The impact of the burning of the forage warehouse on An Lushan far exceeded that of the bombing of the gunpowder field. One winter, nearly half of his 300,000 war horses starved to death. Khitan and Xi also used the excuse of insufficient fodder and were willing to support their respective troops. If Shi Siming had not borrowed 800,000 dan of fodder from the Pugu tribe, even An Lushan's Youzhou Iron Cavalry would have disappeared from then on.

Also, because An Lushan was not going well at the beginning of the uprising and even suffered a defeat, his troops were reduced by 100,000 people, insufficient war horses and reduced troops. In addition, he occupied the entire territory of Hebei, An Lushan changed his strategy and allowed his generals to have the right to recruit troops without the cap, but they would solve the money and food for the recruits themselves.

Currently, there are six generals with the power to recruit troops, Shi Siming, Li Huaixian, Tian Chengsi, Cai Xide, Li Guiren, and An Lushan's son An Qingxu. These six generals commanded heavy troops. Shi Siming led 80,000 troops to station in Hengzhou and Dingzhou. Li Huaixian was still stationed in Youzhou. Tian Chengsi was in Weizhou, Bozhou, Xiangzhou, Cai Xide was in Cangzhou and Dezhou. Li Guiren was stationed in Zhaozhou, Xingzhou, and An Qingxu's troops were stationed in Jizhou, Tanzhou and Pingzhou.

With An Lushan's approval, these six people recruited soldiers in their jurisdiction, and the money and grain needed were exploited from the people. There were still three or four people in Hebei who had not escaped. Almost all their money and grain were exploited by An Lushan's army, especially the wealthy families, who were sucked by bones and marrow, and had long become penniless.

The brutals were like Cai Xide, who were bloody at Nanpi, Rao An and Gonggao, robbed the people's wealth, and stormed women, and arrested all men from the three counties into the army as soldiers. They were as old as sixty years old as 13 or 14 years old, and did not let anyone go, causing Cai Xide's army to increase from 50,000 to 80,000, becoming the fourth largest force of the Yan army.

One winter, except for Youzhou, there was still some vitality, other Hebei prefectures and counties were full of sorrow and people were full of hunger and cold, and people had no food. They dug wild vegetables and peeled the bark to survive. At this time, Hebei Road was like a skinny patient. Except for having a skeleton, the flesh and blood had been sucked dry and could no longer squeeze out oil and water.

The soldiers of the Yan army began to be dissatisfied. The Xi people were also dissatisfied with the Khitan who worked for An Lushan, especially the Xi people. An Lushan agreed to their noble daughters in Luoyang, but now they didn't even see the shadow of Luoyang, and the Xi people's camp began to stir up.

An Lushan had no choice but to order each general to offer thousands of daughters to send them to the Xi camp to appease them, but the symptoms were not the root cause. An Lushan knew that the key was that Hebei Road could no longer support his hundreds of thousands of troops. At this time, the long winter had passed, and the time to send troops to Hedong was ripe.

In the Yan Palace, generals who came from all over the country gathered together. Except for Shi Siming who was recuperating in Youzhou, Li Huaixian himself was in Youzhou, the other generals rushed from other places.

In the middle of the conference hall of An Lushan, there is a huge sand table, five zhang long and three zhang wide, including Hebei Road and Hedong Road. The sand table is covered with a piece of silk yarn, making it difficult for people to see the situation above.

An Lushan sat high in the middle. He wore a golden helmet and shined with golden armor. Usually An Lushan did not wear armor and was wearing regular clothes. Once he put on the helmet and penetrated the armor, it meant that he would launch a military operation. His six generals sat down in two rows, and the lobby was very quiet.

"I have been recuperating for a winter, and it's time to send troops."

An Lushan opened the right point and directly explained the theme of today's meeting to everyone. Everyone expected An Lushan's outfit, and no one said anything. An Lushan nodded and glanced at Shi Siming. Seeing that he was pale and thin and had a sick face, he came to Youzhou to recuperate because he was sick. An Lushan felt a little displeased and asked, "Deputy Commander Shi, how is your condition?"

Shi Siming stood up a little hard, bowed and said, "Report to King Yan, I have no major damage to my humble position."

Even though he said that, his tone was weak, and anyone could tell that he was obviously dealing with An Lushan, not trying to wipe out his excitement in public and give him face. If he really wanted to let him go to war, An Lushan might not be willing. More importantly, Shi Siming had already lost first, and An Lushan no longer believed him a lot.

An Lushan frowned and glanced at Li Huaixian unconsciously. An Lushan's subtle change was immediately captured by Shi Siming. He was secretly happy. This was exactly what he expected to let Li Huaixian go to Hedong.

Shi Siming also got a little news from the Yan Prince's Mansion that An Lushan might have divided his troops to attack Hedong in three directions, but he knew nothing about how to send troops and what the route was. He urgently needed to bribe An Lushan's confidants to become his own spy, and Li Zhuer was the best candidate. He was very trusted by An Lushan and even qualified to stand guard beside An Lushan's bed. An Lushan liked fat and mature women, so Li Zhuer looked for him everywhere and was the steward of An Lushan's side.

Moreover, Shi Siming also found out that Li Zhuer was very greedy for money, but he was very careful and did not easily receive money from outsiders, for fear of losing An Lushan's trust. So Shi Siming was about to start from Li Zhuer's uncle Li Zui and let Li Zui become his bridge of connection.

