing Division.
Now that he wants to fight Western Xia, Xiao Ming really doesn't have enough people in his hands! At that time, the Western Xia was called: Great Xia Dynasty! Since the end of the Tang Dynasty, the country established by Li Yuanhao, a member of the party, is now the emperor of Chongzong Li Qianshun, who is exactly forty years old this year, in the prime of life, ambitious, and determined to open up the Great Xia Kingdom to become a great power in the world.
However, the battle of Hengshan that had just ended with the Great Song Dynasty, the Western Xia lost troops and lost generals, and then was coerced by the Western Army, and had to surrender to the Great Song Dynasty, paying two million taels of silver, and then countervailed with 50,000 Hetao war horses.
Earlier, the Western Xia took the initiative to surrender to the Great Liao to pay tribute, even the Liao resisted the Song Dynasty, in recent years, the Great Liao State was in danger, the Western Xia was like a bad wolf that smelled blood, Chongzong Emperor Li Qianshun took the opportunity to unite the Western Zhou Uighurs and other Great Liao subject states, constantly encroached on the land of the Liao State from the northwest, and marched into the South Altay region, crossed the Amu Darya River to the Altai Mountains.
In order to appease and paralyze the Great Liao State, they sent envoys to send gifts to Emperor Tianzuo, and generated the discovery of gold mines in Altai, to mine the gold mines and share them with the Liao Emperor, the white cheap Emperor Tianzuo was directly coaxed very happy, and did not take the Western Xia's occupation of the land of the Liao State as a matter at all.
Now Emperor Tianzuo, who only knows the ambition of the wolf son of the Western Xia Kingdom, vows to give the party members some color! But there are not enough soldiers and horses, and Emperor Tianzuo himself does not have absolute confidence, what can I do?
"It's all to blame on those Jurchen barbarians, who lost hundreds of thousands of horses!" Emperor Tianzuo scolded fiercely.
Xiao Feng got up first and said to Emperor Tianzuo: "Your Majesty, don't you weaken the 50,000 ** elites of the Northern Courtyard Yelu Yu to attack Western Xia?" ”
Emperor Tianzuo said: "What about the Jurchen barbarians in the north?" By the way, and you, the widow hasn't settled your account yet! ”
Xiao Fengxian hurriedly lay on the ground and said: "Weichen is guilty!" ”
Emperor Tianzuo turned his head and asked Xiao Ming: "I don't know if Aiqing, do you have any way?" ”
Xiao Ming said: "Wechen has a way, in fact, it doesn't take many soldiers and horses to attack the Western Xia Kingdom, and the soldiers and horses of Wechen's Wugu Enemy Lie Commander Army Division are enough, but these horses of mine are extremely expensive to fight, I don't know if Your Majesty can support it?" ”
Tianzuo Diqi said: "How much money can your soldiers and horses cost?" ”
Xiao Ming said: "My soldiers and horses spend a lot of money on crossbow arrows in battle, but in order to increase the power of crossbow arrows, I need to buy an extraordinarily powerful Black God Crossbow from the Great Song Dynasty!" This is the first thing, and the second is that I still need the latest armor, and in order to encourage the soldiers to kill the enemy, I give them a high salary, not the distribution of finances and slaves! All in all, it's very expensive......! ”
Emperor Tianzuo's eyes rolled and he suddenly smiled: "Ai Qinggui is the king of the Southern Courtyard, and you are in charge of the entire Liunan Mansion, so you have a lot of benefits to come, right?" How can you cry to me that you are poor? ”
Xiao Ming shouted that he was wronged: "Your Majesty Mingjian, I just became the king of the Southern Courtyard, and in order to solve the problem of resentment, the equipment used by myself was my own private money, and the land in the South Mansion was vast and sparsely populated, so what oil and water was there!" The money and grain in the treasury are all His Majesty's, and Weichen doesn't have the courage to take it! ”
Xiao Ming began to nag and defend himself, and kept crying poorly, and pulled Xiao Gan, the privy deputy envoy, to testify to him, making Emperor Tianzuo frown, he waved his hand and said, "Okay, okay!" I know you're a great loyal servant, you say, what do you want, and the outnumbered ones will meet you."
