Guo Jia and Chen Gui looked at each other tacitly, and neither of them said anything further.
After saying this, Yuan Xi should have understood it and let it go.
Because if the mastermind behind the scenes is not Yuan Shang, then almost all of the remaining possibilities cannot be spoken openly.
They listened to Yuan Xi tapping his fingers lightly on the table, lowered their heads and remained silent.
Zhao Yun, Liu He, Tian Yu, Yan Rou, Hua Tuo and others in the hall didn't know whether they had guessed it or not, and remained silent.
Yuan Xi thought that when he was in Yecheng that day, someone killed Zhen Fang before him. His decisive action was somewhat similar to that of today's dead men.
For someone like Yuan Shang who has never fought in a war, he is not decisive enough in his actions. In other words, his actions may be disgusting and despicable, but he cannot be said to be ruthless and ruthless.
He stopped his fingers and said solemnly: "This matter is over for now."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and heard Yuan Xi say: "I am going to start building the free school."
"The place where the main school is located must be connected to the north and south, with convenient transportation, so that officials and craftsmen from all counties can come here to study, so it is best to build it as a prefectural government office."
"From a location perspective, Beixin Town is a bit inappropriate."
"Although Beixin City is a place that I have worked hard for several years, it is bordered by Jizhou to the south and Bingzhou to the west. There is no buffer land in between. It is suitable for a military fortress, but not suitable for a state government."
"I have been thinking about where is the most suitable place to place the seat of Youzhou."
"It wasn't until I was on the way to Jicheng these days that I saw the mountains and rivers along the way, and I got some ideas about this place."
"I would like to ask you all, I want to set up a government office here and expand the city. Is it okay?"
Seeing that no one dared to speak first, he said: "Say whatever you want. It doesn't matter if you say it wrong. Even if everyone thinks it is right, the situation may change in the future and it will be much different from what was expected."
"You just have to decide whether to build a city here or not, and I will make the final decision."
But everyone did not dare to look down upon it, because this was almost the first time that Yuan Xi gathered all his capable officials and generals to discuss matters together.
In the past, Yuan Xi always asked Guo Jia for strategic matters, and asked Zhao Yun and Taishi Ci for military formation matters. Now that Taishi Ci is not here, new subordinates have joined him.
Zhao Yun is from the Changshan Clan. Although there is only one person, he is the earliest and the one with the highest status.
Guo Jia belongs to the Yingchuan sect and is considered a loner.
Tian Yu is a remnant of Gongsun Zan, but he is effective in doing things and is highly appreciated by Yuan Xi. In the future, the remaining forces of Gongsun Zan in Youzhou will be under his control.
The others are the remnants of Liu Yu, led by Liu He, Yan Rou and Xian Yufu who did not come. They are all from this faction. These people have deep background in private, which makes Liu He unwilling to talk much now, lest he be betrayed by Yuan.
Xi is afraid.
Chen Gui is from the Xuzhou line, but this time there are many children of the Chen family who followed Yuan Xi to Youzhou, so it can be said that their power cannot be underestimated.
As for Hua Tuo, he was a professional, but he had the widest network of contacts.
With less than ten people, the position is extremely complicated. The more people there are, the more difficult it is to manage. The relationship between them can also be far or near, and they will also stick to each other.
Zhao Yun spoke first: "This place is bordered by the Xiongnu Xianbei outside the Pass to the north and the Wuhuan nomads to the east. With the current scale of the city, it is far from enough."
"Furthermore, there is a vast plain around this place, which is easily attacked by cavalry. Even if beacon towers are built along the way, there may not be enough time to mobilize troops."
Everyone nodded after hearing this. Yuan Xi nodded and said, "What Zilong said is indeed reasonable."
"It's useless to just build Jicheng into a strong isolated city."
"If you are surrounded by enemies, you will be dragged to death sooner or later."
"So I have an idea too."
"With this city as the center, a military town should be established on the only route where the enemy may come to serve as a defense."