Shi Siming had already seen that An Lushan didn't want to send him anymore. He sat aside without saying a word. At this time, An Lushan stood up and walked to the sand table with the help of his confidant Li Zhu'er. He waved his hand and immediately came up with two guards, one on one side, slowly lifting the silk yarn covering the sand table, revealing the true face of the sand table.

"You all come and have a look!"

An Lushan pulled out the Shi Siming small flag that was originally planted in Jingxing and replaced it with Li Huaixian's small flag. Li Huaixian defeated Guo Ziyi's army last time, which made An Lushan full of confidence in him, so that he did not even blame him for burning the forage warehouse for such a great crime, but killed a low-level general as his scapegoat.

Everyone gathered up, An Lushan took the long wooden pole and pointed to the north of Hedong: "Now there are three armies of the Northern Tang Dynasty in Hedong, and to the north is Yunzhou Daizhou and Lei Wanchun's troops, with 15,000 troops, and there are fewer troops here, so there is no need to worry about it."

He moved the wooden pole to the south again, and focused on Jinzhou in a lot of places, saying: "What I am really worried about here is that Jinzhou has deployed 50,000 Anxi Army from Li Siye. These 50,000 people are Li Qing'an's elite army. In addition to them, there are 30,000 troops from Hexi and Longyou in Jiangzhou, Luzhou and Zezhou. There are more than 200,000 troops from Henan. More importantly, we do not have ships crossing the river. Originally, there was a boat yard in Cangzhou, but it was burned by a fool. The shipbuilder died and fled."

Speaking of this, An Lushan's eyes shot sharply at Cai Xide. Cai Xide lowered his head guiltily and did not dare to speak. An Lushan snorted heavily, pointed the wooden pole at Taiyuan, and said to everyone: "Although Taiyuan has 80,000 troops of Guo Ziyi, it is much easier to deal with than Anxi's army, so this time I decided to attack Taiyuan and strive to conquer Taiyuan within one month."

His eyes swept over everyone one by one, and finally ordered: "We are divided into two groups. Li Guiren led 50,000 troops from the headquarters to the southern route to attack Luzhou and be sure to restrain Li Siye's Anxi army. If his main force goes north to support Taiyuan, you will send troops to Zezhou, Luzhou, burn, kill, loot, and force Li Siye to go south."

He pointed at Jingxing with a wooden pole and said to Li Huaixian, Cai Xide and An Qingxu: "You three lead the 150,000 troops of our headquarters to march into Taiyuan. An Qingxu is the main general, Li Huaixian and Cai Xide are the left and right deputy generals. The attack in the south is empty, and your attack is real. From the day of entering Jingxing, I hope that I will go to Taiyuan in person in one month."

Everyone answered in unison: "As for your order!"

"Okay! Now everyone is going to rectify the troops. Ten days later, the army will join forces in Youzhou and officially launch an army!"

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The dust in Youzhou City was flying, and the horses were hooves were thunderous. Teams of cavalry rushed out of the city. Tian Chengsi, Cai Xide, and An Qingxu each led their personal soldiers to leave Youzhou City. The atmosphere that was a little lazy after being soaked in the city for a winter suddenly became tense. Many people realized that the war was about to begin.

In a bungalow in the south of the city, Ji Shengzheng discussed buying medicine with a middle-aged man. The middle-aged man was named Wei Ruqun, a Han military doctor in the Yan army. He was tall and thin. He was originally the chief physician of a pharmacy shop in Youzhou. After the Miaoshou Huichuntang incident last year, all pharmacies in Youzhou City were implicated. The pharmacies he was in were imprisoned, and the medicinal materials were forcibly recruited. He himself was also forced to be a military doctor.

Wei Ruqun was forced to join the army at the age of 40 and had no loyalty to An Lushan. In addition, there were many mountains in the Yan army and the military discipline was not strict, everyone was thinking about robbing and making money. Wei Ruqun was also thinking about making money, marrying his son and buying a house, and saving himself a pension money.

However, he was old and weak, and had no chance to participate in the looting. He could only rely on the mountains to eat and privately resell An Lushan's military injury medicine. He usually sold it to patients in scattered spots. He only saved three or four stagnants of money in a few months, which made him very upset. Ji Sheng was his first big customer, which made him even more pleased, fearing that the business would not be settled.

"I have eight hundred pills and two hundred pairs of Jinchuang medicine in my hand, all of which are made of good medicinal materials. If the market price is at least 300 guan, I can buy them together, and I can sell them all to Ji Gongzi."

Ji Sheng took out two ingots of gold and smiled and said, "This is twenty taels of gold, so you don't need to find it."

Wei Ruqun was overjoyed. The other party actually gave gold, and it was twenty taels of gold. Now gold and silver are the most scarce and precious things in Hebei. One tael of silver or one piece of Anxi silver dollar can be exchanged for two jin of money on the black market. The price of gold is even more expensive. One tael of gold can be exchanged for thirty jin of money. Especially for large families, every household has a money cellar, and thirty jin of money weighs 200 jin, which can't be taken away or hidden. It can only be exchanged for gold and silver.

Ji Sheng gave him twenty taels of gold. In Chang'an, it may only be worth 200 guan, but in Hebei, it is worth 600 guan. It seems that this person is not a businessman, so why doesn't the businessman understand these?
Chapter completed!