After entering Weizhou, Tian Chengsi felt a little relieved. Seeing that it was getting late, he ordered the army to camp and rest on the spot, and sent people to nearby villages to buy some pigs and sheep.
In the big tent, the eldest son Tian Wei worriedly said to his father: "Li Ye is so strong. If he comes to power in the future, how can he let us go? In contrast, I feel that the current court is more suitable for us to survive."
Tian Chengsi sighed and said: "What you said makes sense. Why don't you know it as a father? Times are also lucky, and no one can predict what will happen in the future. At the moment, expanding the territory and accumulating strength is the best way."
Tian Wei added cautiously: "What my child means is that we should start paying attention to King Qi and send intelligence spies to Chang'an to understand Li Ye's every move, so that we can have better countermeasures in the future!"
His son's suggestion was good. Tian Chengsi nodded, "You are right. Know yourself and the enemy, and you will be able to fight without danger. Information is very important. You are responsible for this matter. First arrange businessmen to do business, understand the public situation in Chang'an, and then go deeper step by step.
You must not be eager for quick success or be discovered by their internal guards."
"Father, please rest assured, the child will never be careless."
At the same time that Tian Chengsi's army returned to Weizhou, Li Baochen also led an army to Xingzhou. Currently, Xingzhou is stationed in Xingzhou with an army of 10,000 led by Li Baozheng, Li Baochen's brother.
Hearing that his brother wanted to withdraw from Xingzhou, Li Baozheng was shocked. He said anxiously: "Li Ye is just a threat. My brother will give in after being threatened by him with a few words. If word spreads, he will be laughed at. We occupy Xingzhou.
I don’t believe that Li Ye would go to war for a single Xingzhou. His logistical supplies are inconvenient. Without sufficient logistical support, how long can his cavalry last? To put it bluntly, tens of thousands of horses cannot last even one day."
Li Baochen shook his head and said: "You underestimate Li Ye too much. He doesn't even know how to send a single soldier, so he can make us die without a burial place!"
Li Baozheng was stunned, "Brother, what do you mean by this?"
"You can't understand the situation!"
Li Baochen sighed, "This time in Weizhou, your father-in-law almost sold me, did you know?"
Li Baozheng looked at his brother blankly, and Li Baochen added: "When Li Ye led the army to attack, Tian Chengsi knew clearly that it was Li Ye's army, but he didn't tell me, making me think it was the imperial army, preparing to fight, but the opponent was five years old.
Thousands of cavalry! Fortunately, Li Ye didn’t want to kill me, so he let me go and gave me a letter of war, so I luckily escaped."
"But Tian Wei is here too! Isn't Tian Chengsi afraid that his son will also be destroyed?"
"Tian Chengsi sent someone to inform his son of an urgent withdrawal of troops. He even hid it from his son because he was afraid that his son would spill the beans. Do you understand? Tian Chengsi wanted to use Li Ye's army to destroy me."
Speaking of this, Li Baochen said with lingering fear: "Later Tian Wei told me that his father asked him to withdraw his troops in five days, and then I understood Tian Chengsi's sinister intentions. He had been encouraging me to attack Mozhou, just to kill the Zhu brothers.
The trouble came to me first, maybe he wanted to join forces with Zhu Tao to destroy me and divide my territory."
Li Baozheng took a breath of air, "So eldest brother decided to withdraw the troops!"
Li Baochen nodded, "You understand now! I'm not afraid of Li Ye, I'm afraid of Tian Chengsi and the Zhu brothers joining forces, and Li Ye also saw it clearly. He said he would give Zhu Tao ten thousand barrels of fire.
You are threatening me. If I don't obey his arrangements, he will use Zhu Tao and Tian Chengsi to deal with me."
"I understand, I support my brother's withdrawal!"
"Retreat immediately!"
After thinking about it, Li Baochen warned again: "Pay attention to maintaining good military discipline. I don't want Li Ye to find an excuse to attack me."
"I will definitely do it!"
