The war bonds were named "Northern Expedition Bonds" and were sold at a price equivalent to 50 wen each, and the people were very enthusiastic about buying them, and on the day of the sale, there were long queues at the consignment points of various banks! Everyone is very optimistic about the prospects of this Northern Expedition, so much so that the quota of five million guanzi in the early stage was snapped up!

The boom in bond sales immediately alleviated the slightly empty treasury in the early war preparations! So the second batch of five million taels entered the market again! The public is very optimistic about the income of this bond, and the sale of the second batch of bonds was quickly sold out, not only that, but there is finally speculation in the market!

The debt worth every fifty wen was speculated to one hundred wen in a short period of time, and there was even a high price of one or two yuan, and at this time, Xiao Ming instructed Zhao Gou to take the private bond in his hand to the market to cash out, and immediately made a lot of money, so that Zhao Gou finally began to admire Xiao Ming's ability from the bottom of his heart!

His inner palace treasury is full, so he can naturally be a good person! Immediately issued an edict, saying that in order to support the great cause of the Northern Expedition, he took the initiative to reduce the supply of the imperial court to the inner palace, and reduced the procurement of food and clothing for the Beigong court and the procurement of gouache and rouge in the harem, but he took it out from his own account to subsidize the harem.

This move won the praise of the majority of officials and the people for Gaozong, and the evaluation of the current emperor in the discussion of the people in the streets and alleys gradually improved, and gradually eliminated the people's criticism of him after he unjustly killed Yue Fei! This change is obvious, Gaozong couldn't help but sigh with emotion, "It seems that to be a good emperor, in fact, it really doesn't take too much to do, Xiao Qingcheng doesn't deceive me!" ”

All of these are Xiao Ming's preparations for the Northern Expedition, and the real beginning of the Northern Expedition will be in the spring of the following year, at this time the Jin country is in the green and yellow time, poverty is not only a matter of ordinary people, many officials are also out of the situation of five grains to eat, the Central Plains peasants on the two roads of Hebei began to flee to the south in large numbers!

At this time, Xiao Ming launched a campaign against Jin, and the progress of the first phase of the campaign was first initiated by Yang Qizhong, who divided his troops into two ways from Bai Dadan to enter the original Daliao Xijing Road, and attacked the Jin soldiers stationed in Yunnei Prefecture and Xijing Datong Mansion, and he personally led 50,000 troops from Xiazhou to the east into the Yongxing military road to attack the defenders of Taiyuan.

The Jin soldiers' armies in Xijing Road and Shangjing Road were about to collapse at the touch of a button, and most of the men and horses ran to Datong Xijing Mansion, facing the Golden Army built by Yang Qizhong's heavy troops, although the Jin soldiers were strong in combat, but they had artillery fire to bombard, and this battle could not be fought! Datong's defense was actually very weak, but Yang Qizhong's army did not attack violently, and their purpose was twofold.

One is to drive the Jin soldiers defending Xijing Mansion to Taiyuan, so that Yang Qizhong can besiege them all, and the second purpose is to rob the Jin State of the war horses in the spring horse farm here, after the war horses are robbed, the Jin soldiers will lose their mobility, and the heavy cavalry such as the Golden Legion will give full play to their greatest advantages.

The city wall of Datong in Xijing Mansion is not as strong as the city wall of Taiyuan, and it is useless to attack the army to conquer Datong, in addition to the Jin soldiers fleeing south to Taiyuan, the rest of the troops fled east to Yanjing along the south of the Great Wall, and at this time Yang Qizhong has led troops to besiege Taiyuan Mansion, and there are nearly 100,000 Jin soldiers besieged!

At the same time, Xiao Ming ordered Liu Qi and Wu Jue and others on the North Road to start attacking the Jin soldiers entrenched in Yingchang Mansion and Yingtianfu at the same time, this time it was the more prominent combat force in the new army, and the biggest threat to the Jin State came from his northeast, and it turned out that Han Shizhong had been ordered to attack westward.