Xiao Ming smiled: "Your Majesty is not in a hurry, please follow me to the back hall, I still have the good wine of Jiannan Cooking Pot brought from the Great Song Dynasty, Your Majesty is also very tired, I invite Your Majesty to drink, let's talk about this matter slowly"
Xiao Gan and Yang Qizhong, who followed Xiao Ming. And Alima rolled his eyes, watching Xiao Ming pull Emperor Tianzuo into the back hall, ignoring Xiao Fengxian who was lying on the ground.
……
After Xiao Ming came out, his face was full of smiles, and Xiao Gan asked, "King, I don't know what Your Majesty has agreed to your request?" ”
Xiao Ming said: "It's nothing, I asked everyone for some military salary!" ”
Yang Qizhong asked, "It can't be so simple, right?" Da Shuai must have gained a lot of benefits to laugh like this! ”
Xiao Ming smiled and didn't answer, and said in his heart that the gold mines in the entire western Liaoning region have become mine, and the benefits are "not small" to describe, and in the name of looking for gold mines, the rich coal mines and iron mines in western Liaoning can be used. Copper and saltpeter mines...... All these riches are grasped in the hands, and the beauty is dead! Yelu Yanxi is really a big Kaizi who doesn't understand anything!
Alima said, "But I don't know when the king will start his army to attack Xia?" ”
Xiao Ming said: "What's the hurry, why are you in a hurry!" You mercenaries know money, this time with me to crusade against the Great Xia Kingdom, it is indispensable to give you travel subsidies, rest assured! Everyone's for it! ”
Alima grinned and said, "Thank you so much, the king!" "Arima is naturally very happy to be able to get benefits for the brothers of the mercenary group.
…… Three days later, Xiao Ming ordered 10,000 cavalry to escort Emperor Tianzuo to Shangjing, where the queen Xiao Mimi was waiting for him, and the remnants of the ministers who followed Emperor Tianzuo and the Yulin Army also followed, Xiao Ming agreed with him that a month later, he would raise an army to attack Western Xia, and capture all the wealth of Western Xia's gold, silver and jewelry, and he and Emperor Tianzuo were divided into four or six points!
Emperor Tianzuo didn't think about it, and even made a lot of money, so he went away complacently, and Xiao Ming immediately started to act, first of all, he placed a big order of 20,000 Black God Crossbows to the Xuzhou Iron Works of the Great Song Dynasty! It is the official money of commercial taxation, and the text is the official document of the military department of the southern court of the Great Liao Kingdom and the division of the household department!
This is a big business of more than one million dollars, equivalent to 117,000 taels of silver, and the two ends of the Great Song Dynasty can also get 100,000 yuan of money, so the official documents of the two countries are handled very quickly, and Xuzhou Tianping Iron Factory directly came to set up a Tianping firm in Nanjing City to take over all the transactions.
Xiao Ming also began to prepare for the intelligence collection of the Western Xia, as well as the training of soldiers and horses, originally those assassin captives were a good source of information, but Emperor Tianzuo resented the Western Xia assassins and Bana Tieji's men, and directly beheaded all these people at the foot of the southern city, and nearly a thousand people were killed for a time, and the blood flowed like a river!
Having lost the best source of information, Xiao Ming had no choice but to ask Yang Qizhong to inquire about information from the merchants, but Yang Qizhong said to Xiao Ming: "Could it be that the handsome man forgot his father?" My father is currently stationed in Ningzhai City in Linzhou, Western Xia, does anyone know more about the situation in Western Xia than my father? ”
Xiao Ming patted his head and said, "That's right!" How did you forget this stubble! So he asked Yang Qizhong to arrange to immediately get in touch with Yang Zhen and inquire about all kinds of information about the Western Xia Kingdom.