"If the enemy attacks the military town, Jicheng and other military towns can support it. If they want to go around, they can cut off their retreat."
After everyone heard this, they thought that this was a good idea, but was it necessary to spend so much time rebuilding the city?
Guo Jia said: "Young Master, this idea is quite interesting."
"Although this place is surrounded by plains, if we take a longer view and think of it as a huge city, we can control a large and vast land instead of being trapped in the city."
"But this city is quite large, covering parts of Zhuo County, Guangyang and Yuyang counties."
Guo Jia began to order people to take out the map and hang it up, then stood up and started talking. Yuan Xi looked at the ancient place names on it and compared them with the place names of his own later generations, and couldn't help but sigh that Guo Jia's vision was indeed very vicious.
In the northern part of Jixian County is Yanshan Mountain, which starts from Shanhaiguan in the east and ends at Zhangjiakou in the west, with a total length of more than 800 miles.
To the west is the more than 800-mile-long Taihang Mountains, which serves as the eastern boundary of the Loess Plateau.
To the south is the Yellow River flowing through Shandong, and to the east is the Bohai Bay.
Fan Zhenzhi wrote in "Ode to Youzhou": Surrounded by the sea on the left, Taihang on the right, Juyong on the north, Heji on the south, fertile soil thousands of miles away, the best in the world, the capital of emperors, the land of abundance.
In Guo Jia's conception, Beixin City is just a western military town spanning three major cities, just like the West City Gate.
Everyone couldn't help but be stunned. Guo Jia's scope was too big!
Guo Jia explained: "Establish military towns and camps at every important pass. In this way, the enemy can be kept out of Youzhou."
"Only by focusing on this can we build a strong line of defense."
Yan Rou said: "General, I think if this is the case, a lot of sergeants will be stationed in every city and military town, right?"
"There is no point if there are fewer people, but if there are more people, if there is no war, the army rations will be extremely troublesome."
Everyone listened and expressed deep agreement.
Guo Jia turned his attention to Yuan Xi, and as expected, Yuan Xi smiled and said, "I have some immature ideas about this."
"I have been thinking that if we build cities in various places and wait for the enemy to attack, we will have to fight on our own, and many soldiers will be stationed in each city. It is really a waste of money and food."
"But if we develop water transportation and smooth roads between cities, and retain a mobile cavalry team to station in each city, if there is danger there, we can switch to where to defend."
"In this way, will it be possible to greatly reduce the number of soldiers stationed?"
After hearing this, Liu He and others praised: "Young Master, this is a wonderful idea."
On the one hand, because of its large population and consumption of food and water resources, a big city cannot solve the problem by relying on defense alone. As long as the besieging army cuts off the water source outside the city, it will be a very fatal move.
On the other hand, although offense is the best defense, given the current situation in Youzhou, it is unrealistic to expand all the way outside the customs, so defense issues must be considered.
Defense can also be divided into two types: passive defense and active support.
Youzhou, which has a large number of horses, can use the mobility of the supporting troops to make it a living move, rather than a dead move of passively stationed and defended.
The reason why Yuan Xi has this confidence is because there is advanced experience in later history, which proves that this idea is feasible.
In four directions, Jicheng is adjacent to Jizhou in the south and has a dense network of rivers, making it easy to defend.
There is the Great Wall in the north, and relying on the pass for defense, there is no big problem for the time being.
The situation in the east is currently unclear. Shanyu Tatun and Gongsundu are trying to contain each other in western Liaoning and eastern Liaoning, which is not the current key expansion direction.
What remains is the most important and most vulnerable defense line in the western Taihang Mountains recently. As long as a few easy-to-defend but difficult-to-attack passes are blocked, it will be difficult for the enemy to enter.
There are eight passes in the Taihang Mountains, and Junduxing is one of them. Juyongguan is one of the passes in the middle of Junduxing. It is one of the nine fortresses in the world and is also known as the four famous passes in the west of Beijing.