Han Shizhong, who stayed in the Liaodong region, led only a part of the Tiger Division of the Guards, but there was Zhao Yanwen's Eagle Division troops who returned from Goryeo, except for Yelusha's Leopard Division Army, which basically stayed in Goryeo, there are not too many troops in Liaodong that can change defenses now, but Xiao Ming let the second-line troops take over the defense of the Tiger Division in Shandong and other places!

In addition to the Tiger Division and the Eagle Division, Xiao Ming also transferred all the Great Song Dynasty Royal Guards who stayed in Hangzhou for training to Liaodong, as the Tiger Division and the Eagle Division attacked west after the lack of troops in Liaodong.

The specific operational deployment was completely arranged by the Privy Council, Xiao Ming only gave their direction, but the troop movement in Liaodong and other places had to be ordered by him personally, and the troop adjustment and transfer in other regions were all made by the Privy Council, the first and auxiliary ministers!

As soon as the war began, the Jin soldiers retreated on all fronts, and after the abolition of the pseudo-Qi, the Jin soldiers organized the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Great Qi State into the new army of the Great Jin State, but these people ran faster than the Jin soldiers! The results of the first phase of the campaign were brilliant, the Song army not only successfully recovered Yingchang Mansion He Yingtianfu, but also advanced north again, until it reached Kaifeng Mansion.

The Xijing defenders of Henan Prefecture also retreated to Bianjing Kaifeng, and Liu Qi and Wu Jue joined forces to prepare to recover Tokyo! In the northeast, Han Shizhong did not agree with Zhao Yanwen's ministry and successfully conquered Linheng Mansion and went south to Dading Mansion, only Yang Qizhong's troops were blocked by Jin soldiers in Taiyuan Mansion, and they were unable to go south to Hejian Mansion, thus achieving the purpose of the first phase of the campaign.

Yang Qizhong didn't want to take Taiyuan Mansion, on the one hand, Taiyuan City has thick walls, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack! He originally wanted to use the water of the Fen River to irrigate the city, but in the spring, the amount of water in the river was very small, this plan obviously did not work, compared to the other soldiers and horses, the Jin soldiers and the new army took the initiative to retreat, and did not fight much battle, but Yang Qizhong annihilated more than 10,000 enemies in Datong, in fact, he still achieved great results!

He not only robbed thousands of horses and broke the mobility of the Jin soldiers, but also trapped nearly 100,000 Jin soldiers to death in Taiyuan City.

The news reached Kangjing City, and after Xiao Ming analyzed the form, he said to the auxiliary government of the Privy Council: "Although the goal of the first phase of the campaign has been completed, there is a question here, that is, why did the Jin soldiers take the initiative to retreat and did not entangle with the Song army, so that the Song army could not annihilate them on a large scale?" ”

Wang Shu frowned and said: "I'm also very worried about this, whether the Jin people want to preserve their strength, and then there may be any conspiracy!" ”

Wang Xie said: "The Jin people were hit by the powerful force of my Great Song Dynasty, I am afraid that they were frightened, and it is reasonable that they dare not engage in battle!" ”

Xiao Ming said: "What Lord Wang said is a bit reasonable, this matter must be guarded against!" ”

He continued: "The Jin Soldiers are an army dominated by cavalry, and for them, they can carry out large-scale long-distance raids and intersperses through the mobility of cavalry, or launch attacks from the rear to achieve the combat mode of destroying the enemy, and they are certainly not suitable for the advance mode of our army's position, and they must have a purpose in abandoning the front line and taking the initiative to retreat."

Wang Shu said: "That's right, after our army's long-distance march, it will inevitably cause the supply line to be too long, and the gap will be large, which will also create opportunities for the Jin people, they must be the second goal, we must tell the former generals, we must take strict precautions!" ”

Everyone didn't expect that Yang Qizhong besieged nearly 100,000 Jin soldiers in Taiyuan, Xiao Ming thought about it for a while, Lian Dao was not good, he knew that Yang Qizhong was ruthless! Not only is I very worried about the fate of these 100,000 golden soldiers! According to Xiao Ming's usual practice, a large number of prisoners are needed to engage in engineering labor!