That night, Li Baochen brothers also led 30,000 troops to evacuate Xingzhou and retreated toward Jizhou.
At this time, Li Ye was in Liyangcang, accompanied by his trusted deputy steward Cao Shan, checking the status of the supplies.
A warehouse was opened. The warehouse was very old, and the materials piled inside were even more old. They were all old leather armors and leather helmets. There were hundreds of thousands of sets, stacked on top of each other, piled up like a mountain, and many of them were moldy.
"This should be the armor from the Kaiyuan period. Your Highness, please take a look at this!"
Cao Shan picked up a warehousing sign, and Li Ye took it and took a closer look. It was a wooden sign. It was mottled and couldn't be seen clearly. But if he looked carefully, he could still roughly make out that it was put into warehousing in the seventh year of Kaiyuan.
"It's been a while!"
Cao Shan was very flattered by King Qi, so he climbed up and picked up a bundle of leather armor, opened it and showed it to Li Ye for a closer look.
Li Ye took a piece of leather armor and looked at it carefully. From the bottom to his knees, the leather armor was covered with mildew, but it was intact, and the mildew could be brushed off.
Li Ye pulled it a little harder, and the sutures became rotten and fell off one after another, but the leather was still very strong.
“Not bad, can be renovated!”
Of course, these refurbished leather armors are not used by regular troops, but by militia soldiers.
"It's all leather armor, no iron armor?" Li Ye asked again.
"There are iron armors in the other two warehouses, and there are a lot of them. There are more than leather armors. There are chain armors, fish scale armors, and bright light armors."
Li Ye came to another large warehouse, where all kinds of weapons were also piled up. There were at least hundreds of thousands of them. However, the weapons were basically damaged and had to be recast. They were also weapons that were put into the warehouse during the Kaiyuan period.
That was the time when the Tang Dynasty was at its most prosperous. No wonder the court looked down upon these old weapons.
"Your Highness, there are more than a dozen weapons warehouses like this, and there are probably more than three million pieces of old weapons. Basically all the old weapons of the imperial court are piled here."
"No one else is interested?" Li Ye asked with a smile.
Cao Shan shook his head, "Anyway, the imperial court was not interested. An Lushan also came to see him, but he was not interested either. I heard that Shi Siming was very interested, but then he left it alone. It is probably because they were all damaged. If it were a brand new weapon, it would have been
It’s gone.”
Li Ye quickly estimated in his mind that it would usually cost about 20% to 30% to be refurbished. Even if it was 30% damaged, there would still be 70% left, which is more than two million pieces of weapons. With these more than 3 million pieces of old weapons,
He no longer needs to use iron to cast weapons, but can also use it to cast agricultural tools and promote the development of agriculture, which is of great significance.
Li Ye's heart warmed up, this was strategic material!
Thinking of returning millions of kilograms of copper and iron, he felt even more anxious and expectant, and quickly asked: "Where are the other iron and copper ingots?"
"It's right in front, Your Highness, please follow me!"
Two days later, thousands of cargo ships arrived at Liyangcang and began to load old soldiers' armor, iron ingots, copper ingots and other materials onto the ships. There were millions of kilograms of iron ingots and copper ingots alone, which could not be completed in one trip.
Li Ye also ordered the use of leather rafts to carry the goods.
Fortunately, the underwater reefs in Sanmenxia had been blown up and the ships could pass through smoothly. Ten days later, Li Ye and Xue Song said goodbye and led the army back to Chang'an.
The news had already reached Luoyang, which made the Emperor Li Heng feel very unhappy. He actually drove out the army of the vassal town from the four states without fighting without a single fierce battle. It was simply a defeat of the enemy without a fight.
Li Heng regretted a little. If he had known this would be the result, the imperial court sent 60,000 to 70,000 troops to drive Tian Chengsi and Li Baochen's troops out of the four states. Why bother asking Li Ye? He still owed him a favor in vain.
——
[My old mother has a foot pain today, so I spent the entire afternoon buying medicine for her. Sorry, there are still two updates today and three updates tomorrow!]