The preparation for this kind of war is very troublesome, and there is no shortage of money, food, soldiers and horses, but fortunately, there is a Wu Yong, but Wu Yong argues with Xiao Ming several times, and he is unwilling to deduct military expenses from the taxes in the treasury, and it is about to enter the summer, and the Yanbei Desert is now very arid, and a large amount of money is needed to build water conservancy, otherwise this year's crops will be reduced.
Wu Yong laid out a lot for him, the north gate of Nanjing City needs to be strengthened and renovated, the moat around the city should be dug deep and dredged, the draft in the city has been tight, he is ready to excavate and drain the spring water of Yuquan Mountain, the road to Jizhou still needs to be smoothed, the Song people have opened the road there to prepare to lead to Tanggu to the sea...... There are a lot of them, and all of them cost money, and Xiao Mingxiang's idea of starting a war with the strength of Nanjing Liunanfu will not work at all.
Historically, the soldiers and horses have not moved, and the grain and grass go first, but the Liao people only use cavalry to fight, and the army will grab it wherever it goes, but this is in the Liunanfu that has been sinicized, and the entire military system has basically become the Han system.
Xiao Ming was very envious of the fast maneuvering style of fighting with only cavalry, but he really didn't have many cavalry at hand, and he only relied on more than 10,000 cavalry to deal with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses in Western Xia, wouldn't that be death? He could only rely on the infantry from the Han system, and the training was all taught by the mercenaries of his iron-blooded mercenary regiment guards, and the infantry was used as an overall shield array.
For this reason, he had to rely on the iron factories in Liaodong to build a large number of large round shields used by mercenaries! also has to cooperate with the crossbowmen, this kind of training must be carried out every day, and his private army must have strong combat effectiveness, Xiao Ming grasped this very tightly.
In response to Wu Yong's complaints, Xiao Ming just laughed, in fact, he was persecuting Wu Yong to see if he could find a way, the anxious Wu Yong blew his beard and stared, aren't you helpless? I have, let's issue bonds, and the most experienced talent in this area is right in front of us, and that is Aiqili.
The method of borrowing from the private sector is now mature, Xiao Ming used the grasslands, land, and mines in the Western Xia as collateral, he was a red-eyed general who had defeated the Jurchens of the Jin Kingdom many times, and his appeal was not ordinarily high, and he directly issued a war bond of one million taels of silver, which was equivalent to dozens of taels of money, and was issued in two to three times, and the government at all levels sold it for 20 million yuan each time! The interest refers to the interest share of the construction bonds issued by Liaodong.
Ai Qili can be described as an old man in this regard, and he can be Wu Yong's master, so the entire Nanjing City and the surrounding areas, the vigorous war debt roll against the Great Xia Kingdom began to be issued, the paper of the bond is general, but it is stamped with the red seal of the king of the Southern Court and the Privy Council, plus the official seal of the Southern Mansion as a guarantee, and the issuance, sales, credit, and guarantee are all in place.
……
One day in early June, the weather was already a little hot, a large Song Dynasty merchant ship entered the Bohai Bay from the open sea, docked on the coast of Jizhou, unloaded a batch of materials on the ship, and was directly pulled by the carriage and horse to Nanjing, which is the region of the East Six Prefectures, Jizhou has been very close to Nanjing, and arrived in Nanjing through the Song Dynasty's famous mansion.
The six eastern states have now been leased by the Great Song Dynasty and can garrison troops, and the Liao and Song dynasties have reduced the number of garrisons and set up border posts, but it is impossible for them to be tense with each other, as long as there is a voucher from the local government, they can freely enter and exit the border, and this group of chariots and horses will directly reach Nanjing after passing through the border.
Outsiders only thought that it was a caravan from the Great Song Dynasty that came to do business, but Xiao Ming knew that what was being transported here was the last reliance on his own attack on Western Xia: that was - ten bronze cannons!
ps:~ In other words, the Western Xia in the book is the Great Xia Dynasty, and the Western Xia is a historical title, which is: a historical name! Here, for the sake of everyone's reading convenience, I have to keep using the word Xixia, please don't shoot bricks according to the party. ~
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