For this reason, he hurriedly sent a letter to Yang Qizhong, instructing him to kill less and capture more prisoners...... During the war, the use of flying kites began to be widely used in both civilian and military aspects, but because the Taiyuan front line was too far away, the letters could only be transmitted to Hezhong Mansion first and then delivered by the manpower post station by horseback courier, and Xiao Ming was not sure whether the heart could be delivered.

At the same time, Yang Qizhong is also scratching his head in order to conquer Taiyuan City, the golden soldiers are not out of the city, so that he wants to annihilate his main force The idea is in vain, and now the army has besieged Taiyuan for almost half a month, every time the siege is carried out, the artillery basically does not play much role in the city wall of Taiyuan City, and a cannon blasts up to smash a little masonry at most, and there is not much damage to the overall city wall.

As soon as the shelling stopped, the Jin soldiers came out again, and a large number of ballistae and bed crossbows left behind by the Great Song army in Taiyuan City have now become a sharp weapon to kill and injure Yang Qizhong's troops! Yang Qizhong's hands are basically heavy cavalry, so naturally he will not go up and die in vain, and at night, the Jin soldiers will find craftsmen to repair the damaged city wall!

He originally wanted to irrigate the city by blocking the water of the Fen River, but due to the lack of water at this time, he had to give up, and if he continued in such a stalemate state, the morale of his army would be greatly hit, and Yang Qizhong almost lost his hair! The siege was stopped for several days in a row, and the countermeasures were pondered.

The people in Taiyuan City ran away a lot due to the occupation of the Jin soldiers, but even so, there are still more than 100,000 people left in the city, these people are all old and weak, but they are also driven by the Jin soldiers to join the defense of the city, the food in the city is sufficient, and it can hold out for two years, so the Jin soldiers are not panicked at all!

Seeing that spring is coming, the weather is gradually getting hotter, the soldiers brought by Yang Qizhong are all wearing fur heavy armor, many people have begun to feel unwell, at this time, the subordinates suggested, the Fen River flows through Taiyuan City, it is better to cut off its water source, Jin Bing panicked, Yang Qizhong shook his head and said: "There are many useless wells in the city, and they don't have to worry about water!" ”

On this day, he inspected the camp, but found that many horses in the stable were isolated, and the cavalry were very busy. The veterinarian in the army is very good at this disease, and the medicine is also very well prepared, but he just told Yang Qizhong that because it is infected by "foot-and-mouth disease", all military horses must be isolated!

A sentence reminded Yang Qizhong, and he hurriedly asked if there had been a dead horse? The veterinarian replied that two dead horses had been buried deeply, and Yang Qizhong immediately returned to the account, sent someone to dig up the two dead horses again, and asked people to look around for the dead livestock and the corpses of dogs and cats.

Yang Qizhong said with an evil smile on his face: "I want to make the entire Taiyuan City a Shura Hell!" ”

It turned out that he wanted to artificially create a plague for Taiyuan City, he sent people to find dead or even decomposed animal corpses everywhere, and those that were not rotten were buried in the ground and left to rot, and some of his subordinates were even more lacking in virtue, and they even dug out some dead people who had just died for a long time from the cemetery to fill the number, which Yang Qizhong never saw.

Yang Qizhong asked people to find a large amount of lime, and asked the military doctor in the army to burn a cauldron of anti-epidemic potion and distribute it to his subordinates, and then began to carry out a large-scale biochemical attack on Taiyuan City! First of all, in the upper reaches of the Fen River, the carcasses of those decaying maggots were broken down into small pieces and continuously released, thus causing widespread pollution of the river.

At the same time, he asked people to take advantage of the night to continuously catapult into Taiyuan City, such an attack lasted for more than ten days, and the golden soldiers in the city did not notice it at first, and they were surprised when many people suddenly had symptoms such as fever, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.!

At this time, Yang Qizhong ordered his subordinates to besiege all four gates, and constantly bombarded the city gate with artillery fire, so that the Jin soldiers were exhausted! He finally waited for the plague to break out in the city! The medical halls and pharmacies in the city were caught off guard, and they couldn't solve such a large-scale plague epidemic! Countless people died at one time!