Feihuxing and Puyinxing are connected and guard the North China Plain, the Shanxi Plateau and the Mongolian grassland in the eastern part of the Loess Plateau. It is the most critical node.
Later, the Mongolian army marched south to the Jin Kingdom and was blocked at Juyong Pass, so they changed their route and advanced towards Feihuxing, and finally captured Zhongdu, the capital of the Jin Kingdom, which is now Beijing.
During the Tumubao Incident in the Ming Dynasty, Wala took Zhuqi Town hostage. Zhuqi Town was gated all the way, and the defenders along the way were forced to surrender. The Wala army was overwhelming and threatened the capital. Yu Qian, the Minister of War, relied on the Zijingguan Pass at Puyinxing to stop the fighting.
The emperor's footsteps successfully defended the capital.
This is the outside of the city to defend against the enemy. Otherwise, to defend the capital, with a full complement of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, you will be overwhelmed before the enemy comes.
These bloody lessons, which have been verified by countless human lives in later generations, are now placed in front of Yuan Xi, which will save him many detours.
This is also the reason why he is eager to attack the Black Mountain Army immediately. Although its leader Zhang Yan is powerful, he does not know what will happen in later generations. Therefore, Taihang Mountain only has some weak mountain strongholds scattered at the pass. It is the best
opportunity.
Yuan Xi's idea was to complete his efforts in one battle, penetrate the important pass of Taihang Mountain at once, and build his own camp on it to garrison.
In this way, even if Zhang Yan cannot be completely wiped out, he can still advance and attack, retreat and defend, and remain in an invincible position.
Otherwise, the two sides will continue to see each other, and if Zhang Yang realizes the importance of the pass and instead establishes the stronghold first, Yuan Xi will have a headache!
At that time, Youzhou would have to face constant harassment from the Black Mountain Army, and it would be difficult to fight back. Yuan Xi absolutely did not want to see such a scene.
It was precisely because he knew the lessons of history that Yuan Xi attached so much importance to Jicheng. This was a nail. Once it was pulled out by foreigners, foreigners would be allowed to wreak havoc north of the Yellow River, just like the Five Husbands in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Yuan Xi told everyone what he thought about the Black Mountain Army, and finally said: "The Black Mountain Army and the Yuan family have become mortal enemies, and there will be a battle sooner or later."
"If everything goes well, the three counties will have enough military food after spring plowing and summer harvest, and they can prepare to attack the Black Mountain Army."
Everyone thought together, wondering if they were too confident?
Those hundreds of thousands of Montenegrin troops are not hundreds of thousands of pigs!
Yuan Xi saw everyone's doubts and said: "There are indeed a lot of people on the other side, but I heard that the food harvest in Bingzhou has been bad in the past two years, and there is no way to eat enough."
"Spring plowing is about to start in a few months now, and Jicheng will need a lot of manpower to open up wasteland and build a city, so I want to use some strategies to attract the labor of the Black Mountain Army."
After hearing this, Chen Gui praised: "One thing is going down, the other is going up. There are more laborers coming to cultivate the land here, and there will naturally be fewer people plowing the fields in the spring in Montenegro. Then there will be even more food shortages, and we will be even more stretched during the war."
"Young master, this idea is quite ingenious in the art of war."
"There is nothing more that can tempt the people than land and food. As long as you are willing to part with it, you will definitely be able to attract people to invest."
Yuan Xi smiled and said: "There is nothing to be reluctant to part with. The land is dead, but people are alive. Nowadays, living people are much more important than the land."
"I also ask Mr. Han Yu to help me think about how to get people to take refuge. Then I will ask Guorang to send people to spread the news in the Taihang Mountains."
Liu He said: "If Jicheng is so important, then Xu County Magistrate"
Yuan Xi said flatly: "Brother Liu, please collect evidence of his illegality. Even if he has nothing to do with some things, we can't keep him, not to mention what he did is already deadly."
"The people of Jicheng need an explanation and someone to take care of everything."